Startup Professionals Musings

APRIL 4, 2022

The “valley of death” is a common term in the startup world, referring to the difficulty of covering the negative cash flow in the early stages of a startup, before their new product or service is bringing in revenue from real customers. Apply for contests and business grants. Nevertheless, it’s an option that doesn’t cost you equity.

Intellectual Property 261

Intellectual Property Technical Review Incubator Bootstrapping 261

Gust

NOVEMBER 14, 2011

After you have successfully attracted angels or venture capital with your business case, your million dollar product idea, and you have a signed term sheet, there is still one more hurdle to overcome before investors write the check. This is the dreaded “due diligence” process. Product or service readiness. Waste no time.

Technical Review 152

Technical Review Due Diligence Intellectual Property Private Equity 152

The Startup Magazine

AUGUST 11, 2023

This could be a proportion of the company’s equity or investment; in other instances, it could be a portion of its later-stage profits. Seed money can range from a relatively modest sum to a sizeable one, depending not only on the nature of the startup, the sector in which it will operate, and any other pertinent business aspects.

Seed Stage 130

Seed Stage Technical Review Early Stage Due Diligence 130

VC Cafe

MARCH 1, 2024

In addition, founders thinking about starting a company can be overwhelmed by choice, as there are so many problems to tackle with technology, but it could be comforting to know that investors are interested in those areas in the first place.

Artificial Inteligence 176

Artificial Inteligence Technical Review Software Review Generative AI 176

Startup Professionals Musings

DECEMBER 6, 2019

The “valley of death” is a common term in the startup world, referring to the difficulty of covering the negative cash flow in the early stages of a startup, before their new product or service is bringing in revenue from real customers. Nevertheless, it’s an option that doesn’t cost you equity. Apply for contests and business grants.

Finance 320

Finance Intellectual Property Technical Review Incubator 320

Startup Professionals Musings

SEPTEMBER 10, 2014

Struggling entrepreneurs are often so happy to get a funding offer that they neglect the recommended reverse due diligence on the investors. Taking on equity investors to fund your company is much like getting married – it is a long-term relationship that has to work at all levels. It’s no fun for either side. Marty Zwilling.

Technical Review 257

Technical Review Due Diligence Term Sheet Offshore 257

The Startup Magazine

FEBRUARY 21, 2024

Billion in investments across a range of industries, including technology, sustainability, traditional and alternative energy, mining, construction services, transportation, and healthcare. The goal is to transform dormant or underutilized assets into active capital that supports your business. The firm has made more than $4.5

Technical Review 137

Technical Review Due Diligence Bankruptcy Intellectual Property 137

Startup Professionals Musings

JUNE 30, 2019

The “valley of death” is a common term in the startup world, referring to the difficulty of covering the negative cash flow in the early stages of a startup, before their new product or service is bringing in revenue from real customers. Apply for contests and business grants. Nevertheless, it’s an option that doesn’t cost you equity.

Intellectual Property 219

Intellectual Property Technical Review Startup Incubator 219

David Teten

APRIL 1, 2021

I’ve recently advised a number of emerging private equity and VC funds who are wrestling with the question: What are the highest impact steps they can take to support their portfolio companies? . Almost every private equity and venture capital investor now advertises that they have a platform to support their portfolio companies.

Private Equity 78

Private Equity Venture Capital Portfolio Equity 78

Startup Professionals Musings

MARCH 27, 2016

Struggling entrepreneurs are often so happy to get a funding offer that they neglect the recommended reverse due diligence on the investors. Taking on equity investors to fund your company is much like getting married – it is a long-term relationship that has to work at all levels. It’s no fun for either side.

Technical Review 120

Technical Review Due Diligence Term Sheet Offshore 120

NZ Entrepreneur

SEPTEMBER 29, 2021

With the pandemic, climate crisis, global economic shifts and rapidly changing consumer markets, it is clear that many businesses of today will no longer be relevant tomorrow. experiments to build a product, find customers, test business models and hire amazing people. This equity will vest over 2-3 years.

Technical Review 88

Technical Review Software Review New Zealand Due Diligence 88

Steve Blank

MAY 19, 2015

But over time code/hardware written/built to validate hypotheses and find early customers can become unwieldy, difficult to maintain and incapable of scaling. These shortcuts add up and become what is called technical debt. You fix technical debt by refactoring , going into the existing code and “cleaning it up” by restructuring it.

Technical Review 120

Technical Review Salary Early Stage Software Review 120

Startup Professionals Musings

JULY 14, 2014

The “valley of death” is a common term in the startup world, referring to the difficulty of covering the negative cash flow in the early stages of a startup, before their new product or service is bringing in revenue from real customers. Apply for contests and business grants. Nevertheless, it’s an option that doesn’t cost you equity.

Entrepreneur 283

Entrepreneur Intellectual Property Technical Review Incubator 283

Startup Professionals Musings

JULY 1, 2017

The “valley of death” is a common term in the startup world, referring to the difficulty of covering the negative cash flow in the early stages of a startup, before their new product or service is bringing in revenue from real customers. Apply for contests and business grants. Nevertheless, it’s an option that doesn’t cost you equity.

Product Development 177

Product Development Cost Developer Product 177

Startup Professionals Musings

MAY 27, 2016

As an angel investor, I’ve learned to believe in this approach, since I have seen great ideas go astray, due to poor execution and I have seen apparently marginal ideas make millions, managed by a savvy entrepreneur. Focus on customer needs. Plan includes a business model with good margins.

Technical Review 134

Technical Review Intellectual Property Due Diligence Angel Investor 134

Startup Professionals Musings

FEBRUARY 19, 2013

The “valley of death” is a common term in the startup world, referring to the difficulty of covering the negative cash flow in the early stages of a startup, before their new product or service is bringing in revenue from real customers. Apply for contests and business grants. Nevertheless, it’s an option that doesn’t cost you equity.

Intellectual Property 309

Intellectual Property Technical Review Venture Capital Startup 309

Startup Professionals Musings

JANUARY 12, 2018

The “valley of death” is a common term in the startup world, referring to the difficulty of covering the negative cash flow in the early stages of a startup, before their new product or service is bringing in revenue from real customers. Nevertheless, it’s an option that doesn’t cost you equity. Apply for contests and business grants.

Intellectual Property 134

Intellectual Property Technical Review Startup Incubator 134

SoCal CTO

MARCH 3, 2011

Many of the founders of these companies are surprised to learn that I'm willing to review what they are doing (maybe an hour) and get on the phone for an hour with them and provide free advice. This overview (executive summary) needs to include: Product and Business What is the product? Who's the customer? What Is This?

Fractional CTO 264

Fractional CTO CTO Hire NDA Technical Review 264

SoCal CTO

MARCH 3, 2011

Many of the founders of these companies are surprised to learn that I'm willing to review what they are doing (maybe an hour) and get on the phone for an hour with them and provide free advice. This overview (executive summary) needs to include: Product and Business What is the product? Who's the customer? What Is This?

Fractional CTO 259

Fractional CTO CTO Hire NDA Technical Review 259

Steve Blank

OCTOBER 30, 2012

The class teaches founders how to dramatically reduce their failure rate through the combination of business model design, customer development and agile development using the Startup Owners Manual. More importantly, it makes no demands of you to stand and deliver your weekly customer development progress in front of your peers.

Startup 335

Startup Lean Incubator Business Model 335

David Teten

AUGUST 19, 2019

This structure offers some of the benefits of traditional equity VC, without some of the negatives of equity VC. I’ve been a traditional equity VC for 8 years, and I’m now researching new business models in venture capital. Investment Criteria: B2B SaaS or tech-enabled services with proven, recurring contracts.

Revenue 60

Revenue Technical Review Software Review Equity 60

Startup Professionals Musings

OCTOBER 19, 2015

I usually envision a 50-50 ownership split for their efforts, but every engineer believes the technology side deserves the majority share. If you consider yourself a technologist, you probably believe and may be propagating one of the following myths: The first priority for funding should be to develop the technology.

Technical Review 120

Technical Review Intellectual Property Cofounder Bootstrapping 120

Steve Blank

MARCH 12, 2014

Therefore we needed them to think and learn about two parts of a startup; 1) ideation - how to create new ideas and 2) customer development – how do they test the validity of their idea (is it the right product, customer, channel, pricing, etc.). Customer Discovery in the Real World. This was a huge learning moment.

Lean 334

Lean Customer Development Startup Silicon Valley 334

Startup Professionals Musings

JULY 8, 2015

The “valley of death” is a common term in the startup world, referring to the difficulty of covering the negative cash flow in the early stages of a startup, before their new product or service is bringing in revenue from real customers. Nevertheless, it’s an option that doesn’t cost you equity. Apply for contests and business grants.

Entrepreneur 120

Entrepreneur Intellectual Property Technical Review Incubator 120

Startup Professionals Musings

JUNE 20, 2016

Business credentials and functional coverage. Even if your product is a technological marvel, I look for balanced strength on the team in finance, marketing and operations. It starts with having a vision and an ability to get the message across in your elevator pitch, in a written business plan and one-on-one with potential investors.

Sweat Equity 152

Sweat Equity Entrepreneur Elevator Pitch Startup 152

David Teten

AUGUST 20, 2019

Many are reporting that they’re seeing a more diverse pool of applicants than traditional equity VCs… even though virtually none have a particular focus on women or underrepresented founders. I’ve been a traditional equity VC for 8 years, and I’m now researching new business models in venture capital.

Revenue 60

Revenue Cofounder Founder Venture Capital 60

Austin Startup

FEBRUARY 23, 2020

This SaaS company, one of 50 finalists for SXSW Pitch 2020 , enables global organizations to analyze and resolve pay gaps due to gender or race and stay in compliance over time. Syndio has over 60 enterprise customers including Nordstrom, Match Group, Target, Adobe and PagerDuty and already more than 1.3 Pretty much in that order.

Technical Review 62

Technical Review Seattle Elevator Pitch Equity 62

Up and Running

MARCH 14, 2018

I’ve raised close to $1 million from angel investors for my previous technology startups. Sometimes you only get 10 minutes to pitch your business opportunity to the investors (or less in some cases). Your revenue or business model. Customer acquisition: Marketing and sales strategy. Image via WOCinTechChat.

Hockey Stick 164

Hockey Stick Exit Strategy Technical Review Angel Investor 164

Startup Professionals Musings

NOVEMBER 21, 2016

Lead with your intent to offer the solution free to customers. Of course, customers love free, but investors hate it. They know it’s especially hard to provide a financial return with a free business model. Even non-profits need money to scale, but their pitch should be to philanthropists, not equity investors.

Intellectual Property 120

Intellectual Property Valuation Technical Review Equity 120

Steve Blank

OCTOBER 10, 2011

I was invited to Finland as part of Stanford’s Engineering Technology Venture Program partnership with Aalto University. 50% the fault of a Nokia management that didn’t see it coming, while 50% was due to brilliant Apple execution.) Thanks to Kristo Ovaska and team for the fabulous logistics!) Note to Finland – lighten up.

Finland 331

Finland Naming Russia Government 331

Startup Professionals Musings

NOVEMBER 4, 2011

are eliminated during due diligence. The corporate entity lends itself best to the concept of “sharing” equity required by investors, and unincorporated entities don’t get funding. Remember to aim the content of both of these at investors, not customers. Prepare an investment-grade business plan.

Intellectual Property 249

Intellectual Property Angel Investor Technical Review Elevator Pitch 249

Growthink Blog

JANUARY 19, 2014

The technology age has brought with it a long list of business related success stories. GoDaddy was created in 1997 as Jomax Technologies by Bob Parsons who had recently sold his other company, Parsons Technology Inc., In 2011, 65% of the company was sold to a group of private equity firms for approximately $2.25

Technical Review 104

Technical Review Private Equity Hosting Advertising 104

David Teten

DECEMBER 3, 2019

Private equity and venture capital investors are copying our sisters in the hedge fund world: we’re trying to automate more of our job. . When I met my now-wife, I realized that any technology that can find me a spouse is a killer app. But in business, you want a lot of partners. Most of us want one spouse and we’re done.

Technical Review 78

Technical Review Software Review Analytics Private Equity 78

Startup Professionals Musings

MARCH 11, 2016

Come with a product built and a proven business model. Angels are most interested to help you scale the business, once you have real customer traction and ready to break out. It takes more than one person, no matter how passionate, to grow an investible business.

Angel Investor 120

Angel Investor Intellectual Property Accredited Investor Angel Groups 120

Startup Professionals Musings

SEPTEMBER 23, 2010

are eliminated during due diligence. The corporate entity lends itself best to the concept of “sharing” equity required by investors, and unincorporated entities don’t get funding. Remember to aim the content of both of these at investors, not customers. Prepare an investment-grade business plan.

Angel Investor 224

Angel Investor Intellectual Property Technical Review Elevator Pitch 224

David Teten

AUGUST 19, 2019

I’ve been a traditional equity VC for 8 years, and I’m now researching new business models in venture capital. Though RBI will displace some traditional equity VC, its much bigger impact will be to expand the pool of capital available for early-stage entrepreneurs. . He said, . “[W]e

Revenue 60

Revenue Term Sheet Founder Technical Review 60

Both Sides of the Table

MARCH 6, 2010

If I’m interested I get to spend more time with them, if I’m not I don’t have to – A few companies per month come in that have fascinating business ideas that warrant my spending more time trying to understand their people, company, technology and market. I get paid to network – I love meeting people.

Technical Review 312

Technical Review Due Diligence Spain Warrant 312