View from Seed

MARCH 4, 2020

In a few months, we are likely to see the annual Forbes Midas list of top performing early stage VC investors. I’m quite optimistic about the direction that this is headed based on the momentum of more diverse hiring in the junior and mid-level ranks of the industry. Innovation is Becoming More Broadly Distributed.

Venture Capital 313

Venture Capital China Technical Review Africa 313

Startup Professionals Musings

JULY 3, 2012

The proactive solution is to hire sparingly, and spend the time and effort needed to hire existing experts in all cases. Don’t hire your friends and family, don’t assume they can learn on the job, and don’t assume that cheap is best. Stretch” goals in early-stage are not advised. Too slow or too fast to change.

Advisory Board 240

Advisory Board Forecast Early Stage Product Development 240

Startup Professionals Musings

APRIL 20, 2011

The proactive solution is to hire sparingly, and spend the time and effort needed to hire existing experts in all cases. Don’t hire your friends and family, don’t assume they can learn on the job, and don’t assume that cheap is best. Stretch” goals in early-stage are not advised. Too slow or too fast to change.

Advisory Board 232

Advisory Board Startup Forecast Early Stage 232

Both Sides of the Table

APRIL 13, 2011

I think you have to listen to the queue’s.” “…if you look at a lot of the early stage investors, whether it be Union Square Ventures or First Round or Jeff Clavier at Softtech or Dave McClure – we want to try the product, we want to experience the product, we want to get a sense of how the entrepreneur is thinking about it.

Technical Review 288

Technical Review Venture Capital Silicon Valley Software Review 288

Gust

DECEMBER 22, 2011

Most of our early-stage startup clients fit this description. Copyright is the right to control reproduction and distribution of original works of authorship fixed in tangible forms of expression. This is often referred to in the creative community as a “ work-for-hire agreement.”.

Intellectual Property 149

Intellectual Property Technical Review Software Review IP 149

Both Sides of the Table

SEPTEMBER 8, 2010

Recruits, hires, and retains the very best talent for the company. Hiring & Firing the CEO. This is the failure of many early-stage companies when they try to scale. As things got bigger we hired a head of European sales and a head of European marketing. Makes sure there is always enough cash in the bank.

Ireland 319

Ireland Sales Bankruptcy Germany 319

Both Sides of the Table

JULY 22, 2010

You’ll need to hire and retain talen to grow your company. This states how the proceeds from a sale or dissolution of the company will be distributed. VC’s in early rounds will argue that “participation&# is simply downside protection and if you sell for a lower price they should get more of the proceeds.

Valuation 405

Valuation Liquidation Preference Pre-Money Valuation Term Sheet 405

Rob Go

SEPTEMBER 4, 2018

It occurred to me that although we mentioned our new thematic approach when we raised our last fund in 2017, we haven’t really shared a broader manifesto about how we are approaching the early stage market. It’s been an interesting several years in the early stage venture eco-system, and the sands have shifted considerably.

North America 36

North America Seed Stage Early Stage Lead Investor 36

Startup Professionals Musings

APRIL 12, 2010

The proactive solution is to hire sparingly, and spend the time and effort needed to hire existing experts in all cases. Don’t hire your friends and family, don’t assume they can learn on the job, and don’t assume that cheap is best. Stretch” goals in early-stage are not advised. Too slow or too fast to change.

Advisory Board 125

Advisory Board Startup Forecast Early Stage 125

BeyondVC

JANUARY 3, 2019

In 2019, we’ll be doubling down on this effort as we are hiring a GM for our CXO Advisory Board & Network ( job description here ). While developers can now spin up applications faster than ever before, one of the downsides is the complexity of managing these distributed applications and technologies.

Stealth 79

Stealth Advisory Board Cloud Virginia 79

David Teten

JULY 25, 2017

We have insight on the competencies of our companies’ personnel, and who is hiring or shrinking. We also have a better known brand than some of our early stage companies, so we can leverage that to help source talent. with the announcement of a funding round, new senior hires, etc.

Portfolio 60

Portfolio Technical Review Private Equity Database 60

This is going to be BIG.

AUGUST 22, 2012

Who should you hire? It’s basically working with potential outside partners to reach your business goals--which could be revenue, distribution, financing, product development, awareness, etc. Many startups outsource visual design work, and instead of hiring that designer, hire a second developer.

PR 144

PR Technical Review Seed Stage Design 144

Transformify

SEPTEMBER 12, 2017

Post Brexit, many companies in the UK consider distributed teams overseas as an alternative to the shrinking talent pool and high recruitment costs in Britain. Commenced in July 2017, The Youth Enterprise Development Fund provides start-up loans to help young entrepreneurs fund their businesses at a very early stage.

Africa 75

Africa Benin Seychelles Nigeria 75

Berkonomics

JUNE 10, 2021

How about early-stage companies with unique problems? In an early-stage company, the key issue is most often finding the way to start the revenue flowing from services and sales. With enough revenues, the young company can more easily raise equity funds, borrow money, hire top talent, and gain valuable publicity.

Early Stage 62

Early Stage Equity Distribution Revenue 62

Rob Go

JANUARY 12, 2015

As an early stage investor, should you pay up for team or traction? When you are thinking about joining an early stage company, how should you be evaluating the risk of the overall company? How should you be weighing the presence of a great founding team vs. early signs of traction? The Case for Traction.

B2B 28

B2B Early Stage Distribution Software Review 28

VC Cafe

OCTOBER 4, 2022

The application landscape, while still in the early stages, seems to be rapidly growing. Existing service marketplaces : such as Fiverr, offering the option to ‘hire an AI’ to do the job. ” The more complex the service, the more defensible the marketplace (Source: Andrew Chen ).

Generative AI 204

Generative AI Artificial Inteligence Video Architecture 204

View from Seed

JANUARY 13, 2015

When you are thinking about joining an early stage company, how should you be evaluating the risk of the overall company? How should you be weighing the presence of a great founding team versus early signs of traction? Great teams fail to build a product and get early distribution all the time.

Seed Stage 120

Seed Stage B2B Distribution Early Stage 120

Scalable Startup

JANUARY 15, 2015

Hire them 8 hours at a time and review daily by skype, g hangout. They keep you involved even from the early stages of the value chain including selecting the right engineers and taking direction and input on the future technical growth plan for those engineers. Work directly with engineers, no company involved.

Offshore 20

Offshore Web Development Europe Web 20

Duct Tape Marketing

APRIL 6, 2022

Steve Hoffman (06:08): If you don't get the right people on board, you know, hire them really hard to succeed, marketing, getting your name out. That is the role of the CEO in an early stage company. It's just not the same when you're distributed and talking remotely. We were early on in the ecosystem in San Francisco.

San Francisco 97

San Francisco Technical Review Incubator Silicon Valley 97

The Equity Kicker

JANUARY 30, 2018

As for VARs, they typically only provide fulfillment in the early days (and if you’re really lucky, deal registration for qualified leads) because they aren’t structured to carry pre-chasm products — i.e., pitching, educating, hiring the right sales force.

Software 106

Software Startup Channel Early Stage 106

Up and Running

JULY 22, 2019

A telling success factor for new businesses looking to make an impact in their industries is whether they can attract investment at an early stage of development. . More specifically, companies are able to see notable success when they allow investors to engage early on. It’s still critical to attract upfront capital.

Canada 78

Canada Early Stage Valuation Finance 78

Both Sides of the Table

OCTOBER 26, 2014

I suppose it depends how much money you’ve raised but if hiring critical staff, raising VC and streamlining your biz dev or sales is important to you then you might consider putting a small amount of spend against PR. If you haven’t yet raised an A-round my recommendation would be that you not yet hire a big, well-known PR firm.

PR 319

PR Venture Capital Hiring Seed Capital 319

500hats.com

AUGUST 2, 2012

However after Sequoia and Ron Conway announced their investment in YC in 2009 , and after YC alumni DropBox and AirBnb raised capital on billion-dollar valuations in 2010-11, the program quickly became the gold standard among early-stage startup incubators. and no, we didn’t. Rise of Y Combinator, 1st Branded Entrepreneur Guild.

Silicon Valley 74

Silicon Valley Early Stage Venture Capital Valuation 74

K9 Ventures

APRIL 9, 2014

Hiring costs are up dramatically The cost of hiring top quality talent in the bay area has gone up dramatically. Top engineering talent today has a bimodal distribution. At the same time, since the hiring costs are much higher, the companies need to spend more money on recruiting and retaining top talent.

Mezzanine 134

Mezzanine Seed Stage Early Stage IPO 134

The Next Web

JANUARY 26, 2014

If a big corporation is pushing a new product, you might expect them to take out TV ads, online ads, maybe hire a PR agency and set up big distribution partnerships. Getting your app’s content posted through a major distribution channel exposes more people to your app and results in more users trying your app out.

Thailand 167

Thailand Social Network PPC Singapore 167

www.geekwire.com

JULY 10, 2012

According to the Dow Jones research, 43 early-stage funds raised $3.1 Madrona’s new $300 million fund — while the largest in the firm’s history — certainly qualifies in the early-stage group. Interestingly, the money is not just going to the big dogs, those funds which raise $1 billion or more.

Venture Capital 42

Venture Capital Seattle Cofounder Software Engineering 42

Duct Tape Marketing

FEBRUARY 27, 2020

I was just going to get hired somewhere. Your resume looks a little odd when you’ve been in church work for like 12 years, so nobody hired me, and I thought, “Oh, I guess I need to start my own business again.” This is going to be a great adventure.” ” So we moved out there and I expected to find a job.

Audio 57

Audio Boston Video HTML 57

Haystack

MAY 4, 2019

Over the past year, and especially over the last few days, the Bay Area tech Twitter echo chamber has been tweeting about the advent of remote, or distributed, or satellite teams for their companies across the country and the world. Today, I am excited to share some data on the Haystack portfolio as it relates to geography.

United States 87

United States Portfolio San Francisco New York City 87

The Equity Kicker

SEPTEMBER 19, 2013

This point generalises to distribution deals for just about any startup. Helping startups at the earliest stages creates value for both the entrepreneur and the investor but it is critical that no dependence is created. This is a generalisation, but it’s true much more often than it’s not.

Incubator 116

Incubator Venture Capital Early Stage New York 116

Startup Lessons Learned

APRIL 14, 2009

In an early-stage startup especially, revenue is not an important goal in and of itself. Let’s start with a simple question: why do early-stage startups want revenue? Because they have no presence in the market, they have to find distribution channels to bring in customers. But all things are never equal.

Customer 167

Customer San Francisco Lean Hockey Stick 167

Both Sides of the Table

JANUARY 26, 2013

If you’re a very early stage startup that just raised your first angel money it is very possible that the funding announcement will be your first big tech news. ” So people bundled customer news or senior industry hires as a way to create more interest in the story. That used to be the standard.

Startup 355

Startup PR Dividend Merger 355

www.instigatorblog.com

OCTOBER 23, 2010

Changing Equity Structures for Early Startup Employees Tweet Recently someone asked me for advice on how much equity they should give to their early employees. His company had just closed an early round of funding and he wanted to cement the employee relationships. But I also told him that I though the numbers were wrong. .&#

Equity 41

Equity Employee Startup Vesting 41

Both Sides of the Table

MAY 1, 2014

But while Amazon blew away existing physical distribution channels to deliver products to you, we are blowing away existing physical infrastructure to help you store the things you want to keep – just not at your home. We pride ourselves on being early-stage (thus the name, Upfront) but in this case it’s as early as it gets.

Technical Review 380

Technical Review Software Review Cofounder CTO Hire 380

Scott Edward Walker

DECEMBER 13, 2018

We have also recently handled a few “acquihires” (or “acqui-hires”) — which is a somewhat unique transaction, with a host of unusual issues. The acquirer is typically a large successful company, and the target is typically a failing early-stage startup. The appeal from the startup’s perspective is a “soft landing.”.

Founder 45

Founder Merger IP Liquidation Preference 45

Steve Blank

JULY 19, 2010

The fallacy is believing that a founders value is evenly distributed over four years. They also know that most founding CEO’s don’t scale past the early stage. More often than not the founding CEO leaves the company. We now have three decades of experience that says otherwise. Preparing For Chaos.

Vesting 251

Vesting Liquidity Event Venture Capital Founder Vesting 251

Austin Startup

DECEMBER 20, 2020

Andy is a global thought leader in remote work, telecommuting, and distributed workforces having served as CEO of Crossover and Sococo and on the board of Texas Central, our new bullet train. Now he is a VC at Moonshots Capital , focused on investing in early stage tech companies with a special focus on backing military veterans.

Austin 110

Austin Texas Cofounder Los Angeles 110

Up and Running

JULY 26, 2016

I strongly believe that the first few hires of a startup should belong to the growth department, whether they’re marketers, community managers, or salespeople (selling your product is the best way to learn how to improve it). 1x hacker in charge of product/development. 1x hipster working with both product and growth.

Revenue 60

Revenue Acquisition Channel Campaign 60