Startup Lessons Learned

JULY 30, 2009

A discounted price is available for early stage entrepreneurs and students. As usual, if youre a reader and can attend, please come say hello. The event will include a talk from Eric on The Lean Startup over dinner, followed by moderated table discussion and then final Q&A with Eric.

Lean 68

Lean San Francisco Continuous Deployment DC 68

Gust

OCTOBER 12, 2011

Readers may find it helpful to download the sample term sheet from my firm’s website and follow along with the commentary. Particularly when there are multiple closings taking place over a period of months, the fuse burns awfully quickly on a 12-month note given the many competing priorities of early stage entrepreneurs.

Finance 107

Finance Term Sheet Pre-Money Valuation Early Stage 107

Berkonomics

DECEMBER 17, 2020

Let’s take a few minutes to examine the kind of equity financing available to small or early stage businesses. Here is a class of investor we’ve covered before, one usually focused upon you and less upon your business case. All angel groups will want to see the founders in person or by Zoom at sometime early in the process.

Equity 62

Equity Finance Liquidity Event Angel Groups 62

Growthink Blog

MAY 10, 2012

When seeking equity investments, the source of capital is, for the most part, tied to the stage of capital being raised. You see, equity capital is raised in stages or rounds. The five main stages include the following: 1. Early Stage Investment (Series A & B) 4. Pre-Seed Funding 2. Seed Funding 3.

Equity 88

Equity Mezzanine Later Stage Venture Capital 88

Growthink Blog

MAY 21, 2014

One reader reference Gust Founder David Rose’s new book - “ Angel Investing: The Gust Guide to Making Money and Having Fun Investing in Startups ” and to Rose’s main contention that to access the 25% IRR potential of the asset class one must hold positions in not less than 20 companies. He asked, “ Is this practical advice?

San Diego 72

San Diego Warrant IRR Investment Bankers 72

Berkonomics

SEPTEMBER 28, 2017

Equity is divided between the founders and the business begun. Although this insight does not address this point of ignition, we should note in passing that things always change over time, and formerly strong founder-contributors can become a drag upon a business or lose interest if the enterprise is not quickly successful.

Early Stage 102

Early Stage Equity Stock Options Vesting 102

David Teten

JANUARY 28, 2013

The good news for Techcrunch readers: Every major study conducted to date has placed angel investors’ IRR between 18 and 38 percent, as summarized by my Partner John Frankel and Professor Robert Wiltbank in prior Techcrunch articles. I previously published this at Techcrunch. . Every major angel study conducted to date has shown high IRR.

IRR 114

IRR Angel Investor Angel Groups Cofounder 114

VC Adventure

AUGUST 30, 2010

Paul Graham, founder of Y-Combinator , sent out a tweet on Friday saying: “Convertible notes have won. The most common forms of investment in early stage business are convertible debt and preferred equity. I have no doubt that the convertible debt structure has the effect of raising prices for early stage investing.

Angel Investor 103

Angel Investor Early Stage Equity Valuation 103

Berkonomics

NOVEMBER 23, 2023

and here is the usual early-stage trap… First, a brand-new enterprise is often formed from the efforts of several “partners”, each with an expertise valued by the others. Equity is divided between the founders and the business begun. Here are some rules. Let me try to advance a few rules of thumb to help guide you here.

Equity 62

Equity Stock Options Vesting Early Stage 62

Both Sides of the Table

JANUARY 1, 2012

You can fly first class and not talk to fellow passengers. Or riding a crazy party bus and sitting next to Aaron Batalion the co-founder & CTO of Living Social. As a founder you end up having to deal with a lot of sensitive information & discussions. You can stay in super exclusive hotels. Nom nom nom. Office Space.

Los Angeles 319

Los Angeles Silicon Valley Fractional CTO New York City 319

VC Cafe

JULY 30, 2012

I’m writing today to share my recommendations with all who have enquired, and with the broader group of VC Cafe readers. Speakers include Naval Ravinikant (co-founder of AngelList), Dave McClure (500 startups) and Adeo Ressi (founder Institute) providing different angles to the pitch.

Technical Review 113

Technical Review Startup Equity Due Diligence 113

Berkonomics

MAY 12, 2010

Equity is divided between the founders and the business begun. Although this insight does not address this point of ignition, we should note in passing that things always change over time, and formerly strong founder-contributors can become a drag upon a business or loose interest if the enterprise is not quickly successful.

Early Stage 85

Early Stage Equity Stock Options Vesting 85

Duct Tape Marketing

JANUARY 25, 2023

You can learn the science behind great marketing with bite size 20 minute episodes packed with practical advice from world-class marketers and behavioral scientists, and it's not always about marketing. We were founded by a gentleman named Bob Young, who was the original co-founder of Red Hat, which is a massive software company.

Audience 88

Audience Revenue Distribution Differentiation 88

Startup Lessons Learned

NOVEMBER 19, 2008

What all these teachers had in common were two things: they were technology early adopters that were willing to take a chance on a new software product, and they all had similar problems organizing their classes and students. No idea how I found your blog but I follow it with my Google Reader. Thanks for letting me know.

San Francisco 60

San Francisco Lean Continuous Deployment DC 60

Professor VC

FEBRUARY 12, 2015

Former students who are readers of this blog may recall the Amazon IPO case from Entrepreneurial Finance class. I was an informal advisor to the founders from the time they were the only two employees. Yes, I do believe that late stage valuations are out of whack but remain excited about early stage opportunities.

Las Vegas 28

Las Vegas IPO Pre-Money Valuation Valuation 28

www.forentrepreneurs.com

FEBRUARY 2, 2010

To all other readers of this post, Mark Roberge is the VP of Sales at HubSpot, and has implemented the best sales management process for Inside Sales that I have seen anywhere. Very much enjoyed the read David! David Skok Mark, excellent feedback. Both your points are excellent. David Skok Great feedback and suggestions.

Metrics 55

Metrics Design Entrepreneur Startup 55

Startup Lessons Learned

AUGUST 20, 2009

For short stories - I think it is always good to introduce some practical problem (you might have heard from entrepreneur at early stage) and how the lean startup method helped solved that. How I would frame the topic for business/tech readers: Is Seed,Series A->C funding destined to disappear for software startups?

Lean 68

Lean San Francisco Startup Continuous Deployment 68

Professor VC

FEBRUARY 26, 2010

The formula will be based on the founders experience, schools they attended and other background information to gauge the likelihood of success. Of course, when 10-year returns for the entire venture capital asset class is about to drop below zero, drastic measures may be in order. Steve Bennet. at 1:42 PM. Email This BlogThis!

San Jose 28

San Jose Silicon Valley Venture Capital Angel Investor 28

www.paulgraham.com

OCTOBER 23, 2010

And since a startup thatsucceeds ordinarily makes its founders rich, that implies gettingrich is doable too. undergrad could build something better as a class project. Its not what people learn in classes at MIT and Stanford that has made technology companiesspring up around them. Ideally you want between two and four founders.

Startup 105

Startup Cofounder Software Stock 105

Berkonomics

APRIL 3, 2014

There are three classes of equity investors for early stage businesses that we have not yet considered. If you are starting a virtual company with your employees working from home locations, as many startups do, it should be the location of the founder.

Equity 92

Equity Finance Liquidity Event Angel Groups 92

techcrunch.com

OCTOBER 23, 2010

One of the things I do as a founder of a later stage startup is to meet with early stage entrepreneurs to help them get their companies going. Why was it ok for you to have no talent but a great idea and label yourself a co-founder of a company but advise against it for anyone else? and Google. fits well with Mint.

Technical Review 84

Technical Review Cofounder Technical Cofounder Software Review 84

Both Sides of the Table

OCTOBER 18, 2015

Technology riches yield bumper crops in venture capital with new firms and new largesses – the rewards of LPs rediscovering our asset class. Importantly there will be a real cost for founders of the crowdfunding boomlet. The cycle before that was Google, Salesforce and LinkedIn, amongst others. Are LPs to blame? None of these.

IPO 150

IPO Venture Capital LP SEC 150

SoCal CTO

AUGUST 3, 2010

Interesting patterns emerged: Everyone makes the same classes of error. 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). You're probably making a lot of these errors too.

Software Review 217

Software Review Startup Venture Capital Technical Review 217

www.vccafe.com

MARCH 11, 2013

VC Cafe covers early stage Israeli and European tech & mobile startups. ” Hackernews list of “Tools of the Trade” for startups - includes over 150 SaaS tools used by startups, and over 150 comments with interesting insights from founders. Add a class name to buttons, forms, quotes, etc. Eventbrite.

Software Review 53

Software Review Technical Review Startup 53

pandodaily.com

NOVEMBER 29, 2012

This time around, there has been an explosion at the early stages, and the very late pre-IPO growth stages. “Founders don’t think their problems are due to trends. And in fact, overall trends are a second-order effect for founders.” Sarah Lacy is the founder and editor-in-chief of PandoDaily.

Technical Review 93

Technical Review Silicon Valley Incubator Syria 93

Reid Hoffman

JANUARY 13, 2021

Entrepreneurs such as Figma CEO Dylan Field, fellow investors including Moxxie Ventures founder and general partner Katie Stanton, and Coatue Management partner Jamie McGurk pitched questions to the duo. And we talked about some of the key lessons readers learned over the course of his career. You can listen to the podcast here.

Incubator 36

Incubator IPO Networking Cofounder 36