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Corporate Acquisitions of Startups: Why Do They Fail?

Steve Blank

VCs like acquisitions as much as IPOs because the acquiring companies often can rationalize paying large multiples over the current valuation of the startup. However, these nosebleed valuations make it even more important in getting the acquired company integrated correctly. Is the Potential Acquisition Searching or Executing?

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Hammer or Hands?

View from Seed

I think a big question facing early stage investors is: are you a hammer? In the prior era of early stage investing, pre-seeds and seeds “fit” into neat buckets slotted in ahead of the neat buckets of series A’s and B’s. Some folks will continue to define stages in narrow terms.

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The Changing Venture Landscape

Both Sides of the Table

I’m over-paying for every check I write into the VC ecosystem and valuations are being pushed up to absurd levels and many of these valuations and companies won’t hold in the long term. On the one hand, you’re over paying for every investment and valuations aren’t rational. The legends of Silicon Valley?—?two HP Style) are dead.

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When Should Startup Founders Discuss Valuation with Seed VCs?

View from Seed

Using NextView as an example, since we both seek to lead the seed round and only lead during this round, I’ve seen this trend manifest in one of two ways: In a priced round, the entrepreneur will often share their valuation ask (or a stated floor) for the pre-money valuation of their company much sooner in the process.

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10 Rules of Thumb for Startup Investment Valuation

Startup Professionals Musings

Once you have a potential investor excited about your team, your product, and your company, the investor will inevitably ask “What is your company’s valuation?” How much is NewCo worth to investors at this point (pre-money valuation)? This is the most concrete valuation element, usually called the asset approach.

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6 Strategies To Find An Investor For Your New Venture

Startup Professionals Musings

The first step is to set your criteria, including a match for your sector type and stage, and then proactively seek out and contact the best candidates: Review profiles on professional social media sites. Searching LinkedIn, for example, is a must for contemporary entrepreneurs. But don’t wait for them to contact you.

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Organizational Debt is like Technical debt – but worse

Steve Blank

Startups focus on speed since they are burning cash every day as they search for product/market fit. But over time code/hardware written/built to validate hypotheses and find early customers can become unwieldy, difficult to maintain and incapable of scaling. These shortcuts add up and become what is called technical debt.