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What is the Right Burn Rate at a Startup Company?

Both Sides of the Table

Gross margin (GM) is the amount of profit you make per sale of your product or service taking into account your total costs of selling that product or service. If you have a very low gross margin (10-30%) it can be very hard to build a large, scalable business because you need to make a lot of sales to cover your operating costs.

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How to Make Sure Professional Services Don’t Take Over Your Software Company

Both Sides of the Table

So when I meet with GRP portfolio companies that do enterprise sales I try to emphasize the following: 1. Often your sales engineers can do the customizations without bugging the core eng team. Importantly, make sure that you retain IP rights to your custom work which needs to be part of the engagement contract.

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The Legal Side of Entrepreneurship

YoungUpstarts

Craig Schmitz, a partner in the Technology Companies Group at law firm Godwin Proctor LLP who works on corporate, governance, board and fundraising issues, and Erika Fisher, an associate in the firm’s Business Law Department who deals with IP, fielded questions about the legal issues startups face. ” The Cost of Financing.

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Preparing For An Acquisition

YoungUpstarts

Depending on your location and industry, your company may have federal, state, foreign and sales tax filing requirements, all of which will be heavily scrutinized by the potential acquirer. When using others (employees, contractors, third parties) to develop your technology, be sure that ownership of IP is assigned to the company.

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Term-sheets and Valuations: Thinking about Negotiations - Startups.

Tim Keane

Term-sheets and Valuations: Thinking about Negotiations.   I’ve sat down with entrepreneurs and a copy of a term sheet guide I like [ “Term Sheets & Valuations - A Line by Line Look at the Intricacies of Venture Capital Term Sheets & Valuations ” by Alex Wilmerding, Aspatore Press.] The Valuation Question.

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Should I license my IP, sell a royalty stream, or just produce products?

Berkonomics

These are your candidates, because they are companies already absorbing much or all the marketing expense necessary to make sales of your invention. Email readers, continue here…] Arthur: This is a matter between the owner of your IP (you) and the would-be user of your IP. So, there you have it.

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Tune In, Turn On, Drop Out – The Startup Genome Project

Steve Blank

(However, this does not mean that investors don’t have a significant effect on valuations and M&A). more likely to successfully scale with sales driven startups than with product centric startups. Founders overestimate the value of IP before product market fit by 255%. . Solo founders take 3.6x less likely to pivot.