Both Sides of the Table

MAY 27, 2013

But the thing I am most proud of about Rob is that he has taken a company with a uniquely talented founder & CTO – Nick Halstead – and managed to build a very tight working relationship with Nick where we drive world-class product development without having the usual founder / CEO conflicts. Have topics.

Advisory Board 365

Advisory Board CTO Hire Fractional CTO Los Angeles 365

Steve Blank

JUNE 15, 2010

So if you’re the founder of a startup, you may want to consider who you take money from. Is Your VC Founder Friendly? What startup stage do they typically invest in? How many of their founders are still with their company? Will they tailor your vesting to your contribution as a founder? Who Do They Hang With?

Founder 231

Founder Vesting Later Stage Early Stage 231

Steve Blank

JANUARY 22, 2014

Regional Angel funds that pool investors capital and typically make a one time investment in a startup, sometimes at an early stage but often at a slightly later stage. Late stage large regionally based funds that invest in late stage or mezzanine deals. Large regionally based early stage funds have mostly failed.

Early Stage 286

Early Stage Silicon Valley Oregon Technical Review 286

View from Seed

MARCH 19, 2015

Founders laud their own “end-to-end” thinking. He’s dubbed the approach “ pretotyping ,” and it shares many of the same principles as both its similar-sounding (if later-stage) cousin, prototyping, as well as the more well-known lean startup movement. AS: Good question.

Product 120

Product Technical Review Marketing Lean 120

David Teten

DECEMBER 3, 2019

Tim Friedman, Founder, PE Stack , said, “If I could offer one piece of advice to today’s managers, it would be to take the time to understand the demands of the modern institutional LP. Data companies focused on early-stage startups include Aingel , fundsUP , Preseries , PredictLeads , and Sploda. 3) Raise capital.

Technical Review 78

Technical Review Software Review Analytics Private Equity 78

Reid Hoffman

JUNE 11, 2020

Embedding individual performance metrics in team performance metrics is a central part of how Jeff operates, but he also concerns himself with setting a cultural drumbeat and making everyone feel part of the team. Why do you call Jeff a co-founder of LinkedIn, even though he joined when the company was already five years old?

Cofounder 36

Cofounder Leadership Metrics Later Stage 36

David Teten

SEPTEMBER 23, 2017

An investor had few hard metrics other than the actual financials, and little technology to make the process scaleable. Over the past few decades, better metrics became available, and investors could take a more analytical, data-driven approach. ” Historically, investing was a manual, artisan process. Pitchbot.vc

Private Equity 60

Private Equity Venture Capital Equity Technical Review 60

View from Seed

FEBRUARY 27, 2019

Given the common challenges encountered by founders as they navigate through this hiring decision, I thought I’d outline some of my thoughts below that can hopefully serve as a simple framework when it comes to making the first Analytics hire at your startup. Many founders confuse the two as they both involve lots of numbers.

Analytics 149

Analytics Hiring SQL Forecast 149

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

YoungUpstarts

JUNE 15, 2015

by Andrea Martins, co-founder of GreenSocks. He may have been named by Silicon Valley thought leader Paul Graham as one of the five most interesting startup founders since 1979, but Sam’s curious penchant for wearing t-shirts over long-sleeve shirts suggests that he’s definitely too young for me. Paul Graham, Founder, Y Combinator.

Cofounder 100

Cofounder Delaware Startup Technical Review 100

Steve Blank

MARCH 17, 2020

What are the new financial metrics? Data from the last large crash in 2008 had seed rounds recovering early, but later stage funding cratered and took years to recover. If they pull back, there will be a liquidity crunch for later stage startups (Series B, C…). Are those assumptions about payers still correct?

Burn Rate 436

Burn Rate Startup Valuation Sales Cycle 436

View from Seed

FEBRUARY 17, 2015

Going to business school and becoming a startup founder are often positioned as conflicting choices by the media and startup bloggers. Some go as far as stating, flat out, that MBAs don’t make for good founders. In fact, there are over 250 founders from the HBS classes between 2008 and 2014. Combined, they’ve raised over $2.5

North America 120

North America Founder Cofounder San Francisco 120

Both Sides of the Table

JUNE 5, 2011

I’ve decided to take all of my private conversations and subjective points-of-view on the topic and make them public in a keynote speech at the Founder Showcase in San Francisco on June 15th. The earlier you invest the higher the chances the company won’t work out and thus you pay a lower price than later-stage investors.

Pre-Money Valuation 336

Pre-Money Valuation Valuation Silicon Valley Stock 336

Both Sides of the Table

MAY 27, 2016

I was asked again in an LP meeting later in the week and then again at a founder breakfast gathering we hosted yesterday. I know that sounds trite but it’s the best way I can describe my early-stage investments. I fall in love with both the founders and the concept. I fall in love.” Mission driven, commercially focused.

Early Stage 254

Early Stage Non-Compete LP Later Stage 254

View from Seed

JUNE 5, 2018

We launched the Hiring Bootcamp to equip portfolio founders and hiring managers with the best practices around building a hiring machine , so they can maximize their chances of getting the best talent into the door efficiently. The quest for building such hiring machine is universal across companies at various stages.

Hiring 120

Hiring Portfolio Metrics B2C 120

Version One Ventures

SEPTEMBER 6, 2017

And lastly, most business metrics, which are rich in information, are kept private (and this leads to unavailable data). At later stages, there’s more access to private data that they can benchmark against their own successful portfolio. So, what do we do at the seed stage? 2) Does success = a $1B unicorn? .

Seed Stage 127

Seed Stage Later Stage Algorithm API 127

David Teten

JANUARY 9, 2018

My experience has been this lever brings three benefits: it lowers origination costs because more founders want to raise capital from you; it enhances your leverage in negotiating with the CEO; and it lowers your failure rate. . – Incubating companies. – Internal diversity.

Venture Capital 60

Venture Capital Private Equity Silicon Valley Differentiation 60

David Teten

JANUARY 9, 2018

My experience has been this lever brings three benefits: it lowers origination costs because more founders want to raise capital from you; it enhances your leverage in negotiating with the CEO; and it lowers your failure rate. . – Incubating companies. – Internal diversity.

Venture Capital 60

Venture Capital Private Equity Silicon Valley Differentiation 60

K9 Ventures

JUNE 5, 2015

So in this post, I present the epilogue to The New Venture Landscape that highlights my take on what I think the venture landscape looks like today and what the implications are for founders, for GPs and for LPs. So if the Micro-VCs are looking for Series A-like metrics, what does a company do when it’s just getting started?

Seed Stage 48

Seed Stage Venture Capital Early Stage Valuation 48

David Teten

JANUARY 13, 2015

I’m speaking on a panel this afternoon on fundraising for minority founders at the Rainbow PUSH Wall Street Project. Fundraising is always difficult for all founders; the median PE/VC fund sources and reviews 87 companies before investing in 1. This young, talented girl is given no chance of being the founder of the next Facebook.”. “I

Venture Capital 60

Venture Capital Advisory Board Greece Cofounder 60

ReadWriteStart

AUGUST 26, 2022

So, think of the typical two founders with a pitch book in a garage. Instead, that’s the sort of pre-series-A investment where companies or founders have visions of where they think there are underserved market needs, and they’re coming up with something super excited to try to solve that. . We’re a crossover fund.

Partner 132

Partner Cofounder Retention Acquisition 132

This is going to be BIG.

AUGUST 24, 2017

I don't think there's ever a time when I feel more like I'm raining on parades as when founders tell me how interested other VC firms are in investing. I've seen it time and time again where founders, understandably apprehensive about fundraising, read too much into their engagement with investors--especially non-partners at firms.

Term Sheet 105

Term Sheet Later Stage Partner Founder 105

Both Sides of the Table

FEBRUARY 15, 2016

I know it sounds obvious but just so you understand: There are more capital sources available for earlier-stage capital, the information on which they are evaluating the investment is less (it is almost certainly just team and product) and the risk of the investor getting things wrong is diminished. You are in a classic cap table pinch.

Burn Rate 150

Burn Rate Cap Table Valuation Software Review 150

Up and Running

DECEMBER 9, 2014

Maybe you are wondering which metrics to track, or whether or not you should take out a loan for your business. They cover funding for small businesses from the initial funding stage to later stages of growth, and other areas in between. My founders and I started the company about three years ago. What do you do?

Small Business 95

Small Business Finance Forecast Metrics 95

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. If the Micro-VCs are looking for Series A-like metrics, what does a company do when it’s just getting started? So, I took it upon myself as a challenge to put together the definitive “ Pre-Seed FAQ.”

Seed Stage 82

Seed Stage Finance Later Stage Equity 82

Austin Startup

AUGUST 30, 2018

So while the number of dollars pouring into Austin may be increasing, that metric is only favorable to businesses that warrant those sized-rounds. Of these rounds, nearly every one was classified as a Series B or later-stage round, with the exception of a few debt and equity financing rounds. What does this information mean?

Austin 48

Austin Early Stage San Francisco Later Stage 48

Version One Ventures

MAY 22, 2018

Some of the best later-stage investors walk founders through an institutionalized “reverse” pitch. At Version One, we effectively act as a hotline: we strive to be the first investor that our founders call and often times, it is because we are the most responsive. Outside of formal check-ins (i.e.

Cap Table 60

Cap Table Cofounder Syndicate Syndication 60

Hippoland

AUGUST 31, 2018

Then I asked him about his metrics, which are good, but they are were not at series A level. If you’re a notable founder / have pedigree or if you are in a hot space, or if you run your fundraising process really well, it’s possible to skip a stage. This was surprising to me.

Pre-Money Valuation 90

Pre-Money Valuation Valuation Silicon Valley Early Stage 90

Both Sides of the Table

JULY 24, 2016

What you Before Sets the Course for How Well the Day Goes Make sure you send your financial and operating metrics no less than 72 hours before the board meeting — even better if it can be a week in advance. If you’re slightly later stage it might be 5–6 hours. So here’s a short guide to achieving that.

Metrics 196

Metrics Strategic Investors Later Stage Management 196

View from Seed

JUNE 16, 2015

I’d also question a founder who asks his or her investors to comment falsely on something — that puts the investor in an awkward spot. Luckily, our founders are all incredibly high integrity people, and we wouldn’t have it any other way. For SaaS: At least $100K in MRR. For ecommerce: >$500K revenue/month.

Boston 120

Boston Syndicate Syndication eCommerce 120

Startup Lessons Learned

FEBRUARY 20, 2009

The sooner you pass your work on to a later stage, the sooner you can find out how they will receive it. ► August (2) SXSW Case Study: SlideShare goes freemium ► July (4) Case Study: kaChing, Anatomy of a Pivot Some IPO speculation Founder personalities and the “first-class man&# th.

San Francisco 161

San Francisco Software Review Continuous Deployment Development Team Review 161

Reid Hoffman

JANUARY 19, 2021

That’s because the making of the company relies on the founders, the CEO, the executives, the team members–in other words, the people who are putting in 80 to 100 hours per week, rather than the board members who are putting in one to two hours per week. Right now, our whole bet is on the CEO and the founders and making them successful.

Startup 36

Startup Cofounder Advertising Hiring 36

Feld Thoughts

SEPTEMBER 9, 2015

We basically doubled the number of unicorns in the past year and a half,” says Aileen Lee, the founder of Cowboy Ventures, who has herself become a mythic creature in the Valley after coining the term. If private capital is no longer available in the future, these companies will seek a public offering or acquisition.

Liquidation Preference 70

Liquidation Preference Burn Rate Balance Sheet .Net 70

Hippoland

AUGUST 31, 2018

Then I asked him about his metrics, which are good, but they are were not at series A level. If you’re a notable founder / have pedigree or if you are in a hot space, or if you run your fundraising process really well, it’s possible to skip a stage. This was surprising to me.

Pre-Money Valuation 48

Pre-Money Valuation Valuation Silicon Valley Early Stage 48

Startup Lessons Learned

DECEMBER 6, 2008

In order to prevent people from bunching up in the later stages of the work pipeline, those leaders need to be focused on automation and continuous improvement. Between cycles, put some pressure on those later teams to do more with fewer people. Make sure you keep track of whether thats happening.

San Francisco 74

San Francisco SCRUM Lean Continuous Deployment 74

Hippoland

NOVEMBER 6, 2016

And all of the companies I pick are at roughly the same stage — all seed companies who have launched a product and have some semblance of traction, though this ranges quite a bit. And, all of those founders have pedigree. That said, they are really clever founders. They haven’t necessarily had past earth-shattering success.

Portfolio 48

Portfolio IRR Later Stage Limited Partner 48

View from Seed

MARCH 10, 2015

Ahmed is a former Googler and the current founder of Nani. NVV: Even though BR was a later-stage startup at that point, you mentioned being that proverbial “startup within a startup.” NVV: What key metrics did you track to make sure you were heading in the right direction?

Mobile 120

Mobile San Francisco Curation Seed Stage 120