Up and Running

DECEMBER 1, 2015

Of course, not every equity compensation story is a David Choe Story. If you’re thinking about extending equity to an employee or a vendor (as in the example above), you should know that the topic is multi-faceted. In this article, I’m going to examine: What equity compensation is. Different types of equity compensation.

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Feld Thoughts

JULY 15, 2012

About 75 veterans who are active or aspiring entrepreneurs have already been accepted and will be attending. But of course the biggest thanks are due to these entrepreneurs themselves, for their service to our country. Charles Kelly, Silicon Valley Bank. Jerry Johnson, RLJ Equity. Sean Stone, Silicon Valley Bank.

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Fractional CTO CTO Silicon Valley Oklahoma 145

Startup Professionals Musings

JULY 27, 2020

Many entrepreneurs are convinced that banks are not worth the effort for startups, especially early-stage ones that still don’t have a revenue stream, or collateral to back up their financing needs. The first thing to remember is that banks only do loans – they don’t do equity investments like angels and venture capitalists (and vice versa).

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Silicon Valley Equity Startup Finance 406

Startup Professionals Musings

NOVEMBER 11, 2020

The road to becoming an entrepreneur is a journey , and it’s not a short trip. Every entrepreneur starts by accepting the reality that you have a rare mindset of joy of discovery, with an intense curiosity about how certain things or people work, or why a new technology hasn’t yet been accepted.

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Entrepreneur Silicon Valley Incubator Merger 348

techcrunch.com

JUNE 22, 2012

Free Startup Docs: How Much Equity Should Advisors Get? So, you go out to find a veteran entrepreneur, ask her to be an advisor in your fledgling company … and then what? In particular, Ressi said, the team is interested in reactions to the above equity matrix. Digital Cameras. Headphones. CrunchBase. Hot topics.

Equity 94

Equity San Francisco Startup Silicon Valley 94

Hunter Walker

JANUARY 10, 2018

We don’t really talk about money in Silicon Valley. Even though your equity is unlikely to make you rich , there are plenty examples of when it does to extraordinary levels. This afternoon a second-time entrepreneur told me he, at founding, gave most of his equity in his current company to a nonprofit he cares about.

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Silicon Valley San Francisco Vesting .Net 195

Version One Ventures

SEPTEMBER 28, 2016

This problem is relatively minor in large, vibrant ecosystems like Silicon Valley, but can be more pervasive in smaller locations that lack the depth and breadth of experienced start-up advisors and angel investors. CDL provides milestone-based coaching with the goal of maximizing equity-value creation.

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Silicon Valley Technical Review Entrepreneur Angel Investor 60

Steve Blank

APRIL 14, 2013

But for the last decade “innovation” in Chinese software meant something different than it did in Silicon Valley. Entrepreneurs in Beijing were knowledgeable about Silicon Valley, entrepreneurship and the state of software and tools available for two reasons. Of course “copy” is too strong a word.

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China Silicon Valley Non-Compete Intellectual Property 323

Startup Professionals Musings

JUNE 3, 2023

One of the reasons that now is the time to be an entrepreneur is the explosion of startup assistance organizations, usually called incubators or accelerators. Direct seed funding, for a share of the equity, and introductions to investors. Mentoring and technical assistance from volunteer or paid experts.

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Incubator Silicon Valley North America Small Business Administration 231

Startup Professionals Musings

OCTOBER 26, 2020

A few, like Silicon Valley Bank (SVB), actually do provide management services to startups, invest in startups, or provide early-stage venture capital, but that is not called an investment service and is part of a function called Emerging Technologies, or sometimes Private Equity.

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Silicon Valley Private Equity Initial Public Offering Term Sheet 362

YoungUpstarts

AUGUST 25, 2017

Traditionally, VC investors would invest $X million in a startup for a certain percentage of equity, decision making rights, and the power to block things they didn’t agree with. This is boosting access and reach for entrepreneurs to the global pot of available funding. However, this investment model is starting to evolve.

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Venture Capital Technical Review Kenya Startup 193

Up and Running

APRIL 25, 2014

The cast of “Silicon Valley” Image credit: HBO. Silicon Valley is a crazy place. I’ve opted not to return to the Valley for various reasons, but still have plenty of friends who work there and return regularly for business meetings. But should most Silicon Valley companies skip the planning process?

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Silicon Valley Business Plan Entrepreneur Cap Table 104

Startup Professionals Musings

SEPTEMBER 11, 2020

One of the reasons that now is the time to be an entrepreneur is the explosion of startup assistance organizations, usually called incubators or accelerators. Direct seed funding, for a share of the equity, and introductions to investors. Mentoring and technical assistance from volunteer or paid experts.

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Incubator Silicon Valley North America Startup 398

Startup Professionals Musings

DECEMBER 14, 2022

Aspiring entrepreneurs who struggle in a corporate environment often can’t wait to start their own company, only to find that relationships are even more critical and volatile there. The message here is not to use the public personas of leaders and entrepreneurs as the model for building and maintaining your business relationships.

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Silicon Valley Bandwidth Angel Investor Equity 284

SoCal CTO

NOVEMBER 10, 2009

He has a really interesting background as a product manager and now an entrepreneur. My first job out of school was at one of the early bioinformatics companies in Silicon Valley, working as the head of technical services. This time I'm getting to know Mark Geller ( LinkedIn , @markgeller ). Tell me a bit about your background.

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Management Product Entrepreneur Silicon Valley 150

Steve Blank

APRIL 14, 2013

But for the last decade “innovation” in Chinese software meant something different than it did in Silicon Valley. Entrepreneurs in Beijing were knowledgeable about Silicon Valley, entrepreneurship and the state of software and tools available for two reasons. Of course “copy” is too strong a word.

China 215

China Silicon Valley Non-Compete Intellectual Property 215

A Smart Bear: Startups and Marketing for Geeks

JANUARY 4, 2018

The Silicon Valley-oriented technology press outlets don’t cover us because we’re not in San Francisco, even though we’re more successful than most of the startups they cover. This week we closed $250M in financing from Silver Lake , the premier technology private equity firm. It’s the heroin-hit that hooks the entrepreneur. (The

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Engineer Revenue San Francisco Security 152

Startup Professionals Musings

OCTOBER 17, 2022

Examples of some leaders in this space include Ron Conway in Silicon Valley and Jeff Bezos , CEO of Amazon, who each may have over 500 startups in their portfolio. Yet, in my view, every early-stage entrepreneur should be exploring this new funding alternative before approaching VCs.

Angel Investor 342

Angel Investor Venture Capital Silicon Valley Portfolio 342

Austin Startup

MARCH 4, 2019

It’s stocked with free food, drinks and wifi but the real reason you want to be there is because we’ve curated all of the top entrepreneurs, investors, and innovators at SXSW and invited them to stop by. Wednesday, March 13 Every day 10:00am-5:00pm. it could be your next investor or a big customer or the next president of the U.S.

Silicon Valley 50

Silicon Valley Technical Review Texas Venture Capital 50

Steve Blank

MARCH 12, 2014

. — Teaching students to think like entrepreneurs not accountants. We wanted to teach our students how to think like entrepreneurs not accountants. Trying to fit an Entrepreneurial Studies course into a college prep high school outside of Silicon Valley is an interesting challenge.

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Lean Customer Development Startup Silicon Valley 334

Up and Running

SEPTEMBER 19, 2017

When you accept outside money, particularly a private equity (PE) investment, however, that changes. In this article, I’ll provide some personal stories of how investors have navigated the balance between raising private equity capital and not losing control of their startup. You make all the decisions, when you want, how you want.

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Private Equity Pre-Money Valuation Equity Startup 94

The Equity Kicker

SEPTEMBER 9, 2014

Their high value add model is one of the inspirations for Forward Partners so when I saw that former Summit Partners VC Peter Sims had written an analysis of how they are disrupting Silicon Valley I clicked straight through. The ‘entrepreneur friendly’ positioning is the icing on the cake.

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Silicon Valley Venture Capital Portfolio Later Stage 125

Startup Professionals Musings

JUNE 14, 2020

As an advisor to entrepreneurs and active angel investor, I often get questions about the realism of the Shark Tank TV series, compared to professional investor negotiations. The simple answer is that with all the staging of TV lights and billionaire investors, it’s nothing like Silicon Valley.

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Due Diligence Angel Investor Silicon Valley Green 317

YoungUpstarts

OCTOBER 28, 2015

This past summer, the Lightspeed Summer Fellowships program invited selected guests to provide aspiring entrepreneurs a perspective into all aspects of starting a new company. The program provides entrepreneurs the resources and mentoring they need to build their companies and develop their skills. ” The Cost of Financing.

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Convertible Security IP Technical Review Software Review 100

Up and Running

AUGUST 21, 2017

Be prepared to give up equity: Investors increasingly want a larger slice of the pie in exchange for the working capital they provide. While entrepreneurs tend to view their startups as unique and worthy of special consideration, VCs prefer uniformity and benchmarked standards for ROI, since they have stakeholders to answer to as well.

Silicon Valley 86

Silicon Valley Venture Capital Valuation Later Stage 86

Steve Blank

JULY 7, 2009

Steve Blanks 30 years of Silicon Valley startup advice. The relevant part starts about 4:30 into the video (wait for it to download.) luck… and as one of Steve Blank’s posts today mentioned, you can’t test hypotheses from within your building. to make sense of the unstructured feedback received from customers.

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Customer Development Developer Silicon Valley Customer 124

Gust

NOVEMBER 8, 2012

As a business lawyer working with startups in technology and digital media every day, I’m fortunate to have a front-row seat as entrepreneurs create value out of thin air. What can we do on the public policy front to turn the United States into one giant Silicon Valley?

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Silicon Valley San Francisco Intellectual Property Accredited Investor 187

Both Sides of the Table

JANUARY 21, 2010

I recently read a post over on VentureHacks titled, “ Top Ten Reasons Entrepreneurs Hate Lawyers &# written by Scott Walker (who blogs on legal issues for entrepreneurs ). You never got around to agreeing exact equity splits but you had many conversations about it. Much of this is unfounded – some is not.

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Southern California Silicon Valley IP Stock Options 318

Startup Professionals Musings

MARCH 16, 2020

Aspiring entrepreneurs who struggle in a corporate environment often can’t wait to start their own company, only to find that relationships are even more critical and volatile there. The message here is not to use the public personas of leaders and entrepreneurs as the model for building and maintaining your business relationships.

Silicon Valley 312

Silicon Valley Bandwidth Angel Investor Equity 312

View from Seed

APRIL 30, 2015

Below, we talk to Glen Mello , Managing Director of Silicon Valley Bank’s accelerator team in Boston. Glen Mello: Venture debt is a good complement to equity. It’s generally got a lower cost compared to equity capital and can help support growth. What are some pros and cons?

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Term Sheet Equity Startup Seed Stage 120

Startup Professionals Musings

SEPTEMBER 27, 2013

Many entrepreneurs are convinced that banks are not worth the effort for startups, especially early-stage ones that still don’t have a revenue stream, or collateral to back up their financing needs. The first thing to remember is that banks only do loans – they don’t do equity investments like angels and venture capitalists (and vice versa).

Silicon Valley 187

Silicon Valley Equity Entrepreneur Finance 187

Duct Tape Marketing

APRIL 6, 2022

Founders Space was ranked the #1 incubator for overseas startups by Forbes and Entrepreneur Magazines. Every entrepreneur must face this harsh reality and learn to master it if they hope to survive and wind up on top. But I, what I wanna do in the a book is tell entrepreneurs, you can't just dive into it. You have to prepare.

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San Francisco Technical Review Incubator Silicon Valley 97

ReadWriteStart

OCTOBER 7, 2010

Before I do, however, I want to talk about a thumb rule that I'd like to propose to entrepreneurs about raising money. Bottom line, early stage equity is very, very expensive. As a thumb rule, try to get enough validation so that you can get to at least a $2 million pre-money valuation before raising equity capital.

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Valuation Silicon Valley Pre-Money Valuation Bootstrapping 119

ReadWriteStart

DECEMBER 9, 2010

During this week's roundtable we had a group of entrepreneurs from the Pune Open Coffee Club gather at the offices of Persistent Systems to participate in the roundtable together. Then Suresh Sambandam with OrangeScape came on to discuss a specific issue: where should entrepreneurs try to raise money? Suresh is a 1M/1M premium member.

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www.drowningamerican.com

JUNE 22, 2012

Next → How to Hire for Sweat Equity…. We have a myriad of connections to local Venture Capital firms, entrepreneurs, CEOs, and many other important individuals. And now I’m trying to get my own team, and have them work for equity. Silicon Valley Bank seems interesting. Skip to primary content.

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Sweat Equity Equity Hiring Technical Review 40

The Startup Magazine

MARCH 10, 2018

Thus, as with many other expensive aspects of starting a business, many entrepreneurs like you are turning to software. Already, a Silicon Valley startup called Atrium has developed an app that hopes to automate nearly every task that forces startups to hire lawyers, which might include acquiring funding, merging, and being sued.

Software Review 70

Software Review Technical Review Artificial Inteligence Software 70

ReadWriteStart

DECEMBER 24, 2012

From [link] to the Silicon Taiga , these programs offer entrepreneurs funding, infrastructure and support in an effort to lure a critical mass of promising young companies and spawn the next Silicon Valley. The Dropboxes and Instagrams of the world still flock to the original Silicon Valley. O’Sullivan says.

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