Startup Professionals Musings

FEBRUARY 15, 2023

Operate small, but show a big-company image. Use your equity for key executives and business partners. You can use it best to entice new team members and partners, giving you more horsepower and commitment for the long run. Investors have spread the word that you can’t get “hockey-stick” growth without a large cash infusion.

Equity 349

Equity Hockey Stick Bootstrapping Sweat Equity 349

Startup Professionals Musings

MAY 18, 2020

Operate small, but show a big-company image. Use your equity for key executives and business partners. You can use it best to entice new team members and partners, giving you more horsepower and commitment for the long run. Investors have spread the word that you can’t get “hockey-stick” growth without a large cash infusion.

Hockey Stick 423

Hockey Stick Bootstrapping Sweat Equity Intellectual Property 423

Startup Professionals Musings

NOVEMBER 27, 2015

Startups which insist on operating in stealth mode in fear of competitor response miss the more important customer response. All investors want to see real evidence that the dogs will eat the dogfood before they give any credibility to your hockey-stick projection curves. Maximum agility for required pivots.

Hockey Stick 120

Hockey Stick Startup Stealth Agile 120

David Teten

JANUARY 19, 2021

(co-written with Jamie Finney, Founding Partner at Greater Colorado Venture Fund. Similar to the explosion of seed funds in the past decade, we (and some limited partners too ) believe these Flexible VCs are on the forefront of what will become a major segment of the venture ecosystem. Of the Inc. 5000 companies, only 6.5% return cap.

Cofounder 78

Cofounder Technical Review Equity Dividend 78

Startup Professionals Musings

APRIL 6, 2016

Operate small, but show a big-company image. Use your equity for key executives and business partners. You can use it best to entice new team members and partners, giving you more horsepower and commitment for the long run. Investors have spread the word that you can’t get “hockey-stick” growth without a large cash infusion.

Bootstrapping 120

Bootstrapping Hockey Stick Sweat Equity Intellectual Property 120

Cracking the Code

APRIL 21, 2021

After going $0 to $1mm in their first 10 years, UiPath has now hockey-sticked to over $600mm in revenue in 2020, and the automation market is still in early innings. In early 2017, while the company only had single-digit revenue, it was already operating in North America, Europe, India and Japan. The Global Partners of Accel.

Leadership 62

Leadership Hockey Stick North America Europe 62

Hippoland

AUGUST 8, 2018

Forget about traction and hockey stick growth. This could mean partnering exclusively with someone who makes products offline (and who is not tech savvy to compete online with you). Unit economics are something I’ve found most entrepreneurs (and investors!) don’t think about at all.

Founder 48

Founder Sales Cycle Affiliate Retention 48