Feld Thoughts

AUGUST 28, 2015

Over the next few days I had a few emails and phone calls with the VC and the CEO. Given the amount raised, the new financing, and the cap, I would have asked the seed investors to waive the terms and instead accept a smaller percentage of the company than they would have otherwise gotten.

Cap Table 70

Cap Table Seed Stage Angel Groups Dilution 70

Babbling VC

JUNE 10, 2010

Anyway, they passed on that, if I remember correctly turning their nose up at venture capital. :-) Yet, when Nils had launched Cellity, they came back to us to pitch this idea (together with Mangrove who had already injected seed money) and we eventually ended up investing shortly thereafter. Emporis This one is a bit of an outlier.

Software Review 64

Software Review Due Diligence Venture Capital Germany 64

Both Sides of the Table

NOVEMBER 18, 2012

Think about it – most entrepreneurs who manage to raise seed money or venture capital usually raise enough money for 12-18 months maximum. Investor emails. You want me to throw around my money like that too, bro? Hell, I send those emails. Many times it’s less. Hire fast, fire faster.

Monaco 420

Monaco Cofounder Chicago Mexico 420

Startup Professionals Musings

JUNE 2, 2011

But when your only capital is your hard-earned seed money, every penny that goes out will be scrutinized painfully. It's amazing how rare it is for professionals to return phone calls and emails promptly, show up on time, or finish a project for the price quoted. Your mortgage and grocery bill depend on it.

Sweat Equity 231

Sweat Equity Startup Angel Investor Seed Money 231

Both Sides of the Table

JUNE 28, 2010

This includes seed funding Automattic (who produce WordPress, the blog I use for this website) and investing in formspring.me, stickybits, Thing Labs (producer of Brizzly), KissMetrics and many others including Quantcast. So how is Mike able to do this at a time where others have warned against taking seed money from VC funds?

San Francisco 230

San Francisco Los Angeles Cofounder SMS 230

Hippoland

MARCH 27, 2016

Do you have experience in email? Although you do not need a deck to raise seed money, this is why I like to use a deck in my conversations with seed investors. He said that the conversation went all over the place, and I had no control over it. The conversation basically went like this: Me: [Intro to LaunchBit.]

Seed Money 48

Seed Money Conversion Leadership Partner 48

pandodaily.com

NOVEMBER 29, 2012

It’s just getting easier to raise early rounds and harder to raise later rounds,” says Y Combinator’s Paul Graham over email, hewing to the latter view that this has merely become startup life in the Valley. “That’s independent of how much money VCs have or how many companies funded.

Technical Review 93

Technical Review Silicon Valley Incubator Syria 93

Berkonomics

OCTOBER 15, 2015

There’s a common expectation among entrepreneurs that seed money from family is great – letting close relatives in at the ground floor. Also, if things go south, they are more likely to remember that you weren’t pushy and that you gave them three or more separate opportunities to say no.

Valuation 48

Valuation Startup Seed Money Early Stage 48

Scott Edward Walker

OCTOBER 28, 2014

“The way I always think about running a startup is also the way I think about raising money, which is: it’s a process of peeling away layers of risk as you go. So you raise seed money to peel away the first two or three risks.” Marc Andreessen (at 12:40). “In Ron Conway (at 14:58).

Cap Table 67

Cap Table Cofounder Silicon Valley Venture Capital 67

Both Sides of the Table

OCTOBER 17, 2009

This posting was inspired by an email from Rajat Suri who wrote me an email in response to Chris Dixon’s blog post (link below) from August, which recently re-ran on Business Insider and has generated much Twitter chatter. This is part of my ongoing series about Raising Venture Capital. What gives? Am I a hypocrite?

Software Review 283

Software Review Term Sheet Due Diligence Southern California 283

andrewchen.co

AUGUST 20, 2012

You can also subscribe by RSS or email below, and youll get updates when things start back up again. How long will the “seed stage bubble” last? My reasoning looks something like this: Right now, startups with strong teams can easily raise seed funding ($200-$1.5M Subscribe by email. Thanks, and enjoy!

Seed Stage 51

Seed Stage Early Stage Mobile Seed Money 51

Mike Michalowicz

MARCH 24, 2013

Whether one kid does it all or several kids work together to deliver the goods, a greeting card business in these days of e-cards, text and emails will be especially valuable around the holidays. #15 20 Use the Allowance as Seed Money. 15 Poop Handler. Yes, you read that right. 16 Corner Store.

Entrepreneur 167

Entrepreneur Seed Money Social Media Sales 167

www.reincubate.com

FEBRUARY 1, 2010

Email us or call +44 (0) 844 3579899 home about services blog labs Which language should my startup use? Seed money gets invested on something that shouldn’t be in use, rather than something provided by an off-the-shelf framework which won’t tie the business to a particular agency.

Fractional CTO 40

Fractional CTO CTO Technical Review CTO Hire 40

Berkonomics

MARCH 30, 2012

Email readers, continue here.] Crowd Funding: The Internet is at work here, especially for obtaining early stager seed money. An entrepreneur utilizes online communities to solicit pledges of small amounts of money from individuals who are typically not professional financiers.

Intellectual Property 76

Intellectual Property Entrepreneur Small Business Administration SBA 76

Gust

OCTOBER 2, 2014

Think about it – most entrepreneurs who manage to raise seed money or venture capital usually raise enough money for 12-18 months maximum. Investor emails. You want me to throw around my money like that too, bro? Hell, I send those emails. Many times it’s less. Hire fast, fire faster. Center seat.

Monaco 122

Monaco Cofounder Chicago Mexico 122

readwrite.com

DECEMBER 3, 2012

Tags: Venture capital , angel investors , seed rounds , Startups , entrepreneurs.

Silicon Valley 111

Silicon Valley Las Vegas Angel Investor Startup 111

cdixon.org

SEPTEMBER 17, 2011

link] My email list for “unbloggable” thoughts and ideas – Venture Sprout. [.] link] What’s the right amount of seed money to raise? Watson. [.] 4:32 pm on September 3, 2009 Reply Tags: business (100) Why you shouldn’t keep your startup idea secret. § [.]. that we would have received.

Stealth 68

Stealth Startup NDA Cofounder 68

Both Sides of the Table

SEPTEMBER 2, 2009

We trade emails on the topic of entrepreneurship often. I raised $500k in seed money to start the company. A friend of mine is a serial entrepreneur and is running a high-profile, early stage company in NorCal. He’s been at it since 2005. I had just moved back to the US from living in Europe for 11 years.

Founder 329

Founder Liquidation Preference Term Sheet Participating Preferred 329

www.paulgraham.com

AUGUST 1, 2008

Instead of going to venture capitalists with a business plan and trying to convince them to fund it, you can get a product launched on a few tens of thousands of dollars of seed money from us or your uncle, and approach them with a working company instead of a plan for one. Ask anyone whos done it. But this just wouldnt work.

Web 54

Web Startup Silicon Valley Technical Review 54

Rob Go

MARCH 20, 2013

Even Mailbox (which just got acquired by DropBox for likely a big number) I’m sure faced a trough of sorry when they shifted resources away from their original product (behind which their raised their seed round) and pursued what could have been yet another email client. The trough I’m sure happens even for every successful companies.

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. Because seed firms are companies rather than individual people,reaching them is easier than reaching angels. Just go to their website and send them an email.

Technical Review 76

Technical Review Startup Software Review Angel Investor 76

techcrunch.com

OCTOBER 23, 2010

For both companies, the initial traction enabled raising seed money to get them to a traditional VC investment.) You probably guessed it – I am over 40 and a developer – so my ideas of a good product or service is one that helps with real problems and has enough value that people are actually willing to pay money for it.

Technical Review 84

Technical Review Cofounder Technical Cofounder Software Review 84

This is going to be BIG.

JANUARY 6, 2014

A founder will raise one party round worth of seed money and they''ll go teach a class on how to raise venture capital. I ran a viral email campaign that signed up a person a minute for the week preceding launch, and then generated a firestorm of media coverage when the product opened for business. Growth hacking?

Startup 147

Startup Venture Capital IPO Viral 147