Gust

DECEMBER 7, 2014

Managing investors is a distraction from your core business. The best partners are ones who share costs and risks. When you put your own financing on the line, your partners, your team, and eventually your customers will know that you are committed to solving their problem.

Bootstrapping 191

Bootstrapping Entrepreneur Startup Burn Rate 191

Gust

MARCH 26, 2014

A venture capitalist (colloquially known as a VC) is a professional money manager who gets paid to manage *other* people’s money, not his or her own. Typically, only 1% or so of the money in a VC fund would come from the general partners themselves.].

Angel Investor 138

Angel Investor Early Stage Venture Capital Partner 138

Gust

DECEMBER 21, 2011

You are much more flexible than VCs or strategic partners – they prefer not to travel, a they have lots of local opportunities to invest their money. Your chances of raising funds from a Valley VC for a startup in the Bay Area are much higher than they would be in other locations.

Silicon Valley 107

Silicon Valley Southern California Tucson Seattle 107

Gust

DECEMBER 29, 2013

Rely on informal agreements with partners. The same principles apply to strategic partners. Later, when your venture is trying to close on financing, or even going public, that forgotten partner surfaces, demanding their original share. Make it a rule to not fraternize with your employees, and choose your partners wisely.

Startup 183

Startup Intellectual Property LLC Burn Rate 183

Gust

JUNE 25, 2014

While companies do indeed receive investor inquiries from these listings, the sheer volume of profiles on both platforms means that both are best used as tools to help the startup manage its own fundraising process. Both platforms allow investors (and others) to search for companies by criteria such as name, keyword and location.

Angel Groups 138

Angel Groups Curation Early Stage Programming 138

Gust

DECEMBER 14, 2014

These authors argue effectively that the hard part of executing most strategies is changing human behavior – first the people on your team, then partners, vendors, and most importantly, customers. Every entrepreneur has to navigate that personal change from thinking to doing to managing.

Entrepreneur 189

Entrepreneur Founder Revenue Startup 189

Gust

JUNE 15, 2014

I select vendors carefully, and manage them well, to keep my costs down.”. If you are not yet ready to commit, you should consider getting more experience in your relevant business domain, or taking on a partner who has run a small business. To make it work, you must trust yourself, your partners, and your startup.

Entrepreneur 174

Entrepreneur Bootstrapping Employee Restful 174

Gust

SEPTEMBER 10, 2014

Instead, they have a limited amount of money entrusted to them by limited partners, and they invest in a very, very few companies each year. Now, with that as background, it will typically take one to three months to negotiate and diligence a venture investment, if the company manages to get one at all. Invested Interests'

Limited Partner 116

Limited Partner Venture Capital Operations Partner 116

Gust

MAY 10, 2014

If you mean someone investing mostly other people’s money through a seed fund, they are venture capitalists, and their days are spent like other VCs, meeting with prospective investments, mentoring portfolio companies, raising money from limited partners, negotiating deals, and so forth.

Angel Investor 132

Angel Investor Accredited Investor Limited Partner Portfolio 132

Gust

FEBRUARY 23, 2014

Startups such as Chirpify have managed to flourish and raise millions with endorsements from folks like Lil Wayne and Snoop Lion. As with all aspects of business relationships, funding, and partners, nothing beats a pre-existing relationship, or at least a warm introduction. Justin Timberlake and Andrew Garfield via Wikipedia.

Matching 151

Matching Campaign Stock Distribution 151

Gust

JUNE 19, 2012

Managing Partner , Tangent Capital. Angel Investor , Frontier Angel Fund. Antone Johnson. Founding Principal , Bottom Line Law Group. Martin Zwilling. Founder and CEO , Startup Professionals. CEO , Gust. Ilana Grossman. CMO , Gust. Hundreds of tips from top investors.

Startup 180

Startup Forecast Angel Investor Software 180

Gust

JUNE 1, 2014

Every startup requires building and maintaining effective relationships with people, including partners, team members, customers, and investors. Inversely, feedback to newer employees should be given by their direct manager, or even peers, rather than a top executive. Image via Wikipedia.

Startup 162

Startup Entrepreneur Partner Employee 162

Gust

OCTOBER 31, 2011

If your business offers a service, like marketing or management consulting, you are the product. If you or any of your partners really don’t have the credentials, the commitment or the interest, you won’t succeed. Customers don’t like people who don’t show their passion and love for the job. .

Angel Investor 143

Angel Investor Venture Capital Networking Partner 143

Gust

FEBRUARY 2, 2014

Sculley is currently doing well, despite his setback at Apple, as a partner in Sculley Brothers, a private investment firm formed in 1995. If you have a technical career with no business background, and you want to start your own business, an MBA can be a blessing by giving you the basic knowledge you need to manage your business.

Entrepreneur 175

Entrepreneur Salary .Net Revenue 175

Gust

FEBRUARY 1, 2014

More typically, they are networked-based, with the angel offering to connect the startup with resources, partners, investors or acquirers that would otherwise fall outside the company’s reach. These could be skill-based, such as presentation coaching for the CEO, or helping write or revise the business plan.

Angel Investor 148

Angel Investor Startup IPO Early Stage 148

Gust

OCTOBER 14, 2012

Do not fraternize with your employees, and choose your partners wisely. Wise people admit their mistakes easily, and move the focus away from blame management and towards learning. Don’t be afraid to follow your vision, learn from your mistakes, and pivot the business, just because someone will see the change as a disappointment.

Entrepreneur 174

Entrepreneur Forecast Hiring Leadership 174

Gust

NOVEMBER 3, 2013

If this is your first time around, find a partner who has “been there and done that” to balance your passion and bring experience to the team. Having too much cash, not managed wisely, can be just as devastating as too little cash. Resource requirements not understood.

Intellectual Property 183

Intellectual Property Startup Viral Early Stage 183

Gust

AUGUST 10, 2014

What investors want to hear is that your company will demonstrate that high rate of growth to get you to $50 million in revenue in 5 years, making you a premium acquisition alternative to one of your partners, selling for 5 times revenue, for a total of $250 million.

Liquidity Event 176

Liquidity Event Equity Venture Capital Exit Strategy 176

Gust

FEBRUARY 26, 2014

Sessions are all about how to improve angel investing and manage angel groups, as well as connecting with other industry players and getting technical presentations. Usually two or three days, the speakers are mostly major venture partners talking about issues facing the industry, such as regulatory, fundraising, returns, etc.

Angel Investor 125

Angel Investor Global Angel Groups Europe 125

Gust

NOVEMBER 28, 2011

Often I find that experienced investors flip to the management page of a business plan, even before they read the product description. Investors don’t like “equal partner” situations, or worse yet, family pairs in top positions. Every investor is looking for the “dream team” of executives to put his money on.

Startup 147

Startup Bootstrapping Social Network Internet 147

Gust

NOVEMBER 29, 2011

David is a very well known venture capitalist, a partner in August Capital. I always look for marketing expenses as a percent of sales, and headcount and personnel costs, and compensation for management. Reasonable estimates on these points add to credibility.

Hockey Stick 70

Hockey Stick Forecast Early Stage Finance 70

Gust

OCTOBER 31, 2011

But then, of course a huge number of things – like the popping of that mini-bubble, intense new competition, exposure of management weaknesses, and world economic conditions—have subsequently brought that number down by at least half. And even then it will be nearly impossible to sell any big chunk of the holdings).

IPO 70

IPO Valuation Stock Partner 70

Gust

OCTOBER 20, 2011

The next step in determining the pre-money valuation of pre-revenue companies using the Scorecard Method is to compare the target company to your perception of similar deals done in your region, considering the following factors: Strength of the Management Team 0-30%. Experience as a product manager. -.

Valuation 146

Valuation Pre-Money Valuation Intellectual Property Technical Review 146

Gust

SEPTEMBER 13, 2011

A darling of the tech startup community, reportedly valued at more than $1 billion with investors including Greylock Partners, Sequoia Capital, Andreessen Horowitz, and DST, Airbnb is an online marketplace that facilitates short-term rental of properties such as members’ homes or apartments.

Startup 98

Startup Silicon Valley Reputation Community 98

Gust

SEPTEMBER 23, 2012

Traditional risk management focuses only on bad risks, and seeks to contain losses. Partner with a competitor. The challenge with all risks is that they must be proactive, measured, and managed. That way of thinking is simplistic and wrong. Use “coopetition” for cost sharing, economies of scale, and open access to new markets.

Forecast 188

Forecast Viral Social Network Business Model 188

Gust

MARCH 1, 2014

At its absolute most basic, some venture funds use a single scale with a yes/no choice to serve as a voting mechanism for the partners. At the other end, some highly disciplined angel groups ask their members to rate each company from 1 to 100 on five separate scales (management, model, market, execution, terms, etc.),

Angel Groups 125

Angel Groups Aggregator Startup New York 125

Gust

JANUARY 27, 2013

Being a good entrepreneur means being able to effectively convince an investor that you have a great idea, persuade partners that your approach is right, and convince potential customers that the solution is right for them. Howard Gardner photo via TheDish.org. There is no single “silver bullet” here.

Analytics 166

Analytics Audience Conversion Business Plan 166