Agile VC

JULY 11, 2012

in equity & loans which was ultimately worth >170x ($355M) when DEC went public about a decade later. Some disgruntled younger partners left in the mid-90s… two co-founded Benchmark Capital (Bruce Dunlevie & Andy Rachleff). Paul Ferri @ Matrix) though the vast majority had multiple co-founders.

Silicon Valley 240

Silicon Valley Carried Interest Cofounder Boston 240

Steve Blank

MARCH 31, 2014

In spite of this, private equity funds have used the rallying cry of efficiency to hijack corporate strategy and loot the profits that historically would have been reinvested into research and development and new products. If they don’t, then the management team has simply become caretakers of the founders’ legacy. Act Like a Startup.

Private Equity 328

Private Equity Metrics China Intellectual Property 328

Up and Running

AUGUST 19, 2014

An angel investor is an affluent individual who provides capital for a business start-up, usually in exchange for convertible debt or ownership equity. Wikipedia defines an angel investor as “an affluent individual who provides capital for a business start-up, usually in exchange for convertible debt or ownership equity.”.

Angel Investor 161

Angel Investor Technical Review Due Diligence Startup 161

SoCal CTO

DECEMBER 1, 2010

Equity-Only CTO and Equity-Only Developers - SoCal CTO , November 1, 2010 I had a recent email dialog with the founder of a company looking for a CTO for their startup. And I tried to evaluate the idea and figure out: What did the founder really need here? Was it a Startup Founder Developer Gap ? You got it.

Technical Review 175

Technical Review Technology Product CTO Hire 175

Agile VC

APRIL 17, 2011

Kayak was started here in my backyard of Boston… co-founder & CTO Paul English and the product/engineering team is based here in Concord MA. Co-founder & CEO Steve Hafner and the business team are based in Norwalk, CT. I co-founded NextView Ventures , a seed-stage VC firm based in Boston, in 2010.

Pre-Money Valuation 113

Pre-Money Valuation Liquidation Preference Dividend Common Stock 113

Startup Professionals Musings

NOVEMBER 9, 2015

Yet many entrepreneurs rely on expensive outside services and outside money, rather than do the networking for a co-founder or two who have the right skills to work for equity. Salaried staff will never have the commitment of co-founders that depend on the success of the startup. The need to hire staff immediately.

Bootstrapping 120

Bootstrapping Cofounder Equity Agile 120

The Next Web

MARCH 2, 2014

This was reported as being untrue by British Private Equity & Venture Capital Association (BVCA) about a year ago. There are opportunities to get a feel for running a team, validating an idea, choosing co-founders. So you learn to be agile, to take it in your stride, to pivot based on the shortcomings of your competitors.

Europe 163

Europe South Korea San Francisco Portugal 163

Up and Running

JUNE 23, 2015

Meg Wirth and Allyson Cote, founders of Maternova. I was fortunate enough to speak with co-founder Allyson Cote, and hear the Maternova story, as well as some of its exciting plans for the future. “It took an enormous investment of sweat equity on both our parts,” Allyson admits. We can do better.

Cofounder 60

Cofounder Sweat Equity Social Media Business Model 60

steveblank.com

JULY 8, 2011

Github - Free public repositories, collaborator management, issue tracking, wikis, downloads, code review, graphs Pivotal Tracker – Agile project management tool that enables real time collaboration. WebSequenceDiagrams - sketch sequence diagrams. Bontq – hosted bug tracking and project management needs.

Software Review 110

Software Review Startup Silicon Valley Analytics 110

Up and Running

MAY 23, 2016

“If you can fix a problem for someone and do it better, quicker, and/or cheaper than your competitor, you’re off to a good start.” – Gabriel Kuperman, founder and CEO of CuePin. We created UpKeep to fill this void—a cloud-based solution that was affordable for any size business.” – Ryan Chan, founder of UpKeep.

Software Review 74

Software Review Software Delaware Forecast 74

www.vccafe.com

MARCH 11, 2013

.” Hackernews list of “Tools of the Trade” for startups - includes over 150 SaaS tools used by startups, and over 150 comments with interesting insights from founders. Agile project management tool that enables real time collaboration. Agile project management. agile product management. Agile eLearning.

Software Review 53

Software Review Technical Review Startup 53

The Startup Lawyer

MARCH 17, 2012

You’re on a big beast, but your lack of agility will prevent you from scoring. With the surge in demand for technical co-founders, many startups have no choice but to contract with dev shops to build their idea. A dev shop is never a substitute for a technical co-founder.

Cofounder 92

Cofounder Vesting Equity Agile 92

Steve Blank

JULY 2, 2015

Takashi Tsutsumi and Masato Iino , founders of Learning Entrepreneur’s Lab in Japan. military can work together – for access to advanced technology and to learn how to move with agility, speed and urgency. The focus of our first segment is how Silicon Valley and the U.S. Listen to my entire chat with John.

Channel 120

Channel Japan Bosnia Silicon Valley 120

Startup Lessons Learned

MAY 14, 2009

Unlike other incubator-led programs, this workshop is open to anyone who wants to learn, and it does not require companies take investment or give out equity. We changed our model to B2B and adopted Agile around 2002. This shift allowed us to crank out working software quickly as a service. Expo SF (May.

Lean 60

Lean San Francisco Continuous Deployment Software Review 60

Startup Lessons Learned

FEBRUARY 22, 2010

There’s been a lot of hand-wringing about gender equity in the high-tech and entrepreneurship worlds lately. One last suggestion, which is a technique I learned from my IMVU co-founder Will Harvey. There’s been a lot of hand-wringing about gender equity in the high-tech and entrepreneurship worlds lately.

San Francisco 167

San Francisco Lean Sweden Continuous Deployment 167

Agile VC

NOVEMBER 7, 2019

But during this period, many founders and investors do prize growth above most everything else. Late stage rounds help keep companies private longer and eventually Facebook proves to be a blockbuster company… public equity investors hope to find the next Facebook pre-IPO. On paper, VC portfolios perform well.

IPO 100

IPO Early Stage Cofounder B2C 100

Agile VC

MAY 9, 2014

Some context… like many startups, the founders of Alibaba still own substantial stakes in the company and believe it’s in the company’s best interests for them to retain an outsized influence in the company’s governance longer term. Companies like Ford and the New York Times Co.

Government 153

Government Silicon Valley China Cofounder 153

Agile VC

JANUARY 18, 2012

Being a startup founder isn’t for everyone ultimately, in fact it probably isn’t for most people. 2) The Pyramid Scheme of Startup Equity - Just like multi-level marketing schemes, in startups it pays to get in on the ground floor. Seven Reasons to Become a Founding Entrepreneur. January 18, 2012.

Entrepreneur 100

Entrepreneur Cofounder Silicon Valley Seed Stage 100

www.scottporad.com

NOVEMBER 15, 2010

For example, we have a mailing list in Seattle called “Seattle Tech Startups&# which is a great place to find a co-founder or developer-type. If I were in Mike’s shoes, I would start by talking to people in the Philadelphia Startup community. I would imagine that there is something similar in Philadelphia.

Fractional CTO 40

Fractional CTO Developer Philadelphia Seattle 40

David Teten

JANUARY 28, 2013

Small, agile funds are in an excellent position to take advantage of opportunities in the angel space. AngelList co-founder Naval Ravikant concludes , “The real winners here are going to be the seed funds and early stage VCs that can write a $1 million to $2 million check. Second, all investments are equity instead of debt.

IRR 114

IRR Angel Investor Angel Groups Cofounder 114

blog.simeonov.com

FEBRUARY 22, 2010

I have been thinking a lot recently about how to apply agile development principles to investing and key aspects of startup development such as team building. Both stem from the agile principle of delaying decisions until the last responsible moment. The first post is about agile startup fundraising. Urban legends.

Founder 44

Founder Vesting Agile Startup 44

Agile VC

JULY 19, 2012

For example FRC launched a founders equity exchange fund and various programmatic forms of knowledge sharing like list serves, CEO summits, conferences, etc. While their model isn’t necessarily to create a firm that endures after the founders, they have avoided at least one of the biggest reasons why great firms fail.

Cofounder 193

Cofounder Limited Partner Early Stage LP 193

Startup Lessons Learned

OCTOBER 5, 2010

We also reached out to companies that make products useful to accelerating your Build-Measure-Learn feedback loop, from cloud-hosted Selenium provider Sauce Labs (disclaimer: where I have equity) to ScrumPad (where I dont) and many in-between (a sampling is below, but you should really jus t click through to see the whole smorgasbord).

Lean 153

Lean San Francisco Startup Continuous Deployment 153

Agile VC

MAY 16, 2019

Practically speaking this doesn’t mean that all of the shares owned by founders, investors, employees (RSUs), or others will be available to trade immediately as they will need to be converted and registered for public trading. So it’s reasonable to assume that were it a standalone company, “Microsoft Office Co.”

Lock-up Period 100

Lock-up Period Retention Azure .Net 100

Startup Lessons Learned

OCTOBER 30, 2008

Offer equity instead of cash. ► August (2) SXSW Case Study: SlideShare goes freemium ► July (4) Case Study: kaChing, Anatomy of a Pivot Some IPO speculation Founder personalities and the “first-class man&# th. Everybody should be selling. Selling is an honorable profession. Voluntary salary reduction program.

Lean 121

Lean San Francisco Continuous Deployment DC 121

Agile VC

NOVEMBER 13, 2012

For those who aren’t familiar, Mobius was a VC fund with offices in Silicon Valley and Boulder CO and at it’s peak Mobius had $2B+ under management. the Sequoia’s and Greylock’s of the world) or sometimes its based on the entrepreneurial successes of the founders of new firms (e.g.

LP 154

LP Portfolio Venture Capital IRR 154

sivers.org

JUNE 25, 2010

Programmers, and certainly not the visionary founders, are the most qualified for that task. #6 Im a UX and front end designer bootstrapping my own products with pure sweat equity at night but always looking for someone else to partner with(engineer/programmer)to bring these ideas life. Co-founders and outsourcing work the same.

CTO Hire 84

CTO Hire Hiring Software Review Technical Review 84

Agile VC

FEBRUARY 28, 2012

If you and all the people around your startup (co-founders, advisors, existing investors) feel strongly that the company A) could benefit from additional equity capital at this time and B) you’ve accomplished value accretive milestones since your last round of funding, then it might make sense to talk with potential new investors.

Early Stage 100

Early Stage Syndicate Syndication Silicon Valley 100

Startup Lessons Learned

JULY 6, 2011

The finished book will come out on September 13, featuring an amazing cover designed by my IMVU co-founder Marcus Gosling and refined and tested by so many of you. It enables a company to shift directions with agility, altering plans inch by inch, minute by minute. them back to my publisher. I am incredibly proud of the result.

Lean 167

Lean Startup Metrics Private Equity 167

crowdSPRING Blog

DECEMBER 13, 2018

As we wrote in Brand Health, 6 Important Questions You Should Ask About Your Small Business Brand , Brand health can be measured in numerous ways, including brand reputation, brand awareness, brand equity, brand positioning, and brand delivery. For example, Charles Revson, founder of Revlon, always used to say he sold hope, not makeup.

Marketing 162

Marketing Charlotte Naming Design 162