View from Seed

NOVEMBER 18, 2020

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. But ops & customer support is another 17-20% of revenue and arguably you couldn’t run the business if you took that away.

North America 401

North America IPO Prospectus Europe 401

View from Seed

MAY 16, 2019

One of the key questions for me was how might Slack stack up against other great SaaS companies when it comes to average revenue per user (ARPU), and how ARPU and total addressable market (TAM) might drive Slack’s long run market cap. Revenue growth rate of 82% year over year. 10M+ daily active users (DAUs). So Slack generated $1.43

Lock-up Period 168

Lock-up Period Retention Azure .Net 168

View from Seed

APRIL 30, 2015

In many instances, you raise an institutional round to either fulfill a product strategy or go-to-market strategy or you’re increasing sales and marketing hires, so you have better visibility into what needs to happen in the next six, 12, 18 months. Traction and revenue? Reason being, there’s more of a defined strategy for the company.

Term Sheet 120

Term Sheet Equity Startup Seed Stage 120

View from Seed

JUNE 13, 2019

Chewy sells tens of thousands of products from many 3rd party brands, as well as its own private label brands (though latter remains <10% of sales). revenue business still growing >50% YoY? Chewy now has over 10 million customers, repeat purchases by existing customers account for approximately 90% of their revenue today.

Leadership 214

Leadership .Net Revenue Acquisition 214

View from Seed

DECEMBER 6, 2018

This was back in January 2012, a simpler time… when there was only one kind of seed round, when Series A firms invested pre-revenue, etc. As I’ve said before, raising capital for an early-stage startup is a sales process like any other and properly qualifying prospects is a necessary first step.

Seed Stage 120

Seed Stage Early Stage Differentiation Lead Investor 120

View from Seed

SEPTEMBER 25, 2019

Not only top-line growth in users or revenue, but also secondary numbers which speak to usage engagement and retention can instill confidence that the startups trajectory will continue after the next round of capital. And perhaps most importantly, with addition of more capital, how will it be effectively spent to accelerate the business?

Seed Stage 166

Seed Stage Retention Restful Valuation 166

View from Seed

MARCH 19, 2015

I was starting to think that I was invincible, infallible, that I had the magic touch … but, as it turns out, amazingly innovative products don’t necessarily produce amazing revenue. Before you invest big money on producing 100,000 feet of this line and put it on sale, you should test your assumption.

Product 120

Product Technical Review Marketing Lean 120

View from Seed

FEBRUARY 19, 2015

In 2010, we were recruiting for a Senior Vice President of Sales and Marketing for Backupify, and it was clear that many of the people I was interviewing wanted the CEO role. Rob,” he said, “no offense, but you aren’t going to get a world class, been-there-done-that CEO into a company with less than $1 million in revenue.

Founder 120

Founder Startup Cofounder Business Model 120

View from Seed

JUNE 7, 2019

This is why you often see companies with huge top-line revenue, but shockingly small enterprise value. We also think a lot about value creation for the enterprise as a whole, especially as they progress from one round of funding to another, or as they think about building value for an eventual sale or public offering.

eCommerce 42

eCommerce Business Model Revenue Founder 42

View from Seed

JANUARY 20, 2015

But during the year 2000, we went through three different CEOs, fraud nearly killed the company, our revenue was negligible and unproven, and at our worst point, the company was burning well over $10 million a month — A MONTH! Today, PayPal is poised to become a very large standalone company again.

Cofounder 120

Cofounder Startup Employee PR 120

View from Seed

AUGUST 30, 2016

SMBs account for 54% of all US sales. Next, look at the average revenue per user numbers (courtesy of Piktochart ) are listed below, and while this information is from 2015, it’s interesting to note the trends (Instagram projected to rise to $9 by 2020 according to Forbes ). The number of SMBs in the US has increased 49% since 1982.

Social Media 185

Social Media B2B North America Media 185

View from Seed

AUGUST 27, 2014

Sales is the obvious example. Reading a blog post about sales written by a sales rep isn’t proof that he or she can actually sell. It’s much tougher to put a marketer or sales rep to work before hiring them, for example.). So many roles in business can be extrinsically motivated decently well. Google them!

Hiring 335

Hiring Startup Technical Review PR 335

View from Seed

MARCH 20, 2020

The National Restaurant Association forecasts sales declines of $225 billion over the next three months. In the face of plummeting revenues, restaurants are being forced to lay off workers to reduce costs, as they are still responsible for ongoing costs like rent and taxes.

New York City 374

New York City Demand Technical Review Non-Compete 374