YoungUpstarts

JUNE 4, 2019

by Bruce Cleveland, Founding Partner at Wildcat Venture Partners and author of “ Traversing the Traction Gap “ As we continue our exploration of the Traction Gap Framework® – a step-by-step approach that startup teams can use to go from ideation to preparing to scale – I will walk you through the principles.

Framework 127

Framework Architecture Cleveland Early Stage 127

View from Seed

OCTOBER 24, 2019

Or, if you can’t skip a round, when should you try to work extra hard to minimize dilution and when should you be prepared to take more dilution for the right partner/situation? Also, the benefit of raising a pre-seed from great partners probably outweighs the cost. Founders with limited experience. should be avoided.

Dilution 149

Dilution B2B Burn Rate Early Stage 149

The Startup Magazine

JUNE 1, 2023

As an early-stage company that just closed our seed round at $8.1 So what does an early-stage company do to avoid the doom and gloom plaguing the world of startups? His vision is to create a logistics company that curates trust from its employees to the shippers and carriers they partner with. That includes us.

Early Stage 113

Early Stage Los Angeles Silicon Valley Cofounder 113

YoungUpstarts

MAY 24, 2019

by Bruce Cleveland, Founding Partner at Wildcat Venture Partners and author of “ Traversing the Traction Gap “ As we continue our exploration of the Traction Gap Framework® – a step-by-step approach that startup teams can use to go from ideation to preparing to scale – I will walk you through the principles.

Framework 113

Framework Architecture Cleveland Early Stage 113

Steve Blank

NOVEMBER 1, 2011

Every potential early-stage Venture Capitalist should take a year and do it before he or she makes partner. Over time Venture firms realized that the partners in the firms needs a variety of skills: People skills (ability to recognize patterns of success in individuals and teams). we do not even try to train new partners.

Venture Capital 332

Venture Capital Early Stage Technical Review Startup 332

Both Sides of the Table

JUNE 30, 2016

How much you raise determines valuation I know it sounds crazy but at the earliest stages of a company your valuation often is determined by how much money you raise. There is a general guideline of how much investors want to own in order to invest in your company and the norm is 15–30% with the most common range 20–25% per early stage round.

Pre-Money Valuation 292

Pre-Money Valuation Valuation Early Stage Startup 292

View from Seed

JANUARY 13, 2021

It turns out capital is not a weapon, especially in the early stages of building a business, and even experienced founders who can raise huge sums often realize this and right-size their asks. But what has also happened over the last 10 years is the massive expansion of the series A and lifecycle fund market.

Dilution 399

Dilution Later Stage Portfolio Technical Review 399

Both Sides of the Table

MARCH 19, 2013

If you’re an early-stage enterprise startup services revenue is exactly what you need. The most important way to sell a product for an early-stage business (or frankly any stage) is to have strong referenceable customers. Channel Partners Not Yet Formed. But while you’re early?

Technical Review 403

Technical Review Software Review Startup API 403

Version One Ventures

DECEMBER 28, 2023

It’s still in the very early stages there, but there is definitely an enthusiastic community to build on. 4) Building pre-seed companies As we reflect upon our own sweet spot of “backing mission-driven founders at the earliest stages,” one important point of clarity is that this truly means at inception or pre-seed.

Technical Review 73

Technical Review India Canada Early Stage 73

The Startup Magazine

SEPTEMBER 15, 2020

It is a type of financing that investors can provide to startups and small businesses which are believed to have the potential for success in the long term. Each firm can also focus on a particular stage of investment, from seed and early-stage funding all the way through to Series C and beyond.

Venture Capital 144

Venture Capital Technical Review Software Review Security 144

Both Sides of the Table

JULY 16, 2010

The VC industry grew dramatically as a result of the Internet bubble - Before the Internet bubble the people who invested in VC funds (called LPs or Limited Partners) put about $50 billion into the industry and by 2001 this had grown precipitously to around $250 billion. Partners leave the industry. Here’s my take: 1.

LP 311

LP Technical Review Early Stage Silicon Valley 311

VC Cafe

NOVEMBER 2, 2019

One question that keeps coming up when speaking with early stage entrepreneurs when it comes to funding, is what metrics the company needs to hit to raise seed/series A/B etc: What’s a good conversion rate? Deep tech is harder to measure/compare, especially in the early stage. What should our MRR growth be?

B2C 141

B2C Technical Review Startup Retention 141

YoungUpstarts

JUNE 26, 2020

If you are building a startup, you’ll find no shortage of people who are willing to give you advice, particularly when it comes to raising financing. For some entrepreneurs, raising financing can seem like a full time job, particularly in these trying times. He is also a venture partner at several VC firms.

Finance 205

Finance Silicon Valley Valuation Startup 205

Both Sides of the Table

JANUARY 6, 2014

The functions of an early-stage board are pretty obvious and well understood: Providing introductions to customers, biz dev partners, recruits, the press, other investors, etc. Offering a sparring-partner function on strategic decisions. how much energy to put into channel partners vs. direct sales. Experience.

Technical Review 325

Technical Review Early Stage Software Review Los Angeles 325

Both Sides of the Table

MARCH 24, 2014

Working with early-stage teams : coaching, mentoring, setting strategy, rolling up sleeves: 9/10. Helping companies get to next financing round successfully: I was just beginning this phase in Sept 2010 and said so. I’ve now been involved with many other successful foll0w-on financings. Since then?

Los Angeles 387

Los Angeles Intellectual Property LP Venture Capital 387

VC Cafe

JULY 21, 2022

Investment bank Drake Star Partners published a report on the gaming investment and M&A activity in the first half of 2022. Private financing market continued to see strong deal activity with $3.6B in total financings in Q2, surpassing Q1 total through 169 deals. How many people play games in 2022? Over 3 billion.

Forecast 190

Forecast IP Mobile Acquisition 190

Startup Professionals Musings

APRIL 22, 2023

Many entrepreneurs are convinced that banks are not worth the effort for startups, especially early-stage ones that still don’t have a revenue stream, or collateral to back up their financing needs. This question gets to the heart of what bank financing is and isn't supposed to accomplish. Money from other sources.

Equity 303

Equity Silicon Valley Finance Early Stage 303

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

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

View from Seed

JANUARY 27, 2021

. $100M is a meaningful increase from our $50M third fund, though it’s still quite small in the grand scheme of venture, especially amid the recent wave of late stage financings and SPACs. We believe that this fund is the perfect size for us to be the best possible partners to early-stage entrepreneurs today.

LP 411

LP Early Stage Seed Stage Venture Capital 411

David Teten

FEBRUARY 7, 2012

Before making the decision to join ff Venture Capital , I did some research on early-stage tech investing as an asset class and how it’s evolving. Although any given early-stage company is quite risky, when aggregated across a large portfolio, returns are very attractive. Our finance team acts as an outsourced CFO.

Early Stage 148

Early Stage Private Equity Portfolio Aggregator 148

YoungUpstarts

MAY 27, 2019

This is an especially dangerous pitfall for early stage startups and new entrepreneurs. Previously, he was a senior executive and managing partner in private equity and corporate finance for 15 years and directly involved in the deployment and management of billions of dollars of debt and equity investments in various industries.

Cofounder 170

Cofounder Private Equity Software Review Equity 170

David Teten

APRIL 1, 2021

As an agenda for each meeting, I suggest: – How can we most add value, in addition to helping with financing? Dan Kozikowski, Partner and Head of Platform, First Mark Capital , said to me, “Firms should match services to the stage-specific needs of companies. This is an open-ended query and the most important question.).

Private Equity 78

Private Equity Venture Capital Portfolio Equity 78

David Teten

JANUARY 21, 2021

(co-written with Jamie Finney, Founding Partner at Greater Colorado Venture Fund. VI: Revenue-based financing: The next step for private equity and early-stage investment. This is a summary of: Revenue-Based financing: State of the Industry 2020. His work on VC and small communities can be found at greatercolorado.vc/blog.

Equity 78

Equity Revenue Cofounder Colorado 78

Steve Blank

JUNE 19, 2014

We assumed that for commercial hypotheses (clinical utility, who the customer is, data and quality of data, how reimbursement works, what parts of the product are valuable, roles of partners, etc.) clinical utility, customer, quality of data, reimbursement, what parts of the product are valuable, roles of CRO’s , and partners, etc.,)

Lean 269

Lean SBIR Intellectual Property Customer Development 269

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

Both Sides of the Table

OCTOBER 11, 2016

We help founders through difficult moments, we help coach, we act as sparring partners, we help them resolve conflicts when they’re fighting with co-founders and we help them deal with adversity as well as successes. The role of VC is sparring partner. It’s the executives who trust you to join the early-stage startups you’ve funded.

Venture Capital 150

Venture Capital Fractional CTO Cofounder Early Stage 150

Both Sides of the Table

SEPTEMBER 29, 2013

It should help some entrepreneurs to better access early-stage capital and should allow some angel investors better access to deal flow. lack of traction, lack of downstream financing availability. Syndicates can move faster in early-stage deals than rounding up 40 individual investors. founder fighting.

Syndicate 356

Syndicate Syndication Cofounder Early Stage 356

Startup Professionals Musings

JULY 23, 2012

I recommend that every early-stage startup find three Advisory Board members. Even more importantly, you should expect these members of your team to be your advocates to angel or VC investors, or even be part of your friends and family financing round. Make sure they are willing to check their egos at the door.

Advisory Board 239

Advisory Board Technical Review Startup Software Review 239

David Teten

SEPTEMBER 4, 2020

Finance is a new, early-stage, New York-based VC focused on East Coast companies. s founder is David Teten , previously a Partner with HOF Capital and ff Venture Capital and a serial fintech entrepreneur with 2 exits. Company overview. The firm particularly has interest in fintech, edtech, and salestech.

New York 60

New York Venture Capital Technical Review Due Diligence 60

Both Sides of the Table

SEPTEMBER 10, 2021

And the loosening of federal monetary policies, particularly in the US, has pushed more dollars into the venture ecosystems at every stage of financing. What Has Changed in Financing? The biggest change for us in early-stage investing is that we now need to commit earlier. Of course we can’t.

Pre-Money Valuation 471

Pre-Money Valuation Valuation Venture Capital Early Stage 471

View from Seed

APRIL 20, 2020

As we have discussed elsewhere, the world of early stage investing is shifting from FOMO ( F ear O f M issing O ut) to FOLD (Fear Of Looking Dumb). Starting today, we will begin accepting our first cohort of startups into the program: WHO : Pre-Seed & Seed stage startups located anywhere focused on the U.S.

B2B 436

B2B Seed Stage B2C Programming 436

Startup Professionals Musings

JULY 27, 2020

Many entrepreneurs are convinced that banks are not worth the effort for startups, especially early-stage ones that still don’t have a revenue stream, or collateral to back up their financing needs. This question gets to the heart of what bank financing is and isn't supposed to accomplish. Money from other sources.

Silicon Valley 406

Silicon Valley Equity Startup Finance 406

www.seriesseed.com

MARCH 2, 2010

SeriesSeed.com Series Seed Financing Documents Blog Home Documents Blog Archives Subscribe 09/02/2010 Version 2.0   That said, I think this quote accurately captures the life-cycle of creating a simple set of documents for early stage investment. Then they laugh at you. Then they fight you. Then you win.”

Finance 58

Finance Term Sheet Equity Aggregator 58

Steve Blank

APRIL 11, 2013

Examples are Hollywood for movies, Milan for fashion, New York for finance and today, Silicon Valley for technology entrepreneurship. The early clusters occurred by happenstance of geography or history. The best analog for China’s InnoFund is the U.S. government’s SBIR and STTR programs. Venture Guiding Fund.

Programming 278

Programming Technical Review SBIR China 278

YoungUpstarts

OCTOBER 28, 2015

by John Vrionis, partner at Lightspeed Venture Partners. 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. ” The Cost of Financing. Incorporation.

Convertible Security 100

Convertible Security IP Technical Review Software Review 100

View from Seed

FEBRUARY 23, 2021

For early stage VC ‘s, Syndication is the process of sharing investments with other potential co-investors. At this point, the investor and the entrepreneur work together to develop their perfect list of potential partners, and then do targeted outreach to try to bring this investor into the round.

Syndicate 207

Syndicate Syndication Term Sheet Cofounder 207