David Teten

JANUARY 19, 2021

More and more startups are pursuing Revenue-Based VCs , but “RBI” doesn’t fit everyone. From RBI, Flexible VCs borrow the ability to reap meaningful returns without demanding founders build for an exit. Flexible VC 101: Equity Meets Revenue Share. Where else can fast-growing companies get funding?

Cofounder 78

Cofounder Technical Review Equity Dividend 78

Startup Professionals Musings

DECEMBER 11, 2022

That approach may work for an entrepreneur who just sold a successful business for a huge profit, but it doesn’t work for the rest of us who are not proven successes yet, or don’t even have a business yet. At these stages, it’s all about you, and your ability to communicate and execute effectively. Lack of intellectual property.

Due Diligence 271

Due Diligence Intellectual Property Entrepreneur Preferred Stock 271

Startup Professionals Musings

MARCH 14, 2020

That approach may work for an entrepreneur who just sold a successful business for a huge profit, but it doesn’t work for the rest of us who are not proven successes yet, or don’t even have a business yet. At these stages, it’s all about you, and your ability to communicate and execute effectively. Lack of intellectual property.

Due Diligence 308

Due Diligence Intellectual Property Preferred Stock Startup 308

View from Seed

APRIL 30, 2015

At NextView, for instance, one of our more popular posts centers on atypical seed rounds to know. What is it, and how should founders think about it? NVV: Let’s talk about the seed stage specifically. Traction and revenue? Business model? Previous capital raised?

Term Sheet 120

Term Sheet Equity Startup Seed Stage 120

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. A) Pre-Product Companies.

Seed Stage 150

Seed Stage B2B Seed Capital Revenue 150

K9 Ventures

JUNE 12, 2012

While it it may not feel that way, the data suggest that there is indeed too much capital in the system — especially so at the seed stage, with more and more individuals and larger funds trying to invest in companies at this stage.). This situation is not always in the best interest of founders.

Venture Capital 117

Venture Capital Silicon Valley Founder Seed Stage 117

K9 Ventures

JUNE 12, 2012

While it it may not feel that way, the data suggest that there is indeed too much capital in the system — especially so at the seed stage, with more and more individuals and larger funds trying to invest in companies at this stage.). This situation is not always in the best interest of founders.

Venture Capital 105

Venture Capital Silicon Valley Founder Seed Stage 105

K9 Ventures

APRIL 28, 2010

– a seed-stage fund. is a $6.25M fund that is designed to do concept and seed-stage investments in technology companies. Direct Revenue : The company must have a direct revenue model. I’m pleased to announce the formation of K9 Ventures, L.P. K9 Ventures, L.P.

Seed Stage 61

Seed Stage San Francisco IP Portfolio 61

VC Cafe

FEBRUARY 27, 2024

A founder asked me what makes a $2M round “pre-seed”? especially if the startup already has a product and revenue? And why do we still sometimes hear about pre-seed rounds that look more like a series A in pricing and size? So far there’s not much that has changed, so why should pre-seed look any different in 2024?

Valuation 186

Valuation Software Review Generative AI Technical Review 186

Startup Professionals Musings

AUGUST 1, 2016

That approach may work for an entrepreneur who just sold a successful business for a huge profit, but it doesn’t work for the rest of us who are not proven successes yet, or don’t even have a business yet. At these stages, it’s all about you, and your ability to communicate and execute effectively. Lack of intellectual property.

Due Diligence 120

Due Diligence Intellectual Property Preferred Stock Seed Stage 120

K9 Ventures

JULY 19, 2012

which was a $6.25M fund designed to be deployed over 3-4 years, making initial investments between $100K – $250K in concept and seed stage technology companies located in the San Francisco Bay Area. Not interested in me-too businesses. No three-way business models and no content, media, advertising-based companies.

Technology 132

Technology Seed Stage San Francisco Limited Partner 132

K9 Ventures

JULY 19, 2012

which was a $6.25M fund designed to be deployed over 3-4 years, making initial investments between $100K – $250K in concept and seed stage technology companies located in the San Francisco Bay Area. Not interested in me-too businesses. No three-way business models and no content, media, advertising-based companies.

Technology 132

Technology Seed Stage San Francisco Limited Partner 132

BeyondVC

FEBRUARY 12, 2014

We have over 20 years of experience backing bold founders with big visions. BOLDstart helps founders at the seed stage accelerate their growth from idea/ alpha phase to product market fit and successful Series A round. Here is our attempt and then I will break down how it all ties together: boldstart''s messaging.

Seed Stage 110

Seed Stage Agile Viral API 110

Mucker Lab

APRIL 6, 2023

Are there types of companies, market segments, industries, or business models where PLG does not make sense? What should an early-stage startup founder focus on if they want to implement PLG? What should the founder avoid if they want to implement PLG? Hila is a mentor with Mucker Capital. That’s never happened.

Product 78

Product CTO Hire Startup Fractional CTO 78

Steve Blank

FEBRUARY 26, 2020

There are two reasons to raise money: You have a killer idea that is only partially validated, that you think can get to $50M+ of revenue in 5 years with 80%+ gross margins (if margins are lower, you need a lot more revenue)and you need money to get to product-market fit, or. Team, Product, Traction, Business Model and Market.

Cofounder 431

Cofounder Seed Stage Valuation Metrics 431

ReadWriteStart

OCTOBER 20, 2011

He talked about everything from raising funding for pre-seed entrepreneurs to get them to the seed stage, crowd funding, social media marketing and open source. Soren's answer is ambiguous, even though his value proposition and business model are relatively clear and well thought through.

Massachusetts 113

Massachusetts Entrepreneur Open Source Silicon Valley 113

Rob Go

JANUARY 7, 2013

As a founder, it feels like a long time, but it’s really a blip on the radar in the scheme of things. Actually, growth equity firms I find are best at this, because they have very specific financial criteria that they look for, such as ranges for revenue, ebitda, growth, etc. We focus on investing in seed stage companies.

Portfolio 49

Portfolio Seed Stage Cofounder B2B 49

Rob Go

FEBRUARY 5, 2012

For seed stage companies, typically, it’s about: Compelling founder(s). Small but accelerating revenue growth (often in the $50K-$100K range monthly). The reason is that the next MAJOR and OBVIOUS value-inflection point is evidence of a repeatable and scaleable business model.

Business Model 65

Business Model Seed Stage Valuation Vertical 65

Startup Lessons Learned

JULY 11, 2019

Ann Miura-Ko is a founding partner at Floodgate , a seed-stage VC firm. She’s also a founding member of All Raise, a non-profit committed to improving diversity in both funders and founders. That meant that if the change was starting on the founders side, then there had to be a change on the financing side.

Founder 68

Founder Lean Venture Capital Cofounder 68

Hippoland

OCTOBER 16, 2016

As a result, for these kinds of businesses, investors often don’t expect that companies can earn revenue right out of the gate, because they may not legally be able to. 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.

Startup 48

Startup Vertical Early Stage Bootstrapping 48

Hippoland

AUGUST 16, 2018

But outcome-differentiation is probably lacking – people who use Mailchimp use it to increase revenue by selling more products / services via their emails. And just play the probabilities in your head of who will actually be likely to invest in a random company at your stage. That’s a feature difference. Basically zero.

Sales Cycle 54

Sales Cycle Differentiation Early Stage Bootstrapping 54

Hippoland

AUGUST 16, 2018

But outcome-differentiation is probably lacking – people who use Mailchimp use it to increase revenue by selling more products / services via their emails. And just play the probabilities in your head of who will actually be likely to invest in a random company at your stage. That’s a feature difference. Basically zero.

Sales Cycle 48

Sales Cycle Differentiation Early Stage Bootstrapping 48

View from Seed

MARCH 15, 2017

VC evaluation of seed-stage startups can seem arbitrary or imitative at times. Internally, the scarcity of tangible business metrics – product usage or revenue multiples for example – can make an investment decision feel daunting. Any seed stage company’s strategy is a constant work-in-progress.

Due Diligence 266

Due Diligence Seed Stage Portfolio Metrics 266

Startup Lessons Learned

JULY 15, 2020

You may know him as the founder of Soylent, the nutrition company he started in his kitchen and scaled nationwide. That's why the Corona Initiative is a Public Benefit Corporation--a for-profit company dedicated to the public good that aims to fund its research with its revenues. You really want to see the whole system.

Technical Review 68

Technical Review Software Review Finance Technology 68

www.paulgraham.com

OCTOBER 23, 2010

And since a startup thatsucceeds ordinarily makes its founders rich, that implies gettingrich is doable too. A lot ofwould-be startup founders think the key to the whole process is theinitial idea, and from that point all you have to do is execute.Venture capitalists know better. Ideally you want between two and four founders.

Startup 105

Startup Cofounder Software Stock 105

Both Sides of the Table

JUNE 29, 2011

This in turn has fueled incubation programs like YCombinator, TechStars, 500 Startups & many more to help early-stage teams launch businesses led by most technical founders who are getting coaching from seasoned management teams. You can’t scale a large business quickly on your $500,000 alone.

Venture Capital 296

Venture Capital Software LP Early Stage 296

Agile VC

APRIL 13, 2012

I describe this in part as the “Social Network” effect… not just the movie itself but the example of Mark Zuckerberg and many other high profile young founders as role models ( who can forget this image? ) I co-founded NextView Ventures , a seed-stage VC firm based in Boston, in 2010. link] leehower.

Silicon Valley 185

Silicon Valley San Francisco San Jose Startup 185

David Teten

MARCH 18, 2021

(co-written with Stephane Nasser , co-founder of OpenVC , an open-source initiative to collect and analyze all VC theses.). OpenVC is a new, open-source initiative to collect and analyze all publicly available VC theses, to help founders more efficiently find the right investors, and vice-versa. Technical founders .

Technical Review 78

Technical Review Cofounder Venture Capital Deal Flow 78

mashable.com

NOVEMBER 3, 2010

For the first-time entrepreneur or founder looking for seed stage funding, this circle can be especially difficult to penetrate. Mashable Mashable reached out to angels, seed stage investors and VC firm partners and asked them to share their wisdom with the rest of us. and Path Intelligence.

Angel Investor 80

Angel Investor Startup San Francisco Social Media 80

grasshopperherder.com

SEPTEMBER 24, 2011

« Thanks but No Thanks – Things to Avoid When Recruiting Co-founders Why is Cyber Squatter a Bad Word? Some have been as co-founder, most have been as a consultant with the possibility of becoming an paid employee, “as soon as we close our funding round.” You don’t have a defensible business model.

Sweat Equity 41

Sweat Equity Equity Cofounder Non-Compete 41

View from Seed

APRIL 23, 2015

” Founders must address distribution in their pitches both overtly and succinctly. Their business models are, in many cases, focused on outlier exits within the portfolio. The post Accidental VC: The Most Dangerous Question for Founders to Overlook in Pitches appeared first on The View From Seed.

Founder 120

Founder Distribution Viral Seed Stage 120

David Teten

JUNE 7, 2011

Until recently, most Internet innovation has centered around improvements — big improvements, but incremental ones nonetheless — to existing business models and familiar social structures: Amazon is the ultimate retail destination, Zipcar the ubiquitous rental-car agency; Meetup is a sewing circle on steroids.

Darfur 122

Darfur Sudan Cofounder United Kingdom 122