View from Seed

APRIL 14, 2020

VCs are always founder focused no matter the market environment. But in a FOMO world, more investors are willing to take a chance on a founder that they don’t know, but seems to match some of the heuristics of other high quality founders. This gets really challenging if it remains difficult to meet in person or to travel.

Early Stage 374

Early Stage Software Review Technical Review Due Diligence 374

Startup Professionals Musings

JUNE 2, 2023

Yet everyone has limits, and every investor implicitly has similar limits on what makes a startup investable, or one to avoid at all costs. Here is my perspective on the highest risk elements, from my years of working with investors and watching startups come and go: All the co-founders are first-time entrepreneurs.

New York City 246

New York City Silicon Valley Bootstrapping Technical Review 246

YoungUpstarts

JULY 21, 2019

The founders of Benkheim&Co , an online brand which seeks to change the traditional luxury watch concept, explains how motivated entrepreneurs benefit from globalisation, efficient fulfilment services and new technologies. This way they could mitigate inventory risk and costs at the same time. The solution was crowdfunding.

Cofounder 113

Cofounder Technical Review Technology Netherlands 113

techcrunch.com

OCTOBER 23, 2010

The number one question you all asked after reading my last blog post about starting a business from scratch was “how do I find my co-founders?&# And therein lies the problem in finding co-founders for that startup you’re dying to launch. Having trouble meeting folks you think would be good co-founders?

Cofounder 66

Cofounder Founder Silicon Valley Technical Cofounder 66

David Teten

MARCH 5, 2021

(co-written with Katherine Boe Heuck , a MBA candidate at MIT Sloan (class of 2022); past intern at Versatile VC ; and a current intern at Metaprop NYC.). All of the 40 companies’ 92 founders were male. Of the 19 Western Europe/Israel-based founders, all were white. Of the 43 U.S.-based Of course, this dataset is incomplete.

Cofounder 78

Cofounder Founder Technical Cofounder Technical Review 78

The Next Web

DECEMBER 2, 2013

Here are their breakdowns of the costs and time investments to create 10 of the world’s hottest startups. This means — assuming you already have a laptop — the cost is almost nothing to build the next Twitter. 1) Twitter. But a good developer could make it quicker.”. 3) Facebook. Others would say one million or a much bigger number.

Cost 168

Cost San Francisco New York City Ruby 168

Startup Professionals Musings

SEPTEMBER 7, 2020

Yet everyone has limits, and every investor implicitly has similar limits on what makes a startup investable, or one to avoid at all costs. Here is my perspective on the highest risk elements, from my years of working with investors and watching startups come and go: All the co-founders are first-time entrepreneurs.

New York City 315

New York City Silicon Valley Startup Bootstrapping 315

Both Sides of the Table

NOVEMBER 14, 2017

MakeSpace (as he named it) would help you get your excess goods into low-cost warehouses. As the idea went from innovating on software & systems to launching a company to rolling it out in the field brought on Rahul Gandhi as his co-founder to physically launch the company. were more distributed.

Operations 286

Operations New York City Technical Review Startup 286

Startup Professionals Musings

OCTOBER 14, 2019

In fact, he had four development co-founders, built a relationship with Peter Thiel, a top VC who invested early, and enticed Sheryl Sandberg to fill the COO role he sorely needed. I believe collaboration is the lifeblood of every business. For example, most people think Mark Zuckerberg built Facebook all by himself.

Technical Review 218

Technical Review Software Review Cofounder Social Network 218

Startup Lessons Learned

AUGUST 17, 2020

They were providing low-cost healthy meals for schools across the country and, before the crisis, were delivering two million federally reimbursable school and community meals per week nationwide. Here's my conversation with the founders of Revolution Foods. I'm the co founder and Chief Impact Officer at Revolution Foods.

Cofounder 60

Cofounder Security Founder Entrepreneur 60

ReadWriteStart

JULY 7, 2023

Small and medium-sized businesses frequently face difficulties in meeting the high costs associated with hiring agencies or creating content on their own. This difficulty is something that Jatin Mehta, one of the co-founders of SpeedyBrand, is aware of. Q: How does SpeedyBrand benefit SMBs in online marketing?

Generative AI 127

Generative AI SEO Artificial Inteligence Forecast 127

Startup Professionals Musings

AUGUST 8, 2014

This alternative has been around for several decades, with the generally accepted advantage of reducing costs. Saving cost wont help you if you cant make the daily innovations required to stay competitive. Results on commodities, including mature software maintenance, adapt well to low-cost contracting.

Intellectual Property 238

Intellectual Property Non-disclosure Agreement Software Review Offshore 238

Steve Blank

SEPTEMBER 5, 2018

Jeff Katzenberg has a great track record – head of the studio at Paramount, chairman of Disney Studios, co-founder of DreamWorks and now chairman of NewTV. NewTV will depend on partners like telcos to distribute the content. Lean was designed to inform the founders’ vision while they operated frugally at speed.

Lean 335

Lean Burn Rate Startup IPO 335

This is going to be BIG.

JANUARY 18, 2024

Still, there are a lot of downsides to taking venture money—the push to grow at all costs, our desire to be all up in your business, literally, and sometimes, we’re kind of obnoxious. Some of these folks are founders and CEOs, but not at high-growth tech startups. It will save everyone a lot of cost and time.

.Net 88

.Net Cap Table Startup Technical Review 88

ReadWriteStart

DECEMBER 16, 2020

To be fair, many businesses had distributed teams even before COVID-19 blindsided us. In fact, according to Founders Forum’s survey of 400+ startup owners, 94% of the respondents were already working from home before the pandemic. Out-of-sync teams: The communication gap between co-workers can throw the entire team off-track.

Technical Review 200

Technical Review Startup Belgium Software Review 200

David Teten

JANUARY 19, 2021

(co-written with Jamie Finney, Founding Partner at Greater Colorado Venture Fund. From RBI, Flexible VCs borrow the ability to reap meaningful returns without demanding founders build for an exit. By tying payments to actual revenues, founders and investors remain aligned around the company’s real-time performance, good or bad.

Cofounder 78

Cofounder Technical Review Equity Dividend 78

www.women2.org

MARCH 8, 2012

female founders. founder friday. Lessons learned from female founders and women entrepreneurs. Startup Quote: Wendy Tan White on Building a Successful Startup » FounderDating: How I Found My Co-Founder. Tweet By Elizabeth Knopf (Co-Founder & CEO, Sorced). Conference 2012.

Cofounder 47

Cofounder Technical Review San Francisco Founder 47

VC Cafe

OCTOBER 31, 2022

It’s a tough time for a lot of startup founders right now. This is not meant to be a negative post, but rather a temperature check of today’s market environment and the levers founders can pull on to survive this period. What is a founder to do? Tougher times might be coming ahead. CVCs have participated in 25.6%

Founder 174

Founder Technical Review Down Round Liquidation Preference 174

Both Sides of the Table

MAY 7, 2013

Anyone who reads this blog frequently will know that I am a big believer in low-cost video content and specifically the power of YouTube as a content creation & distribution platform. Production costs have fallen more than 90%. Distribution costs have, too. hours of TV / day. They read less than 30 minutes.

Video 320

Video Los Angeles Technical Cofounder CTO Hire 320

ReadWriteStart

SEPTEMBER 8, 2020

Among its many implications, the digital office means that jobs don’t necessarily need to be done in-person, and today’s startup leaders are realizing that many projects can be done at a lower cost remotely, without any drop in quality. Still, COVID-19 helped tip the balance towards a globally distributed model.

Distribution 145

Distribution Global Agile Startup 145

Startup Professionals Musings

JANUARY 20, 2016

This alternative has been around for several decades, with the generally accepted advantage of reducing costs. Saving cost won’t help you if you can’t make the daily innovations required to stay competitive. Results on commodities, including mature software maintenance, adapt well to low-cost contracting.

Intellectual Property 120

Intellectual Property Non-disclosure Agreement Software Review Technical Review 120

View from Seed

NOVEMBER 6, 2014

Isaac Cambron is co-founder and CTO of Zensight.co , whose pre-launch product enables sales reps to find and use their best content to close more deals. it could also cost your business real money at a crucial early moment in its life. There are two questions that matter here: How much will it cost to do later versus doing now?

Technology 334

Technology Ruby Startup Engineer 334

Startup Professionals Musings

OCTOBER 22, 2018

Yet everyone has limits, and every investor implicitly has similar limits on what makes a startup investable, or one to avoid at all costs. Here is my perspective on the highest risk elements, from my years of working with investors and watching startups come and go: All the co-founders are first-time entrepreneurs.

New York City 202

New York City Silicon Valley Bootstrapping Technical Review 202

Startup Professionals Musings

FEBRUARY 7, 2015

That’s why investors acknowledge that two co-founders are often better than one -- with one focusing on the technical solution, and the other focusing on defining and building the business model. The founder had simply not done the work to validate a price and customer segment. These two jobs need to be done in parallel.

Business Model 120

Business Model Technical Review Advisory Board Software Review 120

Steve Blank

APRIL 23, 2018

When Sloan arrived at GM in 1920 he realized that the traditional centralized management structures organized by function (sales, manufacturing, distribution, and marketing) were a poor fit for managing GM’s diverse product lines. Ford’s Model T cost just $260 ($3,700 in today’s dollars) and Ford held 60% of the U.S. auto market.

Michigan 275

Michigan Cofounder Stock Forecast 275

Brandanew

APRIL 22, 2016

The content is ready and now post-publishing you’re on to emailing your list, reaching out to influencers, and distributing on your social channels. Sometimes, paid advertising tools and platforms can be a great supplement to these more traditional means of distribution. Outbrain. . . Content.ad.

Advertising 100

Advertising Distribution Marketing New York City 100

VC Cafe

JUNE 30, 2022

It forces the founders and investors to understand where the technology can play a pivotal role in shifting control from the big tech companies to the user, and where it needs to improve, such as the negative environmental impact of mining etc. A persistent, infinitely-scaling virtual space with its own economy and identity system.

Cloud 200

Cloud Venture Capital Cofounder Non-Compete 200

Steve Blank

FEBRUARY 26, 2020

What most founders don’t realize is: Every stage of a startup requires a different set of metrics and milestones and founder skills. Knowing these will help a founder position her pitch to get investors’ attention. Founders need to keep their eye on the prize — not just the next funding round. Business Model.

Cofounder 429

Cofounder Seed Stage Valuation Metrics 429

Hearpreneur

OCTOBER 3, 2021

Rossanna Ceccato is the founder of Redress, a disruptive clothing platform that helps women renew and refresh their wardrobes through dress swaps. I have been continually impressed by Sarah Hawley, the founder of Growmotely. Henrique co-founded Brex, a financial service and tech company based in San Francisco, California.

Entrepreneur 102

Entrepreneur San Francisco Technical Review Cofounder 102

Startup Professionals Musings

OCTOBER 29, 2022

In reality, the process of designing, building, and validating a prototype does dramatically reduce the risk, and allows everyone to hone in on the real costs of going into production. Support early negotiation with vendors and distribution channels. Without a prototype, most professional investors won’t take you seriously.

Angel Investor 276

Angel Investor Database Cofounder Distribution 276

Startup Professionals Musings

OCTOBER 9, 2021

Once you graduate, the feedback will cost much more, and it’s too late to take one more course. Peers won’t be able to help you much in finding external investors, co-founders with prior experience and industry connections for distribution and marketing. Then branch out to local business groups.

Entrepreneur 373

Entrepreneur Chad Incubator Dilution 373

Startup Professionals Musings

NOVEMBER 8, 2014

Yet everyone has limits, and every investor implicitly has similar limits on what makes a startup investable, or one to avoid at all costs. Here is my perspective on the highest risk elements, from my years of working with investors and watching startups come and go: All the co-founders are first-time entrepreneurs.

New York City 254

New York City Silicon Valley Bootstrapping Technical Review 254

BeyondVC

JANUARY 3, 2019

Thanks to all of the amazing founders, advisors, co-investors, corporate partners, and others that helped make 2018 an amazing year. To that point, we are most excited when our founders are able to go from slide deck to product-market fit and Series A and beyond. We are truly grateful for your support. First check to Series A?—?congrats

Stealth 79

Stealth Advisory Board Cloud Virginia 79

A Smart Bear: Startups and Marketing for Geeks

OCTOBER 4, 2017

Idealistic founders believe they will break the mold when they scale, and not turn into a “typical big company.” Or it’s fatal because that was a co-founder. Usually it’s starvation — can’t get enough customers (distribution) to pay enough money for long enough (product/market fit).

Government 223

Government Startup Cofounder Technical Support 223

The Next Web

OCTOBER 28, 2012

With the cost of starting and running a startup at all time lows, it is now easier than ever to attempt to take market share. Whether free or paid, a successful distribution channel typically becomes saturated quickly as competitors jump in. Today, a stronger distribution strategy can beat a superior product. Channel saturation.

Technical Review 150

Technical Review Software Review Distribution San Francisco 150

Austin Startup

MARCH 3, 2020

The LexSet Co-Founders (left to right) CEO Francis Bitonti , President Leslie Oliver Karpas , and COO Azam Khan won $250,000 in Verizon’s Built on 5G Challenge The Forrest Four-Cast: March 3, 2020 LexSet serves AI engineers, especially those with limited resources, with a better way to annotate photos.

Technical Review 63

Technical Review Los Angeles Cofounder Silicon Valley 63

Reid Hoffman

OCTOBER 21, 2019

Once achieved, leadership in a Glengarry Glen Ross market can provide decades of substantially profitable operations, repaying and justifying the costs incurred in blitzscaling. Blitzscaling requires a big market to provide a big potential reward to compensate for the risks and costs involved. Distribution. Distribution.

Silicon Valley 53

Silicon Valley Software Review Technical Review United Kingdom 53