Startup Lessons Learned

MAY 31, 2019

Of course, hitting your objectives alone doesn’t guarantee success--you might have set the wrong objectives or the market needs may shift over time--but it’s a reasonable proxy for measuring interim success. I'd love to hear your thoughts on what's happened in the capital markets over the last 20 years--the good and the bad?

Lean 108

Lean Venture Capital Conversion IPO 108

Scalable Startup

AUGUST 9, 2018

High growth startup companies need seed money to get things going. They need the money to rent offices, hire staff, and establish their initial presence (website, incorporation, marketing). Without seed funding most startups seeking high growth won’t make it. Without funding most tech startups will die.

Technical Cofounder 20

Technical Cofounder Silicon Valley Early Stage Cofounder 20

Hippoland

AUGUST 17, 2016

A reader named Turner Dean recently asked me whether it’s better to raise seed money on convertible notes or straight-up equity. If you have great uptake, you may end up wanting to raise more money on another tranche of notes at a higher cap. This happens more than you can imagine.

Equity 48

Equity Convertible Security Silicon Valley Technical Review 48

Steve Blank

JUNE 11, 2009

Yet for every founder there are 10-20 other employees who take the near-equivalent risks in joining an early-stage company. If you’re not a founder (by choice, timing or temperament,) you may be an early employee or a later stage startup employee. Will there be a lecture on getting seed money in a post crisis world?

Cofounder 219

Cofounder Founder Silicon Valley Technical Cofounder 219

SoCal CTO

FEBRUARY 2, 2011

A lot of my time is spent helping early-stage companies get to proof points so that they can raise capital. They might have some seed money and are thinking or raising a Series A based on success of an early release (MVP). Bill Payne is an expert on how early-stage investors should look at valuation.

Valuation 198

Valuation Revenue Pre-Money Valuation Early Stage 198

ReadWriteStart

SEPTEMBER 17, 2021

The world of startups is a bit like a gold rush right now: there’s lots of money to be made, almost no rules regarding who will make or lose it, and only a few will actually see a sustained profit at the end of the day. They will want to know that there is a product-market fit and that the product is experiencing actual growth.

Startup 130

Startup Revenue Cofounder Angel Investor 130

Startup Professionals Musings

JANUARY 18, 2013

The number of startups getting seed funding in 2012 jumped by 65% over the previous year to a total of 1749, according to a recent report by CB Insights. Seed investments” are early stage financings (typically less than $1.5 Seeded companies will take longer to raise a next round. Stay alert.

Massachusetts 249

Massachusetts Silicon Valley Venture Capital California 249

ReadWriteStart

SEPTEMBER 17, 2021

The world of startups is a bit like a gold rush right now: there’s lots of money to be made, almost no rules regarding who will make or lose it, and only a few will actually see a sustained profit at the end of the day. They will want to know that there is a product-market fit and that the product is experiencing actual growth.

Startup 78

Startup Revenue Cofounder Angel Investor 78

Version One Ventures

SEPTEMBER 8, 2014

With the influx of seed money, much has been written about the fact that start-ups that are taking far more funding than they need. Being swamped with funding is a problem that most early stage companies would love to have. Pitfall #3: Tackling too many things at the same time. Pitfall #4: Culture of “we’ve done it”.

Guerilla 158

Guerilla Seed Money Vertical Early Stage 158

Both Sides of the Table

MARCH 6, 2015

I was out to raise my first seed money in my second startup of $500,000. I began asking around who the likely investors were for such a market. Often seed investors will step off the board when A or B round investors get involved and this is important because otherwise entrepreneurs can end up with unwieldy VC-heavy boards.

Seed Stage 150

Seed Stage Silicon Valley Syndicate Syndication 150

Both Sides of the Table

APRIL 3, 2010

Chris Dixon provided some commentary on Twitter that he believes I missed “the most important point about fund size.&# He’s specifically referring to his point of view that entrepreneurs shouldn’t take seed money from “big VC’s&# (he defines them as > $100 million). Let me give you an example.

Venture Capital 265

Venture Capital Term Sheet Early Stage Silicon Valley 265

The Next Web

DECEMBER 30, 2013

The city is enhancing tech education options at all levels; non-profit organizations are helping early-stage entrepreneurs gain access to much-needed funding and resources; and regional government bodies are opening new market opportunities with recent growth initiatives, including increasing domestic and international flight services.

Denver 166

Denver Silicon Valley San Jose Colorado 166

YoungUpstarts

JULY 22, 2017

Success as an entrepreneur takes a lot more than an idea, a dab of seed money and, as they say, a wing and a prayer. Part of the challenge of successful entrepreneurship is the ability to anticipate market needs and come up with solutions to meet them – often even before the market knows there is a need. The end result?

Founder 100

Founder United States Canada Seed Money 100

Version One Ventures

SEPTEMBER 8, 2014

With the influx of seed money, much has been written about the fact that start-ups that are taking far more funding than they need. Being swamped with funding is a problem that most early stage companies would love to have. Pitfall #3: Tackling too many things at the same time. Pitfall #4: Culture of “we’ve done it”.

Guerilla 91

Guerilla Seed Money Vertical Early Stage 91

www.businessinsider.com

SEPTEMBER 6, 2012

Google Ventures has made more than 100 seed investments, Maris said, including some past and present Y Combinator companies, and is making one to two new ones a week. Parse, one of the most-anticipated startups in Silicon Valley these days , went through Y Combinator last year and raised seed money from Google Ventures , for example.

Silicon Valley 54

Silicon Valley Startup Valuation Venture Capital 54

cdixon.org

SEPTEMBER 17, 2011

Very, very few markets have room for only one player. Quite early on, you will be able to differentiate yourself – and having competitors help you grow the market can actually be a good thing. But it’s probably wise to be more secretive in some vertical markets: [link]. [link] Kristian Dupont. link] Nivi.

Stealth 68

Stealth Startup NDA Cofounder 68

Both Sides of the Table

AUGUST 1, 2010

I’ve written about it myself (Is VC Seed Funding Dead?) and (Is There Really a Signaling Problem with VC Seed Funding?). There is a structural reason that VCs are investing at early stages, 2. million is “follow on&# seed investment. Tags: Startup Advice Tech Market Analysis VC Industry.

Post-Money Valuation 298

Post-Money Valuation Term Sheet Warrant Partner 298

andrewchen.co

AUGUST 20, 2012

My theory is, we’re currently in a golden age for early stage startups, and the early stage market will stay hot for at least the next 3-5 years. My reasoning looks something like this: Right now, startups with strong teams can easily raise seed funding ($200-$1.5M Tell me in the comments.

Seed Stage 51

Seed Stage Early Stage Mobile Seed Money 51

Austin Startup

APRIL 23, 2010

There is a common complaint heard from local entrepreneurs that AV doesn’t invest in early stage companies anymore. But the financial markets have definitely raised the bar.

Intellectual Property 79

Intellectual Property Austin Early Stage Agile 79

pandodaily.com

NOVEMBER 29, 2012

Add to this regular angels becoming “super angels” — a much-mocked phrase for when someone goes from investing their own money to investing institutional funds. Essentially they became micro-VCs, still investing at the seed level but with much greater resources behind them. A name like 500 Startups says it all.

Technical Review 93

Technical Review Silicon Valley Incubator Syria 93

Berkonomics

MARCH 30, 2012

There is still abundant money available for early stage investment, but many of the rules have changed, as well as the processes for accessing these resources. Crowd Funding: The Internet is at work here, especially for obtaining early stager seed money.

Intellectual Property 76

Intellectual Property Entrepreneur Small Business Administration SBA 76

This is going to be BIG.

MARCH 23, 2015

The private market is pretty efficient that way--and to look at it otherwise is to reinforce the notion that everyone trying to start something, instead of joining the teams with the best ideas is a good thing for the market. in seed money instead of $1.5M I don''t think early stage investors are taking enough risk.

Post-Money Valuation 60

Post-Money Valuation Valuation Pre-Money Valuation Seed Money 60

Both Sides of the Table

OCTOBER 17, 2009

.&# And I think this line of thinking has started to become conventional wisdom as outlined in Chris Dixon’s excellent blog post saying that you need to be careful raising seed money from a large VC fund. I do think you need to be careful with funds that have done 20-30 seeds deals in fairly rapid succession.

Software Review 283

Software Review Term Sheet Due Diligence Southern California 283

Rob Go

JANUARY 20, 2015

There were a number of interesting articles published over the last week in response to Mattermark and CB Insight’s data around early stage financing activity. As a team, we’ve been thinking about what has been going on in the seed market in recent years. Third: The definition and dynamics of seed rounds have changed.

Early Stage 28

Early Stage Seed Stage Finance Seed Money 28

www.paulgraham.com

OCTOBER 23, 2010

The market price is less than the inconvenience of signing an NDA. Microsofts originalplan was to make money selling programming languages, of all things.Their current business model didnt occur to them until IBM droppedit in their lap five years later. The best odds are in niche markets. This is calledseed capital.

Startup 105

Startup Cofounder Software Stock 105

Both Sides of the Table

SEPTEMBER 2, 2009

On a panel that I sat on with Ron in LA in 2008 he stated that there were no circumstances in which the founder should take money off of the table. A friend of mine is a serial entrepreneur and is running a high-profile, early stage company in NorCal. I raised $500k in seed money to start the company.

Founder 329

Founder Liquidation Preference Term Sheet Participating Preferred 329

Rob Go

NOVEMBER 15, 2016

Also, in a market where a bunch of high-flyers are crumbling, investors are more deliberate and less enamored by pure top line metrics. This is especially true in markets that are out of favor or unsexy (or where investors feel out of their comfort zone). This strategy can also fail because the goal line might move. $1M

Product 28

Product Seed Stage Seed Money Metrics 28

Rob Go

MARCH 20, 2013

First, the first time products hit the market and it’s clear you don’t have 100% product market fit. Is it possible to take seed money and not go for the Series A, etc, and just earn revenue? If we never want to exit and plan to own and run the company forever, would anyone invest any money at all? .

Bootstrapping 46

Bootstrapping Finance Dividend Vesting 46

www.paulgraham.com

APRIL 28, 2010

It wasnt because they werent accredited investors that I didntask my parents for seed money, though. When we were starting Viaweb,I didnt know about the concept of an accredited investor, anddidnt stop to think about the value of investors connections.The reason I didnt take money from my parents was that I didntwant them to lose it.

Technical Review 76

Technical Review Startup Software Review Angel Investor 76

techcrunch.com

OCTOBER 23, 2010

One of the things I do as a founder of a later stage startup is to meet with early stage entrepreneurs to help them get their companies going. Not everybody can, especially if they need to run with the idea to get to market. By now it is useless except bragging rights as traction and market disruption have been lost.

Technical Review 84

Technical Review Cofounder Technical Cofounder Software Review 84

This is going to be BIG.

SEPTEMBER 7, 2012

The one thing that does effect them all is the cyclicality of funding and exit markets, but if you go back over the last 20 years, there's really only been a very short timeframe where you literally could not get a company funded. I thought the numbers prove this--because big later stage underperforms small early stage.

Later Stage 99

Later Stage Down Round Pre-Money Valuation Early Stage 99