Startup Professionals Musings

JULY 4, 2014

For example, if you have a proven product, real revenue, a big potential market, and are ready to scale up the business, every investor will be interested. On the other hand, if you are a new entrepreneur, still in the idea stage, professional investors will only tell you to come back later when you have traction (customers and revenue).

Angel Investor 232

Angel Investor Intellectual Property Investment Bankers Private Equity 232

Agile VC

JUNE 5, 2011

They’ve grown from nothing to >$2B in revenue in 30 months time, making the company among the fastest growing businesses in the histroy of the world. How They Make Money: Groupon keeps a share of the coupon value (typically 40-50%) as its net revenue (1). Financial Snapshot: 2010 Revenue: $713M. to the merchant.

North America 100

North America Chicago Boston Silicon Valley 100

Startup Professionals Musings

AUGUST 13, 2016

For example, if you have a proven product, real revenue, a big potential market, and are ready to scale up the business, every investor will be interested. On the other hand, if you are a new entrepreneur, still in the idea stage, professional investors will only tell you to come back later when you have traction (customers and revenue).

Matching 120

Matching Angel Investor Intellectual Property Investment Bankers 120

View from Seed

MARCH 16, 2016

How about Jana , which brings internet access to the developing world and boasts 30 million global users? Look out for bootstrapped CarGurus , one of the leading used-car properties, targeting over $150M in revenue this year. Want businesses with massive reach and international presence? Want hardcore futuristic technology?

Boston 215

Boston Early Stage Artificial Inteligence Semantic 215

Agile VC

JANUARY 27, 2012

Something has clearly changed within the last 5-6 years in terms of the speed with which monster startups are created in the software and internet space. Multi-billion dollar valuations for late stage startups like Dropbox, et al. I co-founded NextView Ventures , a seed-stage VC firm based in Boston, in 2010.

Hockey Stick 113

Hockey Stick Seed Stage Silicon Valley Syndicate 113

VC Cafe

SEPTEMBER 9, 2020

As the first generation born into an established Internet, with a smartphone at hand from a young age, Gen Z’ers place a high value on self expression. Trend to watch : an equivalent to MCNs (Multi Channel Networks) on the early days of YouTube where creators band together to generate economies of scale (and share revenue).

Aggregator 207

Aggregator Vertical Audience Seed Stage 207

Agile VC

MARCH 8, 2012

I remember when it was a rare, extraordinary thing for a software/internet startup to even file an S-1. What are the implications for other late-stage private companies thinking of making the transition to public markets in the near to midterm future? Zynga – 8x+ trailing revenue. trailing revenue. trailing revenue.

IPO 100

IPO Silicon Valley Revenue Seed Stage 100

Agile VC

FEBRUARY 2, 2012

My partner Rob also wondered if Facebook is the next Yahoo! , How They Make Money : Facebook’s primary revenue stream is of course selling advertising on Facebook.com, which in total accounts for 85% of revenue. Financial Snapshot : 2011 Revenue: $3.71 2011 YoY Revenue Growth: 88%. or the next Google.

IPO 100

IPO South Korea Venezuela Revenue 100

Both Sides of the Table

DECEMBER 13, 2010

Increasingly it became difficult to tell any system integration company apart and there was a whole new breed of competitors in the market helping companies build Internet businesses. Andersen had lost its long-time CEO, George Shaheen, was hemorrhaging staff and wasn’t exactly known as being an Internet pioneer.

Turkey 302

Turkey Differentiation IP Technical Review 302

Rob Go

JANUARY 7, 2013

Actually, growth equity firms I find are best at this, because they have very specific financial criteria that they look for, such as ranges for revenue, ebitda, growth, etc. We don’t have such a section on our website (yet) and in some ways, the seed/early stage is more amorphous. Stage: Pre Product: 12.

Portfolio 49

Portfolio Seed Stage Cofounder B2B 49

Gust

NOVEMBER 4, 2011

Rather than reinvent the wheel, I would point readers to Martin Kleppmann’s useful blog post with graphs illustrating the effects of a valuation cap on entrepreneurs, seed investors and later-round (typically VC) investors. Valuation caps can come into play in settings other than seed-stage convertible note financing rounds.

Valuation 98

Valuation Pre-Money Valuation Merger Vesting 98

Both Sides of the Table

OCTOBER 6, 2010

But in my experience as an entrepreneur and now spending my time amongst investors I can generalize that almost all VC investments in early stage technology & Internet investments come down to just four key factors. Everyone has their own definition of momentum (user numbers, revenue, channel partners, biz dev deals, whatever).

Early Stage 360

Early Stage Startup Venture Capital Seed Stage 360

rapidrollout.wordpress.com

OCTOBER 23, 2010

Web Startup Lessons Advice from a CTO and Entrepreneur Home About Finding a Technical Partner for Your Startup Today I received an inquiry from a student at an Ivy League university who wants to launch a web startup. You can find a technologist to join you as a partner, for half of the company’s equity.

Technical Review 40

Technical Review Fractional CTO Partner CTO Hire 40

Startup Lessons Learned

JULY 15, 2020

That's why the Corona Initiative is a Public Benefit Corporation--a for-profit company dedicated to the public good that aims to fund its research with its revenues. I'm general partner at MarsBio VC and Director of The Corona Initiative. You really want to see the whole system. Here is my conversation with Robert Rhinehart.

Technical Review 68

Technical Review Software Review Finance Technology 68

K9 Ventures

JULY 21, 2016

And 2 seed stage companies that haven’t launched yet. You would think this is easy in the days of the Internet, but you’ll be surprised that just typing a query into Google doesn’t always yield the results you’re looking for. Coin — a programmable payment device in a credit card form factor.

Software Review 48

Software Review Forecast Portfolio Distribution 48

Agile VC

AUGUST 12, 2011

The simple answer is “be able to convince a partnership of smart investors that your startup has a good probability of being a $100M+ revenue company within 5ish years.” I was in a board meeting for a seed stage company recently and a successful GP at a larger fund said “you know it when you see it” which is true.

Seed Stage 113

Seed Stage Silicon Valley B2B Acquisition 113

Agile VC

APRIL 13, 2012

Also all the big anchor companies that a startup might want to partner with at that time (eBay, Google, Oracle, Yahoo!, So why are software & internet startups more urban today than 5-10 years ago? This is true well before the internet era of Facebook, Yahoo! My partner @ LeeHower looks back: [link] 5 days ago Search.

Silicon Valley 185

Silicon Valley San Francisco San Jose Startup 185

Reid Hoffman

AUGUST 6, 2020

As the Greylock team has learned after decades of partnering with early-stage founders, the best approach is establishing a core set of fundamental questions that can be tailored to each individual company, rather than looking at a rigid set of metrics. HOW DOES GREYLOCK EVALUATE COMPANIES AT THE SEED-STAGE?

Technical Review 69

Technical Review Seed Stage Software Review Early Stage 69

David Teten

MARCH 18, 2021

Thirty-four VC firms in OpenVC call themselves “early-stage” Yet, 30% of those don’t actually invest in pre-revenue startups. Foundry Group, investing primarily in “ Software and Internet ”, follows six major themes, e.g., Human Computer Interaction (HCI) or Distribution. The phrase is quite ambiguous.

Technical Review 78

Technical Review Cofounder Venture Capital Deal Flow 78

www.currentlyobsessed.com

MAY 28, 2010

Currently Obsessed Joe Heitzeberg – Entrepreneur | Tech Geek | MBA Home About Me Joe Heitzeberg is an internet entrepreneur who has started and sold two companies. cthomaschase i was not, however my partner jeff did a session and there were a bunch of people from the team there. I know this sounds crazy, but it’s not.

Valuation 42

Valuation Channel Pre-Money Valuation Term Sheet 42

VC Cafe

JULY 5, 2010

Janvest , a new seed fund of $5 million backed by American angel investors and chaired by the former head of the Mossad (Danny Yatom), saw an opportunity to fill the gap by making offering US-based angel investors the opportunity to tap into the Israeli startup industry. VCs are investing in later stage companies.

Technical Review 106

Technical Review Software Review Seed Stage 106

David Teten

JUNE 7, 2011

Until recently, most Internet innovation has centered around improvements — big improvements, but incremental ones nonetheless — to existing business models and familiar social structures: Amazon is the ultimate retail destination, Zipcar the ubiquitous rental-car agency; Meetup is a sewing circle on steroids.

Darfur 122

Darfur Sudan Cofounder United Kingdom 122

pandodaily.com

NOVEMBER 29, 2012

Lastly, seed-stage entrepreneurs who have pushed for the maximum valuation possible haven’t done themselves any favors. Pandora begs Congress to lower Internet music licensing rates. iOS App Store revenue still dwarfs Google Play’s, but the challenger is catching up fast. November 29, 2012. November 29, 2012.

Technical Review 93

Technical Review Silicon Valley Incubator Syria 93