David Teten

SEPTEMBER 23, 2017

In venture capital in particular, early-stage companies are often operating in frontier industries, where the rules are unpredictable and conventional analytic frameworks may be misleading. A number of analysts have particular focus on serving the customers of technology companies, e.g., Gartner and 451 Research.

Private Equity 60

Private Equity Venture Capital Equity Technical Review 60

Both Sides of the Table

JULY 27, 2014

We both agree that the later-stage valuations are being driven up to a point that feels irrationally priced [he uses b-round SaaS valuations as an example and I am willing to be even more broad based]. Most of those industries are fee-based and are competing on revenue growth. I don’t totally agree with that view.

Valuation 309

Valuation Pre-Money Valuation Later Stage Non-Compete 309

Both Sides of the Table

FEBRUARY 15, 2016

I know it sounds obvious but just so you understand: There are more capital sources available for earlier-stage capital, the information on which they are evaluating the investment is less (it is almost certainly just team and product) and the risk of the investor getting things wrong is diminished. You are in a classic cap table pinch.

Burn Rate 150

Burn Rate Cap Table Valuation Software Review 150

OnlyOnce

MARCH 14, 2011

We all knew if the feature or function that the client was asking for was within the realm of the possible. • We were very, very focused on creating customers and revenue —We were a startup. If we drove revenue above costs, we got to take home a salary. You’ll build custom code for certain clients.

Software Review 67

Software Review Development Team Review Later Stage Technical Review 67

Hippoland

OCTOBER 9, 2016

If you’re still in the early stages of your entrepreneur-education/journey, you may even think you need to protect your idea and not share it with anyone. revenue / traction / setting up infrastructure / etc) This can set you apart, because the vast majority of businesses I see at the seed stage are just ideas with no action.

Seed Stage 48

Seed Stage CTO Hire Email Later Stage 48

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

Startup Professionals Musings

MARCH 18, 2016

Investors know that valuations at startup early stages are negotiable, but they do expect that smart entrepreneurs understand the top three elements of a startup valuation would include the following. First priority is real revenue, customers and contracts. Factor in rapid growth and large future revenue projections.

Intellectual Property 120

Intellectual Property Valuation Pre-Money Valuation Startup 120

Steve Blank

JUNE 15, 2010

What startup stage do they typically invest in? Do they “get&# Customer Development ? What Startup Stage Do they Invest In? Certain VC’s like the new class of Super-Angels and small VC funds specialize in the early stage of a startup where you are searching for a business model. Is Your VC Founder Friendly?

Founder 231

Founder Vesting Later Stage Early Stage 231

David Teten

SEPTEMBER 5, 2014

I’ve written on the expert network industry a fair amount in the past: see How to Earn More Consulting Revenue from Expert Networks and How Executives Can Work with Private Equity and Venture Capital Portfolio Companies. We’re not mainly for B2B companies or later stage companies or anything like that.

New York 114

New York Technical Review Networking Advisory Board 114

Startup Professionals Musings

FEBRUARY 5, 2012

If your startup is at the wrong stage for the investor you are approaching, fishing for money is a waste of time for both of you. For instance, if your company is only a few weeks old and you have zero customers and your product offering is still in design, don’t expect someone to hand over $10 million to fund your efforts. Exit stage.

Investment Bankers 241

Investment Bankers Venture Capital Startup Initial Public Offering 241

Berkonomics

AUGUST 3, 2023

Whether the partner is a supplier looking to gain a lock on your business as it grows or a customer looking to create a competitive barrier through use of your product, such an investment typically carries fewer restrictions than from a professional investor and less oversight.

Private Equity 118

Private Equity Valuation Cap Table Accredited Investor 118

The Equity Kicker

NOVEMBER 28, 2016

Different investors place different weights on the three elements but as a rule earlier stage investors place more emphasis on the team and later stage investors place more emphasis on the market. Some very early stage investors go as far as to say that for them team is everything.

Seed Stage 60

Seed Stage Later Stage Early Stage Partner 60

Steve Blank

JUNE 15, 2011

Today, the signs of the new bubble are the Linked-In initial public offering (IPO), Facebook’s stratospheric valuation and the rapid rise of early-stage startup valuation. Long before others, they saw that these applications could have hundreds of millions of users with “off the chart&# revenue and profits.

Silicon Valley 328

Silicon Valley Stealth Valuation Mississippi 328

Startup Professionals Musings

OCTOBER 13, 2010

If your startup is at the wrong stage for the investor you are approaching, the courting is a waste of time for both of you. For instance, if your company is only a few weeks old and you have zero customers and your product offering is still in design, don’t expect someone to hand over $10 million to fund your efforts. Growth stage.

Investment Bankers 231

Investment Bankers Venture Capital Startup Initial Public Offering 231

Gust

NOVEMBER 22, 2011

If your startup is at the wrong stage for the investor you are approaching, fishing for money is a waste of time for both of you. For instance, if your company is only a few weeks old and you have zero customers and your product offering is still in design, don’t expect someone to hand over $10 million to fund your efforts. Exit stage.

Venture Capital 171

Venture Capital Investment Bankers Angel Investor Initial Public Offering 171

Growthink Blog

MAY 10, 2012

When seeking equity investments, the source of capital is, for the most part, tied to the stage of capital being raised. You see, equity capital is raised in stages or rounds. The five main stages include the following: 1. Early Stage Investment (Series A & B) 4. Pre-Seed Funding 2. Seed Funding 3.

Equity 88

Equity Mezzanine Later Stage Venture Capital 88

Software By Rob

JANUARY 8, 2019

Hundreds and hundreds of tweets, re-tweets, likes, Hacker News upvotes, email responses…it was immediately obvious that there is pent up demand for this kind of alternative early-stage startup funding. 2: We Focus on Early Stage SaaS. We’re a SaaS accelerator, and accelerators focus on early-stage companies.

Early Stage 46

Early Stage Valuation Seed Capital Revenue 46

View from Seed

JUNE 16, 2015

In my opinion, VCs shy away from directly answering the questions pertaining to “at what point a company is fundable” or give a generic answer regarding revenue. So, the bar will be different for each investor, and for very early stage fundraising, the goal is to find true believers more than convincing skeptics. (My

Boston 120

Boston Syndicate Syndication eCommerce 120

David Teten

DECEMBER 3, 2019

This provides us more time to develop meaningful relationships with prospects and customers. Data companies focused on early-stage startups include Aingel , fundsUP , Preseries , PredictLeads , and Sploda. These typically have a larger support ecosystem and greater assurance of long-term stability than the custom vendors.

Technical Review 78

Technical Review Software Review Analytics Private Equity 78

Growthink Blog

JUNE 9, 2011

The event gives emerging companies the opportunity to pitch and network with investors, executives, customers and the media. Bigger companies like Google have tons of cash and are looking to buy early stage companies (so you can get a big payday). Last week marked the 6th year for the conference "Launch: Silicon Valley."

Silicon Valley 107

Silicon Valley Later Stage Early Stage Cloud 107

Genuine VC

FEBRUARY 3, 2011

Once you’ve figured out whether you want to find a very early stage startup or a late stage one (the topic of my first post in this series ), the real hard work begins. On the early side, it's repeat founders coming together again or early runaway traction in an early beta that generates buzz.

Startup 148

Startup Portfolio Later Stage Hiring 148

Berkonomics

JUNE 8, 2017

Whether the partner is a supplier looking to gain a lock on your business as it grows or a customer looking to create a competitive barrier through use of your product, such an investment typically carries fewer restrictions than from a professional investor and less oversight. It’s an option, even though an expensive one.

Private Equity 106

Private Equity Valuation Cap Table Accredited Investor 106

Hippoland

MAY 16, 2018

As these start to enter the equity market, there are a lot of investors who will fund these companies at a very early stage – even seed investors who typically don’t do other pre-seed deals will bet here. 4) Seed rounds are dead These days, pre-seed, seed, and post-seed stages all honestly kind of blend together.

Seed Stage 48

Seed Stage Valuation Convertible Security Equity 48

Hippoland

MAY 16, 2018

As these start to enter the equity market, there are a lot of investors who will fund these companies at a very early stage – even seed investors who typically don’t do other pre-seed deals will bet here. 4) Seed rounds are dead These days, pre-seed, seed, and post-seed stages all honestly kind of blend together.

Seed Stage 48

Seed Stage Valuation Convertible Security Equity 48

Both Sides of the Table

MAY 24, 2021

It has historically been the case that VCs would rather fund the promise of 100x in a company with almost no revenue than the reality of a company growing at 50% but doing $20+ million in sales. He then went on the create an early-stage VC that I track closely?—? It literally drove FOMO. Entrada Ventures? —?that

Venture Capital 363

Venture Capital LP Valuation Later Stage 363

Small Business Force

FEBRUARY 21, 2014

In early stage companies (and even some later stage or mature ones), there is no one area where most entrepreneurs and small business owners are lacking in just basic fundamentals, than in dealing with their company's finances and financial management. This is more than just revenue or expense.

Finance 37

Finance Management Forecast Entrepreneur 37

Up and Running

AUGUST 19, 2014

I like how the Angel Capital Association describes the difference between angels and venture capitalists: “Angels generally invest their own money in start-ups and very early stage companies, while VCs mostly provide capital they have raised from others to later-stage businesses for growth.”. 51 percent). Tweet This Tip.

Angel Investor 161

Angel Investor Technical Review Due Diligence Startup 161

Steve Blank

JUNE 11, 2013

. • Repeatable: Startups may get orders that come from board members’ customer relationships or heroic, single-shot efforts of the CEO. Does our product or service solve a customer problem (product-market fit)? How do we attract, keep and grow customers? What are revenue strategy and pricing tactics?

Venture Capital 334

Venture Capital IRR Liquidity Event Business Model 334

Steve Blank

JUNE 11, 2013

. • Repeatable: Startups may get orders that come from board members’ customer relationships or heroic, single-shot efforts of the CEO. Does our product or service solve a customer problem (product-market fit)? How do we attract, keep and grow customers? What are revenue strategy and pricing tactics?

Venture Capital 226

Venture Capital IRR Liquidity Event Business Model 226

Both Sides of the Table

DECEMBER 3, 2013

I’m super proud to announce that DataSift has just completed a $42 million financing round coming at the end of a year where its revenue grew several hundred percent year-over-year. Considering our revenue is SaaS revenue this achievement is even more remarkable. I’m an early-stage investor.

Iran 358

Iran API San Francisco Nigeria 358

This is going to be BIG.

NOVEMBER 1, 2016

Yesterday, I met with a founder with an interesting model who was raising $400k to bring the finishing touches to her product to make it customer-ready. There was no reason to think that her technical team couldn't accomplish this--and, in fact, customers had already been using various hacked together versions of it previously.

Founder 60

Founder Angel Groups Cofounder New York City 60

Startup Professionals Musings

JULY 12, 2012

We are talking about angel investors here, meaning people who invest their own money in early-stage startups for a share of the equity. Generally, the same criteria applies to venture capital investors, although they invest other people’s money, at a later stage, in larger amounts.

Angel Groups 237

Angel Groups Angel Investor Early Stage Startup 237

Duct Tape Marketing

JANUARY 4, 2023

Then I want to talk to you about adding a new revenue stream to your business that will completely change how you work with clients. You know, it's, but how do you actually get through all of that noise and reach a prospective customer? We can trace it through to registering, doing a trial and eventually becoming Summer's customer.

SEO 87

SEO Audience Channel Campaign 87

Austin Startup

JUNE 26, 2019

The Whole Enchilada For those of you interested in more than The Skinny, keep reading… Countless conversations have been had with key users, customers, advisors, mentors, family and friends. and * on a bootstrapped budget* : We first engaged in customer surveys and validated a huge problem?—?several What did our customers think?

Silicon Valley 54

Silicon Valley Startup B2C Sweat Equity 54

Reid Hoffman

OCTOBER 17, 2018

In fact, to achieve your aggressive growth goals in the face of uncertainty and change, you need to follow a new set of rules that fly in the face of what is taught in business schools and are completely counterintuitive to accepted “best practices” of either early stage startups or classic corporate management. Revenue guidance.

Finder 28

Finder Rhode Island Cofounder Engineer 28

Startup Professionals Musings

APRIL 14, 2011

We are talking about angel investors here, meaning people who invest their own money in early-stage startups for a share of the equity. Generally, the same criteria applies to venture capital investors, although they invest other people’s money, at a later stage, in larger amounts.

Angel Investor 217

Angel Investor Angel Groups Early Stage Startup 217

Gust

JULY 1, 2012

We are talking about angel investors here, meaning people who invest their own money in early-stage startups for a share of the equity. Generally, the same criteria applies to venture capital investors, although they invest other people’s money, at a later stage, in larger amounts.

Angel Groups 143

Angel Groups Angel Investor Early Stage Startup 143