Steve Blank

MAY 9, 2017

The founders were simply wrong about their assumptions about customer needs. It turns out the term “visionary founder” was usually a synonym for someone who was hallucinating. Founders Need to Run the Company Longer. So, almost like clockwork 20 th century startups fired the innovators/founders when they scaled.

Restful 222

Restful Silicon Valley Puerto Rico San Jose 222

David Teten

MARCH 18, 2021

(co-written with Stephane Nasser , co-founder of OpenVC , an open-source initiative to collect and analyze all VC theses.). OpenVC is a new, open-source initiative to collect and analyze all publicly available VC theses, to help founders more efficiently find the right investors, and vice-versa. Technical founders .

Technical Review 78

Technical Review Cofounder Venture Capital Deal Flow 78

Steve Blank

MARCH 17, 2020

Here are a few thoughts about operating in uncertainty in a pandemic. Next, take a look at your actual revenue each month – not forecast, but real revenue coming in each month. If you’re an early stage company, that number may be zero. If so, whatever revenue forecast and sales cycle estimates you had are no longer valid.

Burn Rate 436

Burn Rate Startup Valuation Sales Cycle 436

Startup Professionals Musings

MAY 29, 2022

In addition, huge amounts of executive time are required, as well as hits to key operational, accounting, and communication processes. Startups are typically run by a couple of executives who are reluctant to disclose via the prospectus and SEC reports all the decision-making criteria, operational financial details, and compensation formulas.

IPO 245

IPO SEC Prospectus Startup 245

This is going to be BIG.

MAY 5, 2023

For me, I have at least two years of active board and observer commitments to roll off of and far more time before all the founders I’ve backed hit (or miss, I suppose) their ultimate goal of returning lots of money to their investors. It has been a career that fits my personality well.

Later Stage 218

Later Stage Venture Capital Term Sheet Limited Partner 218

Startup Professionals Musings

FEBRUARY 1, 2015

In addition, huge amounts of executive time are required, as well as hits to key operational, accounting, and communication processes. Startups are typically run by a couple of executives who are reluctant to disclose via the prospectus and SEC reports all the decision-making criteria, operational financial details, and compensation formulas.

IPO 120

IPO SEC Prospectus Startup 120

David Teten

DECEMBER 3, 2019

I walk through below how progressive investors are using technology and analytics throughout all of their operations. Tim Friedman, Founder, PE Stack , said, “If I could offer one piece of advice to today’s managers, it would be to take the time to understand the demands of the modern institutional LP. 1) Manage the firm .

Technical Review 78

Technical Review Software Review Analytics Private Equity 78

Reid Hoffman

JUNE 11, 2020

Embedding individual performance metrics in team performance metrics is a central part of how Jeff operates, but he also concerns himself with setting a cultural drumbeat and making everyone feel part of the team. Why do you call Jeff a co-founder of LinkedIn, even though he joined when the company was already five years old?

Cofounder 36

Cofounder Leadership Metrics Later Stage 36

Austin Startup

JUNE 26, 2019

Many people have reached out sharing knowing and kind words about our journey and choice to wind down our venture, as well as their appreciation for my choice to pull back the curtain on what is statistically a common road for many founders. It details a landscape founders like me are excited to sink their teeth into? Of course not!

Silicon Valley 54

Silicon Valley Startup B2C Sweat Equity 54

David Teten

SEPTEMBER 23, 2017

In venture capital in particular, early-stage companies are often operating in frontier industries, where the rules are unpredictable and conventional analytic frameworks may be misleading. Signal is a fundraising tool for founders run by NFX Guild, which identifies the most relevant VCs for you. . Pitchbot.vc

Private Equity 60

Private Equity Venture Capital Equity Technical Review 60

View from Seed

FEBRUARY 27, 2019

Given the common challenges encountered by founders as they navigate through this hiring decision, I thought I’d outline some of my thoughts below that can hopefully serve as a simple framework when it comes to making the first Analytics hire at your startup. Many founders confuse the two as they both involve lots of numbers.

Analytics 149

Analytics Hiring SQL Forecast 149

David Teten

SEPTEMBER 5, 2014

I’ve written on the expert network industry a fair amount in the past: see How to Earn More Consulting Revenue from Expert Networks and How Executives Can Work with Private Equity and Venture Capital Portfolio Companies. We’re not mainly for B2B companies or later stage companies or anything like that.

New York 114

New York Technical Review Networking Advisory Board 114

Both Sides of the Table

DECEMBER 3, 2013

I’m super proud to announce that DataSift has just completed a $42 million financing round coming at the end of a year where its revenue grew several hundred percent year-over-year. Considering our revenue is SaaS revenue this achievement is even more remarkable. I’m an early-stage investor. Not so DataSift.

Iran 358

Iran API San Francisco Nigeria 358

Reid Hoffman

MARCH 9, 2021

Looking back, I believe that Jeff is one of most iconic, successful founders and CEOs of all time. Jeff is also one of the few founders I know of who sets OKRs (Objectives and Key Results) for his board members. A company has many different functional areas–sales, marketing, product, engineering, finance, operations, and so on.

Leadership 42

Leadership Technical Review Cofounder Later Stage 42

Both Sides of the Table

FEBRUARY 15, 2016

People who think of fund raising as a “distraction away from the core business” fundamentally don’t understand that running a business comprises of: Shipping products, selling to & servicing customers, marketing, HR, recruiting, financial reporting AND making sure you have enough money to support operations.

Burn Rate 150

Burn Rate Cap Table Valuation Software Review 150

This is going to be BIG.

FEBRUARY 21, 2021

I’m a female founder. I don’t have a technical co-founder. These are all of the things I heard from a founder that I recently backed. So what about all of the above statements—things that founders widely hold to be true barriers to fundraising? Nearly half of the teams I’ve backed have female founders.

Venture Capital 162

Venture Capital Cofounder Deal Flow Later Stage 162

K9 Ventures

JUNE 5, 2015

So while the infrastructure cost and startup costs may have declined, the operating costs have increased. Together this means that Seed stage companies need to run longer and at a higher expense structure, meaning they need to raise a lot more capital. A re-jiggering of deal stages and sizes had begun in 2013. The Epilogue.

Seed Stage 48

Seed Stage Venture Capital Early Stage Valuation 48

Startup Professionals Musings

SEPTEMBER 11, 2013

In addition, huge amounts of executive time are required, as well as hits to key operational, accounting, and communication processes. Startups are typically run by a couple of executives who are reluctant to disclose via the prospectus and SEC reports all the decision-making criteria, operational financial details, and compensation formulas.

IPO 242

IPO SEC Prospectus Startup 242

VC Cafe

JULY 5, 2010

In this time, as I said previously, we are looking to improve the valuations of our companies and get them ready for either a VC investment round (and an equity buy-out for us), or a strategic acquisition, such as Google’s acquisition of LabPixies back in April after 2 years of operating with just Angel capital. Janvest: Yes.

Technical Review 106

Technical Review Software Review Seed Stage 106

ReadWriteStart

AUGUST 26, 2022

So, think of the typical two founders with a pitch book in a garage. Instead, that’s the sort of pre-series-A investment where companies or founders have visions of where they think there are underserved market needs, and they’re coming up with something super excited to try to solve that. . We’re a crossover fund.

Partner 132

Partner Cofounder Retention Acquisition 132

Startup Professionals Musings

JANUARY 12, 2013

As opposed to a startup incubator, which typically deals with startups barely hatched, an accelerator focuses on a later stage startup, with an existing product and proven business model, looking for rapid growth. This usually involves more attention to organizational, operational, and strategic challenges. Osmosis marketing.

Entrepreneur 274

Entrepreneur Accredited Investor Silicon Valley Angel Investor 274

Both Sides of the Table

JUNE 29, 2011

Open cloud led by Amazon with their AWS services drove total operating costs down by 90%. Amazon in turn led to the formation of an earlier stage of venture capital now led by what I call “micro VCs&# who typically invest $250-500k in companies rather than the $5-7 million that VCs used to invest.

Venture Capital 296

Venture Capital Software LP Early Stage 296

The Equity Kicker

NOVEMBER 28, 2016

Different investors place different weights on the three elements but as a rule earlier stage investors place more emphasis on the team and later stage investors place more emphasis on the market. Some very early stage investors go as far as to say that for them team is everything.

Seed Stage 60

Seed Stage Later Stage Early Stage Partner 60

K9 Ventures

OCTOBER 10, 2017

I’ll start with all the questions I can think of, from many different perspectives: founders, LPs, the press, and even other VCs. Unless every aspect of product development is covered by founders who are only receiving equity, there are other parts of building a product that will require hiring highly qualified people.

Seed Stage 82

Seed Stage Finance Later Stage Equity 82

Reid Hoffman

OCTOBER 17, 2018

In fact, to achieve your aggressive growth goals in the face of uncertainty and change, you need to follow a new set of rules that fly in the face of what is taught in business schools and are completely counterintuitive to accepted “best practices” of either early stage startups or classic corporate management. Revenue guidance.

Finder 28

Finder Rhode Island Cofounder Engineer 28

View from Seed

JANUARY 26, 2016

Seed investors invested close to inception with the goal to taking companies to product/market fit, while Series A investors started looking for opportunities with more demonstrable PMF and early traction and invested larger amounts at somewhat higher prices in later-stage companies. FWIW, that is not how we operate.).

Seed Stage 120

Seed Stage Early Stage Cofounder Finance 120

abovethecrowd.com

APRIL 20, 2016

All Unicorn participants — founders, company employees, venture investors and their limited partners (LPs) — are seeing their fortunes put at risk from the very nature of the Unicorn phenomenon itself. A high performing, high-growth SAAS company that may have been worth 10 or more times revenue was suddenly worth 4-7 times revenue.

IPO 40

IPO Term Sheet Silicon Valley Valuation 40

Ben's Blog

AUGUST 17, 2020

OH in South Park, San Francisco (or on Zoom from Big Sky, Montana): “OMG, crazy – that firm just paid 100x revenue to invest in [insert hot startup here] – what could they be thinking?” How valuation multiples work Why did multiples become a shortcut-heuristic for estimating valuations in the first place?

Valuation 36

Valuation Balance Sheet Cofounder Forecast 36

Growthink Blog

MAY 10, 2012

You see, equity capital is raised in stages or rounds. The five main stages include the following: 1. Early Stage Investment (Series A & B) 4. Later Stage Investment (Series C, D, and so on) 5. Put everything else on your "wish list" to buy with revenues from sales or additional financing.

Equity 88

Equity Mezzanine Later Stage Venture Capital 88

Startup Lessons Learned

FEBRUARY 20, 2009

Similar results apply in product management, design, testing, and even operations. The sooner you pass your work on to a later stage, the sooner you can find out how they will receive it. When operating with continuous deployment, its almost impossible to have integration conflicts. Small batches mean faster feedback.

San Francisco 161

San Francisco Software Review Continuous Deployment Development Team Review 161

techcrunch.com

FEBRUARY 19, 2010

Researchers divided the portfolio companies into six stages and startups are still operating a loss in each of the first four. Respondents deemed between 12%-16% of companies generating revenues to be essentially “worthless” and deemed 20%-26% of their pre-revenue investments to be “worthless.” Add to this that 72.7%

Venture Capital 62

Venture Capital Technical Review Sweat Equity Valuation 62

www.paulgraham.com

APRIL 28, 2010

I think it would help founders to understand funding better—notjust the mechanics of it, but what investors are thinking. And if trouble withinvestors is one of the biggest threats to a startup, managing themis one of the most important skills founders need to learn. There never has to be atime when you have no revenues.

Technical Review 76

Technical Review Startup Software Review Angel Investor 76

Hippoland

AUGUST 31, 2018

It’s very difficult to convince an investor at this stage to change his/her mind. This is a bit of a crap shoot, because even if a pre-seed investor is bought into you as an awesome operator, if he/she is not bought into your thesis, it will be difficult to land an investment. These rounds are typically < $1m in total.

Pre-Money Valuation 90

Pre-Money Valuation Valuation Silicon Valley Early Stage 90

Steve Blank

OCTOBER 1, 2009

Top management was trying to coordinate all of the operating details (sales, manufacturing, distribution and marketing,) across all the divisions and the company almost went bankrupt that year when poor planning led to excess inventory (with unsold cars piling up at dealers and the company running out of cash.) What happened to him?

Silicon Valley 156

Silicon Valley United States RSS Customer Development 156

This is going to be BIG.

NOVEMBER 1, 2016

Yesterday, I met with a founder with an interesting model who was raising $400k to bring the finishing touches to her product to make it customer-ready. Pulling them apart and shedding light on them is an extremely delicate operation for a white male investor, and probably not a good idea, but I'm going to go ahead with it anyway.

Founder 60

Founder Angel Groups Cofounder New York City 60

Hippoland

AUGUST 31, 2018

It’s very difficult to convince an investor at this stage to change his/her mind. This is a bit of a crap shoot, because even if a pre-seed investor is bought into you as an awesome operator, if he/she is not bought into your thesis, it will be difficult to land an investment. These rounds are typically < $1m in total.

Pre-Money Valuation 48

Pre-Money Valuation Valuation Silicon Valley Early Stage 48

techcrunch.com

OCTOBER 23, 2010

This is the first post in what’s going to be a series of blogs on how to go from nothing – no connections, no team, no money and no knowledge of how the startup industry really works – to operating a growing business. I’m taking a 52 week course in how to start up, run, operate, and achieve self employment. and Google.

Technical Review 84

Technical Review Cofounder Technical Cofounder Software Review 84