Austin Startup

APRIL 28, 2019

I put that in quotations, because, as I’ll expound, there is a start-up industrial complex that is designed to fleece novice founders from their seed capital with predatory fees, terms, etc. If the value is there, then ask yourself if the cost is worth it. OK, enough with disclosures.

Incubator 50

Incubator Equity Programming Cloud 50

Business Plan Blog

NOVEMBER 22, 2013

Depending on the complexity of your product you may or may not be able to complete a working prototype or beta version with your FFF capital. You will also need proposals for the cost to develop the minimum viable product (the features that allow the product to be deployed). Founding Team, Key Hires, Advisory Board. Market Validation.

Intellectual Property 55

Intellectual Property Advisory Board Startup Seed Capital 55

Steve Blank

APRIL 10, 2019

And Mark Suster of Upfront Capital has a great post that summarizes these changes. The first big idea is that unlike in the 20 th century when there were two phases of funding startups– Seed capital and Venture capital–today there is a new, third phase. It’s called Growth capital.

Stock Options 334

Stock Options Stock Vesting Common Stock 334

Growthink Blog

MAY 23, 2011

With this seed capital – more often than not totaling between $100,000 and $1,000,000 - the company accomplishes a number of key technical milestones, gets a beta customer or two, and then goes on a "road show" to venture capitalists around the country for capital to “scale” the business. There are a lot of dark, hard days.

Angel Investor 112

Angel Investor Venture Capital Sweat Equity Cram Down 112

Gust

SEPTEMBER 5, 2012

Angel investors don’t expect to get repaid, nor do they really want to get repaid; the return on their investment, if the startup proves a success, will come in conversion to equity followed by an eventual liquidity event (sale or IPO of the company), with a return of at least 5x or 10x the initial investment if all goes well.

Finance 134

Finance Convertible Security Equity Seed Stage 134

Steve Blank

JUNE 11, 2013

These are great, but they are not repeatable by a sales organization. The test is: If you add one more sales person or spend more marketing dollars, does your sales revenue go up by more than your expenses? • Business model : A business model answers the basic questions about your entire business: Who are the customers?

Venture Capital 334

Venture Capital IRR Liquidity Event Business Model 334

crowdSPRING Blog

FEBRUARY 7, 2014

Raising Seed Capital – crowdspring.co/MX18CE. don’t return investors’ capital” – crowdspring.co/1dhuwIO. Four Keys to Sales Success | Inc by Howard Tullman – crowdspring.co/1fkx7V6. SEO Pricing: 600+ Agencies Share Costs of Services & Pricing Models | Moz – crowdspring.co/1f86l3x.

Social Media 95

Social Media Small Business Design Media 95

Both Sides of the Table

FEBRUARY 23, 2010

This is part of my ongoing series on startup advice but also filed under my sales & marketing posts. The only problem is that you can’t afford all of these expensive direct sales reps to go and sell it. Sort of amortizing the costs of their sales reps over more products. Imagine this.

Channel 293

Channel Startup Sales Partner 293

Steve Blank

JUNE 11, 2013

These are great, but they are not repeatable by a sales organization. The test is: If you add one more sales person or spend more marketing dollars, does your sales revenue go up by more than your expenses? • Business model : A business model answers the basic questions about your entire business: Who are the customers?

Venture Capital 226

Venture Capital IRR Liquidity Event Business Model 226

maplebutter.com

JANUARY 8, 2013

Do that – nothing else but one product / company / focus and get to $1M in sales with atleast $15% net profit. Outsourcing is something a big company, with a known customer / problem (that has revenue & traction) does to save cost. I also like to get a sale $$$ ASAP. We have two full time sales people and we use Salesforce.

Technical Review 44

Technical Review Startup Cofounder Software Review 44

Steve Blank

MAY 9, 2017

Continuous innovation requires the imagination and courage to challenge the initial hypotheses of your current business model (channel, cost, customers, products, supply chain, etc.) Today open source software has slashed the cost of software development from millions of dollars to thousands. The founders.

Restful 227

Restful Silicon Valley Puerto Rico San Jose 227

techcrunch.com

FEBRUARY 19, 2010

I personally think there should be a shift generally to funding smaller ideas, that are innovative enough to not cost millions to build and run, that may still net similar returns (30-50 times) but are less risk since they’re smaller. The cost of money is steep, and only works in certain verticals, of which software is NOT one.

Venture Capital 62

Venture Capital Technical Review Sweat Equity Valuation 62