Startup Professionals Musings

MAY 1, 2011

The good news is that he is all about helping early-stage startups, the hard part for entrepreneurs is figuring out what it takes to play. Early-stage startup. Every startup is early-stage to someone. For VCs, early-stage means customer revenue is less than $10M. Lean startup.

Early Stage 231

Early Stage Seed Stage Angel Investor Silicon Valley 231

Steve Blank

NOVEMBER 1, 2011

None of that can compare with being the CEO of a startup facing a rapidly diminishing bank account, your best engineer quitting, working until 10pm and rushing to the airport and catching a redeye for a “ Hail Mary ” close of a customer, with your board demanding you do it faster. Early stage VC’s should have startup CEO experience.

Venture Capital 333

Venture Capital Early Stage Technical Review Startup 333

YoungUpstarts

OCTOBER 25, 2018

Today, Mark Attanasio gets to flex his full range of expertise and interests as co-founder and Managing Partner of Hillcrest Merchant Partners, a Toronto-based merchant bank focused on early stage and mid market growth companies. You also talk about challenges to entrepreneurs. There’s more than just getting the money to survive?

Partner 113

Partner Technical Review Management Due Diligence 113

ReadWriteStart

JUNE 1, 2020

In very few specific cases, depending on the nature of the business, the business model might demand a considerable gestation period or extensive research and development. These usually play a role in the very early stage of your business, primarily pre-revenue. Stages of Equity-based funding. ? Inception stage.

Startup 150

Startup Entrepreneur Elevator Pitch Seed Stage 150

The Startup Magazine

DECEMBER 5, 2023

Beyond logistics, he also plays a key role in managing aspects of finance and human resources within the organization. Michael Guerriero: During my time, Brands Gone Wild experienced a sudden surge in demand for a very popular product around the holidays.

Management 128

Management Early Stage Stock Operations 128

Both Sides of the Table

OCTOBER 12, 2014

These tensions seep out in some angels or seed funds publicly or semi-privately deriding later-stage VCs for their “bad” behavior. I have seen bad behavior from later-stage VCs, believe me. But I have seen equally bad behavior from super early stage investors. As always a balanced perspective is in order.

Technical Review 336

Technical Review Later Stage Early Stage LP 336

Startup Professionals Musings

MAY 30, 2022

Early-stage entrepreneurs rightly keep their focus on creating an innovative product or service. After celebrating success at that level, they often find themselves ill-prepared to move to the next stage, for scaling their business into a high-performing enterprise. There is no free lunch.

Mezzanine 368

Mezzanine Private Equity Bandwidth Metrics 368

YoungUpstarts

MAY 19, 2016

Speaking intelligently about your company’s current (and future) performance means regular check-ins with your finances. Unfortunately, we work with companies that realize the IP actually belongs to a former partner or the organization that the founders worked for during the product’s early stages. Use burn rate as an example.

Technical Review 124

Technical Review Burn Rate IP Intellectual Property 124

View from Seed

MAY 2, 2019

This is the logical path that one would think is pretty “standard” for early stage companies. Once early data exists, there are all sorts of comps out there that create some gravitational pull towards “market” pricing. The post The Road Less Traveled: Non-Standard Early Stage Funding Paths appeared first on NextView Ventures.

Early Stage 215

Early Stage Dilution Valuation .Net 215

David Teten

JANUARY 19, 2021

From RBI, Flexible VCs borrow the ability to reap meaningful returns without demanding founders build for an exit. Seed-stage compatible: Like traditional equity VC investors, Flexible VCs accomodate early-stage investment risk within their portfolios better than a traditional RBI funder. Short track record.

Cofounder 78

Cofounder Technical Review Equity Dividend 78

David Teten

AUGUST 19, 2019

Does the traditional VC financing model make sense for all companies? Though RBI will displace some traditional equity VC, its much bigger impact will be to expand the pool of capital available for early-stage entrepreneurs. . However, only recently have early-stage companies started to use this model at any scale. .

Revenue 60

Revenue Term Sheet Founder Technical Review 60

Startup Company Lawyer

MARCH 14, 2010

After the recent announcement of the Series Seed Financing documents by Marc Andreesen, Brad Feld points out that there are now four sets of “open source&# equity seed financing documents: TechStars Model Seed Funding Documents (by Cooley). Y Combinator Series AA Equity Financing Documents (by WSGR). under $500K).

Finance 70

Finance Software Review Term Sheet Liquidation Preference 70

Both Sides of the Table

AUGUST 11, 2021

eCommerce for example grew 39% just last year - so there’s simply more demand. As an investor in early-stage companies, many of whom are living the customer acquisition challenge every day, I’m excited to see how Trust can reshape the playing field for startups and larger organizations alike.

Founder 424

Founder Product Cofounder Acquisition 424

Version One Ventures

APRIL 30, 2013

Despite the recent media buzz surrounding the hardware revolution and emerging maker space, the overwhelming majority of hardware startups have a hard time attracting financing today. Here’s the advice I give these teams who are navigating the tough world of hardware financing. hardware (Photo credit: alorenzi).

Venture Capital 128

Venture Capital Software Review Incubator Startup 128

Up and Running

NOVEMBER 6, 2017

Working for a firm of turnaround practitioners, I provide expertise in terms of business recovery, cash flow and financing. For businesses in the earliest stages, funding streams are often not available, which gives them little choice but to fold. What is a financial contingency plan?

Software Review 116

Software Review Early Stage Operations Finance 116

Both Sides of the Table

NOVEMBER 14, 2017

As an early-stage VC I love this phase. This financial leader could well have come through the finance org at another startup or at a larger company but they often also can come from strategy consulting (Bain, BCG or McKinsey) or through investment banking (Goldman Sachs, Morgan Stanley, etc.).

Operations 286

Operations New York City Technical Review Startup 286

Hearpreneur

OCTOBER 25, 2023

From crafting a compelling brand identity to mastering digital marketing, it's a multifaceted journey that demands careful planning and execution. 3- Investing both time and finance Photo Credit: Jonathan Hussey The biggest thing for me is to understand what you're undertaking before you start.

eCommerce 134

eCommerce Omaha Entrepreneur SEO 134

YoungUpstarts

OCTOBER 28, 2015

This article highlights their advice on issues ranging from financing to patent trolls: While startups may believe lawyers are too costly, working with one early on avoids potentially serious problems later. Entrepreneurs need to hit a happy medium with backers, not giving away too much but not making overly aggressive demands.

Convertible Security 100

Convertible Security IP Technical Review Software Review 100

Berkonomics

AUGUST 24, 2023

We have previously made the case that professional investors demand more in the form of restrictive covenants and lower valuations. So now, in this series of insights, we have explored the early stages of formation and finance. This statement could be considered controversial. Now we explore the other side of that coin.

Covenant 118

Covenant Angel Investor Valuation Later Stage 118

View from Seed

OCTOBER 28, 2019

Over the past few years, “pre-seed” as a distinct category has emerged within the early stage fundraising landscape. But this financing contour description is just a proxy for underlying business metrics. It really does depend from startup to startup.

Seed Stage 248

Seed Stage Finance Dilution Early Stage 248

YoungUpstarts

JANUARY 13, 2021

As an entrepreneur, you need to ensure that there is enough demand for your offerings in the marketplace and have the right systems in place to meet those demands. Once you have secured financing, you can start to prepare for the opening of your business. . Starting a business can be a daunting experience. Do Your Research.

Australia 221

Australia Early Stage Demand Operations 221

YoungUpstarts

DECEMBER 10, 2015

Review your business finances. It’s crucial to separate your personal and business finances to easily illustrate the financial strength of your business. In the early stages of a business, many entrepreneurs self-fund their ventures through personal savings or credit cards or by accepting capital from family and friends.

Technical Review 100

Technical Review Cofounder Small Business Early Stage 100

The Startup Magazine

SEPTEMBER 14, 2020

In Sweden, as for many other countries, this lead to a massive increase in demand of liquidity. Throughout this period they have gathered data on how the demand for financing has increased. Also, they can see how the supply of financing has developed (e.g. Demand for business loans has increased.

Sweden 109

Sweden Marketing Finance Government 109

YoungUpstarts

FEBRUARY 6, 2017

As an entrepreneur, your goal when raising financing is to get several term sheets — the documents describing the terms and conditions of financing. One of the worst positions you can be in during a financing is to have investors interested, but be too far short of your goal. Determine how much you need to raise.

Venture Capital 100

Venture Capital Term Sheet Technical Review Due Diligence 100

Startup Lessons Learned

OCTOBER 11, 2018

Kabam, the mobile gaming company, hit a major stumbling block in its early days when its financing was lost due to the 2008 financial collapse. It not only survived but was sold nine years later for $1Billion. Co-founder Holly Liu will walk us through the the decisions that led to that outcome.

Lean 103

Lean Las Vegas Cofounder Startup 103

Startup Company Lawyer

AUGUST 31, 2012

Over the past few years, convertible debt has emerged as a quick and inexpensive method for startup companies to raise money from angel investors and early stage venture funds. ” As a result, Ted introduced the Series Seed preferred stock documents as an alternative to convertible debt for early stage investments.

Convertible Security 73

Convertible Security Equity Security Preferred Stock 73

Austin Startup

AUGUST 10, 2017

Although we were studying finance, we were always more interested in tech. Before graduating, I decided to forgo the finance path and instead dove into engineering and later sales and product management roles at VersaSuite (health IT) in Austin. But we never lost the finance bug. We were infatuated with tech.

Technical Review 48

Technical Review Cofounder Technical Cofounder Austin 48

View from Seed

JULY 15, 2020

Some early stage businesses may even be able to get to CFBE fairly quickly. Mid-stage portfolios can be more acutely impacted if many companies have fat cost structures and were investing heavily in growth that is not materializing. I think every investor has some of these.

Portfolio 217

Portfolio IRR Dilution Distribution 217

Startup Professionals Musings

SEPTEMBER 1, 2019

Early-stage entrepreneurs rightly keep their focus on creating an innovative product or service. After celebrating success at that level, they often find themselves ill-prepared to move to the next stage, for scaling their business into a high-performing enterprise. There is no free lunch.

Mezzanine 244

Mezzanine Private Equity Startup Bandwidth 244

Both Sides of the Table

JUNE 5, 2011

Early-stage investors in technology startups are only looking for growth-oriented companies that can achieve an “exit&# someday – either via selling your company to a larger company or via an IPO. That’s the deal you get when you’re raising in a good market for startup financing. That’s fine.

Pre-Money Valuation 336

Pre-Money Valuation Valuation Silicon Valley Stock 336

Up and Running

JUNE 14, 2017

Others believe in the start small, grow strong approach: build a small version of the app, test user demand, and then take it from there. Early stage idea validation can be accomplished without building an application. This could have validated their interest and provided me with a tangible proof of demand.

Technical Review 96

Technical Review Distribution Redemption Demand 96

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

Gust

OCTOBER 12, 2011

Last week , we took the plunge and began dissecting an example term sheet for a convertible debt financing round piece by piece. In Part II, we looked at the mandatory conversion language that is at the heart of any convertible debt financing.

Finance 107

Finance Term Sheet Pre-Money Valuation Early Stage 107

YoungUpstarts

APRIL 7, 2013

Startups are hungry for credit, but banks and other financial institutions have never been stricter with their financing parameters. They’re using metrics that are often unworkable in the current business environment, causing growing businesses to look elsewhere for capital and increasingly towards alternative forms of financing.

Advisory Board 249

Advisory Board Entrepreneur Portland Oregon 249

Both Sides of the Table

OCTOBER 7, 2014

There weren’t a lot of seed funds in 2007 so this was often done by angels, funding consortia or sometimes early-stage funds that existed then (First Round Capital, True Ventures, SoftTech VC, etc.). 5 million was always the classic definition of an A-round between the late nineties (crazy financings aside) and say 2007.

Cap Table 399

Cap Table Silicon Valley Term Sheet Finance 399

YoungUpstarts

SEPTEMBER 19, 2017

Financial management is a key part of the equation in all this and it demands a keen eye for detail. So much of good financial management in the context of early-stage startup activity is about being prepared and having options in mind to ease the pressures during difficult moments. 4 – Expect the worst and plan for it.

Management 203

Management Startup Finance Early Stage 203

Both Sides of the Table

SEPTEMBER 8, 2010

This is the failure of many early-stage companies when they try to scale. I opened up with a very blunt conversation about self confidence, self doubt, family pressure, peer pressure and the demands on a CEO. Some entrepreneurs make the mistake of never devolving power. And the opposite is also true. Lived it.

Ireland 319

Ireland Sales Bankruptcy Germany 319