Startup Professionals Musings

JANUARY 7, 2013

Sure, there will always some seed funding (10% of overall deal flow), but you can bet that this money goes to entrepreneurs who have been there before and won. Both operating executives and top advisors count. Don’t try to talk your way to a deal before you have the documentation. Timing is critical.

Venture Capital 252

Venture Capital IPO Elevator Pitch Initial Public Offering 252

David Teten

MAY 9, 2012

VCAP© will be operated through NAIC’s subsidiary, The Marathon Foundation, a business development network that supports entrepreneurial growth, access to capital and deal flow. The Marathon Foundation (TMF) is a business development network dedicated to entrepreneurial growth, access to capital and deal flow.

Venture Capital 154

Venture Capital Programming Accredited Investor New York 154

View from Seed

SEPTEMBER 4, 2018

Amidst the rise of new funds, new technologies, and potentially disruptive late stage players, I thought it was important to share what we consider to be our core operating principles here at NextView. . Great returns in early stage investing is driven by great deal flow and good picking.

North America 120

North America Seed Stage Early Stage Lead Investor 120

David Teten

MARCH 14, 2018

I’ve listed them below in *very* roughly descending order of efficiency, measured by increased dollars one can put to work, divided by the operational dollars required to implement each strategy. . Sophisticated VC and private equity funds have a wide array of options for leveraging outside operating executives.

Private Equity 60

Private Equity Venture Capital Equity Cofounder 60

Gust

FEBRUARY 22, 2014

There are literally hundreds of platforms currently operating that connect investors and startups, and there have been at least a hundred others that have come and gone. ” With that in mind… No: It’s a similar situation in the entrepreneurial funding space.

Belarus 107

Belarus Kazakhstan Portugal Accredited Investor 107

Mucker Lab

AUGUST 27, 2014

As an entrepreneur himself, founding and operating printed circuit board factories in Taiwan, my father was debating between two places to immigrate to and build his next new venture: Los Angeles (“The Valley” aka San Fernando Valley) and Santa Clara (“Silicon Valley”).

Los Angeles 138

Los Angeles Southern California Silicon Valley Technical Review 138

Version One Ventures

JANUARY 31, 2024

If you start a new fund, you need to be clearly differentiated: what’s your unique insight into a specific opportunity, your unique network that generates deal flow, your unique value proposition that gets you into deals? generalist focus, operator background).

LP 73

LP Differentiation Deal Flow India 73

ReadWriteStart

JANUARY 13, 2020

The Deal Flow Session. The model that’s worked consistently is the deal flow session. Deal flow is a specifically targeted, curated, matchmaking session between a problem area for a large, Fortune 100 company and the startup ecosystem. That’s all great in theory,” I told Will. Find some great partners.”.

Silicon Valley 78

Silicon Valley Deal Flow IP Curation 78

Feld Thoughts

AUGUST 25, 2015

As dollars flowed into the industry, cooperation was replaced by competition, to the detriment of deal flow, due diligence, ability to add value and, of course, returns. He was a former Wall Street analyst with no operating or investment experience, who became a VC by teaming up with operator LJ Sevin.

Venture Capital 70

Venture Capital SBIC Technical Review Silicon Valley 70

David Teten

JUNE 1, 2011

I enjoyed participating in last week’s Capital Roundtable Private Equity Masterclass on “ Best Practices for Sourcing Quality Deal Flow & Developing New Business ” (May 26 th , 2011). High Road Capital Partners Deal Sourcing Keynote. Question : What portion of your deal flow is proprietary?

Private Equity 122

Private Equity Deal Flow Equity Developer 122

Both Sides of the Table

NOVEMBER 11, 2013

” We explained what we felt the core values of a firm of the future needed to uphold: Provide real operational insights to entrepreneurs (the days of being “money men” are gone). Expand our partnership, bringing in and nurturing next-generation talent who bring operational experience and different points-of-view.

Ireland 324

Ireland Jordan Portfolio Flash 324

YoungUpstarts

SEPTEMBER 4, 2017

Building out your own network of other Angel or Seed investors increases the quality of your deal flow. Beyond that, even just acting as a sounding board on how the industry typically operates can help uncover new opportunity or avoid areas with unnaturally high risk. Operational Expertise.

Pre-Money Valuation 187

Pre-Money Valuation Seed Stage IP Deal Flow 187

This is going to be BIG.

MAY 5, 2023

Either they build a firm in order to outsource the screening and sourcing, they don't do as much deal leading, choosing to follow instead, or they go later stage to narrow their aperture to a much smaller set of companies that already have traction and shrink the amount of deal flow they need to look at.

Later Stage 218

Later Stage Venture Capital Term Sheet Limited Partner 218

David Teten

SEPTEMBER 23, 2017

In venture capital in particular, early-stage companies are often operating in frontier industries, where the rules are unpredictable and conventional analytic frameworks may be misleading. Sebastian Soler recently launched Knowledge.vc , which uses software and machine learning to enhance deal sourcing and diligence for VC firms.

Private Equity 60

Private Equity Venture Capital Equity Technical Review 60

Gust

APRIL 23, 2014

When you realize that the platform operates in half a dozen languages and has investors or entrepreneurs in over 200 countries engaging in both local and cross-border investments, you can begin to see the outlines of the future of finance.

Angel Groups 127

Angel Groups Accredited Investor Private Equity Deal Flow 127

Haystack

JANUARY 18, 2020

VC firms have had to respond to this competitive dynamic by evolving their own operational model, which is not a strong suit of most VC partnerships. There are too many angels, accelerators, scouts, and seed funds who are giving them checks early, potentially diverting deal flow. There are too many startups to keep track of.

Seattle 130

Seattle Seed Stage Deal Flow Vertical 130

This is going to be BIG.

FEBRUARY 21, 2021

They’ll tell you all about their strategy, the order of operations of who and how they pitched, the magic slides, the timing of the raise itself, etc. This is lazy, sexist, and racist—and also stupid because it has no provable impact on deal flow quality. It will all very much make sense.

Venture Capital 162

Venture Capital Cofounder Deal Flow Later Stage 162

The Equity Kicker

OCTOBER 1, 2013

I’m also a fan of focused investment strategies – they allow you to build expertise resulting in better investment decisions and better deal flows as entrepreneurs seek out your expertise. Operational excellence. Operational excellence is a given. Proprietary product or uniquely curated experiences.

Silicon Valley 92

Silicon Valley eCommerce Deal Flow Valuation 92

Rob Go

SEPTEMBER 4, 2018

Amidst the rise of new funds, new technologies, and potentially disruptive late stage players, I thought it was important to share what we consider to be our core operating principles here at NextView. . Great returns in early stage investing is driven by great deal flow and good picking.

North America 36

North America Seed Stage Early Stage Lead Investor 36

Both Sides of the Table

JANUARY 21, 2010

I find that one of my best sources of deal flow is from lawyers. For company registration, angel deals, Series A & B funding, Employee Stock Option Plans (ESOP), IP filings and even litigation it doesn’t need to be that way. I always try operate on the “Fixed Fee +&# arrangement.

Southern California 318

Southern California Silicon Valley IP Stock Options 318

Startup Professionals Musings

APRIL 24, 2011

billion jump in funding over the same quarter of 2010 with a similar number of deals, so it clearly shows a trend to larger deal sizes for fewer startups. Sure, there is always some seed funding (10% of overall deal flow), but you can bet that this money goes to entrepreneurs who have been there before and won.

Venture Capital 233

Venture Capital Revenue Elevator Pitch Silicon Valley 233

www.paulgraham.com

OCTOBER 23, 2010

VCs are much morelikely to make angel-sized investments than they were a year ago.And meanwhile the past year has seen a dramatic increase in a newtype of investor: the super-angel, who operates like an angel, butusing other peoples money, like a VC. One of our axioms at Y Combinator is not to think of deal flow asa zero-sum game.

Startup 93

Startup Valuation Non-Compete Deal Flow 93

Haystack

AUGUST 18, 2019

Those employees and operators, who often have some book wealth now (or are running syndicates on AngelList or acting as a scout for another fund) can easily dump $50K-$100K into one of their ex-colleague’s new startups, or put this money into their friend’s new startup, or their friend’s new hot deal.

Seed Stage 108

Seed Stage Cap Table Early Stage Malaysia 108

Austin Startup

DECEMBER 3, 2019

Binaize (Bangalore, India) Nikhil Jois, CEO Binaize is a network intelligence software product for Industrial IoT that helps minimize machine downtime and increase the operational efficiency of industrial control systems. Investors connect with Techstars to gain access to quality deal flow.

Austin 62

Austin Curation Startup Dallas 62

The Startup Magazine

JUNE 19, 2018

FUND is a national connector of entrepreneurs, VCs, angel investors, and industry experts with a focus on deal flow and making connections. Earlier this year at the FUND Conference in Austin, Texas, over 100 startups presented their early-stage companies in front of hundreds of investors and industry leaders. What is your secret sauce?

Texas 73

Texas Advisory Board Startup Angel Investor 73

Austin Startup

JANUARY 28, 2020

that’s a full third of our deal flow in our first full year of operation. The money is flowing in Dallas too?—?our Fort Worth entrepreneurs and investors showed up too, showing that there are real synergies when we work together. It’s working?—?40

Houston 86

Houston San Antonio Fort Worth Dallas 86

Hunter Walker

OCTOBER 21, 2013

For example, since this particular operator has deep mobile knowledge, he could ‘trade’ that expertise for discussions with top CPG or retail execs. Now they’re the go-to people for those areas, leading to privileged deal flow and information.

Deal Flow 95

Deal Flow Reputation Government Restful 95

Both Sides of the Table

SEPTEMBER 19, 2010

Part 1 – Access to Great Deal Flow – is here. Most people think that being a successful investor is about finding the right deals and nurturing the teams through the difficult times to come out with a great company. This is the fifth & final (I promise!) Access to buyers – I saved the least obvious for last.

Silicon Valley 280

Silicon Valley Early Stage Portfolio Chad 280

Steve Blank

SEPTEMBER 14, 2009

To do this they have to accomplish five things; 1) get deal flow – via networking and legwork, they identify likely industries, companies and teams with the potential for rapid growth (less than 10 years), 2) evaluate those companies and teams on the basis of technology, market opportunity, and team.

Silicon Valley 217

Silicon Valley IPO Technical Review Venture Capital 217

David Teten

JULY 10, 2017

This matching structure takes advantage of the industry knowledge, proprietary deal flow, and network of senior executives. My proposed model looks a bit like the way many VC funds operate internally, except with far more Partners than normal. Trevor Bond , former CEO of CEO of W.P.

Employee 60

Employee Balance Sheet Syndicate Syndication 60

Both Sides of the Table

SEPTEMBER 28, 2011

Operations. Marketing = deal flow = share of mind = start of future relationships. I try to bucket my tasks into major categories and spend some time doing each of them. The same kind of tasks that a startup team has. Here’s my day today and how I bucketed it. My core duty. That would be pretty lame.

Email 314

Email Product Term Sheet Portfolio 314

David Teten

DECEMBER 3, 2019

I walk through below how progressive investors are using technology and analytics throughout all of their operations. We are also seeing technology evaluation as an increasingly important part of LP operational due diligence. She answered, ‘We see a lot of deals.’ I said we had a lot of deal flow. Her answer? ‘I

Technical Review 78

Technical Review Software Review Analytics Private Equity 78

Hippoland

NOVEMBER 27, 2016

I want to try to connect relevant entrepreneurs with new investors and help new investors get more qualified deal flow and exposure. Prior to graduate school, Elizabeth was a strategy & operations consultant at Deloitte Consulting focusing on large healthcare clients.

Southern California 48

Southern California Los Angeles Seed Stage Asia 48

Austin Startup

AUGUST 30, 2019

I didn’t set out to write a book but as we looked around the market for an operational playbook for sales, we couldn’t find one, so I tapped into my 20 years of sales experience and my network so that we could create a valuable resource for founders everywhere,” said Schwartzfarb.

Austin 48

Austin Management Los Angeles New York City 48

Austin Startup

DECEMBER 7, 2017

Creative services: a bureaucratic-sounding catch-all term for providers of creative labor, output, expertise and other things that are a mix of art and science, operate in relative uncertainty. But there’s a giant gap between that and the perception people in general have about how ‘creatives’ operate. Rainbow-Unicorn time!

Design 48

Design Deal Flow Architecture Reputation 48

View from Seed

OCTOBER 22, 2020

I’d say our proportions are roughly 1/3 early career first time founder, 1/3 repeat winner, and 1/3 other (including repeat founders who were not successful previously and experienced operators starting a company for the first time). The second company is sometimes more academic, and is less of a problem that they “just can’t help but solve”.

Founder 194

Founder Deal Flow Early Stage Operations 194

ConversionXL

JULY 25, 2017

Be Mindful of Operational Issues. A/B testing such changes is also difficult because of the changes in staffing or operational logistics that are mandated by, say, adding your phone number to the home page. Tracking Deal Flow in a CRM. It’s a high-risk, high-reward approach for many businesses. Image Source.

B2B 92

B2B Mobile Analytics Deal Flow 92