Startup Professionals Musings

NOVEMBER 25, 2012

This probably seems obvious to military types, but I see entrepreneurs violating this rule all the time. But for Angel investors and venture capital investors, just remember that investors are not on your team (yet). Don’t try to talk and demo your way up the hill. Don’t charge the hill until you are “ready.”

Elevator Pitch 236

Elevator Pitch Entrepreneur Angel Investor Venture Capital 236

Startup Professionals Musings

JANUARY 25, 2014

This probably seems obvious to military types, but I see entrepreneurs violating this rule all the time. But for Angel investors and venture capital investors, just remember that investors are not on your team (yet). Don’t try to talk and demo your way up the hill. Don’t charge the hill until you are “ready.”

Elevator Pitch 268

Elevator Pitch Venture Capital Startup Angel Investor 268

Berkonomics

AUGUST 3, 2023

However, most often, these funds are solicited by a well-meaning entrepreneur from investors who are not qualified as accredited investors under the law (currently requiring a proved income of $200,000 a year or $1 million in net worth for an individual investor). It is most often a win-win for both you and the strategic partner.

Private Equity 118

Private Equity Valuation Cap Table Accredited Investor 118

YoungUpstarts

MAY 6, 2012

Many were first-time entrepreneurs with no formal business training. Last weekend saw the end of the program, and the startups were then expected to prove their worth to a crowd during the JFDI-Innov8 Bootcamp Demo Day. Here are the 11 startups that presented at the Demo Day: 1. TribeHired.

Singapore 145

Singapore Asia Startup B2C 145

Hunter Walker

MARCH 23, 2016

At demo days and on Hacker News, I found that many of the young companies I was excited about shared a seed investor, Chris Dixon. The next day, there was an email in my inbox asking if I’d consider a move to venture capital. Fortunately, my new job doubles down on my favorite parts of working as a reporter.

Technical Review 48

Technical Review Artificial Inteligence Software Review Venture Capital 48

Startup Professionals Musings

AUGUST 12, 2010

This probably seems obvious to military types, but I see entrepreneurs violating this rule all the time. But for angel investors and venture capital investors, just remember that investors are not on your team (yet). Don’t try to talk and demo your way up the hill. Don’t charge the hill until you are “ready.”

Elevator Pitch 217

Elevator Pitch Entrepreneur Angel Investor Venture Capital 217

Steve Blank

MAY 29, 2019

Innovators are not entrepreneurs. My contribution has been, “Why don’t we design classes more closely modeled to what innovators and entrepreneurs actually do.” .” The hard part is, “How do we deliver something?”. “Heroic innovation” within large corporations. End-to-end “Innovation Pipeline” process.

Incubator 331

Incubator Lean Programming Government 331

Startup Professionals Musings

MAY 8, 2017

This probably seems obvious to military types, but I see entrepreneurs violating this rule all the time. But for angel investors and venture capital investors, just remember that investors are not on your team (yet). Don’t try to talk and demo your way up the hill. Don’t charge the hill until you are “ready.”

Elevator Pitch 151

Elevator Pitch Angel Investor Venture Capital Business Plan 151

www.forentrepreneurs.com

FEBRUARY 2, 2010

Blog About Log in Register Startup Killer: the Cost of Customer Acquisition In the many thousands of articles advising entrepreneurs on what they have to focus on to build successful startups, much has been written about three key factors: team, product and market, with particular focus on the importance of product/market fit.

Acquisition 103

Acquisition Cost Customer Entrepreneur 103

Steve Blank

MAY 22, 2009

While one could argue that a trade show is just another demand creation activity akin to advertising or PR, trade shows are the closest eyeball-to-eyeball contact you’re company is going to have with customers, competitors and partners. And inviting to the booth/dinner/private demo. Demo’s are the heart of the booth.

Silicon Valley 128

Silicon Valley RSS California Customer Development 128

Both Sides of the Table

APRIL 27, 2014

I was having dinner with a friend last night and we were chatting about venture capital and a bit about what I’ve learned. Of course these are great places to network with other investors, meet great entrepreneurs and keep your connections strong with senior execs at larger companies like Yahoo!, Oh, the conferences.

Cofounder 374

Cofounder Syndicate Syndication Early Stage 374

K9 Ventures

JUNE 5, 2015

The Venture Capital industry as a whole does a terrible job of giving things the right name and so we end up keeping the same name, but changing the meaning out from under it. Moving up stream is a natural evolution of a venture fund, especially as you get more money and more partners. Scaling venture capital breaks it.

Seed Stage 48

Seed Stage Venture Capital Early Stage Valuation 48

Genuine VC

JANUARY 13, 2014

I’ve commonly heard entrepreneurs recite some version of “I don’t want to waste too much time fundraising because it will distract me from building my business, so I’ll only talk to a few potential funders.” Venture capital firms are comprised of people, which natural means that their idiosyncrasies seep into the process.

Term Sheet 206

Term Sheet Venture Capital Valuation Portfolio 206

Steve Blank

JULY 28, 2011

The combination of Venture Capital and technology entrepreneurship is one of the great business inventions of the last 50 years. It provides private funds for untested and unproven technology and entrepreneurs. Filed under: Lean LaunchPad , Teaching , Venture Capital. What Took You So Long.

Engineer 278

Engineer Silicon Valley United States Intellectual Property 278

Both Sides of the Table

FEBRUARY 14, 2018

The idea is simple enough: several female VC partners at top funds will hold 1-hour meetings with 40 promising female entrepreneurs looking to get advice on their business and pitch in a friendly, non-judgmental, safe environment. My partner Kara wrote a great post on the topic that you should read. we have a long way to go.

Founder 256

Founder San Francisco Deal Flow Los Angeles 256

Startup Professionals Musings

SEPTEMBER 9, 2011

This probably seems obvious to military types, but I see entrepreneurs violating this rule all the time. But for angel investors and venture capital investors, just remember that investors are not on your team (yet). Don’t try to talk and demo your way up the hill. Don’t charge the hill until you are “ready.”

Elevator Pitch 239

Elevator Pitch Angel Investor Venture Capital Business Plan 239

www.forentrepreneurs.com

FEBRUARY 2, 2010

Conversion rate from phone calls to Demos. (If Conversion rate from Demos to Closed Deals. (If If this is low, it means the sales person needs better demo training.) On your inside sales section, I am not sure that maximizing point #3 (dials to demos) is always optimal. Average Deal Size. (If

Metrics 55

Metrics Design Entrepreneur Startup 55

Genuine VC

JULY 10, 2012

There are essentially two distinct basic strategies for startup entrepreneurs to raise a seed round of capital: Subscription approach – An entrepreneur sets a structure (usually a convertible note) and recruits individual angel investors who subscribe to the round, all without a term-driving lead investor.

Syndicate 207

Syndicate Syndication Seed Stage Portfolio 207

Steve Blank

DECEMBER 7, 2009

The initial hypothesis for Epiphany (from my much smarter partner Ben ) was that as departments in the enterprise (manufacturing, finance, customer support sales) became automated, the marketing department would eventually get its turn. As a young entrepreneur in his first startup, this post hits our current situation spot on.

Silicon Valley 225

Silicon Valley Non-disclosure Agreement NDA Startup 225

This is going to be BIG.

MAY 14, 2012

Sun's space was for it's customer assistance unit and Cornell just had a demo space patched into a supercomputer back on campus. Companies can't find the partners and employees they need. I'm sure their Summer Camp demo day will be the first time a lot of VCs have set foot in the thriving outer borough.

Community 124

Community Detroit Chicago Government 124

Steve Blank

DECEMBER 30, 2014

The class provides Life Science/Health Care entrepreneurs with real world, hands-on learning on how to rapidly : define clinical utility before spending millions of dollars. Testing hypotheses with doctors, patients, payers, providers, purchasing departments, strategic partners is hard. identify financing vehicles before you need them.

San Diego 261

San Diego North Carolina Chicago Lean 261

David Teten

JUNE 16, 2011

Join our panel and entrepreneurs for a startup pitch event on June 23. 6:40 PM – 6:50 PM – foodspotting.com (demo only). Panel: Bill Reinisch - Paladin Capital Group. Geoff Schneider – Managing Partner @ Cava Capital. Geoff Schneider – Managing Partner @ Cava Capital.

Cofounder 128

Cofounder New York Venture Capital Startup 128

Both Sides of the Table

MAY 13, 2018

For simplicity I’ll assume you’ve raised some money from angels or seed investors and you’re either raising an A round or a B round of venture capital. You might start with a partner in the meeting or it might be a principal or associate. Remember, I was an entrepreneur for 10 years before a VC).

Term Sheet 332

Term Sheet Due Diligence Campaign Sales 332

Berkonomics

JUNE 8, 2017

However, most often, these funds are solicited by a well-meaning entrepreneur from investors who are not qualified as accredited investors under the law (currently requiring a proved income of $200,000 a year or $1 million in net worth for an individual investor). It is most often a win-win for both you and the strategic partner.

Private Equity 106

Private Equity Valuation Cap Table Accredited Investor 106

Both Sides of the Table

OCTOBER 1, 2009

This post highlights some of the reasons why the market is moving again and what entrepreneurs should do about this. So what is driving the new energy in the remaining venture capital firms when we kept hearing how much the whole industry was “against the ropes?&# … 1. but I’ll save that for post 3/3).

IPO 255

IPO Investment Bankers Venture Capital Marketing 255

venturebeat.com

MARCH 8, 2011

You have a salary and probably won't be as money conscious a full time entrepreneur, so you will tend to spend more, sometimes to cover your guilt for not being there always. This story originally appeared on his blog.) Most people start their first company while they still have a day job. A couple thoughts: 1. You already have the time.

Software Review 41

Software Review Startup Technical Review Mobile 41

www.quora.com

JANUARY 16, 2011

Find Questions, Topics and People Add Question Add Question Venture Capital Venture Capital Term Sheets Startups Term Sheets What are examples of good startup term sheets? Ivan Gaviria , Partner at Gunderson Dettmer [link] 1 vote by Anon User Here is the Gunderson term sheet for a traditional Series A.

Term Sheet 41

Term Sheet Startup Angel Investor Wiki 41

Steve Blank

DECEMBER 7, 2010

Jon Feiber of Mohr Davidow Ventures and Ann Miura-Ko of Floodgate are co-teaching the class with me (and Alexander Osterwalder is a guest lecturer.) We have two great teaching assistants , plus we’ve rounded up a team of 25 mentors (VC’s and entrepreneurs) to help coach the teams. Why Teach This Class? to optimize this search.

Wiki 311

Wiki Lean Management Business Model 311

Up and Running

JANUARY 30, 2014

My partner is a full-time developer and math teacher, and I’m an engineer. To thrust our venture forward, gain business skills quickly, and increase our chances of raising capital, we searched for an accelerator program. Accelerators are short entrepreneur training programs designed to jump-start new businesses.

Incubator 105

Incubator New York City Venture Capital Startup 105

Professor VC

MARCH 10, 2009

In other parts of the country, this is business as usual: Identify a customer need Build a product Sell the product In the valley, the knee jerk reaction is to start with the powerpoint deck and look for the venture capital drug. Jon Fisher purposely avoided raising venture capital in his ventures. Venture News.

Bootstrapping 28

Bootstrapping San Jose Silicon Valley Software Review 28

Professor VC

JANUARY 27, 2008

During the next four months, we will examine over a dozen entrepreneurial ventures from a diverse mix of industries - technology, service, food & beverage, and fashion. I think this same concept plays into what Ive seen happening a lot more in the venture community: partners at VC firms jumping back into entrepreneurial ventures.

San Jose 28

San Jose Technical Review Angel Investor Venture Capital 28

Professor VC

APRIL 7, 2011

My partner in Menlo Incubator , Gary Kremen , and I had a recent debate on which one of us hates convertible debt more. This will also serve as a good pointer for all the entrepreneurs who ask why I am not interested in their company led convertible note financing round. Are DEMO's days numbered? How Much Diligence is Due.

San Jose 36

San Jose Technical Review Angel Investor Valuation 36

The Startup Magazine

MAY 16, 2018

The BMW Financial Services Collaboration Lab accelerator program provides entrepreneurs, start-ups, and small businesses in fintech and other fields with the opportunity to partner with BMW to develop and realize innovative solutions and game-changing new technologies. Collaboration is where innovation and implementation meet.”.

Columbus 91

Columbus Ohio North America America 91

Professor VC

NOVEMBER 19, 2009

I attended the annual LP meeting for a venture capital firm this week and got into a discussion about the above question. At a high level, I definitely agree that being an entrepreneur and being in school dont necessarily mix. And what would you consider to be core values that every entrepreneur should keep in mind?

San Jose 43

San Jose Silicon Valley Las Vegas Venture Capital 43

Professor VC

JANUARY 20, 2009

The Most Important Venture Capital Statistic. million for the year, which is the first time it has been below $5 million since 2001, a sign that capital efficiency will be even more important than it has. We decided to raise some venture debt as an insurance policy and extend our cash runway. Are DEMO's days numbered?

Venture Capital 28

Venture Capital Silicon Valley San Jose Bootstrapping 28

YoungUpstarts

SEPTEMBER 27, 2013

Adams, authors of “ Venture Capital For Dummies ® “ You’ve managed to get the attention of well-established venture capitalists. Or maybe your projected earnings were reasonable, but your product demo went horribly wrong. If you’re not ready for venture capital, you have other options.

Venture Capital 180

Venture Capital Technical Cofounder Milwaukee Valuation 180

ReadWriteStart

AUGUST 1, 2011

The combination of venture capital and technology entrepreneurship is one of the great business inventions of the last 50 years. It provides private funds for untested and unproven technology and entrepreneurs. While most of these investments fail, the returns for the ones that win are so great they make up for the failures.

Silicon Valley 118

Silicon Valley Intellectual Property Balance Sheet Lean 118