Feld Thoughts

JULY 8, 2013

Over the years, I’ve come to believe with moral certainty that everyone needs DevOps now, especially software startups where the successful execution of Development and IT Operations preordain success or failure. Act I begins with IT Operations, where we’re supporting a large, complex revenue generating application. How do we know?

Phoenix 175

Phoenix Software Review Technical Review Cofounder 175

Feld Thoughts

JUNE 19, 2017

Over the weekend, Mark Suster and Fred Wilson each put up awesome posts discussing the idea of profitability in startups. Mark’s is a master class about how to look at the financial characteristics of a startup and Fred’s discusses what he’s been working on with some of his more mature companies. Or something else?”

Internet 162

Internet Revenue .Net Operations 162

Feld Thoughts

JANUARY 30, 2013

re-introducing the Startup Visa Act of 2013 (good). Yesterday, as part of his Comprehensive Immigration Report plan , President Obama explicitly listed the Startup Visa as one of the initiatives. Obama: “Create a “startup visa” for job-creating entrepreneurs. investors or revenue from U.S. and Jeff Flake (R-Ariz.)

United States 151

United States Colorado Green Canada 151

Feld Thoughts

JANUARY 29, 2015

AmeriData was a public company, a voracious acquirer (we acquired 40 companies in three years), and a very fast growing business (they were less than $50 million in revenue when they acquired Feld Technologies and over $2 billion in revenue three years later when GE acquired them.) That we were building an ecosystem.

Venture Capital 70

Venture Capital Reputation Affiliate Conversion 70

Feld Thoughts

JULY 31, 2013

I’m intensely proud of both the amazing startup community in Boulder as well as the many significant companies that have been – and are being – created in the little town of 100,000 people I call home. The post Zayo Group – One of Boulder’s Amazing Startup Stories appeared first on Feld Thoughts.

Bandwidth 147

Bandwidth Colorado Startup IRR 147

Feld Thoughts

FEBRUARY 24, 2010

Today, Senator John Kerry (D-MA) and Senator Richard Lugar (R-IN) introduced the StartUp Visa Act of 2010. The group of us behind the Startup Visa project have been working closely with key members of each Senators’ staff on this and we are incredibly pleased with the proposed bill. Tags: Startup Visa.

United States 162

United States Startup Green Venture Capital 162

Feld Thoughts

OCTOBER 29, 2018

While Revenue Growth YOY has been strong, the real story has been YOY growth in Operating Income. For many years, Amazon (and Bezos) trumpeted their focus on revenue growth. But, more interesting is that it has been “spectacular at scale” and across a very large and complex business. Those are beautiful numbers.

Forecast 119

Forecast B2B Stock Revenue 119

Feld Thoughts

AUGUST 29, 2019

While it started as an experiment with one accelerator in Boulder, we now have about 50 accelerators annually around the world funding 500 startups a year. David Cohen and I came out with the 2nd Edition of Do More Faster: Techstars Lessons to Accelerate Your Startup. So he wrote it.

Early Stage 123

Early Stage Austin Sales Venture Capital 123

Feld Thoughts

APRIL 12, 2010

The conventional wisdom has long been that software startups benefit from patents. More importantly, since it takes a number of years to get a patent, most startups haven’t even contemplated applying for a patent when they raise their first angel or venture round. I’m sure you can already see the problem. Even $500k?

Software 130

Software Startup Cost Revenue 130

Feld Thoughts

JUNE 5, 2013

And, as I’ve observed in the world of tech and startups I play in, transparency is used all the time to justify something, but rarely actually supported by behavior. Startup Boards boards jack stack moz return path revenue startup boards transparent' The post Do You Publish Your Board Book To Your Entire Company?

Finance 156

Finance Revenue Startup Management 156

Feld Thoughts

AUGUST 22, 2012

Many of these are young companies, often with little or no revenue. My startup, all five employees and $0 revenue, is being sued by a patent troll. If your startup hasn’t been sued yet, don’t worry. It’s total, completely madness. It is madness. Software patents are weapons of mass extortion. And the troll agrees.

Software 174

Software Entrepreneur Mobile Revenue 174

Feld Thoughts

MARCH 20, 2013

It’s been really powerful for me as it’s shown how broadly the message of Startup Communities has taken hold across the world. In a discussion with my long time friend Paul Kedrosky, we talked about a paper he’s writing about the number of “important companies” that get to $100 million in revenue.

Portfolio 156

Portfolio Community Metrics Restful 156

Feld Thoughts

JUNE 26, 2014

There are hundreds of startups working on a wide variety of things, many of which we are systematically incorporating into our infrastructure at FG Press. generate more revenue. If a bestselling author wants to sell her next book from her own site, she now has the tools to generate more revenue and build an audience.

Distribution 155

Distribution Viral Audience Revenue 155

Feld Thoughts

APRIL 15, 2014

Seed is the new Series A. (~$2M used get for building product, establishing product-market fit and early revenue). 6M-$15M used to scale customer acquisition and revenue). Join us for some virtual fun and a discussion about fiction, books, and startups. . (~$500K used for building team and initial product/prototype).

Stock 114

Stock Mezzanine Acquisition Revenue 114

Feld Thoughts

JULY 7, 2016

Year one revenue – in 1964 – was $8,000. Year two revenue – with one full time employee (not Knight) was $20,000. Year 41 revenue (2015) was $30.6 The company had literally no equity available to it, but was growing at a rate that would put most of today’s VC-backed startups to shame.

.Net 76

.Net Finance Revenue Equity 76

Feld Thoughts

JUNE 26, 2014

There are hundreds of startups working on a wide variety of things, many of which we are systematically incorporating into our infrastructure at FG Press. generate more revenue. If a bestselling author wants to sell her next book from her own site, she now has the tools to generate more revenue and build an audience.

Distribution 133

Distribution Viral Audience Revenue 133

Feld Thoughts

SEPTEMBER 19, 2013

The first are companies like Yesware that are rapidly growing revenue and customers, are in the 30 to 100 employee range, are dealing with balancing resources to accomplish their goals, but have an incredible amount of open ground in front of them. Yesware has now shifted from the startup phase to the scaling up phase.

Denver 130

Denver Portfolio Leadership Finance 130

Feld Thoughts

AUGUST 21, 2013

We were talking about the recent amazing Techstars Demo Day that we had just had in Boulder, and Brad – in a professorial tone – started hypothesizing about the importance of Techstars in the Boulder startup community. Looking forward – not back – is the Boulder startup community’s natural disposition. Yes, it is.

Colorado 141

Colorado Seattle Silicon Valley Warrant 141

Feld Thoughts

DECEMBER 13, 2011

And suddenly they are $10 million, or $20 million, or even $50 million revenue companies. And the geographic community that they are in know who they are since they are often the leaders of their startup communities. Their CEO’s don’t run around bloviating about what they are going to do some day. They just do it.

Portfolio 171

Portfolio Community Revenue Partner 171

Feld Thoughts

AUGUST 3, 2016

In 2016, you no longer have to be in Silicon Valley to launch a successful startup. In 2014, their businesses contributed more than $560 million in revenue to Colorado’s economy. These three firms alone provide 53,000 jobs and generate more than $20 billion in revenue each year. Colorado is home to many.

Colorado 70

Colorado Chile Silicon Valley America 70

Feld Thoughts

AUGUST 30, 2011

Both are good friends of mine and have really interesting philosophies about startup funding. Keith has over a decade of experience running startup companies and is extremely passionate about BigDoor, which made him aggressive in any discussions involving giving up a stake to both Founder’s Co-op and Foundry Group.

Cofounder 112

Cofounder Seattle Equity Valuation 112

Feld Thoughts

JULY 27, 2016

The post is aimed at CEOs of startups who have at least 15 employees. The tone of the advice is fine, but it creates a total mess if you follow it without pondering the implications as you actually start to scale up revenue and expenses. This should be someone who has been in at least two startups prior to joining yours.

Finance 70

Finance Hiring Restful Naming 70

Feld Thoughts

OCTOBER 4, 2012

We were 12 people and slightly more than $1 million in revenue. In the mean time, I’m going to reward myself for getting the publisher’s draft of Startup Life done this weekend by laying on the couch and reading Verne’s new book. I noticed an advertisement for it in Inc. The advertisement spoke to me and I applied.

Boston 130

Boston Colorado Advertising Revenue 130

Feld Thoughts

JULY 21, 2015

The language of startups has become pervasive. It feels like it started with Eric Ries’ great book The Lean Startup when words like MVP and pivot started showing up in all conversations. Today, there are hundreds of words that people throw around in the context of their startups. Back then it was new, fresh, and focusing.

Silicon Valley 70

Silicon Valley Metrics .Net Founder 70

Feld Thoughts

NOVEMBER 16, 2010

My five favorite startup pitches from TechStars Demo Day. Andy Sack, who in addition to running TechStars Seattle, also runs Founders Co-op and Revenue Loan , did an incredible job of engaging a broad set of the Seattle entrepreneurial community in TechStars. John Cook at TechFlash wrote a great summary post titled?

Seattle 109

Seattle Cofounder Community Demand 109

Feld Thoughts

MAY 12, 2011

At about 20 people / $2m in revenue I got very bored. These guys have both scaled from CEO of a raw startup with a few people to CEO’s of 250+ employee companies, while moving through their own personal evolution while the businesses growth and thrive. I remember this feeling very clearly from my days running my first business.

Kansas City 148

Kansas City Kansas Finance Revenue 148

Feld Thoughts

NOVEMBER 2, 2016

At the early stages, raising the first $2m tends to be straightforward in most geographies that have meaningful startup communities. For growth companies (usually Series D or later), there are pretty clear market comparables based on growth rate, revenue, gross margin %, and type of company. It’s the same.

Venture Capital 70

Venture Capital Private Equity Early Stage Valuation 70

Feld Thoughts

JULY 29, 2014

Amazon turned in slightly declining quarter-over-quarter revenue on AWS, although significant year-over-year quarterly growth, as explained in Sign of stress or just business as usual? .” Over the weekend, there was some commentary on AWS in fight of its life as customers like Dropbox ponder hybrid clouds and Google pricing.

Cloud 176

Cloud Partner Hosting Cost 176

Feld Thoughts

JUNE 26, 2012

All too often startups confuse milestones for results. Chris Sacca has tweeted a few times that he doesn’t understand why startups ever announce funding. Examples of common results include: increasing monthly recurring revenue, decreasing customer turnover, lowering cost of goods sold (increasing gross margin).

Retention 139

Retention Social Network Distribution Conversion 139

Feld Thoughts

OCTOBER 19, 2011

We felt they were falling into a classic startup trap as they’d spent three months raising their round and were now anxious to get a product out the door. While the first MVP was interesting and an extension of the ideas they had started with, it didn’t feel right to anyone in the room.

Email 130

Email Boston Channel Finance 130

Feld Thoughts

AUGUST 12, 2011

Revenues and costs should both be based off of a robust set of assumptions. Feeling overwhelmed, Dick emailed his friend Josh, the CEO of an early-stage startup in Boulder, to see how they figured out all of this stuff. Build a financial model that forecasts the P&L. This should tie to your GL for “Actuals” (i.e. historical data).

Balance Sheet 136

Balance Sheet Forecast Cap Table Early Stage 136

Feld Thoughts

SEPTEMBER 9, 2015

Venture capitalist Marc Andreessen warned in a tweetstorm that startups with high burn rates would “vaporize.” Last week Salesforce CEO Marc Benioff also predicted dead unicorns as startups seem to focus more on their valuations than their customers.” ” Now, I don’t blame Aileen for the word unicorn.

Liquidation Preference 70

Liquidation Preference Burn Rate Balance Sheet .Net 70

Feld Thoughts

JANUARY 20, 2015

There’s a fun post from Ben Horowitz in 2010 titled The Revenue of the Fat Guy that weaves in comments from Fred Wilson about product/market fit where Fred argues in his post Being Fat Is Not Healthy. But first, some history. Now, your value is going to be determined by your growth rate.

Product 70

Product Marketing Valuation Search 70

Feld Thoughts

FEBRUARY 5, 2011

It was a four day retreat at MIT’s Endicott House for entrepreneurs who were under 40 who had founded companies doing over $1 million in revenue at the time. We were participants in the inaugural Birthing of Giants class sponsored by Inc., Young Entrepreneurs Organization, and the MIT Enterprise Forum.

New York 132

New York Community New York City Silicon Valley 132

Feld Thoughts

MARCH 7, 2011

So, I’m psyched that I get to play TechStars 2011 Startup Madness this march. Haven’t raised funding of $250,000 or more and haven’t generated revenue of more than $250,000 in a single year. Again, go to the Startup Madness page to see them. We are picking 64 companies to participate. Over $25,000 worth.

Startup 132

Startup Revenue Internet Programming 132

Feld Thoughts

NOVEMBER 19, 2013

It was a gathering of 60 entrepreneurs over four days (for three years) who were all under 40 and founders of companies with more than $1m in revenue. It was the first time I discovered my peer group and while I was young (24 years old) and small ($1m in revenue) I felt like I immediately fit in. You are iterating and pivoting.

Brazil 181

Brazil API Lean Revenue 181

Feld Thoughts

NOVEMBER 14, 2016

The day after the election, Alex Iskold (Techstars NY Managing Director) wrote a great post titled Dear Founders, I Commit to Double My Support For You and Your Startups. Help founders drive up revenue, achieving profitability and independence. Work even more closely with the founders to help them with their financings.

New York City 70

New York City New York Programming Founder 70