Both Sides of the Table

FEBRUARY 6, 2013

Quick summary: Be careful not to have too many co-founders. I don’t think VCs care as much about co-founders & economics as people think. Without strong PMs you build crappy products that nobody needs or that real people can’t use. Don’t hire “relationship management” sales people too early.

Cofounder 388

Cofounder Early Stage Startup Silicon Valley 388

ConversionXL

JANUARY 18, 2022

Both brand marketing and product marketing are important to a well-built marketing strategy. Product marketing informs strategic positioning and ensures alignment across the company. Product marketing teams spend most of their time liaising with product teams (88.3% Use product marketing to boost reach and sales.

Marketing 110

Marketing Product Audience Equity 110

David Teten

AUGUST 19, 2019

This structure offers some of the benefits of traditional equity VC, without some of the negatives of equity VC. I’ve been a traditional equity VC for 8 years, and I’m now researching new business models in venture capital. For background, see Revenue-Based Investing: A New Option for Founders who Care About Control.

Revenue 60

Revenue Technical Review Software Review Equity 60

Startup Professionals Musings

SEPTEMBER 14, 2016

Deferred payments start with stretching the payables period but, more importantly, include giving employee equity in lieu of a higher salaries and negotiating vendor deferred payments out of future revenues. Waiting until you have something to sell before bringing on a sales and operations staff. Social media is not rocket science.

Burn Rate 120

Burn Rate Hockey Stick Startup Salary 120

Startup Professionals Musings

MAY 30, 2022

That’s where I see too much entrepreneur burnout, growth plateaus, and founders being replaced, to their chagrin. According to one study a decade ago, only 45% of founders plan to exit after stage one, and my guess is that less than half the remainder survive the next stage in their own company. There is no free lunch.

Mezzanine 368

Mezzanine Private Equity Bandwidth Metrics 368

View from Seed

MARCH 24, 2021

” Below are our favorite pieces from the past few years, divided in to a few key categories: fundraising, company building, product development, industry trends, and the life of a VC. Doing Reference Checks on VCs “Try to speak to at least one founder that the investor has worked with in a failed investment.

Seed Stage 177

Seed Stage Hiring IPO Analytics 177

Startup Professionals Musings

AUGUST 21, 2021

Of course, that means a mindset willing to give up much more equity, and taking on a whole new level of risk. In fact, it’s highly unlikely that you as the Founder will survive. Switch your focus from product development to sales. Isolate marketing from sales for maximum customer focus.

Merger 379

Merger Due Diligence SEC IPO 379

Up and Running

MAY 15, 2014

When I was going through the co-founder “dating” process, I’d found a potential partner through my network who seemed to be perfect. At the end of the month, we’d evaluate the partnership and discuss equity. And from this pool of talented people, I ultimately ended up with another co-founder—this time one that would stick.

Partner 113

Partner Cofounder Equity Metrics 113

Feld Thoughts

NOVEMBER 18, 2013

Here’s the punchline: if you run your company as if you have closed a VC equity financing round even though you actually closed a convertible debt round, you’ll be in much better shape when it comes time to raise your Series A financing. So why would you treat your debt investors (somewhat) like equity investors? Sound familiar?

Burn Rate 152

Burn Rate Equity Software Review Early Stage 152

Both Sides of the Table

MAY 27, 2013

In this period (less than 2 years) he has brought on incredibly talented senior execs is sales, marketing, product management, client services, finance, vp engineering and more. It consists of a highly intelligent and opinionated founder – Nick Halstead. In his spare time he raised nearly $30 million. Always seek input.

Advisory Board 365

Advisory Board CTO Hire Fractional CTO Los Angeles 365

Startup Professionals Musings

SEPTEMBER 1, 2019

That’s where I see too much entrepreneur burnout, growth plateaus, and founders being replaced, to their chagrin. According to one study a while back, only 45% of founders plan to exit after stage one, and my guess is that less than half the remainder survive the next stage in their own company. There is no free lunch.

Mezzanine 244

Mezzanine Private Equity Startup Bandwidth 244

Duct Tape Marketing

APRIL 6, 2022

Steve is the CEO of Founders Space, one of the world’s leading startup accelerators with over 50 partners in 22 countries. Founders Space was ranked the #1 incubator for overseas startups by Forbes and Entrepreneur Magazines. 18:05] How does the Founder Space operate? [20:21] He's the CEO of founders space.

San Francisco 97

San Francisco Technical Review Incubator Silicon Valley 97

Growthink Blog

MAY 10, 2012

When seeking equity investments, the source of capital is, for the most part, tied to the stage of capital being raised. You see, equity capital is raised in stages or rounds. Mezzanine Financing Most companies that raise equity capital and are eventually acquired or go public receive multiple rounds of financing first.

Equity 88

Equity Mezzanine Later Stage Venture Capital 88

Austin Startup

AUGUST 20, 2017

They’re looking to be paid properly in the context of the overall salary structure, including cash, benefits, and equity, and to be paid commensurate with performance. Kalanick, former investor BFF turned highly disappointed by founder behavior. What will most upset them is what they perceive as unfair treatment.

Technical Review 48

Technical Review Software Review Cap Table Securities and Exchange Commission 48

Startup Professionals Musings

SEPTEMBER 13, 2017

That’s where I see too much entrepreneur burnout, growth plateaus, and founders being replaced, to their chagrin. According to one study a while back, only 45% of founders plan to exit after stage one, and my guess is that less than half the remainder survive the next stage in their own company. There is no free lunch.

Mezzanine 141

Mezzanine Private Equity Startup Bandwidth 141

Both Sides of the Table

APRIL 28, 2010

The investment will be used for product development initiatives. Summit is a hugely respected firm in Silicon Valley and a long-term “institution&# but they’re better known as more of a “private equity&# investor meaning that they do later stage investments in much larger companies that are profitable.

Venture Capital 270

Venture Capital Cofounder Spain San Diego 270

Startup Professionals Musings

NOVEMBER 3, 2013

That’s where I see too much entrepreneur burnout, growth plateaus, and Founders being replaced, to their chagrin. According to one study , only 45% of Founders plan to exit after stage one, and my guess is that less than half the remainder survive the next stage in their own company. Separate marketing from sales for further leverage.

Mezzanine 240

Mezzanine Private Equity Bandwidth Metrics 240

David Teten

MAY 1, 2013

I was formerly Founder/CEO of a domain name investment bank , and still own about a hundred domain names personally. First, any branding and SEO equity you built up under the old name are jeopardized. Another option is to give equity; Aaron Patzer knew that Mint.com was a valuable domain name, but couldn’t afford it initially.

Naming 114

Naming Semantic Venture Capital Startup 114

Startup Professionals Musings

JANUARY 12, 2013

See how many you have personally experienced already, or are currently mentioned in your business plan: Crowd-sourcing equity. Sites like KickStarter have for years offered rewards and pre-sales for crowd investments, but real equity won’t be legalized until sometime this year for people other than accredited investors.

Entrepreneur 274

Entrepreneur Accredited Investor Silicon Valley Angel Investor 274

ConversionXL

OCTOBER 7, 2021

These are the four stages of a product we’ll be focusing on. . However, on a more granular graph, the introduction phase would be preceded by a product development stage. This stage is used to determine the viability of your product and confirm when it should go to market. Rapid skimming. Take Netflix.

Product 142

Product Marketing Software Review Social Media 142

infochachkie.com

SEPTEMBER 24, 2011

Instead of hearing from your long lost third-cousin, you will be inundated with an avalanche of ‘congratulatory’ emails, calls and letters from people who want to relieve you of the burden of your hard-earned equity round. Such positions include: PR, Sales, Product Development, Lead Generation, Strategic Planning, Fund Raising, etc.

Equity 40

Equity Silicon Valley Cofounder Technical Review 40

Startup Professionals Musings

FEBRUARY 4, 2015

That’s where I see too much entrepreneur burnout, growth plateaus, and founders being replaced, to their chagrin. According to one study a while back, only 45% of founders plan to exit after stage one, and my guess is that less than half the remainder survive the next stage in their own company. There is no free lunch.

Mezzanine 120

Mezzanine Private Equity Startup Bandwidth 120

YoungUpstarts

JUNE 17, 2014

By Elton Rivas, co-founder of KYN. It started with an entrepreneur with an idea for a new product or service gathering funds from personal savings, obtaining money from a friends and family round and soliciting help from anyone and everyone to get the idea off the ground. Starting a company a few years ago was a lonely enterprise.

Cofounder 171

Cofounder Incubator Programming IPO 171

Up and Running

JANUARY 30, 2014

An accelerator usually offers a small amount of capital, office space, and mentorship in exchange for a small amount of equity, usually less than 10 percent. In contrast, an incubator program doesn’t have a predetermined end, so there is no demo day like an accelerator, and they may or may not take equity or offer capital. Incubators.

Incubator 105

Incubator New York City Venture Capital Startup 105

Software By Rob

NOVEMBER 16, 2009

Geoffrey Moore Author of Crossing the Chasm and four other books, Geoffrey Moore has been thinking about high-tech product development longer than most of have been doing anything on a computer. Im a serial web entrepreneur here to share what Ive learned in my 11 years as a self-funded startup founder.

Software Review 47

Software Review Software San Francisco RSS 47

Up and Running

SEPTEMBER 19, 2016

After graduating college, I spent several years on Wall Street, first at a large investment bank working on M&A for large corporate clients, then as a private equity professional helping invest hundreds of millions of dollars in private companies. I can attest to this dramatic change after I took the leap.

Private Equity 60

Private Equity Acquisition B2B Partner 60

ConversionXL

MAY 27, 2022

Sales intelligence platform Cognism cut their lead generation efforts by 90% in 2021. In this article, you’ll learn how to build a demand generation funnel that fuels the pipeline, shortens the sale cycle, and generates revenue. an ebook); Then you blast them with sales messaging (e.g., email, ads, retargeting, etc.)

Demand 124

Demand B2B Distribution Channel 124

blog.nahurst.com

JULY 19, 2010

This covers one of the most common situations I encounter: For a pre-funding web startup whose team includes only a non-technical cofounder, how much equity should an incoming technical cofounder get? This is an area that varies widely and can significantly impact how much equity a technical cofounder receives (if they take more salary).

Technical Cofounder 43

Technical Cofounder Cofounder Equity Salary 43

Business Plan Blog

OCTOBER 4, 2013

If you have a technical background and you are focused on product development, consider a co-founder with a sales and marketing background that can focus on selling your world class product. Rather, give titles such as VP of Engineering, Product/Technology, Sales, Marketing, Finance, etc.

Part-Time VPE 79

Part-Time VPE Fractional VPE Cofounder CTO Hire 79

ReadWriteStart

JANUARY 27, 2011

And, oh by the way, we also really like the idea of the 1M/1M entrepreneurs building valuation and negotiating leverage through these business development efforts, instead of signing off large chunks of their company in form of equity early on. You can listen to the recording of today's roundtable here.

Dilution 114

Dilution Revenue Finance Entrepreneur 114

Business Plan Blog

DECEMBER 10, 2013

When raising pre-seed capital from friends, family, and founders (FFF) you’ll want to consider the milestones that Angel investors care about and be sure to raise enough capital to reach those milestones. Product Development. You can also bring these skillsets to the organization via a board of advisors.

Angel Investor 55

Angel Investor Intellectual Property Seed Capital Advisory Board 55

Business Plan Blog

NOVEMBER 22, 2013

The use of your initial friends, family, and founders (FFF) capital should be directed towards achieving the milestones that will attract seed or angel investors (likewise, the use of your seed funding should be directed towards achieving the milestones that will attract Series A investors).

Intellectual Property 55

Intellectual Property Advisory Board Startup Seed Capital 55

Up and Running

MAY 23, 2016

“If you can fix a problem for someone and do it better, quicker, and/or cheaper than your competitor, you’re off to a good start.” – Gabriel Kuperman, founder and CEO of CuePin. We created UpKeep to fill this void—a cloud-based solution that was affordable for any size business.” – Ryan Chan, founder of UpKeep.

Software Review 74

Software Review Software Delaware Forecast 74

Hearpreneur

JANUARY 7, 2022

By establishing a company dedicated to inventive and speedy product development, I am able to use cutting-edge technologies and consistently innovate faster than competitors. So, I started a sales and marketing company and haven't looked back since. I wanted to give my consumers a fantastic online and after-sales experience.

Entrepreneur 112

Entrepreneur Technical Review Software Review Non-Compete 112

Tim Keane

SEPTEMBER 18, 2006

In a lot of startups (especially good ones) the founder/CEO/leader is a customer-oriented sales person. After the idea/product/service is built, and the market mapped, the company begins to grow. The sales oriented CEO needs to manage this process as intently as the customer facing sales process.

Harvest 60

Harvest LBO Investment Bankers Wisconsin 60

Software By Rob

NOVEMBER 16, 2009

This morning Seth Godin published a post titled Debt, equity and a third thing that might work better. That’s when you find one or more (future) customers that help fund your product development in exchange for input into the process and free or highly discounted use of the software. Follow me Startups for the Rest of Us.

Equity 42

Equity Software Review RSS Widget 42

Startup Lessons Learned

JULY 6, 2011

The finished book will come out on September 13, featuring an amazing cover designed by my IMVU co-founder Marcus Gosling and refined and tested by so many of you. Consider the total amount of funding for doomed projects that comes from VC’s, large company M&A departments, government grants, and private equity firms.

Lean 167

Lean Startup Metrics Private Equity 167