David Teten

AUGUST 19, 2019

So you’re interested in raising capital from a Revenue-Based Investor VC. A new wave of Revenue-Based Investors (“RBI”) are emerging. For background, see Revenue-Based Investing: A New Option for Founders who Care About Control. Rational burn profile, up to 50% of revenue at close, scaling down. Bigfoot Capital.

Revenue 60

Revenue Technical Review Software Review Equity 60

Both Sides of the Table

AUGUST 11, 2021

Digital advertising spend is projected to grow 25% this year to $191 billion, and Google (69%), Facebook (59%), Snapchat (116%) and Twitter (87%) all just reported rapid growth in their year over year advertising revenues. founders, marketers, investors?—?and Founders, marketers and growth leaders?—?join

Founder 424

Founder Product Cofounder Acquisition 424

Startup Professionals Musings

JULY 16, 2012

The good news is that he is all about helping early-stage startups. These are emerging group of professional investors (venture capitalists, ala VCs), who are investing from a fund of other people’s money, with a particular focus on seed-stage startup opportunities. Early-stage startup. Super Angels.

Early Stage 253

Early Stage Finance Seed Stage Entrepreneur 253

Austin Startup

NOVEMBER 29, 2017

It follows up on my posts discussing why early stage startups should — or should not — move to Silicon Valley. Should Early Stage Startups Move to Austin because of Capital? Tim O’Reilly, Founder at O’Reilly Media and promoter of open source and Web 2.0 Money is like gasoline during a road trip.

Early Stage 48

Early Stage Austin Silicon Valley Texas 48

View from Seed

OCTOBER 24, 2019

As seed rounds have atomized, it’s not uncommon for founders to raise 3 or even 4 rounds prior to a series A. The reality is that if a founder raised every one of these rounds, and lead investors always got their “target” ownership, the level of dilution would be ridiculous. Founders with limited experience. should be avoided.

Dilution 149

Dilution B2B Burn Rate Early Stage 149

YoungUpstarts

JUNE 4, 2019

At Wildcat, we recommend benchmarking your startup against the four core architectural pillars of the Traction Gap Framework: product , revenue , team and systems. Each has specific requirements linked to each stage and value inflection point of the Traction Gap journey. What does this mean for their early stage investors?

Framework 127

Framework Architecture Cleveland Early Stage 127

Both Sides of the Table

MAY 28, 2018

There’s a quick litmus-test conversation any early-stage VC will have with the founder and it’s one that you should be as prepared for as your elevator pitch. Founder: “$8–10 million” VC: “What’s your current burn rate?” Founder: “$250k / month.” Founder: “Um. Why are you raising so much?”

Burn Rate 247

Burn Rate Valuation Pre-Money Valuation Dilution 247

The Startup Magazine

JUNE 1, 2023

By Daniel Sokolovksy, Co-Founder and CEO, WARP and Troy Lester, Co-Founder and CRO, WARP The dissolution of Silicon Valley Bank (SVB) was more than just a bank collapse, it was a reality check for both startups and the VCs that fund them. As an early-stage company that just closed our seed round at $8.1 That includes us.

Early Stage 108

Early Stage Los Angeles Silicon Valley Cofounder 108

YoungUpstarts

MAY 24, 2019

At Wildcat, we recommend benchmarking your startup against the four core architectural pillars of the Traction Gap Framework: product , revenue , team and systems. Each has specific requirements linked to each stage and value inflection point of the Traction Gap journey. What does this mean for their early stage investors?

Framework 113

Framework Architecture Cleveland Early Stage 113

David Teten

JANUARY 19, 2021

More and more startups are pursuing Revenue-Based VCs , but “RBI” doesn’t fit everyone. From RBI, Flexible VCs borrow the ability to reap meaningful returns without demanding founders build for an exit. Flexible VC 101: Equity Meets Revenue Share. Where else can fast-growing companies get funding?

Cofounder 78

Cofounder Technical Review Equity Dividend 78

Eric Friedman

JULY 19, 2019

Many early stage investors look for financial models for 3+ years from founders to make an investment. Like most posts, this request/conversation has come up enough to turn it into my thoughts + the best resources I have to help founders. In fact, for early stage companies you are usually wildly wrong.

Early Stage 114

Early Stage Startup Framework Revenue 114

VC Cafe

NOVEMBER 2, 2019

One question that keeps coming up when speaking with early stage entrepreneurs when it comes to funding, is what metrics the company needs to hit to raise seed/series A/B etc: What’s a good conversion rate? In SaaS the main benchmarks being measured are revenue growth, sales efficiency (unit economics), churn and burn rate.

B2C 141

B2C Technical Review Startup Retention 141

Up and Running

JULY 28, 2022

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. Develop a founders agreement. A founders’ agreement is a legal contract defining and governing the relationship between cofounders.

Small Business 167

Small Business Intellectual Property Cofounder Software Review 167

Gust

JULY 8, 2012

The good news is that he is all about helping early-stage startups. These are emerging group of professional investors (venture capitalists, ala VCs), who are investing from a fund of other people’s money, with a particular focus on seed-stage startup opportunities. Early-stage startup. Super Angels.

Early Stage 177

Early Stage Finance Seed Stage Entrepreneur 177

Both Sides of the Table

NOVEMBER 14, 2017

As an early-stage VC I love this phase. Sam also had a vision as early as 2012 about how MakeSpace would be a large employer of middle-income jobs: The company would hire employees rather than just have contractors and he would lead the effort to ensure they had opportunities for growth and benefits for their families.

Operations 286

Operations New York City Technical Review Startup 286

ReadWriteStart

JUNE 1, 2020

The primary source of your funds should be your paying customers, i.e., your business should generate enough revenues and profits to fund the growth and expansion. These usually play a role in the very early stage of your business, primarily pre-revenue. Stages of Equity-based funding. ? Inception stage.

Startup 150

Startup Entrepreneur Elevator Pitch Seed Stage 150

Startup Professionals Musings

MAY 1, 2011

The good news is that he is all about helping early-stage startups, the hard part for entrepreneurs is figuring out what it takes to play. These are emerging group of professional investors (venture capitalists, ala VCs), who are investing from a fund of other people’s money, with a particular focus on seed-stage startup opportunities.

Early Stage 231

Early Stage Seed Stage Angel Investor Silicon Valley 231

Both Sides of the Table

APRIL 26, 2016

The key to being able to run a business that isn’t yet profitable (on operating margin) is availability of capital to finance losses and preferably at a cost that isn’t too punitive to the founders and employees. In SaaS (or any recurring revenue business) this is also a very difficult task.

Metrics 150

Metrics Cost Acquisition Startup 150

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. When investors believe in the founders, products, or ideas they will provide companies with funding.

San Francisco 133

San Francisco Forecast Early Stage Term Sheet 133

Both Sides of the Table

JANUARY 6, 2014

When you first start your company and raise initial venture capital your board probably consists of 1-3 founders and 1-2 VCs. Most experienced VCs won’t push you to give up founder control at this stage of the business nor should they. Founder’s perspective. You’ll get empathy. Experience.

Technical Review 325

Technical Review Early Stage Software Review Los Angeles 325

Both Sides of the Table

MAY 27, 2013

In his tenure as CEO of DataSift we have never missed a monthly revenue figure. He has grown our US operations from 1 employee (him) to a global organization of 75 employees that will finish the year with 8-digit revenues (90+% recurring) and more than 350% year-over-year growth. In his spare time he raised nearly $30 million.

Advisory Board 365

Advisory Board CTO Hire Fractional CTO Los Angeles 365

Austin Startup

MAY 19, 2018

As Bryan stated below, there are no shortage of “How to pitch” or “How to behave” articles by VCs but really very little advice for VCs by founders. Anyone notice there's a ton of VCs giving founder advice, and almost no founder advice for VCs? Lines Not Dots Raising money from a fund is a process, most founders get that.

Founder 75

Founder Early Stage Software Review Deal Flow 75

YoungUpstarts

JUNE 26, 2020

If you are building a startup, you’ll find no shortage of people who are willing to give you advice, particularly when it comes to raising financing. For some entrepreneurs, raising financing can seem like a full time job, particularly in these trying times. Unfortunately, much of this advice is wrong. Well not, wrong exactly.

Finance 205

Finance Silicon Valley Valuation Startup 205

View from Seed

JANUARY 27, 2021

. $100M is a meaningful increase from our $50M third fund, though it’s still quite small in the grand scheme of venture, especially amid the recent wave of late stage financings and SPACs. We believe that this fund is the perfect size for us to be the best possible partners to early-stage entrepreneurs today.

LP 411

LP Early Stage Seed Stage Venture Capital 411

YoungUpstarts

MAY 19, 2016

by Gadiel Morantes , chief revenue officer at Early Growth Financial Services. Speaking intelligently about your company’s current (and future) performance means regular check-ins with your finances. Ideally, tech startup founders stay on till the very end. A Jenga tower is a precariously built one.

Technical Review 124

Technical Review Burn Rate IP Intellectual Property 124

David Teten

MARCH 18, 2021

(co-written with Stephane Nasser , co-founder of OpenVC , an open-source initiative to collect and analyze all VC theses.). OpenVC is a new, open-source initiative to collect and analyze all publicly available VC theses, to help founders more efficiently find the right investors, and vice-versa. The phrase is quite ambiguous.

Technical Review 78

Technical Review Cofounder Venture Capital Deal Flow 78

Startup Professionals Musings

MAY 30, 2022

Early-stage entrepreneurs rightly keep their focus on creating an innovative product or service. After celebrating success at that level, they often find themselves ill-prepared to move to the next stage, for scaling their business into a high-performing enterprise. There is no free lunch.

Mezzanine 368

Mezzanine Private Equity Bandwidth Metrics 368

The Startup Magazine

OCTOBER 9, 2019

Tech startups are, in contrast, focused on rapid growth, potential, and top-end revenue. The vast majority of startups fail because the founders that drive them fail to recognize the importance of critical factors such as accounting, cash flow management, and business structure. . Separate Personal and Business Finances.

Technical Review 80

Technical Review Bootstrapping Startup Finance 80

Business Plan Blog

OCTOBER 4, 2013

This is true for early stage funding as well as venture capital funding. If you have a technical background and you are focused on product development, consider a co-founder with a sales and marketing background that can focus on selling your world class product. Don’t make everyone a founder. Early Stage.

Part-Time VPE 79

Part-Time VPE Fractional VPE Cofounder CTO Hire 79

Both Sides of the Table

OCTOBER 11, 2016

We then help surround founders with other talent who want to join important causes but don’t have the startup idea themselves. We help founders through difficult moments, we help coach, we act as sparring partners, we help them resolve conflicts when they’re fighting with co-founders and we help them deal with adversity as well as successes.

Venture Capital 150

Venture Capital Fractional CTO Cofounder Early Stage 150

Both Sides of the Table

SEPTEMBER 13, 2011

You have two founders and it was agreed that one would get the CEO role so the other needs to call themselves president or COO. They will often run all of the daily reports into them covering off for finance, sales, marketing, biz dev & HR. In an early stage start I believe it’s the CEO’s job to manage these functions.

Technical Review 325

Technical Review Startup Cofounder Due Diligence 325

Both Sides of the Table

JULY 16, 2010

So super angel and seed funds are proliferating – As a result there has been an explosion in the number of amazing early-stage investors such as Softtech VC , Floodgate , Felicis Ventures , K9 Ventures , OATV , Lowercase Capital , Founder Collective , and many, many more. That’s OK. Price MUST be in a certain range.

LP 311

LP Technical Review Early Stage Silicon Valley 311

Both Sides of the Table

MAY 19, 2013

My internal compass has always steered me strongly toward the belief that founders who can scale with their startup companies are better to back that founders who eventually need to hire a CEO. Very few founder CEOs go into the job ever expecting to give up their seat. We set out to find Jonathan’s “co-founder.”

Technical Review 303

Technical Review Cofounder Analytics Founder 303

Steve Blank

MAY 11, 2021

billion in early funding. Dozens of outreach programs across the military now offer quick revenue to early-stage companies. Yet, for every newly minted success like Palantir or Anduril , thousands of companies struggle to find follow-on opportunities after receiving early innovation contracts.

Artificial Inteligence 337

Artificial Inteligence Marketing Startup Silicon Valley 337

Up and Running

DECEMBER 9, 2014

Bates: Good morning and welcome to our CEO panel, “How to Fine-Tune Your Small Business Finances From Funding to Growth” which I think is the direction that we would all like to be going. I’m here with some really phenomenal CEOs who are going to talk to us today about small business finances from funding to growth.

Small Business 95

Small Business Finance Forecast Metrics 95

Startup Professionals Musings

OCTOBER 5, 2015

I challenge any entrepreneur, for example, to define the difference between "seed-stage" and "early-stage" financing. Asking for early-stage money before you have customers and revenue will likely kill your credibility with real investors. A micro venture capital firm.

Seed Stage 120

Seed Stage Finance Early Stage Startup 120

Hunter Walker

JULY 22, 2014

Hey founders, want to hear something incredibly frustrating about seed financing? You know the one that inevitably has you at $100 million in revenue by Year Three? Just* committing to grow customers or revenue or usage can still create a hollow company. I don’t believe the forecast you show me. Yeah, that one.

Forecast 96

Forecast Early Stage Seed Stage Startup 96