Startup Professionals Musings

MAY 17, 2020

Every entrepreneur I know has their favorite excuse for a previous failure – an investor backed out, the economy took a downturn, or a supplier delivered bad quality. It’s never too early to start marketing, since it usually takes as long to build marketing momentum as it does to build a product.

Intellectual Property 436

Intellectual Property Angel Investor Viral Distribution 436

Berkonomics

OCTOBER 5, 2023

Since this number is budgeted and pre-authorized, managers tend to focus upon other things such as sales, marketing and product development issues. There is an art to efficient management of a process, whether that is the process of bringing a product to market from R&D to production or developing a new product’s launch program.

Silicon Valley 118

Silicon Valley Burn Rate Angel Investor Down Round 118

Startup Professionals Musings

OCTOBER 2, 2023

Angel investors and venture capitalists are looking for startups with real products and a proven business model, ready to scale. Yet I still get too many business plans that clearly are looking for money to do research and development (R&D) on a new and unproven technology. Product verification and clinical trials.

Angel Investor 256

Angel Investor Early Stage Incubator Government 256

Startup Professionals Musings

APRIL 13, 2015

Angel investors and venture capitalists are looking for startups with real products and a proven business model, ready to scale. Yet I still get too many business plans that clearly are looking for money to do research and development (R&D) on a new and unproven technology. Product verification and clinical trials.

Product Development 120

Product Development Developer Product Angel Investor 120

Startup Professionals Musings

SEPTEMBER 29, 2018

For example, a software development startup raising $250,000 from angel investors better be able to operate on $25,000 per month. This could equate to two technical founders (with a minimal salary), funding two developers for a year.

Burn Rate 223

Burn Rate Hockey Stick Startup Salary 223

Startup Professionals Musings

DECEMBER 24, 2018

As a startup advisor and angel investor, I tend to focus on the much longer list of ways your startup can fail, based on my own experience and inside knowledge from peers who you will never see highlighted on the Internet. I find that most investors invest in the team, more often then they invest in an idea.

Angel Investor 249

Angel Investor Cofounder Finance Operations 249

Startup Professionals Musings

JANUARY 18, 2021

Angel investors and venture capitalists are looking for startups with real products and a proven business model, ready to scale. Yet I still get too many business plans that clearly are looking for money to do research and development (R&D) on a new and unproven technology. Product verification and clinical trials.

Early Stage 412

Early Stage Angel Investor Incubator Government 412

Startup Professionals Musings

OCTOBER 5, 2014

For example, a software development startup raising $250,000 from angel investors better be able to operate on $25,000 per month. This could equate to two technical founders (with a minimal salary), funding two developers for a year.

Burn Rate 262

Burn Rate Hockey Stick Entrepreneur Salary 262

Startup Professionals Musings

JANUARY 12, 2018

The problem is that professional investors (angels and venture capital) want a proven business model before they invest, ready to scale, rather than early projections and product development. Consider licensing your product or intellectual property, and “white labeling.” Apply for contests and business grants.

Intellectual Property 134

Intellectual Property Technical Review Startup Incubator 134

Startup Professionals Musings

JANUARY 19, 2018

As an advisor to new business owners, and an occasional angel investor, I see new business proposals daily, many seeking investors to fund early research and development (R&D) of a new product idea. All professional investors love the scaling stage. Reinvest early returns to expand the product line.

Developer 144

Developer Angel Investor Incubator Early Stage 144

Startup Professionals Musings

SEPTEMBER 14, 2016

For example, a software development startup raising $250,000 from angel investors better be able to operate on $25,000 per month. This could equate to two technical founders (with a minimal salary), funding two developers for a year.

Burn Rate 120

Burn Rate Hockey Stick Startup Salary 120

Gust

APRIL 27, 2014

Software Development Process via Wikipedia. Even when your startup is a one-man show and lots of fun, a “business” needs some discipline and controls to keep it from being defined as a hobby by investors, and assure some financial return. Develop your business plan. Product development process. Funding process.

Startup 187

Startup Institutional Investors Angel Investor Bootstrapping 187

Startup Professionals Musings

MARCH 16, 2016

This term refers to an initial venture-capital investment, often wrongly sought to seed early product development. In fact, most often, it is limited to seeding a startup business rollout or scale-up after development is completed from friends and family. Super-angel investors (micro-VCs).

Software Review 120

Software Review Sweat Equity Accredited Investor Angel Investor 120

Startup Professionals Musings

JULY 2, 2022

As an active angel investor, I still hear entrepreneurs asserting large opportunities with minimal risk and no competition. Both risks and opportunities in this area can arise from many aspects of your startup, before and after product development. Outside of dreams, there is no real business opportunity without risk.

Burn Rate 382

Burn Rate Angel Investor Operations Demand 382

Up and Running

JULY 2, 2014

We developed a kick-ass investor pitch and we started pitching it to family, friends, angel investors, and even venture capitalists for feedback. We soon got interest from an angel investor, and he wanted to invest $300,000 in our startup. We set off to raise our money. My business partner and I were elated.

Technical Review 118

Technical Review Angel Investor Due Diligence Dilution 118

Startup Professionals Musings

MARCH 4, 2016

In fact, investors recognize that founders usually learn more from mistakes than from success, so a well-explained startup failure can improve their odds of funding the next time around. However, investors do expect you know the common pitfalls -- and not repeat them. Delegate cash-flow projections and transactions.

Intellectual Property 120

Intellectual Property Startup Forecast Angel Investor 120

Startup Professionals Musings

APRIL 7, 2023

You may think this question is just an artifact of good television, but let me assure you that in my experience as an angel investor, it’s a standard “make or break” inquiry posed to every entrepreneur. They are willing to cover marketing, inventory and scaling, but not product development.

Elevator Pitch 228

Elevator Pitch Salary Angel Investor Viral 228

The Startup Magazine

AUGUST 11, 2023

It is necessary to cover the early stages of product development, thorough market research, and other processes during the initial step. The concept of “seed funding” originates from the metaphor of growing a tree, in which the seed represents the initial component required to move forward with developing a business.

Seed Stage 126

Seed Stage Technical Review Early Stage Due Diligence 126

Berkonomics

AUGUST 10, 2017

Since this number is budgeted and pre-authorized, managers tend to focus upon other things such as sales, marketing and product development issues. There is an art to efficient management of a process, whether that is the process of bringing a product to market from R&D to production or developing a new product’s launch program.

Silicon Valley 97

Silicon Valley Burn Rate Angel Investor Down Round 97

This is going to be BIG.

NOVEMBER 22, 2013

Something isn''t going to go your way--product development, hiring, revenues. Angel investor Jeff Stewart once told me that either the product takes twice as long and costs three times as much to build as your plan, or takes three times as long to build and costs twice as much--you just don''t know which one.

Technical Review 118

Technical Review Due Diligence Angel Investor Venture Capital 118

Startup Professionals Musings

APRIL 3, 2016

Every entrepreneur I know has their favorite excuse for a previous failure – an investor backed out, the economy took a downturn, or a supplier delivered bad quality. It’s never too early to start marketing, since it usually takes as long to build marketing momentum as it does to build a product.

Intellectual Property 120

Intellectual Property Startup Angel Investor Viral 120

Startup Professionals Musings

JULY 12, 2020

You may think this question is just an artifact of good television, but let me assure you that in my experience as an angel investor, it’s a standard “make or break” inquiry posed to every entrepreneur. They are willing to cover marketing, inventory and scaling, but not product development.

Elevator Pitch 336

Elevator Pitch Salary Angel Investor Viral 336

Startup Professionals Musings

APRIL 1, 2015

Every entrepreneur I know has their favorite excuse for a previous failure – an investor backed out, the economy took a downturn, or a supplier delivered bad quality. It’s never too early to start marketing, since it usually takes as long to build marketing momentum as it does to build a product.

Intellectual Property 120

Intellectual Property Angel Investor Viral Distribution 120

Business Plan Blog

DECEMBER 10, 2013

The Milestones Angel Investors Care About. When raising pre-seed capital from friends, family, and founders (FFF) you’ll want to consider the milestones that Angel investors care about and be sure to raise enough capital to reach those milestones. Product Development.

Angel Investor 55

Angel Investor Intellectual Property Seed Capital Advisory Board 55

Up and Running

MAY 12, 2015

Getting feedback on your pitch is a great idea; the more people evaluate your pitch before your investors see it, the more chances you have to catch any errors in reasoning, assumptions that are unclear to your audience, or things that just simply don’t make sense or flow well. See Also 5 Sure-fire Ways to Bomb Your Investor Pitch.

Angel Investor 60

Angel Investor Software Review Technical Cofounder Due Diligence 60

Both Sides of the Table

AUGUST 8, 2009

Traction can simply mean showing that you’re making progress with customers, product development, channel partners, initial revenue as a proof point, attracting well-known angel investors, winning industry awards / recognition. Funding is about developing a relationship over time.

Technical Review 309

Technical Review Term Sheet Venture Capital Revenue 309

View from Seed

MAY 11, 2016

The last time they were starting a company at the raw, pre-product/market fit stage may have been quite a few years ago. The context of starting business may have changed, and some of the tools and practices (especially around early product development and go-to-market) might look very different.

Founder 159

Founder Cofounder CTO Hire Early Stage 159

Up and Running

JULY 6, 2016

Are we developing what we should? As you develop technology descriptions, priorities, milestones and such in your own business plan, consider first the business plan’s purpose. I’ll join in the due diligence for my angel group, test for myself, and develop my informed opinion. Are we using what we should?

Technical Review 72

Technical Review Software Review Business Plan Development Team Review 72

Both Sides of the Table

MAY 27, 2013

But the thing I am most proud of about Rob is that he has taken a company with a uniquely talented founder & CTO – Nick Halstead – and managed to build a very tight working relationship with Nick where we drive world-class product development without having the usual founder / CEO conflicts.

Advisory Board 365

Advisory Board CTO Hire Fractional CTO Los Angeles 365

View from Seed

MARCH 24, 2021

” Below are our favorite pieces from the past few years, divided in to a few key categories: fundraising, company building, product development, industry trends, and the life of a VC. Developing Your Product. So, we decided to aggregate NextView’s “greatest hits.” ” (David Beisel).

Seed Stage 177

Seed Stage Hiring IPO Analytics 177

Steve Blank

MARCH 16, 2016

But startups require money upfront for product development and later to scale. Founders can now access the largest pool of risk capital that ever existed –in the form of Private Equity (Angel Investors, family offices , Venture Capitalists (VC’s) and Hedge Funds.). But there’s only one reason your company got funded.

Liquidity Event 120

Liquidity Event Founder Liquidation Preference Venture Capital 120

Startup Professionals Musings

SEPTEMBER 30, 2019

As an active angel investor, I still hear entrepreneurs asserting large opportunities with minimal risk and no competition. Both risks and opportunities in this area can arise from many aspects of your startup, before and after product development. Outside of dreams, there is no real business opportunity without risk.

Entrepreneur 267

Entrepreneur Burn Rate Angel Investor Operations 267

Transformify

JULY 13, 2019

Our guest today is Lyneir Richardson , Assistant Professor of Professional Practice and Executive Director of The Center for Urban Entrepreneurship and Economic Development (CUEED) at Rutgers Business School. Some people are detail oriented and prefer to be focused on product development rather than on interacting with others.

Hiring 66

Hiring Entrepreneur Startup Angel Investor 66

Feld Thoughts

NOVEMBER 18, 2013

One of them used to be a lead developer at [insert hot consumer tech company here]. They decide to go out and raise money on a convertible note – several angel investors have signaled interest in participating in the note and they don’t feel ready to pitch VCs yet. Seven months in, there is a beta product.

Burn Rate 152

Burn Rate Equity Software Review Early Stage 152

Startup Lessons Learned

SEPTEMBER 15, 2008

But by taking advantage of open source, agile software, and iterative development, lean startups can operate with much less waste. I am heavily indebted to earlier theorists, and highly recommend the books Lean Thinking and Lean Software Development. Labels: customer development , lean startup 8comments: Amy said.

Lean 168

Lean San Francisco Startup Continuous Deployment 168

crowdSPRING Blog

JULY 10, 2014

The surprising secret of happier, more productive organizations: conflict – crowdspring.co/1qscUpx. The Other 1% – Ranking The Top 20 Angel Investors | 500 Startups – crowdspring.co/1is3Iiw. Good insight on startups and product development in this AMA with Jason Fried – crowdspring.co/TmVP1.

Social Media 97

Social Media Small Business Design Silicon Valley 97

YoungUpstarts

JUNE 24, 2014

by Matthew Sawyer, Managing Partner of Rocket Market Development LLC. You can double that number if you add the amount of money put up by Angel Investors. Angel Investors, VCs and entrepreneurs agree that the success rate for startup companies is dismal. Business Insider recently reported that only.4%

Startup 252

Startup Angel Investor Early Stage LLC 252