View from Seed

OCTOBER 11, 2022

At the seed stage and as companies scale, helping the founders I work with identify and reach their goals, personally and professionally, gives me energy and purpose. In addition, I’m beyond excited to have the flexibility to support promising founders early with the right-sized checks for the stage of their companies.

North America 156

North America San Francisco Cap Table Cofounder 156

Gust

JULY 8, 2012

If you are new to the entrepreneurial world of startups, you are likely confused by the terminology of seed-stage, lean startups, micro-VCs, and Super Angels. Seed-stage means promising companies that don’t yet have a revenue stream, and may not yet have a proof of concept. Series-seed round.

Early Stage 177

Early Stage Finance Seed Stage Entrepreneur 177

This is going to be BIG.

AUGUST 22, 2012

It’s basically working with potential outside partners to reach your business goals--which could be revenue, distribution, financing, product development, awareness, etc. When you’ve got two people on the team and you’re going super lean in the early stages, usually your best bet is to have a customer experience person and a builder.

PR 144

PR Technical Review Seed Stage Design 144

View from Seed

FEBRUARY 2, 2016

As a further mimic of its host city, New York tech stands tall and stubborn, with a never-say-die presence through flush times and lean. And it was these conversations that I believe led to the team’s decision to add their own stubborn presence to stand up for seed-stage startups in NYC … me. Thanks for taking a look.

Seed Stage 120

Seed Stage New York New York City Startup 120

Startup Lessons Learned

AUGUST 24, 2009

Seed-stage investors are learning the metrics of traction, and are getting better at identifying those companies that are really achieving validated learning about customers. What is the right revenue model? I ask because as you mentioned there is a gap between people embracing lean principles and those who won't.

San Francisco 113

San Francisco Lean Technical Review Distribution 113

Genuine VC

JANUARY 3, 2013

According to all of the blogosphere chatter over the past month, seed-funded internet startups are entering this year gearing up for the now-near-infamous Series A Crunch. to become not just ramen-profitable, but sustainably profitable. In the end, just as always: startups are risky and a majority of them do not survive.

Seed Stage 166

Seed Stage Venture Capital Audience New York 166

Agile VC

JANUARY 27, 2012

As a result of a convergence of many factors (lean startup methodology, broadband & smartphone penetration, social web, cloud computing, etc), breakout startups are clearly getting scale faster than they used to. Multi-billion dollar valuations for late stage startups like Dropbox, et al. Read More ».

Hockey Stick 113

Hockey Stick Seed Stage Silicon Valley Syndicate 113

Steve Blank

AUGUST 27, 2009

This series of posts is a brief explanation of how we’ve evolved from Product Development to Customer Development to the Lean Startup. Yet we used the product development model not only to manage product development, but as a road map for finding customers and to time our marketing launch and sales revenue plan.

Silicon Valley 263

Silicon Valley Product Startup Product Development 263

Bryce Dot VC

NOVEMBER 19, 2012

We’ve been deeply fortunate to have been able to catch the seed stage wave early and work with some of the most dynamic and thoughtful founders in our industry. As a seed investor, we’ve always leaned towards larger rounds in favor of giving our founders at least 18 mo of runway with no revenue.

Seed Stage 61

Seed Stage LP Incubator Venture Capital 61

Startup Lessons Learned

JULY 11, 2019

Ann Miura-Ko is a founding partner at Floodgate , a seed-stage VC firm. Ann will be speaking at this year’s Lean Startup Conference in October about all of this and more. How do you not only make money in terms of revenue and revenue growth, but ultimately how do you develop profits and a profit center?

Founder 68

Founder Lean Venture Capital Cofounder 68

Steve Blank

FEBRUARY 26, 2020

There are two reasons to raise money: You have a killer idea that is only partially validated, that you think can get to $50M+ of revenue in 5 years with 80%+ gross margins (if margins are lower, you need a lot more revenue)and you need money to get to product-market fit, or. Not all startups need outside investment to grow.

Cofounder 429

Cofounder Seed Stage Valuation Metrics 429

Both Sides of the Table

OCTOBER 6, 2010

Everyone has their own definition of momentum (user numbers, revenue, channel partners, biz dev deals, whatever). If you have good experience then the VC will be leaning forward for the rest of the presentation. Mostly by early stage investors talking about getting smaller exits. They might want you to start lean.

Early Stage 360

Early Stage Startup Venture Capital Seed Stage 360

Hippoland

FEBRUARY 12, 2018

Etc… At the pre-seed stage, a big way to stand out is if you have a V3 statement (as opposed to a V1 statement). Those who didn’t have a product or much of a product used a concierge model of sorts ala Lean Startup philosophy to start running their business. You want your revenue to be higher than your costs.

Seed Stage 48

Seed Stage Business Model B2B Email 48

Hippoland

FEBRUARY 12, 2018

Etc… At the pre-seed stage, a big way to stand out is if you have a V3 statement (as opposed to a V1 statement). Those who didn’t have a product or much of a product used a concierge model of sorts ala Lean Startup philosophy to start running their business. You want your revenue to be higher than your costs.

Seed Stage 48

Seed Stage Business Model B2B Email 48

This is going to be BIG.

MAY 5, 2011

I'm a strong believer in having a board, even at a seed stage, to report to and set strategy with. VC Blogger Fanboy This geek reads all the blogs religiously and is a lean startup ninja. Advisors, investors and board members come in all shapes and sizes. Don't let the fanboys distract you from business 101.

Technical Review 111

Technical Review Due Diligence Seed Stage Lean 111

Both Sides of the Table

JUNE 29, 2011

All of this innovation is awesome and there have even been new online tools such as AngelList to help entrepreneurs raise money more easily from angels or early-stage funds. They should start “lean.&# I believe that most companies can exist in the experimentation mode for 3-4 years. Enter VC.

Venture Capital 296

Venture Capital Software LP Early Stage 296

A Smart Bear: Startups and Marketing for Geeks

JULY 24, 2012

Dan: Jason, we’re certainly leaning more towards what you said. If you see someone going, hey, I’ve sort of built it for, maybe you could call it profitability, but showing traction revenue, and now I’m ready to scale it big, and I don’t know if I should still charge. So VCs invest in different stages.

Silicon Valley 204

Silicon Valley Software Review Internet Technical Review 204

grasshopperherder.com

SEPTEMBER 24, 2011

I think it’s difficult, if not impossible, to value a pre-revenue company with any reasonable accuracy. If there is traction, ok…there are some benchmarks and you can look at seed stage funding rounds. The company with all the revenue is Company C. Lean startup (26). All names redacted.). Valuations.

Sweat Equity 41

Sweat Equity Equity Cofounder Non-Compete 41

pandodaily.com

NOVEMBER 29, 2012

Lastly, seed-stage entrepreneurs who have pushed for the maximum valuation possible haven’t done themselves any favors. As a result, Pandora is nowhere near profitable at more than $103 million in quarterly revenue, paying more than half of this sum to labels for content licenses. Source VentureBeat ]. - November 29, 2012.

Technical Review 93

Technical Review Silicon Valley Incubator Syria 93