Startup Professionals Musings

OCTOBER 5, 2014

Cashflow is a basic survival metric for every startup. Yet it always amazes me that I can find two different startups, seemingly working on the same problem, with one having a burn rate several times higher than the other. They understand startup realities. Desperate entrepreneurs lose their leverage and die young.

Burn Rate 262

Burn Rate Hockey Stick Entrepreneur Salary 262

View from Seed

MARCH 24, 2021

.” Below are our favorite pieces from the past few years, divided in to a few key categories: fundraising, company building, product development, industry trends, and the life of a VC. Free Template for Great Startup Pitch Decks, Direct from VCs. ’ like all startups have to, but also “why invest now?'”

Seed Stage 177

Seed Stage Hiring IPO Analytics 177

Startup Professionals Musings

MAY 30, 2022

Very few startups are cash-rich enough to self-finance aggressive second-stage growth. They need a large infusion from venture capitalists, private equity, bank loans, or mezzanine financing. Growth is more than simply repackaging existing products, and adding bells and whistles or slick incentives. Hire more help than helpers.

Mezzanine 368

Mezzanine Private Equity Bandwidth Metrics 368

Feld Thoughts

NOVEMBER 18, 2013

Here’s the punchline: if you run your company as if you have closed a VC equity financing round even though you actually closed a convertible debt round, you’ll be in much better shape when it comes time to raise your Series A financing. So why would you treat your debt investors (somewhat) like equity investors?

Burn Rate 152

Burn Rate Equity Software Review Early Stage 152

Startup Professionals Musings

SEPTEMBER 1, 2019

Very few startups are cash-rich enough to self-finance aggressive second-stage growth. They need a large infusion from venture capitalists, private equity, bank loans, or mezzanine financing. Growth is more than simply repackaging existing products, and adding bells and whistles or slick incentives. Hire more help than helpers.

Mezzanine 244

Mezzanine Private Equity Startup Bandwidth 244

Business Plan Blog

AUGUST 20, 2013

Every Tech Startup Needs a Chief Technical Officer. In order to be a successful tech startup, the team must consist of a Chief Technical Officer (CTO) level member to help with the technology plan. This is generally achieved in one of the following ways: CTO Level Co-Founder (Equity). Development Plan (Timelines/Costs/Budgets).

CTO Hire 55

CTO Hire Fractional CTO Architecture Cofounder 55

David Teten

AUGUST 19, 2019

This structure offers some of the benefits of traditional equity VC, without some of the negatives of equity VC. I’ve been a traditional equity VC for 8 years, and I’m now researching new business models in venture capital. We have a special program if you are pre-seed and need product development.

Revenue 60

Revenue Technical Review Software Review Equity 60

David Teten

MAY 1, 2013

This is part 1 of a 2-part series on domain names and startups; part 2 will be “ Build Your Startup on a Vacant Domain Name ”. A startup called Corpora made headlines for all the wrong reasons after tech bloggers ran an image search to find the company logo. credit: Wikipedia)). Facebook paid $8.5

Naming 114

Naming Semantic Venture Capital Startup 114

David Teten

OCTOBER 1, 2015

and if you’re like most of today’s startups — you need to get an app in the hands of customers. On the other side of the equation, there are a growing number of design, development, and digital media shops who are hungry to expand, or swap focus, to building a company that’s more than just a service shop.

Software Developers 60

Software Developers Software Development Software Developer 60

The Startup Magazine

SEPTEMBER 2, 2021

In 2021, the startup landscape looks much different than it did in 2000. For starters, there are more startups. And these are not just any old startups either; they’re some of the most innovative and successful organizations around! Damon Becnel discusses how the startup industry has changed over the past decade.

Startup 128

Startup Social Media Global Incubator 128

The Startup Magazine

SEPTEMBER 12, 2019

Most startups view venture capital funding as a blessing from above — eager to take it as soon as they can get it. Typical startups take in multiple rounds of funding from multiple investors. Focus on Product Development First. In the startup world, who you are is often just as important as what you make.

Early Stage 85

Early Stage Venture Capital Bootstrapping Pre-Money Valuation 85

Startup Professionals Musings

SEPTEMBER 13, 2017

Very few startups are cash-rich enough to self-finance aggressive second-stage growth. They need a large infusion from venture capitalists, private equity, bank loans, or mezzanine financing. Growth is more than simply repackaging existing products, and adding bells and whistles or slick incentives. Hire more help than helpers.

Mezzanine 141

Mezzanine Private Equity Startup Bandwidth 141

Austin Startup

AUGUST 20, 2017

August 20, 2017: This is another in my series of posts all leading up to a book on Startup Decision Making. One of the most common mistakes I see in startups is making decisions that lose sight of the context , including the past, present, and future. Compensation decisions obviously affect hiring and retention.

Technical Review 48

Technical Review Software Review Cap Table Securities and Exchange Commission 48

femgineer.com

JULY 18, 2010

HOME About the Femgineer Speaking Engagements Reading List Recruiting Startup Engineers With the startup market taking off, there is always a clamor to find good engineers, developers, and designers. Sweat equity or salary? You won’t find us going out to the normal startup networking events or partying all night.

Engineer 41

Engineer Software Review Startup Technical Review 41

www.readwriteweb.com

APRIL 23, 2012

Startup Hiring: The 10% Solution. How can your startup compete with that? But you can still reel in good people - if youre generous with your equity. Offer them a big chunk of equity, or theyll go to a company thats actually selling its products - and where half of 1% is more likely to one day be worth some real money.

Hiring 49

Hiring Startup Semantic Equity 49

Duct Tape Marketing

APRIL 6, 2022

Steve is the CEO of Founders Space, one of the world’s leading startup accelerators with over 50 partners in 22 countries. Founders Space was ranked the #1 incubator for overseas startups by Forbes and Entrepreneur Magazines. 3:49] How would you define the difference between a startup and somebody starting a business? [5:04]

San Francisco 98

San Francisco Technical Review Incubator Silicon Valley 98

Startup Professionals Musings

FEBRUARY 4, 2015

Very few startups are cash-rich enough to self-finance aggressive second-stage growth. They need a large infusion from venture capitalists, private equity, bank loans, or mezzanine financing. Growth is more than simply repackaging existing products, and adding bells and whistles or slick incentives. Hire more help than helpers.

Mezzanine 120

Mezzanine Private Equity Startup Bandwidth 120

Startup Professionals Musings

NOVEMBER 3, 2013

Very few startups are cash-rich enough to self-finance aggressive second-stage growth. They need a large infusion from venture capitalists, private equity, bank loans, or mezzanine financing. Growth is more than simply repackaging existing products, and adding bells and whistles or slick incentives. Hire more help than helpers.

Mezzanine 240

Mezzanine Private Equity Bandwidth Metrics 240

Startup Lessons Learned

MAY 14, 2009

Lessons Learned by Eric Ries Thursday, May 14, 2009 The Lean Startup Workshop - now an OReilly Master Class My rate of posting has been much lower lately, and this is mostly due to preparations for the upcoming Lean Startup Workshop on May 29. I joined a financial services tech startup in 1999. You can click here to learn more.

Lean 60

Lean San Francisco Continuous Deployment Software Review 60

YoungUpstarts

OCTOBER 1, 2018

After receiving several of those comments, we realized something all of these friends had in common — they all worked for startups. Knowing a lot about culture and a little about startups, we did our research to understand their unique challenges and interviewed friends who either lead or work in startups.

Cofounder 113

Cofounder Hiring Leadership Employee 113

The Equity Kicker

MARCH 26, 2018

In our experience, structured customer development work is right up there amongst the most valuable things a founder can do in the early days of their startup. But good customer development is tough to do. Let me use the Jobs To Be Done (JTBD) framework for product development to explain why.

Customer 75

Customer Framework Differentiation Customer Development 75

infochachkie.com

SEPTEMBER 24, 2011

Be The Beatles Not The Flock Of Seagulls John Greathouse’s Bio ConTraps Part 2 ConTrap Part 3 ConTrap part 4 Startup Children Pt 2 Startup Children Pt 5 Startup Children Pt 3 Startup Children Pt 4 Decision Making 101 Talks: Jason Nazar on how to Persuade. Hands-on startup advice for emerging entrepreneurs.

Equity 40

Equity Silicon Valley Cofounder Technical Review 40

Startup Lessons Learned

OCTOBER 5, 2010

Lessons Learned by Eric Ries Tuesday, October 5, 2010 The Lean Startup Bundle People often ask me if they can buy "Lean Startup in a box" from me. Startups run into this problem all the time: not every possible way of making money is equally useful. People want to get started with Lean Startup but arent exactly how.

Lean 153

Lean San Francisco Startup Continuous Deployment 153

YoungUpstarts

MAY 16, 2018

There, he would be showered in venture capital, build a team of similarly brilliant twenty-somethings, acquire millions of customers seemingly overnight, and steer his startup to an IPO and himself to the cover of Inc magazine well before his 30th birthday. People in big companies see innovation through the lens of new product development.

Silicon Valley 157

Silicon Valley Forecast Venture Capital Business Plan 157

This is going to be BIG.

JUNE 30, 2010

Startups, on the other hand, have lots of little failures and successes over time. ” Figuring out the market for your equity, appropriate capital structures, reasonable milestones, and most important of all, the right partner, aren't things that usually happen on the first try without some amount of trial and error.

Technical Review 106

Technical Review Due Diligence Venture Capital Later Stage 106

Business Plan Blog

NOVEMBER 22, 2013

How To Allocate Friends & Family Startup Capital. The most important principle of startup fundraising that every entrepreneur needs to know is: raise enough capital to achieve a set of milestones that will allow the company to attract the next round of investment. Founding Team, Key Hires, Advisory Board. Startup Funding'

Intellectual Property 55

Intellectual Property Advisory Board Startup Seed Capital 55

Startup Lessons Learned

JULY 6, 2011

The Lean Startup Book is done. If you've been waiting for a comprehensive account of the Lean Startup and how it can help you achieve dramatically better business results, this is it. Some are from obscure startups who you haven't heard of -- yet. Here's the description you'll find on the book jacket itself: Most startups fail.

Lean 167

Lean Startup Metrics Private Equity 167

SoCal CTO

DECEMBER 1, 2010

I continue to collect great content that is the intersection of startups, products, online and technology. Equity-Only CTO and Equity-Only Developers - SoCal CTO , November 1, 2010 I had a recent email dialog with the founder of a company looking for a CTO for their startup. but: Something is Still Missing.

Technical Review 175

Technical Review Technology Product CTO Hire 175

viniciusvacanti.com

SEPTEMBER 7, 2010

Hire a Programmer The Hope: You’ll use the programmer to build a prototype that will get you traction and experience. You know how to product manage and you’ve hired programmers before. I recommend you start by reading this post on how to hire a programmer. I plan on bootstrapping my upcoming startup.

Cofounder 43

Cofounder Technical Cofounder Founder Ruby 43

Business Plan Blog

OCTOBER 4, 2013

Aligning the Startup Team Strategy with the Capitalization Strategy. The single most important factor to raising capital for any tech startup is the management team. Furthermore, a startup works differently than a large corporation. Don’t hire people with skills and qualifications similar to yours. Early Stage.

Part-Time VPE 79

Part-Time VPE Fractional VPE Cofounder CTO Hire 79

David Teten

OCTOBER 1, 2015

Not surprisingly, the list above also is ranked from least to most equity stake in an investment for the investor, relative to the cash they invest. How would one set up such a startup to eventually raise capital from outside VCs, who will be wary of ‘dead equity’ (i.e., equity that belongs to departed cofounders)?

Software Developers 60

Software Developers Software Development Software Review Technical Cofounder 60

Business Plan Blog

DECEMBER 10, 2013

The most important principle of startup fundraising that every entrepreneur needs to know is: raise enough capital to achieve a set of milestones that will allow the company to attract the next round of investment. Product Development. Founding Team, Key Hires, Advisory Board. The Milestones Angel Investors Care About.

Angel Investor 55

Angel Investor Intellectual Property Seed Capital Advisory Board 55

Startup Lessons Learned

OCTOBER 30, 2008

Lessons Learned by Eric Ries Thursday, October 30, 2008 John Doerrs 10 lean startup tips I just saw video of John Doerrs talk yesterday at VentureBeat’s “How to manage your start-up in the downturn&# roundtable event. Offer equity instead of cash. No departments The Five Whys for Startups (for Harvard Business R.

Lean 121

Lean San Francisco Continuous Deployment DC 121

blog.nahurst.com

JULY 19, 2010

Nathan Hursts Blog Thoughts on Software, Technology, and Startups « Back to blog Im on the technical side of entrepreneurship in NYC. This covers one of the most common situations I encounter: For a pre-funding web startup whose team includes only a non-technical cofounder, how much equity should an incoming technical cofounder get?

Technical Cofounder 43

Technical Cofounder Cofounder Equity Salary 43

maplebutter.com

JANUARY 8, 2013

You are here: Home » Hiring » Crazy! 189 Answers To The Top Startup Questions On Your Mind. 189 Answers To The Top Startup Questions On Your Mind. Written By Dan Martell on February 2nd, 2012 | Category: Hiring LeanStartup Marketing Metrics Startup Life | 6 Comments. I love startups.

Technical Review 44

Technical Review Startup Cofounder Software Review 44

K9 Ventures

OCTOBER 10, 2017

If it doesn’t have the product fully baked yet? Well, enter the Pre-Seed round, where the startup raises closer to $500K. Unless every aspect of product development is covered by founders who are only receiving equity, there are other parts of building a product that will require hiring highly qualified people.

Seed Stage 82

Seed Stage Finance Later Stage Equity 82

bhargreaves.com

MARCH 7, 2010

Most disturbingly, I’ve occasionally found myself agreeing with an entrepreneur’s decision to hire a development shop to build their product. The reasons why I am not a big fan of development shops are too numerous to go into here. You probably aren’t the best person to hire and manage a developer.

Hiring 40

Hiring Technical Review Agile Software Review 40