View from Seed

JULY 5, 2022

Founder: Connor Cash. Get to know the founder. I’m Connor Cash, the founder of Caesar and I grew up outside of Boston but currently live in DC! RH: What’s your favorite thing about being an early-stage founder? CC: Being a founder is a rollercoaster ride. . Company: Caesar Sustainability.

DC 156

DC Software Review Government Boston 156

SoCal CTO

DECEMBER 10, 2012

I did a presentation recently for a graduate class from The Founder Institute around getting online/mobile products out the door. I LOVED it because, the presenting part was over quickly and we got into specific issues that the founders had in terms of getting things built. CTO Founder - Do they really still need a technical advisor?

Technical Review 332

Technical Review CTO Hire Fractional CTO Software Review 332

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

YoungUpstarts

JUNE 1, 2019

This is the second in a three-part series that aims to help you understand the Traction Gap Framework® – a step-by-step approach that startup teams can use to go from ideation to preparing to scale. Read on to find out what exactly the “gap” in the Traction Gap Framework is and why traversing that gap is so critical to your success.

Cleveland 127

Cleveland Framework Marketing Early Stage 127

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.

Technical Review 279

Technical Review Due Diligence Term Sheet Seed Stage 279

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

Founder 120

Founder Las Vegas Entrepreneur Cofounder 120

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. . RBI structures help to protect the equity of both founders and investors.

Revenue 60

Revenue Term Sheet Founder Technical Review 60

David Teten

APRIL 1, 2021

I propose here a framework for prioritizing your platform buildout. A well-organized library of best practices for founders in your vertical, which you can share as appropriate. First Round Search , Startupschool , and GSV Passport are examples of comprehensive founder resources from investors. AskAnything.VC Advantages.

Private Equity 78

Private Equity Venture Capital Portfolio Equity 78

YoungUpstarts

OCTOBER 24, 2013

One of the challenges for investing in startups has always been the lack of an established way for founders and investors to actually measure and decide on the valuation of the startup concerned. “If you are an angel investor and a venture is seeking capital from you, insist on getting its Worthworm report.

Pre-Money Valuation 150

Pre-Money Valuation Web Technical Review Angel Investor 150

Hunter Walker

MARCH 27, 2017

Here’s a question I recommend founders ask Seed or Series A VCs during their fundraising: “What’s a risk you’re more comfortable with than the average VC?” At the early stages, EVERY company still has significant risks associated with it. ” In four years and hundreds (1,000?)

Founder 48

Founder Technical Review Cofounder Distribution 48

Hunter Walker

JANUARY 3, 2021

Underpinning it all are OKRs — Objectives and Key Results — the framework by which individuals, teams and the entire company is managed. In 2009 Y Combinator founder Paul Graham wrote an essential essay called Maker’s Schedule, Manager’s Schedule. OKRs are sensible, straight forward and on a planning cycle managers understand.

Early Stage 145

Early Stage Management Startup Portfolio 145

David Teten

JANUARY 19, 2021

From RBI, Flexible VCs borrow the ability to reap meaningful returns without demanding founders build for an exit. Every Flexible VC structure allows founders to access immediate risk capital while preserving exit, growth trajectory, and ownership optionality. . Flexible VC 102: Variations.

Cofounder 78

Cofounder Technical Review Dividend Equity 78

YoungUpstarts

DECEMBER 7, 2017

Startup founders counting the days until break-even or actively seeking outside capital must focus on streamlining their development cycles. These five strategies are proven to work for early-stage companies in a variety of industries — including, perhaps, yours. They quite literally can’t afford to wait.

Cost 100

Cost Developer Small Business Administration Marketing 100

SoCal CTO

JANUARY 26, 2010

I’ve been having discussions with several people recently about the role of the CTO (Chief Technology Officer) in very early stage companies. However, I’ve now begun questioning how and what an early-stage / startup CTO should be. I’ll address the specifics of what this Founder Developer Gap looks like below.

CTO 225

CTO Fractional CTO CTO Hire Technical Review 225

Duct Tape Marketing

MARCH 26, 2021

Michael Margolis is the CEO and founder of Storied. Margolis shares his three-step narrative framework that will help you capture your audience’s imagination, attention, and relate to your story about what you’re selling. He then went on to found his own business and run marketing for a number of early-stage startups.

Marketing 91

Marketing Silicon Valley Cofounder Framework 91

Both Sides of the Table

SEPTEMBER 28, 2014

Let’s set up a framework. by Michael Woolf that is worth any startup founder reading to get a sense of perspective on the reality warp that is startup world during a frothy market such as 1997-1999, 2005-2007 or 2012-2014. Plus, most early-stage M&A fails so this isn’t likely a good use of capital for a young company).

Burn Rate 383

Burn Rate Balance Sheet .Net Valuation 383

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.

Product 120

Product Startup Early Stage Seed Capital 120

The Next Web

FEBRUARY 20, 2014

is the CEO and co-founder at ShoutEm , a self service mobile website and mobile apps creator, a ‘Wordpress for mobile apps.’. 1st phase (late 90s, early 00s): New Web programming languages and frameworks. Viktor Marohni? A look at how CMS evolved. Then, the first languages designed for Web development began to show up.

PHP 143

PHP Management HTML Framework 143

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

JANUARY 9, 2014

No clear vision or purpose This should be the starting point for any startup founder, but it’s often overlooked. Simon Sinek’s Golden Circle framework “People don’t buy what you do, they buy why you do it” Simon Sinek If your customers believe in your mission, then they’ll warm to you and listen to what you offer and how.

Early Stage 102

Early Stage Startup Cofounder Design 102

ConversionXL

MARCH 31, 2021

For example, if organic traffic is a priority for you, include a statement like this: From an SEO perspective, our primary goal in the early stages of this content strategy is to focus on low-volume, high-buyer intent keywords and queries related to specific pain points. This sets the intention for your early-stage priorities.

Audience 127

Audience Non-Compete Distribution Channel 127

techcrunch.com

JUNE 22, 2012

It’s an age-old scenario: You’re building a company, you have a product idea, and you’ve got the framework laid out in your head, but you want some expert advice and guidance on how to take the next steps. This is where a lot of founders get stuck.

Equity 94

Equity San Francisco Startup Silicon Valley 94

The Next Web

JANUARY 27, 2013

There will inevitably be delays as the SEC works to implement a new framework to support this legislation, but it would be wise for entrepreneurs to start comparing equity crowdfunding with their alternative options now. This is the best thing for an early stage company and can save an entrepreneur years of their lives and tons of money.

SEC 146

SEC Equity United States Angel Investor 146

Both Sides of the Table

FEBRUARY 27, 2011

I hope I straddled people’s points of view well enough not to have offended anybody while adding a framework for how I think about the service. An investor called the founder, spoke for 30 minutes on the phone and committed to funding having never met the team. This is a blog post I really didn’t want to write.

Southern California 267

Southern California Angel Investor Early Stage Silicon Valley 267

David Teten

SEPTEMBER 23, 2017

In venture capital in particular, early-stage companies are often operating in frontier industries, where the rules are unpredictable and conventional analytic frameworks may be misleading. Signal is a fundraising tool for founders run by NFX Guild, which identifies the most relevant VCs for you. . Pitchbot.vc

Private Equity 60

Private Equity Venture Capital Equity Technical Review 60

View from Seed

NOVEMBER 4, 2019

One of the biggest rookie mistakes I see among founders pursuing seed rounds is that they’ve spent too much time building something vs. proving something. In most cases, the two most important things to prove early on are 1) that the founders can attract A+ talent and 2) that there are signals of market demand for their product.

Seed Stage 180

Seed Stage Bootstrapping Demand Early Stage 180

Eric Friedman

FEBRUARY 20, 2019

I decided to leave my recent role and get back to doing what I love – advising founders. For now, this means advising early stage teams and offering myself as a “COO in a box” – consulting for companies that need operational excellence and trusted help. To help them all, I am launching: www.BuildingTheMachine.com.

Early Stage 122

Early Stage Framework Portfolio Operations 122

YoungUpstarts

MARCH 4, 2015

Born out of Intel and then later fully actualized at Google with the help of John Doerr, OKRs (Objectives and Key Results) have ushered in a new goal-setting framework that empowers every size business — but especially new ventures — to set out and stay on the right path to drive organizational success. Here’s how: 1.

Agile 100

Agile Startup Cofounder Metrics 100

Hunter Walker

JANUARY 10, 2022

I love working with great people and as a venture capitalist, am fortunate the number of founders I’m impressed by far exceeds our investment capacity. Here’s an example of a founder that I’ve known for a while who recently raised a seed round with different firms than ours. fundraise came about & why it didn’t include me (yet).

Cofounder 89

Cofounder Founder Acquisition Startup 89

Steve Blank

JULY 1, 2014

While the posts were theory I was a bit surprised when John Selep , an early-stage investor, approached me and said he was actually using the Investment Readiness Level (IRL) in practice. The Investment Readiness Level makes the stages of development for the business very tangible. Here’s John’s story. But the ‘ah-hah!’

Framework 306

Framework Sacramento Lean Customer Development 306

David Teten

JULY 25, 2017

the “TOPSCAN” framework from my research study on value creation by VCs ): T eam-Building – We aggregate openings across our portfolio on our jobs page. We also have a better known brand than some of our early stage companies, so we can leverage that to help source talent. Ethics Policy, Expenses policy).

Portfolio 60

Portfolio Technical Review Private Equity Database 60

Austin Startup

MARCH 4, 2019

Meet the Locals Here are the most active early stage investors in town that you should meet while you’re here and do deals with. It’s a robust ecosystem so I’m only listing the ones we’ve done the most deals with here but Capital Factory is the most active early stage investor in Texas so this is a good sampling.

Silicon Valley 50

Silicon Valley Technical Review Texas Venture Capital 50

David Teten

JANUARY 9, 2018

That said, one limitation in early-stage investing particularly is that 2022’s growth sectors probably don’t fit neatly into a vertical we can define today. In addition, 83% of companies had a racial composition that was entirely Caucasian, while only 12% of founders were Asian and less than 1% of founders were African-American.

Venture Capital 60

Venture Capital Private Equity Silicon Valley Differentiation 60

David Teten

JANUARY 9, 2018

That said, one limitation in early-stage investing particularly is that 2022’s growth sectors probably don’t fit neatly into a vertical we can define today. In addition, 83% of companies had a racial composition that was entirely Caucasian, while only 12% of founders were Asian and less than 1% of founders were African-American.

Venture Capital 60

Venture Capital Private Equity Silicon Valley Differentiation 60

Austin Startup

MARCH 1, 2018

Intro to the Austin EdTech Startup Scene Come meet Sean Duffy , founder of EdTech Austin and let him tell about everything going on in EdTech in Austin! Join us at this interview and hear how WWE co-founder Linda McMahon fought back from bankruptcy to build her company into a publicly traded entertainment and media powerhouse.

Technical Review 89

Technical Review Austin Texas Cofounder 89

Both Sides of the Table

FEBRUARY 15, 2016

It’s a very personal topic and I’d like to offer you a framework to decide for yourself, based on the following factors: How Long is it Taking to Raise Capital at Your Stage in the Market? And recaps hurt founders so often people just avoid doing them. Are Your Existing Investors Over Their Skis?

Burn Rate 150

Burn Rate Cap Table Valuation Software Review 150

View from Seed

JULY 31, 2019

Whether you’re raising a baby or another round, challenges will arise, but here are the 5 things I’ve learned aren’t so different between being a founder and being a parent: . As a founder, you always want to have a plan of attack – around your product, go-to-market strategy, and team building. Sleep training or not?

Seed Stage 166

Seed Stage Demand Early Stage Founder 166