Remove Hiring Remove Pre-Money Valuation Remove Product Remove Seed Money
article thumbnail

How to Start a Startup

www.paulgraham.com

One of the best tricks I learned during our startup was a rule for deciding who to hire. During the Internet Bubble there were a number of startups founded by business people who then wentlooking for hackers to create their product for them. In nearly every failed startup, the real problem was that customersdidnt want the product.

Startup 105
article thumbnail

How to Fund a Startup

www.paulgraham.com

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.

article thumbnail

To Follow On or Not to Follow On

This is going to be BIG.

Reality is that venture is a bunch of individual stories, individual assessments of teams, unique products, and a whole lot of stars lining up for particular companies for success to happen. If you're doing seed deals, how often does a down round in a seed deal even happen? Down from what?