Startup Lessons Learned

SEPTEMBER 22, 2008

Master of 500 Hats: Startup Metrics for Pirates (SeedCamp 2008, London) This presentation should be required reading for anyone creating a startup with an online service component. In my opinion, every startup needs to "pick a major" among these three drivers of growth. Choose one. The AARRR model (hence pirates, get it?)

San Francisco 167

San Francisco CPA SEM CTO Hire 167

Tim Keane

MARCH 9, 2011

Startups and angels: Along the way to success. It’s a deceptively simple question:  what is the optimal way to finance a new startup? It’s a deceptively simple question:  what is the optimal way to finance a new startup? By Tim Keane, Angel Investor, Golden Angels Investors, LLC. « Leaving a Trail | Main. |

Finance 83

Finance Bootstrapping Startup Equity 83

crowdSPRING Blog

NOVEMBER 30, 2012

These posts and videos are about logo design , web design , startups, entrepreneurship, small business, leadership, social media, marketing, and more! Small Business and Startups: 5 DIY Things To Do For Your Brand! How To Choose A Market For Your Startup Or Small Business – [link]. Are Startups Recession-Proof?

Social Media 100

Social Media Small Business Central African Republic Design 100

A Smart Bear: Startups and Marketing for Geeks

DECEMBER 16, 2014

Was there any startup founder who didn’t feel depressed when that happened? Still… Now Slack has been valued at over a billion dollars, less than a year after launch, every month adding more than a million dollars of annual recurring revenue. Instagram had 13 employees when they sold for a billion dollars. Yes, depressed.

Metrics 246

Metrics Early Stage Retention Revenue 246

www.avc.com

SEPTEMBER 22, 2011

This is NOT your 409a valuation (we call that "fair value"). This "best value" can be the valuation on the last round of financing. Startups should be able to dramatically increase the value of their equity over the four years a stock grant vests. Or it can be the discounted value of future cash flows.

Equity 64

Equity Employee CTO Hire Fractional CTO 64

Austin Startup

AUGUST 20, 2017

August 20, 2017: This is another in my series of posts all leading up to a book on Startup Decision Making. One of the most common mistakes I see in startups is making decisions that lose sight of the context , including the past, present, and future. Compensation decisions obviously affect hiring and retention.

Technical Review 48

Technical Review Software Review Cap Table Securities and Exchange Commission 48

www.mint.com

MARCH 9, 2010

If you are considering working at a startup, you should ask these questions. If the answer to the question centers around “We will achieve revenue soon so our net will improve and give us more runway,” it means the company is in trouble because no product ever ships on time nor achieves the company’s “conservative forecast.”

Software Review 68

Software Review Startup Post-Money Valuation Technical Review 68

David Teten

AUGUST 6, 2015

financial statement summaries, valuation analysis, ratio analysis, etc.) Datavore is a New York startup which is working to improve on the functionality of existing tools like Microsoft Excel by creating a visual display of the calculations comprising complex analyses such as a financial model. once a model has been finalized.

Balance Sheet 60

Balance Sheet Software Review Forecast Acquisition 60

View from Seed

SEPTEMBER 25, 2019

A few potential slides which can be included in the Appendix: Exit Analysis: Not always as important during the early startup stage since an exit event is presumably in the distance away. Other Questions: Every startup is different. Which is why each investor pitch is going to yield questions which are specific to that company.

Seed Stage 166

Seed Stage Retention Restful Valuation 166

Gust

NOVEMBER 4, 2011

Entrepreneurs and investors who have spent any time dealing with convertible debt seed financing transactions are likely to have encountered the subject of valuation caps. Valuation caps can come into play in settings other than seed-stage convertible note financing rounds. Read on for a fuller explanation.

Valuation 98

Valuation Pre-Money Valuation Merger Vesting 98

ReadWriteStart

AUGUST 26, 2022

I founded a startup years ago, and that’s how I started getting a taste of it. The startup didn’t work out, but I found ways to be around it, whether it was on the sales side in Goldman for a few years. How does that translate into advice that you give to your startups? But stuff like retention is super important.

Partner 132

Partner Cofounder Retention Acquisition 132

This is going to be BIG.

MARCH 30, 2015

Will this bubble also end in a blaze of glory with companies shutting down left and right in a massive startup apocalypse? I have a feeling that a lot of these "on demand" companies aren''t going to be as gamechanging as we think--and will come back down to earth with valuations that look more like temp agencies than the next big thing.

Hockey Stick 60

Hockey Stick Valuation Startup Maryland 60

VC Cafe

SEPTEMBER 26, 2022

The past year was a wild ride for startups and founders, giving a whole new meaning to the ”rollercoaster” aspect of being an entrepreneur. A combination of competition for top talent and an effort to bring employees back to the office drove startups in Israel to throw extravagant parties and all-inclusive retreats abroad.

Founder 187

Founder Startup Valuation Pre-Money Valuation 187

View from Seed

NOVEMBER 18, 2020

One of the most highly anticipated startup IPOs of recent years, we now get a peek inside Airbnb’s business. You can read various articles out there which will give you the cursory facts about Airbnb like their overall revenue or profitability or how their business has faired here in 2020 in the COVID environment.

North America 401

North America IPO Prospectus Europe 401

View from Seed

OCTOBER 15, 2014

Over the summer, based on feedback from our portfolio and the broader startup community, NextView created pre-formatted board deck templates for seed-stage startups — part of our Growth Guides series. 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

A Smart Bear: Startups and Marketing for Geeks

OCTOBER 23, 2012

Witness, for example, this terrific Fast Company article on Bill Nguyen , serial entrepreneur who’s seventh startup “Color” famously raised $41m for a new mobile app before it even launched. GroupOn’s engine that turned capital into revenue growth was a form of force-feeding rather than building a product).

IPO 240

IPO Flash Bootstrapping Private Equity 240

Steve Blank

APRIL 1, 2020

So here’s a five-day playbook to help CEOs of cash-flow negative startups, or ones about to go negative, assess the new normal and respond with speed and urgency. Your revenue plans are no longer valid. For companies burning cash, such as startups, how much cash do you have? For startups: source of VC money?

South Korea 334

South Korea Salary Business Model China 334

VC Cafe

OCTOBER 23, 2022

The CEO shared the revenue target for the year at X, and the revenue target for next year at 3X. One of the board members asked a simple question: “Why is revenue our North Star KPI? ” No one questions the importance of revenue, but asking the question enabled us to start thinking on what would be the right metric.

Metrics 179

Metrics Revenue B2C Portfolio 179

Scalable Startup

FEBRUARY 9, 2011

First revenue are a major validation milestone for a startup after much sweat and tears. But it’s still quite a nice feeling to see revenues coming into your enterprise, and makes you want to figure out how to build upon it. Preparation, a Chief Revenue Officer. But how to get these first revenues?

Revenue 20

Revenue Cofounder Retention Valuation 20

Agile VC

FEBRUARY 2, 2012

AGILEVC My idle thoughts on tech startups. I recently wrote a post noting that while the growth cycle of startups has clearly accelerated in the last 5 years, the number of truly monster new businesses (a company ultimately worth $75-100B) remains about the same … it’s a once in a decade sort of thing. February 2, 2012.

IPO 100

IPO South Korea Venezuela Revenue 100

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 431

Cofounder Seed Stage Valuation Metrics 431

SoCal CTO

OCTOBER 5, 2010

Great content again in September that meets at the intersection of startups, technology, product and being a Startup CTO. Chris Dixon , September 12, 2010 My most useful career experience was about eight years ago when I was trying to break into the world of VC-backed startups. Why You Should Write. Your service: the game.

Technology 191

Technology Product San Francisco CTO Hire 191

Rob Go

NOVEMBER 30, 2015

WSJ: Fidelity Sees Big Gains from Hot Startups – Oct. Fortune: Fidelity Marks Down Even More Popular Tech Startups – Nov. There is greater variability in the size, valuation, and stage of companies that raise seed rounds, and often, companies raise 2 or 3 seed rounds before a series A.

Later Stage 28

Later Stage Marketing Early Stage Ratchet 28

dondodge.typepad.com

JANUARY 15, 2011

The entrepreneur expects the company to be worth many times this valuation and so does the investor. The key is to have several VCs or investors competing for the deal to arrive at a "fair" valuation. So they will give you a pre-money valuation somewhere around the amount you raise. That is how much you should raise.

Equity 40

Equity Employee Dilution Valuation 40

Agile VC

NOVEMBER 9, 2015

There’s been ample coverage in the popular press of course highlighting everything from the company’s revenue growth, lack of profitability, and the well-publicized fact that founder/CEO Jack Dorsey is also CEO of Twitter so would theoretically be running two public companies simultaneously. Revenue Composition. Starbucks Deal.

IPO 165

IPO .Net Revenue Acquisition 165