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

MAY 22, 2020

Early stage burn rates over $50K per month, or a runway of less than six months may indicate an inefficient or desperate startup. Every startup should have at least a couple of outside advisors who are not major investors or family members, anxious to talk to new investors and key new hires. Think twice before you jump in.

Technical Review 436

Technical Review Due Diligence Burn Rate Sweat Equity 436

The Startup Magazine

JUNE 1, 2023

As an early-stage company that just closed our seed round at $8.1 So what does an early-stage company do to avoid the doom and gloom plaguing the world of startups? Hire versatile players and lean into your team The SVB collapse reminded us that staffing matters. That includes us.

Early Stage 111

Early Stage Los Angeles Silicon Valley Cofounder 111

Startup Professionals Musings

FEBRUARY 18, 2023

Early stage burn rates over $50K per month, or a runway of less than six months may indicate an inefficient or desperate startup. Every startup should have at least a couple of outside advisors who are not major investors or family members, anxious to talk to new investors and key new hires. Think twice before you jump in.

Burn Rate 207

Burn Rate Sweat Equity 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. Personnel Manager. All the learning from parenting pays big dividends here.

Advisory Board 312

Advisory Board Startup Dividend Angel Investor 312

Startup Professionals Musings

MARCH 10, 2021

The key here is to create a win-win partner situation for your investors. Don’t waste time talking to VCs for requests less than $1M, or very early stage, and don’t expect professional investors to jump in if you have no “skin in the game.” Lack of understanding of the funding process/rules.

Software Review 307

Software Review Due Diligence Elevator Pitch Early Stage 307

YoungUpstarts

JUNE 4, 2019

by Bruce Cleveland, Founding Partner at Wildcat Venture Partners and author of “ Traversing the Traction Gap “ As we continue our exploration of the Traction Gap Framework® – a step-by-step approach that startup teams can use to go from ideation to preparing to scale – I will walk you through the principles.

Framework 118

Framework Architecture Cleveland Early Stage 118

Steve Blank

NOVEMBER 1, 2011

Every potential early-stage Venture Capitalist should take a year and do it before he or she makes partner. Over time Venture firms realized that the partners in the firms needs a variety of skills: People skills (ability to recognize patterns of success in individuals and teams). we do not even try to train new partners.

Venture Capital 332

Venture Capital Early Stage Technical Review Startup 332

Both Sides of the Table

JUNE 30, 2016

It is a truism that with more capital you will hire people more quickly and spend more liberally whether it’s on external contractors, PR firms, attending events, doing legal work (trademarks, patents) or whatever. It forces harder decisions about whom you’ll hire and whom you’ll delay. million or $4 million.

Pre-Money Valuation 292

Pre-Money Valuation Valuation Early Stage Startup 292

YoungUpstarts

MAY 24, 2019

by Bruce Cleveland, Founding Partner at Wildcat Venture Partners and author of “ Traversing the Traction Gap “ As we continue our exploration of the Traction Gap Framework® – a step-by-step approach that startup teams can use to go from ideation to preparing to scale – I will walk you through the principles.

Framework 104

Framework Architecture Cleveland Early Stage 104

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

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. I’m quite optimistic about the direction that this is headed based on the momentum of more diverse hiring in the junior and mid-level ranks of the industry. The number of firms with multiple midas list partners was 16.

Venture Capital 313

Venture Capital China Technical Review Partner 313

The Startup Magazine

SEPTEMBER 12, 2019

While the rewards may be a boon to their company in the short term, the consequences of accepting outside funding too early can be debilitating. There’s a reason why I refer to early-stage VC funding as vulture capital, and to be honest it’s pretty accurate. Just because you can afford to hire, doesn’t mean that you should.

Early Stage 85

Early Stage Venture Capital Bootstrapping Pre-Money Valuation 85

Steve Blank

NOVEMBER 7, 2023

Most early stage startups don’t have the regulatory domain expertise in-house. Hire/advisors from the inside industry but use them to make you smarter not just to outsource the work. (The books The Fixer and Regulatory Hacking give examples of regulatory pitfalls, problems and suggested solutions.) will move the needle.

Washington 271

Washington Government Marketing Silicon Valley 271

View from Seed

FEBRUARY 9, 2022

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. We lead or co-lead most of our investments and invest very early…80% of the unicorns we have backed were pre-product at the time of our investment.

Technical Review 156

Technical Review North America Seed Stage Bandwidth 156

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.

North America 120

North America Seed Stage Early Stage Lead Investor 120

Steve Blank

APRIL 23, 2014

Companies manage these three types of innovation with an innovation portfolio – they build innovation internally, they buy it or they partner with resources outside their company. Corporate business development and strategic partner executives are flocking to Silicon Valley to find these five types of innovation.

Acquisition 332

Acquisition Intellectual Property Silicon Valley Startup 332

ReadWriteStart

DECEMBER 15, 2022

It provides the freedom to partner with entrepreneurs and reduce the costs of agency work in exchange for equity in their startup. Being able to hire talented professionals remains a difficult proposition in the current job market, especially when sourcing experienced developers, designers, and project managers.

Incubator 188

Incubator Startup Software Developers Software Development 188

Both Sides of the Table

JULY 16, 2010

The VC industry grew dramatically as a result of the Internet bubble - Before the Internet bubble the people who invested in VC funds (called LPs or Limited Partners) put about $50 billion into the industry and by 2001 this had grown precipitously to around $250 billion. Partners leave the industry. Here’s my take: 1.

Technical Review 311

Technical Review LP Early Stage Silicon Valley 311

Both Sides of the Table

MARCH 19, 2013

The era of VCs investing in successful consumer Internet startups such as eBay led to a belief system that seemed to permeate many enterprise software startups that hiring sales or implementation people was a bad thing. If you’re an early-stage enterprise startup services revenue is exactly what you need.

Technical Review 403

Technical Review Software Review Startup API 403

Eric Friedman

MAY 1, 2023

Then about two years ago, I reunited with one of the smartest CTOs I know and we began connecting our old engineer network with early stage companies that needed to ship faster. At the same time my partner at I started down the path of putting out a way for engineers to tell their story better, a platform to show off their skills.

Technical Review 117

Technical Review Engineer Early Stage Operations 117

YoungUpstarts

MAY 27, 2019

You have to be careful, and realize you will make mistakes, about who you hire early in the life of your company. Recognize your hiring mistakes and correct them quickly. This is an especially dangerous pitfall for early stage startups and new entrepreneurs. Teams often don’t rise to the level of their best people.

Cofounder 155

Cofounder Private Equity Software Review Equity 155

David Teten

APRIL 1, 2021

Dan Kozikowski, Partner and Head of Platform, First Mark Capital , said to me, “Firms should match services to the stage-specific needs of companies. For example, recruiting writ large is useful at all stages of development. Real Ventures , an early-stage, Canadian-based fund, runs a two-day Founder Camp every six months.

Private Equity 78

Private Equity Venture Capital Portfolio Equity 78

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. Personnel Manager. All the learning from parenting pays big dividends here.

Entrepreneur 266

Entrepreneur Advisory Board Dividend Angel Investor 266

Genuine VC

JULY 9, 2013

Although these startups are very diverse businesses themselves, they face similar requirements (especially in that they’re currently all in the seed to Series B range of company stage). And the results were pretty interesting, especially as they clustered with meaningful overlap among companies.

Early Stage 246

Early Stage Boston Portfolio Silicon Valley 246

Startup Professionals Musings

APRIL 17, 2023

Government grants and industry partners are you best bet here, but Angel investors might give you $250,000 to $1 million, if you have the right business case and credentials. The final product works great, and all the early users love it.” Every investor wants to be part of your growth stage , after your first $1 million in revenue.

Angel Investor 313

Angel Investor Intellectual Property Investment Bankers Private Equity 313

Hunter Walker

AUGUST 31, 2023

The flipside, of course, is that the more transparent and direct you are with your employees, the more they’ll trust you to tell them the truth (even when it’s tough), the more reassured they’ll feel that you are actively monitoring the situation, and the more empowered they’ll be to partner with you on the solution.

Employee 113

Employee Startup Vertical Leadership 113

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.

Startup 78

Startup Cofounder Burn Rate Technical Review 78

SoCal CTO

APRIL 18, 2012

Todd Gitlin of Safire Partners - a go to resource here in LA for recruiting C-level positions at startups - was nice enough to compile some data again this year (see last year's Startup CTO Salary and Equity Data ). Or they are looking at Hiring a CTO and want to see what salary and equity ranges look like. It has not.

CTO Hire 294

CTO Hire Salary Equity Los Angeles 294

Startup Professionals Musings

NOVEMBER 17, 2013

The key here is to create a win-win partner situation for your investors. Don’t waste time talking to VCs for requests less than $1M, or very early stage, and don’t expect professional investors to jump in if you have no “skin in the game.” Lack of understanding of the funding process/rules.

Software Review 265

Software Review Due Diligence Elevator Pitch Startup 265

Startup Professionals Musings

JULY 3, 2012

Trusted partners quit, personal friends become enemies, and staff management becomes a huge burden. The proactive solution is to hire sparingly, and spend the time and effort needed to hire existing experts in all cases. Stretch” goals in early-stage are not advised. Too slow or too fast to change.

Advisory Board 240

Advisory Board Forecast Early Stage Product Development 240

Startup Professionals Musings

NOVEMBER 4, 2015

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. In the investment community, these leadership elements are often called “goodwill.” Focus on talent and people growth.

Leadership 120

Leadership Technical Review Due Diligence Valuation 120

YoungUpstarts

OCTOBER 12, 2015

by John Vrionis, partner at Lightspeed Venture Partners. It is my privilege to work with the next generation’s best and brightest in the early stages of their careers. John Vrionis ( @jvrionis ) is a partner at Lightspeed Venture Partners who focuses primarily on early stage enterprise and consumer technology investments.

Entrepreneur 100

Entrepreneur Leadership Early Stage Technical Review 100

VC Cafe

JULY 21, 2022

Investment bank Drake Star Partners published a report on the gaming investment and M&A activity in the first half of 2022. In addition, several gaming companies announced layoffs, including Unity and Niantic and many others froze hiring. billion in Q2 2022 with over half of total amount raised by early-stage companies.

Forecast 190

Forecast IP Mobile Acquisition 190

YoungUpstarts

MARCH 15, 2017

In the early stages of the company you’ll probably have an idea of the kind of people you need, certainly in terms of the skillset that’s required. But, before you start hiring, think about how you’re actually going to manage the people you’re investing in.

Software Review 109

Software Review Angel Investor Cofounder Early Stage 109

Both Sides of the Table

MAY 2, 2015

What I love about my job is getting to see teams of super-early-stage companies develop ideas that while raw have potential to make an impact on the market. For a well-funded seed company I have controversially recommended hiring a great office manager that doubles as an administrative assistant.

Operations 150

Operations Metrics Early Stage Non-Compete 150

Both Sides of the Table

SEPTEMBER 29, 2013

It should help some entrepreneurs to better access early-stage capital and should allow some angel investors better access to deal flow. interviewing critical hires at a time where they have 3 other offers. Syndicates can move faster in early-stage deals than rounding up 40 individual investors. and much more.

Syndicate 356

Syndicate Syndication Cofounder Early Stage 356