Both Sides of the Table

AUGUST 14, 2017

Executives run the day-to-day so often the board is more involved as a sparring partner at key intervals. The administrative work we actually do at board meetings? Boards are not appointed to be founder-friendly lapdogs for the 1–3 founders who start companies and usually own the largest equity positions in the company.

Cofounder 217

Cofounder Stock Options Equity Technical Review 217

Berkonomics

AUGUST 10, 2023

From the moment such an investor looks seriously at your company, the investor or VC partner is thinking of the end game, the ultimate sale of the company or even of an eventual initial public offering. There is no middle ground. Resetting your priorities Taking money from these sources involves resetting priorities over time.

Liquidity Event 116

Liquidity Event Initial Public Offering Dividend Valuation 116

Both Sides of the Table

AUGUST 3, 2010

How much dilution should I take for it?&# My friend’s company was pre-revenue. Me: “Zero dilution. My recommendation to our lead partner looking at the deal, “Pass. It is best not to buy your competitors – they’ll always want an unreasonable price and think of the sale as failure.

Merger 276

Merger Technical Review Early Stage Dilution 276

Startup Professionals Musings

MAY 8, 2022

The downside is loss of control and financial dilution. Old co-workers or new friends with complementary skills usually make the best partners. 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. The control and growth dilemma.

Founder 325

Founder Hockey Stick Cofounder Liquidity Event 325

Up and Running

JULY 1, 2020

You may grow to tap new markets or increase sales in your current markets. It starts with a high-level strategy and continues all the way to market analysis, sales plans, operations planning, and financial modeling. Will marketing for the expansion dilute marketing of your brand or other products? Mission, vision, and values.

Business Plan 152

Business Plan Forecast Operations Dilution 152

Both Sides of the Table

JANUARY 4, 2014

– while the other might want a quick sale and pocket some bucks while the tech market is hot. She started it with a partner, 50-50. It either needed to get more aggressive in pricing, pivot to a new business or business model or raise more capital (and take the dilution) in order to have more time to figure things out.

Founder 340

Founder Sacramento Cofounder Technical Review 340

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. Know when to say “no.”. Don’t expand for the sake of your ego.

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. Similar to the explosion of seed funds in the past decade, we (and some limited partners too ) believe these Flexible VCs are on the forefront of what will become a major segment of the venture ecosystem. Of the Inc. 5000 companies, only 6.5% return cap.

Cofounder 78

Cofounder Technical Review Equity Dividend 78

The Startup Magazine

SEPTEMBER 11, 2023

By delegating specific tasks—like outsourced sales for startups—to third-party experts, internal teams can focus on core competencies. Startups need to pose crucial questions: Which tasks are absolutely vital to our brand ethos, and which ones can be safely outsourced without diluting our unique value proposition?

Cost 141

Cost Startup Non-Compete Dilution 141

Both Sides of the Table

SEPTEMBER 29, 2009

Three reasons: There is a relative valuation between the price a VC pays and their expectations of what it will exit for in an IPO or trade sale. Also, it’s harder to pay a $30 million pre-money value on an unproved company when you see public companies with $100 million in sales trading for less than $20 million.

Burn Rate 263

Burn Rate Valuation Pre-Money Valuation Private Equity 263

View from Seed

APRIL 30, 2015

Use good judgment, talk to your co-founders/investors/lawyers, and partner with a bank that values transparency and relationships such as SVB.]. And it’s that important because all companies will go through good times and tough times, and we’ll want to make sure we’ve got the right partner on the other side.

Term Sheet 120

Term Sheet Equity Startup Seed Stage 120

Hearpreneur

JANUARY 30, 2022

Face-to-face engagement is important, especially at vital points in the sales cycle or while creating relationships. Many businesses are discovering that the key to successful marketing is interacting two-way with customers, not simply shouting marketing messages at increasingly dilute audiences. . 21- Make more money from sales.

Entrepreneur 124

Entrepreneur Green Technical Review Social Media 124

ReadWriteStart

JANUARY 27, 2011

For a more elaborate explanation of the deal, please read my blog post 1M/1M: Alternative Financing For Startups Using A Sales Channel Partner. I have discussed at length why revenue sharing channel deals may serve as perfectly fine alternatives to raising equity (or even complements) because of their non-dilutive nature.

Dilution 114

Dilution Revenue Finance Entrepreneur 114

Both Sides of the Table

JUNE 17, 2017

The most obvious way to explain this is with sales people. If you hire 6 senior sales reps in January at $120,000 / year salary then you’ve taken on an extra $60,000 per month in costs yet these sales people might not close new business 6 months. COGS” represents the amount that each sale costs you.

Stock Options 227

Stock Options Startup Dilution Venture Capital 227

Startup Professionals Musings

MARCH 23, 2014

As the company builds value, shares allocated later for employees or partners will have an appropriate price. Most Founder vesting is not subject to the one year cliff because partners should already know and trust each other. Stock dilution control. Vesting with no cliff. Right of repurchase in favor of the company.

Stock 256

Stock Vesting Common Stock Founder Vesting 256

Startup Professionals Musings

JANUARY 6, 2021

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. Your focus for momentum could be sales, profitability, or number of customers, but trying to keep all possible parameters growing is simply not practical.

Technical Review 400

Technical Review Technical Cofounder Advisory Board Cofounder 400

Startup Professionals Musings

AUGUST 10, 2019

The downside is loss of control and financial dilution. Old co-workers or new friends with complementary skills usually make the best partners. 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. The control and growth dilemma.

Hockey Stick 243

Hockey Stick Cofounder Liquidity Event Startup 243

Berkonomics

DECEMBER 31, 2020

The company was funded entirely by grants from the National Institute of Health, amounting to millions of non-dilutive dollars in all. No dilution to shareholders or the founders. Often, grants require that you partner with other organizations to deliver the results or measure the effectiveness of your special project.

Equity 62

Equity Finance Dilution Founder 62

Austin Startup

NOVEMBER 12, 2017

If you have a sales model that involves relationship selling to high-level decision makers, you can be sure they would prefer a detailed proposal from you with a request to “sign here.” VC partners are in the business of deploying money, and, within the boundaries of their capital, in chunks as large as possible.

Term Sheet 48

Term Sheet Technical Review Due Diligence Merger 48

Startup Professionals Musings

JANUARY 22, 2013

As the company builds value, shares allocated later for employees or partners will have an appropriate price. Most founder vesting is not subject to the one year cliff because partners should already know and trust each other. Stock dilution control. Vesting with no cliff. Right of repurchase in favor of the company.

Vesting 245

Vesting Common Stock Stock Founder Vesting 245

Both Sides of the Table

MARCH 21, 2010

Let’s say you give a warrant to a channel partner to sell your product. In the above example you might say that the channel partner earns 25,000 shares for every $100,000 of your product that they sell in the next 12 months with up to a cap of 250,000 shares. Example: you allocate 4% in warrants to channel partner ABC.

Warrant 298

Warrant Dilution Startup Stock Options 298

Both Sides of the Table

SEPTEMBER 10, 2021

A-Rounds used to be $3–7 million with the best companies able to skip this smaller amount and raise $10 million on a $40 million pre-money valuation (20% dilution). each with partners as the lead. So in a way it’s self selecting. Where are Things Headed for VC in 2031?

Pre-Money Valuation 471

Pre-Money Valuation Valuation Venture Capital Early Stage 471

The Startup Magazine

JULY 15, 2023

Make it so that they don’t need to combine services – something that could dilute your brand and offering. Walking clients through what you will do in various scenarios is an excellent way to get them interested in your services, funneling them through your sales pipelines.

Security 137

Security Artificial Inteligence Differentiation Dilution 137

Both Sides of the Table

JULY 25, 2010

“Yes&# was given to me by one of my favorite angel investor / seed VC’s to work with – John Greathouse of Rincon Venture Partners and author of the blog InfoChachkie that you should check out because it is filled with great info from a guy who has been a very successful operator.

Silicon Valley 293

Silicon Valley Technical Review Southern California Angel Investor 293

Startup Company Lawyer

MARCH 14, 2010

I was actually somewhat surprised that the following investors have agreed to use the Series Seed documents in certain of the their deals: Baseline, Charles River Ventures, SV Angel (Ron Conway), First Round Capital, Harrison Metal Capital, Mike Maples, Polaris Venture Partners, SoftTech VC and True Ventures. Anti-dilution protection.

Finance 70

Finance Software Review Term Sheet Liquidation Preference 70

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. Make sure the government waits for a stock sale to collect taxes. This is called stock dilution control.

Stock 120

Stock Vesting Common Stock Founder Vesting 120

Gust

MARCH 16, 2014

As the company builds value, shares allocated later for employees or partners will have an appropriate price. Most Founder vesting is not subject to the one year cliff because partners should already know and trust each other. Stock dilution control. Vesting with no cliff. Right of repurchase in favor of the company.

Stock 175

Stock Vesting Common Stock Founder Vesting 175

www.inc.com

SEPTEMBER 24, 2011

Sales & Marketing | Wednesdays. SALES & MARKETING. Durkin , managing partner with the Boston -based law firm Lucash, Gesmer & Updegrove LLP. Chip Morse , cofounder and partner with Morse, Barnes-Brown & Pendleton P.C., FROM OUR PARTNERS. ); ); ); ADVERTISEMENT. The Goods: Your Business Toolbox | Thursdays.

Fractional CTO 40

Fractional CTO Equity Iowa Technical Cofounder 40

YoungUpstarts

MARCH 1, 2019

The market as a whole is expected to increase to $523 billion in sales in the next year, showing promising gains from years past. Retailers can utilize load boards to speed up the process, helping get orders to customers quickly without taking additional time to find a shipping partner elsewhere. Shared Shipping.

Matching 113

Matching Dilution Small Business Partner 113

Berkonomics

JUNE 15, 2017

From the moment such an investor looks seriously at your company, the investor or VC partner is thinking of the end game, the ultimate sale of the company or even of an eventual initial public offering. Taking in angel or venture money requires a setting of an entrepreneur’s expectations that may come as a shock at least at first.

Liquidity Event 97

Liquidity Event Initial Public Offering Dividend Valuation 97

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 Every time an investment is made, everyone dilutes!).

Angel Investor 119

Angel Investor Dilution Accredited Investor Due Diligence 119

Startup Professionals Musings

DECEMBER 14, 2014

The downside is loss of control and financial dilution. Old co-workers or new friends with complementary skills usually make the best partners. 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. The control and growth dilemma.

Hockey Stick 268

Hockey Stick Cofounder Entrepreneur Liquidity Event 268

Both Sides of the Table

DECEMBER 1, 2009

I know that people find safety in numbers (and there always seems to be 3 amigos) but imagine this for a moment – you go and raise venture capital and you’re fighting over whether to dilute with a VC by 25% or 30% as a company. Do you understand how to lead a sales process? Are you a shaper vs. a completer-finisher? -

Hiring 289

Hiring Cofounder Dilution Startup 289

This is going to be BIG.

MARCH 16, 2020

Some key existings who didn’t want to see their prior money get lost wouldn’t budge on a dilutive financing, despite the fact that they knew where we were headed. If you are a turnaround, bankruptcy or private equity investor and have questions about the sale process, you can e-mail me at charlie@brooklynbridge.vc.

Bankruptcy 95

Bankruptcy Private Equity Seed Stage Dilution 95

Startup Professionals Musings

AUGUST 19, 2017

The downside is loss of control and financial dilution. Old co-workers or new friends with complementary skills usually make the best partners. 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. The control and growth dilemma.

Hockey Stick 144

Hockey Stick Cofounder Entrepreneur Liquidity Event 144

Both Sides of the Table

APRIL 25, 2011

Early in a services business there is usually no profits as the company reinvests in hiring people to grow, but by $20 million in sales the company should at least be pulling in 10% profits (if not more) depending on how much is reinvested. That is $12 million in profits over 3 years. It’s pure irony.

Silicon Valley 332

Silicon Valley IP Dividend Finance 332

Startup Professionals Musings

SEPTEMBER 5, 2016

Don’t let early funding increase risk and dilute your potential. You can use it best to entice outstanding team members and partners, building a level of commitment you don’t get with salaries alone. Thus they will insist on a sale or public offering at every opportunity, which will likely force you out.

Bootstrapping 120

Bootstrapping Entrepreneur Startup Exit Strategy 120