Both Sides of the Table

JANUARY 21, 2010

You never got around to agreeing exact equity splits but you had many conversations about it. They want to lock in future clients at an early stage. So I tell you this because if you build a strong relationship with an early-stage VC they can be a great source to help you with your funding.

Southern California 318

Southern California Silicon Valley IP Stock Options 318

The Next Web

AUGUST 26, 2013

Before you start talking to large VCs, find some early stage investors. Stefan Tirtey, Partner at Doughty Hanson Ventures , created this document with Berlin early stage investors. I’ve seen a few businesses where the first investors took huge pieces of equity for very little money. 10-20% for employees.

Management 120

Management Cofounder Startup Bootstrapping 120

David Teten

DECEMBER 12, 2017

As a globally focused LP in early stage VC funds, we at Blue Future Partners have observed a growing trend of firms investing substantially in software tools, whether developing proprietary solutions or adopting off the shelf tools. But what tools are they using themselves to automate their own processes?

Early Stage 60

Early Stage Technical Review Software Review Venture Capital 60

Austin Startup

FEBRUARY 20, 2020

As we enter year three, we are excited to announce that both accelerator programs in Austin and Houston will run simultaneously which gives us the ability to support up to 200 early-stage startups, and help connect them to Texas’ innovation communities. All of this is available to startups for zero-equity and no strings attached.

Texas 62

Texas Programming Houston Early Stage 62

infochachkie.com

SEPTEMBER 24, 2011

Instead of hearing from your long lost third-cousin, you will be inundated with an avalanche of ‘congratulatory’ emails, calls and letters from people who want to relieve you of the burden of your hard-earned equity round. Such positions include: PR, Sales, Product Development, Lead Generation, Strategic Planning, Fund Raising, etc.

Equity 40

Equity Silicon Valley Cofounder Technical Review 40

Altgate

SEPTEMBER 16, 2010

The presentation was on outsourcing generally, not just software engineering and the audience was very early stage companies (some yet to be founded). Now, for very early stage companies, you may be thinking, “I don’t have any cash, so outsourcing isn’t an option.&# PR/Marketing. Start a blog.

Software Review 65

Software Review Offshore Startup Boston 65

K9 Ventures

JUNE 12, 2012

You get a situation whether investors are incentivized to put in more money into a company, not only to buy more equity, but also to fund the quick growth. Founders typically get their equity in a company once — at the time of founding and then get diluted with each subsequent round of financing.

Venture Capital 117

Venture Capital Silicon Valley Founder Seed Stage 117

K9 Ventures

JUNE 12, 2012

You get a situation whether investors are incentivized to put in more money into a company, not only to buy more equity, but also to fund the quick growth. Founders typically get their equity in a company once — at the time of founding and then get diluted with each subsequent round of financing.

Venture Capital 105

Venture Capital Silicon Valley Founder Seed Stage 105

socialmatchbox.com

OCTOBER 23, 2010

These days sales, marketing and PR people seem to grow on trees. If you post up an ad to an online job board asking for someone to join your very high risk early stage startup company the odds of getting someone who decent are slim to none. Another option is sweat equity.

Part-Time VPE 41

Part-Time VPE Sweat Equity DC Washington 41

500hats.com

AUGUST 2, 2012

Or, as my friend Marc Andreessen might say, Software Eats the Private Equity World. but the food was awesome, & the PR wasn’t bad either). However, all three shifts are related and can be summed up simply as: Geeks are Taking Over Venture Capital. Ok, let’s dive in and discuss in more detail. Mega VC, Micro VC.

Silicon Valley 74

Silicon Valley Early Stage Venture Capital Valuation 74

Both Sides of the Table

MARCH 21, 2010

As startup entrepreneurs we all want to work with them because having their name as reference clients makes it so much easier for marketing, PR, selling to other customers, fund raising and even recruiting. I’ve already made clear that I think raising equity from “strategic money&# is an oxymoron. Same with PBW’s.

Warrant 298

Warrant Dilution Startup Stock Options 298

crowdSPRING Blog

SEPTEMBER 6, 2012

Convertible Equity, A Better Alternative To Convertible Debt? Practical Advice for Raising Early Stage Venture Capital – [link]. Pricing Experiments You Might Not Know, But Can Learn From – [link]. 4 Pieces Of Practical Advice for Women Entrepreneurs – [link]. More Vacation is the Secret Sauce – [link].

Social Media 92

Social Media Small Business Design Media 92

The Equity Kicker

FEBRUARY 6, 2012

The core message to their customers is that consumers are using Facebook and Twitter to make customer service requests and that failing to respond and manage them properly can rapidly lead to dissatisfaction and loss of brand equity. They keep things interesting by continually focusing on different aspects of social customer service.

Leadership 117

Leadership Marketing PR Social Media 117

Austin Startup

SEPTEMBER 19, 2017

Especially in early rounds — pre-seed and seed— when there are limited sales metrics and only early signs of product-market fit, these advisors help complete “the package” so to speak, providing a useful industry reference to investors and filling in the gaps in domain expertise that are common in disruptive tech-first founding teams.

Advisory Board 48

Advisory Board Sweat Equity Marketing Vertical 48

The Equity Kicker

JULY 8, 2019

The other most common focus areas for platform teams are to employ talent and PR/marketing experts who give advice to portfolio companies on strategy in these areas and have relationships and discounts with pre-vetted agencies who can deliver the work. Although it is early days, we’re starting to see some positive data for our own portfolio.

Portfolio 84

Portfolio LP Venture Capital Partner 84

Austin Startup

SEPTEMBER 10, 2017

Convertible notes/SAFEs are usually executed around times of maximal uncertainty for a company; the very early stages. Under the standard approach, even if the outlook for the company dramatically changes (positively) within 1 month post-closing (which at seed stage can happen), the valuation cap is what it is.

Valuation 48

Valuation Dilution Silicon Valley Seed Stage 48

The Equity Kicker

MAY 22, 2015

Founder Collective: hired a journalist to help their portfolio with PR. Balderton Capital: have a head of PR and content, a data scientist, and a talent and development analyst. We only invest in early stage ecommerce companies so there is a lot of commonality in the problems they face and we have built a team focused on those areas.

Portfolio 60

Portfolio PR Incubator Early Stage 60

The Startup Lawyer

FEBRUARY 4, 2011

If an incubator offers your startup $25,000 in exchange for 6% equity, the pre-money valuation is a whopping $391,667. Rather than assign a monetary value to the intangibles, a startup should instead assign an equity percentage value to intangibles like mentorship. 6) Search For the Incubator’s PR and Marketing Efforts.

Incubator 105

Incubator Pre-Money Valuation Option Pool Advisory Board 105

ReadWriteStart

NOVEMBER 12, 2012

Epinions, which we started in 1998, had five cofounders instead of two, primarily because it was really hard to recruit early-stage employees without giving them cofounder equity.” ” Top Startup Needs. Social-media marketing. Cofounders. Board members. Salespeople. Office space, lawyers, accountants.

Cofounder 60

Cofounder Startup Social Media Early Stage 60

ReadWriteStart

OCTOBER 14, 2010

He is willing to give up 33% of equity for this $1 million investment. I feel that it is not at all necessary to give this much equity up at this stage of the game. Through SEO and mommy blog PR, Lee can tap into this market. Today, he sees the opportunity to do a cloud capacity planning company. This is her core market.

Bootstrapping 114

Bootstrapping Marketing Angel Investor Silicon Valley 114

Business Plan Blog

OCTOBER 4, 2013

This is true for early stage funding as well as venture capital funding. Furthermore, when faced with adversity only great teams can respond to competitors, markets, funding environments, staff departures, PR disasters and the like. Be sure to leave plenty of equity for investors. Early Stage.

Part-Time VPE 79

Part-Time VPE Fractional VPE Cofounder CTO Hire 79

www.readwriteweb.com

OCTOBER 7, 2007

But when done well it can really help get a company going fast, professionally and without the founders having to give up much (if any) equity - or bankrupting themselves. The founders may believe they are onto such a good idea that they don’t want to give up any equity. To keep the equity we out-sourced.

Bootstrapping 41

Bootstrapping Offshore Startup EC2 41

Both Sides of the Table

MAY 5, 2011

Chris Devore & Andy Sack have created Founder’s Coop with the goal of funding, incubating & launching more early-stage ventures in Seattle. Not to mention every major agency, many PR firms, etc. I see this emerging in Seattle and the passion of “a few key individuals&# who can help shift the game.

Seattle 317

Seattle Silicon Valley Technical Review Los Angeles 317

www.readwriteweb.com

OCTOBER 18, 2010

He is willing to give up 33% of equity for this $1 million investment. I feel that it is not at all necessary to give this much equity up at this stage of the game. Through SEO and mommy blog PR, Lee can tap into this market. Today, he sees the opportunity to do a cloud capacity planning company. This is her core market.

Marketing 52

Marketing Bootstrapping Incubator Angel Investor 52

www.readwriteweb.com

OCTOBER 18, 2010

He is willing to give up 33% of equity for this $1 million investment. I feel that it is not at all necessary to give this much equity up at this stage of the game. Through SEO and mommy blog PR, Lee can tap into this market. Today, he sees the opportunity to do a cloud capacity planning company. This is her core market.

Marketing 52

Marketing Bootstrapping Incubator Angel Investor 52

Both Sides of the Table

JUNE 29, 2011

With new micro VC entrants into to early-stage investing plus increased competition from angels, incubators and the like – traditional VCs have taken notice. So VCs spent a couple of years experimenting with earlier-stage investing, which is OK. The Explosion in Early-Stage Innovation. There are also others.

Venture Capital 296

Venture Capital Software LP Early Stage 296

Up and Running

MAY 23, 2016

He says, “Spending a few thousand on a domain could make a big difference long term, and give you the credibility and advantage over the competition, especially in the very beginning and early stages of the business.”. Bringing in investors too early, before proof of concept is hard and may be unnecessary. Do your own PR.

Software Review 74

Software Review Software Delaware Forecast 74

This is going to be BIG.

JANUARY 24, 2011

One of the cool things about being a fund that works with so many early stage companies is that bringing the whole portfolio together in one place results in a lot of collaborative learning opportunities. Actually, startups tend to drop the ball on recruiting the same way they mess up in PR. He said, "We don't want your resume.

Startup 116

Startup Ruby PR Sales Cycle 116

Steve Blank

MAY 4, 2009

Every marketing communication hire couldn’t wait to produce the next great ad or PR program. In an early stage startup, instead of sales being up front, the point departments are likely to be product development and customer development. In my experience, every marketer with an MBA wants to “do strategy.” Who’s on the Sharp End?

Silicon Valley 126

Silicon Valley RSS Non-Compete California 126

techcrunch.com

OCTOBER 23, 2010

One of the things I do as a founder of a later stage startup is to meet with early stage entrepreneurs to help them get their companies going. This resulted in a recapitilization of the equity away from 33% each (in my favor) and then the ultimate dismissal of one of the co-founders prior to the A-round.

Technical Review 84

Technical Review Cofounder Technical Cofounder Software Review 84

sharkseo.com

NOVEMBER 29, 2010

While those initial links will be very useful in sending traffic your way in the early stage, they can be massive useful later by allowing search engines to find your site and gain authority and link value. This means that the Press and PR you get isn’t working in silo but working to push your generic keywords as well.

Bootstrapping 49

Bootstrapping SEO Startup Widget 49

techcrunch.com

FEBRUARY 19, 2010

Researchers polled experts in lending, mezzanine capital, private equity, venture capital and private businesses themselves. Been there Done that This is very depressing for all future founders, or even currently early stage founders. Not a big shock, but things don’t look pretty, especially in the venture capital world.

Venture Capital 62

Venture Capital Technical Review Sweat Equity Valuation 62