Genuine VC

JULY 19, 2010

a new segment of the institutional venture market is emerging. Both super-angels are institutionalizing “up” and formerly traditional VCs shifting “down” to fill a market opportunity. The capital deployment velocity is notably higher than a traditional 1-2 investment per partner per year. Structural.

Seed Stage 175

Seed Stage Technical Review Dilution Offshore 175

Startup Professionals Musings

MAY 8, 2022

Don’t wait for the harsh reality of the demanding business world to start thinking about these tradeoffs. The right time to jump is a function of favorable career, personal, and market circumstances. The downside is loss of control and financial dilution. That’s not an attractive statistic if you crave control and power.

Founder 325

Founder Hockey Stick Cofounder Liquidity Event 325

Both Sides of the Table

FEBRUARY 20, 2019

just having a sparring partner with a vested interest in your success can be useful. In 2019 market conditions often are such that founders retain control of the board through the A-round, usually in a 2–1 (common to investor) ratio but sometimes it’s 3–2 (common to investor). If you get a smart person on the board?—?just

Venture Capital 236

Venture Capital Startup Angel Investor Silicon Valley 236

YoungUpstarts

OCTOBER 16, 2016

We witness so many of the subtle gains of our labor – ideas made real, people turned passionate partners and the prospects of inching ever-closer to a long-term future rather than the great likelihood of total business failure. Re-set the vendor and partner paradigm. Expect it, plan for it and don’t apologize for it.

Cofounder 100

Cofounder Balance Sheet Small Business Administration Technical Review 100

David Teten

JANUARY 19, 2021

(co-written with Jamie Finney, Founding Partner at Greater Colorado Venture Fund. From RBI, Flexible VCs borrow the ability to reap meaningful returns without demanding founders build for an exit. The value ascribed by subsequent investors (in a secondary); buyers (acquisition); or the public markets (IPO). Of the Inc.

Cofounder 78

Cofounder Technical Review Equity Dividend 78

Both Sides of the Table

OCTOBER 12, 2014

Prorata rights are one of the most important rights of a private market technology investors and yet are seldom fully understood. Because companies are raising way more capital in private markets than they ever did in the past. So the answer is: sometimes they take it, sometimes they don’t. Aren’t they getting screwed?

Technical Review 336

Technical Review Later Stage Early Stage LP 336

Austin Startup

JULY 6, 2018

Ask the Users Startup Accelerators: Bundled and Unbundled Over the past several years, accelerators have emerged as a powerful filtering and signaling mechanism in early-stage startup ecosystems, allowing high-potential young startups to connect with investors, advisors, and other strategic partners far faster and more efficiently than before.

Dilution 48

Dilution Startup Technical Review Equity 48

View from Seed

OCTOBER 28, 2019

In other words, the goal of a pre-seed round isn’t to subsequently raise a Series A (which these days requires both product-market fit and meaningful evidence of strong market demand), but to raise another round of seed financing. It really does depend from startup to startup.

Seed Stage 248

Seed Stage Finance Dilution Early Stage 248

Feld Thoughts

MARCH 24, 2017

Lindel joined Foundry Group as a partner to lead the fund investing activity of Foundry Group Next. We’ve had the opportunity to work with Founder Collective’s partners – David Frankel, Eric Paley, and Micah Rosenbloom – over the years on several companies. But they didn’t take advantage of that demand.

Founder 75

Founder LP Technical Review Seed Stage 75

Startup Professionals Musings

JUNE 2, 2019

Most people agree that leadership is primarily a set of behaviors that capitalize on relationships and a current market and customer understanding in a complex world. Many busy new venture owners believe they have heard it all before, so they tune out of conversations, or revert to multi-tasking, thus diluting their leadership.

Leadership 244

Leadership Dilution Metrics Demand 244

The Next Web

SEPTEMBER 13, 2013

In India, the leading firms are slightly more concentrated with Sequoia India , Accel Partners , and Nexus Venture Partners being a cut above the rest. The region’s other strong VC presence resides in Japan, which has the typical Japanese model of a few large firms dominating the market. This is driven both by supply and demand.

Asia 132

Asia Silicon Valley India Term Sheet 132

Startup Professionals Musings

JULY 26, 2019

Both good coaches and good businesses are strong enough to change course quickly as the needs change and the market changes. People need coaching to weather setbacks and surprises which can dilute their confidence, and take away their ability to experience their full potential. A coaching culture thrives on agility and resilience.

Dilution 229

Dilution Agile Developer Demand 229

Startup Professionals Musings

AUGUST 10, 2019

Don’t wait for the harsh reality of the demanding business world to start thinking about these tradeoffs. The right time to jump is a function of favorable career, personal, and market circumstances. The downside is loss of control and financial dilution. That’s not an attractive statistic if you crave control and power.

Hockey Stick 243

Hockey Stick Cofounder Liquidity Event Startup 243

Startup Professionals Musings

JANUARY 6, 2021

Fight the urge do more things, to attract more customers in a broader market. In reality, too many choices actually dilutes customer interest in your existing market, and makes your job of production, marketing, and support much more complex. The company has since gone public, and is still a market leader.

Technical Review 400

Technical Review Technical Cofounder Advisory Board Cofounder 400

Version One Ventures

FEBRUARY 6, 2019

It’s no secret that biotech can be very lucrative – particularly when a drug successfully makes it to market. The cost of bringing a drug to market is expensive (hundreds of millions of dollars to billions of dollars) and risky (it simply might not work!). On the flip side, biotech is much more capital intensive than software.

Dilution 132

Dilution Artificial Inteligence IPO Valuation 132

Both Sides of the Table

JUNE 17, 2017

Is the revenue dependent on a concentrated set of distribution partners or platforms that put future revenue at risk? They hired a marketing team to promote their products more broadly. They hired a biz dev team to work on deals where their product could be embedded in other people’s products as a way to increase customer demand.

Stock Options 227

Stock Options Startup Dilution Venture Capital 227

View from Seed

MAY 2, 2019

The challenge with pre-seed rounds is that pricing will sometimes be pretty dilutive. My experience is that YC partners tend to encourage founders to hold off on taking more money shortly after getting into YC, arguing that their value will increase significantly in just a few months. The Pre-YC Pre-Seed.

Early Stage 215

Early Stage Dilution Valuation .Net 215

Startup Professionals Musings

JANUARY 29, 2018

Now is the time to talk to a qualified attorney, and get some discipline in place for the following strategies: Manage founder’s shares like gold with partners. Even though initial stock has no market value today, it is extremely valuable in dividing equity ownership between co-founders, investors, and early partners.

Stock 129

Stock Vesting Preferred Stock Cofounder 129

YoungUpstarts

MARCH 1, 2019

by Eric Weisbrot, Chief Marketing Officer of JW Surety Bonds. The market as a whole is expected to increase to $523 billion in sales in the next year, showing promising gains from years past. While networking with partners in shipping is beneficial, it takes time and effort that some businesses simply do not have.

Matching 113

Matching Dilution Small Business Partner 113

Both Sides of the Table

MAY 30, 2018

VC firms see thousands of deals and have a refined sense of how the market is valuing deals because they get price signals across all of these deals. If a VC prices a flat or down round it means that management teams are often taking too much dilution. But there is also another very rational reason. The “how much have you raised?”

Valuation 324

Valuation Post-Money Valuation Pre-Money Valuation Cofounder 324

Startup Professionals Musings

MAY 18, 2015

It’s disconcerting for most to realize that these shares are initially worth nothing, and the challenge is to get that value up as quickly as possible, without losing it just as quickly to investors, lazy partners and taxation. This is called stock dilution control. Minimize your own loss of ownership as major investors contribute.

Stock 120

Stock Vesting Common Stock Founder Vesting 120

David Teten

SEPTEMBER 2, 2017

It’s hard enough to get a job at a venture capital or private equity firm; it’s even more complex to join as a Partner. I thought it would be helpful to put together some notes on market norms and issues to consider in negotiating a partnership at an institutional investment firm. So assessing fit is critical. What should the firm do?

Private Equity 60

Private Equity Venture Capital Equity Partner 60

Startup Professionals Musings

DECEMBER 14, 2014

Don’t wait for the harsh reality of the demanding business world to start thinking about these tradeoffs. The right time to jump is a function of favorable career, personal, and market circumstances. The downside is loss of control and financial dilution. That’s not an attractive statistic if you crave control and power.

Hockey Stick 268

Hockey Stick Cofounder Entrepreneur Liquidity Event 268

Up and Running

MAY 27, 2014

You should think of choosing an investor the same way you consider choosing a business partner, because after you take their money, they become a partner in your business. And if you choose a partner based on money alone, you’re going to find yourself in trouble. (It Is your target market new to the investor?

Angel Investor 119

Angel Investor Dilution Accredited Investor Due Diligence 119

Startup Professionals Musings

AUGUST 19, 2017

Don’t wait for the harsh reality of the demanding business world to start thinking about these tradeoffs. The right time to jump is a function of favorable career, personal, and market circumstances. The downside is loss of control and financial dilution. That’s not an attractive statistic if you crave control and power.

Hockey Stick 144

Hockey Stick Cofounder Entrepreneur Liquidity Event 144

Babbling VC

OCTOBER 3, 2011

Fortunately, for those of us in the market long enough, it's actually good news. For those of you not in the know, they are one of the largest limited partners ( LP's : investors in venture capital funds) in Europe and are basically in almost all the funds throughout the market. This for me is a no-brainer.

LP 82

LP Europe Germany Venture Capital 82

Startup Professionals Musings

JULY 19, 2013

Don’t wait for the harsh reality of the demanding business world to start thinking about these tradeoffs. The right time to jump is a function of favorable career, personal, and market circumstances. The downside is loss of control and financial dilution. That’s not an attractive statistic if you crave control and power.

Founder 245

Founder Hockey Stick Cofounder Liquidity Event 245

99u.com

DECEMBER 22, 2012

Assuming no dilution (which is not a good assumption), this means you need to sell for $200 million. If tenths of a percent of options for an advisor causes too much dilution, then youve failed anyway. Jeffrey Bussgang General Partner at Flybridge Capital Partners, Author of "Mastering the VC Game ". Self-Marketing.

Turkey 40

Turkey Dilution Portfolio Exit Strategy 40

The Next Web

FEBRUARY 27, 2014

George Deeb is the Managing Partner at Chicago-based Red Rocket Ventures , a startup consulting and financial advisory firm based in Chicago. Supply and demand. To start, let’s not forget about the obvious: the natural economic principles of supply and demand apply to valuing your business. The more scarce a supply (e.g.,

Valuation 167

Valuation Forecast Seed Stage .Net 167

rapidrollout.wordpress.com

JANUARY 15, 2011

He or she might call himself a “consulting CTO,&# “freelance CTO,&# “on-demand CTO,&# “CTO on call,&# “CTO for hire,&# or just a “technology strategy advisor.&# Also, working with a consulting CTO will prepare you for finding and selecting a permanent technology partner.

Fractional CTO 40

Fractional CTO CTO CTO Hire Fractional VPE 40

Lightspeed Venture Partners

OCTOBER 22, 2012

As you may have already seen , I’ve been breaking down the pitches on this season’s Shark Tank while wearing my work hat as a Managing Director at Lightspeed Venture Partners. The company has gotten off to a fast start, $150k in revenue in the first two months, with all the marketing coming from social media. Freaker USA.

Pre-Money Valuation 101

Pre-Money Valuation Valuation Dilution Differentiation 101

Both Sides of the Table

APRIL 25, 2011

The founders could reinvest this in growth (0% tax, focus on future equity growth) or take the profits of $12 million and divide amongst the founding partners. You end up needing to add staff and take on more risk without knowing what your future demand will be. That is $12 million in profits over 3 years.

Silicon Valley 332

Silicon Valley IP Dividend Finance 332

Rob Go

AUGUST 29, 2016

If there is a fixed post money on say, a $5M series A round, if the founder decides that they want to take on a bit more new capital, the existing shareholders eat all of the additional dilution. In the old world, this additional dilution would end up being shared, since the pre-money was fixed.

Post-Money Valuation 52

Post-Money Valuation Valuation Cap Table Term Sheet 52

David Teten

JANUARY 21, 2021

(co-written with Jamie Finney, Founding Partner at Greater Colorado Venture Fund. Jonathan Bragdon , CEO, describes Capacity as “a team of founders-turned-funders making non-dilutive, founder-aligned investments of $50-$300k in post-startup, post-revenue businesses planning to 2X revenues in 12-24 months. —– Indie.vc

Equity 78

Equity Revenue Cofounder Colorado 78

Gust

OCTOBER 8, 2014

My speculation is that entrepreneurs had more options and wanted to take less dilution so the old $5 million for 33%-40% of your company no longer made sense and on the VC side it made no sense to pay $20 million pre ($25 million post, which implies the VC gets 20% of the company = 5/25). Why the latter? and there''s always a but].

Cap Table 136

Cap Table Silicon Valley Term Sheet Non-Compete 136

Ben's Blog

APRIL 1, 2011

Things go wrong, because building a multi-faceted human organization to compete and win in a dynamic, highly competitive market turns out to be really hard. If the sales team made unreasonable demands on the product organization, then that was my fault. Raise money in a highly dilutive way. It kind of sucked to be me.

Management 78

Management Cap Table Balance Sheet Bankruptcy 78

crowdSPRING Blog

DECEMBER 13, 2018

Chapter 7: How To Translate Your Brand Identity Into Actual Marketing. brand awareness – the ability of customers to identify a brand in a crowded market. Poor design, ineffective marketing, inconsistent messaging, and bad partnerships can all tarnish a brand. Conduct market research and perform a competitor analysis.

Marketing 162

Marketing Charlotte Naming Design 162