Startup Professionals Musings

JANUARY 19, 2020

The cost of entry for tech startups continues to go down. Twenty years ago, it cost several million dollars to launch an e-commerce startup, which can be done today for a few thousand dollars. Mobile and web software apps may cost even less. Super angels have greater scope to match talent with a startup.

Angel Investor 314

Angel Investor Venture Capital Silicon Valley Startup 314

Startup Professionals Musings

JANUARY 22, 2020

You need to know why and how they invest, and then focus on the ones who are the best match for your startup. Since they know that most startups fail, their target return is ten times investment, so be prepared to talk cost vs revenue and product life. Set a realistic valuation for your startup to attract angels.

Angel Investor 322

Angel Investor Valuation Syndicate Syndication 322

Startup Professionals Musings

AUGUST 5, 2023

The first step is to set your criteria, including a match for your sector type and stage, and then proactively seek out and contact the best candidates: Review profiles on professional social media sites. Friends and family are key at the idea and early development stages, when you have minimal business valuation.

Angel Investor 246

Angel Investor Stealth Bootstrapping Early Stage 246

Startup Professionals Musings

SEPTEMBER 14, 2016

Things will cost more than you expect. Match your office, facilities and computer equipment to the size of the staff you have today, and intend to have in the next six months. That should equate to an adequate valuation for a $2 million follow-on Series-A round, without giving away all the equity. You will make mistakes.

Burn Rate 120

Burn Rate Hockey Stick Startup Salary 120

Startup Professionals Musings

NOVEMBER 22, 2020

The first step is to set your criteria, including a match for your sector type and stage, and then proactively seek out and contact the best candidates: Review profiles on professional social media sites. Friends and family are key at the idea and early development stages, when you have minimal business valuation.

Stealth 434

Stealth Startup Angel Investor Bootstrapping 434

Startup Professionals Musings

OCTOBER 19, 2015

The best technologies are barely invisible and low cost. In today’s world of information overload, everyone relies on marketing and social media to find solutions to match their needs. The right marketing efforts can cost as much as the technology. New technology is so exciting it sells itself.

Technical Review 120

Technical Review Intellectual Property Cofounder Bootstrapping 120

Berkonomics

AUGUST 3, 2023

When the need is high… For the rest of us, desiring to build large, valuable enterprises quickly, the need for outside capital is high on our list of requirements and even the source for some sleepless nights as we worry over the availability and cost of capital.

Private Equity 118

Private Equity Valuation Cap Table Accredited Investor 118

Both Sides of the Table

APRIL 15, 2010

So when Google started pushing AdSense (ads for affiliate or 3rd party sites) they had a HUGE cost advantage. They want to monetize the Twitter stream via contextual search matching. it seems that Twitter should have the same Google-like cost advantage. billion valuation. They could take a long term view. Enter TweetUp.

Venture Capital 271

Venture Capital Affiliate Valuation San Francisco 271

Hunter Walker

SEPTEMBER 15, 2023

Semil asserts, Seed-stage valuations have generally been left-unchanged, and I could argue even they’ve gone up since the beginning of 2022. Valuations for the Top Decile of Seed Startups Have Fallen Less YoY While the Second Decile Have Been Hit Harder.

Cap Table 93

Cap Table Valuation Salary Seed Stage 93

David Teten

MAY 1, 2013

The name needs to match the business. Keyword rich domain names get a considerable boost in search rankings; an exact match is even better. Just purchasing an Exact Match Domain name is not enough.”. Still, deciding on the right price for a target domain name is almost entirely an exercise in negotiation, not valuation.

Naming 114

Naming Semantic Venture Capital Startup 114

Steve Blank

MARCH 31, 2014

Look at the valuations of companies like Tesla, Illumina, and Twitter. The companies that can show “startup-like” growth rates of 50% plus per year will get stratospheric market valuations. For example they can reduce component cost, introduce a line extension or create new versions of the existing product.

Private Equity 326

Private Equity Metrics China Intellectual Property 326

Agile VC

APRIL 17, 2011

Obviously most of these employees are working hard primarily for equity upside compensation, but Kayak’s personnel costs are roughly $200K/head so the company is highly productive on a per employee basis. Post-money valuation probably no higher than $12M (2). Pre-money valuation was approx. Pre-money valuation was approx.

Pre-Money Valuation 113

Pre-Money Valuation Liquidation Preference Dividend Common Stock 113

Up and Running

AUGUST 29, 2014

A major cause of business failure is not having enough cash available to cover all startup costs and operate for at least a year. A Certified Public Accountant (CPA) is a state licensed professional who offers various accounting, auditing, tax, financial analysis, business valuation and consulting services.

Small Business 87

Small Business CPA Government North America 87

Startup Professionals Musings

DECEMBER 27, 2014

Individual angel investors have been filling the gap, and now match VCs in total amount invested. The cost of entry for tech startups continues to go down. Twenty years ago, it cost several million dollars to launch an e-commerce startup, which can be done today for a few thousand dollars.

Angel Investor 260

Angel Investor Silicon Valley Startup Portfolio 260

Version One Ventures

OCTOBER 15, 2020

But the Lightning Network offers two entirely different value props that no other blockchain or smart contracts platform can match: Instant settlement in bitcoin with nearly 0 fees (Ethereum fees spiking to >$10 /transaction during the DeFi craze of sumer 2020 was a good reminder of its own scalability limitations).

Networking 168

Networking Global OTC Security 168

Berkonomics

JANUARY 3, 2013

And in a sale of the company, it is usually better for the seller who will command a bonus valuation based upon some multiple of recurring revenues due to the comfort value to the buyer and the increased lifetime value of each customer to the enterprise.

Revenue 79

Revenue Software Review Vertical Valuation 79

Austin Startup

AUGUST 20, 2017

You can conduct group interviews, get your candidate “liquored up” (not a recommendation), and even have a trial period on the job to see if there’s a good match. Keep the valuations consistent with company progress. Can you acquire them at a sustainable cost? You also must give thought to the priorities of tasks at hand.

Technical Review 48

Technical Review Software Review Cap Table Securities and Exchange Commission 48

Startup Professionals Musings

FEBRUARY 5, 2018

These are companies that not only have a familiar brand, but carry from five to 35 billion dollar valuations. Today as companies use tools to collect massive amounts of data on desired consumers, brands are able to increasingly market to very specific groups of people, at less cost. Time is of the essence.

IRR 143

IRR Marketing Startup Angel Investor 143

K9 Ventures

JUNE 5, 2015

Low supply of companies with traction drove the valuations and deal sizes up. In addition, the competition for and the cost of hiring people, especially in the San Francisco Bay Area, has gone up dramatically. So while the infrastructure cost and startup costs may have declined, the operating costs have increased.

Seed Stage 48

Seed Stage Venture Capital Early Stage Valuation 48

Steve Blank

FEBRUARY 10, 2016

Your product and company vision needs to match your appetite for funding. He stressed that your product and company vision needs to match your appetite for funding: One thing that we learned very early on was, have a plan for fund-raising. … And know that just because a venture failed doesn’t mean that you’re a failure.

Silicon Valley 120

Silicon Valley Ohio Columbus Entrepreneur 120

Up and Running

JUNE 14, 2017

For instance, to simulate an Uber-like experience, you could create a Facebook ride sharing page that matches riders with drivers on demand, by simply asking members to post their ride requests, then privately chatting with drivers. They matched buyers with these businesses manually on-demand.

Technical Review 96

Technical Review Distribution Redemption Demand 96

Startup Professionals Musings

AUGUST 26, 2018

According to Investor's Business Daily , even though IPOs in 2018 through July were up nearly 39 percent from last year, the total of 115 companies so far is still nowhere near the rate required to match the yearly total of 486 hit way back in 1999. There are real ongoing costs of maintaining a public company.

Exit Strategy 128

Exit Strategy IPO Initial Public Offering SEC 128

Startup Professionals Musings

OCTOBER 24, 2021

Some of the other items may cost a lot less, and may be worth far more in the long run. domainname.com) is just as critical as the company name, and the two should match as nearly as possible. The cost for a single trademark is less than $300. You need all these before you start looking for funding. Internet domain name.

Intellectual Property 363

Intellectual Property Portfolio Valuation Non-disclosure Agreement 363

Up and Running

DECEMBER 11, 2013

Watch how the sharks deal with valuation. That establishes their proposed valuation. So for example, if they want to give 10 percent of the company for $100,000, that’s a valuation of $1 million; and 30 percent for $150,000 is a valuation of $500,000. But the importance of valuation is also always there.

Valuation 136

Valuation Oregon Burn Rate Angel Groups 136

The Startup Magazine

FEBRUARY 8, 2024

With so many platforms available, it is necessary to carefully evaluate each option according to various factors like scalability, user friendliness, integration capabilities, support services, and cost effectiveness.

Forecast 140

Forecast Analytics Framework Employee 140

Tim Keane

MARCH 9, 2011

The overarching idea, of course, is to reduce the cost of capital while maintaining appropriate flexibility for the venture.  2]   Aligning interests in structure: cost and risk.   About the same cost as #2 but more flexible if repayment terms slip a bit.   But details in each category vary dramatically.

Finance 83

Finance Bootstrapping Startup Equity 83

Start Up Blog

NOVEMBER 18, 2020

Here are some of their key numbers below: Filed to float with a valuation of around $13b USD. The problem is that it has a technology company valuation. Valuation around $30b. It is purely connection via software, and hence deserves a technology company style valuation. DOOR DASH – IPO. Lost $450m USD last year.

IPO 62

IPO Valuation Software Venture Capital 62

David Cohen

AUGUST 1, 2018

We’re living at a time when valuations are very high, as Fred Wilson and Ari Newman have both recently pointed out. When valuations rise, so do the caps on notes, which are upper limits on valuation at conversion. For example, a company may be raising $1M in notes at $15M pre-money valuation cap with a 20% discount.

Pre-Money Valuation 83

Pre-Money Valuation Valuation Equity Finance 83

Cracking the Code

NOVEMBER 10, 2009

Cloud accounting is all about matching revenue and costs to consumption…well, except for professional services! In regards to calculatimg the "Magic Number" - should the amount included as sales and marketing costs match the length of the sales cycle? SaaS 13 Index Valuation. Mind the GAAP!

Software Review 48

Software Review Cloud Technical Review Sales Cycle 48

crowdSPRING Blog

NOVEMBER 1, 2013

Commuting’s Hidden Cost | NYT - crowdspring.co/1aR15fY. But a nearly $4 billion valuation? Proof That Typography And Posters Are A Perfect Match - crowdspring.co/1auMwjx. Qualities Of Truly Great Employees | Business Insider by Dharmesh Shah - crowdspring.co/1h0QmFY. Pinterest is a good idea & well executed.

Social Media 94

Social Media Small Business Design Media 94

Startup Professionals Musings

FEBRUARY 1, 2016

It’s very easy and inexpensive to set up online a Limited Liability Company (LLC) for the startup, which will allow you to track business costs, cash and taxes correctly -- no matter what happens. Tax status can be assigned separately to match your preferences. Define a business entity early to manage taxes and intellectual property.

Intellectual Property 120

Intellectual Property LLC Limited Liability Company Nevada 120

Berkonomics

JUNE 8, 2017

For the rest of us desiring to build large, valuable enterprises quickly, the need for outside capital is high on our list of requirements and even the source for some sleepless nights as we worry over the availability and cost of capital. Do not expect grand valuations of your enterprise from these professional angels.

Private Equity 106

Private Equity Valuation Cap Table Accredited Investor 106

Lightspeed Venture Partners

SEPTEMBER 21, 2013

The smartphone app that enables this is free but it costs $2.49 to fund the company at a $6M post money valuation from a number of investors including Selena Gomez. pre money valuation and planned to use the money to market the app. pre money valuation). pre money valuation. pre money valuation and a $2.7M

Pre-Money Valuation 159

Pre-Money Valuation Valuation Dilution Distribution 159

Startup Professionals Musings

AUGUST 27, 2012

Explain in analogies your mother could understand, and quantify the “cost-of-pain” in dollars or time. Make sure your marketing budget matches the scope of your plan. What is the current valuation of the company? Here are the ten slides you need: Problem and market need. Give the “elevator pitch” for your startup.

Elevator Pitch 247

Elevator Pitch Exit Strategy Burn Rate Merger 247

Startup Professionals Musings

MAY 13, 2016

The first step is to set your criteria, including a match for your sector type and stage, and then proactively seek out and contact the best candidates: Review profiles on professional social media sites. Friends and family are key at the idea and early development stages, when you have minimal business valuation.

Stealth 120

Stealth Startup Angel Investor Bootstrapping 120

Startup Professionals Musings

JUNE 10, 2011

Explain in analogies your mother could understand, and quantify the “cost-of-pain” in dollars or time. Make sure your marketing budget matches the scope of your plan. What is the current valuation of the company? Here are the ten slides you need: Problem and market need. Give the “elevator pitch” for your startup.

Elevator Pitch 234

Elevator Pitch Exit Strategy Burn Rate Merger 234

Startup Professionals Musings

MAY 19, 2010

Explain in analogies your mother could understand, and quantify the “cost-of-pain” in dollars or time. Make sure your marketing budget matches the scope of your plan. What is the current valuation of the company? Here are the ten slides you need: Problem and market need. Give the “elevator pitch” for your startup.

Elevator Pitch 235

Elevator Pitch Exit Strategy Burn Rate Merger 235