Both Sides of the Table

APRIL 26, 2016

The key to being able to run a business that isn’t yet profitable (on operating margin) is availability of capital to finance losses and preferably at a cost that isn’t too punitive to the founders and employees. CAC is often measured incorrectly and doesn’t often doesn’t capture the true costs of acquisition.

Metrics 150

Metrics Cost Acquisition Startup 150

The Startup Magazine

JUNE 4, 2023

In a perfect world, small businesses would have an endless stream of revenue coming in and there wouldn’t be need to worry about financing. Sometimes businesses have to get creative when it comes to their small business financing, especially when revenue is low. However, we all know that’s not the case.

Finance 108

Finance Revenue Small Business Bootstrapping 108

David Teten

MARCH 14, 2018

. – Build out low-cost force multipliers such as scouts , Advisors, Entrepreneurs in Residence, Venture Partners, and so on. Typically these outside resources are paid only on a success basis, so the marginal cost is low. . – Create a franchise and license access to it , e.g., the Draper Venture Network.

Private Equity 60

Private Equity Venture Capital Equity Cofounder 60

David Teten

AUGUST 19, 2019

So you’re interested in raising capital from a Revenue-Based Investor VC. A new wave of Revenue-Based Investors (“RBI”) are emerging. I’ve been a traditional equity VC for 8 years, and I’m now researching new business models in venture capital. Bigfoot Capital. Capital need of up to $1.5M

Revenue 60

Revenue Technical Review Software Review Equity 60

Startup Professionals Musings

JUNE 30, 2019

The “valley of death” is a common term in the startup world, referring to the difficulty of covering the negative cash flow in the early stages of a startup, before their new product or service is bringing in revenue from real customers. Nevertheless, it’s an option that doesn’t cost you equity. Join a startup incubator.

Intellectual Property 219

Intellectual Property Technical Review Startup Incubator 219

David Teten

AUGUST 19, 2019

Does the traditional VC financing model make sense for all companies? A new wave of Revenue-Based Investors are emerging who are using creative investing structures with some of the upside of traditional VC, but some of the downside protection of debt. So what is Revenue Based Investing? Absolutely not.

Revenue 60

Revenue Term Sheet Founder Technical Review 60

Startup Professionals Musings

FEBRUARY 19, 2013

The “valley of death” is a common term in the startup world, referring to the difficulty of covering the negative cash flow in the early stages of a startup, before their new product or service is bringing in revenue from real customers. Nevertheless, it’s an option that doesn’t cost you equity. Join a startup incubator.

Intellectual Property 309

Intellectual Property Technical Review Venture Capital Startup 309

Startup Professionals Musings

JULY 14, 2014

The “valley of death” is a common term in the startup world, referring to the difficulty of covering the negative cash flow in the early stages of a startup, before their new product or service is bringing in revenue from real customers. Nevertheless, it’s an option that doesn’t cost you equity. Join a startup incubator.

Entrepreneur 283

Entrepreneur Intellectual Property Technical Review Incubator 283

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. Of the Inc. 5000 companies, only 6.5% raised from angels.

Cofounder 78

Cofounder Technical Review Equity Dividend 78

Startup Professionals Musings

JANUARY 12, 2018

The “valley of death” is a common term in the startup world, referring to the difficulty of covering the negative cash flow in the early stages of a startup, before their new product or service is bringing in revenue from real customers. Nevertheless, it’s an option that doesn’t cost you equity. Solicit funds from friends and family.

Intellectual Property 134

Intellectual Property Technical Review Startup Incubator 134

Both Sides of the Table

SEPTEMBER 18, 2014

On the phone … Me: So, you raised venture capital? It’s like we need a finance 101 course for entrepreneurs. Revenue multiple? In finance they call it “terminal value” but the truth is the price is as arbitrary at your A round as it is at your seed round. We raised a seed round.

Venture Capital 417

Venture Capital Liquidation Preference Valuation Term Sheet 417

Both Sides of the Table

SEPTEMBER 22, 2012

He also nails the reason why venture capital is still necessary to grow large businesses quickly in a world where the costs of running startups have fallen dramatically. After all, growth equals high valuations and loads of venture capital! In revenue terms our first two years of sales were $2.1 Not Google.

Silicon Valley 390

Silicon Valley Venture Capital Startup Technical Review 390

Both Sides of the Table

JULY 23, 2014

There has been much discussion in the past few years of the changing structure of the venture capital industry. The rise of alternative sources of capital (crowd funding and the like). Lower costs to start a business (95% reduction), many more companies created & funded by angels / seed. The iPhone was released.

Technical Review 398

Technical Review Venture Capital Valuation Pre-Money Valuation 398

Startup Professionals Musings

JULY 8, 2015

The “valley of death” is a common term in the startup world, referring to the difficulty of covering the negative cash flow in the early stages of a startup, before their new product or service is bringing in revenue from real customers. Nevertheless, it’s an option that doesn’t cost you equity. Solicit funds from friends and family.

Entrepreneur 120

Entrepreneur Intellectual Property Technical Review Incubator 120

View from Seed

OCTOBER 24, 2019

Also, the benefit of raising a pre-seed from great partners probably outweighs the cost. Pre-seed investing should be super simple, so any signs of pro-rata rights, tranched financings, charging the company for value-added services, etc. The challenge here is that inexperienced founders sometimes get the worst of both worlds.

Dilution 149

Dilution B2B Burn Rate Early Stage 149

VC Cafe

JANUARY 24, 2023

In one of the sessions I attended the room was packed with developers, and in the web3-focused session, most of the chatter was not on NFTs or Play to Earn, but on the potential of generative AI to reduce costs, increase productivity and test various aspects of the game creation value chain from ideation, to development and marketing of games.

Generative AI 103

Generative AI San Francisco Technical Review Europe 103

Both Sides of the Table

MAY 23, 2012

Many observers of the venture capital industry have questioned whether its best days are behind it. Looking ahead at the next decade I am excited by what I believe will be viewed as one of the best and most rational investment periods for venture capital due to seven discrete factors: 1. The Exit Problem.

Venture Capital 347

Venture Capital Technical Review LP Mobile 347

Both Sides of the Table

MARCH 21, 2013

I think it’s important for enterprise startups to layer in professional services into your revenue stream. deliver profitable revenue that while on gross margins of 50% vs. software at 85-95% it is still profits to help you cover fixed costs. Control Size of PS Revenue Relative to Software Business. configuration.

Software Review 321

Software Review Software IP Technical Review 321

David Teten

NOVEMBER 26, 2019

Inevitably, things cost more and take longer than expected. For example, they’re monitoring cost per unit of service (not just cost by department) to be sure that they offset cost increases (e.g., Without systems in place to manage distributed spending, finance teams will leave money on the table.”.

Agile 60

Agile Management Forecast Silicon Valley 60

ReadWriteStart

JUNE 1, 2020

The primary source of your funds should be your paying customers, i.e., your business should generate enough revenues and profits to fund the growth and expansion. It is going to cost a lot of money just to get the initial batch of products to test the market and would definitely require external funding. Incubators and Accelerators.

Startup 150

Startup Entrepreneur Elevator Pitch Seed Stage 150

This is going to be BIG.

MAY 27, 2014

This was a company that had successfully bootstrapped itself to real revenues, employees and cashflow and I thought it deserved the structure of a going concern, not a flier. Perhaps they need to rethink that "back the founder at all costs" mentality. Venture Capital & Technology' Perhaps we all should. I certainly have.

Term Sheet 143

Term Sheet Founder Cofounder Software Review 143

David Teten

AUGUST 21, 2019

Or should they look to one of the new wave of Revenue-Based Investors? Revenue-Based Investing (“RBI”) is a new form of VC financing, distinct from the preferred equity structure most VCs use. For more background, see Revenue-Based Investing: A New Option for Founders who Care About Control. Lower processing cost.

Revenue 60

Revenue Liquidation Preference Equity Cofounder 60

Version One Ventures

JULY 22, 2014

With lowered costs to build and run websites, acquire and retain users, virtually anybody can pick up coding and start a tech company. Any entrepreneur trying to navigate the financing landscape should be aware of the over-abundance of angel money compared with subsequent rounds. Is your opportunity at least $100M?

Finance 167

Finance Seed Money Bootstrapping Angel Investor 167

Both Sides of the Table

JUNE 22, 2011

Ah, but today’s Internet companies have real revenue! Or worse yet they may never get financed. Raise at “ the top end of normal &# but not so high that future financings in a corrected market become impossible. It’s what I love about entrepreneurship and about venture capital. and profits!

Saudi Arabia 309

Saudi Arabia Valuation IPO Technical Review 309

Up and Running

JULY 25, 2017

Most interesting is that first financings—or the number of startups that raised money for the first time from investors—is up about 25 percent, which bodes well for fledgling businesses seeking funding. Startups Going for Loans Rather Than Venture Capital. Small Business Optimism Soaring.

Technical Review 92

Technical Review Due Diligence America Small Business 92

Both Sides of the Table

JULY 16, 2010

One is the “denominator problem&# which says that if an LP invests X% (the denominator) into “alternative investments&# such as venture capital and if their total amount available to invest (the numerator) goes down by 30% then the amount they allocate to VC will by definition need to go down by 30% to stay the same percentage.

LP 311

LP Technical Review Early Stage Silicon Valley 311

David Teten

AUGUST 7, 2019

LTV / CAC, revenue growth, etc.) Today, some Momentum-centric venture capital investors have high paper returns. Simple reason: most of them have known only a rising market in their careers, and in such a market the companies that are already hot can usually raise more capital and force growth.

Venture Capital 60

Venture Capital Valuation Stock NDA 60

Up and Running

MARCH 14, 2018

Your revenue or business model. How much will it cost? Your financials should easily allow you to calculate your customer acquisition costs. Show what you’re projecting in revenue (per product) over the next three to five years. Will you need to raise multiple rounds of financing? How will you make money ?

Hockey Stick 164

Hockey Stick Exit Strategy Technical Review Angel Investor 164

Berkonomics

AUGUST 3, 2023

The subject of raising money is critical to many businesses and a passing option to others, depending upon the capital efficiency of the enterprise. And even with the significant cost of credit card debt, many entrepreneurs aggressively use existing cards to finance a startup.

Private Equity 118

Private Equity Valuation Cap Table Accredited Investor 118

Up and Running

DECEMBER 23, 2019

One of the most important decisions a new business owner can make is how they’re going to finance their venture. . This way your biggest cost is just your personal time. Before we took on venture capital investors, we funded our MVP by competing in local and university business competitions.

Finance 92

Finance Sweat Equity Bootstrapping Entrepreneur 92

Both Sides of the Table

JUNE 19, 2017

Gross burn is your cost base and net burn is the difference between your revenue and costs. How Much Capital You Have Raised / Your Runway In general I recommend that in early-stage startups you try to raise at least 15-18 months of runway. If your revenue grows you can afford to increase your cost base.

Burn Rate 212

Burn Rate Startup .Net Venture Capital 212

Cracking the Code

FEBRUARY 23, 2011

Thoughts from a Venture Capitalist on Software, Software-as-a-Service (SaaS), Cloud Computing, Internet and more. It would have been easy to explain the difference by changes in the 2010/2011 revenue growth projections but unfortunately that is not the case. revenues while large caps are trading at 6.4x. Venture Capital. (3).

Software Review 101

Software Review Technical Review Valuation Europe 101

VC Cafe

NOVEMBER 30, 2022

Together, we mapped 89 companies, that collectively raised over £2 billion in venture capital across consumer experiences, enabling technologies and infrastructure. billion in revenue in 2022. Access to finance and skills remain the key barriers to industry growth. UK XR startups generated over $1.4

Startup 122

Startup Generative AI Venture Capital Valuation 122

Both Sides of the Table

NOVEMBER 9, 2014

Generally speaking in venture capital financings the legal documents will specify that only “major investors” (a threshold set in the agreement – which can be $500,000 investor or more). They have listed forward revenue figures that are highly questionable and bring the issue of SEC oversight to my mind.

SEC 352

SEC Venture Capital Early Stage Cofounder 352

David Teten

JANUARY 21, 2021

This essay is part of a series on alternative VC: I: Revenue-Based Investing: a new option for founders who care about control. II: Who are the major Revenue-Based Investing VCs? III: Why are Revenue-Based VCs investing in so many women and underrepresented founders? IV: Should your new VC fund use Revenue-Based Investing?

Equity 78

Equity Revenue Cofounder Colorado 78

Growthink Blog

DECEMBER 20, 2017

The first is that we currently have awesome economic conditions: a roaring stock market, low unemployment, and solid consumer and business confidence, all of which make right now as good a time as ever to start, grow, finance, and/or sell a business. financing round. NativeAds (digital advertising) closed on a $4M venture financing.

Balance Sheet 48

Balance Sheet Malaysia Indonesia Finance 48

Austin Startup

NOVEMBER 6, 2017

C-Corp largely because (i) VCs have historically favored C-Corps for nuanced tax and other reasons, and (ii) virtually all of the standardized legal infrastructure around startup finance and equity compensation assumes a C-Corp. But going in the opposite direction costs you significantly. However, times are changing.

Delaware 48

Delaware LLC Startup Silicon Valley 48