Steve Blank

MARCH 31, 2014

As the venture capital business has come roaring back in the last 5 years, startups are awash in available capital. Instead of measuring success in dollars of profit, …firms focus on measuring capital efficiency. For example, Coke added snack foods, which could be distributed through its existing distribution channels.

Private Equity 325

Private Equity Metrics China Intellectual Property 325

David Teten

JANUARY 19, 2021

This structure allows for alignment on the front end, and real-time flexibility for performance metrics,” says Samira Salman , a family office investor and advisor. . Flexible VCs have created structures based on other company performance metrics than revenues, such as profits or founder salaries. Flexible VC 102: Variations.

Cofounder 78

Cofounder Technical Review Equity Dividend 78

YoungUpstarts

NOVEMBER 20, 2019

The market for our product was global, and we had unique advantages in terms of our product and how we distributed it to customers. If the companies in their portfolio don’t have much in common with yours, it’s usually better to look elsewhere. Ultimately, these advantages helped us secure the funding we needed. Tailor your pitch deck.

Technical Review 140

Technical Review Due Diligence Early Stage Differentiation 140

VC Cafe

AUGUST 17, 2023

I learned so much about the culture, current events, and the Israeli venture capital industry. After spending just two months in the industry, I recognize the importance of venture capital for spurring innovation, especially in Israel.

Generative AI 78

Generative AI Venture Capital ChatGPT 78

Steve Blank

NOVEMBER 16, 2009

What metrics do we use to see if we learned enough in Customer Discovery ? I gave my boilerplate answer, “I’m a product guy and I tend to invest and look at deals that have measurable revenue metrics. Dave McClure has some great metrics…” It was an honest but vaguely unsatisfying answer. It’s an impressive portfolio.

Customer Development 219

Customer Development Web Developer Customer 219

View from Seed

SEPTEMBER 14, 2021

Warning – this assumes some basic knowledge of VC performance metrics. That’s a bit of a cautionary tale to VC investors today who might think it’s inevitable that the private value they are enjoying in their portfolios will certainly translate to distributions in the near future. Ok, let’s jump in.

Valuation 319

Valuation Pre-Money Valuation Distribution Early Stage 319

View from Seed

SEPTEMBER 14, 2021

Warning – this assumes some basic knowledge of VC performance metrics. That’s a bit of a cautionary tale to VC investors today who might think it’s inevitable that the private value they are enjoying in their portfolios will certainly translate to distributions in the near future. Ok, let’s jump in.

Valuation 295

Valuation Pre-Money Valuation Distribution Early Stage 295

Steve Blank

SEPTEMBER 14, 2009

Over the same 30 years, Venture Capital firms have honed their skills and strategies to match Wall Streets needs to achieve liquidity for their portfolio companies. One of the biggest mistakes entrepreneurs make is misunderstanding the role of venture capital investors. What Do VC’s Do?

Silicon Valley 217

Silicon Valley IPO Technical Review Venture Capital 217

Both Sides of the Table

MARCH 25, 2016

Marketing with long payback is precisely what requires venture capital. dominated by a few very large incumbents who control much of the distribution or are you going into a market that is “fragmented” where nobody controls the industry. That’s why Ring is amongst the fastest growing company in our portfolio.

Startup 150

Startup Seed Money DC Software Review 150

View from Seed

SEPTEMBER 14, 2021

Warning – this assumes some basic knowledge of VC performance metrics. That’s a bit of a cautionary tale to VC investors today who might think it’s inevitable that the private value they are enjoying in their portfolios will certainly translate to distributions in the near future. Ok, let’s jump in.

Valuation 156

Valuation Pre-Money Valuation Distribution Early Stage 156

500hats.com

AUGUST 2, 2012

TL:DR : This post aims to recap significant changes in the venture capital industry over the past ten years, and then make some [biased] predictions as to major forces at play in the next five years. However, all three shifts are related and can be summed up simply as: Geeks are Taking Over Venture Capital.

Silicon Valley 74

Silicon Valley Early Stage Venture Capital Valuation 74

www.vccafe.com

MARCH 11, 2013

Venture Capital Cafe > Startup Resources (Updated Mar 2013). Startup Metrics for Pirates â?? SaaS Metrics Tutorial â?? free, distributed source code control management system. Boilerplate Venture Funding Documents. National Venture Capital Association â?? Raising Venture Capital.

Software Review 53

Software Review Technical Review Startup 53

Growthink Blog

MAY 23, 2011

With this seed capital – more often than not totaling between $100,000 and $1,000,000 - the company accomplishes a number of key technical milestones, gets a beta customer or two, and then goes on a "road show" to venture capitalists around the country for capital to “scale” the business. There are a lot of dark, hard days.

Angel Investor 112

Angel Investor Venture Capital Sweat Equity Cram Down 112

www.readwriteweb.com

MARCH 7, 2011

Instead of investors holding onto proprietary connections and introductions for their portfolio companies, these relationships are being displaced by the dominate social networks ( Facebook , Linkedin , Quora ). Most indices are cap-weighted - more in line with a concentrated portfolio (i.e. startupcto

Technical Review 50

Technical Review Due Diligence Startup Angel Investor 50

Rob Go

JULY 17, 2014

For a seed stage venture capital firm, product/market fit comes down to two questions. 1) How is the portfolio performing? On performance, we are happy with how things are shaping up in our early NextView I portfolio. 2) Is your reputation in the market such that great people will want to work with you? Twitter ).

Seed Stage 69

Seed Stage Early Stage Due Diligence Liquidity Event 69

Cracking the Code

MAY 15, 2008

Global warming, by accentuating drought and melting glaciers, will have a key impact on water resources distribution and will increase the unbalance. Audience: 90 percent voted “Yes” 8) Venture capital 2.0 Portfolio. (3). Venture Capital. (3). SaaS business metrics: why are they different?

Software Review 48

Software Review Technical Review San Jose Venture Capital 48

abovethecrowd.com

APRIL 20, 2016

In Silicon Valley boardrooms, where “growth at all costs” had been the mantra for many years, people began to imagine a world where the cost of capital could rise dramatically, and profits could come back in vogue. Anything that hints of a down round brings questions about the success metrics that have already been “booked.”

IPO 40

IPO Term Sheet Silicon Valley Valuation 40

K9 Ventures

APRIL 9, 2014

Most of these funds are <$100M, with the majority of them being clustered around the $40M mark (that’s the point where the fund economics start to work in terms of management fee and ability to take a meaningful stake in portfolio companies). Top engineering talent today has a bimodal distribution. The seed round is bigger.

Mezzanine 134

Mezzanine Seed Stage Early Stage IPO 134

K9 Ventures

DECEMBER 10, 2011

One of the investment criteria that I set for K9 Ventures is based on geography. No distributed teams, no overseas teams, and definitely no companies that rely on “outsourcing” to build their core technology. ” Now that last statement is a little off, since I have a portfolio company in Berkeley and one as far south as San Jose.

Silicon Valley 124

Silicon Valley San Jose Portfolio Cofounder 124

K9 Ventures

DECEMBER 10, 2011

One of the investment criteria that I set for K9 Ventures is based on geography. No distributed teams, no overseas teams, and definitely no companies that rely on “outsourcing” to build their core technology. ” Now that last statement is a little off, since I have a portfolio company in Berkeley and one as far south as San Jose.

Silicon Valley 112

Silicon Valley San Jose Portfolio Cofounder 112

Haystack

DECEMBER 26, 2018

Home prices are moving in lock-step with higher salaries, to the point where many investors are hunting for deals outside the area, where teams are now starting off distributed or with a plurality of offices to locate some functions outside of the Bay Area costly square footage.

IPO 76

IPO Private Equity Valuation Acquisition 76

Scalable Startup

FEBRUARY 1, 2013

And so the other reason that I am very interested in delving deep into this space is that it seems like IPOs like Workday, Palo Alto Networks are sort of — they have metrics and analytics that Wall Street understands, more so than a Facebook; like “We are going to sell X number of this in the next year.” Marc Andreessen: Yeah, exactly!

Software Review 22

Software Review Startup Venture Capital Stock 22

Both Sides of the Table

MARCH 6, 2011

I think how hard it is for me to be hands-on with a handful of portfolio companies. He was talking profusely about their portfolio company email lists and the knowledge that is shared. EcoMom’s metrics improved throughout this process and that’s when I decided to invest. Not intended that way, it was sincere. So I thought, WTF?

Valuation 292

Valuation Deal Flow Lead Investor Cofounder 292

Reid Hoffman

JANUARY 13, 2021

And one and two are, “I don’t want to do the deal,” with one being, “I really don’t want to do the deal,” and two is like, “I don’t think it should be part of the portfolio, but look, if the rest of you think it’s kind of a good idea…fine. You know, maybe I’m wrong.” Do you still believe in blitzscaling?

Incubator 36

Incubator IPO Networking Cofounder 36