Startup Professionals Musings

MAY 22, 2020

Early stage burn rates over $50K per month, or a runway of less than six months may indicate an inefficient or desperate startup. The allocation of shares among the founders, and the number and size of outside investments, will tells volumes about the health, stability, and management of the business.

Technical Review 436

Technical Review Due Diligence Sweat Equity Burn Rate 436

Startup Professionals Musings

JANUARY 15, 2020

For early-stage startups, the goodwill component can easily exceed the size of all the financial elements together, or can just as easily mark a company with good financials as not investable. Good performance management is more about rewarding desirable behavior than penalizing bad performance. People relationship focus.

Valuation 311

Valuation Technical Review Due Diligence Leadership 311

Hunter Walker

AUGUST 31, 2023

Some people claim ‘culture and employee engagement’ are luxuries you can focus on in good times but during market downturns they should be subjugated to business KPIs. MN: I think where most people go wrong during times of difficulty is to try and shield their employees from the truth — especially when it can feel scary.

Employee 113

Employee Startup Vertical Leadership 113

Startup Professionals Musings

FEBRUARY 18, 2023

Early stage burn rates over $50K per month, or a runway of less than six months may indicate an inefficient or desperate startup. The allocation of shares among the founders, and the number and size of outside investments, will tells volumes about the health, stability, and management of the business.

Sweat Equity 207

Sweat Equity Burn Rate Technical Review Intellectual Property 207

Startup Professionals Musings

JANUARY 18, 2020

In addition to being the startup entrepreneur, there are other key roles where Boomers can be a force in driving successful startups, in concert with leaders from Gen-X and Gen-Y: Early-stage angel investors. Manage customer service. Personnel Manager. Software and hardware development architects and designers.

Advisory Board 312

Advisory Board Startup Dividend Angel Investor 312

Up and Running

OCTOBER 1, 2019

It might seem easier to put off thinking about your first essential new hires. Try to do it all and you’ll spend a lot of time learning new skills (that you’ll eventually hire for) when you should be focusing on growing your business. Hire someone who understands Generation Z (or your target demographic). A marketing maven.

Hiring 77

Hiring Technical Review Small Business Forecast 77

The Startup Magazine

JUNE 1, 2023

As an early-stage company that just closed our seed round at $8.1 So what does an early-stage company do to avoid the doom and gloom plaguing the world of startups? There are startups out there that are valued at a billion dollars, but because of employee salaries, assets, etc. That includes us.

Early Stage 111

Early Stage Los Angeles Silicon Valley Cofounder 111

Both Sides of the Table

FEBRUARY 6, 2013

I am fond of quoting that about 70% of my investment decision of an early-stage company is the team. But not anal if one founder who shares equity graciously with early employees who are treated as “co-founders” My idea startup team is heaving on tech personnel but also has strong product management.

Cofounder 388

Cofounder Early Stage Startup Silicon Valley 388

ReadWriteStart

DECEMBER 15, 2022

Being able to hire talented professionals remains a difficult proposition in the current job market, especially when sourcing experienced developers, designers, and project managers. It fine-tunes the processes needed to properly manage these teams and execute projects. Keep Employees Engaged When on The Bench.

Incubator 188

Incubator Startup Software Developers Software Development 188

Both Sides of the Table

JULY 1, 2010

A good early-stage CEO needs to be accessible, to be accountable for producing results and should be establishing the cultural norms of the company through direct leadership at all levels. I never built a Google-sized business but I did build an organization from scratch that grew to 120 employees in 5 countries before we sold it.

CTO Hire 308

CTO Hire Management Technical Review Part-Time VPE 308

Up and Running

MAY 9, 2017

Here at Palo Alto Software , we take hiring pretty seriously. I should know—we just wrapped up a lengthy hiring process within the marketing department. After months of searching, dozens of interviews, and sifting through countless resumes, we finally hired a new managing editor for Bplans.

Hiring 105

Hiring Employee Matching Software Review 105

YoungUpstarts

JUNE 4, 2019

Most early stage startups tend to do well in this area because entrepreneurs generally launch their startups believing they have a great product idea. What does this mean for their early stage investors? Weak revenue architecture poses the greatest near-term risk of failure for most early stage startups.

Framework 127

Framework Architecture Cleveland Early Stage 127

Up and Running

JULY 28, 2022

Generally, the size is based on the number of employees and annual receipts for a given period. Small Business Administration , an organization is considered to be a small business if their: Firm revenue ranges from $1 million to $40 million Number of employees is between 100 and 1,500. According to the U.S. Get business insurance.

Small Business 167

Small Business Intellectual Property Cofounder Software Review 167

YoungUpstarts

MAY 24, 2019

Most early stage startups tend to do well in this area because entrepreneurs generally launch their startups believing they have a great product idea. What does this mean for their early stage investors? Weak revenue architecture poses the greatest near-term risk of failure for most early stage startups.

Framework 113

Framework Architecture Cleveland Early Stage 113

Up and Running

APRIL 12, 2018

Employees (include salaries and benefits, like insurance and retirement contributions). Bringing in a business manager or an advisor is a great way to make sure all of the details are taken care of and paid for. Your business has specific expenses, or overhead, each month, quarter or year that will always be there. Known expenses.

Forecast 77

Forecast Early Stage Software Review Technical Review 77

Both Sides of the Table

NOVEMBER 14, 2017

An alternate outcome that I also unfortunately observe in some cases are companies who had extreme early success with an initial product adoption but failed in key areas that limited the growth and therefore the ultimate financial outcomes. As an early-stage VC I love this phase.

Operations 286

Operations New York City Technical Review Startup 286

techcrunch.com

AUGUST 12, 2012

Zachary Bogue And Matt Ocko Launch Data Collective, An Early Stage Fund For Big Data Startups. Data Collective has already made 46 investments from its first fund, which it calls “comparable with other seed and early stage funds” (Ocko and Bogue wouldn’t reveal fund size.). Headphones. CrunchBase.

Early Stage 70

Early Stage San Francisco Los Angeles Southern California 70

ReadWriteStart

APRIL 22, 2021

However, early-stage companies often deprioritize proper talent management and place all their focus on the day-to-day operations of the business. These companies eventually find themselves reaching a point where their talent management processes aren’t keeping up with growth. 1) Define company values. 2) Align goals.

Management 158

Management Early Stage Startup Employee 158

Steve Blank

MAY 19, 2015

Organizational debt is all the people/culture compromises made to “just get it done” in the early stages of a startup. While he kept bringing the conversation back to their big valuation I tried to steer the conversation back to how they were going to deal with: training the influx of new hires – in both culture and job specific tasks.

Technical Review 120

Technical Review Salary Early Stage Software Review 120

Steve Blank

NOVEMBER 1, 2011

Every potential early-stage Venture Capitalist should take a year and do it before he or she makes partner. Early-stage Venture Capital firms grow their partnerships in different ways, some hire: partners from other firms. Today, you can start a web/mobile/cloud startup for $500,000 and have money left over.

Venture Capital 332

Venture Capital Early Stage Technical Review Startup 332

Up and Running

DECEMBER 23, 2020

If you’re just starting out, you’ll need to strengthen your marketing muscle and bring awareness to your company before you worry about follow-up or account management. Technology helps you stay accountable for some of the difficult decisions you’ll need to make, so it’s worth it to prioritize that expense early.

Entrepreneur 149

Entrepreneur Sales Cycle Early Stage Texas 149

YoungUpstarts

AUGUST 31, 2019

Burn rate, much like fire itself, must be managed effectively, or your start-up—like the nearly 30% of all small businesses who fold due to cash flow problems—will burn too hot before sinking below the waves,” PurchaseControl explains. Hire the Right People. The right employees don’t just have skills and experience.

Burn Rate 176

Burn Rate Startup Lean Early Stage 176

The Startup Magazine

JANUARY 27, 2022

Once your startup begins to grow, you might want to hire a professional with more experience in finances to focus on this part of your business. Running a business will likely mean simultaneously juggling between different projects, especially during the early stages. Project planning.

Startup 109

Startup Australia Web Development Forecast 109

Steve Blank

APRIL 23, 2014

Most large companies manage three types of innovation: process innovation (making existing products incrementally better), continuous innovation (building on the strength of the company’s current business model but creating new elements) and disruptive innovation (creating products or services that did not exist before.).

Acquisition 332

Acquisition Intellectual Property Silicon Valley Startup 332

Startup Professionals Musings

NOVEMBER 1, 2014

In addition to being the startup entrepreneur, there are other key roles where Boomers can be a force in driving successful startups, in concert with leaders from Gen-X and Gen-Y: Early-stage Angel investors. Manage customer service. Personnel Manager. Software and hardware development architects and designers.

Entrepreneur 266

Entrepreneur Advisory Board Dividend Angel Investor 266

Hunter Walker

AUGUST 11, 2022

Seed Stage Startups Don’t Hire Fulltime For These Roles, And Certainly Not Senior Hires. These roles typically become FTE in your growth from 10 to 50 employees, not 1–10. Hiring Marketing or Comms Consultants/Agencies At Seed Is Often a Terrible Idea.

Seed Stage 102

Seed Stage Cap Table Founder Marketing 102

YoungUpstarts

MARCH 15, 2017

In the early stages of the company you’ll probably have an idea of the kind of people you need, certainly in terms of the skillset that’s required. But, before you start hiring, think about how you’re actually going to manage the people you’re investing in. they can see the long-term direction.

Software Review 124

Software Review Angel Investor Cofounder Early Stage 124

The Startup Magazine

MAY 22, 2018

At this stage of a company, all employees of the company need to proactively focus on customers and their receptivity to the offering. A simple workflow is supposed to be set to manage request customers. Early stage. At this stage, the hiring of employees who are customer focused is paramount.

Customer 81

Customer Early Stage Churn Rate Startup 81

YoungUpstarts

JUNE 20, 2019

Over the years, the Truss team has worked with several early-stage startups, and noticed a consistency in inter-series problems (regardless of the industry). Series B: Hiring and Developing Managers. The psychological shifts required to go from being an individual contributor to a manager shouldn’t be underestimated.

Technical Cofounder 113

Technical Cofounder Burn Rate Seed Stage Cofounder 113

The Next Web

AUGUST 26, 2013

Today, in steps 10-12 I want to discuss with you raising your first round of money, hiring to develop and maintain your company culture, as well as defining your role in the management of your startup. Before you start talking to large VCs, find some early stage investors. 10-20% for employees. 60-70% for founders.

Management 120

Management Cofounder Startup Bootstrapping 120

View from Seed

JANUARY 5, 2016

Even experienced startup execs who have hired and built teams sometimes find there are nuances to learn between building a team within a larger company versus hiring the first dozen folks in a startup. To people and culture management in general? A middle manager layer after that? It’s a moving target.

Founder 120

Founder Cofounder Startup Early Stage 120

Up and Running

DECEMBER 1, 2015

If you’re thinking about extending equity to an employee or a vendor (as in the example above), you should know that the topic is multi-faceted. If however you are giving a “normal employee” an incentive stock option plan (more on that later), that’s entirely different. Finding great employees first. What is equity compensation?

Equity 60

Equity Employee Stock Options Vesting 60

OnlyOnce

AUGUST 3, 2023

(Post 1 of 4 in the series of Scaling CPO’s) In most startups, the HR function starts out as tactical, because you have to get people hired and paid, and while you might have a founder or early-stage employee who can do these things, often these tasks are frequently outsourced to a PEO.

Hiring 62

Hiring Metrics Leadership Early Stage 62

Up and Running

MARCH 12, 2019

In many areas, however, the high demand for tech talent appears to be larger than the supply of qualified tech and software developers for hire. If you’re in the early stages of starting your tech-based or SaaS business , it makes good sense to consider IP (intellectual property) protection a critical part of your business model.

IP 80

IP Software Developers Software Development Intellectual Property 80

Startup Professionals Musings

NOVEMBER 4, 2015

For early-stage startups, the goodwill component can easily exceed the size of all the financial elements together, or can just as easily mark a company with good financials as not investable. Good performance management is more about rewarding desirable behavior than penalizing bad performance. People relationship focus.

Leadership 120

Leadership Technical Review Due Diligence Valuation 120

Hearpreneur

FEBRUARY 21, 2024

2- It can affect team communication Photo Credit: Andre Oentoro It's hard to qualify employees doing only bare minimum tasks into engaged employees. This attitude of quiet quitting or work-to-rule will also make it hard for managerial positions to make decisions, especially when they have to motivate employees with low engagement.

Entrepreneur 109

Entrepreneur Employee Revenue LLC 109

Hearpreneur

FEBRUARY 21, 2024

2- It can affect team communication Photo Credit: Andre Oentoro It's hard to qualify employees doing only bare minimum tasks into engaged employees. This attitude of quiet quitting or work-to-rule will also make it hard for managerial positions to make decisions, especially when they have to motivate employees with low engagement.

Entrepreneur 108

Entrepreneur Employee Revenue LLC 108