Both Sides of the Table

APRIL 19, 2011

I recently sat down with Matt Coffin , the founder of LowerMyBills, which sold for $400 million but was very nearly a bankruptcy only a few years early, and talked “startups.&#. Matt is one of the most transparent, focused & honest startup guys you’ll meet. Or read the quick, informative summary below the image!

Acquisition 304

Acquisition Warrant Customer Term Sheet 304

Both Sides of the Table

MAY 9, 2018

You race back to the office to tell everybody how well it went and you wait for the follow-up call to have a partners’ meeting or talk about term sheets or at least dip into due diligence. The assistant tried to end the meeting twice but was shoooshed away. What do I do now? You’re in control.

Software Review 381

Software Review Churn Rate Due Diligence New York 381

Both Sides of the Table

JULY 29, 2010

We received so much positive feedback from our This Week in Venture Capital show walking through valuation calculations & term sheets that we decided to do a Q&A show this week to address topics that entrepreneurs want to learn about. Q: “If you have a term sheet on the table how should you leverage with other VCs?&#

Venture Capital 282

Venture Capital Term Sheet Valuation Stock Options 282

Both Sides of the Table

AUGUST 28, 2012

One VC (I won’t name but with whom I still won’t work today) called Marc Benioff directly. The only real benefit of their having this information is in preparation for a term sheet. ” Heading into a Term Sheet – Final Due Diligence. They somehow figured I wouldn’t find out. What did he do?

Technical Review 316

Technical Review Due Diligence Term Sheet Cap Table 316

Austin Startup

JULY 22, 2017

Back in December 2016 I had the idea to develop a startup pledge for diversity and inclusion here in Austin and since have informally been working with some folks to develop the idea. I’ve named the Walker Rule after Madam C. My goal is to get enough thoughtful eyes on the project to launch later this year.

Austin 54

Austin Angel Investor Startup Term Sheet 54

Startup Professionals Musings

OCTOBER 26, 2020

The name “investment bank” somehow always sounded like a place where I could deposit my investments, and maybe even earn a little interest. None normally work for or provide funds for early-stage startups. None normally work for or provide funds for early-stage startups. Many investment banks even call themselves “boutiques.”

Silicon Valley 362

Silicon Valley Private Equity Initial Public Offering Term Sheet 362

Startup Professionals Musings

JANUARY 18, 2017

Deposit required to hold your terms. In this scam, you are offered a very attractive term sheet due to close in 90 days or so, with a deposit required to hold your position while due diligence is being conducted. Work at home to fund your startup. Delete the message. Chain emails leading to a windfall.

Technical Review 120

Technical Review Non-disclosure Agreement Due Diligence Entrepreneur 120

Startup Professionals Musings

SEPTEMBER 26, 2013

Deposit required to hold your terms. In this scam, you are offered a very attractive term sheet due to close in 90 days or so, with a deposit required to hold your position while due diligence is being conducted. Work at home to fund your startup. For more details, see a whole article I wrote earlier on this subject.

Technical Review 202

Technical Review Non-disclosure Agreement Due Diligence Entrepreneur 202

YoungUpstarts

OCTOBER 28, 2015

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.

Convertible Security 100

Convertible Security IP Technical Review Software Review 100

Both Sides of the Table

JANUARY 21, 2010

If you’re a startup and you don’t have a close relationship with a few law firms you’re really missing one of the most important relationships that any entrepreneur can have. I write about some of the lessons in my post on Startup Mistakes. Every town has firms that focus on startups – find them.

Southern California 318

Southern California Silicon Valley IP Stock Options 318

Both Sides of the Table

OCTOBER 19, 2009

On December 2nd, 2006 I wrote the blog post published later in this post when I was CEO of startup Koral about my experiences in pitching VCs. My blog linked to Brad Feld’s blog because I was so grateful for his series on term sheets and he was one of the biggest reasons that as a VC I felt compelled to blog.

Venture Capital 274

Venture Capital Term Sheet San Diego Viral 274

ReadWriteStart

SEPTEMBER 2, 2011

While certainly not every business needs to raise venture financing, it is the path for many high-growth technology startups. As Steve Blank explained earlier this week on ReadWriteStart from research at The Startup Genome Project : One of the biggest surprises is that success isn't about size of team or funding.

Cap Table 125

Cap Table Term Sheet Liquidation Preference Technical Review 125

Both Sides of the Table

DECEMBER 17, 2009

Ability to Pivot – I don’t like to invest in people that I’ve never met before who come through my office wanting to have a term sheet within 30 days. Yes, there is the mythical company you all heard about that walked into Sequoia and had a term sheet 24 hours later. I’m sure that happens.

Entrepreneur 291

Entrepreneur Term Sheet Early Stage Affiliate 291

Startup Lessons Learned

MAY 31, 2019

He’ll be speaking at this year’s Lean Startup Conference , and also has a new book (for which I very happily wrote a short foreword) coming out next month: Secrets of Sand Hill Road: Venture Capital and How to Get It. It used to be that startups went public about 6-7 years from founding; that number is now 10-12 years.

Lean 108

Lean Venture Capital Conversion IPO 108

Up and Running

MAY 18, 2016

Reading lists are dime a dozen, but reading lists that focus on rapid-growth startup businesses? It’s the ultimate startup guide if you’re looking for systematic business growth and guidance on what not to do. The Lean Startup: How Today’s Entrepreneurs Use Continuous Innovation to Create Radically Successful Businesses.

Startup 80

Startup Venture Capital Angel Investor Lean 80

Both Sides of the Table

MARCH 15, 2010

I was raising money for my second company and having been burned by term sheets on my first company I was eager to get myself knowledgeable before signing up to take VC again. I started reading Brad’s “term sheet&# series. had a great evening talking tech and startup. What a pleasure the night was.

Social Network 347

Social Network Networking Southern California Term Sheet 347

Mucker Lab

AUGUST 27, 2014

My father eventually decided on Santa Clara (Saratoga, more specifically), and so I grew up in the shadows of the orchards of Cupertino and the nondescript concrete startup boxes of Santa Clara. Encyclopedic knowledge of term sheets and startup buzzwords can be quickly learned, trained, and packaged.

Los Angeles 138

Los Angeles Southern California Silicon Valley Technical Review 138

Both Sides of the Table

FEBRUARY 14, 2010

During the final pre-term sheet due diligence we discovered that the CEO had had a felony arrest for a significant crime that he hadn’t disclosed to us. I’ve heard this about similar technology executives of some of the biggest names out there in history. I also know him to not be a very happy man.

Technical Review 284

Technical Review Due Diligence Entrepreneur Early Stage 284

steveblank.com

JULY 8, 2011

Useful blogs and links for startups Click Here ————– 2.

Software Review 110

Software Review Startup Silicon Valley Analytics 110

Both Sides of the Table

MAY 13, 2018

If you truly believe that you, your company and your products are exceptional and your company will be valuable then you’re actually doing them a FAVOR by helping them invest in your startup. If an investor isn’t engaging then they’re not suddenly going to get a term sheet. You can short-hand this as “engagement.”

Term Sheet 332

Term Sheet Due Diligence Campaign Sales 332

This is going to be BIG.

AUGUST 21, 2023

There’s a term sheet. And then, even when they have, they still remain “interested” should Sequoia decide to throw down a term sheet.) At 43, I’m pretty darn proud of that and you might think that’s pretty fast—but if I equate that into startup terms, no one would fund me at that pace. was a term sheet.

Cap Table 78

Cap Table Term Sheet Database Option Pool 78

www.paulgraham.com

APRIL 28, 2010

Want to start a startup? A typical startup goes throughseveral rounds of funding, and at each round you want to take justenough money to reach the speed where you can shift into the nextgear. Few startups get it quite right. 1 ] A startups life will be more complicated, legally, if any of theinvestors arent accredited.

Technical Review 76

Technical Review Startup Software Review Angel Investor 76

Both Sides of the Table

APRIL 17, 2012

Brad wrote up his answer here – you should read it because it’s very instructive for how I believe communities ought to think about naming conventions. ” Many people on the Westside of Los Angeles are using the term Silicon Beach these days to describe the amazing renaissance that is truly happening here.

Community 304

Community Los Angeles Startup Silicon Valley 304

www.vccafe.com

MARCH 11, 2013

Startup Resources (Updated Mar 2013). Venture Capital Cafe > Startup Resources (Updated Mar 2013). VC & Startup Resources. Seed Startups. VC Cafe covers early stage Israeli and European tech & mobile startups. Hundreds of startups featured since 2005, will yours be next? About VC Cafe.

Software Review 53

Software Review Technical Review Startup 53

Both Sides of the Table

MARCH 8, 2018

In 2017 we began inserting an “Inclusion Clause” into our term sheets because we believe that the culture one establishes at the earliest stages of one’s business will set out the course of how it will grow and develop. We believe that diverse teams produce diversity of thought and that this leads to better decisions and outcomes.

Term Sheet 284

Term Sheet Los Angeles Open Source Portfolio 284

Startup Professionals Musings

SEPTEMBER 10, 2013

The name “investment bank” somehow always sounded like a place where I could deposit my investments, and maybe even earn a little interest. None normally work for or provide funds for early-stage startups. None normally work for or provide funds for early-stage startups. Many investment banks even call themselves “boutiques.”

IPO 205

IPO Silicon Valley Private Equity Initial Public Offering 205

Reid Hoffman

JULY 27, 2021

I have a standard aphorism I share when I speak with a group of MBA students: “There are two things that need to be explained away in order for me to invest in your startup: An MBA or a background in management consulting.”. Nothing gets in the way of their pursuit of startup success. Not Teaching the Right Skills.

Silicon Valley 69

Silicon Valley Venture Capital Balance Sheet Cofounder 69

Reid Hoffman

JULY 27, 2021

I have a standard aphorism I share when I speak with a group of MBA students: “There are two things that need to be explained away in order for me to invest in your startup: An MBA or a background in management consulting.”. Nothing gets in the way of their pursuit of startup success. Not Teaching the Right Skills.

Silicon Valley 69

Silicon Valley Venture Capital Balance Sheet Cofounder 69

Hunter Walker

JANUARY 5, 2014

Stage 1 : Either Satya or I are meeting the founders, usually solo, giving them an overview of Homebrew and learning about their startup through direct conversations, using the product (whatever stage it’s at) and doing some background on their industry (if it’s an area new to us). Satya and I use a simple three stage system.

Software Review 102

Software Review Balance Sheet Cofounder Technical Review 102

OnlyOnce

OCTOBER 31, 2013

A distant third price is the VC who gives you two names and ask for time to prep them ahead of time. And this is true of any negotiation, not just a term sheet. Boards Entrepreneurship Startup CEO Venture Capitalists Fred Wilson' But they’ll all tell you what I’m like to work with.” Visited 1 times, 1 visits today).

Valuation 133

Valuation Term Sheet B2C Security 133

Altgate

AUGUST 20, 2010

@altgate Startups, Venture Capital & Everything In Between Skip to content Home Furqan Nazeeri (fn@altgate.com) ← Why Don’t Universities Teach Sales? A couple of years ago I wrote this post on the science and art of negotiating a term sheet , which turned out to be a fairly popular post.

Term Sheet 39

Term Sheet Venture Capital Angel Financing Framework 39

Startup Professionals Musings

JANUARY 22, 2011

The name “investment bank” somehow always sounded like a place where I could somehow deposit my investments, and maybe even earn a little interest. None normally work for or provide funds for early-stage startups. None normally work for or provide funds for early-stage startups. Very confusing.

Silicon Valley 211

Silicon Valley Private Equity Initial Public Offering Startup 211

www.readwriteweb.com

DECEMBER 29, 2011

While certainly not every business needs to raise venture financing, it is the path for many high-growth technology startups. Earlier this week on ReadWriteStart, Steve Blank used research at The Startup Genome Project and explained: One of the biggest surprises is that success isn't about size of team or funding.

Cap Table 47

Cap Table Term Sheet Liquidation Preference Technical Review 47

View from Seed

AUGUST 12, 2015

Today, Lumos Labs is better known by their product’s name, Lumosity.com, which is used by more than 70M worldwide. In particular, he asked one very clever question of VCs to run a smoother, more effective process, culminating in four term sheets from interested, lead investors.

Seed Stage 120

Seed Stage Marketing Angel Investor Term Sheet 120

View from Seed

AUGUST 12, 2015

Today, Lumos Labs is better known by their product’s name, Lumosity.com, which is used by more than 70M worldwide. In particular, he asked one very clever question of VCs to run a smoother, more effective process, culminating in four term sheets from interested, lead investors.

Seed Stage 120

Seed Stage Marketing Angel Investor Term Sheet 120

Both Sides of the Table

JANUARY 31, 2011

If you’ve taken the roller coaster ride that is a startup – you know what I’m talking about. The truth is that in my experience very, very few people really enjoy the “pure&# startup environment: months with no salary, months with no live product and lots of trial, error & rejection. But we had a term sheet !!!

Entrepreneur 384

Entrepreneur Startup Salary Egypt 384

Startup Company Lawyer

MARCH 14, 2010

Founders Institute Plain Preferred Term Sheet (by WSGR – disclaimer, I represent the Founders Institute and was involved in drafting this document). This post assumes that you have a basic understanding of Series A financing terms. Y Combinator Series AA Equity Financing Documents (by WSGR). Dividend preference.

Finance 70

Finance Software Review Term Sheet Liquidation Preference 70