Startup Professionals Musings

JULY 16, 2012

A while back I heard a talk by Dave McClure, a long-time angel investor, who also proclaims to be one of the “new breed” of venture capitalists in Silicon Valley, as CEO of 500Startups , which is either a micro-VC seed fund, or a startup incubator, or both. For VCs, early-stage means customer revenue is less than $10M. Super Angels.

Early Stage 253

Early Stage Finance Seed Stage Entrepreneur 253

ReadWriteStart

OCTOBER 6, 2011

Sramana Mitra is the founder of the One Million by One Million (1M/1M) initiative, an educational, business development and incubation program that aims to help one million entrepreneurs globally to reach $1 million in revenue and beyond. This, of course, doesn't mean that we discourage entrepreneurs from seeking financing.

Silicon Valley 118

Silicon Valley India San Francisco Entrepreneur 118

Startup Professionals Musings

OCTOBER 5, 2015

I challenge any entrepreneur, for example, to define the difference between "seed-stage" and "early-stage" financing. Asking for early-stage money before you have customers and revenue will likely kill your credibility with real investors. Startup incubator seed funding. A micro venture capital firm.

Seed Stage 120

Seed Stage Finance Early Stage Startup 120

Version One Ventures

JULY 22, 2014

AngelList makes it easier for founders to reach angels and there are hundreds of accelerators and incubators to choose from. Any entrepreneur trying to navigate the financing landscape should be aware of the over-abundance of angel money compared with subsequent rounds. Is your opportunity at least $100M?

Finance 167

Finance Seed Money Bootstrapping Angel Investor 167

ReadWriteStart

JUNE 16, 2011

Zendesk is heavily financed by Benchmark and Charles River and has 10,000 customers. You can read more about Freshdesk on the 1M/1M Incubation Radar today. The founders, Sunil Guttula and Abinasha Karana, are experienced IT professional with 15 years of experience between them solving various enterprise IT problems.

India 123

India Bootstrapping Non-Compete Entrepreneur 123

David Teten

MARCH 14, 2018

Managers of VC funds typically want to grow their business aggressively, just like the founders we back. Among the sites we have found most helpful with practical guides for founders: Biztree , First Search , Foundersuite , Goodwin Founders Workbench , Guides.co , Inc.com , and StartupRocket. .

Private Equity 60

Private Equity Venture Capital Equity Cofounder 60

A Crowded Space

SEPTEMBER 18, 2015

Incubators and accelerators are breeding grounds of hype - they put lists of companies out there and have a demo day to display their wares. Notice the distinct absence of little things like revenue, customers, engagement metrics, or gross margin. Good founders are really good at building buzz and hype. Why does hype occur?

San Diego 60

San Diego Software Review San Francisco Silicon Valley 60

ReadWriteStart

JULY 28, 2011

This week, I've had several meetings with venture funds, incubators, corporate accelerators and other significant players in the startup eco-system. The same applies to Malaysia, where our partner, the MAD Incubator, is in search of 10 good deals to put through the 1M/1M program. Incubator photo from Geograph. Discuss.

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Incubator Silicon Valley Malaysia Entrepreneur 128

ReadWriteStart

JANUARY 27, 2011

For a more elaborate explanation of the deal, please read my blog post 1M/1M: Alternative Financing For Startups Using A Sales Channel Partner. I have discussed at length why revenue sharing channel deals may serve as perfectly fine alternatives to raising equity (or even complements) because of their non-dilutive nature.

Dilution 114

Dilution Revenue Finance Entrepreneur 114

Gust

JULY 8, 2012

A while back I heard a talk by Dave McClure, a long-time angel investor, who also proclaims to be one of the “new breed” of venture capitalists in Silicon Valley, as CEO of 500Startups , which is either a micro-VC seed fund, or a startup incubator, or both. For VCs, early-stage means customer revenue is less than $10M. Super Angels.

Early Stage 177

Early Stage Finance Seed Stage Entrepreneur 177

The Next Web

AUGUST 14, 2013

This is a guest post by Wade Foster , co-founder and CEO of Zapier, which originally appeared on his blog. But since I’m relatively fresh off of the experience I get asked by first-time founders how they should go about raising money for their startup. Usually those aren’t first-time founders though.

Founder 142

Founder Incubator Cofounder Accredited Investor 142

View from Seed

MARCH 15, 2017

Internally, the scarcity of tangible business metrics – product usage or revenue multiples for example – can make an investment decision feel daunting. Founders’ employ intuition and rapid reaction to their market(s) to pivot and evolve their model. VC evaluation of seed-stage startups can seem arbitrary or imitative at times.

Due Diligence 265

Due Diligence Seed Stage Portfolio Metrics 265

VC Cafe

FEBRUARY 15, 2017

Voyager’s cognitive-computing, deep-insights platform assesses billions of publicly available, unstructured data points to provide insights for its clients in finance, retail and consulting. Orcam was created by the founders of Mobileye (NYSE: MBLY and one of Israel’s largest IPOs ), Prof.

Artificial Inteligence 122

Artificial Inteligence Technical Review Startup 122

ReadWriteStart

NOVEMBER 3, 2011

In How To Defend Your Dream Against All Odds , Alex and I explore the company's journey to $200 Million in revenue, while their VCs wrote them off. Zoho is already over $100 million in revenue and is seeing tremendous traction. So, please don't get discouraged; there are many paths to success. Statisco Economic Analytics.

North Carolina 116

North Carolina San Diego Entrepreneur Balance Sheet 116

ReadWriteStart

SEPTEMBER 16, 2011

Siddhesh has already validated his business and is catering to home buyers, sellers, and brokers, generating revenues from advertising and sponsorships as well as brokerage revenue sharing. As I keep reiterating, 99% of the businesses that go out for financing get rejected. About Sramana Mitra.

Brazil 115

Brazil India Entrepreneur 115

Rob Go

DECEMBER 28, 2011

And that’s true pretty much across the board – from exits, late stage financings, scaling companies, and seed activity. Still led by its founder, Steve Kaufer. 61M in Q3 revenue, up 28% YoY. The company is expected to do around $500M in revenue in 2011 and has seen 50%+ growth YoY the past two years.

Technical Review 54

Technical Review Boston Software Review IPO 54

Austin Startup

JUNE 26, 2019

Many people have reached out sharing knowing and kind words about our journey and choice to wind down our venture, as well as their appreciation for my choice to pull back the curtain on what is statistically a common road for many founders. It details a landscape founders like me are excited to sink their teeth into? Of course not!

Silicon Valley 54

Silicon Valley Startup B2C Sweat Equity 54

David Teten

SEPTEMBER 5, 2014

Like many established finance & media companies, GLG knows that the tech startup sector is a growing part of the economy. Our founders realized that investors needed to learn interactively, on-demand, on very specific topics, and in an atmosphere of trust. Or, you can go straight to the source.

New York 114

New York Technical Review Networking Advisory Board 114

Austin Startup

NOVEMBER 29, 2017

Tim O’Reilly, Founder at O’Reilly Media and promoter of open source and Web 2.0 Let’s have a look at what early stage founders can expect in terms of oxygen. Namely, windfall revenue from oil means that the Texas taxman does not collect personal or corporate income taxes (on the state level).

Early Stage 48

Early Stage Austin Silicon Valley Texas 48

Startup Lessons Learned

AUGUST 26, 2020

Jake Soberal and Irma Olguin are the founders of a company called Bitwise. Here's my conversation with the founders of Bitwise. I am the co-founder and CEO of Bitwise Industries. Irma Olguin : My name is Irma Olguin, I'm the co-founder and CEO of Bitwise Industries. And in fact, my co-founder is one of those, right?

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Fresno Community Technology California 60

ReadWriteStart

MARCH 24, 2011

The discussion today was around Social Media financing and go-to-market strategy. Sramana Mitra is the founder of the One Million by One Million (1M/1M) initiative, an educational, business development and incubation program that aims to help one million entrepreneurs globally to reach $1 million in revenue and beyond.

Illinois 114

Illinois Entrepreneur Silicon Valley Chicago 114

Steve Blank

MARCH 31, 2014

Companies horde cash and squeeze the most revenue and margin from the money they use. If they don’t, then the management team has simply become caretakers of the founders’ legacy. Instead of measuring success in dollars of profit, …firms focus on measuring capital efficiency. This never ends well.

Private Equity 326

Private Equity Metrics China Intellectual Property 326

ReadWriteStart

FEBRUARY 24, 2011

I recently wrote a blog post that I believe is worth pointing out in the context of the strategy roundtables: VCs, Angels, Incubators, Accelerators - What Are You Doing With Your Rejects? That means that less than 1% of the entrepreneurs who apply succeed in getting financed. A sustainable business = (customer + revenue + profits).

Incubator 116

Incubator Silicon Valley Idaho Entrepreneur 116

ReadWriteStart

APRIL 7, 2011

At this week's One Million by One Million roundtable, we announced a very important partnership with MAD Incubator, Malaysia for entrepreneurship development in the region. This is our first major partnership with an incubator whereby MAD will adopt the 1M/1M methodology to foster Silicon Valley-style technopreneurship in Malaysia.

Malaysia 114

Malaysia Incubator Silicon Valley Entrepreneur 114

Up and Running

JULY 14, 2015

Peter and Jonathan discuss startup incubators, and our guest Caroline talks to us about the “F” word and 10 reasons why startups fail. Startup Incubators – (2:13). Read also: Q&A with Business Incubator Co-founder Joe Maruschak. Peter: Joe talks a little bit about this idea of incubators.

Incubator 60

Incubator Email Startup Oregon 60

Diego Basch

MARCH 14, 2013

I like to be able to take public transportation and have meetings with founders, sometimes spontaneously. I may find myself having an IM conversation with a founder, and think it would be best to just grab coffee and scribble on a whiteboard. I recently attended a Demo Day for a well-known incubator.

San Francisco 55

San Francisco Startup Silicon Valley Seed Stage 55

Startup Professionals Musings

MAY 1, 2011

Recently I heard a talk by Dave McClure, a long-time angel investor, who also proclaims to be one of the “new breed” of venture capitalists in Silicon Valley, as CEO of 500Startups , which is either a micro-VC seed fund, or a startup incubator, or both. For VCs, early-stage means customer revenue is less than $10M. Super Angels.

Early Stage 231

Early Stage Seed Stage Angel Investor Silicon Valley 231

David Teten

JANUARY 28, 2019

Everyone wanted to work in finance. Or Yale could develop a legaltech incubation program and to help improve lawyers’ productivity, a profession whose primary tech tool is Microsoft Word. Incubate non-Yalies. Founder community. “CEO is the new Analyst.”. Everyone wants to work in tech startups.

Affiliate 60

Affiliate Connecticut Programming Community 60

pandodaily.com

NOVEMBER 29, 2012

I’ve been hearing about the so-called Series A Crunch for at least six months, and in recent weeks, I’ve spoken with more than 20 venture capitalists, angel investors, incubator heads, lawyers, and other necessary cogs in the ecosystem trying to get some details about it. Those numbers are likely conservative.

Technical Review 93

Technical Review Silicon Valley Incubator Syria 93

This is going to be BIG.

APRIL 27, 2010

So then, why are we teaching our students to trust fall without any revenues of their own to catch them? No revenues, no costs. Teach ‘em Finance and Chase or Accenture will come and pick ‘em up 30 at a time. If there’s anything that hackers and founders hate, it’s an ivory tower attitude.

New York 116

New York CTO Hire Technical Review New York City 116

Seeing Both Sides

AUGUST 16, 2012

Last week, I wrote about Akamai , a company with strong network effects that successfully transitioned from a single product to build a platform that garners over a billion dollars in revenue and is now a core part of the Internet’s fabric. TripAdvisor, in effect, was a model lean start-up with an engineering-driven, product-focused founder.

Part-Time VPE 54

Part-Time VPE Software Review Costa Rica Technical Review 54

K9 Ventures

OCTOBER 10, 2017

I’ll start with all the questions I can think of, from many different perspectives: founders, LPs, the press, and even other VCs. This post is intended to be a dynamic document, and I will attempt to update it from time to time with new questions that may arise or as financing trends evolve. Q: Is Pre-Seed a Thing?

Seed Stage 82

Seed Stage Finance Later Stage Equity 82

Steve Blank

NOVEMBER 7, 2013

What CEOs, management teams and shareholders care about is growth —revenue growth, greater user adoption, increased market share, bigger margins, etc. Almost every large organization has some kind of incubator or accelerator program. Here’s how he’s shaping the future of corporate innovation. to find, attract and retain “starters.”.

Lean 327

Lean Nepal Cofounder Customer Development 327

ReadWriteStart

AUGUST 11, 2011

During this week's roundtable, we started off by discussing the pre-incubation procedure we are recommending with audience members from different parts of the world. This week, I've had several meetings with venture funds, incubators, corporate accelerators and other significant players in the startup eco-system. About Sramana Mitra.

Silicon Valley 105

Silicon Valley Columbus Ohio Incubator 105

mashable.com

NOVEMBER 3, 2010

For the first-time entrepreneur or founder looking for seed stage funding, this circle can be especially difficult to penetrate. Brad Feld: Feld is co-founder and managing director of Foundry Group, a Boulder, Colorado venture capital firm that focuses on early stage investments ranging from $250,000 to $500,000.

Angel Investor 80

Angel Investor Startup San Francisco Social Media 80

ReadWriteStart

JANUARY 31, 2012

They seldom ask how much revenue the company has or if it is profitable. We have recurring revenues and no debt. Incubators take pride in how exclusive they are and how many "deals" they "reject." Entrepreneurship, they mistakenly believe, equals financing! We have recurring revenues and no debt. This is wrong.

Entrepreneur 134

Entrepreneur Deal Flow Finance Incubator 134

Steve Blank

AUGUST 20, 2013

Recently, the financing of innovation in medical devices has collapsed even further with most Class III devices simply unfundable. on medical device revenues, regardless of profitability delays or cash-flow breakeven. Companies must pay a medical device excise tax of 2.3% Regulatory Issues. Venture Capital.

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Startup Venture Capital Lean IPO 296