Steve Blank

APRIL 10, 2019

VC’s have just changed the ~50-year old social contract with startup employees. For most startup employee’s startup stock options are now a bad deal. As Venture Capital emerged as an industry in the mid 1970’s, investors in venture-funded startups began to give stock options to all their employees.

Stock Options 334

Stock Options Stock Vesting Common Stock 334

The Startup Magazine

AUGUST 11, 2023

The fundamental objective and aim of seed investment is to assist a company in launching its operations successfully. Seed capital is a component of the initial investments made in young businesses. Some return value must be offered to the investors for startup seed funding to be considered acceptable.

Seed Stage 148

Seed Stage Technical Review Early Stage Due Diligence 148

Seeing Both Sides

AUGUST 28, 2017

Goldman Sachs and CB Insights recently reported that startups have raised over $1 billion in Initial Coin Offerings (ICOs) this summer — more than the total amount of venture capital raised during the same period. Need for growth capital. A company that can successfully raise money in an ICO may never need venture capital again.

Early Stage 20

Early Stage Equity Venture Capital Government 20

Seeing Both Sides

AUGUST 28, 2017

Goldman Sachs and CB Insights recently reported that startups have raised over $1 billion in Initial Coin Offerings (ICOs) this summer — more than the total amount of venture capital raised during the same period. Need for growth capital. A company that can successfully raise money in an ICO may never need venture capital again.

Early Stage 20

Early Stage Equity Venture Capital Government 20

Both Sides of the Table

OCTOBER 26, 2014

In that article I talked about how PR drives: recruiting, employee retention, biz dev deals, funding and even M&A and that often “attribution” to your PR activities is unknown. Contrary to popular opinion I actually believe crowd-funding is best used after seed capital or venture capital.

PR 319

PR Venture Capital Hiring Seed Capital 319

Scalable Startup

AUGUST 9, 2018

Raising seed capital is a tricky business. Most are making major mistakes in their approach when seeking capital. Also, if you can build a nice little group of advisors and partners you will have the added momentum from all those people as well as some potential future employees.

Technical Cofounder 20

Technical Cofounder Silicon Valley Early Stage Cofounder 20

Haystack

NOVEMBER 24, 2018

venture capital to date (more on this in a separate post), unfortunately relegating billion-dollar exits as “ho-hum” events to the technology crowd. 1/ A Pre-Seed Reminder: According to Crunchbase, PlanGrid was founded and went through Y Combinator in 2012. The company only raised a bit over $1M as seed capital.

Acquisition 62

Acquisition Artificial Inteligence Balance Sheet Cofounder 62