Startup Professionals Musings

SEPTEMBER 20, 2021

They come at the early stage while a startup has no revenue or valuation, so professional investors are hard to find. Makerspaces are becoming the new incubators and accelerators for startups, and support contacts, like lawyers and marketing groups, will be easy to find. Place to build skills and become familiar with new tools.

Startup 397

Startup Cofounder Incubator Early Stage 397

Startup Professionals Musings

MARCH 16, 2011

Just don’t quit your day job before your new company is producing revenue. Use this approach before you have a real valuation, a real product, or any real customers. Startup incubators. Friends and family. After bootstrapping, friends and family are the most common funding sources for early-stage startups.

Technical Review 233

Technical Review Bootstrapping Startup Venture Capital 233

Startup Professionals Musings

MAY 4, 2016

Who would not want to joint the unicorns (recent startups with a current valuation of over $1 billion)? Before you bring on partners, develop intellectual property, raise capital, or generate revenues, you need to establish an official business entity. Angel groups, accelerators, and incubators are pervasive.

Intellectual Property 120

Intellectual Property Startup Angel Groups Social Media 120

Gust

JUNE 17, 2012

Just don’t quit your day job before your new company is producing revenue. Use this approach before you have a real valuation, a real product, or any real customers. Startup incubators. Friends and family. After bootstrapping, friends and family are the most common funding sources for early-stage startups.

Technical Review 164

Technical Review Bootstrapping Venture Capital Incubator 164

Startup Professionals Musings

MARCH 1, 2010

Just don’t quit your day job before your new company is producing revenue. Use this approach before you have a real valuation, a real product, or any real customers. Startup incubators. Friends and family. After bootstrapping, friends and family are the most common funding sources for early-stage startups.

Technical Review 149

Technical Review Bootstrapping Startup Venture Capital 149

Steve Blank

MARCH 31, 2014

Companies horde cash and squeeze the most revenue and margin from the money they use. Look at the valuations of companies like Tesla, Illumina, and Twitter. The companies that can show “startup-like” growth rates of 50% plus per year will get stratospheric market valuations.

Private Equity 325

Private Equity Metrics China Intellectual Property 325

ReadWriteStart

SEPTEMBER 17, 2021

Generating solid revenue streams early on will make many of the fundraising problems much easier to handle later on. 4 Reasons to Focus on Revenue Before Fundraising. Along those same lines, revenue also makes investor negotiations much easier to navigate. More Independence. More Leverage. More Choice.

Startup 130

Startup Revenue Cofounder Angel Investor 130

ReadWriteStart

SEPTEMBER 10, 2010

They already have several customers including some telcos, and are at about $350,000 in revenues. Because customer financing equals revenue, not equity. Why not go further, develop more valuation, customer experience, and really, deeply validate the business? You can get cash without diluting your ownership in the company.

Cloud 115

Cloud Silicon Valley Incubator Finance 115

The Next Web

SEPTEMBER 13, 2013

Many Asian entrepreneurs tell me that they want to raise funds from Silicon Valley firms because they perceive the valuations to be higher. SingTel Inno8 ), as well as one of the marquee cross-regional startup incubators, JFDI. Valuations are based more on typical later-stage type of metrics.

Asia 132

Asia Silicon Valley India Term Sheet 132

crowdSPRING Blog

APRIL 8, 2012

As college graduation weekends and summer business incubator announcements loom, I thought I would take a few minutes to consider the connection between the entrepreneurship and academia. Entrepreneurs, by definition, take an idea or a concept and strive to make that idea into a operating business. Academics review one another’s work.

Software Review 112

Software Review Entrepreneur Incubator Valuation 112

ReadWriteStart

MARCH 24, 2011

Additional work in figuring out the precise go-to-market consumer, academic institution, or enterprise - each is a different business), and consequent business model and pricing model will help enhance the company's valuation. The game set retails online at $49.95, and about 2,000 unites have already been sold.

Illinois 114

Illinois Entrepreneur Silicon Valley Chicago 114

ReadWriteStart

SEPTEMBER 17, 2021

Generating solid revenue streams early on will make many of the fundraising problems much easier to handle later on. 4 Reasons to Focus on Revenue Before Fundraising. Along those same lines, revenue also makes investor negotiations much easier to navigate. More Independence. More Leverage. More Choice.

Startup 78

Startup Revenue Cofounder Angel Investor 78

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. million in revenue. The business is already profitable with $2.9

Dilution 114

Dilution Revenue Finance Entrepreneur 114

Gust

NOVEMBER 4, 2011

Entrepreneurs and investors who have spent any time dealing with convertible debt seed financing transactions are likely to have encountered the subject of valuation caps. Valuation caps can come into play in settings other than seed-stage convertible note financing rounds. Read on for a fuller explanation. by February 2006).

Valuation 98

Valuation Pre-Money Valuation Merger Vesting 98

ConversionXL

MAY 1, 2017

Reporting in the Harvard Business Review on a major study of growth stalls they conducted, Olson and his colleagues cite the case of the iconic brand Levi Strauss, which hit a historic high mark of sales in 1995, reaching revenue of $7 billion, but then, starting in 1996, saw a decline in sales so precipitous that by 2000, revenue was down to $4.6

Technical Review 127

Technical Review Algorithm Channel Analytics 127

Startup Professionals Musings

JUNE 21, 2014

They come at the early stage while a startup has no revenue or valuation, so professional investors are hard to find. Makerspaces are becoming the new incubators and accelerators for startups, and support contacts, like lawyers and marketing groups, will be easy to find. Place to build skills and become familiar with new tools.

Entrepreneur 246

Entrepreneur Detroit California Cofounder 246

Rob Go

DECEMBER 28, 2011

61M in Q3 revenue, up 28% YoY. The company is expected to do around $500M in revenue in 2011 and has seen 50%+ growth YoY the past two years. The company has seen over 100% revenue growth the past two years and was #2 in Inc 500′s consumer products and services category. Tripadvisor: An amazing entrepreneurial story.

Technical Review 54

Technical Review Boston Software Review IPO 54

abovethecrowd.com

FEBRUARY 1, 2012

Attached are my thoughts on the Facebook S-1 along with some quick stabs at valuation. Brief disclosure, Benchmark Capital has a minority position in Facebook as a result of the acquisition of FriendFeed, a company that was incubated in our offices. I thought it would be useful to look at Facebook using the scorecard from our [.].

Revenue 78

Revenue Incubator Valuation Acquisition 78

YoungUpstarts

JULY 29, 2013

But they’ll sit up and pay attention when you talk about the customers and revenues of the business. You have to be prepared for the grueling rigors of fundraising and repeated rejections, and difficult negotiations over valuation. ii.actual REVENUE? You’re in dialogue with the marketplace. Listen to what it tells you.

Asia 207

Asia Singapore Cofounder Incubator 207

Steve Blank

OCTOBER 24, 2017

— Unremarked and unheralded, the balance of power between startup CEOs and their investors has radically changed: IPOs/M&A without a profit (or at times revenue) have become the norm. Typically, this caliber of bankers wouldn’t talk to you unless your company had five profitable quarters of increasing revenue.

Founder 245

Founder Technical Review CTO Hire IPO 245

Austin Startup

JANUARY 25, 2020

I remember enjoying reading his book “ Delivering Happiness ,” the story behind how he led Zappos and drove it to a billion dollars in revenue before Amazon bought it. But one day, at night, I decided to just Google NYC incubators. I didn’t say much after that, but I thought of what that encounter meant, or could mean.

Delaware 62

Delaware SEC New York City New York 62

ReadWriteStart

MARCH 3, 2011

We also had two other entrepreneurs who are working with the William Factory Incubator in Tacoma, Washington. Then Greg Snead, also from Tacoma, discussed Orbiter , an RFID venture that is moving along quite nicely, having clocked more than $700,000 in revenue last year. You can read more about athenahealth here. Wise Mind Studios LLC.

San Jose 115

San Jose Entrepreneur United States Washington 115

K9 Ventures

APRIL 9, 2014

The low supply and high demand is driving up the valuations and deal sizes. Threshold for an IPO is higher Ten years ago, if you had $20M in revenue you were ready to go public. If you have <$100M in revenue, you’re probably going to stay private. The companies that get to traction have a lot of capital chasing them.

Mezzanine 134

Mezzanine Seed Stage Early Stage IPO 134

ReadWriteStart

DECEMBER 1, 2011

See: 1M/1M Incubation Radar: Freshdesk ]. As a result, they were able to get multiple competitive term sheets and negotiate both valuation and terms to their advantage with confidence. Such long sales cycle businesses find it very difficult to sustain and survive the pre-revenue period. Loyaltepays.com.

Partner 113

Partner Tennessee Nashville India 113

Both Sides of the Table

MAY 23, 2012

This has led to the creation of incubators, accelerators and seed funds. Yes, it’s true that FOMO (fear of missing out) is driving some irrational behavior and valuations amongst uber competitive deals and well-financed VCs. The opportunity to transact at the point of purchase increases the sheer number of revenue opportunities.

Venture Capital 347

Venture Capital Technical Review LP Mobile 347

K9 Ventures

OCTOBER 10, 2017

The Series A is now the fourth round of funding for a company — the first is usually friends and family, or an incubator (~$50K), then pre-seed (~$500K), then seed (~$2M), then Series A (~$6M-$15M). Seed is the new Series A. (~$2M used get for building product, establishing product-market fit and early revenue). By definition, yes.

Seed Stage 82

Seed Stage Finance Later Stage Equity 82

www.paulgraham.com

APRIL 28, 2010

There never has to be atime when you have no revenues. Another concept we need to introduce now is valuation. I say "in theory" because in early stageinvesting, valuations are voodoo. As a company gets more established,its valuation gets closer to an actual market value. Startups valuations aresupposed to rise over time.

Technical Review 76

Technical Review Startup Software Review Angel Investor 76

SoCal CTO

OCTOBER 5, 2010

Coworking Spaces - A VC : Venture Capital and Technology , September 2, 2010 I've never been much of a fan of incubators. Betaworks is more than an incubator, but they have shown that they can make the incubation model work with projects like bit.ly Some have made the model work. and chartbeat. That crazy chicken.

Technology 191

Technology Product San Francisco CTO Hire 191

www.readwriteweb.com

OCTOBER 18, 2010

These are areas that may be gaps in the portfolio of large companies, and are perfect for M&A deals in three to five years after building enough validation and $10-$20 million in revenue. Raymond has built a nice business through efficient distribution deals and will do about $250,000 in revenue this year.

Marketing 52

Marketing Bootstrapping Incubator Angel Investor 52

www.readwriteweb.com

OCTOBER 18, 2010

These are areas that may be gaps in the portfolio of large companies, and are perfect for M&A deals in three to five years after building enough validation and $10-$20 million in revenue. Raymond has built a nice business through efficient distribution deals and will do about $250,000 in revenue this year.

Marketing 52

Marketing Bootstrapping Incubator Angel Investor 52

dondodge.typepad.com

JANUARY 15, 2011

The entrepreneur expects the company to be worth many times this valuation and so does the investor. The key is to have several VCs or investors competing for the deal to arrive at a "fair" valuation. So they will give you a pre-money valuation somewhere around the amount you raise. That is how much you should raise.

Equity 40

Equity Employee Dilution Valuation 40

Austin Startup

FEBRUARY 12, 2019

First, I wrote a post on Christmas Day 2015 sharing what happened to my startup after we were rejected by YCombinator, the renowned startup incubator in Silicon Valley. startups with billion-dollar valuations) in recent years. I never did find a VC to lead a round of funding for Localeur, but two things happened by the end of 2015.

Silicon Valley 48

Silicon Valley Technical Review Venture Capital San Francisco 48

Seeing Both Sides

SEPTEMBER 15, 2015

Only a handful of so-called unicorns — companies that have achieved a valuation of over $1 billion in the last 10 years — come from Israel, and only one Israeli firm, Teva, ranks in the world’s 500 largest companies by market capitalization. That’s the good news. The bad news is that Israeli startups are struggling to scale.

Cofounder 20

Cofounder Technical Review United States 20

The Next Web

AUGUST 14, 2013

When we went out to raise money, we raised with only a couple thousand dollars in monthly recurring revenue. But we had a solid product, strong weekly revenue growth (10% week over week), and two distribution/marketing channels that were already paying dividends. Using Incubators/Accelerators to Bridge the Gap.

Founder 142

Founder Incubator Cofounder Accredited Investor 142

Austin Startup

DECEMBER 10, 2017

The oldest university affiliated incubator in the country, the ATDC at Georgia Tech, is only 34 years old, a millennial, and now there must be many thousand incubator and accelerator programs just in the US. I bring this up because I believe we are often trying to teach founders how to do everything in their startups from scratch.

Georgia 48

Georgia Startup Incubator Harvest 48

Steve Blank

MAY 9, 2017

Their need to get into high-profile deals has driven late-stage valuations into unicorn territory. What this means is that the emergence of incubators and super angels have dramatically expanded the sources of seed capital. A unicorn is a startup with a market capitalization north of a billion dollars.

Restful 222

Restful Silicon Valley Puerto Rico San Jose 222

www.quora.com

JANUARY 16, 2011

Find Questions, Topics and People Add Question Add Question Team Configuration 500 Startups Guerilla Marketing Organizations Entrepreneurship Startup Founders & Entrepreneurs Startups Startup Incubators and Seed Programs Seedcamp Y Combinator TechStars Lean Startups What is the perfect startup team? They are many more examples.

Technical Review 51

Technical Review Startup CTO Hire Cofounder 51