YoungUpstarts

MAY 19, 2016

Think of a tech startup the same way. Startup stardom is the new American Dream. Fifty percent of all startups flame out after four years. Use burn rate as an example. Another common issue among tech startups I work with is improper compliance with state and federal tax regulations. Build It Right.

Technical Review 124

Technical Review Burn Rate IP Intellectual Property 124

Startup Professionals Musings

APRIL 8, 2015

Every startup founder loves to prompt for questions from investors and potential key team members about their vision, and the huge opportunity that can be had with their disruptive technology. Early stage burn rates over $50K per month, or a runway of less than six months may indicate an inefficient or desperate startup.

Technical Review 120

Technical Review Due Diligence Sweat Equity Burn Rate 120

Both Sides of the Table

JULY 13, 2013

One of my favorite events last year was attending Startup Grind where I got to interview Clayton Christensen, author of The Innovator’s Dilemma. And of course we talked about many of my views of building startups. You didn’t join startups then. You joined a startup if you couldn’t get a real job.

Cofounder 337

Cofounder Technical Cofounder San Diego Startup 337

Steve Blank

FEBRUARY 26, 2013

We give abundant advice to founders about how to make startups succeed yet we offer few models about dealing with failure. While I had been part of a few failed startups, none of them had fallen squarely on my shoulders until Rocket Science Games where my business card said CEO. We hired everyone according to our plan.

Redemption 330

Redemption Cofounder Silicon Valley Burn Rate 330

Startup Professionals Musings

JUNE 27, 2022

Too often they are also hesitant, inexperienced, and fearful of hiring people or finding a mentor to be the partner they need. Startup challenges become more depressing than energizing. Every startup founder has to remember that the buck stops with them, and they must learn from every mistake.

Burn Rate 329

Burn Rate Differentiation Salary Entrepreneur 329

Steve Blank

FEBRUARY 26, 2013

We give abundant advice to founders about how to make startups succeed yet we offer few models about dealing with failure. While I had been part of a few failed startups, none of them had fallen squarely on my shoulders until Rocket Science Games where my business card said CEO. We hired everyone according to our plan.

Redemption 222

Redemption Cofounder Silicon Valley Burn Rate 222

The Next Web

DECEMBER 2, 2013

Here are their breakdowns of the costs and time investments to create 10 of the world’s hottest startups. Therefore, if you want to bring an MVP ( Minimum Viable Product ) to market, Werdelin approximates that you’ll need $50,000 to $250,000 , depending on the skill sets of the developers and designers you hire. 1) Twitter.

Cost 168

Cost San Francisco New York City Ruby 168

Both Sides of the Table

NOVEMBER 3, 2009

This is part of my ongoing series of posts and I need to file this one under both Raising Venture Capital and Startup Advice. The last couple of years has also seen the huge initial success of Ycombinator, the Lean Startup and many other product driven approaches to going to market. Don’t know the running rate for engineers?

Business Plan 334

Business Plan AJAX Venture Capital Technical Review 334

Startup Professionals Musings

SEPTEMBER 21, 2019

Too often they are also hesitant, inexperienced, and fearful of hiring people or finding a mentor to be the partner they need. Startup challenges become more depressing than energizing. Every startup founder has to remember that the buck stops with them, and they must learn from every mistake.

Burn Rate 249

Burn Rate Entrepreneur Differentiation Salary 249

Both Sides of the Table

MAY 2, 2015

For a well-funded seed company I have controversially recommended hiring a great office manager that doubles as an administrative assistant. Great startups have budgets. This happens because many CEOs are passionate, market-driven people who are constantly trying to launch new products, win contracts, get press, hire staff and woo VCs.

Operations 150

Operations Metrics Early Stage Non-Compete 150

Startup Professionals Musings

JANUARY 7, 2014

I’ve been advising and mentoring startups and growth companies for years, and find myself always pushing them to try something new, for the sake of growth and survival. Rely on informal agreements with partners. The same principles apply to strategic partners. Be quick to hire and slow to fire.

Startup 265

Startup Intellectual Property LLC Burn Rate 265

Both Sides of the Table

JUNE 17, 2017

There are certain topics that even some of the smartest people I talk with who aren’t startup oriented can’t fully grok. It’s common cocktail party chatter to hear people confidently pronounce that some well known startup is sure to blow up because, “How could they succeed when they’re not even profitable!” What did they actually do?

Stock Options 227

Stock Options Startup Dilution Venture Capital 227

Startup Professionals Musings

MARCH 6, 2012

For those of you who want to get in on the ground floor of a new venture, but haven’t yet worked up the nerve to start your own, begin with a job at a startup. Working for a startup is not a career choice, but more of a lifestyle. The other partner, and hopefully there is only one crazy one, goes after the startup lifestyle.

Silicon Valley 246

Silicon Valley Burn Rate Startup Stock Options 246

Both Sides of the Table

DECEMBER 16, 2009

Well obviously that’s meaningless if your startup idea sucks. He was at a startup that was in a super hot sector. They had wasted a lot of money because they had raised a lot of money and therefore hired a large staff. I just knew that our sales sucked wind and we were burning through tons of cash.

Entrepreneur 306

Entrepreneur Burn Rate Cofounder Sales 306

Startup Professionals Musings

JANUARY 4, 2011

For those of you who want to get in on the ground floor of a new venture, but haven’t yet worked up the nerve to start your own, begin with a job at a startup. Working for a startup is not a career choice, but more of a lifestyle. The other partner, and hopefully there is only one crazy one, goes after the startup lifestyle.

Silicon Valley 227

Silicon Valley Burn Rate Startup Stock Options 227

Hunter Walker

FEBRUARY 20, 2022

For example, consumer hardware startups post-Juicero or 3D printing a decade ago. Maybe you’ve spoken with the previous companies customers or investors or employees and learned from that — maybe you’re even now taking their customers, hiring their best team members, whatever. Stop Pitching FOMO Investors, They Won’t Convert.

Marketing 119

Marketing Burn Rate Angel Investor Early Stage 119

Startup Professionals Musings

MARCH 15, 2015

Too often they are also hesitant, inexperienced, and fearful of hiring people or a mentor to be the partner they need. Startup challenges become more depressing than energizing. Every startup founder has to remember that the buck stops with them, and they must learn from every mistake. Marty Zwilling.

Burn Rate 120

Burn Rate Startup Differentiation Salary 120

Startup Professionals Musings

DECEMBER 31, 2013

Too often they are also hesitant, inexperienced, and fearful of hiring people or a mentor to be the partner they need. Startup challenges become more depressing than energizing. Every startup founder has to remember that the buck stops with them, and they must learn from every mistake. Marty Zwilling.

Burn Rate 275

Burn Rate Entrepreneur Differentiation Salary 275

Gust

DECEMBER 29, 2013

I’ve been advising and mentoring startups and growth companies for years, and find myself always pushing them to try something new, for the sake of growth and survival. Rely on informal agreements with partners. The same principles apply to strategic partners. Be quick to hire and slow to fire.

Startup 183

Startup Intellectual Property LLC Burn Rate 183

Startup Professionals Musings

OCTOBER 4, 2017

Too often they are also hesitant, inexperienced, and fearful of hiring people or finding a mentor to be the partner they need. Startup challenges become more depressing than energizing. Every startup founder has to remember that the buck stops with them, and they must learn from every mistake.

Burn Rate 139

Burn Rate Differentiation Salary Entrepreneur 139

View from Seed

OCTOBER 15, 2014

Over the summer, based on feedback from our portfolio and the broader startup community, NextView created pre-formatted board deck templates for seed-stage startups — part of our Growth Guides series. Team: Hires, fires, departures, responsibility changes, major promotions, and your org chart.

Seed Stage 331

Seed Stage Cap Table Metrics Burn Rate 331

Both Sides of the Table

MAY 9, 2011

It is increasingly popular to have “founder dating&# or “startup weekend hackathons&# of some variety or the other. You often have very limited perspective on whether this person will continue to be a great partner 2 years down the line, 4 years down the line, 8 years down the line. Hire your co-founder.

Cofounder 393

Cofounder Founder Vesting Founder Vesting 393

Startup Professionals Musings

NOVEMBER 28, 2012

I’ve been advising and mentoring startups and growth companies for years, and find myself always pushing them to try something new, for the sake of growth and survival. Rely on informal agreements with partners. The same principles apply to strategic partners. Quick to hire and slow to fire.

Entrepreneur 274

Entrepreneur Intellectual Property LLC Burn Rate 274

Steve Blank

NOVEMBER 18, 2010

For decades startups were managed by pretending the company would follow a predictable path (revenue plan, scale, etc.) Luckily most startups now realize there is a better way. Startups Are Not Small Versions of Large Companies. The revenue numbers and revenue model came from a startups original Business Plan.

Burn Rate 247

Burn Rate Management Business Model Customer Development 247

Startup Professionals Musings

MARCH 28, 2016

In addition, if you are already a CFO, this position is a great springboard to the chief operating officer (COO) or even the CEO position in the startup, based on recent reports. Every startup role requires managing to financial realities. In a corporate environment, you can leave financials to someone else, but not in a startup.

Entrepreneur 120

Entrepreneur Burn Rate Leadership Salary 120

Startup Professionals Musings

JULY 24, 2017

The longer you wait to start your own business, the higher the default burn rate, and the less happy you will be to take a financial step down. In a new business, there will not be an IT team to configure your computer, a procurement department for supplies and contracts, or even a personnel specialist for hiring and firing.

Salary 147

Salary Burn Rate Vertical Equity 147

Steve Blank

FEBRUARY 16, 2010

You would think that would be enough to get wrong, but entrepreneurs and investors compound this problem by assuming that all startups grow and scale by executing the Revenue Plan. But the VC’s kept coming back to the lack of adoption of the product, the floundering sales force, the burn rate – and “the plan.&#.

Revenue 230

Revenue Balance Sheet Hockey Stick Burn Rate 230

Mucker Lab

MARCH 8, 2016

To use a startup fundraising analogy, our first fund was a small friends and family round; our second fund was a seed round that allowed us to validate the core hypotheses of our business; and Mucker III is our Series A. We are consumed with generating great returns for our limited partners. The underdogs. The dogged visionaries.

Burn Rate 60

Burn Rate Limited Partner Bootstrapping Portfolio 60

The Equity Kicker

JULY 16, 2015

What follows is a generalised model for startup team building. Companies with lots of cash sometimes add people more quickly, but that drives the burn rate up, often without a compensating increase in the chance of success. Also, early hires should be capable of dealing with ambiguity and fuzzy role definitions.

eCommerce 60

eCommerce Burn Rate Early Stage Hiring 60

YoungUpstarts

AUGUST 19, 2016

While you absolutely need to keep an eye on earnings and burn rate, human capital is ultimately the fuel that makes the machine run. The ability to attract, engage, and grow talented employees makes the difference between the startups that thrive and those that die. Your employees, after all, become part of what you sell.

Startup 100

Startup Burn Rate Cofounder Salary 100

Up and Running

OCTOBER 1, 2014

To complicate things further, your startup is also frequently a side hustle while you hold down a day job. Nelson has some tips: Know your burn rate. And this isn’t just for your business, but as many startup founders know, your personal finances can matter just as much (especially if you aren’t profitable yet).

Bootstrapping 107

Bootstrapping Cofounder Portland Burn Rate 107

Startup Lessons Learned

MAY 15, 2020

It's never selfish to hire. I said, "Hire people. Hire them to do whatever you can find them to do." So anything you can do to keep them hired, you just improved their sanity. It's never selfish to hire. My partner, Martin, and I did just that. My partner, my spouse works, it's not a stress for me.

Dallas 68

Dallas Employee Government Social Media 68

techcrunch.com

FEBRUARY 26, 2013

A lot of VCs, especially those from the more financially oriented firms, do more harm to startups than good when they get themselves on company boards without ever having built a company themselves, or seeing one from the inside. How do I measure my partners and myself? What value can a VC as board member add to a company?

Burn Rate 87

Burn Rate Hiring Engineer Entrepreneur 87

Hearpreneur

JULY 7, 2019

I see companies transitioning to hiring more freelancers and remote workers. When they outsource they are hiring professionals for a certain number of hours per month and not 40 hours per week in addition to benefits, workers comp, etc. We want every hire to be for life, and the way we treat employees makes them want to stay.

Entrepreneur 93

Entrepreneur Distribution Employee Arizona 93

www.paulgraham.com

APRIL 28, 2010

Want to start a startup? A typical startup goes throughseveral rounds of funding, and at each round you want to take justenough money to reach the speed where you can shift into the nextgear. Few startups get it quite right. 1 ] A startups life will be more complicated, legally, if any of theinvestors arent accredited.

Technical Review 76

Technical Review Startup Software Review Angel Investor 76

Genuine VC

FEBRUARY 9, 2011

Evaluating a startup as a prospective employee is tough, especially when you compare to VCs. Plus, VCs often will have met the Founder/CEOs of many of a particular startup’s competitors, so they’ll have an even richer understand of the market landscape. On one hand, of course, you’re joining a startup for the upside.

Startup 146

Startup Burn Rate Technical Review Down Round 146

thestartuplawyer.com

FEBRUARY 24, 2010

Contact The Startup Lawyer: Home Page About Contact FAQs Glossary Ryan Roberts Law: Home Page Social Networks: Facebook Twitter LinkedIn Flickr Delicious Digg Last.FM He obviously never launched a startup and got shafted by a co-founder. He obviously never launched a startup and got shafted by a co-founder.

Cofounder 40

Cofounder Founder Preferred Stock Startup 40