Startup Professionals Musings

OCTOBER 26, 2020

None normally work for or provide funds for early-stage startups. For these fees, they will develop a business plan, solicit investors, and negotiate term sheets to a closing. Many investment banks even call themselves “boutiques.” In addition, they will likely take between 3% and 10% of any capital raised.

Silicon Valley 362

Silicon Valley Private Equity Initial Public Offering Term Sheet 362

Both Sides of the Table

FEBRUARY 14, 2010

Back in November I agreed with Nivi over at VentureHacks to do a series on the ten most important attributes of a successful entrepreneur. Unfortunately, I don’t believe it is perfectly correlated with what it takes to be a successful entrepreneur. Tags: Entrepreneur Advice Start-up Advice Startup Advice.

Technical Review 284

Technical Review Due Diligence Entrepreneur Early Stage 284

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? Ycombinator open source term sheet is a good start for Seed deals. Brad Feld does the best blog term sheet series.

Term Sheet 41

Term Sheet Startup Angel Investor Wiki 41

NZ Entrepreneur

AUGUST 4, 2021

Lead investors and term sheets. Those investors interested in becoming lead will issue what’s called a term sheet – this details the terms they’re willing to invest on. Unless an interesting proposition comes along, try and stick to the terms on the term sheet. Legal documentation.

Technical Review 61

Technical Review Software Review Founder Due Diligence 61

Startup Professionals Musings

JULY 11, 2021

As an angel investor to startups, I’m still surprised to find entrepreneurs who expect investors to give them money, and assume no strings attached. If the entrepreneur wants total control of their own venture, with no one looking over their shoulder, they should work within the limits of their own resources, a process called bootstrapping.

Term Sheet 433

Term Sheet Advisory Board Liquidation Preference Startup 433

David Teten

AUGUST 19, 2019

Though RBI will displace some traditional equity VC, its much bigger impact will be to expand the pool of capital available for early-stage entrepreneurs. . However, only recently have early-stage companies started to use this model at any scale. . So what is Revenue Based Investing?

Revenue 60

Revenue Term Sheet Founder Technical Review 60

Startup Professionals Musings

JUNE 13, 2020

Too many entrepreneurs tell me they are looking for an investor, and can’t differentiate between venture capital (VC) investors versus accredited angel investors. Angels are more likely to fund new entrepreneurs, and early-stage or seed rounds, while VCs tend to focus on entrepreneurs with a successful track record, and later stage rounds.

Angel Investor 314

Angel Investor Entrepreneur IRR Valuation 314

Both Sides of the Table

APRIL 13, 2011

There was a lot of consumer internet activity again…resurgence of things, but it was still mysterious, venture capital was still kind of closed, 1st time entrepreneurs had a lot of questions that were unanswered, and there was still some sort of hand waiving around all the financing stuff and so we took it on….”. Is that when it became big?

Technical Review 288

Technical Review Venture Capital Silicon Valley Software Review 288

View from Seed

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 120

North America Seed Stage Early Stage Lead Investor 120

Startup Professionals Musings

MARCH 12, 2023

Too many entrepreneurs tell me they are looking for an investor, and can’t differentiate between venture capital (VC) investors versus accredited angel investors. Angels are more likely to fund new entrepreneurs, and early-stage or seed rounds, while VCs tend to focus on entrepreneurs with a successful track record, and later stage rounds.

Angel Investor 246

Angel Investor IRR Venture Capital Valuation 246

View from Seed

FEBRUARY 23, 2021

For early stage VC ‘s, Syndication is the process of sharing investments with other potential co-investors. The classic scenario is when a VC has a signed term sheet to lead a round, but has left room open for another meaningful investor. The post The End of Syndication appeared first on NextView Ventures.

Syndicate 207

Syndicate Syndication Term Sheet Early Stage 207

David Teten

JANUARY 19, 2021

Long-term alignment : Many Flexible VCs retain a small residual stake in the company after the return cap is reached, driving alignment well beyond the horizon of the revenue share, similar to the long-term orientation of equity VC. See Why Are Revenue-Based Investors Investing in Women & Diverse Entrepreneurs?

Cofounder 78

Cofounder Technical Review Equity Dividend 78

YoungUpstarts

OCTOBER 12, 2017

To outside investors, the future of early stage and startup companies can be murky. Many of these companies are pre-revenue and in the cash burn stage as they try to establish their technology and market. by Michael Gallaher, Audit Associate at Sensiba San Filippo .

San Francisco 103

San Francisco Forecast Early Stage Term Sheet 103

Berkonomics

MAY 15, 2014

A good example was during the negotiation of a term sheet. These usually involve a handful of angel investors, and a few entrepreneurs, who all want to build the very best term sheet for their exciting nascent enterprise. Basil Peters is perhaps the best known name in the world of early stage company exits.

Term Sheet 91

Term Sheet Angel Groups Angel Investor Deal Structure 91

Agile VC

MAY 26, 2011

This also appears as a guest post at Fortune’s Term Sheet. I also joke with Reid Hoffman that this was back in the days before he was “Reid” Reid’s an incredible entrepreneur, startup investor, and human being. How To Think About The Future. AGILEVC My idle thoughts on tech startups. May 26, 2011.

Term Sheet 178

Term Sheet Silicon Valley Technical Review Social Network 178

View from Seed

APRIL 30, 2015

From a company milestones perspective, entrepreneurs who take on venture debt are almost always thinking about raising that next round of capital from other institutions. GM: The model is more about the relationship with the entrepreneurs, the investors, and us as the bank, as opposed to cash flow or fixed assets to lend on.

Term Sheet 120

Term Sheet Equity Startup Seed Stage 120

The Next Web

SEPTEMBER 13, 2013

Many Asian entrepreneurs tell me that they want to raise funds from Silicon Valley firms because they perceive the valuations to be higher. But the problem with this is that most VCs in the Valley, especially early stage ones, only like to invest in companies that are within driving distance from their offices.

Asia 132

Asia Silicon Valley India Term Sheet 132

Startup Professionals Musings

APRIL 22, 2012

A few angel investors have slipped or fallen from their lofty perch, so entrepreneurs must take great care to validate the character and reputation of every prospective investor. The entrepreneur’s tendency to be in a huge hurry to obtain the funding can end up being disastrous, and play into the hands of these less scrupulous investors.

Angel Investor 281

Angel Investor Term Sheet Entrepreneur Due Diligence 281

Both Sides of the Table

JANUARY 21, 2010

I recently read a post over on VentureHacks titled, “ Top Ten Reasons Entrepreneurs Hate Lawyers &# written by Scott Walker (who blogs on legal issues for entrepreneurs ). They want to lock in future clients at an early stage. I know that people have an allergy to lawyers out of fear of being screwed.

Southern California 318

Southern California Silicon Valley IP Stock Options 318

Mucker Lab

AUGUST 27, 2014

As an entrepreneur himself, founding and operating printed circuit board factories in Taiwan, my father was debating between two places to immigrate to and build his next new venture: Los Angeles (“The Valley” aka San Fernando Valley) and Santa Clara (“Silicon Valley”).

Los Angeles 138

Los Angeles Southern California Silicon Valley Technical Review 138

View from Seed

MAY 31, 2023

A couple of years later, as reported by the Harvard Business Review in 2011 , a survey of ~500 entrepreneurs in the UK found that serial founders frequently refrain from learning from their failures to minimize the psychological impact. However, it is important to consider the potential of failure in the early stages of building.

Silicon Valley 156

Silicon Valley Cofounder Term Sheet Founder 156

Both Sides of the Table

SEPTEMBER 26, 2015

In fact, choosing the right partner to champion your deal can have a huge impact on whether or not you get a term sheet in the first place. I want to fail because I backed an extraordinary entrepreneur with a super-ambitious project and we were just wrong about market timing, customer adoption, competition, regulation or similar.

Venture Capital 150

Venture Capital Detroit Early Stage Partner 150

VC Cafe

OCTOBER 23, 2010

B ack in March, Andreessen Horowitz and Fenwick & West, LLP published a series of documents that would help structure early stage investments in startups. Fred Wilson , Paul Graham and Seth Levine all agree that as an entrepreneur one would prefer uncapped convertible debt to equity, but investors typically won’t go for it.

Early Stage 79

Early Stage Term Sheet Preferred Stock Equity 79

Startup Professionals Musings

AUGUST 2, 2014

Too many entrepreneurs tell me they are looking for an investor, and can’t differentiate between venture capital (VC) investors versus accredited Angel investors. Angels are more likely to fund new entrepreneurs, and early-stage or seed rounds, while VCs tend to focus on entrepreneurs with a successful track record, and later stage rounds.

Angel Investor 266

Angel Investor Entrepreneur Venture Capital IRR 266

Steve Blank

NOVEMBER 5, 2009

Unfortunately in early stage startups the drive for financing hijacks the corporate DNA and becomes the raison d’etre of the company. The goal of their startup in this stage becomes “getting funded.” What are Early Stage VC’s Really Asking? How many are there? Is there a profitable business model? Can it scale?”

Customer Development 262

Customer Development Developer Customer Silicon Valley 262

ReadWriteStart

OCTOBER 6, 2011

Sramana Mitra is the founder of the One Million by One Million (1M/1M) initiative, an educational, business development and incubation program that aims to help one million entrepreneurs globally to reach $1 million in revenue and beyond. She is a Silicon Valley entrepreneur and strategy consultant. What makes 1M/1M unique?

Silicon Valley 118

Silicon Valley India San Francisco Entrepreneur 118

reidhoffman.org

NOVEMBER 12, 2013

. × At Greylock , my partners and I are driven by one guiding mission: always help entrepreneurs. It doesn’t matter whether an entrepreneur is in our portfolio, whether we’re considering an investment, or whether we’re casually meeting for the first time. Entrepreneurs often ask me for help with their pitch decks.

Entrepreneur 111

Entrepreneur Revenue Viral Networking 111

YoungUpstarts

OCTOBER 28, 2015

This past summer, the Lightspeed Summer Fellowships program invited selected guests to provide aspiring entrepreneurs a perspective into all aspects of starting a new company. The program provides entrepreneurs the resources and mentoring they need to build their companies and develop their skills.

Convertible Security 100

Convertible Security IP Technical Review Software Review 100

Startup Lessons Learned

MAY 31, 2019

The reality today is that capital is more available than ever and entrepreneurs have become more sophisticated, so founders are looking for more than just cash from their venture backers. You've seen how venture capital works from both sides--as an entrepreneur and a venture capitalist.

Lean 108

Lean Venture Capital Conversion IPO 108

Berkonomics

MAY 22, 2014

In most cases, those entrepreneurs choosing to raise capital using PPMs retain specialists (many of whom are lawyers) to write their PPMs – a rather expensive undertaking. Unfortunately, upon completion of the PPM, the first thing that entrepreneurs tend to do is sell shares to friends, family, friends of friends and other acquaintances.

Early Stage 79

Early Stage Accredited Investor SEC Private Placement 79

Austin Startup

JULY 22, 2021

It’s hard to describe in words the palpable energy when a room is this packed full of incredible female entrepreneurs at the Women in Tech Summit at Capital Factory. On October 4th, five technology startup finalists will pitch to a panel of advisors and judges made up of successful investors, entrepreneurs, and industry leaders.

San Antonio 107

San Antonio Dallas Houston Founder 107

Up and Running

JANUARY 26, 2012

It is also worth understanding at an early stage how active a role the investor wishes to play in your business. Venture Capitalist, Mark Suster suggests in his blog post ‘ How do you reference check a VC ’ that: ‘First, I would say that most entrepreneurs do almost no reference checks or at least do them very informally.

Term Sheet 94

Term Sheet Exit Strategy Software Review Business Plan 94

Steve Blank

NOVEMBER 12, 2009

But Cafepress’s most memorable moment was when the founders used a “Lessons Learned” VC pitch to raise their second round of funding and got an 8-digit term sheet that same afternoon. The VC firm delivered a term sheet for an 8-digit second round that afternoon. Here’s how they did it. And learn from it.”

Venture Capital 209

Venture Capital Silicon Valley RSS Hockey Stick 209

View from Seed

AUGUST 16, 2019

With the proliferation of multiple seed rounds prior to a Series A, these situations are coming up increasingly in the early stage startup ecosystem. That story is built brick by brick through subtle cues of amounts of insider participation, who issues a term sheet, structure of the financing, etc.

Term Sheet 149

Term Sheet Syndicate Syndication Early Stage 149

Startup Professionals Musings

FEBRUARY 3, 2018

As an angel investor to startups, I’m still surprised to find entrepreneurs who expect investors to give them money, and assume no strings attached. If the entrepreneur wants total control of their own venture, with no one looking over their shoulder, they should work within the limits of their own resources, a process called bootstrapping.

Term Sheet 140

Term Sheet Advisory Board Liquidation Preference Portfolio 140

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

MAY 26, 2013

A few angel investors have slipped or fallen from their lofty perch, so entrepreneurs must take great care to validate the character and reputation of every prospective investor. The entrepreneur’s tendency to be in a huge hurry to obtain the funding can end up being disastrous, and play into the hands of these less scrupulous investors.

Angel Investor 263

Angel Investor Term Sheet Due Diligence Early Stage 263