Startup Professionals Musings

OCTOBER 22, 2010

After you have successfully attracted angels or venture capital with your business case, your million dollar product idea, and you have a signed term sheet, there is still one more hurdle to overcome before investors write the check. If results don’t match what they have been told, all bets are off.

Technical Review 225

Technical Review Due Diligence Intellectual Property Private Equity 225

Gust

NOVEMBER 14, 2011

After you have successfully attracted angels or venture capital with your business case, your million dollar product idea, and you have a signed term sheet, there is still one more hurdle to overcome before investors write the check. If results don’t match what they have been told, all bets are off.

Technical Review 152

Technical Review Due Diligence Intellectual Property Private Equity 152

This is going to be BIG.

SEPTEMBER 30, 2012

How else can you explain this headline matching a story about a professional social network still trying to explore revenues raising $17mm on an $80mm valuation? This is a company that, according to the article, got term sheets from half of the VCs that expressed interest in the company. Perhaps I need to rethink that.

Venture Capital 114

Venture Capital Marketing Term Sheet Software Review 114

Scott Edward Walker

AUGUST 25, 2011

In certain deals (like a venture capital financing) this is critical because you will, in effect, be married to the guys on the other side of the table for a number of years. Accordingly, you will need to determine whether it’s a good match by addressing certain key questions, such as: Can this person be counted-on and trusted?

Technical Review 63

Technical Review Term Sheet Los Angeles Entrepreneur 63

Gust

DECEMBER 21, 2011

Valuations are generally higher in Silicon Valley; term sheets are different; capital sources are different; building a management team and Board of Directors requires a different strategy; and I’ve just begun to scratch the surface. Unfortunately, there are not many good examples.

Silicon Valley 107

Silicon Valley Southern California Tucson Seattle 107

Gust

SEPTEMBER 27, 2014

This means that by far the most effective way to reach a VC is to be introduced by someone who knows both of you and thinks it would be a good match. One of the primary ones is the referral source. Any legitimate investor who finds you through Gust will also contact you through Gust!

Angel Groups 159

Angel Groups Elevator Pitch Software Review Deal Flow 159

Steve Blank

APRIL 9, 2009

Generate end user demand (to match our revenue goals) Drive that demand into our sales channels Value price our products to achieve our revenue and margin goals (create high-value) Educate our sales channel(s) Help engineering understand customer needs That was it.

Silicon Valley 259

Silicon Valley Technical Review RSS PR 259

Both Sides of the Table

AUGUST 1, 2010

They either do too many seed investments (for which they can spend no quality time with any) or they treat it as an option (“if you succeed come back and see us and we’ll match any term sheet you get&# ) – they view it as a sort of “right of first refusal.&#. The signaling affect is overrated.

Post-Money Valuation 298

Post-Money Valuation Term Sheet Warrant Partner 298

Genuine VC

MARCH 25, 2010

That situation sounds very positive in theory, but the problem is that this founder wasn’t ready for this interest and is trying to play catch up in other capital raising discussions (with both angels and VCs). Like most things, knowing who, when, how much, about what, and how often to talk to VCs about your startup is not clear-cut.

Early Stage 123

Early Stage Venture Capital Term Sheet Conversion 123

Genuine VC

MARCH 25, 2010

That situation sounds very positive in theory, but the problem is that this founder wasn’t ready for this interest and is trying to play catch up in other capital raising discussions (with both angels and VCs). Like most things, knowing who, when, how much, about what, and how often to talk to VCs about your startup is not clear-cut.

Early Stage 121

Early Stage Venture Capital Term Sheet Conversion 121

Steve Blank

APRIL 1, 2020

If you were expecting angel or venture funding get on the phone to your investor(s). Some VC’s are walking away from signed term sheets. The CFO should be on the phone to sources of additional capital. Then walk them through why the changes you’re suggesting match that plan.

South Korea 333

South Korea Salary Business Model China 333

K9 Ventures

JUNE 30, 2016

Now, what do you do when you get an email from a VC firm, that says something like: Dear <Founder’s Name>, We recently came across your company in {TechCrunch | Term Sheet | StrictlyVC}. Saw that you’ve raised a seed round and are building a AI platform for chatbots.

Email 96

Email Database Term Sheet Partner 96

VC Cafe

NOVEMBER 15, 2010

Fred Wilson warns that it is starting to feel like a bubble again, with VCs writing $5 and $10 million dollar checks with very little due diligence, sometimes showing up to a first meeting with a term sheet… Israeli startup headlines for Nov 15, 2010. Other venture capital links. Funding news. Calcalist Hebrew ].

Technical Review 79

Technical Review Venture Capital Matching 79

VC Cafe

NOVEMBER 15, 2010

Fred Wilson warns that it is starting to feel like a bubble again, with VCs writing $5 and $10 million dollar checks with very little due diligence, sometimes showing up to a first meeting with a term sheet… Israeli startup headlines for Nov 15, 2010. Other venture capital links. Funding news. Calcalist Hebrew ].

Technical Review 79

Technical Review Matching Venture Capital 79

VC Cafe

NOVEMBER 15, 2010

Fred Wilson warns that it is starting to feel like a bubble again, with VCs writing $5 and $10 million dollar checks with very little due diligence, sometimes showing up to a first meeting with a term sheet… Israeli startup headlines for Nov 15, 2010. Other venture capital links. Funding news. Calcalist Hebrew ].

Technical Review 79

Technical Review Matching Venture Capital 79

VC Cafe

NOVEMBER 15, 2010

Fred Wilson warns that it is starting to feel like a bubble again, with VCs writing $5 and $10 million dollar checks with very little due diligence, sometimes showing up to a first meeting with a term sheet… Israeli startup headlines for Nov 15, 2010. Other venture capital links. Funding news. Calcalist Hebrew ].

Technical Review 79

Technical Review Matching Venture Capital 79

Steve Blank

NOVEMBER 5, 2009

We also talk about cash flow management rather than fund-raising though – watch and justifying expenses by cash coming in that matches or exceeds. Reply Raising capital - The 50 or so things you should read first | JonBischke.com , on November 9, 2009 at 10:59 am Said: [.] & Get back up and running.

Customer Development 262

Customer Development Developer Customer Silicon Valley 262

Both Sides of the Table

JANUARY 16, 2012

” These are people with whom there is a likely match for your product or service. If they see you when you’ve already got your first term sheet and they’ve got 3 weeks to decide then by definition they have no relationship with you. So why would raising venture capital be any different.

Developer 366

Developer Silicon Valley PR Las Vegas 366

Both Sides of the Table

AUGUST 17, 2009

This is part of my ongoing series “ Pitching a VC “ There’s a great meme developing this morning on the need to simplify funding terms and documents. The meme was kicked off by Chris Dixon with this post saying that term sheets need to be simplified and align investor / founder interests.

Founder Vesting 252

Founder Vesting Vesting Founder Term Sheet 252

This is going to be BIG.

JUNE 21, 2011

A check of my Mailchimp stats, not surprisingly, revealed that Gmail represents a third of my subscribers--almost an exact match to the loss of my ridiculously consistant audience. My buddy Dan Primack has a private equity newsletter called the Term Sheet that is now getting caught in Gmail's spam filter as well.

Technical Review 104

Technical Review Clickthrough Private Equity Term Sheet 104

reidhoffman.org

NOVEMBER 12, 2013

Great businesses can be built off this network, starting with matching talent and opportunity. The usual tempo for raising money from venture capital is at a minimum of a year between financings. Given that Sequoia Capital is a top-tier VC, we gave Sequoia prominent placement (including their logo) on this slide.

Entrepreneur 111

Entrepreneur Revenue Viral Networking 111

Steve Blank

FEBRUARY 26, 2020

Product/market fit means that you’ve found the match between your potential customers’ pains, gains and jobs to be done and the features of your minimal viable product. Show them the evolution of your minimal viable product and its current state. You need to begin to “instrument” your customer acquisition process with analytics.

Cofounder 429

Cofounder Seed Stage Valuation Metrics 429

Austin Startup

MAY 19, 2018

Just don’t do reference checks ever until the term sheet has been issued and you’re almost ready to fund. The number of those VCs who didn’t know our stage or who had some other part of their thesis that we didn’t match was also staggering.

Founder 75

Founder Early Stage Software Review Deal Flow 75

www.currentlyobsessed.com

MAY 28, 2010

Snapvine was my first experience being in the driver’s seat of the fund-raising process, and in the 3 years prior to our acquisition we raised over $10mm in venture capital. Valuation is an important aspect of VC deal terms, and a major determinant of your ultimate outcome. Read Terms that Hurt (Venture Hacks).

Valuation 42

Valuation Channel Pre-Money Valuation Term Sheet 42

Steve Blank

APRIL 16, 2009

Each of my competitors each had 5-10 graphics boards covering a range of prices with performance to match. I went home to think about this. Instead of a product family, we had a single point product. Even our current product line had four graphics boards in it. Now our new product line would only have one board?! What could we do?

Silicon Valley 134

Silicon Valley Product RSS Engineer 134

Startup Professionals Musings

OCTOBER 12, 2015

Investors are human and subject to human tendencies, whether they are your rich uncle, an angel investor with personal funds or a venture capital investor with institutional money. Negotiating terms is normal before the investment, but once the check is cashed, you don’t want to be second-guessed on every action.

Due Diligence 120

Due Diligence Term Sheet Entrepreneur Angel Investor 120

This is going to be BIG.

JANUARY 10, 2021

A few months ago, I got a pitch from a company providing a kind of “last mile” for computer vision—an always-on human network that would take images that computers couldn’t identify, and spit back whether or not a roof tile was broken or if a signature matched. No other VC asked questions like this.”

Venture Capital 150

Venture Capital Cap Table Accredited Investor Silicon Valley 150