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Should Startups Focus on Profitability or Not?

Both Sides of the Table

If you hire 6 sales reps in January at $120,000 / year salary then you’ve taken on an extra $60,000 per month in costs yet these sales people might not close new business for 4-6 months. The first company represents a normal software company that sells its products directly (either via sales staff or directly off of the internet).

Startup 418
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Choose Your VC Investor Carefully

Both Sides of the Table

For example, a recent phone call I had with a young entrepreneur straight out of one of the most prestigious engineering schools in America he asked, “I have an offer for $400,000 in seed money but the VC wants me to agree now to bring in a new CEO.&# This company is doing its SEED round and they already want to bring someone new in.

Pakistan 297
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Should Startups Care About Profitability?

Both Sides of the Table

If you hire 6 senior sales reps in January at $120,000 / year salary then you’ve taken on an extra $60,000 per month in costs yet these sales people might not close new business 6 months. The first company represents a normal software company that sells its products directly (either via sales staff or directly off of the internet).

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Mile-High disruption: Why Denver should be on your tech radar next year

The Next Web

metropolitan area, including SendGrid , Ping Identity , Rally Software (which went public on NASDAQ this year; RALY ), Sympoz , Datalogix , Newsgator , TrackVia , Convercent , Printfection , rentbits , and hundreds more. Denver has more tech startups per capita than any U.S. city), restaurants and nightlife. Denver Mayor Michael B.

Denver 166
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How to Start a Startup

www.paulgraham.com

I wanted to work in the pure, intellectual world of software, not deal with customers mundane problems. Some believe only businesspeople can do this-- that hackers can implement software, but not design it. But it turned outthey didnt like us, because our software was easy to use and we hostedthe site. Thats nonsense.

Startup 105
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How to Fund a Startup

www.paulgraham.com

It wasnt because they werent accredited investors that I didntask my parents for seed money, though. When we were starting Viaweb,I didnt know about the concept of an accredited investor, anddidnt stop to think about the value of investors connections.The reason I didnt take money from my parents was that I didntwant them to lose it.

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From Nothing To Something. How To Get There.

techcrunch.com

Options and future value are great ‘add ons’ but not for a welfare check salary until ‘this great idea makes it.’ For both companies, the initial traction enabled raising seed money to get them to a traditional VC investment.) The idea behind planning is to spend less time and money on the misses.