View from Seed

APRIL 21, 2015

On the heels of our research on HBS entrepreneurs , NextView’s Dimitri Dadiomov (HBS ’15) interviewed several top founders on the early stages of their companies. On Launching and Finding Early Traction. Anthemos Georgiades , Co-Founder and CEO, Zumper (Real-time home and apartment rental platform; $8.2

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Founder Las Vegas Entrepreneur Cofounder 120

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.

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North America Seed Stage Early Stage Lead Investor 120

View from Seed

JANUARY 2, 2024

Also, blogs felt like an antiquated way to engage with founders vs. threads on Twitter/X. I think a big question facing early stage investors is: are you a hammer? So “pre-seeds” can look like $1M on $8M post for certain profiles of founders and companies. Or are you a pair of hands?

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Early Stage Valuation Distribution Founder 177

View from Seed

FEBRUARY 9, 2022

You have 5-10 years of professional experience as a technology operator, founder, and/or investor. You have an edge in the highly competitive world of early stage investing that comes from some combination of your experience, industry knowledge, and personal network. You act as an “ invited guest.”. You are hungry. A Final Note.

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Technical Review North America Seed Stage Bandwidth 156

View from Seed

APRIL 27, 2020

Founders do not have this luxury. Most founders are going through hell right now, and that is not going away any time soon. For investors and founders, the next several years are going to be very different. Pre-seeds will be tougher as investors gravitate more towards proven founders or folks within their existing networks.

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Cofounder Software Review Portfolio Technical Review 194

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.

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Dilution B2B Burn Rate Early Stage 149

View from Seed

DECEMBER 6, 2018

They are disciplined about their time, their strategy, the way they engage with founders, and the way they fight to develop an independent point of view. And early stage investing is about finding outliers, which requires some flexibility to stretch beyond your rules to test your beliefs without going too crazy.

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Early Stage Florida Deal Flow Venture Capital 120

View from Seed

DECEMBER 17, 2015

I recently chatted with Saurya about how he approaches hiring engineers at Google and what founders can learn. We also talked about how he’d want to be interviewed if approached by a non-technical startup founder. (I’ve How do you position yourself as the latter if you’re a seed-stage startup founder?

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Technical Review Engineer Software Review Founder 120

View from Seed

MARCH 11, 2020

When a founder is raising money, he/she should expect that any serious investor will conduct some level of due diligence before getting to yes. Seed stage companies will mostly face questions around the team and market. The types of diligence they should be doing are hopefully relatively costless to the founder.

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Technical Review Due Diligence Term Sheet Seed Stage 279

View from Seed

MAY 2, 2019

This is the logical path that one would think is pretty “standard” for early stage companies. There may be some twists and turns along the way, like a bridge or seed extension, but I think something like this is plan A for most founders. The positives of this path is that it gives optionality to the founder.

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Early Stage Dilution Valuation .Net 214

View from Seed

MAY 14, 2019

A number of blog posts recently have mentioned this, but we seem to be experiencing a rise in repeat founders starting new businesses and raising seed capital. We’re also seeing a wave of folks who were not founders, but were star players among the first 25 folks at a unicorn company also starting new companies.

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Founder Agile Cofounder Seed Capital 256

View from Seed

APRIL 2, 2024

At the time, this metaphor really rang true and resonated with both founders and LPs. Similarly, I’d argue that the early-stage venture “product” has elevated across the board. In the subsequent years, we moved away from this metaphor for a variety of reasons.

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Merger Non-Compete Early Stage Venture Capital 343

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.

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LP Early Stage Seed Stage Venture Capital 411

View from Seed

FEBRUARY 8, 2017

When Jay joined our team back in 2014, we were the first early-stage VC in Boston to have a dedicated head of platform and one of the first handful in the country to do so. Internally to our portfolio, platform means developing “products” to help our portfolio companies get from zero to one on their most critical seed stage priorities.

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Seed Stage Boston Early Stage Portfolio 120

View from Seed

FEBRUARY 8, 2017

When Jay joined our team back in 2014, we were the first early-stage VC in Boston to have a dedicated head of platform and one of the first handful in the country to do so. Internally to our portfolio, platform means developing “products” to help our portfolio companies get from zero to one on their most critical seed stage priorities.

Seed Stage 120

Seed Stage Boston Early Stage Portfolio 120

View from Seed

JULY 13, 2022

Founders: Carolina Nucamendi & Brenna Curran. Get to know the founders. RH: Founders, please introduce yourselves. CN: Carolina, Co-Founder and CEO. RH: What’s your favorite thing about being an early-stage founder? RH: Founders, please introduce yourselves. BC: Brenna, Co-Founder and CPO.

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Early Stage Cofounder San Francisco Philadelphia 156

View from Seed

MARCH 4, 2020

In a few months, we are likely to see the annual Forbes Midas list of top performing early stage VC investors. Most of the remainder are funds that are less than 20 years old, such as General Catalyst, Lightspeed, Founders Fund, and A16Z.

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Venture Capital China Technical Review Africa 313

View from Seed

OCTOBER 21, 2014

On the positive side for a founder, directly stating a high valuation expectation up front can anchor the negotiations to a higher level, assuming that an investor takes the leap of faith to invest. After angels, larger venture firms are probably next in terms of how variable they are when reacting to seed pricing asks by founders.

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Valuation Founder Seed Stage Angel Investor 336

View from Seed

FEBRUARY 23, 2021

For early stage VC ‘s, Syndication is the process of sharing investments with other potential co-investors. Especially in the age of zoom pitching, founders can create a fairly wide top of the funnel, and talk to a large number of investors to find a good match for their round.

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Syndicate Syndication Term Sheet Cofounder 207

View from Seed

JANUARY 11, 2021

The sudden arrival of the global pandemic has shifted the playbook for founders and venture capitalists. As high-conviction, seed stage investors, we are inherently relationship-driven, and we value meeting exceptional founders face-to-face. I can have a wider reach and a higher volume of 30 minute meetings with founders.”.

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Venture Capital Cofounder Early Stage Seed Stage 350

View from Seed

SEPTEMBER 22, 2021

We were excited to get to know Dispense’s co-founder & CEO Kyla Moore earlier this year. She and her co-founder, Tim Officer, launched the company in 2020, and even at this very early stage, Dispense has already helped a number of customers process more than $200M in GMV through their platform.

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Cofounder B2B Early Stage Software 234

View from Seed

DECEMBER 8, 2015

We have a bias towards very early stage investing for a bunch of reasons, but it’s not easy. It’s often a good idea for founders to find a way to build something and get some early market validation before raising outside capital. I think this stage, more than others, is very dependent on the individual investor.

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Product Startup Early Stage Seed Capital 120

View from Seed

JULY 21, 2022

Founders: Ingrid Hung & Emily Persky . Get to know the founders. RH: Founders, please introduce yourselves. . RH: What’s your favorite thing about being an early-stage founder? IH: Day-to-day life in this early stage can be incredibly stressful- filled with fires to put out and uncharted waters.

Early Stage 156

Early Stage San Francisco Michigan Portfolio 156

View from Seed

MAY 31, 2023

For example, a 2009 study conducted by Paul Gompers and David Scharfstein, “Performance Persistence in Entrepreneurship”, found that failed founders have the same chances of success¹ as novice founders, but prior success does increase the odds of future success. I reached out to a dozen founders using the criteria of: 1.

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Silicon Valley Cofounder Term Sheet Founder 156

View from Seed

JULY 19, 2022

Founder: Stelios Kapandais. Get to know the founders. RH: Hello founder! RH: What’s your favorite thing about being an early-stage founder? SK: In the early stages of a company’s life, there are two things that really matter and that you have to get right. Company: nudgem. And your least?

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eCommerce Greece Early Stage SMS 156

View from Seed

AUGUST 10, 2021

We first invested in co-founders Ben Forgan & Pat Wilbur in early 2015, when NextView led a $1.3M And early-stage VC investors have increasingly ventured beyond their backyards of SF, NYC, and Boston to more actively invest in (and in some cases relocate to) places like Miami, Austin, Chicago, Seattle, and other cities.

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Chicago Cofounder Miami B2B 177

View from Seed

JULY 22, 2020

Early stage companies often debate what they ought to be prioritizing in the early days. Early stage investors ask themselves a similar question. Proven founders? Traction is always a hotly debated attribute for founders and investors. So here we go. Do you focus on team? Do you focus on learning?

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Early Stage Retention PR Founder 254

View from Seed

SEPTEMBER 22, 2021

We were excited to get to know Dispense’s co-founder & CEO Kyla Moore earlier this year. She and her co-founder, Tim Officer, launched the company in 2020, and even at this very early stage, Dispense has already helped a number of customers process more than $200M in GMV through their platform.

Cofounder 202

Cofounder B2B Early Stage Software 202

View from Seed

JUNE 30, 2022

Founders: Anita Broellochs & Alex Shirazi. Get to know the founders. RH: Founders, please introduce yourselves. . RH: What’s your favorite thing about being an early-stage founder? Company: Balletic Foods. ” – David Beisel. Get to know the business. And your least?

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California Cofounder Germany Early Stage 296

View from Seed

AUGUST 10, 2021

We first invested in co-founders Ben Forgan & Pat Wilbur in early 2015, when NextView led a $1.3M And early-stage VC investors have increasingly ventured beyond their backyards of SF, NYC, and Boston to more actively invest in (and in some cases relocate to) places like Miami, Austin, Chicago, Seattle, and other cities.

Chicago 156

Chicago Cofounder Miami B2B 156

View from Seed

SEPTEMBER 22, 2021

We were excited to get to know Dispense’s co-founder & CEO Kyla Moore earlier this year. She and her co-founder, Tim Officer, launched the company in 2020, and even at this very early stage, Dispense has already helped a number of customers process more than $200M in GMV through their platform.

Cofounder 156

Cofounder B2B Early Stage Software 156

View from Seed

JUNE 16, 2015

Extraordinary companies can’t be built without extraordinary entrepreneurs , especially at the earliest stages. I’d argue that successful founders must actually possess a superpower to make the nearly impossible task of getting a startup off the ground become a reality. Heat-Seeking (Enhanced Senses). Superspeed.

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Founder Entrepreneur Early Stage Portfolio 120

View from Seed

APRIL 30, 2015

What is it, and how should founders think about it? note: We’d like to be extra clear that founders should not take on venture debt if they don’t have 100% visibility into repaying the loan, as banks that need to recoup their loan my force the company or you as the guarantor into liquidation or bankruptcy.

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Term Sheet Equity Startup Seed Stage 120

View from Seed

AUGUST 10, 2021

We first invested in co-founders Ben Forgan & Pat Wilbur in early 2015, when NextView led a $1.3M And early-stage VC investors have increasingly ventured beyond their backyards of SF, NYC, and Boston to more actively invest in (and in some cases relocate to) places like Miami, Austin, Chicago, Seattle, and other cities.

Chicago 136

Chicago Cofounder Miami B2B 136

View from Seed

OCTOBER 11, 2022

At the seed stage and as companies scale, helping the founders I work with identify and reach their goals, personally and professionally, gives me energy and purpose. I made over a dozen angel investments and a few investments in VC funds as an LP, expanding my focus to new geographies, sectors, and stages.

North America 156

North America San Francisco Cap Table Cofounder 156

View from Seed

DECEMBER 6, 2018

Almost seven years ago, I wrote a post about the difference between a “no” answer and a “no yet” when pitching early-stage VCs. Parsing Seed & Early-Stage VCs. In this environment, founders have to start parsing the seed VC landscape with a finer lens to find the ones that may be appropriate for their startup.

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Seed Stage Early Stage Differentiation Lead Investor 120

View from Seed

MAY 24, 2019

An inevitable question that founders face is “how is your product different?” Probably the weakest strategy as an early stage company is to try to be a “swiss army knife”. I find that the most successful early stage products tend to win by doing a narrow set of things really really well.

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Early Stage Differentiation Product Founder 215