Up and Running

MAY 30, 2018

My first company, Digital-Tutors , grew from a startup in my living room with $54 of my own seed money into a multi-million-dollar business with customers around the world. I was proud of the fact that we never used any outside investment money to grow the company. A leader’s winning formula.

Startup 107

Startup Seed Money Employee Conversion 107

Startup Lessons Learned

MAY 31, 2019

First, the introduction of seed money as an institutional form of capital. Before the mid-2000s, we mostly had individual angels writing small checks from their personal capital, but over the last 10-15 years we’ve seen hundreds of new institutional seed funds formed.

Lean 108

Lean Venture Capital Conversion IPO 108

www.paulgraham.com

OCTOBER 23, 2010

You need three things to create a successful startup: to start withgood people, to make something customers actually want, and to spendas little money as possible. One of the best tricks I learned during our startup was a rule for deciding who to hire. March 2005 (This essay is derived from a talk at the Harvard ComputerSociety.)

Startup 105

Startup Cofounder Software Stock 105

Version One Ventures

SEPTEMBER 8, 2014

With the influx of seed money, much has been written about the fact that start-ups that are taking far more funding than they need. At the beginning, it’s important to do things that don’t scale, especially when it comes to customer acquisition. As Paul Graham said , “startups take off because the founders make them take off.

Guerilla 158

Guerilla Seed Money Vertical Early Stage 158

Both Sides of the Table

NOVEMBER 18, 2012

Think about it – most entrepreneurs who manage to raise seed money or venture capital usually raise enough money for 12-18 months maximum. Sign up customers who are paying you money for a service you can’t 100% guarantee is going to be operational for the full period that they’re expecting.

Monaco 420

Monaco Cofounder Chicago Mexico 420

Version One Ventures

SEPTEMBER 8, 2014

With the influx of seed money, much has been written about the fact that start-ups that are taking far more funding than they need. At the beginning, it’s important to do things that don’t scale, especially when it comes to customer acquisition. As Paul Graham said , “startups take off because the founders make them take off.

Guerilla 91

Guerilla Seed Money Vertical Early Stage 91

pandodaily.com

NOVEMBER 29, 2012

We know this: As many as a thousand companies who’ve received seed rounds won’t be around in a year — maybe six months. There simply won’t be soft-landings and acqui-hires for all of them. The number of seed and angel investors has exploded in recent years, buoyed up by a number of factors.

Technical Review 93

Technical Review Silicon Valley Incubator Syria 93

This is going to be BIG.

APRIL 16, 2018

You think you're getting this big fat check compared to the seed money you raised, but they're actually doing something more like dipping their toes in the water. It's like making a hire that you can't fire--so having the chance for multiple interviews over a longer period of time is important and to your advantage.

Due Diligence 74

Due Diligence Early Stage Term Sheet Vesting 74

www.businessinsider.com

SEPTEMBER 6, 2012

Enter you email address and zip code to set up customized email alerts. Top Startup Advisor Paul Graham Just Warned Against Taking Googles Money. Google Ventures has made more than 100 seed investments, Maris said, including some past and present Y Combinator companies, and is making one to two new ones a week. Document Center.

Silicon Valley 54

Silicon Valley Startup Valuation Venture Capital 54

Gust

OCTOBER 2, 2014

Think about it – most entrepreneurs who manage to raise seed money or venture capital usually raise enough money for 12-18 months maximum. Sign up customers who are paying you money for a service you can’t 100% guarantee is going to be operational for the full period that they’re expecting. Hire fast, fire faster.

Monaco 122

Monaco Cofounder Chicago Mexico 122

Both Sides of the Table

APRIL 3, 2010

Chris Dixon provided some commentary on Twitter that he believes I missed “the most important point about fund size.&# He’s specifically referring to his point of view that entrepreneurs shouldn’t take seed money from “big VC’s&# (he defines them as > $100 million).

Venture Capital 265

Venture Capital Term Sheet Early Stage Silicon Valley 265

Berkonomics

MARCH 30, 2012

Many of those investors, individual and institutional, are still licking those wounds; and as a result, investors today want to see a working business model, and customers that are willing to spend good money for your specific solution. Crowd Funding: The Internet is at work here, especially for obtaining early stager seed money.

Intellectual Property 76

Intellectual Property Entrepreneur Small Business Administration SBA 76

www.paulgraham.com

APRIL 28, 2010

It wasnt because they werent accredited investors that I didntask my parents for seed money, though. When we were starting Viaweb,I didnt know about the concept of an accredited investor, anddidnt stop to think about the value of investors connections.The reason I didnt take money from my parents was that I didntwant them to lose it.

Technical Review 76

Technical Review Startup Software Review Angel Investor 76

Rob Go

NOVEMBER 15, 2016

For most companies, this means top-line revenue, but in some cases it’s more about numbers of active users or number of customers. You might do unscalable, hacky things to get customers. Instead, what I often see is that the minute seed money is in the bank, founders try to staff up very quickly. 3 years if needed.

Product 28

Product Seed Stage Seed Money Metrics 28

techcrunch.com

OCTOBER 23, 2010

Inevitably, the excuses begin: I need to hire people to build the product. I need money for the servers. No raising money. In later posts I’m going to get into more detail on specific topics like hiring, raising money, what types of ideas have the potential to get big, finding your founders, and the like.

Technical Review 84

Technical Review Cofounder Technical Cofounder Software Review 84

www.paulgraham.com

AUGUST 1, 2008

We could hire employees, but we want to be forced to figure out how to scale investing. Series A rounds, where you raise a million dollars or more, will be custom deals for the forseeable future. When you make things in large volumes you tend to standardize everything that doesnt need to change.

Web 54

Web Startup Silicon Valley Technical Review 54