The Equity Kicker

SEPTEMBER 24, 2014

Two developments have changed the face of startup investing in the UK in recent years. The first development is increased capital efficiency. The second development is SEIS and EIS. Both of these schemes use the tax code to make it more attractive for high-net-worth individuals to invest in startups.

Early Stage 119

Early Stage Development Team Review Technical Review Software Review 119

Steve Blank

SEPTEMBER 14, 2009

Five Quarters of Profitability During the 1980’s and through the mid 1990’s startups going public had to do something that most companies today never heard of – they had to show a track record of increasing revenue and consistent profitability. They taught you about customers, markets and profits.

Silicon Valley 217

Silicon Valley IPO Technical Review Venture Capital 217

David Teten

SEPTEMBER 6, 2018

HOF Capital has stitched together our workflow across Google Suite , Slack , Airtable , Asana , Copper , and some other tools (leveraging Zapier for basic 3rd party integration, in addition to custom development for certain other integrations). See my summary on how lead investors think about building out their syndicate. .

Technical Review 60

Technical Review Private Equity Management Cap Table 60

David Teten

SEPTEMBER 6, 2018

HOF Capital has stitched together our workflow across Google Suite , Slack , Airtable , Asana , Copper , and some other tools (leveraging Zapier for basic 3rd party integration, in addition to custom development for certain other integrations). See my summary on how lead investors think about building out their syndicate. .

Technical Review 60

Technical Review Private Equity Management Cap Table 60

ReadWriteStart

JULY 21, 2011

When we were trying to raise money for E.piphany, my last startup, I was negotiating with a venture capital firm called Infinity Capital. They really wanted to invest, but it was the beginning of the bubble, and I wanted (what was then) an absurd valuation. All we had were six slides, and I wanted a $10 million post-money valuation.

Post-Money Valuation 122

Post-Money Valuation Valuation IPO Venture Capital 122

Startup Lessons Learned

SEPTEMBER 22, 2008

Master of 500 Hats: Startup Metrics for Pirates (SeedCamp 2008, London) This presentation should be required reading for anyone creating a startup with an online service component. In my opinion, every startup needs to "pick a major" among these three drivers of growth. Choose one. The AARRR model (hence pirates, get it?)

San Francisco 167

San Francisco CPA SEM CTO Hire 167

Feld Thoughts

NOVEMBER 18, 2013

Convertible debt financings have become an increasingly attractive approach for seed rounds because it delays the valuation discussion, costs less from a legal standpoint, and is an easier financial instrument to “keep raising more small amounts of money” on. One of them used to be a lead developer at [insert hot consumer tech company here].

Burn Rate 152

Burn Rate Equity Software Review Early Stage 152

Steve Blank

FEBRUARY 10, 2016

The show follows the journeys of founders who share what it takes to build a startup – from restaurants to rocket scientists, to online gifts to online groceries and more. He previously founded N&N Investments LLC, a real estate investment holding company; and is a program leader and fellow of the Startup Leadership Program. .

Silicon Valley 120

Silicon Valley Ohio Columbus Entrepreneur 120

David Teten

MARCH 28, 2012

In addition, in light of increasing competition in the startup funding space, a methodology for helping portfolio companies consistently is a strong competitive advantage. So how can VCs help their startups? Lowering that failure rate would be highly impactful on venture capitalist returns, if we could figure out how to do it.

Portfolio 144

Portfolio Private Equity Venture Capital Early Stage 144

Steve Blank

JANUARY 4, 2010

A lot of entrepreneurs think that their startup is the next big thing when in reality they’re just building a small business. How can you tell if your startup has the potential to be the next Google, Intel or Facebook? A first order filter is whether the founders are aiming for a scalable startup. The Scalable Startup.

Hockey Stick 276

Hockey Stick Venture Capital Startup Cofounder 276

Steve Blank

APRIL 12, 2013

I just spent a few weeks in Japan and China on a book tour for the Japanese and Chinese versions of the Startup Owners Manual. The first post described how China built a science and technology infrastructure to support advanced weapons systems development. In these series of 5 posts, I thought I’d share what I learned in China.

Venture Capital 271

Venture Capital China Offshore SBIR 271

Steve Blank

MARCH 18, 2011

The signals are loud and clear : seed and late stage valuations are getting frothy and wacky, and hiring talent in Silicon Valley is the toughest it has been since the dot.com bubble. What are they, how do they differ and what can startup do to take advantage of them? The world of building profitable startups ended in 1995.

Internet 334

Internet IPO Silicon Valley Agile 334

Steve Blank

APRIL 12, 2013

I just spent a few weeks in Japan and China on a book tour for the Japanese and Chinese versions of the Startup Owners Manual. The first post described how China built a science and technology infrastructure to support advanced weapons systems development. In these series of 5 posts, I thought I’d share what I learned in China.

Venture Capital 163

Venture Capital China Offshore SBIR 163

David Teten

SEPTEMBER 23, 2017

The only problem that faces startup investors now is how to mine this new data layer efficiently to increase returns.”. produced this analysis of engineering representation within VC firms: Selected VCs with Highest Representation of Developers in Workforce. VC Firm. $ Tech % of workforce. Google Ventures (GV). 17% (13 / 80).

Private Equity 60

Private Equity Venture Capital Equity Technical Review 60

Startup Lessons Learned

OCTOBER 28, 2008

Ill exclude those non- lean startups who basically exist for the purpose of raising bigger and bigger sums of money. Turns out, they were incredibly well-credentialed graduate students who had, in fact, developed some interesting new robotics technology. Youre not one of those are you?) how big is the market?

San Francisco 128

San Francisco Lean Continuous Deployment DC 128

The Startup Toolkit

AUGUST 29, 2012

If the founding team is non-technical and you can’t figure out whether you are being screwed by your developers or whether your potential new CTO is amazing, a tech advisor can help by joining you in interviews and reviewing commits. Sometimes advisors are a quick and cheap way to overcome. And sometimes it’s super ambiguous.

Technical Review 38

Technical Review CTO Hire Cap Table Software Review 38

Steve Blank

MAY 13, 2010

Consultants can help startups leverage their limited resources. But startups can shoot themselves in the foot when founders use consultants at the wrong time or in the wrong way. A friend of mine asked me to chat with a startup he’d invested in. They’re deep into Customer Development ,” he said. Here’s why.

Founder 199

Founder Cofounder Business Model Customer Development 199

Steve Blank

JULY 15, 2010

VC’s invested their limited partners’ “risk capital” in a portfolio of startups in exchange for illiquid stock. Most of the startups they invested in either died by running out of money before they found a scalable business model or ended up in the “land of the living dead” by never growing (failing to Pivot.). Startup Lifecycle Today.

Venture Capital 297

Venture Capital IPO Liquidity Event Entrepreneur 297

Steve Blank

APRIL 5, 2017

I was having coffee with the CEO of a new startup, listening to her puzzle through how to communicate to potential customers. Customer Discovery Never Stops. Understanding your audience(s) is important for not just startups, but for companies already selling products. Filed under: Customer Development , Marketing.

Marketing 310

Marketing Audience Technical Review PR 310

A Smart Bear: Startups and Marketing for Geeks

OCTOBER 23, 2012

Witness, for example, this terrific Fast Company article on Bill Nguyen , serial entrepreneur who’s seventh startup “Color” famously raised $41m for a new mobile app before it even launched. The launch, by the way, was a failure. And it’s now bankrupt.)

IPO 240

IPO Flash Bootstrapping Private Equity 240

Steve Blank

NOVEMBER 12, 2009

Their presentation looked like this: Market/Opportunity Lessons Learned Slide 1 Lessons Learned Slide 2 Lessons Learned Slide 3 Why We’re Here Telling the Cafepress Customer Discovery and Customer Validation story allowed Fred and Maheesh to take the VC’s on their journey year by year. Your results may vary.

Venture Capital 209

Venture Capital Silicon Valley RSS Hockey Stick 209

View from Seed

JANUARY 28, 2016

This is the best time to fundraise because that’s when you are able to command a meaningfully higher valuation for your next round to minimize your own dilution. Third, we look for founders that are customer obsessed, and are inclined to do the careful work of customer development that makes the pre-seed really productive.

Cofounder 120

Cofounder Finance Founder Syndicate 120

Rob Go

JULY 16, 2012

As few weeks ago, I wrote a tweet noting that many of the most remarkable scaling startups today were not “Lean Startups” by the traditional sense. Over the last several years, we’ve seen more companies get funded at high valuations that are ones that get traction inexplicably.

Lean 47

Lean Framework Venture Capital Valuation 47

The Next Web

DECEMBER 30, 2012

These are with no doubt worthwhile goals, but I’d like to pose an important challenge for founders: Make learning and development your key resolution in 2013. I’ve gathered a comprehensive list of resources for startup learning. Startup Hiring : How to attract, hire and retain the best people. Let’s get started!

Artificial Inteligence 156

Artificial Inteligence Founder Private Equity Ruby 156

The Startup Toolkit

JANUARY 12, 2017

Learning in advance that you don’t need to build a feature is one of the highest-impact (and most common) results of good customer development. It’s why talking to customers is able to speed you up, even though it feels like it’s slowing you down at the time (“But we could be coooooodiiiiiiiing!

Stealth 20

Stealth Bootstrapping Valuation Equity 20

Rob Go

JANUARY 28, 2016

This is the best time to fundraise because that’s when you are able to command a meaningfully higher valuation for your next round to minimize your own dilution. Third, we look for founders that are customer obsessed, and are inclined to do the careful work of customer development that makes the pre-seed really productive.

Cofounder 28

Cofounder Finance Founder Syndicate 28

ReadWriteStart

MARCH 27, 2011

Steve Blank, author of Four Steps to Epiphany , has helped formulate the thinking behind the Lean Startup methodology , together with Eric Ries. I had an opportunity to meet him during a discussion around the Startup Genome project. What would be the methodology for startups that simply want to flip? The focus is on building.

Lean 144

Lean Startup Agile Coder 144

SoCal CTO

JANUARY 5, 2011

Some really great stuff in 2010 that aims to help startups around product, technology, business models, etc. 500 Hats , February 1, 2010 When to Use Facebook Connect – Twitter Oauth – Google Friend Connect for Authentication? 500 Hats , February 1, 2010 When to Use Facebook Connect – Twitter Oauth – Google Friend Connect for Authentication?

Silicon Valley 378

Silicon Valley Startup Term Sheet Venture Capital 378

grasshopperherder.com

SEPTEMBER 24, 2011

Valuations. I was approached with one sweat equity offer that placed the valuation of the company at >$5 million pre-money and before even a seed round of funding. I would be very wary of accepting a valuation like this, simply because I’m not qualified and as a consultant, I shouldn’t have to be. Unseen Metrics.

Sweat Equity 41

Sweat Equity Equity Cofounder Non-Compete 41

steveblank.com

JULY 8, 2011

Useful blogs and links for startups Click Here ————– 2.

Software Review 110

Software Review Startup Silicon Valley Analytics 110

Steve Blank

MAY 9, 2017

I’ve spent my life in innovation, eight startups in 21 years, and the last 15 years in academia teaching it. the wave of semiconductor startups in the 1960’s/70’s, the emergence of Venture Capital as a professional industry, the personal computer revolution in 1980’s, the rise of the Internet in the 1990’s and finally.

Restful 222

Restful Silicon Valley Puerto Rico San Jose 222

www.quora.com

JANUARY 16, 2011

Find Questions, Topics and People Add Question Add Question Team Configuration 500 Startups Guerilla Marketing Organizations Entrepreneurship Startup Founders & Entrepreneurs Startups Startup Incubators and Seed Programs Seedcamp Y Combinator TechStars Lean Startups What is the perfect startup team?

Technical Review 51

Technical Review Startup CTO Hire Cofounder 51

www.vccafe.com

MARCH 11, 2013

Startup Resources (Updated Mar 2013). Venture Capital Cafe > Startup Resources (Updated Mar 2013). VC & Startup Resources. Seed Startups. VC Cafe covers early stage Israeli and European tech & mobile startups. Hundreds of startups featured since 2005, will yours be next? About VC Cafe.

Software Review 53

Software Review Technical Review Startup 53