Startup Professionals Musings

AUGUST 27, 2014

Find a strategic partner to accelerate growth. Use metrics to measure results of marketing initiatives. Great team members may take more time to find, and cost you stock options, but a qualified and highly motivated team that stretches your budget is a good calculated risk. Recruit the best team members and provide incentives.

Startup 283

Startup Forecast Stock Options Technical Review 283

Startup Professionals Musings

FEBRUARY 17, 2018

Find a strategic partner to accelerate growth. Use metrics to measure results of marketing initiatives. Great team members may take more time to find, and cost you stock options, but a qualified and highly motivated team that stretches your budget is a good calculated risk. Recruit the best team members and provide incentives.

Forecast 161

Forecast Stock Options Technical Review Metrics 161

ReadWriteStart

AUGUST 26, 2022

How to Scale Unicorns With Partner David Zhang, TVC. Joining us for this episode is our partner David Zhang, Partner at TCV (( Technology Crossover Ventures ). I’m a partner at TCV, which we founded in 1996. If you focus too much on other stuff, you can get the best sales team and efficiency metrics in the world.

Partner 132

Partner Cofounder Retention Acquisition 132

Steve Blank

MARCH 31, 2014

Metrics like Return on Net Assets, Return on Capital and Internal Rate of Return are the guiding stars of the board and CEO. As Harvard professor Clayton Christensen noted, these efficiency metrics provided wise guidance for times when capital was scarce and raising money was hard. Ultimately this is not just another staff function.

Private Equity 329

Private Equity Metrics China Intellectual Property 329

Startup Professionals Musings

SEPTEMBER 9, 2015

Find a strategic partner to accelerate growth. Use metrics to measure results of marketing initiatives. Great team members may take more time to find, and cost you stock options, but a qualified and highly motivated team that stretches your budget is a good calculated risk. Recruit the best team members and provide incentives.

Forecast 120

Forecast Startup Stock Options Technical Review 120

YoungUpstarts

DECEMBER 14, 2017

After several hours of brainstorming and heated discussion, the group had developed four distinct alternatives for how to proceed, which varied in terms of the partners they would enlist, the way they would engage the HVAC services companies, and how the company would manage logistics to supply each local market.

Agile 113

Agile Malaysia Technical Review Metrics 113

Both Sides of the Table

FEBRUARY 20, 2019

If angel investors are pressuring you to set up a board and if you don’t have the leverage to push back a little then I might suggest a 3-person board in which all 3 seats are appointed by the common stock and you agree to appoint one of these seats to the angel investor but perhaps make it either time based or event based.

Venture Capital 236

Venture Capital Startup Angel Investor Silicon Valley 236

Both Sides of the Table

MAY 2, 2015

The full financial details and metrics were in the deck. So my time was freed up to call board members in advance and walk them through our metrics and understand any concerns. Stock option top-ups after a few years are vital retention mechanisms. Establishing Metrics & Monitoring Success (or Failures).

Operations 150

Operations Metrics Early Stage Non-Compete 150

Steve Blank

SEPTEMBER 14, 2009

Posted on September 14, 2009 by steveblank Over the last 30 years Wall Street’s appetite for technology stocks have changed radically – swinging between unbridled enthusiasm to believing they’re all toxic. Each VC firm/partner has a different spin on what to weigh more.) 3) invest in and take equity stakes in exchange for capital.

Silicon Valley 235

Silicon Valley IPO Technical Review Venture Capital 235

The Startup Magazine

SEPTEMBER 4, 2023

Leverage Influencer Partnerships In today’s digital era, influencers can amplify your reach: Partner with influencers whose audience aligns with your target demographic. Stock up on inventory, and ensure smooth logistics, especially if offering physical products. Assess and Iterate: Analyze launch metrics. What worked?

Campaign 141

Campaign Audience Social Media Hosting 141

Occam's Razor

JULY 24, 2018

work (collection, processing, reporting, analysis), processes, org structure, governance models, last-mile gaps , metrics ladders of awesomeness , and… so… much… more. Remember, tools, work, processes, org structure, governance models, last-mile gaps, metrics ladders of awesomeness, and… so… much… more. The Implications of Complexity.

Analytics 93

Analytics Framework Metrics Algorithm 93

This is going to be BIG.

AUGUST 25, 2011

The issue was that for the last two weeks in August, there were no VCs around to pitch, no distribution partners to meet with for biz dev deals, and seemingly no one else around actually working for me, the non-technical co-founder to push ahead toward milestones. Second, there was way too much to do. Look ahead to the conference schedule.

Technical Review 121

Technical Review Software Review PR Cofounder 121

Feld Thoughts

OCTOBER 8, 2013

Quantitative metrics are either too easy to hit, or completely impossible. My partner Dave and I took the number, made a list of all employees, and figured out how much we were going to give each of them. Figure out an equation for converting the bonus amount (in current cash terms) to stock option awards.

Stock Options 146

Stock Options Technical Review Leadership Equity 146

Up and Running

OCTOBER 30, 2017

Begin by taking stock of yourself and your situation: Why do you want to start a business? Milestones and Metrics. Rather than stock everything of a similar price range from one or two catalogs, consider only choosing those items that will create the feel you want to become known for. Conduct a personal evaluation.

Venture Capital 166

Venture Capital Business Plan Limited Liability Company Finance 166

David Teten

AUGUST 19, 2019

John Borchers, Co-founder and Managing Partner of Decathlon Capital, claims to be the largest revenue-based financing investor in the US. Feenix Venture Partners has a unique investment model that couples investment capital with payment processing services. He said, “I think it depends on the structure of the RBI.

Revenue 60

Revenue Term Sheet Founder Technical Review 60

SoCal CTO

JUNE 9, 2010

He’d wasted a year of his life and had a pile of stock options that weren’t very interesting. Klout Puts Metrics Into Social Media Management - Tim Berry's Blog - Planning Startups Stories , May 21, 2010 I really like klout.com for three good reasons: 1.) Tesla is not. SlideShare: VC signaling in seed rounds. What should I do?’.

Fractional CTO 248

Fractional CTO Startup Venture Capital Cofounder 248

crowdSPRING Blog

JULY 10, 2015

The Top 8 Mistakes I Made In My First 18 Months As a VC Partner - buff.ly/1Cix1O7. Tech Startups Woo Investors With Unconventional Financial Metrics — but Do Numbers Add Up? Usability Metrics – A Guide To Quantify The Usability Of Any System – Usability Geek crowdspring.co/1HqW5mA. nytimes.com/2015/07/07/tec….

Small Business 48

Small Business Design Social Media Startup 48

Both Sides of the Table

AUGUST 25, 2015

Last night I wrote a post about how the fall in the stock market over a 3-day period may affect the venture capital markets. This morning the US stock markets are rallying. They said stocks were a bargain. public stocks go up and privates can grow into IPOs; or. He said US stocks traded at about 13.8 So now what?

Balance Sheet 150

Balance Sheet Valuation Burn Rate Stock 150

Reid Hoffman

DECEMBER 10, 2020

If I’m going to find out that a set of founders lack integrity, don’t behave like partners, take on unacceptable risks that might harm their customers or society, or simply aren’t the kinds of people I want to spend a decade with, I want to know those facts before I start down the path of evaluating that investment. I think David’s wrong.”.

Hosting 69

Hosting Hockey Stick IPO Silicon Valley 69

Both Sides of the Table

SEPTEMBER 10, 2021

Our fund (Upfront Ventures) recently returned >1x an entire $200 million fund just selling small minatory in secondary sales while still holding most of our stock for an ultimate public market exits. each with partners as the lead. That never would have happened 10 years ago. Where are Things Headed for VC in 2031?

Pre-Money Valuation 471

Pre-Money Valuation Valuation Venture Capital Early Stage 471

View from Seed

OCTOBER 15, 2014

This is pulled from NextView’s board deck resource, which was compiled using a combination of real startup board decks and input from NextView’s founding partners: Rob Go , David Beisel , and Lee Hower. A seed-stage mobile startup’s housekeeping section might look something like this: Section 3: Core Metrics.

Seed Stage 331

Seed Stage Cap Table Metrics Burn Rate 331

Both Sides of the Table

MARCH 21, 2010

A “warrant&# is a right, but not an obligation for a company to buy stock in your company at a future date and at a pre-agreed price. Think of it as similar to an employee stock option. Let’s say you give a warrant to a channel partner to sell your product. What are Performance Based Warrants? million in sales.

Warrant 298

Warrant Dilution Startup Stock Options 298

Agile VC

JUNE 5, 2011

The latter are included in free cash flow whereas the former are excluded, since they’re one-time in nature and it’s possible stock is used instead of cash for acquisitions. IMO this is much ado about nothing, as any comptentent analyst can look at Groupon’s GAAP and non-GAAP metrics and get a good sense of the business.

North America 100

North America Chicago Boston Silicon Valley 100

Agile VC

MAY 26, 2011

The terms and valuation for both offers were comparable and when the team debated which path to choose, we all agreed both firms would have made good partners. And obviously all the liq prefs went away in the IPO when pref stock converted to common. We three partners are working hard. Thanks from switzerland, Nice story!

Term Sheet 178

Term Sheet Silicon Valley Technical Review Social Network 178

Both Sides of the Table

MAY 19, 2018

Your historical trading information including financials and a “customer file” which shows the history of your transactions so that investors can run “cohort” analyses Customer reference, personal references, key team members, compensation, cap table, stock option plan, etc. Some people find this elitist?—?I The model is a bit complex?—?I’d

Cap Table 336

Cap Table Due Diligence Forecast Churn Rate 336

Austin Startup

FEBRUARY 1, 2018

You see, part of my HomeAway compensation is in the form of Expedia stock ( $EXPE ), so it is in my personal interest to fill our talent pipeline with the absolute best product management candidates the world over. I pitched potential teammates to join me, investors to fund us, businesses to partner with us and customers to use us.

Management 85

Management Product Technical Review Software Review 85

Duct Tape Marketing

JUNE 1, 2023

Really tracking and seeing if you're hitting those metrics and if you're not, what is going wrong? So, you know, you kind of alluded to that, but it's not just metrics of like, is this selling or not? But obviously there's so many partners, you know, depending on the complexity of the launch that help and kind of assist.

Product 58

Product Framework Technical Review Cofounder 58

www.joelonsoftware.com

MARCH 24, 2010

Its impossible to use hard-and-fast metrics to decide where someone fits in, and these kinds of metrics tend to accidentally incentivize the wrong things. Teamwork skills are excellent at the project, company, and industry-partner levels. At any given time, stock option awards are equal based on level.

Software Review 48

Software Review Stock Options Salary Technical Review 48

This is going to be BIG.

FEBRUARY 26, 2010

Knewton's Online Marketing Director is the key partner to the VP, Online Marketing and is responsible for helping the team drive customer acquisition and revenue growth through SEM (paid search), SEO, Affiliate Marketing, and Email.

San Francisco 92

San Francisco CTO Hire Developer EC2 92

Cracking the Code

NOVEMBER 10, 2009

The stock was very well received, jumping 25% on its first day of trading. Today, the stock is still up 22% and the company is trading at a very healthy 4.2 Philippe Botteri Accel Partners London, UK My Bio. Bessemer Venture Partners Expands BVP VII Fund. SaaS business metrics: why are they different? at 8:25 PM.

Software Review 48

Software Review Technical Review IPO Cloud 48

VC Adventure

SEPTEMBER 15, 2015

Massive caveat here: I’m not trying to predict the stock market. Plus I agree with my partner Brad, who said recently , “I think everyone will have an opinion and no one will have any real idea,” about what’s going to happen in the stock market (this in an article that appeared after just two days of a down market).

China 48

China Balance Sheet Stock Metrics 48

Steve Blank

JUNE 15, 2010

And some larger funds that specialize in later stage deals may have a partner or two who likes to invest at this stage. Do they have metrics and a methodology they use for early stage companies that differs from companies that have already found a business model? Have they heard about Customer Development ? Lean Startups ?

Founder 232

Founder Vesting Later Stage Early Stage 232

Cracking the Code

OCTOBER 9, 2009

As you can see, despite the strong recovery in stock value, the productivity has declined sharply in the past quarter and the figures do not show at this point that the bottom has been reached. Philippe Botteri Accel Partners London, UK My Bio. Bessemer Venture Partners Expands BVP VII Fund. Post a Comment. Newer Post.

Software Review 48

Software Review Technical Review Cloud Europe 48

Startup Professionals Musings

NOVEMBER 14, 2015

In the final evaluation, traction is the key driver for your business valuation, and is needed to attract investors, partners or a public stock offering. Your challenge as an entrepreneur is to generate traction and at the same time choose the right metrics to quantify and sell that traction to your team and to outsiders.

Acquisition 120

Acquisition Valuation Angel Investor Stock 120

Startup Lessons Learned

AUGUST 26, 2009

They take common stock, not preferred, a fact that the entrepreneurs mentioned to me many times. As a result, the companies get a lot of exposure to VCs, investors, and partners in larger, more traditional startup hubs. Inspiring ideas: real-time biz metrics; safe continuous deployment; A/B split testing.

San Francisco 113

San Francisco Silicon Valley Startup Lean 113

ConversionXL

JUNE 5, 2014

Improving each of these areas might boost your customer retention – BUT it’s only by scrutinizing your customer facing metrics & direct customer feedback that will provide you with your top priorities. Retention, along with many of our usage metrics, have improved as a result of some of these changes.

Retention 115

Retention Customer Developer Programming 115

ConversionXL

JUNE 5, 2014

Improving each of these areas might boost your customer retention – BUT it’s only by scrutinizing your customer facing metrics & direct customer feedback that will provide you with your top priorities. Retention, along with many of our usage metrics, have improved as a result of some of these changes.

Retention 112

Retention Developer Customer Programming 112