View from Seed

JANUARY 31, 2024

This is not dissimilar to the explosion of applications we saw in the mid-2000’s fueled by declining computing costs, cloud infrastructure, and social platforms. First, the ease at which developers can get started working with AI models is starting to lead to a Cambrian explosion of products and applications that leverage this technology.

Web 168

Web Generative AI Houston Distribution 168

View from Seed

APRIL 30, 2015

It can be lower cost and can either buy more time or accelerate growth. It’s generally got a lower cost compared to equity capital and can help support growth. But the costs are definitely there. Today, we wanted to share some basics of another source of capital: venture debt. What are some pros and cons?

Term Sheet 120

Term Sheet Equity Startup Seed Stage 120

View from Seed

JANUARY 15, 2020

Read materials ahead of a meeting, particularly with portfolio companies. Don’t’ share private information or gossip about founders and companies. Follow-through on promises and commitments. Treat founder’s time as costly, not costless. Don’t ghost. Help to create focus vs. create distractions.

Cap Table 166

Cap Table Florida Portfolio Founder 166

View from Seed

FEBRUARY 14, 2024

the cost of building applications has collapsed, which expands the number of new companies and products being released on a daily basis. As I wrote in my previous post, I’ve been thinking about generative AI through a series of analogies. And one analogy that comes to mind is that of Web2.0. Similar to Web2.0,

Generative AI 218

Generative AI Founder Technology Naming 218

View from Seed

MAY 28, 2020

Restaurants that had previously avoided partnerships with third-party platforms are pivoting to stay afloat, and many will realize and appreciate the ease and efficiency that comes with technology – albeit at a cost.

Memphis 256

Memphis Distribution Bankruptcy Operations 256

View from Seed

MARCH 4, 2020

One of the weaknesses of the Midas list methodology (so I’ve heard) is that it under-emphasizes the impact of one’s cost basis and ownership relative to fund size. This number is probably low vs the reality of actual performance.

Venture Capital 313

Venture Capital China Technical Review Africa 313

View from Seed

OCTOBER 24, 2019

Also, the benefit of raising a pre-seed from great partners probably outweighs the cost. If you are a founder with limited experience, you probably don’t have the ability to skip the pre-seed for practical reasons. The challenge here is that inexperienced founders sometimes get the worst of both worlds.

Dilution 149

Dilution B2B Burn Rate Early Stage 149

View from Seed

JULY 26, 2021

A car is likely the second largest purchase in a consumer’s life with significant downstream costs of maintenance and ownership. YAA is a service that empowers consumers to have more confidence and success in purchasing and owning an automobile.

Distribution 270

Distribution Community Software Partner 270

View from Seed

SEPTEMBER 12, 2017

It is very difficult to win over customers without matching the jaw-dropping value and service that Amazon has trained consumers to expect. Owning High Shares of Customer’s Wallet. The second challenge is how difficult it is for any fashion retailer to own a high share of the customer’s wallet in this category.

Internet 209

Internet eCommerce Bankruptcy Technical Review 209

View from Seed

JULY 13, 2022

There’s a new set of real-time payments protocols which Waiver is making more broadly available to bring fast, secure, and cost-effective payments to a range of applications.” ” – Lee Hower. Get to know the business. Rachel Hodes (RH): What problem exists in the market that your business is trying to solve?

Early Stage 156

Early Stage Cofounder San Francisco Philadelphia 156

View from Seed

JANUARY 13, 2021

They invest at a lower cost basis than almost all seed VC’s, have the biggest portfolio out of all of us, and have the most enviable track record of success. Consider this a hat tip. I see YC as Tiger Woods in his prime, and all the rest of the seed funds are playing to be Phil Mickelson. YC has just been extraordinary.

Dilution 399

Dilution Later Stage Portfolio Technical Review 399

View from Seed

JULY 15, 2020

Mid-stage portfolios can be more acutely impacted if many companies have fat cost structures and were investing heavily in growth that is not materializing. Second, I think there will be real costs to being unable to meet in person. Some early stage businesses may even be able to get to CFBE fairly quickly.

Portfolio 215

Portfolio IRR Dilution Distribution 215

View from Seed

JULY 19, 2022

On average, an eCommerce retailer spends 15-30% of their revenue on paid marketing channels, but in recent months, new privacy regulations, iOS 14 tracking changes and the phase out of 3rd-party cookies, have increased the cost to acquire a new customer by 155% , a trend that is expected to continue in the coming years.

eCommerce 156

eCommerce Greece Early Stage SMS 156

View from Seed

JULY 22, 2020

Other times, growth at all costs is touted as the root of all evil. And I see far more companies that put off focusing on traction for too long than I see companies that break because of growing at all costs. Traction is always a hotly debated attribute for founders and investors. It comes in and out of favor.

Early Stage 254

Early Stage Retention PR Founder 254

View from Seed

DECEMBER 6, 2018

Five to ten years ago, it was thought that digitally-native brands and e-commerce retailers had a distinct cost advantage because they didn’t have to pay for legacy physical infrastructure (e.g. storefronts with long-term lease commitments), which represents high fixed costs and reduced margin.

Operations 120

Operations Minneapolis Channel Dallas 120

View from Seed

APRIL 27, 2022

Homebuyers and homeowners alike want ways to maximize their purchase power and increase their financial flexibility, while investors look for equity-based exposure into residential real estate without prohibitive acquisition and carrying costs. .

Equity 156

Equity Cofounder Acquisition Restful 156

View from Seed

DECEMBER 8, 2015

The other consideration around PMF is the cost and time that will be required to really show demonstrable PMF. (If you’re interested in learning more, I lay out some thoughts about this and other helpful resources for avoiding pitfalls and executing best practices for startup customer development in this post. ).

Product 120

Product Startup Early Stage Seed Capital 120

View from Seed

MARCH 5, 2019

Lyft’s Biggest Cost “Driver” Isn’t the Driver. But given they’re essentially recognizing “net revenue”, Lyft’s cost of goods (COGS, aka cost of revenue in S-1) is composed primarily of insurance, credit card processing fees, and software/tech hosting costs. Insurance is far and away the largest cost driver.

Aggregator 120

Aggregator IPO .Net Revenue 120

View from Seed

JULY 26, 2021

A car is likely the second largest purchase in a consumer’s life with significant downstream costs of maintenance and ownership. YAA is a service that empowers consumers to have more confidence and success in purchasing and owning an automobile.

Distribution 156

Distribution Community Software Partner 156

View from Seed

JULY 26, 2021

A car is likely the second largest purchase in a consumer’s life with significant downstream costs of maintenance and ownership. YAA is a service that empowers consumers to have more confidence and success in purchasing and owning an automobile.

Distribution 156

Distribution Community Software Partner 156

View from Seed

SEPTEMBER 14, 2021

Q: What is going to happen to the cost of capital? Q: What is the opportunity cost of not being in tech? A: Tech is a $5tn industry, and is only a small % of total GDP. Are low interest rates structural, or temporal? . A: As a VC, I am inclined to say temporal and yields are bound to increase, however, I am not an economist.

Valuation 319

Valuation Pre-Money Valuation Distribution Early Stage 319

View from Seed

SEPTEMBER 14, 2021

Q: What is going to happen to the cost of capital? Q: What is the opportunity cost of not being in tech? A: Tech is a $5tn industry, and is only a small % of total GDP. Are low interest rates structural, or temporal? . A: As a VC, I am inclined to say temporal and yields are bound to increase, however, I am not an economist.

Valuation 295

Valuation Pre-Money Valuation Distribution Early Stage 295

View from Seed

MARCH 19, 2015

Create a landing page, invest $100 on some online ads that say, “New breakthrough biodegradable fishing line,” and see how many people visit the website, how many sign up to be early adopters, what your CAC (customer acquisition cost) is, etc. You make your case with objective data: CTR, customer acquisition cost, etc.

Product 120

Product Technical Review Marketing Lean 120

View from Seed

SEPTEMBER 11, 2019

If in the long run your B2C business is likely to have an ad-based revenue model, the ability to acquire a large number of users at zero or extraordinarily low cost is critical. They’ll want to understand trends in customer acquisition costs.

Seed Stage 149

Seed Stage B2B Seed Capital Revenue 149

View from Seed

JUNE 13, 2019

Chewy cost of goods (COGS) includes both the underlying cost of the products sold but also some fulfillment related expenses like freight and packaging. There can be genuine philosophical or accounting differences in how different costs are allocated, but generally I strive to think about a true “fully loaded” contribution margin.

Leadership 214

Leadership .Net Revenue Acquisition 214

View from Seed

AUGUST 17, 2021

The cost of being incorrect becomes magnified as one has more than just capital to lose. My realization is that part of the negative bias comes from pedigree and success. When one has achieved some success, there is greater risk in jumping on a new bandwagon, getting it wrong, and looking dumb.

IRR 205

IRR Dilution Founder Portfolio 205

View from Seed

MAY 14, 2019

You needed to find the most scrappy and cost efficient way to get a product out, and in the process learned tons about the market and customer you are trying to serve. The hard struggles test your own conviction and vigor at a time when the cost of starting over are relatively low.

Founder 256

Founder Agile Cofounder Seed Capital 256

View from Seed

FEBRUARY 18, 2016

This is going to be painful for those companies forced to operate businesses with cash balances like 2010 and cost structures like 2016. These two costs suck up a lot of the money in an early stage company. It’s people and place primarily for the the first year or two and these costs are not going anywhere for awhile.

Seed Stage 120

Seed Stage San Francisco Startup Valuation 120

View from Seed

NOVEMBER 4, 2019

The other priority is to generate the most cost-effective signals of market demand possible. The goal is to prove that you know what great talent looks like, and that you can get them into the orbit of the company one way or another.

Seed Stage 180

Seed Stage Bootstrapping Demand Early Stage 180

View from Seed

AUGUST 17, 2021

The cost of being incorrect becomes magnified as one has more than just capital to lose. My realization is that part of the negative bias comes from pedigree and success. When one has achieved some success, there is greater risk in jumping on a new bandwagon, getting it wrong, and looking dumb.

IRR 156

IRR Dilution Founder Portfolio 156

View from Seed

MAY 9, 2019

Cost Savings – Businesses save an average of $10,000/year and the remote employee saves approximately $5,000/year. In a survey conducted by Polycom Inc , 2 out of 3 respondents said they are more productive working remotely than when they worked at an on-site office. Everyone wins!

Hiring 266

Hiring Employee Retention Email 266

View from Seed

JUNE 21, 2022

Users can then spend their coin to ‘buy’ another piece on the platform – pay just a minimal ‘exchange fee’ of £1 to Nuw and the cost of postage. A silver coin if the item is high-street and a gold-coin for mid-market and designer brands. It’s resale….

Ireland 156

Ireland Europe Early Stage Founder 156

View from Seed

SEPTEMBER 14, 2021

Q: What is going to happen to the cost of capital? Q: What is the opportunity cost of not being in tech? A: Tech is a $5tn industry, and is only a small % of total GDP. Are low interest rates structural, or temporal? . A: As a VC, I am inclined to say temporal and yields are bound to increase, however, I am not an economist.

Valuation 156

Valuation Pre-Money Valuation Distribution Early Stage 156

View from Seed

SEPTEMBER 16, 2020

In some cases, a category is quite crowded with low switching costs, so creating something that really resonates with the market is super hard. We invest at the seed stage, and so product/market fit is always a significant risk. But some companies present greater PMF risk than others for various reasons.

Seed Stage 254

Seed Stage Early Stage Founder Portfolio 254

View from Seed

AUGUST 17, 2021

The cost of being incorrect becomes magnified as one has more than just capital to lose. My realization is that part of the negative bias comes from pedigree and success. When one has achieved some success, there is greater risk in jumping on a new bandwagon, getting it wrong, and looking dumb.

IRR 136

IRR Dilution Founder Portfolio 136

View from Seed

JANUARY 5, 2021

The script was largely the same for SpaceX, though the mission was to empower lower cost space travel and human settlement beyond Earth and it required displacing a stodgy aerospace industry. In many ways this crusade has been taken up by the modern fintech revolution.

Detroit 367

Detroit SEC Founder Affiliate 367

View from Seed

JULY 26, 2022

Only ~3% of people have access to IVF (in-vitro fertilization), primarily due to cost and access issues. Feel free to speak to the potential economic impacts, environmental impacts, social/political impacts, etc. AD: The current paradigm is not working. Infertility continues to rise.

Silicon Valley 156

Silicon Valley Later Stage Early Stage Founder 156