This is going to be BIG.

NOVEMBER 28, 2021

I would propose that early stage startups start thinking about doing something radically different—think about trying to become the absolute best place to work if you have a family as a means of getting an advantage in the hiring market. Consider extended family leave—six months paid at minimum for all parents of all genders.

Hiring 179

Hiring Early Stage Marketing Term Sheet 179

Both Sides of the Table

SEPTEMBER 16, 2010

Markets like these are very kind to angel investors because you get taken out early and see a nice pop on your investment. But consider periods of time where the average time a company exists before acquisition or IPO is 7-10 years. Total disruption on the funding market? avoid being diluted). How’d that work out?

Cap Table 283

Cap Table Angel Investor Liquidation Preference Deal Flow 283

Both Sides of the Table

JUNE 5, 2011

2 preamble issues having read the comments on TC today: 1: I know that the prices of startup companies is much great in Silicon Valley than in smaller towns / less tech focused areas in the US and the US prices higher than many foreign markets. I can’t control the market. Private markets for stocks are the opposite.

Pre-Money Valuation 336

Pre-Money Valuation Valuation Silicon Valley Stock 336

Startup Professionals Musings

MAY 8, 2022

The right time to jump is a function of favorable career, personal, and market circumstances. The downside is loss of control and financial dilution. If you take investor money, expect a push for hockey-stick growth and a liquidity event, like going public (IPO) or sale (M&A), to get the payback.

Founder 325

Founder Hockey Stick Cofounder Liquidity Event 325

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

Both Sides of the Table

OCTOBER 1, 2009

In the first post in this three part series I described why I believe the VC market froze between September 2008 – April 2009. When the market run started in March people were relieved that “the world wasn’t ending” so they started spending again. Unemployment coupled with a stock market drop will stop this spending cold IMHO.

Technical Review 269

Technical Review Stock Hawaii Early Stage 269

Both Sides of the Table

SEPTEMBER 10, 2021

With the enormous changes to our economies and financial markets?—?how how on Earth could the venture capital market stand still? One of the most common questions I’m asked by people intrigued by but also scared by venture capital and technology markets is some variant of, “Aren’t technology markets way overvalued?

Pre-Money Valuation 471

Pre-Money Valuation Valuation Venture Capital Early Stage 471

Feld Thoughts

MARCH 24, 2017

This means FC avoids trends and relentlessly questions entrepreneurs about how their product enables specific use cases and market opportunities. Founder friendly” is an overused term, but there is a big difference between marketing this as a concept and living it every day.

Founder 75

Founder LP Technical Review Seed Stage 75

ReadWriteStart

JULY 18, 2011

Kedrosky: "In the 90's I was an analyst through all this [tech investment and IPO] madness. You want to build your own IPO and exit. The market just isn't that efficient to truly determine the best. "I I look for a smart ass team, building a kick ass product, in a big ass market," he said.

Investment Bankers 153

Investment Bankers Technical Review Cofounder Due Diligence 153

Startup Professionals Musings

AUGUST 10, 2019

The right time to jump is a function of favorable career, personal, and market circumstances. The downside is loss of control and financial dilution. If you take investor money, expect a push for hockey-stick growth and a liquidity event, like going public (IPO) or sale (M&A), to get the payback.

Hockey Stick 243

Hockey Stick Cofounder Liquidity Event Startup 243

Startup Professionals Musings

JULY 5, 2011

They don’t realize that this option would likely be their worst nightmare, since it costs millions for the road show, usually dilutes your equity to a tiny fraction, and takes away all your entrepreneurial control. companies made the IPO transition in 2009, out of thousands of startups. Only about a dozen U.S.

Exit Strategy 235

Exit Strategy IPO Investment Bankers Entrepreneur 235

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

SEPTEMBER 29, 2009

But any entrepreneurs raising capital should keep in mind that this opening of the markets could possibly be temporary. Why did the VC markets freeze so quickly? Market downturn – We all know that investors move in herds. Short answer – yes. Short answer – yes. The most obvious reason downturns affect investors is psychology.

Burn Rate 263

Burn Rate Valuation Pre-Money Valuation Private Equity 263

Both Sides of the Table

JUNE 17, 2017

They hired a marketing team to promote their products more broadly. If there was strong market demand for their product then this investment might pay off handsomely. That management team might have decided that they wanted to maintain more control of their company, didn’t want new board members and didn’t want to take dilution.

Stock Options 227

Stock Options Startup Dilution Venture Capital 227

David Teten

JANUARY 19, 2021

The value ascribed by subsequent investors (in a secondary); buyers (acquisition); or the public markets (IPO). That said, Jonathan Bragdon, General Partner, Capacity Capital , points out that Flexible VC terms “twin” well with equity: providing less dilution while still providing investor assistance. . Volatile, uncapped.

Cofounder 78

Cofounder Technical Review Equity Dividend 78

Both Sides of the Table

SEPTEMBER 28, 2013

A cautious person wouldn’t try to pry people out of Twitter right before their IPO to” join my cause!!” A $1 trillion global market. The business concept was strong, we just needed to tweak it to adjust for market changes and we needed patience and resilience. Dilution / valuation. Are tacking.

Startup 417

Startup Dilution San Diego Stock Options 417

Steve Blank

APRIL 10, 2019

Startup Compensation Changes with Growth Capital – 12 Years to an IPO. The premise of Growth capital is that if that by staying private longer, all the growth upside that went to the public markets (Wall Street) could instead be made by the private investors (the VC’s and Growth Investors.). That made sense.

Stock Options 333

Stock Options Stock Vesting Common Stock 333

Startup Professionals Musings

DECEMBER 14, 2014

The right time to jump is a function of favorable career, personal, and market circumstances. The downside is loss of control and financial dilution. If you take investor money, expect a push for hockey-stick growth and a liquidity event, like going public (IPO) or sale (M&A), to get the payback.

Hockey Stick 268

Hockey Stick Cofounder Entrepreneur Liquidity Event 268

Haystack

JULY 8, 2018

The private markets have ballooned, and the VC model is based on building a portfolio of companies such that the best ones can be acquired or go public. valuation, that’s sort of like a new IPO, but without the lockup period. ” For brief context, how did we get here? No one is forced to work at or invest in a new company.

Early Stage 95

Early Stage Dilution Private Equity Common Stock 95

Both Sides of the Table

SEPTEMBER 18, 2014

It’s simply what a market is willing to pay based on a future belief that your company will grow and non-linear rates and be worth much more in the future. And now I have to explain to team that they’re taking more dilution than they expected if we do a down round. Me: More dilution? Maybe an IPO – who knows?

Venture Capital 417

Venture Capital Liquidation Preference Valuation Term Sheet 417

Tim Keane

JANUARY 12, 2010

Bottom Up Market Sizing » January 12, 2010. Good investors use the valuation discussions to gauge the business savvy of the management team and to understand their ability to appreciate and deal with economic market forces that set values. Startups and angels: Along the way to success. times at 5 years and 11.39 here of 7.65 [2].

Term Sheet 68

Term Sheet Valuation Dividend Liquidation Preference 68

Startup Professionals Musings

AUGUST 19, 2017

The right time to jump is a function of favorable career, personal, and market circumstances. The downside is loss of control and financial dilution. If you take investor money, expect a push for hockey-stick growth and a liquidity event, like going public (IPO) or sale (M&A), to get the payback.

Hockey Stick 144

Hockey Stick Cofounder Entrepreneur Liquidity Event 144

Startup Lessons Learned

JULY 5, 2010

Brant and Patrick undertook a difficult challenge: to provide a generally accessible introduction to Customer Development, without diluting its impact or dumbing-down its principles. The results of the Customer Development process may indicate that the assumptions about your product, your customers and your market are all wrong.

Customer Development 166

Customer Development Developer San Francisco Customer 166

Startup Professionals Musings

JULY 19, 2013

The right time to jump is a function of favorable career, personal, and market circumstances. The downside is loss of control and financial dilution. If you take investor money, expect a push for hockey-stick growth and a liquidity event, like going public (IPO) or sale (M&A), to get the payback.

Founder 245

Founder Hockey Stick Cofounder Liquidity Event 245

The Equity Kicker

MARCH 3, 2016

The headline finding was that the unicorn investors had significantly more downside protection than public market investors. I think a bigger part of the explanation lies in deal dynamics – it’s easier for companies maximise valuation in private financing auctions than it is in IPOs. Median valuation: $1.6bn.

Liquidation Preference 60

Liquidation Preference Participating Preferred Valuation IPO 60

ithacaVC

FEBRUARY 1, 2018

If FFAs only invest at the beginning and do not make any follow on investments as the company raises more $$ then the only real way FFAs make money when the company is ultimately sold is if the company keeps raising future rounds at higher and higher valuations (and IPO exit may provide upside if the stock price increases over time after the IPO).

Preemptive Right 45

Preemptive Right Cap Table Valuation Dilution 45

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. The size of rounds basically is dependant on exits.

LP 82

LP Europe Germany Venture Capital 82

Austin Startup

NOVEMBER 25, 2018

My first day at Bazaarvoice was just a few weeks later, on May 2, 2005, and we built a company from inception to IPO on around $12m of capital use (out of the $24m we raised) in 7 years, creating over a thousand jobs and impacting clients all over the world?—?starting Below is a post I wrote on their Yahoo! Groups list on March 15, 2005.

Bootstrapping 48

Bootstrapping Austin Equity Cofounder 48

Hunter Walker

DECEMBER 18, 2015

Bloomberg’s article about lower-than-expected financial gains from startup IPOs for midlevel employees stuck in craw this week because there’s a handful of complex issues at play here. You join at an executive level pre-IPO for a company that already has huge potential. Post IPO, You Have Choices: Hold or Sell.

Equity 48

Equity Employee IPO Vesting 48

Gust

MAY 24, 2012

Dual-class voting structures are receiving a lot of attention these days along with intense publicity related to the Facebook IPO , following in the wake of other recent tech IPOs with a similar structure such as Zynga and LinkedIn.

IPO 159

IPO Equity Common Stock Stock 159

The Next Web

OCTOBER 7, 2013

Every time a startup raises capital, all common shareholders are diluted. In one post on Ravikant’s Venture Hacks blog called, “ The Option Pool Shuffle ,” it notes market expectations are to set aside 1 to 2 percent for a VP-level hire. All of the estimates displayed above are figures prior to any dilution. N: exit size.

Engineer 129

Engineer Dilution Option Pool Vesting 129

YoungUpstarts

APRIL 20, 2012

And when you can become the George Clooney of your market, it will be great for business. Just like the Bankable Stars you see in Hollywood, there are advisors and service providers in every market, who like their West Coast brethren are highly sought after and bring in very high fees. Are you a thought leader in your market?

IPO 154

IPO Initial Public Offering Naming Reputation 154

Startup Lessons Learned

AUGUST 24, 2009

Now, helping potential customers discover new things they might like is the job of the discipline of marketing. But that job is changing dramatically, and this brings us to the next major problem facing traditional media organizations: Media companies are failing at marketing. There are too many products clamoring for attention.

San Francisco 113

San Francisco Lean Technical Review Distribution 113

Both Sides of the Table

MARCH 11, 2011

In 1995 Netscape IPO’d and browsers started to become more prevalent. IdeaLab has created 75 companies, leading to 8 IPOs, 35 or so acquisitions and more than 5 companies worth in excess of $1 billion. they can build teams that really focus on building & marketing great products. That gave Google a huge cost advantage.

Product 350

Product Tuvalu Dilution Incubator 350

Startup Lessons Learned

OCTOBER 26, 2009

Every time you listen to customers, you fear diluting your vision. Every time you listen to customers, you fear diluting your vision. ► August (2) SXSW Case Study: SlideShare goes freemium ► July (4) Case Study: kaChing, Anatomy of a Pivot Some IPO speculation Founder personalities and the “first-class man&# th.

Advisory Board 151

Advisory Board Customer San Francisco Lean 151

The Equity Kicker

APRIL 13, 2012

It is a well recognised problem, and one that I see affecting large companies all the time when they fail to respond to changing market conditions because it will hurt their business in the near-term. Having the flexibility to use stock without diluting our structure will help ensure we are set up for success for decades to come.

Dilution 87

Dilution Stock Government SEC 87

Gust

SEPTEMBER 17, 2014

It’s simply what a market is willing to pay based on a future belief that your company will grow and non-linear rates and be worth much more in the future. And now I have to explain to team that they’re taking more dilution than they expected if we do a down round. Me: More dilution? Maybe an IPO – who knows? Employment.

Liquidation Preference 153

Liquidation Preference Valuation Term Sheet Stock 153