VC Cafe

JUNE 6, 2024

Benchmark: Serena Capital suggests that B2B SaaS startups should aim for a 10% month-over-month MRR growth rate in the early stages. Conversion Rates : Free-to-paid conversion rates vary, with freemium products typically seeing a median conversion rate of around 5%, while free trials have a median rate of about 10%.

B2B 97

B2B Burn Rate Generative AI Retention 97

View from Seed

SEPTEMBER 14, 2021

This post is inspired by some of the earliest conversations I have had with the team here at NextView and since the beginning of my VC journey. For context, seed-stage pre-money valuations are up 24% from H1 2020 to H1 2021. Early-stage valuations are up 70%, and late-stage valuations are up 103% (source Pitchbook ).

Valuation 319

Valuation Pre-Money Valuation Distribution Early Stage 319

SoCal CTO

NOVEMBER 11, 2009

She is a go to person for me when I have questions around technology or early stage marketing and branding. We do a lot of B2B and also have an "Early Stage Branding" practice for technology startups. The analogy of a lively dinner conversation to describe Visible Networking is perfect. Maybe ten years.

Early Stage 150

Early Stage Southern California Los Angeles Marketing 150

David Teten

JANUARY 19, 2021

Yes, via conversion rights at a valuation cap. Yes, via conversion rights at a valuation cap. Seed-stage compatible: Like traditional equity VC investors, Flexible VCs accomodate early-stage investment risk within their portfolios better than a traditional RBI funder. Flexible VC: Compensation-based.

Cofounder 78

Cofounder Technical Review Equity Dividend 78

View from Seed

SEPTEMBER 14, 2021

This post is inspired by some of the earliest conversations I have had with the team here at NextView and since the beginning of my VC journey. For context, seed-stage pre-money valuations are up 24% from H1 2020 to H1 2021. Early-stage valuations are up 70%, and late-stage valuations are up 103% (source Pitchbook ).

Valuation 295

Valuation Pre-Money Valuation Distribution Early Stage 295

ConversionXL

FEBRUARY 3, 2022

Strategic alliances with other brands to develop offerings or leverage each others’ distribution channels. But in the early stages of development, you might not have the quantitative data necessary to dig into these questions. You notice that trial conversions of Canva Pro aren’t converting well. Partnerships.

Marketing 115

Marketing Framework Metrics Channel 115

Both Sides of the Table

MARCH 1, 2016

At the Upfront Summit in early February, we had a chance to have many off-the-record conversations with Limited Partners (LPs) who fund Venture Capital (VC) funds about their views of the market. However, they have been sending VCs far more investment checks in the last ten years than they’ve gotten back as distributions.

Venture Capital 150

Venture Capital LP Silicon Valley Marketing 150

BeyondVC

JANUARY 3, 2019

While developers can now spin up applications faster than ever before, one of the downsides is the complexity of managing these distributed applications and technologies. Year of HQ2 and Distributed Teams: It was a banner year for non-Silicon Valley cities as NYC and Northern Virginia were selected as Amazon’s HQ2.

Stealth 79

Stealth Advisory Board Cloud Virginia 79

View from Seed

JULY 15, 2020

One topic of conversation among VC’s over the last few months is how their portfolios are faring during the Covid pandemic. Some early stage businesses may even be able to get to CFBE fairly quickly. Unevenly distributed, but broadly optimistic. But that remains to be seen.

Portfolio 217

Portfolio IRR Dilution Distribution 217

Hunter Walker

MARCH 27, 2017

At the early stages, EVERY company still has significant risks associated with it. Additionally, I find low conversion among investors who can’t articulate their specific investment thesis for a given opportunity and what they hope to discover during diligence. Distribution / growth risk. Technical risk.

Founder 48

Founder Technical Review Cofounder Distribution 48

View from Seed

SEPTEMBER 14, 2021

This post is inspired by some of the earliest conversations I have had with the team here at NextView and since the beginning of my VC journey. For context, seed-stage pre-money valuations are up 24% from H1 2020 to H1 2021. Early-stage valuations are up 70%, and late-stage valuations are up 103% (source Pitchbook ).

Valuation 156

Valuation Pre-Money Valuation Distribution Early Stage 156

Both Sides of the Table

FEBRUARY 6, 2019

That’s a reason why some are quick to portend “a new bubble” but this post sets out to show that would be a misunderstanding of the market and in fact by historic levels this may be amongst the best times to invest in seed and early-stage funds. More on that later.

Venture Capital 292

Venture Capital IPO Mezzanine Early Stage 292

Up and Running

MARCH 19, 2019

If your business has an online component, and almost every business does, optimizing the path to a purchase conversion and building a strategy for customer retention is essential. In summary, this research method allows you to: Distribute budget. If they choose to make a purchase, you have achieved a conversion.

Customer 77

Customer Early Stage Retention Conversion 77

Up and Running

JUNE 14, 2017

Early stage idea validation can be accomplished without building an application. And that, by the way, was a great conversion rate for a simple survey-based research for the initial free subscription version of Recycler Spotter. Then, about two weeks before launch, I distributed a survey to those 256 partners.

Technical Review 96

Technical Review Distribution Redemption Demand 96

Both Sides of the Table

SEPTEMBER 8, 2010

This is the failure of many early-stage companies when they try to scale. But this isn’t restricted to distributed teams, multi-country environments or even large companies. I opened up with a very blunt conversation about self confidence, self doubt, family pressure, peer pressure and the demands on a CEO.

Ireland 319

Ireland Sales Bankruptcy Germany 319

Both Sides of the Table

DECEMBER 3, 2009

It felt like Groundhog Day because I have this conversation again and again – literally dozens of times each year. When they promise to help you with marketing, sales, distribution, integrated product development, etc. Yesterday I had lunch with a really interesting and capable serial entrepreneur who is raising his A round.

Strategic Investors 279

Strategic Investors Venture Capital Due Diligence Early Stage 279

Duct Tape Marketing

JANUARY 2, 2024

Calling it Informed Automation, as opposed to Artificial Intelligence, our conversation covers the future of this technology, envisioning AI systems with a deeper understanding of context and autonomy. Ken (03:37): That's a great question because I think we are actually very early on. It was a great conversation.

Artificial Inteligence 70

Artificial Inteligence ChatGPT Algorithm Technical Review 70

Rob Go

JANUARY 12, 2015

As an early stage investor, should you pay up for team or traction? When you are thinking about joining an early stage company, how should you be evaluating the risk of the overall company? How should you be weighing the presence of a great founding team vs. early signs of traction? The Case for Traction.

B2B 28

B2B Early Stage Distribution Software Review 28

View from Seed

DECEMBER 6, 2018

But when you are having a real conversation with someone, you always start by introducing yourself. Again, the money slide of most early stage decks is the most relevant top line growth and engagement metrics. So save everyone the trouble and put the team slide up front. Bring traction up front as well.

Metrics 120

Metrics Early Stage Distribution Audience 120

Duct Tape Marketing

JUNE 29, 2023

Key Takeaway: While significant progress has been made in AI, we are still at the early stages of it’s development. Kenneth Wenger (04:32): You know, that's a great question because I think we are actually very early on. And the word, the way they're doing that is that they calculate what are called probability distribution. (10:31):

Artificial Inteligence 62

Artificial Inteligence ChatGPT Algorithm Networking 62

View from Seed

JANUARY 13, 2015

When you are thinking about joining an early stage company, how should you be evaluating the risk of the overall company? How should you be weighing the presence of a great founding team versus early signs of traction? Great teams fail to build a product and get early distribution all the time.

Seed Stage 120

Seed Stage B2B Distribution Early Stage 120

The Equity Kicker

JANUARY 30, 2018

Over-value conversations and even deals with large enterprise customers. As for VARs, they typically only provide fulfillment in the early days (and if you’re really lucky, deal registration for qualified leads) because they aren’t structured to carry pre-chasm products — i.e., pitching, educating, hiring the right sales force.

Software 106

Software Startup Channel Early Stage 106

YoungUpstarts

JANUARY 2, 2019

While still in its early stages, machine learning has already had a significant impact on different aspects of everyday life. If traffic were inclined to visit this restaurant but didn’t want to spend a lot of time in line or waiting to be served, they would likely opt for the less busy times, evening out the distribution.

Artificial Inteligence 127

Artificial Inteligence Algorithm Semantic Cofounder 127

View from Seed

APRIL 7, 2015

Ironically, I was speaking at an event just last week where three of these came up in the conversation.). Dirty Secret #1: An early-stage startup’s design actually does matter. It probably shouldn’t be the case, but the look and feel and polish of your materials makes a big difference for early-stage investors.

Early Stage 120

Early Stage Founder Later Stage Engineer 120

Both Sides of the Table

APRIL 21, 2020

Food production and distribution, group collaboration, remote training or education, sensor technology (tracking people movement, temperatures, etc), certain biotech deals. But there are some deals that will get funded even though not necessarily seed: If you’re in an anointed category that will serve a post Covid-19 world well.

Marketing 263

Marketing Valuation Churn Rate Balance Sheet 263

Up and Running

MAY 3, 2012

And besides, obtaining early-stage investment is no guarantee of success, either. The signs to me are all too obvious from our conversations. -based venture capital fund had just invested in 17 companies. This tiny percentage is pretty typical, and represents a lot of time wasted by all concerned. Surely we can do better?

Entrepreneur 82

Entrepreneur Technical Review Silicon Valley Lean 82

Austin Startup

JANUARY 28, 2020

On top of that, we’re fourth in early-stage funding. They’ve been making a huge impression on the city, along with the rising Siete Family Foods startup which recently raised $90 million and tripled its nationwide distribution. According to Inc. Tom Foster for Inc.’s s “The 50 Best U.S. 3 Texas Cities Recognized in Inc.’s

Texas 63

Texas Fort Worth Dallas Houston 63

SoCal CTO

MARCH 22, 2007

It seems that four different models of "discussion creation" have occurred: Organice Discussion - someone posts something interesting, lots of bloggers post on the topic, distributed discussion ensues. Im constantly frustrated by conversations that take place in discussion groups that cant cross the border into the blog world.

Technical Cofounder 150

Technical Cofounder Southern California Los Angeles CTO Hire 150

SoCal CTO

OCTOBER 8, 2009

This is a great presentation and one that I'm going to point out to startup / early stage company CEOs. channels (search, social, viral, new media), cost-efficient distribution He also points a fair bit to Eric Ries – The lean startup. A post by Fred Wilson pointed me to Dave McClure's Startup Metrics presentation. Great stuff.

Metrics 225

Metrics Startup Retention Acquisition 225

This is going to be BIG.

SEPTEMBER 21, 2010

Disqus improves the conversation on any site. There’s no reason why any company shouldn’t have 50 potential business development partners in their pipeline, maybe 100, and be actively working the phones, inboxes, and pounding the pavement to get the deals you need to get—be it for distribution, revenue, PR, or just to outflank a competitor.

Early Stage 138

Early Stage Developer Technical Review Widget 138

Steve Blank

NOVEMBER 16, 2009

Business Model Affects Metrics and Exit Criteria Web-based Business Model Exit Criteria In a web-business model you’re looking for traffic, users, conversion, virality, etc – not revenue. Even startups that are dominated by technical risk have the customer validation risk of finding positive ROI distribution in a large market.

Customer Development 228

Customer Development Web Developer Customer 228

Austin Startup

DECEMBER 20, 2020

Andy is a global thought leader in remote work, telecommuting, and distributed workforces having served as CEO of Crossover and Sococo and on the board of Texas Central, our new bullet train. Ben previously co-founded Simply Interactive, Chaotic Moon, and Conversable leading all of them to successful exits.

Austin 110

Austin Texas Cofounder Los Angeles 110

Up and Running

JULY 26, 2016

Selling a product is a tough process, full of “no’s,” whether they come on the phone with a prospect or as a low conversion rate on your landing page. Most campaigns can be optimized to increase conversion rates and lower costs. ” tweet we got a great response rate and moved our conversation to email. The outcome of this?

Revenue 60

Revenue Acquisition Channel Campaign 60

thebarefootvc

DECEMBER 2, 2018

Instead of party-hopping, attendees had more substantive conversations about the future. In his fireside chat with Silver Lake co-founder Glenn Hutchins, SEC Chairman Jay Clayton started his remarks talking about the promise of distributed ledger technology (aka blockchain). The half hour conversation is worth a view.

SEC 40

SEC Early Stage Cofounder Distribution 40

Both Sides of the Table

MAY 30, 2018

Many VCs will have a distribution curve where they’ll do a small number of early-stage deals (say $1.5–3 3 million invested at a $6–10m pre-money), a larger number of “down the fairway” deals ($4–5 million at a $15–25 million pre) and a few later-stage deals (say $8–10 million at a $30–40 million pre).Of

Valuation 324

Valuation Post-Money Valuation Pre-Money Valuation Cofounder 324

Austin Startup

AUGUST 8, 2020

Has that geographic distribution changed at all since the start of the pandemic? Those conversations also flow more naturally, which leads to better stories. That’ll include new VC firms, several IPOs and continued growth of the early-stage startup scene?—?not Are most of your readers based in Central Texas?

Austin 62

Austin Minnesota Silicon Valley Entrepreneur 62

Startup Lessons Learned

MAY 31, 2019

We’ve always invested across different stages - in fact, one of our very first investments as a firm in 2009 was in the Skype spin-out from eBay - but until very recently, we’ve always done so out of a single fund structure and with the same teams that are focused on our early-stage investment activities. No need to name names.

Lean 108

Lean Venture Capital Conversion IPO 108