YoungUpstarts

JANUARY 10, 2018

You’ll find exceptions to this rule, like Snapchat, which was operating at a loss at its IPO, when it experienced high initial trading prices due to its huge popularity and untapped monetization capabilities. Another important metric is churn. This the first and foremost way to begin evaluating the sellability of your company.

Valuation 145

Valuation Technical Review Exit Strategy Metrics 145

Gust

JANUARY 31, 2013

Modern theories of economics and finance teach us that in a world of perfect information, the market will decide what a fair price is for any company’s stock at any point in time based on its current financial condition, results of past operations, analysts’ forecasts of future performance, industry conditions and so on.

SEC 158

SEC Prospectus United States Technical Review 158

BeyondVC

APRIL 4, 2018

Look at the Dropbox IPO which priced above its initial value and came out white hot at the end of one of the worst weeks in stock market performance. Couple that with Mulesoft being bought for 21x TTM revenue ( see Tomasz Tunguz analysis ) at $6.5 Their growth to over $509mm of revenue from $281mm 2 years ago is a case in point.

Cloud 60

Cloud Agile Architecture Azure 60

ReadWriteStart

JULY 18, 2011

Kedrosky: "In the 90's I was an analyst through all this [tech investment and IPO] madness. These people are like shopkeepers trying to stock their shelves with goods they can sell to other people. They want to stock their shelves and they have nothing. You want to build your own IPO and exit.

Investment Bankers 153

Investment Bankers Technical Review Cofounder Due Diligence 153

Agile VC

JUNE 5, 2011

So Groupon obviously filed their S-1 the other day to formally being the IPO process. They’ve grown from nothing to >$2B in revenue in 30 months time, making the company among the fastest growing businesses in the histroy of the world. Financial Snapshot: 2010 Revenue: $713M. in net revenue and passes $0.58

North America 100

North America Chicago Boston Silicon Valley 100

Both Sides of the Table

SEPTEMBER 18, 2014

There were no metrics. Him: On metrics. Revenue multiple? If we priced it based on any metrics your company would likely be worth less than 7 figures at your A round. Less than you’ll probably grant your most junior employees in stock options? Stock Option plans. Maybe an IPO – who knows?

Venture Capital 417

Venture Capital Liquidation Preference Valuation Term Sheet 417

Ben's Blog

OCTOBER 29, 2020

Since then, the debate over IPOs has continued, with a particular focus on allegedly underpriced offerings that jump shortly after opening — the dreaded “pop.” ” As some criticism has it, this supposedly deprives companies of millions of dollars that should have been theirs if not for underpricing the IPO.

IPO 36

IPO Securities and Exchange Commission Demand SEC 36

Steve Blank

OCTOBER 24, 2017

— Unremarked and unheralded, the balance of power between startup CEOs and their investors has radically changed: IPOs/M&A without a profit (or at times revenue) have become the norm. In the 20th century tech companies and their investors made money through an Initial Public Offering (IPO).

Founder 252

Founder Technical Review CTO Hire IPO 252

Cracking the Code

NOVEMBER 10, 2009

While poised with a limited number of transactions this year, the world of public Cloud Computing and SaaS companies has been marked by two events in the past few months: the acquisition of Omniture by Adobe and the high profile IPO of LogMeIn, a leading provider of PC remote access and support with a very interesting freemium model.

Software Review 48

Software Review Technical Review IPO Cloud 48

Both Sides of the Table

SEPTEMBER 28, 2013

A cautious person wouldn’t try to pry people out of Twitter right before their IPO to” join my cause!!” Good press and industry mojo wasn’t enough to overcome the financial metrics of the business and the offers came in at more like $10 million. It was not. I wasn’t surprised. We decided not to sell.

Startup 417

Startup Dilution San Diego Stock Options 417

Agile VC

MAY 26, 2011

Google is still a private company (their IPO was Aug 2004). LinkedIn’s product had only been live for a couple months, we only had tens of thousands of registered users, and wouldn’t start generating revenue for more than a year after this point. is the leading consumer internet company with Terry Semel as CEO.

Term Sheet 178

Term Sheet Silicon Valley Technical Review Social Network 178

Feld Thoughts

OCTOBER 30, 2014

In it, he talks about how he handles public company stocks that he ends up with either via an IPO or a sale of a company he’s involved in to a public company. Two weeks ago Twitter stock hit $54 / share. And, is multiple of revenue really the correct long term metric? Today it is trading at $42 / share.

Valuation 143

Valuation Stock Angel Investor IPO 143

Tim Keane

JANUARY 12, 2010

Next, they carefully consider the range of multiples being used today to value companies being acquired or doing IPOs in the market that the business is in. So, after having built a working business model with a bottom up projection, let’s assume the five year number in this example is $91MM in revenue. times the investment.).

Term Sheet 68

Term Sheet Valuation Dividend Liquidation Preference 68

Gust

SEPTEMBER 17, 2014

There were no metrics. Him: On metrics. Revenue multiple? If we priced it based on any metrics your company would likely be worth less than 7 figures at your A round. Less than you’ll probably grant your most junior employees in stock options? Stock Option plans. Maybe an IPO – who knows? Objectively.

Liquidation Preference 153

Liquidation Preference Valuation Term Sheet Stock 153

Both Sides of the Table

MAY 23, 2012

There are obvious reasons the industry has had less-than-desirable returns, including: massive over-funding of the sector, huge increases in inexperienced venture capitalists that took a decade to peter out, and the massive correction in the value of the public stock markets that closed many exit opportunities for half a decade.

Venture Capital 347

Venture Capital Technical Review LP Mobile 347

BeyondVC

NOVEMBER 17, 2006

I am not sure if you saw the news , but Salary.com recently filed for an IPO to raise up to $50 million. From April 2001 through June 30, 2006, we achieved 21 consecutive quarters of revenue growth. While the Salary.com numbers are strong ( read the S-1 here), they are not close to those metrics. million, $0.9 million and $1.8

IPO 60

IPO Investment Bankers Demand Revenue 60

Feld Thoughts

SEPTEMBER 9, 2015

Some will demonstrate strategically justifiable metrics and have fantastic ‘up round’ exits; others may see liquidation preferences kick in which will negatively impact founders and employees; others may fulfill the adage “IPO is the new down round” , which has been the case for more than half of the public companies on our list.

Liquidation Preference 70

Liquidation Preference Burn Rate Balance Sheet .Net 70

Gust

NOVEMBER 4, 2011

This discussion expands on my Quora answer to a specific question: “ Why were the stock options of MySpace employees worthless even though the company was sold to News Corporation for hundreds of millions? ” The complete story includes a startup-within-a-startup, investments and exits by two VC firms, and some genuine corporate drama.

Valuation 98

Valuation Pre-Money Valuation Merger Vesting 98

abovethecrowd.com

APRIL 20, 2016

The pressures of lofty paper valuations, massive burn rates (and the subsequent need for more cash), and unprecedented low levels of IPOs and M&A, have created a complex and unique circumstance which many Unicorn CEOs and investors are ill-prepared to navigate. The same thing happened to many Internet stocks.

IPO 40

IPO Term Sheet Silicon Valley Valuation 40

Startup Lessons Learned

JUNE 9, 2020

This was supposed to be Airbnb's biggest year by many measures, including its IPO, which was one of the most anticipated since the 2008 financial crisis. A complete collapse of revenue that simultaneously affects your employees and your customers, your partners, your investors, everyone all at once and all the news is bad.

Silicon Valley 60

Silicon Valley Hosting Cofounder Employee 60

Austin Startup

OCTOBER 6, 2018

After Bazaarvoice went public, Debra and I gifted a significant portion of our stock to help give the Bazaarvoice Foundation a boost. To prepare for our IPO at Bazaarvoice, I leveraged three additional coaches?—?one All metrics were revealed. This is how much I have come to trust our people. but most informative?—?presentation.

Founder 51

Founder Cofounder Software Review San Francisco 51

Reid Hoffman

JUNE 8, 2021

Airbnb was preparing for an IPO right when the pandemic hit, and everything changed in a matter of days. The burden [should] just be that we care; that if we learn something, we improve it, and that we don’t only use single output metrics and its growth at all costs. Obviously, the challenges of 2020 were next level.

Silicon Valley 69

Silicon Valley Hosting Rhode Island Design 69

Cracking the Code

SEPTEMBER 2, 2008

The Deutsche Bank report has a very interesting chart on the topic presenting the Free Cash Flow margins vs. the revenue growth four years post IPO for select software leaders: As you can see, with 20% Free Cash Flow margin and a 50% growth rate, Salesforce is well positioned in the pack! 2002, the stock price went from $17.5

Software Review 48

Software Review Software Technical Review Cloud 48

Reid Hoffman

JUNE 8, 2021

Airbnb was preparing for an IPO right when the pandemic hit, and everything changed in a matter of days. The burden [should] just be that we care; that if we learn something, we improve it, and that we don’t only use single output metrics and its growth at all costs. Obviously, the challenges of 2020 were next level.

Silicon Valley 36

Silicon Valley Hosting Rhode Island Design 36

Agile VC

NOVEMBER 9, 2015

Square filed its S-1 several weeks ago and is now in the middle of its IPO road show process. A bunch of articles came out saying that Square had “priced” their IPO below last round and this was something terrible ranging from the bursting of a tech bubble to the coming of the apocalypse. Revenue Composition.

IPO 165

IPO .Net Revenue Acquisition 165

Seeing Both Sides

JANUARY 13, 2015

My boss and mentor from Open Market, Gary Eichhorn , made the entire management team read it in the 1990s to hammer home its important lessons as we stumbled through the chasm on our way to scaling from zero to nearly $100 million in revenue in a few years. Would an IPO be possible in the future if we can continue growing 50-100% per year?

Mezzanine 20

Mezzanine IPO Finance Business Model 20