View from Seed

JANUARY 5, 2016

Even experienced startup execs who have hired and built teams sometimes find there are nuances to learn between building a team within a larger company versus hiring the first dozen folks in a startup. What did we like/not like about past companies’ approach to hiring and team development? It’s a moving target.

Founder 120

Founder Cofounder Startup Early Stage 120

Version One Ventures

JANUARY 15, 2019

Hiring is key to the success of any business, but it can especially critical for startups. Most founders appreciate the importance of making good hires; however, when a startup is scaling rapidly, process often gets left behind. If you don’t take the time to define the job upfront, it’s going to be really hard to hire against a need.

Hiring 118

Hiring Later Stage Early Stage Portfolio 118

David Teten

DECEMBER 15, 2018

Have you hired a banker to try to auction the company? If you can’t find a banker which will buy such an early-stage company (which is likely), I suggest at least mail directly all the likely acquirers with whom you have an existing relationship. Consider a banker. Outplace your team.

Startup 60

Startup Later Stage Technical Review Software Review 60

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. The Pocket Negotiator is very early-stage attempt to aid in the negotiating process itself. . Accompany focuses on this use case.

Private Equity 60

Private Equity Venture Capital Equity Technical Review 60

Steve Blank

MARCH 17, 2020

If you’re an early stage company, that number may be zero. If it’s just three-months, (looking more unlikely by the day) then an immediate freeze on variable spending (hires, marketing, travel, etc.) If they pull back, there will be a liquidity crunch for later stage startups (Series B, C…). is in order.

Burn Rate 436

Burn Rate Startup Valuation Sales Cycle 436

Both Sides of the Table

JULY 22, 2010

You’ll need to hire and retain talen to grow your company. VC’s in early rounds will argue that “participation&# is simply downside protection and if you sell for a lower price they should get more of the proceeds. But this example above is all entrepreneur math, not the VC’s. That’s normal.

Valuation 405

Valuation Liquidation Preference Pre-Money Valuation Term Sheet 405

Both Sides of the Table

JUNE 27, 2021

They sold 2 years later for $16 million In the financial crisis of 2008 we had a company that had jointly hired lawyers to consider a bankruptcy and also pursued (and achieved!) If you’re a later-stage fund that comes in when there’s less upside but a lower “loss ratio” you might have only 8–12 investments in a fund.

Bankruptcy 294

Bankruptcy Bridge Financing Portfolio Angel Investor 294

Both Sides of the Table

JANUARY 21, 2010

I know he’s smart but you wouldn’t hire a Javascript developer to do your database design – would you? 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

David Teten

JULY 25, 2017

We have insight on the competencies of our companies’ personnel, and who is hiring or shrinking. We also have a better known brand than some of our early stage companies, so we can leverage that to help source talent. with the announcement of a funding round, new senior hires, etc.

Portfolio 60

Portfolio Technical Review Private Equity Database 60

Both Sides of the Table

JUNE 5, 2011

The earlier you invest the higher the chances the company won’t work out and thus you pay a lower price than later-stage investors. But 6 months later you’re not working past 10pm. 1 year in you stop catching early morning flights. So how exactly are prices determined? There is no great science to it.

Pre-Money Valuation 336

Pre-Money Valuation Valuation Silicon Valley Stock 336

Hunter Walker

JULY 11, 2022

Instead these companies are better off just investing resources in improving their hiring via candidate flow/sourcing, interview process, offer communication/negotiation and closing experience. Product manager knows founders of a later-stage startup pretty well. 80–90% of startups shouldn’t follow the advice I’m about to give.

Later Stage 83

Later Stage Marketing Early Stage Hiring 83

The Next Web

AUGUST 26, 2013

Today, in steps 10-12 I want to discuss with you raising your first round of money, hiring to develop and maintain your company culture, as well as defining your role in the management of your startup. Before you start talking to large VCs, find some early stage investors. Learn how to hire and maintain your company culture.

Management 120

Management Cofounder Startup Bootstrapping 120

View from Seed

APRIL 30, 2015

In many instances, you raise an institutional round to either fulfill a product strategy or go-to-market strategy or you’re increasing sales and marketing hires, so you have better visibility into what needs to happen in the next six, 12, 18 months. NVV: Let’s talk about the seed stage specifically.

Term Sheet 120

Term Sheet Equity Startup Seed Stage 120

View from Seed

JULY 26, 2022

RH: What’s your favorite thing about being an early-stage founder? As we build and grow, I get a crash course in every domain of business – Product Development 101, Digital Marketing 101, Hiring 101 and so forth. Enter Poplin, the first pre-pregnancy wellness platform for couples. And your least?

Silicon Valley 156

Silicon Valley Later Stage Early Stage Founder 156

Both Sides of the Table

MARCH 31, 2012

Erin’s main points: “As a former tech sales executive, I agree with many of [Mark's] lessons — when applied to later-stage, post-traction point startups. However, I advocate a more nuanced approach for early-stage startup teams” 1. Specifically, 1.

Startup 319

Startup Early Stage Sales Cofounder 319

Steve Blank

JUNE 15, 2010

Certain VC’s like the new class of Super-Angels and small VC funds specialize in the early stage of a startup where you are searching for a business model. And some larger funds that specialize in later stage deals may have a partner or two who likes to invest at this stage. Lean Startups ?

Founder 231

Founder Vesting Later Stage Early Stage 231

Hippoland

OCTOBER 9, 2016

If you’re still in the early stages of your entrepreneur-education/journey, you may even think you need to protect your idea and not share it with anyone. Demonstrate that you can pull the trigger on things quickly — whether it be getting customers, hiring / firing employees, or product development.

Seed Stage 48

Seed Stage CTO Hire Email Later Stage 48

K9 Ventures

JUNE 5, 2015

In addition, the competition for and the cost of hiring people, especially in the San Francisco Bay Area, has gone up dramatically. I still wanted K9 to be the first institutional money in a company and work with “frighteningly early-stage” companies. Your early stage investment portfolio may no longer really be early stage.

Seed Stage 48

Seed Stage Venture Capital Early Stage Valuation 48

Up and Running

AUGUST 17, 2015

Whether you plan to hire an accountant or depend on QuickBooks, there are some basic principles around understanding your working capital, cost of goods sold (COGS), gross margins, and so on, that are critical to all types of businesses. Accounting: There is no substitute for learning the fundamentals of accounting.

Entrepreneur 60

Entrepreneur Cofounder Angel Investor eCommerce 60

OnlyOnce

MARCH 14, 2011

Finally, back-end support and process—an accounting team that gets the invoices out, an HR team that helps make strategic hires—makes the folks engaged in product development more productive. Third, we have access to a much broader array of clients now, which I’ll explain the importance of in a minute.

Software Review 67

Software Review Development Team Review Later Stage Technical Review 67

The Equity Kicker

NOVEMBER 28, 2016

Different investors place different weights on the three elements but as a rule earlier stage investors place more emphasis on the team and later stage investors place more emphasis on the market. Some very early stage investors go as far as to say that for them team is everything.

Seed Stage 60

Seed Stage Later Stage Early Stage Partner 60

The Equity Kicker

NOVEMBER 22, 2013

Having an up close view of Ross sell, hustle, hire and obsess over his product and customers has been a joy and a privilege. Every company will be different, but the Appear Here journey is a rough a template for how we would like to work with other very early stage companies going forward.

Strategic Investors 94

Strategic Investors Later Stage Portfolio Early Stage 94

Steve Blank

JUNE 15, 2011

Today, the signs of the new bubble are the Linked-In initial public offering (IPO), Facebook’s stratospheric valuation and the rapid rise of early-stage startup valuation. The awareness phase is where other later-stage investors start to notice the momentum, bringing additional money in and pushing prices higher.

Silicon Valley 327

Silicon Valley Stealth Valuation Mississippi 327

Genuine VC

FEBRUARY 3, 2011

Once you’ve figured out whether you want to find a very early stage startup or a late stage one (the topic of my first post in this series ), the real hard work begins. On the early side, it's repeat founders coming together again or early runaway traction in an early beta that generates buzz.

Startup 148

Startup Portfolio Later Stage Hiring 148

K9 Ventures

DECEMBER 14, 2008

Unlike investing in public markets, investing in early stage companies happens before those companies have a real business, when it is just a concept and a team, and sometimes not even a whole team. What early-stage venture capital is betting on is people. Venture firms are like skilled artisans.

IRR 99

IRR Bandwidth Venture Capital Early Stage 99

Both Sides of the Table

MAY 25, 2013

But the larger funds usually have lower returns because they are often investing bigger dollars at later stages with less risk and therefore lower returns. As you can see in this Cambridge Associates data, early-stage investing beat later stage investing in returns in 70% of the past 30 years. Yeah, true.

LP 374

LP Later Stage IRR Term Sheet 374

Both Sides of the Table

APRIL 3, 2010

Because it is a “series&# I plan to get into some of the deeper complexities of funds such as “cross over funds&# and “why VC’s hate to price their own deals&# at a later stage. A very well known early stage fund used to have a rule that they didn’t do follow ons.

Venture Capital 265

Venture Capital Term Sheet Early Stage Silicon Valley 265

Software By Rob

JANUARY 8, 2019

Hundreds and hundreds of tweets, re-tweets, likes, Hacker News upvotes, email responses…it was immediately obvious that there is pent up demand for this kind of alternative early-stage startup funding. 2: We Focus on Early Stage SaaS. We’re a SaaS accelerator, and accelerators focus on early-stage companies.

Early Stage 46

Early Stage Valuation Seed Capital Revenue 46

David Teten

DECEMBER 3, 2019

Data companies focused on early-stage startups include Aingel , fundsUP , Preseries , PredictLeads , and Sploda. Later stage investors are using for sourcing private company marketplace services focused on more established companies, listed below under “Step 11: Exit”. Results from a Survey of Early-Stage VC Funds.

Technical Review 78

Technical Review Software Review Analytics Private Equity 78

Startup Lessons Learned

MAY 31, 2019

As you probably know, we’ve been investing against a consistent theme - Marc Andreesseen’s “software is eating the world” - and always at multiple stages of a company’s growth - from seed to later-stage venture. Sure - as you know, probably 40-50% of what we invest in at the early stage never makes it to a successful outcome.

Lean 108

Lean Venture Capital Conversion IPO 108

Growthink Blog

JANUARY 24, 2012

Specifically I found that the lion's share of this funding went to later stage companies (companies who have already raise previous rounds of venture capital, have revenues, and are looking to grow further before being acquired or going public). However, when I dug deeper, I found some deeply disturbing news.

Angel Investor 98

Angel Investor Venture Capital Equity Later Stage 98

David Teten

JANUARY 21, 2021

VI: Revenue-based financing: The next step for private equity and early-stage investment. David Teten , Versatile’s founder, was previously a Partner with HOF Capital and ff Venture Capital, two early-stage New York VC firms. in idea-stage and side-hustle founders using a Convertible Income Share Agreement, or CISA.

Equity 78

Equity Revenue Cofounder Colorado 78

www.payne.org

SEPTEMBER 22, 2011

The re-heating of the venture funded tech market has pushed a heat up of the hiring market, and Im getting more calls from friends asking for help understanding startup stock (equity) offers. The total preference is less of an issue in early stage companies (e.g. 2 Stock Classes: Common and Preferred. 3 Dilution. 4 Vesting.

Equity 56

Equity Employee Vesting Preferred Stock 56

David Teten

FEBRUARY 3, 2014

Similarly, my research on venture capital portfolio operations found that Portfolio Operator VCs such as Andreesen Horowitz , First Round Capital , ff Venture Capital , and Google Ventures are hiring unusually large teams and structuring them in traditional pyramids. Deal origination is a slow, labor-intensive, frustrating process.

Private Equity 114

Private Equity Venture Capital Technical Review Equity 114

Both Sides of the Table

JUNE 29, 2011

Some have done earlier-stage deals and done well. Others have chased earlier-stage but lack the skills or relationships to do this effectively. Some have moved into later stage investments in an effort to “put logos on their websites.&# The Explosion in Early-Stage Innovation. There are also others.

Venture Capital 296

Venture Capital Software LP Early Stage 296

Reid Hoffman

MARCH 14, 2019

At this point, almost everyone in the startup world agrees that hiring and culture are important. These are inspiring stories and sound bites, but what they fail to do is explain why hiring and culture are so important, and how to manage them as your startup rapidly scales. Culture is not destiny. Be prepared to make tradeoffs.

Silicon Valley 28

Silicon Valley Early Stage Hiring Employee 28

Startup Lessons Learned

JUNE 12, 2009

However, this financial bar has had the effect of excluding one segment of potential customers that Id really like to see there - early stage entrepreneurs who have all the intelligence and vision of their later stage counterparts, but simply cannot afford the cash flow to attend.

Lean 60

Lean Programming San Francisco Continuous Deployment 60