YoungUpstarts

OCTOBER 25, 2018

Today, Mark Attanasio gets to flex his full range of expertise and interests as co-founder and Managing Partner of Hillcrest Merchant Partners, a Toronto-based merchant bank focused on early stage and mid market growth companies. One of the advisory areas Hillcrest Merchant Partners works in is electric metals.

Partner 113

Partner Technical Review Management Due Diligence 113

Startup Professionals Musings

AUGUST 9, 2020

The next default of waiting until later is equally bad, since partners who bow out early will still expect an equal share of that first billion you make later. Co-founders only able to work part-time, with responsibility and major income sources elsewhere, don’t carry the same risk as others with more operational responsibility.

Cofounder 435

Cofounder Technical Cofounder Equity Intellectual Property 435

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. We hired Steve Pease to run finance and then eventually all operations and it has transformed how we operate. It literally can put you out of business.

Operations 150

Operations Metrics Early Stage Non-Compete 150

The Startup Magazine

JUNE 13, 2017

The entrepreneur must have a clear vision & focus, must operate in an optimized environment and, most importantly, must work with good people who share the vision. I therefore value business partners who share my values and vision, and who don’t just see me as an investor, but as a member of the team.

Early Stage 63

Early Stage Silicon Valley Thailand Incubator 63

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? When we set-up our next business our first decision was to operate with a remote workforce. That includes us. It wasn’t a decision we took lightly.

Early Stage 112

Early Stage Los Angeles Silicon Valley Cofounder 112

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 127

Framework Architecture Cleveland Early Stage 127

ReadWriteStart

DECEMBER 15, 2022

Industry-specific domain experience becomes critical when identifying operational pain points ripe for transformation. This outside work provides a valuable source of revenue able to be used to fund operations. This provides both valuable experience and an understanding of the operational issues within each sector.

Incubator 188

Incubator Startup Software Developers Software Development 188

Steve Blank

NOVEMBER 1, 2011

Running a company is distinctly different from simply having operating experience – (working in bus dev, sales or marketing.) Every potential early-stage Venture Capitalist should take a year and do it before he or she makes partner. Board skills (Startup coaching, mentoring, strategy, operational/growth).

Venture Capital 332

Venture Capital Early Stage Technical Review Startup 332

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 113

Framework Architecture Cleveland Early Stage 113

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.”.

Technical Review 156

Technical Review North America Seed Stage Bandwidth 156

Startup Professionals Musings

SEPTEMBER 10, 2018

The next default of waiting until later is equally bad, since partners who bow out early will still expect an equal share of that first billion you make later. Co-founders only able to work part-time, with responsibility and major income sources elsewhere, don’t carry the same risk as others with more operational responsibility.

Equity 238

Equity Cofounder Technical Cofounder Intellectual Property 238

The Startup Magazine

JANUARY 26, 2022

Two primary concerns of regulation are the safety of the products to users and making sure the products you design do not interfere with other products currently operating in the market. A partner to help you navigate early-stage hardware product design and a test lab to provide their input as you finalize a design is the best scenario.

Design 134

Design Development Team Review Product Technical Review 134

Both Sides of the Table

JANUARY 6, 2014

The functions of an early-stage board are pretty obvious and well understood: Providing introductions to customers, biz dev partners, recruits, the press, other investors, etc. Offering a sparring-partner function on strategic decisions. Reviewing financial & operational performance. Mentorship.

Technical Review 325

Technical Review Early Stage Software Review Los Angeles 325

Steve Blank

NOVEMBER 7, 2023

State Regulation In addition to federal laws, each State has its own regulatory environment that applies to businesses operating within the state in areas such as land-use , zoning, motor vehicles, state banking, building codes, public utilities, drug laws, etc. How do you get your early customers to advocate on your behalf?

Washington 271

Washington Government Marketing Silicon Valley 271

NZ Entrepreneur

MAY 31, 2021

The Angel Association of New Zealand ( AANZ ) is co-hosting with New Zealand Growth Capital Partners ( NZGCP ) a series of workshops on early-stage investment. Jason Graham from Movac provided an early-stage venture capital fund perspective, detailing 35 investments made across 5 funds and 22 years.

Portfolio 81

Portfolio New Zealand Management Technical Review 81

Eric Friedman

MAY 1, 2023

This happens in the form of operating, coaching, investing, and now helping them grow their own fractional consulting practice with the launch of GoFractional.com. For the last 4 years I have been a Fractional COO – building a practice of business operating excellence for clients. Its been empowering, exhilarating, and humbling.

Technical Review 117

Technical Review Engineer Early Stage Operations 117

Both Sides of the Table

JUNE 30, 2016

How much you raise determines valuation I know it sounds crazy but at the earliest stages of a company your valuation often is determined by how much money you raise. There is a general guideline of how much investors want to own in order to invest in your company and the norm is 15–30% with the most common range 20–25% per early stage round.

Pre-Money Valuation 292

Pre-Money Valuation Valuation Early Stage Startup 292

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

The Startup Magazine

MARCH 14, 2022

A business plan is drawn up to attract investors and partners. 5) Managing the operations. As the seed funding has been raised by this time, the company starts its operations and gradually expands. As the seed funding has been raised by this time, the company starts its operations and gradually expands. 6) Growth.

Technical Review 146

Technical Review Due Diligence India Startup 146

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

View from Seed

OCTOBER 24, 2019

Or, if you can’t skip a round, when should you try to work extra hard to minimize dilution and when should you be prepared to take more dilution for the right partner/situation? Also, the benefit of raising a pre-seed from great partners probably outweighs the cost. Founders with limited experience. Experienced founders: B2B.

Dilution 149

Dilution B2B Burn Rate Early Stage 149

Both Sides of the Table

JUNE 27, 2013

I am super excited to announce that today is a day of lots of new things for my partners & me: A new fund, a new office and a new brand. Santa Monica is the place where the highest concentration of early-stage startups are created if you consider also the contiguous geography of Venice Beach. What’s up with that?

Los Angeles 343

Los Angeles Las Vegas San Francisco Baltimore 343

Startup Professionals Musings

OCTOBER 8, 2013

Add basic partner contracts or alliances. Using contracts with partners for growth resources (“borrowing”) is best when you can both define the resources clearly and protect them with effective contractual terms. Too much reliance on growth via contracts and alliances makes you vulnerable to partners’ actions and conflicts of interest.

Merger 221

Merger Acquisition CTO Hire Fractional CTO 221

View from Seed

APRIL 27, 2020

Trying to be transparent has always been a core value of NextView, and we hope that this will help founders and our co-investors better understand how we intend to operate in the early stage ecosystem in the next several years. . We look forward to partnering together to make that happen. Number of Investments.

Cofounder 194

Cofounder Software Review Portfolio Technical Review 194

Startup Professionals Musings

AUGUST 4, 2014

The next default of waiting until later is equally bad, since partners who bow out early will still expect an equal share of that first billion you make later. Co-founders only able to work part-time, with responsibility and major income sources elsewhere, don’t carry the same risk as others with more operational responsibility.

Cofounder 261

Cofounder Stock Founder Technical Cofounder 261

YoungUpstarts

JUNE 1, 2019

by Bruce Cleveland, Founding Partner at Wildcat Venture Partners and author of “ Traversing the Traction Gap “. Bruce Cleveland is a Founding Partner at Wildcat Venture Partners and author of the book “ Traversing the Traction Gap “. You can learn more about the Traction Gap Framework here.

Cleveland 150

Cleveland Framework Marketing Early Stage 150

Startup Professionals Musings

SEPTEMBER 1, 2012

Add basic partner contracts or alliances. Using contracts with partners for growth resources (“borrowing”) is best when you can both define the resources clearly and protect them with effective contractual terms. Too much reliance on growth via contracts and alliances makes you vulnerable to partners’ actions and conflicts of interest.

CTO Hire 229

CTO Hire Fractional CTO Merger Non-Compete 229

David Teten

FEBRUARY 7, 2012

Before making the decision to join ff Venture Capital , I did some research on early-stage tech investing as an asset class and how it’s evolving. Although any given early-stage company is quite risky, when aggregated across a large portfolio, returns are very attractive. They’re also inflation-hedged.

Early Stage 148

Early Stage Private Equity Portfolio Aggregator 148

David Teten

JANUARY 19, 2021

(co-written with Jamie Finney, Founding Partner at Greater Colorado Venture Fund. Similar to the explosion of seed funds in the past decade, we (and some limited partners too ) believe these Flexible VCs are on the forefront of what will become a major segment of the venture ecosystem. Of the Inc. 5000 companies, only 6.5% return cap.

Cofounder 78

Cofounder Technical Review Equity Dividend 78

YoungUpstarts

MAY 27, 2019

Implementation is different to theory and ideas, so you need to be able to bring operational performance and many other skills to the table. This is an especially dangerous pitfall for early stage startups and new entrepreneurs. Christopher founded two companies, Crestridge Investments and Third Wave Partners.

Cofounder 170

Cofounder Private Equity Software Review Equity 170

Both Sides of the Table

MARCH 12, 2013

It is with great pleasure that I can finally announce that we have added Greg Bettinelli as a partner at GRP Partners. This is exactly the brand that GRP Partners wants to embody. We knew he had to be an investment partner. We settled on Venture Partner as is now being reported and also picked up here.

Partner 360

Partner Las Vegas Los Angeles San Francisco 360

Startup Professionals Musings

OCTOBER 23, 2021

Relevancy for an early-stage company is the discovery and understanding of the real addressable market for a product or service. Too many early-stage companies are so desperate for customers that they operate in a frantic and random sales mode. The right partnership strategy can make a company relevant.

Early Stage 379

Early Stage Vertical Sales Global 379

Startup Professionals Musings

AUGUST 24, 2016

The next default of waiting until later is equally bad, since partners who bow out early will still expect an equal share of that first billion you make later. Co-founders only able to work part-time, with responsibility and major income sources elsewhere, don’t carry the same risk as others with more operational responsibility.

Equity 120

Equity Cofounder Technical Cofounder Intellectual Property 120

Steve Blank

MAY 29, 2011

Max and his partners interviewed and analyzed over 650 early-stage Internet startups. Today they released the first Startup Genome Report — a 67 page in-depth analysis on what makes early-stage Internet startups successful. They went to work gathering deep knowledege of what makes successful Internet startups.

Technical Cofounder 333

Technical Cofounder Early Stage Startup Silicon Valley 333

ReadWriteStart

MAY 22, 2023

Europe’s Metaverse Market: Niche Operators and Start-ups While the US and Asia dominate the Metaverse market , Europe has yet to establish a major presence in the industry. This article will explore the current state of the Metaverse in Europe and examine the obstacles it needs to overcome to achieve its potential.

Finland 187

Finland Europe Estonia Silicon Valley 187

YoungUpstarts

MAY 19, 2016

Whether it’s burn rates, balance sheets, or P&L and cash flow statements, financial documents say a lot about your operations — and you need to be able to speak the language. Obtain a Confidential Information and Invention Assignment Agreement as early as possible to make sure the IP is clearly (and legally) assigned.

Technical Review 124

Technical Review Burn Rate IP Intellectual Property 124

YoungUpstarts

MARCH 3, 2020

Vancouver executive Christopher Kape is an entrepreneur and venture capitalist who founded JAMCO Capital Partners , an early-stage investment and strategic advisory firm that focuses on a number of industries, including gaming, high-tech, food and wellness. Get in with a person in a group, and they’ll introduce you to others.

Partner 147

Partner Uganda Angel Investor Bulgaria 147