Startup Professionals Musings

APRIL 10, 2016

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.

Sweat Equity 120

Sweat Equity Burn Rate Technical Review Intellectual Property 120

Startup Professionals Musings

NOVEMBER 7, 2014

As a startup mentor and investor, I am approached regularly by aspiring entrepreneurs who assert that business plans are a waste of time. Beyond the value to the entrepreneur, let’s take a look at how and when a written plan might add value, or even be required, by other people who may be critical to the success of your startup efforts.

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Business Plan Technical Review Angel Investor Due Diligence 274

Mucker Lab

MAY 28, 2020

This post originally appeared in TechCrunch back in 2015, written by our co-founder and managing partner Erik Rannala. Like a teenager with a million-dollar allowance and an identity crisis, a startup with too much capital and no product-market fit will become capable of making larger mistakes. As an investor, I root for startups.

Startup 78

Startup Cofounder Burn Rate Technical Review 78

Startup Professionals Musings

OCTOBER 18, 2015

If you think you are the perfect fit for the entrepreneur lifestyle, but you’re not yet sure if you’re ready to start your own, then I recommend that you take a job with an existing startup first to validate the culture realities against your dream. Running or working for a startup is more of a lifestyle than a career choice.

Technical Review 120

Technical Review Entrepreneur Stock Options Due Diligence 120

Professor VC

JANUARY 27, 2011

How Much Diligence is Due.Or Ive addressed the due diligence question in previous posts, but this came up again in a debate we were having at a recent meeting of the Sand Hill Angels. And in order to increase our groups returns, one of our goals should be to get more people and man hours involved in the diligence process.

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Technical Review Due Diligence Silicon Valley San Jose 31

Both Sides of the Table

OCTOBER 12, 2010

If you’re interested in recruiting sales people, I wrote on the topic of startup sales people: who to hire & when – understanding the roles of Journeymen, Mavericks & Superstars. Evangelical sales – Understanding startup sales people and process. This only works if you’re not a crocodile sales person.

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Hiring Sales Startup Early Stage 346

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. Each quarter you should review your model.

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Business Plan AJAX Venture Capital Technical Review 334

Tim Keane

DECEMBER 14, 2009

Startups and angels: Along the way to success. Starting Startups.   He is a partner in a pretty much exclusively software seed stage fund, Y Combinator that you can read more about.     Read   Want to Start a Startup ?   A way to fund a startup is to get a job. 

Burn Rate 60

Burn Rate Angel Groups Seed Stage Startup 60

David Teten

NOVEMBER 26, 2019

However, in a startup the most common scenario is that projections get missed. Sean Colrock, Director of Client Partnerships at Wiss & Company , suggests at a minimum you track: cash on hand; fume date; and burn rate. This agile approach is not restricted to small startups.

Agile 60

Agile Management Forecast Silicon Valley 60

VC Cafe

NOVEMBER 2, 2019

When you start with an honest and diligent effort to determine the truth of your situation, the right decisions often become self-evident.” — Jim Collins , author of Good to Great. In this post I’ll focus on benchmarking resources for seed and series A in the following three categories: SaaS B2C / Consumer apps Deep tech.

B2C 141

B2C Technical Review Startup Retention 141

Startup Professionals Musings

NOVEMBER 7, 2016

For IBM, the Personal Computer was a paradigm shift from their big business legacy, built with new technologies for totally new markets, and battleships turn very slowly. No consideration can be given to experience running a startup, breadth of skills, or even thinking like an entrepreneur.

Technical Review 214

Technical Review Entrepreneur Silicon Valley Burn Rate 214

Startup Lessons Learned

JULY 6, 2020

We have the machine learning technology to take these disparate, small pieces of molecules, and stitch them together to form an actual anti-COVID drug." Eric Ries : Then somehow you made the transition from the scientist in a lab to the founder of a technology start up. Eric Ries : That's a remarkable use of social media. I certainly.

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Artificial Inteligence Open Source Cofounder Design 60

Professor VC

FEBRUARY 12, 2008

Of course, rigorous diligence is performed, the team is challenged, and assumptions are tested. Once the point is reached where you want to move ahead, we put the sales hat on and convince our partners about the incredible opportunity that we are lucky enough to be able to invest on the ground floor. How Much Diligence is Due.

San Jose 31

San Jose Technical Review Venture Capital Angel Investor 31

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

pandodaily.com

JULY 18, 2012

And the startup ecosystem is dependent on those wild Barry-Bonds-juiced-up-on-a-million-steriods-style home runs to keep functioning. While a 21-year-old with no mortgage, no girlfriend and a low-burn rate may have nothing to lose, a 40-year old with a career, a mortgage and kids has everything to lose. 25 comments. Great post!

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Entrepreneur San Francisco Silicon Valley Technical Review 45

Professor VC

NOVEMBER 19, 2009

If you have a reputation for cutting corners, not treating employees or partners right, it will become very difficult to do business. They must live, breathe, sleep, and be one with the startups ups and downs. How Much Diligence is Due. While Silicon Valley covers a large amount of turf, it is very small. ► 2010. (7).

San Jose 43

San Jose Silicon Valley Las Vegas Venture Capital 43

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

Startup Lessons Learned

MAY 15, 2020

We reviewed the story of The Diary of Anne Frank and what she went through. To talk to other manufacturers and say, "Why don't we organize together and release information about what our daily production is, what our daily deliveries are, what our order rates are, so we reflect demand. My partner, Martin, and I did just that.

Dallas 68

Dallas Employee Government Social Media 68

www.chubbybrain.com

SEPTEMBER 28, 2011

25 Best Startup Failure Post-Mortems of All Time. Update – As a followup, we analyzed all of these startup failure post-mortems to identify the top 20 reasons for startup failure. Also worth a read after you review these startup failure post-mortems. Post-Mortem Title : How My Startup Failed.

Software Review 79

Software Review Startup Technical Review Vesting 79

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?

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Burn Rate Hiring Engineer Entrepreneur 87

VC Cafe

FEBRUARY 6, 2011

VC investors rely heavily on referrals, but what should a non US startup do when looking to raise funding in Silicon Valley? I found a question on Quora that relates to European startups, but found that some of the advice may be very relevant to Israeli startups as well. Read Venture Hacks ( [link] ). And then read it again.

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Silicon Valley Startup Seed Stage Delaware 104

abovethecrowd.com

APRIL 20, 2016

In February of last year, Fortune magazine writers Erin Griffith and Dan Primack declared 2015 “ The Age of the Unicorns ” noting — “Fortune counts more than 80 startups that have been valued at $1 billion or more by venture capitalists.” Next came Rolfe Winkler’s deep dive “ Highly Valued Startup Zenefits Runs Into Turbulence. ”

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IPO Term Sheet Silicon Valley Valuation 40

abovethecrowd.com

FEBRUARY 24, 2015

Every successful technology company raises money throughout its lifecycle, perhaps starting with a seed investment and progressing through Series A, B, C, late-stage investments, and, for the most successful companies, an IPO. These large, high-priced private financings are the defining characteristic of this particular technology cycle.

IPO 40

IPO Liquidation Preference Valuation Technical Review 40

Both Sides of the Table

AUGUST 9, 2011

Venture Capitalists typically have partners’ meetings on Mondays. So the industry formed around a day of the week when all partners could avoid having company board meetings or traveling. I introduced my partners, we spent weeks with the team and felt good rapport. Let’s review all of our existing investments.

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Stock Technical Review Marketing Greece 305