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. Dev-first API for interactive emails?—?will

Stealth 79

Stealth Advisory Board Cloud Virginia 79

View from Seed

JANUARY 11, 2021

The sudden arrival of the global pandemic has shifted the playbook for founders and venture capitalists. As high-conviction, seed stage investors, we are inherently relationship-driven, and we value meeting exceptional founders face-to-face. Zoom calls have taken the place of in-person meetings.

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Venture Capital Cofounder Early Stage Seed Stage 350

Up and Running

MARCH 11, 2015

I like to follow these blogs through Feedly, but you can often sign up to get email alerts for new posts from most of these blogs. This is the home of Jason Cohen, software startup founder, bootstrapper, investor, and mentor. His blog is full of personal stories, gentle advice, and guidance that will be useful to any startup founder.

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Venture Capital Technical Review Silicon Valley Cofounder 60

YoungUpstarts

FEBRUARY 6, 2017

by Jason Mendelson and Brad Feld, co-authors of “ Venture Deals: Be Smarter Than Your Lawyer and Venture Capitalist “ So, you’ve got a brilliant idea and you’re ready to launch a company. For example, assume you are a seed-stage company that needs $500,000 but you go out looking for $1 million.

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Venture Capital Term Sheet Technical Review Due Diligence 100

Both Sides of the Table

OCTOBER 17, 2009

This posting was inspired by an email from Rajat Suri who wrote me an email in response to Chris Dixon’s blog post (link below) from August, which recently re-ran on Business Insider and has generated much Twitter chatter. A few years ago it became fashionable for large VC’s to do seed funding.

Software Review 283

Software Review Term Sheet Due Diligence Southern California 283

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.

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Seed Stage B2B Seed Capital Revenue 149

Hippoland

JUNE 26, 2016

Check out my side project Hustleathon , which helps founders get over their fear of rejection. Your email deck should cover the basics. I’m a seed investor – what would I expect? If you’re a post-seed company, I also want to see your data over time. Just the founders is sufficient. That comes later.

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Email Seed Stage Cofounder Demand 91

David Teten

JULY 10, 2019

See Should you co-found a company with your friend? My role will depend on team composition, but most likely, your team has the great majority of equity and I’m a non-employee cofounder. . This work is unpaid, as with any other startup at the pre-seed stage. And how do you split the equity? We’re off to the races!

America 60

America Technical Review Advisory Board Due Diligence 60

Both Sides of the Table

OCTOBER 6, 2010

But in my experience as an entrepreneur and now spending my time amongst investors I can generalize that almost all VC investments in early stage technology & Internet investments come down to just four key factors. This post was prompted by an email exchange I had with a young entrepreneur. They might want you to start lean.

Early Stage 360

Early Stage Startup Venture Capital Seed Stage 360

Up and Running

DECEMBER 13, 2021

Fundraising isn’t easy for most founders. No longer are founders being asked to drive up and down Sand Hill Road, meet in small coffee shops throughout SF or NYC, or spend a meaningful amount of money getting around to all of these meetings. Don’t interrupt your co-founder or the investor. Know when to stop talking.

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Founder Cofounder SMS Seed Stage 85

techcrunch.com

SEPTEMBER 6, 2012

Today, AngelList is debuting Docs, which lets seed-stage startups close their round online. As CEO and co-founder Naval Ravikant tells me, when he and co-founder Babak Nivi started VentureHacks a few years ago, their goal was to educate companies on how to negotiate venture term sheets. Your tip here.

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Term Sheet San Francisco Technical Review Seed Stage 70

View from Seed

JULY 22, 2015

Clever uses of channels blogging, email, social, and more. Andy Crestodina, Author & Co-founder, Orbit Media – @Crestodina. To get all episodes of Traction as soon as they’re live, plus exclusive resources and advice for seed-stage startups, subscribe to the View From Seed or follow @NextViewVC.

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Seed Stage Cofounder Viral Audience 120

Agile VC

JUNE 5, 2011

Even for those who don’t care to dive into the numbers, it’s worth a quick glance because co-founder/CEO Andrew Mason wrote a letter which forms the preamble of the full document. Also the proportion of email subscribers who’ve bought a Groupon has held up reasonably well. . Founding Date: 2009. Read More ».

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North America Chicago Boston Silicon Valley 100

mashable.com

NOVEMBER 2, 2011

Facebook Co-Founder’s Startup Asana Launches Publicly. Share on Tumblr email share Share on Tumblr email share. Joshua Baer is the co-founder and CEO of Otherinbox , a prolific angel investor and the director of Capital Factory , Austin’s seed-stage incubator. Email Story.

Social Media 80

Social Media Startup Angel Investor RSS 80

techcrunch.com

APRIL 26, 2013

Co-founder Naval Ravikant explains that 18 pilot companies in the program, including Transcriptic, Double Robotics and Tred, received $6.7 Investors included Founders Fund, 500 Startups and Marc Cuban. This is just the next phase of AngelList’s evolution into a one-stop shop for seed-stage companies and their backers.

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SEC Accredited Investor San Diego New York City 61

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.

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Angel Investor Startup San Francisco Social Media 80

View from Seed

JULY 28, 2016

In episode 22 of our podcast, Traction , Unbounce co-founder and marketing keynote speaker Oli Gardner shared five key parts to well-optimized startup landing pages. It’s a common tactic, the use of landing pages, all thanks to the power of building an email list. Social proof. “They reek of b t,” he says.

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Startup Seed Stage Cofounder Aggregator 136

View from Seed

JULY 9, 2015

It’s a common question that every VC fields from founders — and founders field from other founders, and marketers field from founders, and PR people field from founders. So, when should they — or any seed-stage startup — think about drumming up some PR and making noise around funding?

Startup 120

Startup PR Cofounder Stealth 120

The Next Web

NOVEMBER 14, 2013

Jason Freedman is the co-founder of 42Floors , making it easy for everyone to rent office space. He was there to build relationships with the most successful founders so that they would introduce them to startups they liked. When I was seed-stage fundraising, I liked to keep an investor wish-list on a Google doc.

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Elevator Pitch Cofounder Seed Stage Networking 153

Agile VC

JUNE 25, 2012

The company has been in stealth mode for the last couple months but I wanted to take this opportunity to talk about NextView’s investment in the company and our enthusiasm to be working with co-founders Dan Foody and Alex Cote. And of course email, CRM, and other tools for managing your network of contacts are far older.

Cofounder 140

Cofounder Stealth Silicon Valley Mobile 140

View from Seed

FEBRUARY 5, 2015

You can see the example deck embedded at the end of this post, but in summary, it’s a very short document (five to seven slides) followed by an extensive appendix that maps to the most frequently asked questions a founder is likely to face. For example: Email. Often, first interactions begin via email. First Meetings.

Cofounder 120

Cofounder Startup Seed Stage Warrant 120

steveblank.com

JULY 8, 2011

Poplytics – online surveys and analytics AskYourTargetMarket – market research surveys SurveyMonkey - granddaddy of on-line surveys Amazon Mechanical Turk – you can set up a question and get answers PickFu – A/B testing $5 for 50 opinions Collaboration Dropbox – store, sync, and, share files online.

Software Review 110

Software Review Startup Silicon Valley Analytics 110

Hippoland

JANUARY 1, 2017

In the beginning, I started the blog, because writing was cathartic for me and was a way for me to write down what I was advising founders already on a 1:1 basis. I thought that keeping up the blog would be very difficult for me, but in the end, I missed just 4 weeks and ended this year with ~3k email subscribers.

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Seed Stage Cofounder Email Canada 48

pandodaily.com

NOVEMBER 29, 2012

It’s just getting easier to raise early rounds and harder to raise later rounds,” says Y Combinator’s Paul Graham over email, hewing to the latter view that this has merely become startup life in the Valley. “I wouldn’t expect anyone except seed investors to complain about it,” Graham says.

Technical Review 93

Technical Review Silicon Valley Incubator Syria 93

www.vccafe.com

MARCH 11, 2013

Whether you’re wondering what site search you should use or what is the best email marketing tool, knowledge is power. ” Hackernews list of “Tools of the Trade” for startups - includes over 150 SaaS tools used by startups, and over 150 comments with interesting insights from founders. Email Integration.

Software Review 53

Software Review Technical Review Startup 53

Both Sides of the Table

MARCH 6, 2011

I was hanging out the other day with my buddy Jody Sherman, founder & CEO of EcoMom. If I’m not mistaken, I may have been the first person to send out an angel “personal intro&# email on AngelList through their new platform when it launched or at least I was one of the first few. It worked like a charm.

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Valuation Deal Flow Lead Investor Cofounder 292

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. Read More ».

Silicon Valley 185

Silicon Valley San Francisco San Jose Startup 185

Hippoland

AUGUST 16, 2018

A few years ago, a friend asked me if I could forward an email to Abc VC. But outcome-differentiation is probably lacking – people who use Mailchimp use it to increase revenue by selling more products / services via their emails. At the seed stage, it seemed like a weird niche idea to sleep on someone else’s air mattress.

Sales Cycle 54

Sales Cycle Differentiation Early Stage Bootstrapping 54

Hippoland

AUGUST 16, 2018

A few years ago, a friend asked me if I could forward an email to Abc VC. But outcome-differentiation is probably lacking – people who use Mailchimp use it to increase revenue by selling more products / services via their emails. At the seed stage, it seemed like a weird niche idea to sleep on someone else’s air mattress.

Sales Cycle 48

Sales Cycle Differentiation Early Stage Bootstrapping 48

Agile VC

FEBRUARY 28, 2012

If you and all the people around your startup (co-founders, advisors, existing investors) feel strongly that the company A) could benefit from additional equity capital at this time and B) you’ve accomplished value accretive milestones since your last round of funding, then it might make sense to talk with potential new investors.

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Early Stage Syndicate Syndication Silicon Valley 100

Startup Lessons Learned

AUGUST 24, 2009

Seed-stage investors are learning the metrics of traction, and are getting better at identifying those companies that are really achieving validated learning about customers. Get in touch: Twitter Email Facebook Linkedin Additional resources Startup LessonsLearned, All Seasons : Every post from the blog, in one 600+ page PDF.

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San Francisco Lean Technical Review Distribution 113

Rob Go

FEBRUARY 5, 2015

You can see the example deck embedded at the end of this post, but in summary, it’s a very short document (five to seven slides) followed by an extensive appendix that maps to the most frequently asked questions a founder is likely to face. For example: Email. Often, first interactions begin via email. First Meetings.

Startup 28

Startup Cofounder Seed Stage Warrant 28

www.paulgraham.com

AUGUST 1, 2008

In the last batch of startups we funded, we had several founders who said theyd thought of applying before, but werent sure and got jobs instead. This is a problem for founders, because it makes raising money take longer and cost more in legal fees. Founders and investors have different attitudes to risk.

Web 54

Web Startup Silicon Valley Technical Review 54

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.” The founder is very generous.).

Sweat Equity 41

Sweat Equity Equity Cofounder Non-Compete 41