Startup Professionals Musings

OCTOBER 5, 2015

I challenge any entrepreneur, for example, to define the difference between "seed-stage" and "early-stage" financing. Asking for early-stage money before you have customers and revenue will likely kill your credibility with real investors. A seed-stage “super angel.”

Seed Stage 120

Seed Stage Finance Early Stage Startup 120

Startup Professionals Musings

FEBRUARY 5, 2023

According to most definitions, an entrepreneur is one who envisions a new and different business, meaning one that is not a copy of an existing business model. Many entrepreneurs have a passion and an idea, or even invent a new product, but are never able to execute to the point of creating a startup.

Matching 270

Matching Entrepreneur Startup Seed Stage 270

Steve Blank

FEBRUARY 26, 2020

There are two reasons to raise money: You have a killer idea that is only partially validated, that you think can get to $50M+ of revenue in 5 years with 80%+ gross margins (if margins are lower, you need a lot more revenue)and you need money to get to product-market fit, or. Not all startups need outside investment to grow.

Cofounder 429

Cofounder Seed Stage Valuation Metrics 429

Startup Professionals Musings

JULY 22, 2020

Luckily, not all investors are looking for the same thing, so it pays to know what type of investors are most interested in what your startup brings to the table. The key is understanding how potential investors see you, and especially how they view the maturity stage of your startup. Congratulations!

Angel Investor 370

Angel Investor Intellectual Property Investment Bankers Private Equity 370

Startup Professionals Musings

APRIL 17, 2023

Luckily, not all investors are looking for the same thing, so it pays to know what type of investors are most interested in what your startup brings to the table. The key is understanding how potential investors see you, and especially how they view the maturity stage of your startup. Congratulations!

Angel Investor 313

Angel Investor Intellectual Property Investment Bankers Private Equity 313

Mucker Lab

APRIL 6, 2023

Hila Qu joined Mucker’s Tony Yang for an Ask-Me-Anything (AMA) conversation about Product-Led Growth (PLG) for Startups to kickoff the 2023 Mucker Growth Series. Hila Qu has been the Head of Growth or VP of Growth at a number of different companies and startups, most notably Acorns and GitLab. Hila is a mentor with Mucker Capital.

Product 78

Product CTO Hire Startup Fractional CTO 78

Startup Professionals Musings

MARCH 14, 2020

That approach may work for an entrepreneur who just sold a successful business for a huge profit, but it doesn’t work for the rest of us who are not proven successes yet, or don’t even have a business yet. At these stages, it’s all about you, and your ability to communicate and execute effectively. Lack of intellectual property.

Due Diligence 308

Due Diligence Intellectual Property Preferred Stock Seed Stage 308

Startup Professionals Musings

DECEMBER 11, 2022

That approach may work for an entrepreneur who just sold a successful business for a huge profit, but it doesn’t work for the rest of us who are not proven successes yet, or don’t even have a business yet. At these stages, it’s all about you, and your ability to communicate and execute effectively. Lack of intellectual property.

Due Diligence 271

Due Diligence Intellectual Property Entrepreneur Preferred Stock 271

Agile VC

FEBRUARY 5, 2014

This is a logical thing to do… when we started LinkedIn, my mentor Reid Hoffman instilled a mantra of Growth –> Usage –> Revenue which still holds for many consumer companies. This is especially true for those with a media / ad based business model (e.g.

Revenue 234

Revenue Product B2B Marketing 234

View from Seed

APRIL 30, 2015

There’s been a lot of digital ink spilled around the various types of capital available to startups today. At NextView, for instance, one of our more popular posts centers on atypical seed rounds to know. As a startup grows, venture debt becomes a viable option to continue that growth. Traction and revenue?

Term Sheet 120

Term Sheet Equity Startup Seed Stage 120

Startup Professionals Musings

MAY 10, 2020

According to most definitions, an entrepreneur is one who envisions a new and different business, meaning one that is not a copy of an existing business model. Many entrepreneurs have a passion and an idea, or even invent a new product, but are never able to execute to the point of creating a startup.

Matching 317

Matching Seed Stage Angel Investor Business Model 317

David Teten

MARCH 18, 2021

A typical VC thesis: “we invest in tech startups in Europe at an early stage” However, our experience shows that in many cases: . Thirty-four VC firms in OpenVC call themselves “early-stage” Yet, 30% of those don’t actually invest in pre-revenue startups. The phrase is quite ambiguous.

Technical Review 78

Technical Review Cofounder Venture Capital Deal Flow 78

David Teten

JANUARY 19, 2021

More and more startups are pursuing Revenue-Based VCs , but “RBI” doesn’t fit everyone. Flexible VC 101: Equity Meets Revenue Share. By tying payments to actual revenues, founders and investors remain aligned around the company’s real-time performance, good or bad. Flexible VC: Revenue -based. Of the Inc.

Cofounder 78

Cofounder Technical Review Equity Dividend 78

View from Seed

SEPTEMBER 11, 2019

*This post is part of our “pitch deck” series where we dissect the seed stage pitch deck and discuss the ideal flow for a pitch. Now it’s time to set the stage with the early traction you have. Seed stage VCs are realistic about how much traction a very raw company might have. A) Pre-Product Companies.

Seed Stage 149

Seed Stage B2B Seed Capital Revenue 149

View from Seed

MARCH 15, 2017

VC evaluation of seed-stage startups can seem arbitrary or imitative at times. Internally, the scarcity of tangible business metrics – product usage or revenue multiples for example – can make an investment decision feel daunting. Any seed stage company’s strategy is a constant work-in-progress.

Due Diligence 265

Due Diligence Seed Stage Portfolio Metrics 265

Agile VC

MARCH 30, 2012

How to Evaluate Firms for a Seed VC. AGILEVC My idle thoughts on tech startups. Is “Data” a Business Model? Several years ago I wrote a post about the three business models of the consumer web : commerce, advertising, and user-paid premium services. How To Think About The Future. March 30, 2012.

Business Model 113

Business Model Silicon Valley Advertising B2B 113

BeyondVC

JANUARY 29, 2017

Great blog post by CockroachDB on open source business models and their plans to make money: If you’re serious about building a company around open source software, you must walk a narrow path: introduce paid features too soon, and risk curtailing adoption. Optimizing for Price at Seed Stage is a Mistake.

Revenue 60

Revenue Developer Open Source Seed Stage 60

Startup Professionals Musings

JULY 4, 2014

Luckily, not all investors are looking for the same thing, so it pays to know what type of investors are most interested in what your startup brings to the table. The key is understanding how potential investors see you, and especially how they view the maturity stage of your startup. Congratulations!

Angel Investor 232

Angel Investor Intellectual Property Investment Bankers Private Equity 232

Hippoland

FEBRUARY 12, 2018

I’ll give you an example with my own startup LaunchBit and how our understanding of the problem and the customer became more refined over time: V1: Helping online marketers get customers profitably. Etc… At the pre-seed stage, a big way to stand out is if you have a V3 statement (as opposed to a V1 statement).

Seed Stage 48

Seed Stage Business Model B2B Email 48

Hippoland

FEBRUARY 12, 2018

I’ll give you an example with my own startup LaunchBit and how our understanding of the problem and the customer became more refined over time: V1: Helping online marketers get customers profitably. Etc… At the pre-seed stage, a big way to stand out is if you have a V3 statement (as opposed to a V1 statement).

Seed Stage 48

Seed Stage Business Model B2B Email 48

Startup Professionals Musings

MARCH 20, 2016

According to most definitions, an entrepreneur is one who envisions a new and different business, meaning one that is not a copy of an existing business model. Many entrepreneurs have a passion and an idea, or even invent a new product, but are never able to execute to the point of creating a startup.

Seed Stage 120

Seed Stage Startup Angel Investor Business Model 120

Startup Professionals Musings

AUGUST 19, 2018

Luckily, not all investors are looking for the same thing, so it pays to know what type of investors are most interested in what your startup brings to the table. The key is understanding how potential investors see you, and especially how they view the maturity stage of your startup. Congratulations!

Angel Investor 184

Angel Investor Intellectual Property Investment Bankers Private Equity 184

YoungUpstarts

JANUARY 6, 2014

Instead of the old “throw-money-at-a-good-idea” approach, I based our strategy on the belief that the best startups are the ones that can become revenue-positive shortly after takeoff with as little upfront investment as possible. But as an avowed startup junkie, I’m always looking forward to the next thing.

San Francisco 154

San Francisco Business Model Silicon Valley Coder 154

Startup Professionals Musings

AUGUST 13, 2016

Luckily, not all investors are looking for the same thing, so it pays to know what type of investors are most interested in what your startup brings to the table. The key is understanding how potential investors see you, and especially how they view the maturity stage of your startup. Congratulations!

Matching 120

Matching Angel Investor Intellectual Property Investment Bankers 120

Startup Lessons Learned

JULY 11, 2019

Ann Miura-Ko is a founding partner at Floodgate , a seed-stage VC firm. Among her early investments are Lyft, TaskRabbit and Modcloth, which, as our recent conversation shows, are only part of the reason Forbes called her “the most powerful woman in startups.” Then above that is business model power—so, how do you make money?

Founder 68

Founder Lean Venture Capital Cofounder 68

K9 Ventures

APRIL 28, 2010

– a seed-stage fund. is a $6.25M fund that is designed to do concept and seed-stage investments in technology companies. Direct Revenue : The company must have a direct revenue model. In a lot of ways I see K9 as my next startup — except it’s a meta-level startup.

Seed Stage 61

Seed Stage San Francisco IP Portfolio 61

mashable.com

NOVEMBER 3, 2010

The Small Business Tips Series is supported by Bantam Live , a web-based collaboration workspace with “Social CRM&# for small business teams. For the first-time entrepreneur or founder looking for seed stage funding, this circle can be especially difficult to penetrate. and Path Intelligence.

Angel Investor 80

Angel Investor Startup San Francisco Social Media 80

thebarefootvc

JANUARY 27, 2014

I think that later stage valuations are frothy (for reasons I explain below) while earlier stage valuations are starting to stabilize from previous highs (with the exception of the superstar serial entrepreneur) - turns out scaling in a sea of competition (both startup and entrenched) is not so easy.

Technical Review 63

Technical Review Valuation Venture Capital Investment Bankers 63

www.paulgraham.com

OCTOBER 23, 2010

Want to start a startup? You need three things to create a successful startup: to start withgood people, to make something customers actually want, and to spendas little money as possible. Most startups that fail do it becausethey fail at one of these. Most startups that fail do it becausethey fail at one of these.

Startup 105

Startup Cofounder Software Stock 105

Startup Professionals Musings

AUGUST 1, 2016

That approach may work for an entrepreneur who just sold a successful business for a huge profit, but it doesn’t work for the rest of us who are not proven successes yet, or don’t even have a business yet. At these stages, it’s all about you, and your ability to communicate and execute effectively. Lack of intellectual property.

Due Diligence 120

Due Diligence Intellectual Property Preferred Stock Seed Stage 120

Startup Professionals Musings

MARCH 13, 2015

According to most definitions, an entrepreneur is one who envisions a new and different business, meaning one that is not a copy of an existing business model. Many entrepreneurs have a passion and an idea, or even invent a new product, but are never able to execute to the point of creating a startup. You decide.

Entrepreneur 120

Entrepreneur Seed Stage Angel Investor Business Model 120

K9 Ventures

JULY 19, 2012

which was a $6.25M fund designed to be deployed over 3-4 years, making initial investments between $100K – $250K in concept and seed stage technology companies located in the San Francisco Bay Area. Not interested in me-too businesses. No three-way business models and no content, media, advertising-based companies.

Technology 132

Technology Seed Stage San Francisco Limited Partner 132

K9 Ventures

JULY 19, 2012

which was a $6.25M fund designed to be deployed over 3-4 years, making initial investments between $100K – $250K in concept and seed stage technology companies located in the San Francisco Bay Area. Not interested in me-too businesses. No three-way business models and no content, media, advertising-based companies.

Technology 132

Technology Seed Stage San Francisco Limited Partner 132

View from Seed

APRIL 23, 2015

In the startup world, one POTAJ that’s easy and worthwhile to defend is the need to focus on building great products and innovative technology instead of trying to over-sell lousy solutions. Their business models are, in many cases, focused on outlier exits within the portfolio. Accidental VC'

Founder 120

Founder Distribution Viral Seed Stage 120

Agile VC

APRIL 13, 2012

AGILEVC My idle thoughts on tech startups. Urbanization of Startups. I spent some time with some startups in San Francisco proper, as opposed to the heart of Silicon Valley (see Note 1). Also all the big anchor companies that a startup might want to partner with at that time (eBay, Google, Oracle, Yahoo!, April 13, 2012.

Silicon Valley 185

Silicon Valley San Francisco San Jose Startup 185

SoCal CTO

NOVEMBER 5, 2009

I recently got together with Aaron Shechet and an early stage startup to discuss the direction the company might want to take. We have a number of startups (or pre-startups) that we are helping get launched. You are writing about the essentials of business. Any thoughts on my recent post Startup Metrics ?

Los Angeles 150

Los Angeles Southern California Startup SEO 150

Hippoland

OCTOBER 16, 2016

As a result, for these kinds of businesses, investors often don’t expect that companies can earn revenue right out of the gate, because they may not legally be able to. Does the team know exactly what they need to do to go into business? These are some of the most important criteria to investing in seed-stage teams.

Startup 48

Startup Vertical Early Stage Bootstrapping 48