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Why Raising Too Much Money Can Harm Your Startup

Both Sides of the Table

It is a truism that with more capital you will hire people more quickly and spend more liberally whether it’s on external contractors, PR firms, attending events, doing legal work (trademarks, patents) or whatever. A $15–20 million valuation sounds better than an $8 million valuation, doesn’t it? million or $4 million.

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Why Misunderstanding Startup Metrics Can Cost You Your Business

Both Sides of the Table

The key to being able to run a business that isn’t yet profitable (on operating margin) is availability of capital to finance losses and preferably at a cost that isn’t too punitive to the founders and employees. So it might actually be more productive for you to improve your conversion than to improve your ad buying, for example.

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On Bubbles … And Why We’ll Be Just Fine

Both Sides of the Table

But this mania to not miss out on the next big thing is driving some investors to pay growth-equity prices for traditional market risk (as in, they’re paying up before it is clear there is product / market fit). And for some that means that despite waiting they may see worse valuations in the future than now. Have a cushion.

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What I Would Look for When Choosing a VC – Knowing What I Know Now?

Both Sides of the Table

Of course it is super helpful if a VC can drop you in to important people for business development, recruiting, PR, sales and eventually M&A. Simply put – I’d be in search of a VC who had an intuitive sense of my product, my customers, my organizational issues, my competitors, etc. Connections? EQ and Team Leadership?

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Cracking The Code: SaaS Multiples: Recovery or Bubble?

Cracking the Code

The sales productivity ratio (measured with the Customer Acquisition Cost or CAC ratio) are also fairly similar for the two groups (except for a small cap dip in Q4 09) and therefore do not explain the difference Why is scale so much rewarded by public markets? S&M productivity (CAC ratio) for the SaaS 13 Index. Yahoo Finance.

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What is Sweat Equity Worth?

www.entrepreneur.com

Entrepreneur Homepage Startups Starting a Business Home How-To Guides Startup Basics Business Ideas Business Planning Startup Financing Success Stories Home-Based Business Starting a Business Play Video How to Take a New Product from Just an Idea to a Business (Video). Financing Some Jobs Act Proposals Make Headway.

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Twitter Link Roundup #176 – Small Business, Startups, Innovation, Social Media, Design, Marketing and More

crowdSPRING Blog

If there’s one video 1st time founders should watch to understand VC financing it’s this one – [link]. Q1 Venture Capital Spending & Number Of Deals Down, M&A Activity Drops 44 Percent And Pre-Money Valuations Plummet – [link]. “sometimes you have the right product but the wrong business model.”