Startup Professionals Musings

OCTOBER 14, 2022

For early-stage startups, the goodwill component can easily exceed the size of all the financial elements together, or can just as easily mark a company with good financials as not investable. For startups, the entrepreneur and founder is almost always the face of the company. Modern information management tools.

Technical Review 323

Technical Review Due Diligence Valuation Leadership 323

Hunter Walker

AUGUST 11, 2022

In addition to our dollars, we are eager to help founders with the construction of their cap table, not just generically with the highest profile folks available, but more specifically where they might get some help along the way. What expertise do the founders personally have? Founders Often Don’t Come From These Backgrounds….

Seed Stage 102

Seed Stage Cap Table Founder Marketing 102

Startup Professionals Musings

MAY 22, 2020

Every startup founder loves to prompt for questions from investors and potential key team members about their vision, and the huge opportunity that can be had with their disruptive technology. Early stage burn rates over $50K per month, or a runway of less than six months may indicate an inefficient or desperate startup.

Technical Review 436

Technical Review Due Diligence Sweat Equity Burn Rate 436

Startup Professionals Musings

FEBRUARY 18, 2023

Every startup founder loves to prompt for questions from investors and potential key team members about their vision, and the huge opportunity that can be had with their disruptive technology. Early stage burn rates over $50K per month, or a runway of less than six months may indicate an inefficient or desperate startup.

Sweat Equity 207

Sweat Equity Burn Rate Technical Review Intellectual Property 207

Startup Professionals Musings

JANUARY 18, 2020

In addition to being the startup entrepreneur, there are other key roles where Boomers can be a force in driving successful startups, in concert with leaders from Gen-X and Gen-Y: Early-stage angel investors. Supportive co-founder and executive positions. Manage customer service. Personnel Manager.

Advisory Board 312

Advisory Board Startup Dividend Angel Investor 312

SoCal CTO

MAY 27, 2010

I was just interviewed by Frank Peters - Tony Karrer and the Founder-Developer Gap. And I always recommend it to people involved in early stage startups. I received a follow-up question from an early-stage startup about the Founder Developer Gap that I’ve described before and that was part of the interview with Frank.

CTO Hire 170

CTO Hire Developer Founder Startup 170

Both Sides of the Table

OCTOBER 12, 2010

Even if you don’t have “direct&# sales I would tell you that “everything is a sale&# including fund raising, hiring, getting press and doing business development. One of the biggest mistakes I see early-stage startups making is hiring “seasoned&# sales professionals or hiring people too senior, too early.

Hiring 346

Hiring Sales Startup Early Stage 346

Startup Professionals Musings

JANUARY 15, 2020

For early-stage startups, the goodwill component can easily exceed the size of all the financial elements together, or can just as easily mark a company with good financials as not investable. For startups, the entrepreneur and founder is almost always the face of the company. Modern information management tools.

Valuation 311

Valuation Technical Review Due Diligence Leadership 311

Both Sides of the Table

FEBRUARY 6, 2013

I am fond of quoting that about 70% of my investment decision of an early-stage company is the team. Quick summary: Be careful not to have too many co-founders. I don’t think VCs care as much about co-founders & economics as people think. Don’t hire a homogenous team. Have them manage their area.

Cofounder 388

Cofounder Early Stage Startup Silicon Valley 388

Up and Running

OCTOBER 1, 2019

It might seem easier to put off thinking about your first essential new hires. Try to do it all and you’ll spend a lot of time learning new skills (that you’ll eventually hire for) when you should be focusing on growing your business. Hire someone who understands Generation Z (or your target demographic). A marketing maven.

Hiring 77

Hiring Technical Review Small Business Forecast 77

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 113

Early Stage Los Angeles Silicon Valley Cofounder 113

View from Seed

JULY 5, 2022

Founder: Connor Cash. CC: Our customers are companies that are collecting, managing, and tracking their ESG data. . 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?

DC 156

DC Software Review Government Boston 156

View from Seed

JANUARY 5, 2016

At the beginning, a startup team is typically just a couple of co-founders. What we suggest at this juncture is that founders get acclimated to the tactics of scaling beyond the founding team. What to Address During Genesis Team Building: How do we divide and conquer responsibilities as co-founders? Below, I take a look at each.

Founder 120

Founder Cofounder Startup Early Stage 120

Both Sides of the Table

NOVEMBER 14, 2017

As a startup in this phase you often raise capital, get press, hire staff and everything feels possible. As an early-stage VC I love this phase. I always push companies to hire “an operationally focused CFO” during this phase because in order to systematize you need somebody who brings economic rigor to decision making.

Operations 286

Operations New York City Technical Review Startup 286

Both Sides of the Table

JULY 1, 2010

A good early-stage CEO needs to be accessible, to be accountable for producing results and should be establishing the cultural norms of the company through direct leadership at all levels. This applies to both founders and to VC’s that work with them. I’m not a big believer in too much hierarchy.

CTO Hire 308

CTO Hire Management Technical Review Part-Time VPE 308

Steve Blank

NOVEMBER 7, 2023

It’s the antithesis of how founders want to build a business. And they are all very different from the business-to-consumer or business-to-business markets most founders and their investors are familiar with. Most early stage startups don’t have the regulatory domain expertise in-house. Get outside advice at each step.

Washington 271

Washington Government Marketing Silicon Valley 271

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

Both Sides of the Table

JUNE 30, 2016

Amongst the most often asked questions I get from founders is, “How much money should I raise?” Reflexively founders want to raise as much money as they can because they figure it will give them more resources, better chances of competing and a longer runways before they have to do the often painful job of asking, yet again, for money.

Pre-Money Valuation 292

Pre-Money Valuation Valuation Early Stage Startup 292

ReadWriteStart

DECEMBER 15, 2022

Being able to hire talented professionals remains a difficult proposition in the current job market, especially when sourcing experienced developers, designers, and project managers. It fine-tunes the processes needed to properly manage these teams and execute projects. Manage Agency Growth to Expand at a Proper Rate.

Incubator 188

Incubator Startup Software Developers Software Development 188

YoungUpstarts

JUNE 4, 2019

Most early stage startups tend to do well in this area because entrepreneurs generally launch their startups believing they have a great product idea. What does this mean for their early stage investors? Weak revenue architecture poses the greatest near-term risk of failure for most early stage startups.

Framework 127

Framework Architecture Cleveland Early Stage 127

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 NV: What are some basics you’d recommend to anyone hiring an engineer?

Technical Review 120

Technical Review Engineer Software Review Founder 120

techcrunch.com

AUGUST 12, 2012

Zachary Bogue And Matt Ocko Launch Data Collective, An Early Stage Fund For Big Data Startups. Data Collective has already made 46 investments from its first fund, which it calls “comparable with other seed and early stage funds” (Ocko and Bogue wouldn’t reveal fund size.). Headphones. CrunchBase.

Early Stage 70

Early Stage San Francisco Los Angeles Southern California 70

YoungUpstarts

MAY 24, 2019

Most early stage startups tend to do well in this area because entrepreneurs generally launch their startups believing they have a great product idea. What does this mean for their early stage investors? Weak revenue architecture poses the greatest near-term risk of failure for most early stage startups.

Framework 113

Framework Architecture Cleveland Early Stage 113

ReadWriteStart

AUGUST 28, 2012

But when it comes to core technical skills, more and more entrepreneurs are opting to partner with technical co-founders rather than hiring someone for an in-house position. I really believe that what’s most important for a founder is the ability to have a vision for the company, make sales and hire well.

Technical Review 131

Technical Review Cofounder Founder Software Review 131

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

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.

Technical Review 156

Technical Review North America Seed Stage Bandwidth 156

Hunter Walker

JANUARY 3, 2021

Google’s internal management approach has sustained and scaled pretty impressively over the years. Underpinning it all are OKRs — Objectives and Key Results — the framework by which individuals, teams and the entire company is managed. OKRs are sensible, straight forward and on a planning cycle managers understand.

Early Stage 145

Early Stage Management Startup Portfolio 145

Steve Blank

NOVEMBER 1, 2011

Every potential early-stage Venture Capitalist should take a year and do it before he or she makes partner. Early-stage Venture Capital firms grow their partnerships in different ways, some hire: partners from other firms. an executive who had startup “operating experience” rarely a startup founder/CEO.

Venture Capital 332

Venture Capital Early Stage Technical Review Startup 332

Up and Running

JULY 28, 2022

Partnership – Formed by two or more owners in agreement on how to start, manage and operate a business. You’ll need the EIN to pay taxes for your business, apply for licenses and permits, open a bank account, and hire and pay employees. Develop a founders agreement. Obtain the right business permits and licenses.

Small Business 167

Small Business Intellectual Property Cofounder Software Review 167

YoungUpstarts

MAY 27, 2019

by Christopher Grey, co-founder and COO of CapLinked. Often young founders don’t think about basic concepts like unit economics, which is selling something for more than what it costs to make. Inexperienced founders often overestimate their own importance and don’t appreciate the importance of the team they build around them.

Cofounder 170

Cofounder Private Equity Software Review Equity 170

Startup Professionals Musings

NOVEMBER 1, 2014

In addition to being the startup entrepreneur, there are other key roles where Boomers can be a force in driving successful startups, in concert with leaders from Gen-X and Gen-Y: Early-stage Angel investors. Supportive co-founder and executive positions. Manage customer service. Personnel Manager.

Entrepreneur 266

Entrepreneur Advisory Board Dividend Angel Investor 266

This is going to be BIG.

JANUARY 18, 2024

Some of these folks are founders and CEOs, but not at high-growth tech startups. Governance Moreso than a lot of actual VCs, a lot of high-net-worth folks tend to ask for board representation—even in the super early stages of a company where boards tend to be a little less formal. What’s Simply Hired, you ask?

.Net 88

.Net Cap Table Startup Technical Review 88

Up and Running

MAY 9, 2017

Here at Palo Alto Software , we take hiring pretty seriously. I should know—we just wrapped up a lengthy hiring process within the marketing department. After months of searching, dozens of interviews, and sifting through countless resumes, we finally hired a new managing editor for Bplans.

Hiring 105

Hiring Employee Matching Software Review 105

Steve Blank

APRIL 23, 2014

Most large companies manage three types of innovation: process innovation (making existing products incrementally better), continuous innovation (building on the strength of the company’s current business model but creating new elements) and disruptive innovation (creating products or services that did not exist before.).

Acquisition 332

Acquisition Intellectual Property Silicon Valley Startup 332

Mucker Lab

MAY 28, 2020

This post originally appeared in TechCrunch back in 2015, written by our co-founder and managing partner Erik Rannala. Hire the wrong people. Bad hiring decisions are often a symptom of premature scaling. Why hire a sales team when you have nothing to sell yet? Be trigger shy about hiring. It’s an art.

Startup 78

Startup Cofounder Burn Rate Technical Review 78

Hunter Walker

NOVEMBER 20, 2020

At Google, when I was managing and/or working with teams across the world, we often would pick opportune points in project lifecycles to come together — kickoffs, planning and milestone celebrations. This does err towards founders in the same city and if not, then founders who have worked together before and know how to manage the distance.

Early Stage 146

Early Stage Seed Stage Startup Software 146

David Teten

APRIL 1, 2021

Once you have assembled the right core team, I recommend prioritizing as follows: First, meet with your portfolio company management. A well-organized library of best practices for founders in your vertical, which you can share as appropriate. I have developed a founder curriculum on my blog. AskAnything.VC

Private Equity 78

Private Equity Venture Capital Portfolio Equity 78