Startup Professionals Musings

APRIL 17, 2023

For example, if you have a proven product, real revenue, a big potential market, and are ready to scale up the business, every investor will be interested. On the other hand, if you are a new entrepreneur, still in the idea stage, professional investors will only tell you to come back later when you have traction (customers and revenue).

Angel Investor 313

Angel Investor Intellectual Property Investment Bankers Private Equity 313

Gust

JULY 8, 2012

If you are new to the entrepreneurial world of startups, you are likely confused by the terminology of seed-stage, lean startups, micro-VCs, and Super Angels. The good news is that he is all about helping early-stage startups. Early-stage startup. Every startup is early-stage to someone.

Early Stage 177

Early Stage Finance Seed Stage Entrepreneur 177

View from Seed

JANUARY 27, 2021

. $100M is a meaningful increase from our $50M third fund, though it’s still quite small in the grand scheme of venture, especially amid the recent wave of late stage financings and SPACs. We believe that this fund is the perfect size for us to be the best possible partners to early-stage entrepreneurs today.

LP 411

LP Early Stage Seed Stage Venture Capital 411

David Teten

JANUARY 19, 2021

More and more startups are pursuing Revenue-Based VCs , but “RBI” doesn’t fit everyone. Flexible VC 101: Equity Meets Revenue Share. By tying payments to actual revenues, founders and investors remain aligned around the company’s real-time performance, good or bad. Flexible VC: Revenue -based. Of the Inc.

Cofounder 78

Cofounder Technical Review Equity Dividend 78

Startup Professionals Musings

JULY 22, 2020

For example, if you have a proven product, real revenue, a big potential market, and are ready to scale up the business, every investor will be interested. On the other hand, if you are a new entrepreneur, still in the idea stage, professional investors will only tell you to come back later when you have traction (customers and revenue).

Angel Investor 370

Angel Investor Intellectual Property Investment Bankers Private Equity 370

Startup Professionals Musings

DECEMBER 11, 2022

Getting investors to trust you with their money is always a challenge, and it’s even more difficult in the early stages, where you don’t have a significant revenue stream, a few customers, or maybe even a product yet. At these stages, it’s all about you, and your ability to communicate and execute effectively.

Due Diligence 271

Due Diligence Intellectual Property Entrepreneur Preferred Stock 271

Both Sides of the Table

JULY 16, 2010

So super angel and seed funds are proliferating – As a result there has been an explosion in the number of amazing early-stage investors such as Softtech VC , Floodgate , Felicis Ventures , K9 Ventures , OATV , Lowercase Capital , Founder Collective , and many, many more. That’s OK. Price MUST be in a certain range.

LP 311

LP Technical Review Early Stage Silicon Valley 311

Startup Professionals Musings

MARCH 14, 2020

Getting investors to trust you with their money is always a challenge, and it’s even more difficult in the early stages, where you don’t have a significant revenue stream, a few customers, or maybe even a product yet. At these stages, it’s all about you, and your ability to communicate and execute effectively.

Due Diligence 308

Due Diligence Intellectual Property Preferred Stock Seed Stage 308

Hunter Walker

JULY 22, 2014

Hey founders, want to hear something incredibly frustrating about seed financing? You know the one that inevitably has you at $100 million in revenue by Year Three? Just* committing to grow customers or revenue or usage can still create a hollow company. I don’t believe the forecast you show me. Yeah, that one.

Forecast 95

Forecast Early Stage Seed Stage Startup 95

View from Seed

DECEMBER 6, 2018

Almost seven years ago, I wrote a post about the difference between a “no” answer and a “no yet” when pitching early-stage VCs. This was back in January 2012, a simpler time… when there was only one kind of seed round, when Series A firms invested pre-revenue, etc. Parsing Seed & Early-Stage VCs.

Seed Stage 120

Seed Stage Early Stage Differentiation Lead Investor 120

K9 Ventures

JUNE 5, 2015

Almost two years ago, in a private/closed meeting with K9 Ventures’ LPs only, I claimed that: What was being referred to in the press as the “Series A Crunch” was not because fewer Series A deals were being done, but because there were too many Seed deals being done. Seed stage was super tough.

Seed Stage 48

Seed Stage Venture Capital Early Stage Valuation 48

View from Seed

APRIL 30, 2015

Especially in the early stages, so much about the company may change in how they think about product or go-to-market — and change multiple times — before raising an institutional round. NVV: Let’s talk about the seed stage specifically. Traction and revenue? Business model?

Term Sheet 120

Term Sheet Equity Startup Seed Stage 120

Austin Startup

MAY 8, 2018

Background reading: Founder Compensation: Cash, Equity, Liquidity Fatal Errors in Early Startup Hiring Early Hires: Options or Stock Given how deeply involved we are with early-stage startups hiring their first key employees, I figured it would be helpful to outline a few key principles to help entrepreneurs navigate the topic.

Employee 48

Employee Seed Stage Startup Equity 48

Rob Go

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 36

North America Seed Stage Early Stage Lead Investor 36

View from Seed

SEPTEMBER 11, 2019

*This post is part of our “pitch deck” series where we dissect the seed stage pitch deck and discuss the ideal flow for a pitch. Now it’s time to set the stage with the early traction you have. Seed stage VCs are realistic about how much traction a very raw company might have. A) Pre-Product Companies.

Seed Stage 149

Seed Stage B2B Seed Capital Revenue 149

Both Sides of the Table

MAY 19, 2013

Yet our initial customer success didn’t translate into big revenue growth and we faced issues such as: Do we support developers, end-users or both? I have a very public seed stage investment policy and awe.sm I have previously written why I don’t believe in the COO role at early-stage startups.

Technical Review 303

Technical Review Cofounder Analytics Founder 303

Both Sides of the Table

JULY 23, 2014

The rise of “micro VCs” or seed-stage funds. Early-stage VCs have realized that they need to capitalize on this trend, which is why many traditional VCs have set up “opportunity” funds that sit alongside their core funds as a means of capturing more private-market (pre IPO) value.

Technical Review 398

Technical Review Venture Capital Valuation Pre-Money Valuation 398

Startup Professionals Musings

AUGUST 19, 2018

For example, if you have a proven product, real revenue, a big potential market, and are ready to scale up the business, every investor will be interested. On the other hand, if you are a new entrepreneur, still in the idea stage, professional investors will only tell you to come back later when you have traction (customers and revenue).

Angel Investor 184

Angel Investor Intellectual Property Investment Bankers Private Equity 184

View from Seed

OCTOBER 11, 2022

At the seed stage and as companies scale, helping the founders I work with identify and reach their goals, personally and professionally, gives me energy and purpose. I made over a dozen angel investments and a few investments in VC funds as an LP, expanding my focus to new geographies, sectors, and stages.

North America 156

North America San Francisco Cap Table Cofounder 156

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. revenue / traction / setting up infrastructure / etc) This can set you apart, because the vast majority of businesses I see at the seed stage are just ideas with no action.

Seed Stage 48

Seed Stage CTO Hire Email Later Stage 48

View from Seed

MARCH 22, 2016

This is for the early-stage companies — the entrepreneurs with great ideas and tireless work ethics who feel like they’ve emailed half of the country’s news outlets with nothing but the rare “thanks, but not interested” reply to show for it. This one is tricker in the pre-revenue stage. The irony hurts. Pitch late.

Seed Stage 120

Seed Stage San Francisco Startup CTO Hire 120

Hippoland

JULY 24, 2016

Valuation is a nebulous topic amongst early stage startups, so I thought I’d really spell it out in detail. In short: Valuations for seed stage companies are fairly arbitrary and driven solely by supply and demand. Your startup’s valuation is not based on a proforma of your revenue. This just doesn’t happen.

Seed Stage 48

Seed Stage Valuation Vertical Demand 48

View from Seed

NOVEMBER 12, 2014

Below, Josh talks about designing features from nothing and how to make important design choices during the pre-seed and seed-stage phases of startup growth. My goal at this very early stage wasn’t to figure out how to unlock growth but to create a product people loved. You Found a Problem to Solve.

Design 330

Design Product Cofounder Boston 330

VC Cafe

FEBRUARY 27, 2024

A founder asked me what makes a $2M round “pre-seed”? especially if the startup already has a product and revenue? And why do we still sometimes hear about pre-seed rounds that look more like a series A in pricing and size? So far there’s not much that has changed, so why should pre-seed look any different in 2024?

Valuation 186

Valuation Software Review Generative AI Technical Review 186

Agile VC

MAY 26, 2011

In another we decended into a debate about our 5 year forecasts (I built the models so fielded most of these questions), and it became clear they probably weren’t the best fit for our Series A round (this group is no longer in the early-stage VC business). And a third firm “pressure tested” (i.e. link] dazhi chen.

Term Sheet 178

Term Sheet Silicon Valley Technical Review Social Network 178

Both Sides of the Table

MARCH 1, 2016

Some LPs have privately speculated that later-stage VCs may have a field day in the next 18 months, buying up large positions in firms with strong revenue at attractive prices given the recent squeeze on funding. Another Area of Concern is in the Seed Investor Class. But there’s no doubt, some will make money.

Venture Capital 150

Venture Capital LP Silicon Valley Marketing 150

Austin Startup

JANUARY 25, 2020

I remember enjoying reading his book “ Delivering Happiness ,” the story behind how he led Zappos and drove it to a billion dollars in revenue before Amazon bought it. So I have embraced it fully, and though we are still in the early stages (seed stage), it’s the hardest thing I have ever done yet it’s the most fulfilling thing to me.

Delaware 62

Delaware SEC New York City New York 62

Startup Professionals Musings

JULY 4, 2014

For example, if you have a proven product, real revenue, a big potential market, and are ready to scale up the business, every investor will be interested. On the other hand, if you are a new entrepreneur, still in the idea stage, professional investors will only tell you to come back later when you have traction (customers and revenue).

Angel Investor 232

Angel Investor Intellectual Property Investment Bankers Private Equity 232

This is going to be BIG.

AUGUST 22, 2012

It’s basically working with potential outside partners to reach your business goals--which could be revenue, distribution, financing, product development, awareness, etc. When you’ve got two people on the team and you’re going super lean in the early stages, usually your best bet is to have a customer experience person and a builder.

PR 144

PR Technical Review Seed Stage Design 144

View from Seed

JANUARY 26, 2016

In the next post, I’ll talk about how we think about pre-seeds at NextView. It’s become increasingly common for startups to raise several seed rounds, and this has led to a bifurcation in the seed stage between what are known as “pre-seed” (or “genesis”) and institutional seed rounds.

Seed Stage 120

Seed Stage Early Stage Cofounder Finance 120

BeyondVC

JANUARY 3, 2019

The 10 year bull market where every company’s revenue chart is up and to the right is over. Seed funds back to basics in 2019: We highlighted the barbelling of VC in the year-end 2017 update and see this continuing in 2019. Either you’re a mega fund or an early stage fund, being caught in the middle is a place you don’t want to be.

Stealth 79

Stealth Advisory Board Cloud Virginia 79

View from Seed

MARCH 16, 2016

Look out for bootstrapped CarGurus , one of the leading used-car properties, targeting over $150M in revenue this year. This is true when it comes to early-stage funding, but also as it relates to support platforms being built by local firms to help Boston-based startups. Want the next TripAdvisor or Wayfair?

Boston 215

Boston Early Stage Artificial Inteligence Semantic 215

VC Adventure

MAY 5, 2022

Both were valued at greater than 50x revenue (one was, I think, 70x revenue). If you abstract this across the venture industry or asset class (seed stage venture in this particular case) you run the risk of having a few outlier valuations driving what appears to be spectacular IRR. Both had raised attractive up rounds.

IRR 116

IRR Metrics Valuation LP 116

Startup Professionals Musings

AUGUST 13, 2016

For example, if you have a proven product, real revenue, a big potential market, and are ready to scale up the business, every investor will be interested. On the other hand, if you are a new entrepreneur, still in the idea stage, professional investors will only tell you to come back later when you have traction (customers and revenue).

Matching 120

Matching Angel Investor Intellectual Property Investment Bankers 120

K9 Ventures

APRIL 9, 2014

Instead, it was more of a result of over-funding at the seed stage. There was simply too much money coming in to the seed stage, which increased the supply of companies at the seed stage. Threshold for an IPO is higher Ten years ago, if you had $20M in revenue you were ready to go public.

Mezzanine 134

Mezzanine Seed Stage Early Stage IPO 134

K9 Ventures

JUNE 12, 2012

While it it may not feel that way, the data suggest that there is indeed too much capital in the system — especially so at the seed stage, with more and more individuals and larger funds trying to invest in companies at this stage.). This is because excessive capital becomes toxic for an early stage company.

Venture Capital 117

Venture Capital Silicon Valley Founder Seed Stage 117

Startup Professionals Musings

AUGUST 1, 2016

Getting investors to trust you with their money is always a challenge, and it’s even more difficult in the early stages, where you don’t have a significant revenue stream, a few customers, or maybe even a product yet. At these stages, it’s all about you, and your ability to communicate and execute effectively.

Due Diligence 120

Due Diligence Intellectual Property Preferred Stock Seed Stage 120