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Praying to the God of Valuation

Both Sides of the Table

We had nascent revenues, ridiculous cost structures and unrealistic valuations. I learned to avoid unnecessary conferences, avoid non-essential costs and strive for at least a neutral EBITDA if for no other reason than nobody was interested in giving us any more money. Until we weren’t. Nobody cared about our valuations any more.

Valuation 466
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The Truth About Convertible Debt at Startups and The Hidden Terms You Didn’t Understand

Both Sides of the Table

Because convertible debt deals often have both a ‘full ratchet’ and often have ‘multiple liquidation preferences’ “ Yup. The key for entrepreneurs to understand is whether it’s a “full ratchet” or a “weighted average ratchet.” Convertible notes have full ratchets.

Ratchet 354
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In Q4 2022, founders face tough choices

VC Cafe

Two weeks ago in San Francisco, a conversation with tech lawyers from the US and Europe was a confirmation of what I read in the news. Israeli tech review Q3 2022, IVC Online and Bank Leumi. Israeli Tech Review Q3 2022 (Source: IVC Online and Bank Leumi ). It’s an investors market. Investors are calling the shots. of deal value.

Founder 173
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Bad Notes on Venture Capital

Both Sides of the Table

At an accelerator … Me: Raising convertible notes as a seed round is one of the biggest disservices our industry has done to entrepreneurs since 2001-2003 when there were “full ratchets” and “multiple liquidation preferences” – the most hostile terms anybody found in term sheets 10 years ago.

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Fear is the mind-killer

Startup Lessons Learned

He summarized that conversation well, so rather than re-tread that material, Ill quote it here: One thing that I was surprised to learn was that IMVU started out with continuous deployment. As the product matured, they were able to ratchet up the quality to prevent regression on features that had been truly embraced by their customers.

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Version 2.0 and why Series Seed Documents are better than capped convertible notes

www.seriesseed.com

  With Series Seed: ·    Costs should be roughly the same (if not cheaper) than using industry standard debt documents.  In sum, Series Seed creates a level playing field between capped debt and equity documents in terms of speed and cost.    This is EXACTLY why I created the Series Seed Documents. 

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Founders – Use Your Down Round To Clean Up Your Cap Table

Feld Thoughts

Much of it is very short term focused and, like a giant tractor beam, draws the conversation into a very short time horizon (as in days or weeks). One of my favorite lines in buried in the middle: “I’ve heard enough companies say “we simply can’t cut costs or it will hurt the long-term potential of the business” to get a wry smile.