Both Sides of the Table

MAY 19, 2010

Greycroft is an early-stage VC. Founded in November 2007 in New York City by Alexis Maybank and Kevin Ryan (co-founder of DoubleClick); CEO is Susan Lyne (ex-CEO Marta Stewart Living Omnimedia) Revenue estimates: $50mm in 2008; $170mm in 2009 (versus budget of $150mm); $450mm forecasted for 2010. Employees: 20.

Partner 240

Partner New York City Cofounder Syndicate 240

Steve Blank

MARCH 17, 2020

Next, take a look at your actual revenue each month – not forecast, but real revenue coming in each month. If you’re an early stage company, that number may be zero. Subtract your monthly gross burn rate from your monthly revenue to get your net burn rate. This math works in a normal market….

Burn Rate 436

Burn Rate Startup Valuation Sales Cycle 436

Both Sides of the Table

APRIL 3, 2014

Specifically what is often not in the DNA of founders are sales skills. Nor do they exist in the investors of early-stage companies. Founders think in options. That’s the most important thing in your business to get revenues up. And when you get their forecasts they’re always sandbagged.

Sales 382

Sales Startup Technical Review Matching 382

Up and Running

JULY 26, 2016

Between January 2015 and January 2016, we grew our platform Slidebean from $1K to $20K in monthly recurring revenue. Getting the first tracks of revenue is one of the toughest processes of building a startup. See Also: A Complete Guide to Forecasting Sales for Your Monthly Subscription (SaaS) Business. Lean marketing.

Revenue 60

Revenue Acquisition Channel Campaign 60

David Teten

SEPTEMBER 23, 2017

In venture capital in particular, early-stage companies are often operating in frontier industries, where the rules are unpredictable and conventional analytic frameworks may be misleading. Signal is a fundraising tool for founders run by NFX Guild, which identifies the most relevant VCs for you. . Pitchbot.vc

Private Equity 60

Private Equity Venture Capital Equity Technical Review 60

Austin Startup

JUNE 22, 2020

Far too often, founders spend inordinate time talking to angels and VCs trying to convince them of their vision, commitment and results. The phrase, “missionaries, not mercenaries,” applies just as equally to early-stage investors as employees. How could a company only six months old have $600k in revenue this month?

Vertical 64

Vertical Early Stage Forecast Revenue 64

Both Sides of the Table

FEBRUARY 5, 2011

Specifically what is often not in the DNA of founders are sales skills. Nor do they exist in the investors of early-stage companies. That’s the most important thing in your business to get revenues up. And when you get their forecasts they’re always sandbagged. My first startup was no different.

Sales 316

Sales Technical Review Matching Hiring 316

Steve Blank

NOVEMBER 16, 2009

In it, I got asked a question I often hear: “What if we have a web-based business that doesn’t have revenue or paying customers? And without revenue how do we know if we achieved product/market fit to exit Customer Validation?” They’re putting money into web services/business – most without early revenue. Great quote.

Customer Development 228

Customer Development Web Developer Customer 228

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

ReadWriteStart

APRIL 14, 2011

a group of entrepreneurs from TiE Chennai gathered at the Indian Institute of Technology-Madras (IIT-M) Research Park campus, and we spent the next four hours discussing strategy and tactics of early-stage entrepreneurship. At 11 a.m., The value proposition is well articulated, validated, and very clean. Quantum Arc.

India 126

India Technical Review Entrepreneur Silicon Valley 126

Startup Professionals Musings

NOVEMBER 26, 2012

Two founders have spent $200K of personal and family funds over a one year period to start the company, get a prototype site up and running, and have already generated some “buzz” in the Internet community. On the other hand, if the pre-money valuation is $4M, the founders ownership remains at a healthy 80% level.

Valuation 270

Valuation Pre-Money Valuation NPV Intellectual Property 270

SoCal CTO

MAY 19, 2010

For example, TCA’s evaluation criteria first bullet is: A market opportunity sufficiently large to create a business that can grow to at least $50 million in annual revenues. Remember my day job, I'm past Chairman of the Tech Coast Angels and I see a lot of pitches with revenue forecasts. These are so detached from reality.

Hockey Stick 205

Hockey Stick NPV IRR Valuation 205

Startup Professionals Musings

SEPTEMBER 30, 2011

Two founders have spent $200K of personal and family funds over a one year period to start the company, get a prototype site up and running, and have already generated some “buzz” in the Internet community. On the other hand, if the pre-money valuation is $4M, the founders ownership remains at a healthy 80% level.

Pre-Money Valuation 246

Pre-Money Valuation Valuation NPV Intellectual Property 246

VC Cafe

SEPTEMBER 26, 2022

The past year was a wild ride for startups and founders, giving a whole new meaning to the ”rollercoaster” aspect of being an entrepreneur. For more about forecasting growth in these uncertain times, check out Sequoia’s “ Adapting to Endure ” presentations published in May 2022. Bill Gates , founder of Microsoft.

Founder 187

Founder Startup Valuation Pre-Money Valuation 187

Up and Running

MAY 3, 2012

And besides, obtaining early-stage investment is no guarantee of success, either. We need to insist that they set goals and milestones, create cash flow forecasts and devise ways to test their assumptions. ??We -based venture capital fund had just invested in 17 companies. Surely we can do better?

Entrepreneur 82

Entrepreneur Technical Review Silicon Valley Lean 82

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. Revenues and costs should both be based off of a robust set of assumptions. historical data).

Balance Sheet 136

Balance Sheet Forecast Cap Table Early Stage 136

Gust

NOVEMBER 18, 2012

Two founders have spent $200K of personal and family funds over a one year period to start the company, get a prototype site up and running, and have already generated some “buzz” in the Internet community. On the other hand, if the pre-money valuation is $4M, the founders ownership remains at a healthy 80% level.

Valuation 187

Valuation Pre-Money Valuation NPV Intellectual Property 187

Startup Professionals Musings

SEPTEMBER 6, 2010

Two founders have spent $200K of personal and family funds over a one year period to start the company, get a prototype site up and running, and have already generated some “buzz” in the Internet community. On the other hand, if the pre-money valuation is $4M, the founders ownership remains at a healthy 80% level.

Valuation 234

Valuation Pre-Money Valuation NPV Startup 234

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

Up and Running

MAY 23, 2016

In fact, SaaS industry revenue is projected to grow from $49 billion in 2015 to $67 billion in 2018, a compound annual growth rate of approximately eight percent. 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

Up and Running

JANUARY 16, 2013

Businesses without a plan can easily get off-target, and revenues will suffer as a result. 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. Foster Alignment. Hold Yourself Accountable.

Business Plan 96

Business Plan LLC Forecast Early Stage 96

VC Cafe

JANUARY 28, 2011

“In the online advertising industry there is never a dull moment&# , told me Assaf Roth the founder of IgnitAd. Indeed, this early stage startup has a lot going on. VC Cafe had a chance to ask ignitAd ‘s CEO and co-founder Assaf Roth a few questions.

Algorithm 74

Algorithm Forecast Cofounder Advertising 74

Startup Lessons Learned

JUNE 5, 2009

And so the spreadsheet is built with conservative assumptions, including a final revenue target. No matter how low we make the revenue projections for this new product, it’s extremely unlikely that they are achievable. In a startup context, numbers like gross revenue are actually vanity metrics, not actionable metrics.

San Francisco 102

San Francisco Lean Continuous Deployment Startup 102

VC Cafe

JANUARY 28, 2011

“In the online advertising industry there is never a dull moment&# , told me Assaf Roth the founder of IgniteAd. Indeed, this early stage startup has a lot going on. VC Cafe had a chance to ask ignitAd ‘s CEO and co-founder Assaf Roth a few questions.

Algorithm 79

Algorithm Forecast Cofounder Advertising 79

Tim Keane

JANUARY 12, 2010

3]   However, if they are built bottom up, they demonstrate and make explicit a range of business model assumptions the entrepreneur is using to think about his business and its revenue model.   In a bottom up approach, the forecast is built from actual user projections. This is why a bottom up approach is more credible.

Term Sheet 68

Term Sheet Valuation Dividend Liquidation Preference 68

Both Sides of the Table

FEBRUARY 12, 2010

Each board pack should have the history of performance over the past year, a comparison of performance relative to plan and your forecasts going forward. Most people in really early stage companies send out board packs the day before the meeting or if you’re luck 2 days before.

Startup 331

Startup Balance Sheet Forecast Early Stage 331

VC Cafe

MARCH 4, 2024

credit rating forecast dropped in November, and since then the S&P 500 index has jumped by 15%. Jensen Huang, the founder and CEO of Nvidia ( source ) Michael Eisenberg, co-founder of Aleph, an Israeli venture firm, said in a recent post: “What is the elevator pitch for investing in Israel for the next decade?

Technical Review 78

Technical Review Cofounder Venture Capital 78

www.forentrepreneurs.com

FEBRUARY 2, 2010

The company has just missed its quarterly revenue forecast. Lets take an example, and look at how they might do this: They will be able to tell you that revenue is composed of deals. To compute revenue, you multiply average deal size by number of deals. Bookings is the pre-cursor to Revenue. Obvious, isn’t it?

Metrics 55

Metrics Design Entrepreneur Startup 55

Seeing Both Sides

OCTOBER 24, 2015

Many blogs suggest you simply divide 1 by your monthly churn rate to get to a number of months of duration that you can expect to collect revenues from your customer. Thus, if your average monthly churn rate is "c", the number of months of revenue you will receive over the lifetime of a customer is 1/c. A monthly churn rate of 1%?

Churn Rate 20

Churn Rate Early Stage Revenue Metrics 20

ReadWriteStart

JANUARY 28, 2022

The market regards equity as an ownership “share” in a corporation’s income revenue stream. Equity for Co-founders. Founders can compensate them in either equity or salary as per their preference. This range decreases if there are more founders. Make forecasts about the company’s performance.

Valuation 108

Valuation Equity Warrant Common Stock 108

Steve Blank

AUGUST 27, 2009

Yet we used the product development model not only to manage product development, but as a road map for finding customers and to time our marketing launch and sales revenue plan. We’ll look at the model stage-by-stage. If it’s a new division inside a larger company, forecasts talk about return on investment.

Silicon Valley 269

Silicon Valley Product Startup Product Development 269

Up and Running

SEPTEMBER 20, 2016

When I was seeking a co-founder for my startup, each time I’d dive deep into a discussion about commitment with potential partners, they’d bring up venture capitalists and fundraising. An early question among potential co-founders during these discussions was always “have you raised money yet?” You probably don’t need it (yet).

Early Stage 60

Early Stage Startup Forecast Channel 60

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.

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? Revenue projections: What will happen to the company if the revenues and earnings projected on a worst case basis are not achieved as predicted? a 33% discount. www.berkus.com.

Pre-Money Valuation 105

Pre-Money Valuation Liquidity Event Cofounder Valuation 105

Up and Running

JULY 14, 2015

Read also: Q&A with Business Incubator Co-founder Joe Maruschak. Peter: Yeah, that’s a perfect question for a recent article we posted called Q&A with Business Incubator Co-founder Joe Maruschak. Send us an email: Bcast@Bplans.com. Listen to Episode 8: Show notes: Charlie’s Email – (:31). Where do I go?

Incubator 60

Incubator Email Startup Oregon 60

Up and Running

JULY 28, 2016

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. See Also: A Complete Guide to Forecasting Sales for Your Monthly Subscription (SaaS) Business.

Startup 60

Startup Analytics Metrics Community 60

www.currentlyobsessed.com

MAY 28, 2010

It hardly deserves any attention at all in the early stages. For some closing thoughts, I’ll just add that: Valuation tends to be too much of a focus for most early stage companies. I know this sounds crazy, but it’s not. Read more about deal math on Brad Feld’s blog. For example, liquidation prefs.

Valuation 42

Valuation Channel Pre-Money Valuation Term Sheet 42