Agile VC

MAY 26, 2011

Many assume it was a cakewalk, based on the success LinkedIn has enjoyed over time and the current stature of our founder/CEO Reid Hoffman (now Chairman). I thought I’d revisit it and share the story… First, you have to rewind mentally to early 2003. But keep in mind at this point Reid’s a first-time CEO.

Term Sheet 178

Term Sheet Silicon Valley Technical Review Social Network 178

OnlyOnce

JUNE 9, 2022

” So I was intrigued when I saw a new way of doing all-hands meetings published by my friend Daniel Odio (DROdio) on his founder community called FounderCulture. But for early stage companies, there’s no tried-and-true method. Sometimes other founders write these. I call it “plagiarizing with pride.”

Cofounder 62

Cofounder Hosting Forecast Early Stage 62

VC Cafe

NOVEMBER 2, 2019

Forecasting is sometimes done by dragging the mouse based on many assumptions, because it’s hard to predict the future. 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?

B2C 141

B2C Technical Review Startup Retention 141

Feld Thoughts

AUGUST 12, 2011

When we were last with Dick and Jane on Finance Fridays, our fearless entrepreneurs were figuring out how to split up their founders equity and account for an investment from Jane. Build a financial model that forecasts the P&L. QuickBooks allows you to forecast expenses. as a C-Corp in Delaware. historical data).

Balance Sheet 136

Balance Sheet Forecast Cap Table Early Stage 136

Up and Running

JULY 26, 2016

This is what our hiring landscape looked like over the past year: Pre-2015, we hired three founders: 1x hustler in charge of strategic growth hacking. See Also: A Complete Guide to Forecasting Sales for Your Monthly Subscription (SaaS) Business. This is when metrics come into play. 1x hacker in charge of product/development.

Revenue 60

Revenue Acquisition Channel Campaign 60

Up and Running

MAY 23, 2016

“If you can fix a problem for someone and do it better, quicker, and/or cheaper than your competitor, you’re off to a good start.” – Gabriel Kuperman, founder and CEO of CuePin. We created UpKeep to fill this void—a cloud-based solution that was affordable for any size business.” – Ryan Chan, founder of UpKeep.

Software Review 74

Software Review Software Delaware Forecast 74

Startup Lessons Learned

JUNE 5, 2009

Companies that reliably fail to make their forecasted numbers are exceptionally prone to “management retooling.&# In a startup context, numbers like gross revenue are actually vanity metrics, not actionable metrics. Even that early, it became clear that 4% was not an achievable goal. June 8, 2009 1:16 AM Colin said.

San Francisco 102

San Francisco Lean Continuous Deployment Startup 102

Up and Running

JANUARY 16, 2013

Creating a plan with expense projections, revenue forecasts, and more can help a small business remain committed to its long-term goals.” ~ Andrew Schrage , Money Crashers Personal Finance. Avoid any miscommunications by getting it all on paper early.” ~ Doreen Bloch , Poshly Inc. Metrics and accountability. . . .

Business Plan 96

Business Plan LLC Forecast Early Stage 96

Up and Running

AUGUST 20, 2018

The most classic business planning scenario is for a startup, for which the plan helps the founders break uncertainty down into meaningful pieces, like the sales projection, expense budget, milestones, and tasks. This simple plan format is also great for early-stage companies that just want to sketch out their idea in broad strokes.

Business Plan 119

Business Plan Technical Review Lean Forecast 119

Tim Keane

JANUARY 12, 2010

  In a bottom up approach, the forecast is built from actual user projections.   A cumulative dividend can get to be very expensive and is not often a feature in early stage terms. These include: ·       Vesting of Founder Stock. This is why a bottom up approach is more credible.

Term Sheet 68

Term Sheet Valuation Dividend Liquidation Preference 68

Seeing Both Sides

OCTOBER 24, 2015

The problem is that many early-stage companies have no idea what their average, long-term churn rate really is because they are simply too young. Thus, the cost of capital for a start-up (and the dilution a founder faces in exchange for that capital) is very high.

Churn Rate 20

Churn Rate Early Stage Revenue Metrics 20

Startup Lessons Learned

JULY 9, 2009

We were focused on revenue, but we didnt understand that revenue is not important for its own sake in an early stage company. In fact, I remember sending him and his obscure-to-me co-founder (aka Reid Hoffman ) a bug report early-on, instead of taking them up on their offer of an in-person meeting. About spot trends.

San Francisco 94

San Francisco Lean Continuous Deployment DC 94

Berkonomics

DECEMBER 19, 2013

If you are an investor in an early stage venture, wouldn’t a dialog using these questions help greatly in defining and perhaps reducing your risk? How much skin do you and your fellow founders have in the game ? If not, isn’t it worth the work to prepare for the time you’ll be asked some or many of these? a 33% discount.

Pre-Money Valuation 105

Pre-Money Valuation Liquidity Event Cofounder Valuation 105

Up and Running

JULY 28, 2016

See Also: The 5 Metrics You Need to Track for Your Subscription (SaaS) Business to Succeed. Hosted by Mike Taber and Rob Walling (who have over 20 years’ combined experience in the industry), this podcast covers their experiences, the stories of other successful founders, and (sometimes most importantly) discusses what to avoid doing.

Startup 60

Startup Analytics Metrics Community 60

Up and Running

DECEMBER 9, 2014

Maybe you are wondering which metrics to track, or whether or not you should take out a loan for your business. My founders and I started the company about three years ago. What I did is I learned the art of a pro forma and the value of a pro forma which basically is a forecast. Bates: That’s a great recommendation Matt.

Small Business 95

Small Business Finance Forecast Metrics 95

SoCal CTO

AUGUST 3, 2010

Startup Culture Lessons From Mad Men - OnStartups , July 26, 2010 The following is a guest post by Brian Halligan who is my co-founder and CEO at HubSpot (which means he gets to do most of the really hard work). Metrics availability. graph consists of a set of nodes connected by edges. We have the most features. Silly, right?

Software Review 217

Software Review Startup Venture Capital Technical Review 217