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Praying to the God of Valuation

Both Sides of the Table

Something happened in the past 7 years in the startup and venture capital world that I hadn’t experienced since the late 90’s — we all began praying to the God of Valuation. How might our next phase of the journey seem brighter, even with more uncertain days for startups and capital markets? Nobody cared about our valuations any more.

Valuation 466
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Want to Know How VC’s Calculate Valuation Differently from Founders?

Both Sides of the Table

Back in 1999 when I first raised venture capital I had zero knowledge of what a fair term sheet looked like or how to value my company. Due to competitive markets we ended up with a pretty good term sheet until we needed to raise money in April 2001 and then we got completely screwed. I turned them down. They were nonplussed.

Valuation 405
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Why Has Seed Investing Declined? And What Does this Mean for the Future?

Both Sides of the Table

As a result of the IPO window shifting we saw a massive inflow of public-market capital into the latest stages of venture. In this post I set out to explain why the seed market emerged as its own category in the first place and why it’s declined as of late. ( The “A Round” of my startup in 1999 was $16.5

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What is the Right Burn Rate at a Startup Company?

Both Sides of the Table

by Michael Woolf that is worth any startup founder reading to get a sense of perspective on the reality warp that is startup world during a frothy market such as 1997-1999, 2005-2007 or 2012-2014. We’re going to start aggressively spend money on marketing our product. We want a strong balance sheet (um, ok.

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6 Mistakes Often Made By Entrepreneurs Due To Passion

Startup Professionals Musings

This fallacy, often called historical myopia, essentially involves extrapolating only from recent positive events, and ignoring the reality that markets saturate or evaporate. Just because you would have loved to have your groceries picked out and delivered, doesn’t mean the mainstream customer was ready for Webvan in 1999.

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A Deep Dive into What Has Really Changed in Venture Capital

Both Sides of the Table

Valuations are out of control” is the mantra of others. Yes, VC / Startup Funding is up Massively If you look at how much VC firms have raised from Limited Partners (LPs) over the past 2 decades you’ll see that we’ve returned to a level that we haven’t seen since 1999. We’re in a new tech bubble!” some have pronounced.

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Revisiting Paul Graham’s “High Resolution” Financing

Both Sides of the Table

Markets always evolve toward higher resolution. Either would be fine with startups, so long as they can easily change their valuation. I believe you reward investors who make an early call just like on the public stock market. Tags: Raising Venture Capital Startup Advice Tech Market Analysis Term Sheets.

Finance 286