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Bad Notes on Venture Capital

Both Sides of the Table

Him: But when I raised my first round we didn’t know how to price the company. There were no metrics. How will you price the next round? Your A round? Him: On metrics. In finance they call it “terminal value” but the truth is the price is as arbitrary at your A round as it is at your seed round.

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Current Startup Market Emotional Biases

Feld Thoughts

Also, they have a strong belief that any sign of weakness (such as a down round) will have a catastrophic impact on their culture, hiring process, and ability to retain employees. Their own ego is also a factor – will a down round signal weakness? Those are my thoughts on less than a third of Bill’s post.

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Bad Notes on VC

Gust

Him: But when I raised my first round we didn’t know how to price the company. There were no metrics. How will you price the next round? Your A round? Him: On metrics. In finance they call it “terminal value” but the truth is the price is as arbitrary at your A round as it is at your seed round.

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Unicorpse

Feld Thoughts

Some will demonstrate strategically justifiable metrics and have fantastic ‘up round’ exits; others may see liquidation preferences kick in which will negatively impact founders and employees; others may fulfill the adage “IPO is the new down round” , which has been the case for more than half of the public companies on our list.

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On the Road to Recap:

abovethecrowd.com

All Unicorn participants — founders, company employees, venture investors and their limited partners (LPs) — are seeing their fortunes put at risk from the very nature of the Unicorn phenomenon itself. Their own ego is also a factor – will a down round signal weakness?

IPO 40
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People-First Capitalism

Reid Hoffman

The burden [should] just be that we care; that if we learn something, we improve it, and that we don’t only use single output metrics and its growth at all costs. We identified five, and the trifecta of employees, shareholders and customers, everyone has those, we also added two more. So it works for as many stakeholders as possible.

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People-First Capitalism

Reid Hoffman

The burden [should] just be that we care; that if we learn something, we improve it, and that we don’t only use single output metrics and its growth at all costs. We identified five, and the trifecta of employees, shareholders and customers, everyone has those, we also added two more. So it works for as many stakeholders as possible.