View from Seed

SEPTEMBER 11, 2019

*This post is part of our “pitch deck” series where we dissect the seed stage pitch deck and discuss the ideal flow for a pitch. Now it’s time to set the stage with the early traction you have. Seed stage VCs are realistic about how much traction a very raw company might have.

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Startup Professionals Musings

AUGUST 19, 2018

Investors call this the seed stage , where money is required to build a market and a real product. Government grants and industry partners are you best bet here, but Angel investors might give you $250,000 to $1 million, if you have the right business case and credentials. Congratulations!

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David Teten

JANUARY 19, 2021

The value ascribed by subsequent investors (in a secondary); buyers (acquisition); or the public markets (IPO). Seed-stage compatible: Like traditional equity VC investors, Flexible VCs accomodate early-stage investment risk within their portfolios better than a traditional RBI funder. Typical business stage.

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Cofounder Technical Review Equity Dividend 78

Startup Professionals Musings

JULY 4, 2014

Investors call this the seed stage , where money is required to build a market and a real product. Government grants and industry partners are you best bet here, but Angel investors might give you $250,000 to $1 million, if you have the right business case and credentials. Congratulations!

Angel Investor 232

Angel Investor Intellectual Property Investment Bankers Private Equity 232

Startup Professionals Musings

AUGUST 13, 2016

Investors call this the seed stage , where money is required to build a market and a real product. Government grants and industry partners are you best bet here, but Angel investors might give you $250,000 to $1 million, if you have the right business case and credentials. Congratulations!

Matching 120

Matching Angel Investor Intellectual Property Investment Bankers 120

Hunter Walker

MARCH 8, 2014

At a more mature technology company you’re protecting and extending your business model. Between the two is a hypergrowth stage where your initial product has great traction but there’s still urgency and risk in execution. You have the resources to build and launch, which means your work will see the light of day.

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Hippoland

JANUARY 29, 2016

Even though there are a lot of web resources on how to put together a pitch deck for seed-stage companies, most don’t address how many decks you need and for what purpose. In addition to the other slides from your email deck, include your business model, 1-2 key unit economics (LTV, CAC, churn, etc), etc.

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Seed Stage Angel Investor Entrepreneur Forecast 48

Professor VC

SEPTEMBER 26, 2011

Below is a short description of their philosophy: "The part of our philosophy that makes us most different from other startup investors is that we dont believe gut feel is a reliable indicator of potential at the seed stage. Humans are just not very good at simultaneously integrating that much uncertainty to form a judgement.

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Technical Review Early Stage San Jose Angel Investor 38

Mucker Lab

APRIL 6, 2023

Are there types of companies, market segments, industries, or business models where PLG does not make sense? You engage the marketing team and you do a lot of acquisition and people are coming. Before you scale the acquisition like crazy, really figure out how to activate new users, how to convert them.

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Product CTO Hire Startup Fractional CTO 78

Hippoland

AUGUST 16, 2018

And just play the probabilities in your head of who will actually be likely to invest in a random company at your stage. 3) Your business model seems flawed OR is not the right fit I talked a lot about unit economics and sales cycles in my last post. Airbnb is probably the poster child example of this. Basically zero.

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Sales Cycle Differentiation Early Stage Bootstrapping 54

SoCal CTO

NOVEMBER 5, 2009

In my case, I am breaking down “business” to its fundamentals, which begins with a definition of what, exactly, is a “business.” That is, understanding your business model and the different variables that go into it. We occasionally get involved with very early stage startups. Are you doing much of that?

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Los Angeles Southern California Startup SEO 150

Hippoland

AUGUST 16, 2018

And just play the probabilities in your head of who will actually be likely to invest in a random company at your stage. 3) Your business model seems flawed OR is not the right fit I talked a lot about unit economics and sales cycles in my last post. Airbnb is probably the poster child example of this. Basically zero.

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Sales Cycle Differentiation Early Stage Bootstrapping 48

Steve Blank

FEBRUARY 26, 2020

In the seed round you have an early product and by the end you’ve found product/market fit and understand the scale of what you’re building and the levers that you can pull to accelerate growth. Series B is about proving your net revenue model (can you be profitable?). Team, Product, Traction, Business Model and Market.

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Cofounder Seed Stage Valuation Metrics 429

Hippoland

FEBRUARY 12, 2018

Etc… At the pre-seed stage, a big way to stand out is if you have a V3 statement (as opposed to a V1 statement). The way you get to a V3 statement is to start running the business and charging customers. Although this post is about what I look for, every investor (incl pre-seed investors) looks for this.

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Seed Stage Business Model B2B Email 48

Hippoland

FEBRUARY 12, 2018

Etc… At the pre-seed stage, a big way to stand out is if you have a V3 statement (as opposed to a V1 statement). The way you get to a V3 statement is to start running the business and charging customers. Although this post is about what I look for, every investor (incl pre-seed investors) looks for this.

Seed Stage 48

Seed Stage Business Model B2B Email 48

Hippoland

OCTOBER 16, 2016

Does the team know exactly what they need to do to go into business? These are some of the most important criteria to investing in seed-stage teams. And what specific things investors look for very much depend on the particular vertical and business model, and that is a topic for many more blog posts.

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Startup Vertical Early Stage Bootstrapping 48

View from Seed

JANUARY 11, 2023

Pre-Seed & Seed stage startup teams who could benefit from capital and engaged, hands-on mentorship from the NextView partnership & extended advisor network. For this particular track, applicants need not apply with a fully baked business model. Let’s do this! . Accelerator Nuts & Bolts. Who You Are.

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Programming Sacramento San Francisco Founder 156

View from Seed

AUGUST 2, 2017

Others take bets on certain verticals or business models, such as marketplaces, SaaS, or enterprise technology. Sunrise , a calendar app we invested in from our first fund, was used every single day by millions of consumers prior to their acquisition by Microsoft. Early-stage investing is still the only thing we do.

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www.paulgraham.com

OCTOBER 23, 2010

Microsofts originalplan was to make money selling programming languages, of all things.Their current business model didnt occur to them until IBM droppedit in their lap five years later. Usually you get seed money from individual rich people called"angels." Theyre not something you couldhand to someone else to execute.

Startup 105

Startup Cofounder Software Stock 105

Agile VC

APRIL 13, 2012

2) Design ethic vs engineers - Over the course of the last 5-10 years, many software-based startups are being built on competitive advantages of design and business model rather than technical differentiation. I co-founded NextView Ventures , a seed-stage VC firm based in Boston, in 2010. Read More ».

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Agile VC

JUNE 12, 2012

But while it was a little less understood outside the payments world, their acquisition of TxVia theoretically gives them some of the plumbing they’d need to create a store of value or couple a Google mobile payments product to existing financial accounts. I co-founded NextView Ventures , a seed-stage VC firm based in Boston, in 2010.

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View from Seed

APRIL 23, 2015

Their business models are, in many cases, focused on outlier exits within the portfolio. Additionally, if you’re talking to VCs, it’s implied that you’re thinking big and thinking about a large acquisition or IPO, as well as generating hundreds of millions in revenue. Accidental VC'

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Founder Distribution Viral Seed Stage 120

steveblank.com

JULY 8, 2011

– Mike [link] Reply Jeff Skinner , on May 24, 2010 at 9:28 am said: Steve, you don’t know me though I use your ‘Customer Development process’ video in my classes (Entrepreneurship at London Business School). Jeff skinner Faculty, London Business School. Can we touch base on this.

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www.vccafe.com

MARCH 11, 2013

great web customer acquisition tutorials. Seed Stage Valuation Guide. broken vc model. Business Culture. Business Model Canvas. Business plan. business symbiosis. mixpanel vs kissmetric vs google analytics review. Analytics blog â?? good analytics tutorials. SEO for Startups â??

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Software Review Technical Review Startup 53