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Put A Coin In It! Invest In Early Stage Startups To See Maximum ROI

YoungUpstarts

by Emmanuel de Watteville, co-founder of Blue Ocean Ventures. Investing has always (and will always) come with a long laundry list of liabilities that can deter even the most experienced investors from making a generous contribution to a startup or early-stage company they believe in.

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Why Early-Stage VCs Should Be Careful About Intros from Bankers

Both Sides of the Table

What stage? Should I trust my instincts for founders and products or should I be more focused on the market size or business plan? There is one source I never liked and no early-stage VC should – investment bankers. And I listen to the reasons their co-founders quit their well-payed job to join them.

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How Baby Boomers Fit In The Realm Of Entrepreneurship

Startup Professionals Musings

In addition to being the startup entrepreneur, there are other key roles where Boomers can be a force in driving successful startups, in concert with leaders from Gen-X and Gen-Y: Early-stage angel investors. Supportive co-founder and executive positions. Member of the Advisory Board. Manage customer service.

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The Importance of Proprietary Deal Flow in Early-Stage VC

Both Sides of the Table

What stage? Should I trust my instincts for founders and products or should I be more focused on the market size or business plan? ” As far as “terms” go I’m 100% aligned to have the most vanilla, founder-friendly terms I can. .” What kind of deals should I be doing? What price? I love complexity.

Deal Flow 347
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Is a Venture Studio Right for You?

Steve Blank

Three types of organizations – Incubators, Accelerators and Venture Studios – have emerged to reduce the risk of early-stage startup failure by helping teams find product/market fit and raise initial capital. They do the most to de-risk the early stages of a startup. I pointed out that there were.

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How to Configure Your Startup Team

Both Sides of the Table

I am fond of quoting that about 70% of my investment decision of an early-stage company is the team. Quick summary: Be careful not to have too many co-founders. And you need to be careful about giving up control to cofounders as much as VCs. Don’t hire a homogenous team. For the wrong reasons.

Cofounder 388
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Hiring Developers Before Product/Market Fit?

SoCal CTO

Using my StartupRoar as a radar, I came across a great post by Gabriel Weinberg Do you really need a full-time hire for that? Hiring seems to be the preferred use of seed funds (by investors and founders), whereas I'd prefer a focus on customer acquisition. In other words, they come in asking for help with sourcing and hiring.

CTO Hire 205