Startup Professionals Musings

OCTOBER 5, 2015

I challenge any entrepreneur, for example, to define the difference between "seed-stage" and "early-stage" financing. Asking for early-stage money before you have customers and revenue will likely kill your credibility with real investors. A seed-stage “super angel.”

Seed Stage 120

Seed Stage Finance Early Stage Startup 120

ReadWriteStart

JUNE 1, 2020

The primary source of your funds should be your paying customers, i.e., your business should generate enough revenues and profits to fund the growth and expansion. These usually play a role in the very early stage of your business, primarily pre-revenue. So, I would suggest that you bootstrap during the inception stage. ?

Startup 150

Startup Entrepreneur Elevator Pitch Seed Stage 150

View from Seed

SEPTEMBER 4, 2018

Most of these rhyme with what we’ve said in the past, but some have also evolved to fit the changing landscape and our own convictions about what really matters for founders and their investors at the seed stage. Of the last 15 investments we’ve made, 8 have been pre-product or pre-seed style rounds.

North America 120

North America Seed Stage Early Stage Lead Investor 120

Steve Blank

FEBRUARY 26, 2020

There are two reasons to raise money: You have a killer idea that is only partially validated, that you think can get to $50M+ of revenue in 5 years with 80%+ gross margins (if margins are lower, you need a lot more revenue)and you need money to get to product-market fit, or. Founders tend to fixate on the product.

Cofounder 429

Cofounder Seed Stage Valuation Metrics 429

YoungUpstarts

AUGUST 10, 2017

by Mark Gilbert, founder and CEO of MBS Accounting Technology & Advisory. For the last eight quarters, the number of angel and seed stage deals has declined, according to an Eisner Amper VC report. For the last eight quarters, the number of angel and seed stage deals has declined, according to an Eisner Amper VC report.

Software Review 109

Software Review Technical Review Due Diligence Startup 109

David Teten

JANUARY 19, 2021

More and more startups are pursuing Revenue-Based VCs , but “RBI” doesn’t fit everyone. From RBI, Flexible VCs borrow the ability to reap meaningful returns without demanding founders build for an exit. Flexible VC 101: Equity Meets Revenue Share. Where else can fast-growing companies get funding?

Cofounder 78

Cofounder Technical Review Equity Dividend 78

Reid Hoffman

AUGUST 6, 2020

Moreover, the indicators that show founders are ready to take on new capital in order to progress to the next phase of company-building – be it hiring, expanding into a new market, launching a product or more – can vary from company to company. WHAT METRICS SHOULD A FOUNDER SHOW TO RAISE A SERIES A FROM A VC FIRM LIKE GREYLOCK?

Technical Review 69

Technical Review Seed Stage Software Review Early Stage 69

Austin Startup

MAY 19, 2018

As Bryan stated below, there are no shortage of “How to pitch” or “How to behave” articles by VCs but really very little advice for VCs by founders. Anyone notice there's a ton of VCs giving founder advice, and almost no founder advice for VCs? Lines Not Dots Raising money from a fund is a process, most founders get that.

Founder 75

Founder Early Stage Software Review Deal Flow 75

View from Seed

JANUARY 27, 2021

But it is also large enough to write a $2M check to lead a post-seed round for companies that are starting to scale. What hasn’t changed is that our heart lies in working with founders to find product/market fit and to begin to grow. This year also marks the 10-year anniversary of the founding of NextView.

LP 411

LP Early Stage Seed Stage Venture Capital 411

Startup Professionals Musings

DECEMBER 11, 2022

Getting investors to trust you with their money is always a challenge, and it’s even more difficult in the early stages, where you don’t have a significant revenue stream, a few customers, or maybe even a product yet. At these stages, it’s all about you, and your ability to communicate and execute effectively.

Due Diligence 271

Due Diligence Intellectual Property Entrepreneur Preferred Stock 271

View from Seed

MAY 21, 2020

In some respects, one of the often non-intuitive privileges of a seed stage fundraising process is that the company is so new. So a lot of Founders can weave a tale of the promise of what could be created rather than what has been created. So given the reality of what’s happened in the past, what’s a founder to do? .

Seed Stage 274

Seed Stage Finance Lean Revenue 274

Both Sides of the Table

MAY 19, 2013

My internal compass has always steered me strongly toward the belief that founders who can scale with their startup companies are better to back that founders who eventually need to hire a CEO. Very few founder CEOs go into the job ever expecting to give up their seat. We set out to find Jonathan’s “co-founder.”

Technical Review 303

Technical Review Cofounder Analytics Founder 303

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

View from Seed

NOVEMBER 14, 2019

I sent a tweet out last week that elicited quite a few responses from both founders and investors: seed funds that don’t invest pre-traction =. — First – there are a lot of seed investors out there that don’t actually want to invest in seed. For very well known founders, a series A can happen well before traction.

Seed Stage 331

Seed Stage Cofounder Retention Founder 331

Startup Lessons Learned

JULY 11, 2019

Ann Miura-Ko is a founding partner at Floodgate , a seed-stage VC firm. She’s also a founding member of All Raise, a non-profit committed to improving diversity in both funders and founders. That meant that if the change was starting on the founders side, then there had to be a change on the financing side.

Founder 68

Founder Lean Venture Capital Cofounder 68

Steve Blank

APRIL 12, 2010

Finally, when everyone else had their turn, the grey-haired VC turned to the founder and said, “If you do what we tell you to do and fail, we’ll fire you. In contrast, in a startup following the Customer Development process, this is when the founders realize that something is wrong with the business model (because revenue is not scaling.)

Business Model 332

Business Model Agile Customer Development Startup 332

View from Seed

AUGUST 3, 2021

As seed stage investors here at NextView Ventures , we have the privilege of working with a wide profile of founders at the company conception stage — from early-career first time entrepreneurs , to seasoned execs turned founders , to repeat successful entrepreneurs.

Cofounder 156

Cofounder Seed Stage Portfolio Revenue 156

View from Seed

AUGUST 3, 2021

As seed stage investors here at NextView Ventures , we have the privilege of working with a wide profile of founders at the company conception stage — from early-career first time entrepreneurs , to seasoned execs turned founders , to repeat successful entrepreneurs.

Cofounder 156

Cofounder Seed Stage Revenue Acquisition 156

View from Seed

SEPTEMBER 11, 2019

*This post is part of our “pitch deck” series where we dissect the seed stage pitch deck and discuss the ideal flow for a pitch. Now it’s time to set the stage with the early traction you have. Seed stage VCs are realistic about how much traction a very raw company might have. A) Pre-Product Companies.

Seed Stage 149

Seed Stage B2B Seed Capital Revenue 149

View from Seed

APRIL 30, 2015

At NextView, for instance, one of our more popular posts centers on atypical seed rounds to know. What is it, and how should founders think about it? NVV: Let’s talk about the seed stage specifically. Traction and revenue? Today, we wanted to share some basics of another source of capital: venture debt.

Term Sheet 120

Term Sheet Equity Startup Seed Stage 120

View from Seed

AUGUST 3, 2021

As seed stage investors here at NextView Ventures , we have the privilege of working with a wide profile of founders at the company conception stage — from early-career first time entrepreneurs , to seasoned execs turned founders , to repeat successful entrepreneurs.

Cofounder 136

Cofounder Seed Stage Portfolio Revenue 136

View from Seed

MARCH 15, 2017

VC evaluation of seed-stage startups can seem arbitrary or imitative at times. Internally, the scarcity of tangible business metrics – product usage or revenue multiples for example – can make an investment decision feel daunting. Any seed stage company’s strategy is a constant work-in-progress.

Due Diligence 265

Due Diligence Seed Stage Portfolio Metrics 265

K9 Ventures

JUNE 5, 2015

Almost two years ago, in a private/closed meeting with K9 Ventures’ LPs only, I claimed that: What was being referred to in the press as the “Series A Crunch” was not because fewer Series A deals were being done, but because there were too many Seed deals being done. Seed stage was super tough. Seed is the New A.

Seed Stage 48

Seed Stage Venture Capital Early Stage Valuation 48

Startup Professionals Musings

MARCH 14, 2020

Getting investors to trust you with their money is always a challenge, and it’s even more difficult in the early stages, where you don’t have a significant revenue stream, a few customers, or maybe even a product yet. At these stages, it’s all about you, and your ability to communicate and execute effectively.

Due Diligence 308

Due Diligence Intellectual Property Preferred Stock Seed Stage 308

Entrepreneurs-Journey.com by Yaro Starak

AUGUST 19, 2021

Elizabeth Yin is the co-founder and General Partner of a venture capital firm that, and I quote from their website, invests in “hilariously early startups” Hustle Fund typically invests $25,000 as a starting point into startups that have yet to show any revenues.

Founder 98

Founder Partner Venture Capital Cofounder 98

Austin Startup

MAY 8, 2018

Background reading: Founder Compensation: Cash, Equity, Liquidity Fatal Errors in Early Startup Hiring Early Hires: Options or Stock Given how deeply involved we are with early-stage startups hiring their first key employees, I figured it would be helpful to outline a few key principles to help entrepreneurs navigate the topic.

Employee 48

Employee Seed Stage Startup Equity 48

VC Cafe

JULY 5, 2010

-based Angel capital with early stage technology companies in Israel, and do so in a way that substantially mitigates the risk of seed stage investing. Essentially, investors are receiving equal shares of 10 Israeli seed stage start-ups for relatively small capital. VCs are investing in later stage companies.

Technical Review 106

Technical Review Software Review Seed Stage 106

View from Seed

OCTOBER 11, 2022

At the seed stage and as companies scale, helping the founders I work with identify and reach their goals, personally and professionally, gives me energy and purpose. I made over a dozen angel investments and a few investments in VC funds as an LP, expanding my focus to new geographies, sectors, and stages.

North America 156

North America San Francisco Cap Table Cofounder 156

View from Seed

OCTOBER 15, 2014

Over the summer, based on feedback from our portfolio and the broader startup community, NextView created pre-formatted board deck templates for seed-stage startups — part of our Growth Guides series. As Rob Go wrote , board decks and board meetings can waste loads of time at the seed stage.

Seed Stage 331

Seed Stage Cap Table Metrics Burn Rate 331

Agile VC

APRIL 17, 2011

Kayak was started here in my backyard of Boston… co-founder & CTO Paul English and the product/engineering team is based here in Concord MA. Co-founder & CEO Steve Hafner and the business team are based in Norwalk, CT. Financial Snapshot: 2010 Revenue: $170 million. Distribution revenue is CPC and CPA. .

Pre-Money Valuation 113

Pre-Money Valuation Liquidation Preference Dividend Common Stock 113

View from Seed

NOVEMBER 18, 2014

Of the NextView-backed founders have have tried to raise this round, over 70% have done so (compared to a mean success rate in the industry of around 27%, according to some sources ). However, large, lifecycle VCs who invest in a seed round seem to correlate to an increase the size of the Series A raised by a given startup.

Syndicate 333

Syndicate Syndication Seed Stage Startup 333

Hippoland

OCTOBER 9, 2016

revenue / traction / setting up infrastructure / etc) This can set you apart, because the vast majority of businesses I see at the seed stage are just ideas with no action. At the seed stage, there are companies who have been around for 5 months and others for 5 years. 2) Speed matters. They are easier to read.

Seed Stage 48

Seed Stage CTO Hire Email Later Stage 48

View from Seed

DECEMBER 6, 2018

Almost seven years ago, I wrote a post about the difference between a “no” answer and a “no yet” when pitching early-stage VCs. This was back in January 2012, a simpler time… when there was only one kind of seed round, when Series A firms invested pre-revenue, etc. No, this is not some waxing nostalgic post.

Seed Stage 120

Seed Stage Early Stage Differentiation Lead Investor 120

Rob Go

SEPTEMBER 4, 2018

Most of these rhyme with what we’ve said in the past, but some have also evolved to fit the changing landscape and our own convictions about what really matters for founders and their investors at the seed stage. Of the last 15 investments we’ve made, 8 have been pre-product or pre-seed style rounds.

North America 36

North America Seed Stage Early Stage Lead Investor 36

Hunter Walker

JULY 22, 2014

Hey founders, want to hear something incredibly frustrating about seed financing? You know the one that inevitably has you at $100 million in revenue by Year Three? Just* committing to grow customers or revenue or usage can still create a hollow company. I don’t believe the forecast you show me. Yeah, that one.

Forecast 95

Forecast Early Stage Seed Stage Startup 95

Hippoland

JULY 24, 2016

Valuation is a nebulous topic amongst early stage startups, so I thought I’d really spell it out in detail. In short: Valuations for seed stage companies are fairly arbitrary and driven solely by supply and demand. Your startup’s valuation is not based on a proforma of your revenue. This just doesn’t happen.

Seed Stage 48

Seed Stage Valuation Vertical Demand 48

Both Sides of the Table

JULY 16, 2010

So super angel and seed funds are proliferating – As a result there has been an explosion in the number of amazing early-stage investors such as Softtech VC , Floodgate , Felicis Ventures , K9 Ventures , OATV , Lowercase Capital , Founder Collective , and many, many more. Price MUST be in a certain range.

LP 311

LP Technical Review Early Stage Silicon Valley 311