Version One Ventures

JANUARY 15, 2019

Hiring is key to the success of any business, but it can especially critical for startups. Most founders appreciate the importance of making good hires; however, when a startup is scaling rapidly, process often gets left behind. If you don’t take the time to define the job upfront, it’s going to be really hard to hire against a need.

Hiring 118

Hiring Later Stage Early Stage Portfolio 118

View from Seed

FEBRUARY 27, 2019

Recently, I’ve been working with a few of our portfolio companies to help them think about how to recruit and interview their first analytics hire. In reality, these two domains require quite different skill sets (more on this later). When to make your first analytics hire. What to look for in your first analytics hire.

Analytics 149

Analytics Hiring SQL Forecast 149

Startup Professionals Musings

NOVEMBER 27, 2022

Thus I believe every smart investor, potential partner, or critical new hire will look for a properly built advisory board as a key criteria before selection or making a commitment. If you have more, they better be major investors or partners who will likely be part of your formal Board of Directors at a later stage.

Advisory Board 308

Advisory Board Angel Investor Startup Later Stage 308

View from Seed

MARCH 4, 2020

When you look at the websites of the seed VC’s on the 2019 list, you notice that some are starting to steer away from positioning themselves as Seed funds as they accumulate more capital and are starting to enter companies at later stages. It will be interesting to see if this trend continues. Slowly Improving Demographic Diversity.

Venture Capital 313

Venture Capital China Technical Review Africa 313

Startup Professionals Musings

FEBRUARY 15, 2023

Most new teams are geographically dispersed these days anyway, so paying rent for an office should be differed to later stages when revenue is plentiful. With the unlimited access to “how-to” videos and detailed instructions on the Internet, you shouldn’t need to hire experts for most things.

Equity 349

Equity Hockey Stick Bootstrapping Sweat Equity 349

Both Sides of the Table

APRIL 6, 2014

Whether you’re considering hiring a new employee or as an investor whether you’re looking to do a background check on the founders of a company. Most people delay reference calls until that point both due to expediency of time (why make phone calls unless you think you might hire the person?) Reference calls.

Technical Review 302

Technical Review Hiring Later Stage Employee 302

View from Seed

JANUARY 5, 2016

Even experienced startup execs who have hired and built teams sometimes find there are nuances to learn between building a team within a larger company versus hiring the first dozen folks in a startup. What did we like/not like about past companies’ approach to hiring and team development? It’s a moving target.

Founder 120

Founder Cofounder Startup Early Stage 120

Startup Professionals Musings

MAY 18, 2020

Most new teams are geographically dispersed these days anyway, so paying rent for an office should be differed to later stages when revenue is plentiful. With the unlimited access to “how-to” videos and detailed instructions on the Internet, you shouldn’t need to hire experts for most things.

Hockey Stick 423

Hockey Stick Bootstrapping Sweat Equity Intellectual Property 423

David Teten

DECEMBER 15, 2018

Have you hired a banker to try to auction the company? If you can’t find a banker which will buy such an early-stage company (which is likely), I suggest at least mail directly all the likely acquirers with whom you have an existing relationship. Consider a banker. Outplace your team.

Startup 60

Startup Later Stage Technical Review Software Review 60

SVPG

JANUARY 11, 2016

The scenario is that you are probably a later stage startup or growth stage company. Would you rather hire all your staff and leaders from Google, Facebook, Amazon and Apple? Even worse, they often then proceed to hire people that want to work in those ways. No real problem so far.

Later Stage 60

Later Stage Hiring Naming Software Developers 60

Startup Professionals Musings

FEBRUARY 29, 2020

Thus I believe every smart investor, potential partner, or critical new hire will look for a properly built advisory board as a key criteria before selection or making a commitment. If you have more, they better be major investors or partners who will likely be part of your formal Board of Directors at a later stage.

Advisory Board 310

Advisory Board Angel Investor Later Stage Stock 310

Steve Blank

APRIL 23, 2014

In response, venture capital firms like Sequoia and Andreessen/Horowitz are hiring new partners just to work with their portfolio companies and match them to corporations. If they acquire later stage companies who already have users/customers and/or a predictable revenue stream, they are acquiring companies which are executing.

Acquisition 332

Acquisition Intellectual Property Silicon Valley Startup 332

Steve Blank

MARCH 17, 2020

If it’s just three-months, (looking more unlikely by the day) then an immediate freeze on variable spending (hires, marketing, travel, etc.) Data from the last large crash in 2008 had seed rounds recovering early, but later stage funding cratered and took years to recover. and Europe into a long recession? is in order.

Burn Rate 436

Burn Rate Startup Valuation Sales Cycle 436

Both Sides of the Table

JUNE 27, 2021

They sold 2 years later for $16 million In the financial crisis of 2008 we had a company that had jointly hired lawyers to consider a bankruptcy and also pursued (and achieved!) If you’re a later-stage fund that comes in when there’s less upside but a lower “loss ratio” you might have only 8–12 investments in a fund.

Bankruptcy 294

Bankruptcy Bridge Financing Portfolio Angel Investor 294

Both Sides of the Table

MAY 4, 2013

When you are raising a large, later-stage round given by this time you’ve likely got a fairly large business to run. When you are trying to raise “strategic money” since these people are often hard to reach and they are often more used to being approached by bankers. International money.

Early Stage 361

Early Stage Deal Flow Investment Bankers Technical Review 361

VC Adventure

AUGUST 15, 2018

These costs have come down a lot since then, and the rules have been tweaked a bit but the overall 409A framework still is as it was when originally adopted – companies must hire a 3rd party to value their stock each year. Similarly I assumed that later stage companies would also show a smaller gap. I was wrong.

Valuation 48

Valuation Common Stock Cap Table Software Review 48

Hunter Walker

JULY 11, 2022

Instead these companies are better off just investing resources in improving their hiring via candidate flow/sourcing, interview process, offer communication/negotiation and closing experience. Product manager knows founders of a later-stage startup pretty well. 80–90% of startups shouldn’t follow the advice I’m about to give.

Later Stage 83

Later Stage Marketing Early Stage Hiring 83

YoungUpstarts

JUNE 22, 2020

However, you can hire a professional copywriting services company to ensure you get maximum gains from the content. Good content offers the ability to generate leads, warm them, and transit them into the later stages of the sales journey. These links can be directed to internal products or affiliate links.

Affiliate 230

Affiliate Startup Later Stage Search 230

This is going to be BIG.

JUNE 15, 2020

There have been a lot of calls for VC firms to make more hires from the Black and Brown community, as well as to hire more women. Not all hires, however, are made equally. It would be much more than just a hiring quota, which is meaningless if these new employees just churn out after they hit a ceiling.

Venture Capital 122

Venture Capital Institutional Investors Later Stage Limited Partner 122

The Next Web

AUGUST 26, 2013

Today, in steps 10-12 I want to discuss with you raising your first round of money, hiring to develop and maintain your company culture, as well as defining your role in the management of your startup. Learn how to hire and maintain your company culture. When I started my first business, I often got advised to hire “A people”.

Management 120

Management Cofounder Startup Bootstrapping 120

Both Sides of the Table

MAY 4, 2013

When you are raising a large, later-stage round given by this time you’ve likely got a fairly large business to run. When you are trying to raise “strategic money” since these people are often hard to reach and they are often more used to being approached by bankers. International money.

Deal Flow 347

Deal Flow Early Stage Investment Bankers Technical Review 347

David Teten

SEPTEMBER 23, 2017

Even for later-stage companies with predictable financials, the lack of liquidity, audited financials, and standardized metrics creates real challenges to scaling quantitative investing. Later stage investors are using private company marketplace services focused on more established companies, listed below under “Exit Investments”.

Private Equity 60

Private Equity Venture Capital Equity Technical Review 60

David Teten

JULY 25, 2017

We have insight on the competencies of our companies’ personnel, and who is hiring or shrinking. We also have a better known brand than some of our early stage companies, so we can leverage that to help source talent. with the announcement of a funding round, new senior hires, etc.

Portfolio 60

Portfolio Technical Review Private Equity Database 60

OnlyOnce

DECEMBER 8, 2021

I divided my response into “early stage” and “later stage” founders. Here’s a summary of what I said about early stage founders. Next week: the later stage founder answer (link won’t be live until 12/16/2021).

Early Stage 62

Early Stage Founder Later Stage B2C 62

ReadWriteStart

MARCH 3, 2021

You can’t afford to hire a full team or place a Super Bowl ad, so you’ll need something more reasonably priced. Again, this strategy is cheap (since you can write external guest posts on your own), it’s something anyone can learn how to do (or hire someone to do), it’s flexible, and it’s highly scalable. Limited brand equity.

Early Stage 125

Early Stage PPC Retention Churn Rate 125

OnlyOnce

DECEMBER 7, 2022

Bolster’s Board Benchmark study in 2021 indicated that only a third of private companies have independent directors at all;even later stage private companies only have independent directors two-thirds of the time. Without prioritizing hiring independents, board diversity may be a lofty goal, but it’s also an empty promise.

Leadership 62

Leadership Later Stage Search Hiring 62

Both Sides of the Table

JULY 22, 2010

You’ll need to hire and retain talen to grow your company. I also won’t say there is never a time for “participating preferred&# but it tends to be in later-stage rounds and particularly in the case where the founders are getting an exceedingly high valuation relative to the norm. That’s normal.

Valuation 405

Valuation Liquidation Preference Pre-Money Valuation Term Sheet 405

YoungUpstarts

JUNE 15, 2015

The wrong first hire could kill a company, so apply the Mark Zuckerberg test: “Would I be comfortable reporting to this person if the roles were reversed? They also love hiring creative minds, so they ask potential employees about their hobbies at the interview stage. Lecture 20: Closing Thoughts and Later-Stage Advice.

Cofounder 100

Cofounder Delaware Startup Technical Review 100

View from Seed

JULY 26, 2022

As we build and grow, I get a crash course in every domain of business – Product Development 101, Digital Marketing 101, Hiring 101 and so forth. I’m going to let our customers dictate what that looks like from a product perspective – but that may include migrating into earlier or later stages of the human development lifecycle. .

Silicon Valley 156

Silicon Valley Later Stage Early Stage Founder 156

YoungUpstarts

SEPTEMBER 13, 2020

This means that when people are in the later stages of their decision making process they will turn to Youtube to see if they can find that last bit of information to solve their problem. But, hiring a professional that knows how to make an engaging video shouldn’t cost that much. Conclusion.

eCommerce 194

eCommerce Video Conversion Channel 194

View from Seed

MARCH 19, 2015

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. Why doesn’t everyone do this?” Another success. So I thought, “I am good!” What happened?

Product 120

Product Technical Review Marketing Lean 120

Both Sides of the Table

FEBRUARY 23, 2015

” If the “nut” is too high I usually veer them towards later-stage opportunities (post B or C round) where the comp is higher, the exit is more likely / nearer, the upside is still nice but obviously not the same as if you joined early). the standard 4-6% for a hired-gun CEO). And there’s always a but.

Technical Review 150

Technical Review Liquidation Preference Silicon Valley IP 150

Both Sides of the Table

JUNE 5, 2011

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. But 6 months later you’re not working past 10pm. And the CEO they would hire to come in and run the business when you go would always be a mercenary.

Pre-Money Valuation 336

Pre-Money Valuation Valuation Silicon Valley Stock 336

Startup Professionals Musings

JULY 6, 2016

Thus I believe every smart investor, potential partner, or critical new hire will look for a properly built advisory board as a key criteria before selection or making a commitment. If you have more, they better be major investors or partners who will likely be part of your formal Board of Directors at a later stage.

Advisory Board 151

Advisory Board Angel Investor Later Stage Stock 151

Both Sides of the Table

MAY 21, 2018

He was in a later-stage financing round and was talking with many investors. I know bigger firms sometimes hire people just to fill out the data but I mostly refused. I was recently with an entrepreneur and talking with him about his fund raising process. I think it’s a smokescreen.

Term Sheet 217

Term Sheet Later Stage Demand Email 217

Hippoland

OCTOBER 9, 2016

If you’re still in the early stages of your entrepreneur-education/journey, you may even think you need to protect your idea and not share it with anyone. Demonstrate that you can pull the trigger on things quickly — whether it be getting customers, hiring / firing employees, or product development. And convey this in your pitch.

Seed Stage 48

Seed Stage CTO Hire Email Later Stage 48

View from Seed

APRIL 30, 2015

In many instances, you raise an institutional round to either fulfill a product strategy or go-to-market strategy or you’re increasing sales and marketing hires, so you have better visibility into what needs to happen in the next six, 12, 18 months. NVV: Let’s talk about the seed stage specifically.

Term Sheet 120

Term Sheet Equity Startup Seed Stage 120