Both Sides of the Table

FEBRUARY 16, 2017

It was a “disappearing text app” where the founders told me that they named the company because the idea came from how Tiger Woods got caught cheating on his wife because all of his mistresses had evidence that he cheated because they saved text messages from him. I didn’t do that. Because that would a very long and bitchy article I’m sure.

IPO 214

IPO Los Angeles Technical Review Silicon Valley 214

View from Seed

FEBRUARY 12, 2020

During the course of a fundraise, founders are likely to encounter a few questions from VC’s that seem awkward or even a bit unfair. These are questions that usually don’t have anything to do with the business itself, but center around the dynamics of the round or maybe the motivations of the founders.

Term Sheet 364

Term Sheet Burn Rate Founder Partner 364

View from Seed

JANUARY 11, 2021

The sudden arrival of the global pandemic has shifted the playbook for founders and venture capitalists. Investors previously prone to onsite visits and amassed airline miles, now grapple with how to form relationships and build confidence without having met teams in person. Zoom calls have taken the place of in-person meetings.

Venture Capital 350

Venture Capital Cofounder Early Stage Seed Stage 350

Austin Startup

APRIL 1, 2017

out of state VCs Don’t rush a term sheet In assessing financing terms and interacting with their lead investors, most founders instinctively focus on two core things: economics and control. And some founders are quite good at it too. Background Reading: How to avoid “captive” company counsel Local v. Yes, this happens.

Term Sheet 48

Term Sheet Institutional Investors Technical Review Lead Investor 48

David Teten

SEPTEMBER 5, 2014

I’ve also presented at a range of industry conferences on how institutional investors can use professional networks for research , origination , market research , and value creation. Our founders realized that investors needed to learn interactively, on-demand, on very specific topics, and in an atmosphere of trust.

New York 114

New York Technical Review Networking Advisory Board 114

Hunter Walker

JANUARY 10, 2022

I love working with great people and as a venture capitalist, am fortunate the number of founders I’m impressed by far exceeds our investment capacity. Here’s an example of a founder that I’ve known for a while who recently raised a seed round with different firms than ours. The needs of the lead investor for ownership?

Cofounder 89

Cofounder Founder Acquisition Startup 89

Hunter Walker

SEPTEMBER 12, 2022

An Investor and a Founder Postmortem a Mistake. And while I passed on leading their seed, I did contribute a smaller amount into the financing, along with three subsequent pro rata/super pro rata investments. The ability for an investor to earn the trust of a founder and maintain that over time. The Four (!!!)

Cofounder 97

Cofounder Lead Investor Founder Restful 97

Both Sides of the Table

FEBRUARY 15, 2016

How much your company should burn should also have a direct correlation with whom your existing investors are and I strongly advise that you have open conversations with them about their comfort levels and also the level of support you are likely to receive going forward. And recaps hurt founders so often people just avoid doing them.

Burn Rate 150

Burn Rate Cap Table Valuation Software Review 150

Hippoland

APRIL 9, 2017

3) You act cagey about information Early stage investors understand that there is a lot of work to do in an early stage startup. What looks really bad is when founders try to be evasive about their answers. But a lot of founders will act cagey and evade questions or beat around the bush when faced with difficult questions.

Cofounder 48

Cofounder Early Stage Software Review Naming 48

Pascal's View

JULY 9, 2017

At its core, this issue points to the lack of understanding about the importance of post-money valuation by both entrepreneurs and investors. In contrast, there is limited benefit for being the 2 nd investor or the 10 th investor joining the syndicate of a priced round, so it is common for investors to wait to see “who else is involved”.

Post-Money Valuation 49

Post-Money Valuation Valuation Cap Table Covenant 49

ReadWriteStart

JULY 18, 2011

Clavier began his presentation at the beginning of a company's lifecycle, asking how many co-founders a startup ought to have. Money man and pundit Paul Kedrosky also spoke at the International Startup Festival and offered humorous, blunt advice about how to get what you want from investors and investment bankers.

Investment Bankers 153

Investment Bankers Technical Review Cofounder Due Diligence 153

Hunter Walker

SEPTEMBER 27, 2021

And What This Means For Founders. In some ways it’s ALWAYS to an investor’s benefit to suggest a potential new investment wouldn’t be competitive to an existing portfolio company, and it’s ALWAYS to the current portfolio company’s benefit to suggest it might be. Why do I care about how investors at other firms get paid?

Early Stage 115

Early Stage Cofounder Vertical Portfolio 115

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 million in commitments from 620 investors in the past four months, with about $2 million raised per month on average. Investors included Founders Fund, 500 Startups and Marc Cuban.

SEC 61

SEC Accredited Investor San Diego New York City 61

OnlyOnce

APRIL 27, 2021

Here are four tough conversations you may have to have along the way, with some suggestions on how to navigate them. All of these conversations need to come with a point of view of why independence and diversity matters to your company, a lot of empathy, and appreciation for the value the person brings to the table.

Vesting 48

Vesting Cofounder Startup Term Sheet 48

Both Sides of the Table

MAY 30, 2018

I know that some founders feel uncomfortable with this as though they might somehow be sharing something so confidential that it ultimately hurts you. So a VC doesn’t want to price a deal in which the founder feels aggrieved from day one but takes your money anyway because he or she doesn’t have a choice. After all?—?we

Valuation 324

Valuation Post-Money Valuation Pre-Money Valuation Cofounder 324

mashable.com

NOVEMBER 2, 2011

Facebook Co-Founder’s Startup Asana Launches Publicly. 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. Make It Easy for Investors To Write Checks. Look for Your Lead Investor. Trending Stories.

Social Media 80

Social Media Startup Angel Investor RSS 80

Both Sides of the Table

MAY 13, 2018

This is part of a series of advice for founders who need to raise money from venture capitalists. Somehow many first-time founders equate “sales” with something that is beneath them. I always tell founders … “An investors job is to deploy capital and make a return. This is where most founders err.

Term Sheet 332

Term Sheet Due Diligence Campaign Sales 332

David Teten

SEPTEMBER 6, 2015

Previously she was Co-Founder and CEO of SNAZZ, a cloud-based event management platform. What are some of the unique benefits and constraints from the point of view of a founder? . Some corporate funds lead rounds and take board seats, others don’t. Some corporate funds now lead rounds.

Venture Capital 60

Venture Capital Balance Sheet Technical Review Portfolio 60

Both Sides of the Table

JUNE 5, 2015

I am reminded of this problem every time my firm does a financing where a note went before us but more specifically I was reminded by this great post by Brad Feld to talk about the pre-money vs. post-money conversion issue. If you’re a solo founder and haven’t built out your team or engineers I’m likely to want 15+%.

Pre-Money Valuation 150

Pre-Money Valuation Option Pool Post-Money Valuation Dilution 150

VC Adventure

MAY 21, 2014

A few months ago AngelList announced Syndicates - enabling investors on AngelList to create fund-like groups of investors to invest together in AngelList companies (following a single lead investor). FG Angels and AngelList will get their carry straight from the syndicate investors upon an exit.

Syndicate 93

Syndicate Syndication Technical Review Due Diligence 93

leananalyticsbook.com

AUGUST 19, 2012

Founders are magpies, chasing the shiniest new thing they see. Transactional sites are about shopping cart conversion, cart size, and abandonment. There are good studies that show a strong correlation between site performance and conversion rates, so startups ignore this stuff at their peril. The One Metric That Matters.

Metrics 58

Metrics Clickthrough Lean Analytics 58

Scott Edward Walker

JUNE 9, 2019

Over the past few weeks, two of my clients have received financing term sheets in which the investors requested super pro rata rights. Accordingly, I thought it would be helpful for founders to discuss these rights and to point out the problems they create for startups. This is a huge red flag and founders should push back very hard.

Preferred Stock 56

Preferred Stock Term Sheet Dilution Stock 56

Feld Thoughts

MAY 3, 2010

The great companies that I’ve been an investor in share a common trait – the founder/CEO is obsessed with the product. All of the conversations about customer are really about how the customer uses the product and the value the product brings the customer. How a founder/CEO reacts to this speaks volumes to me.

Product 148

Product Cofounder Lead Investor Software 148

Startup Lessons Learned

JUNE 9, 2020

I've known Brian Chesky, Co-Founder, CEO and Head of Community at Airbnb for a long time. In the first part of our conversation, we talk about the chronology of what has happened to Airbnb, the impacts the pandemic has had on their business and the emergency measures the company was required to take. 37:30) Compassion in layoffs. (39:37)

Silicon Valley 60

Silicon Valley Hosting Cofounder Employee 60

ithacaVC

DECEMBER 9, 2018

They are independent from the founders, independent from the management team and independent from investors. Often there is inherent tension between professional investors (VCs) and founders. Good for the founders and good for the investors. Doors open, conversations are easier, business happens.

Stock Options 40

Stock Options Salary Lead Investor Founder 40

Up and Running

JANUARY 25, 2017

We had previously launched a demo of our product to show traction to potential investors, and better define the pain-points for potential clients. My soon to be former co-founder replied, “We’ve seen 400 percent growth, month over month, and after the first 30 days we’re getting very positive feedback. But I was too upset to sleep.

Venture Capital 60

Venture Capital Cofounder Security Partner 60

Austin Startup

MARCH 4, 2019

Steve Kelly, Lead Investor; Godfrey Nazareth, President & CEO; and Matthew Maltese PhD, co-founder and Chief Innovation Officer The Forrest Four-Cast: March 3, 2019 Fifty diverse startups will aim to impress a panel of judges and a live audience with their skills, creativity and innovation at SXSW Pitch Presented by Cyndx.

Startup 79

Startup Philadelphia Cofounder Distribution 79

VC Adventure

MAY 21, 2014

A few months ago AngelList announced Syndicates – enabling investors on AngelList to create fund-like groups of investors to invest together in AngelList companies (following a single lead investor). FG Angels and AngelList will get their carry straight from the syndicate investors upon an exit.

Syndicate 48

Syndicate Syndication Technical Review Due Diligence 48

This is going to be BIG.

FEBRUARY 17, 2016

These are the kinds of things you learn when you back founders that are essentially students of agricultural commodities to build a new exchange. So yeah, let's have *that* conversation. If you're a startup investor, you have to take risk somewhere. You might take first time founder risk if you think they're coachable.

Chicago 60

Chicago Security Lead Investor Government 60

Hippoland

JANUARY 4, 2017

Lawyers can charge as much as $10k-$30k (in the US) to draft and execute the legal docs for an equity round, and traditionally, founders are responsible for paying for this as well as investors’ legal costs! Usually, an equity round is kicked off by a “lead investor”. Convertible securities are not loans.

Convertible Security 48

Convertible Security Equity Security Silicon Valley 48

Agile VC

JANUARY 12, 2012

Yet a clear and quick “no” is often the best response other than an enthusiastic “yes” But there’s a difference between “no” and “not yet” And “not yet” responses can depend both on the investor and the entprereneurs.

Seed Stage 100

Seed Stage Silicon Valley Syndicate Syndication 100

Austin Startup

MAY 17, 2017

At a minimum, the lead investor(s) of the round get Board seats; although they shouldn’t get Board control. Giving seed stage investors Board seats is not the norm. The majority of companies we see have Founders only on the Board before closing their Series A. Take it seriously.

Seed Stage 48

Seed Stage Startup Cap Table Angel Investor 48

David Teten

JULY 12, 2017

Alpha Venture Partners’ and Correlation Ventures’ founders all have strong operational backgrounds; that said, they don’t typically serve on boards and don’t get as involved in company management as many other VCs. They are comfortable with others taking the lead. .

Syndicate 60

Syndicate Syndication Institutional Investors LP 60

Rob Go

FEBRUARY 3, 2014

Also included in the round are typically 2 sorts of high-quality angels – those that really know the founders and are let into the round because of relationship, and those that are more value-added in nature, usually because of the brand credibility they bring or deep domain knowledge. In a given $1.5M Feel free to call them”.

Term Sheet 73

Term Sheet Due Diligence Valuation Seed Stage 73

Bryce Dot VC

FEBRUARY 12, 2015

Each of these in person discussions has helped us to better get a sense for what’s resonating, what red flags need to be addressed and how founders are viewing what it is we’re trying to do. From these meetups it’s clear that many founders are just interested in the money, which is obviously understandable.

San Francisco 40

San Francisco Distribution Equity Delaware 40

Reid Hoffman

JANUARY 26, 2021

The primary goal of this conversation was to explain how and why a great startup board can be a powerful tool to help the CEO make the company successful. But every so often another founder also sits on the board. Too often, entrepreneurs (who are inveterate optimists) focus too much on the upside when picking investor board members.

Startup 36

Startup Equity Early Stage Green 36

Gust

DECEMBER 27, 2012

You should know every metric regarding customer acquisition, conversion and retention. The second reason is that investors want to know that YOU believe in your own startup…and the best way for you to demonstrate that is to show that you have personally put your own money where your mouth is.

Software Review 164

Software Review Term Sheet Technical Review Angel Investor 164