Startup Professionals Musings

APRIL 10, 2016

From my perspective as an investor, I recommend that every founder needs to know the answers to these questions, be open and honest in answering them thoughtfully, and without making excuses: What is the current runway and burn rate? Any outside advisors or board members available for discussion?

Burn Rate 120

Burn Rate Technical Review Sweat Equity Intellectual Property 120

Startup Professionals Musings

JUNE 27, 2022

Too often they are also hesitant, inexperienced, and fearful of hiring people or finding a mentor to be the partner they need. You know you should have been tracking the burn rate, or inventory requirements, or late receivables, but have found yourself totally distracted by a flock of emergency daily issues.

Burn Rate 329

Burn Rate Differentiation Salary Entrepreneur 329

Startup Professionals Musings

APRIL 8, 2015

From my perspective as an investor, I recommend that every founder needs to know the answers to these questions, be open and honest in answering them thoughtfully, and without making excuses: What is the current runway and burn rate? Any outside advisors or board members available for discussion?

Technical Review 120

Technical Review Due Diligence Burn Rate Sweat Equity 120

YoungUpstarts

MAY 19, 2016

Use burn rate as an example. If you don’t understand how much money your company is burning through each month, how can you expect to intelligently talk about your fiscal health? To become part of the surviving half, use these methods to ensure your startup’s structure stands strong. Read your books from cover to cover.

Technical Review 109

Technical Review Burn Rate IP Intellectual Property 109

Steve Blank

FEBRUARY 26, 2013

90 days later, I found out our games are terrible, no one is buying them, our best engineers started leaving, and with 120 people and a huge burn rate, we’re running out of money and about to crash. We hired everyone according to our plan. My wife was a great partner here. This can’t be happening to me.

Redemption 222

Redemption Cofounder Silicon Valley Burn Rate 222

Both Sides of the Table

NOVEMBER 3, 2009

I’m not even talking about your 12-page Powerpoint presentation that you need to raise venture capital or to talk with potential biz dev partners. How many people will you hire in the first 24 months and in which sequence. Don’t know the running rate for engineers? Too aggressive about the rate of customer adoption?

Business Plan 334

Business Plan AJAX Venture Capital Technical Review 334

Both Sides of the Table

JULY 13, 2013

And for every time I’ve felt hugely stressed that our burn rate was getting too high, and I didn’t know who else was going to fund the company, and I’m all in on this company, right?” Because I’m going to say no to you, and the guys you want to hire from Facebook are going to say no to you.

Cofounder 337

Cofounder Technical Cofounder San Diego Startup 337

Startup Professionals Musings

SEPTEMBER 21, 2019

Too often they are also hesitant, inexperienced, and fearful of hiring people or finding a mentor to be the partner they need. You know you should have been tracking the burn rate, or inventory requirements, or late receivables, but have found yourself totally distracted by a flock of emergency daily issues.

Burn Rate 249

Burn Rate Entrepreneur Differentiation Salary 249

Both Sides of the Table

MAY 2, 2015

For a well-funded seed company I have controversially recommended hiring a great office manager that doubles as an administrative assistant. This happens because many CEOs are passionate, market-driven people who are constantly trying to launch new products, win contracts, get press, hire staff and woo VCs. Hire a great CFO.

Operations 150

Operations Metrics Early Stage Non-Compete 150

The Next Web

DECEMBER 2, 2013

Henrik Werdelin , the Managing Partner of Prehype , a venture development firm based in New York City that has helped build companies like Tradable , Barkbox , FancyHands , Basno and Path , says recreating Twitter isn’t necessarily difficult, but the layered features will take time to get right. 1) Twitter. 4) WhatsApp. million plus overhead.

Cost 168

Cost San Francisco New York City Ruby 168

Both Sides of the Table

DECEMBER 16, 2009

They had wasted a lot of money because they had raised a lot of money and therefore hired a large staff. I just knew that our sales sucked wind and we were burning through tons of cash. I advocated LOUDLY at the board that we needed to cut our burn rate. A new and experiened CEO was brought in and cleared house.

Entrepreneur 306

Entrepreneur Burn Rate Cofounder Sales 306

Hunter Walker

FEBRUARY 20, 2022

Maybe you’ve spoken with the previous companies customers or investors or employees and learned from that — maybe you’re even now taking their customers, hiring their best team members, whatever. Bring your burn rate down, crowdfund from your community of users, do whatever you can to make it to the other side of the disillusionment trough.

Marketing 119

Marketing Burn Rate Angel Investor Early Stage 119

Startup Professionals Musings

DECEMBER 31, 2013

Too often they are also hesitant, inexperienced, and fearful of hiring people or a mentor to be the partner they need. You know you should have been tracking the burn rate, or inventory requirements, or late receivables, but have found yourself totally distracted by a flock of emergency daily issues.

Burn Rate 275

Burn Rate Entrepreneur Differentiation Salary 275

Startup Professionals Musings

OCTOBER 4, 2017

Too often they are also hesitant, inexperienced, and fearful of hiring people or finding a mentor to be the partner they need. You know you should have been tracking the burn rate, or inventory requirements, or late receivables, but have found yourself totally distracted by a flock of emergency daily issues.

Burn Rate 139

Burn Rate Differentiation Salary Entrepreneur 139

Startup Professionals Musings

MARCH 6, 2012

One family partner works for a startup, and the other sticks with a large enterprise company like Intel, HP, Apple, IBM, or Fujitsu. The large enterprise provides one stable income, an excellent set of benefits for the family, and that partner can get off work at 5pm to pick up the kids. What's the monthly burn rate?

Silicon Valley 246

Silicon Valley Burn Rate Startup Stock Options 246

Startup Professionals Musings

JANUARY 7, 2014

Rely on informal agreements with partners. The same principles apply to strategic partners. Later, when your venture is trying to close on financing, or even going public, that forgotten partner surfaces, demanding their original share. Be quick to hire and slow to fire. Only hire people who like you or think like you.

Startup 265

Startup Intellectual Property LLC Burn Rate 265

View from Seed

OCTOBER 15, 2014

This is pulled from NextView’s board deck resource, which was compiled using a combination of real startup board decks and input from NextView’s founding partners: Rob Go , David Beisel , and Lee Hower. Team: Hires, fires, departures, responsibility changes, major promotions, and your org chart.

Seed Stage 331

Seed Stage Cap Table Metrics Burn Rate 331

Steve Blank

NOVEMBER 18, 2010

A new VP of Sales (then VP of Marketing, then CEO) looks at their predecessors’ strategy, and if they are smart, they do something different (they implement a different pricing model, pick a new sales channel, target different customers and/or partners, reformulate the product features, etc.). No one gets fired.

Burn Rate 247

Burn Rate Management Business Model Customer Development 247

Both Sides of the Table

MAY 9, 2011

You often have very limited perspective on whether this person will continue to be a great partner 2 years down the line, 4 years down the line, 8 years down the line. You’re only going to find out whether they’re TRULY a great partner after you’ve put in years of money, blood, sweat & tears. Hire your co-founder.

Cofounder 393

Cofounder Founder Vesting Founder Vesting 393

Startup Professionals Musings

NOVEMBER 28, 2012

Rely on informal agreements with partners. The same principles apply to strategic partners. Later, when your venture is trying to close on financing, or even going public, that forgotten partner surfaces, demanding their original share. Quick to hire and slow to fire. Only hire people who like you or think like you.

Entrepreneur 274

Entrepreneur Intellectual Property LLC Burn Rate 274

Startup Professionals Musings

JANUARY 4, 2011

One family partner works for a startup, and the other sticks with a large enterprise company like Intel, HP, Apple, IBM, or Fujitsu. The large enterprise provides one stable income, an excellent set of benefits for the family, and that partner can get off work at 5pm to pick up the kids. What's the monthly burn rate?

Silicon Valley 227

Silicon Valley Burn Rate Startup Stock Options 227

Startup Professionals Musings

JULY 24, 2017

The longer you wait to start your own business, the higher the default burn rate, and the less happy you will be to take a financial step down. In a new business, there will not be an IT team to configure your computer, a procurement department for supplies and contracts, or even a personnel specialist for hiring and firing.

Burn Rate 147

Burn Rate Salary Vertical Equity 147

Startup Professionals Musings

MARCH 28, 2016

While the CFO usually takes the lead in finding professional investors, everyone needs to look for ways to reduce the burn rate and maximize alternative funding sources, including bartering for services, finding partners willing to accept deferred payments and talking to friends and family.

Entrepreneur 120

Entrepreneur Burn Rate Leadership Salary 120

Startup Professionals Musings

MARCH 15, 2015

Too often they are also hesitant, inexperienced, and fearful of hiring people or a mentor to be the partner they need. You know you should have been tracking the burn rate, or inventory requirements, or late receivables, but have found yourself totally distracted by a flock of emergency daily issues.

Burn Rate 120

Burn Rate Startup Salary Differentiation 120

Both Sides of the Table

JUNE 17, 2017

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. If you don’t have a strong balance sheet and can’t hire more people that’s fine — but understand this may lead to slower growth.

Stock Options 227

Stock Options Startup Dilution Venture Capital 227

Steve Blank

FEBRUARY 16, 2010

raised their voices in a annoyed investor tone) that the headcount and its attendant burn rate combined with the lack of revenue meant the company would run out of money much sooner than anyone planned. Companies in New Markets who hire and execute like they’re in an Existing Market burn through their cash and go out of business.

Revenue 230

Revenue Balance Sheet Hockey Stick Burn Rate 230

Gust

DECEMBER 29, 2013

Rely on informal agreements with partners. The same principles apply to strategic partners. Later, when your venture is trying to close on financing, or even going public, that forgotten partner surfaces, demanding their original share. Be quick to hire and slow to fire. Only hire people who like you or think like you.

Startup 183

Startup Intellectual Property LLC Burn Rate 183

Mucker Lab

MARCH 8, 2016

Just as entrepreneurs should aspire to raise capital from value-added, “smart money” investors, we, too, have focused on partnering with committed, long-term, institutional limited partners (LPs). We are consumed with generating great returns for our limited partners. Mucker III is for those quiet but indomitable entrepreneurs.

Burn Rate 60

Burn Rate Limited Partner Bootstrapping Portfolio 60

The Equity Kicker

JULY 16, 2015

Companies with lots of cash sometimes add people more quickly, but that drives the burn rate up, often without a compensating increase in the chance of success. A lot of the operational activities will fall to the founder, but it’s common to have 1-2 interns or early hires at this time.

eCommerce 60

eCommerce Burn Rate Early Stage Hiring 60

Startup Lessons Learned

MAY 15, 2020

It's never selfish to hire. I said, "Hire people. Hire them to do whatever you can find them to do." So anything you can do to keep them hired, you just improved their sanity. It's never selfish to hire. My partner, Martin, and I did just that. My partner, my spouse works, it's not a stress for me.

Dallas 68

Dallas Employee Government Social Media 68

Up and Running

OCTOBER 1, 2014

Nelson has some tips: Know your burn rate. Partner well. Nelson acknowledges that choosing a business partner is like choosing a spouse, and that she’s been fortunate to twice connect with people who synergistically allowed Theme Dragon to rise to the next level. How do you balance it all?

Bootstrapping 107

Bootstrapping Cofounder Portland Burn Rate 107

techcrunch.com

FEBRUARY 26, 2013

He knows how to advise entrepreneurs on hiring/firing, running teams, managing funding, when/how to control burn rate, and making other tough management decisions in the real environment of startups. How do I measure my partners and myself?

Burn Rate 87

Burn Rate Hiring Engineer Entrepreneur 87

YoungUpstarts

AUGUST 19, 2016

While you absolutely need to keep an eye on earnings and burn rate, human capital is ultimately the fuel that makes the machine run. Depending on your startup’s needs, it can be a toss-up on whether to hire for attitude or skill. Others may need a high-level new hire to start things off with a bang.

Startup 100

Startup Burn Rate Cofounder Salary 100

Ben's Blog

SEPTEMBER 2, 2011

This is a guest post by Scott Weiss, general partner of Andreessen Horowitz. What’s our burn rate? For instance, it wasn’t a shocker when we stopped hiring as we were raising money. I had a real struggle preparing to be a public company CEO. What are the biggest problems we are facing?

IPO 78

IPO Burn Rate Leadership Employee 78

Hearpreneur

JULY 7, 2019

I see companies transitioning to hiring more freelancers and remote workers. When they outsource they are hiring professionals for a certain number of hours per month and not 40 hours per week in addition to benefits, workers comp, etc. We want every hire to be for life, and the way we treat employees makes them want to stay.

Entrepreneur 90

Entrepreneur Distribution Employee Arizona 90

Genuine VC

FEBRUARY 9, 2011

Start-ups hire ahead of growth (or at least predicted growth), which translate into a viable company, a healthy work environment, and future internal opportunities. What is the burn rate and how much cash is in the bank now? Which VC firm provided the most recent funding round and when was it?

Startup 146

Startup Burn Rate Technical Review Down Round 146

thestartuplawyer.com

FEBRUARY 24, 2010

Your Business Partner Closer,&# was a reformatted version of a blog post titled “Keep Your Startup Co-Founder Closer&# which appeared in Ryan Roberts PC’s blog for startups and entrepreneurs, The Startup [.] Who must be a co founder and who can remain a hired principal? I am the idea guy, but I am the only guy right now.

Cofounder 40

Cofounder Founder Preferred Stock Startup 40