Startup Professionals Musings

DECEMBER 6, 2011

The most successful entrepreneurs are those with multiple real-life experiences, who have personal exposure to markets where opportunities are being left on the table. Most schools have business plan competitions, and even give out seed money to winners. Academic research supports that this experience pays off.

Entrepreneur 264

Entrepreneur Seed Money Social Network Business Plan 264

Version One Ventures

SEPTEMBER 8, 2014

With the influx of seed money, much has been written about the fact that start-ups that are taking far more funding than they need. However, as an investor watching my portfolio companies and other start-ups in the market, I can see how large rounds negatively impact the culture of budding business.

Guerilla 158

Guerilla Seed Money Vertical Early Stage 158

Startup Professionals Musings

SEPTEMBER 12, 2010

The most successful entrepreneurs are those with multiple real-life experiences, who have personal exposure to markets where opportunities are being left on the table. Most schools have business plan competitions, and even give out seed money to winners. Academic research supports that this experience pays off.

Seed Money 225

Seed Money Social Network Networking Business Plan 225

Gust

JANUARY 13, 2013

The most successful entrepreneurs are those with multiple real-life experiences, who have personal exposure to markets where opportunities are being left on the table. Most schools have business plan competitions, and even give out seed money to winners. Academic research supports that this experience pays off.

Entrepreneur 180

Entrepreneur Seed Money Social Network Business Plan 180

Both Sides of the Table

NOVEMBER 18, 2012

According to the SEC we’re not allowed to market the fact that we’re fund raising, so I won’t. Think about it – most entrepreneurs who manage to raise seed money or venture capital usually raise enough money for 12-18 months maximum. You hire them, you own them now. Hire fast, fire faster.

Monaco 420

Monaco Cofounder Chicago Mexico 420

The Next Web

DECEMBER 30, 2013

The city is enhancing tech education options at all levels; non-profit organizations are helping early-stage entrepreneurs gain access to much-needed funding and resources; and regional government bodies are opening new market opportunities with recent growth initiatives, including increasing domestic and international flight services.

Denver 166

Denver Silicon Valley San Jose Colorado 166

Version One Ventures

SEPTEMBER 8, 2014

With the influx of seed money, much has been written about the fact that start-ups that are taking far more funding than they need. However, as an investor watching my portfolio companies and other start-ups in the market, I can see how large rounds negatively impact the culture of budding business.

Guerilla 91

Guerilla Seed Money Vertical Early Stage 91

Both Sides of the Table

AUGUST 1, 2010

I think the issue was mostly framed initially by Chris Dixon in his article The Problem with Taking Seed Money from Big VC s. The fact that I invest less just means the company is earlier stage and needed/wanted less or without a product/market fit we weren’t yet prepared to invest more heavily. the $190 million).

Post-Money Valuation 298

Post-Money Valuation Term Sheet Warrant Partner 298

Both Sides of the Table

APRIL 3, 2010

Chris Dixon provided some commentary on Twitter that he believes I missed “the most important point about fund size.&# He’s specifically referring to his point of view that entrepreneurs shouldn’t take seed money from “big VC’s&# (he defines them as > $100 million).

Venture Capital 265

Venture Capital Term Sheet Early Stage Silicon Valley 265

Gust

OCTOBER 2, 2014

According to the SEC we’re not allowed to market the fact that we’re fund raising, so I won’t. Think about it – most entrepreneurs who manage to raise seed money or venture capital usually raise enough money for 12-18 months maximum. You hire them, you own them now. Hire fast, fire faster. Go figure.

Monaco 122

Monaco Cofounder Chicago Mexico 122

Berkonomics

MARCH 30, 2012

Most economists, however, purport that our recovery will never stabilize until small businesses can access capital, hire new employees, and grow. Crowd Funding: The Internet is at work here, especially for obtaining early stager seed money.

Intellectual Property 76

Intellectual Property Entrepreneur Small Business Administration SBA 76

This is going to be BIG.

MARCH 23, 2015

The private market is pretty efficient that way--and to look at it otherwise is to reinforce the notion that everyone trying to start something, instead of joining the teams with the best ideas is a good thing for the market. in seed money instead of $1.5M Yay, participation trophies! Why not raise $2.5M

Post-Money Valuation 60

Post-Money Valuation Valuation Pre-Money Valuation Seed Money 60

Campus Entrepreneurship

NOVEMBER 11, 2010

BTW, I don’t know how old Murdoch is, but his new hire, Joel Klein of Clinton and NYC-Bloomberg pedigree, is not a fresh, young hot shot. on opportunities to invest in digital initiatives in the education market, a person familiar with the matter said. Tags: American Exceptionalism Campus Eco-System Campus as Market.

New York City 34

New York City Seed Money New York Global 34

The Equity Kicker

AUGUST 20, 2014

His hypothesis was that consumers were moving towards last minute bookings and there was a gap in the market. With no team and no technical expertise Matt was planning to find a team and build out some product before starting to raise some seed money. Our unique model allowed him to get started straight away. USER RESEARCH.

Cofounder 95

Cofounder Founder Technical Cofounder Technical Review 95

Rob Go

NOVEMBER 15, 2016

Also, in a market where a bunch of high-flyers are crumbling, investors are more deliberate and less enamored by pure top line metrics. This is especially true in markets that are out of favor or unsexy (or where investors feel out of their comfort zone). This strategy can also fail because the goal line might move. $1M

Product 28

Product Seed Stage Seed Money Metrics 28

Startup Lessons Learned

MAY 31, 2019

Of course, hitting your objectives alone doesn’t guarantee success--you might have set the wrong objectives or the market needs may shift over time--but it’s a reasonable proxy for measuring interim success. I'd love to hear your thoughts on what's happened in the capital markets over the last 20 years--the good and the bad?

Lean 108

Lean Venture Capital Conversion IPO 108

www.paulgraham.com

OCTOBER 23, 2010

The market price is less than the inconvenience of signing an NDA. Microsofts originalplan was to make money selling programming languages, of all things.Their current business model didnt occur to them until IBM droppedit in their lap five years later. The best odds are in niche markets. People What do I mean by good people?

Startup 105

Startup Cofounder Software Stock 105

www.paulgraham.com

APRIL 28, 2010

It wasnt because they werent accredited investors that I didntask my parents for seed money, though. When we were starting Viaweb,I didnt know about the concept of an accredited investor, anddidnt stop to think about the value of investors connections.The reason I didnt take money from my parents was that I didntwant them to lose it.

Technical Review 76

Technical Review Startup Software Review Angel Investor 76

techcrunch.com

OCTOBER 23, 2010

Inevitably, the excuses begin: I need to hire people to build the product. I need money for the servers. No raising money. In later posts I’m going to get into more detail on specific topics like hiring, raising money, what types of ideas have the potential to get big, finding your founders, and the like.

Technical Review 84

Technical Review Cofounder Technical Cofounder Software Review 84

www.paulgraham.com

AUGUST 1, 2008

We could hire employees, but we want to be forced to figure out how to scale investing. In essense, let the market design the product. As the volume of startups increases, big companies will start to develop standardized procedures that make acquisitions little more work than hiring someone. Weve done the same thing ourselves.

Web 54

Web Startup Silicon Valley Technical Review 54

This is going to be BIG.

SEPTEMBER 7, 2012

The one thing that does effect them all is the cyclicality of funding and exit markets, but if you go back over the last 20 years, there's really only been a very short timeframe where you literally could not get a company funded. Sure, when those periods hit, they hit bad, but most of the time, they hit the poorly prepared companies worse.

Later Stage 99

Later Stage Down Round Pre-Money Valuation Early Stage 99

This is going to be BIG.

JANUARY 6, 2014

A founder will raise one party round worth of seed money and they''ll go teach a class on how to raise venture capital. A BD person at an aqui-hire will write a book on the art of the deal. in funding, and expand from 3 employees to 13—three of which I’d recruited and hired. Our CEO is a better marketer.

Startup 147

Startup Venture Capital IPO Viral 147

www.businessinsider.com

SEPTEMBER 6, 2012

Google Ventures has made more than 100 seed investments, Maris said, including some past and present Y Combinator companies, and is making one to two new ones a week. Parse, one of the most-anticipated startups in Silicon Valley these days , went through Y Combinator last year and raised seed money from Google Ventures , for example.

Silicon Valley 54

Silicon Valley Startup Valuation Venture Capital 54

pandodaily.com

NOVEMBER 29, 2012

We know this: As many as a thousand companies who’ve received seed rounds won’t be around in a year — maybe six months. There simply won’t be soft-landings and acqui-hires for all of them. The number of seed and angel investors has exploded in recent years, buoyed up by a number of factors.

Technical Review 93

Technical Review Silicon Valley Incubator Syria 93