Both Sides of the Table

MAY 27, 2013

In his tenure as CEO of DataSift we have never missed a monthly revenue figure. He has grown our US operations from 1 employee (him) to a global organization of 75 employees that will finish the year with 8-digit revenues (90+% recurring) and more than 350% year-over-year growth. In his spare time he raised nearly $30 million.

Advisory Board 365

Advisory Board CTO Hire Fractional CTO Los Angeles 365

Startup Professionals Musings

FEBRUARY 15, 2023

It’s equally easy to go online and incorporate your new entity, register some intellectual property and have some fun with social media for marketing and interacting with customers. 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.

Equity 349

Equity Hockey Stick Bootstrapping Sweat Equity 349

Steve Blank

APRIL 23, 2014

buy out an entire company for its revenue and profits. These include the product itself, the customer, the distribution channel, revenue model, how to get, keep and grow customers, resources and activities needed to build the business and costs.). If they decide to buy, large companies can: license/acquire intellectual property.

Acquisition 332

Acquisition Intellectual Property Silicon Valley Startup 332

Both Sides of the Table

MAY 28, 2018

There are many things a VC is looking for in reviewing your business plan but beyond things the like the quality of revenue, margins, OPEX and CAPEX there’s a really simple rule I call, “Cash In, Cash Out, Milestones Achieved.” Usually that’s the point in the meeting where a VC realizes that this meeting isn’t going to go very well.

Burn Rate 247

Burn Rate Valuation Pre-Money Valuation Dilution 247

Startup Professionals Musings

SEPTEMBER 11, 2017

The reasons are a lot more complex than the meltdown of key investment banks in the US a few years ago, so don’t expect a big change in the numbers soon, even with recent stock market rallies. Violent market swings usually hit public companies first. Executives are also at risk for insider trading and employment practices.

IPO 218

IPO SEC Prospectus Technical Review 218

Steve Blank

OCTOBER 24, 2017

Uber , Zenefits , Tanium , Lending Club CEOs of companies with billion dollar market caps have been in the news – and not in a good way. — 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.

Founder 245

Founder Technical Review CTO Hire IPO 245

This is going to be BIG.

SEPTEMBER 30, 2012

How else can you explain this headline matching a story about a professional social network still trying to explore revenues raising $17mm on an $80mm valuation? venture capitalists are now asking tougher questions about start-ups' revenue and profits.". The tablet market has absolutely exploded. Perhaps I need to rethink that.

Venture Capital 114

Venture Capital Marketing Term Sheet Software Review 114

VC Cafe

APRIL 29, 2020

According to the Covid-19 impact report by research firm Beauhurst: 5,070 UK companies are at a ‘severe’ or ‘critical’ risk 615K startup and scaleup jobs are at risk Later stage startups are at the most risk Across the board, tech sectors and verticals are the most likely to experience a positive or low impact.

SBA 124

SBA Technical Review Startup 124

Steve Blank

MARCH 17, 2020

Next, take a look at your actual revenue each month – not forecast, but real revenue coming in each month. If you’re an early stage company, that number may be zero. Subtract your monthly gross burn rate from your monthly revenue to get your net burn rate. This math works in a normal market…. Laying off people?

Burn Rate 436

Burn Rate Startup Valuation Sales Cycle 436

Steve Blank

JANUARY 22, 2014

Success depends on finding startups that have identified acute customer pains in large markets where conditions are ripe for a new entrant. as a distribution channel have vastly reduced the amount of capital a startup needs at the early stage when the risk is greatest. 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

Engineers and even marketers proudly claim to be “full stack.” Starting in 2009, Savoia began using an approach as an engineering director at Google that helped the tech giant know whether it was about to build the right product for the market … or a product that would flop.

Product 120

Product Technical Review Marketing Lean 120

Startup Professionals Musings

MAY 18, 2020

It’s equally easy to go online and incorporate your new entity, register some intellectual property and have some fun with social media for marketing and interacting with customers. 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.

Hockey Stick 423

Hockey Stick Bootstrapping Sweat Equity Intellectual Property 423

YoungUpstarts

APRIL 22, 2014

Shark Question #2: What were your total revenues for the last quarter and last 12 months, including profit margins? To get these “numbers,” do a review of total revenue and expenses, review by product or service line, and a profit-margin analysis – all of which can all be obtained from your company’s income statement.

CPA 160

CPA Technical Review Later Stage Equity 160

Ben's Blog

MAY 24, 2021

House of Representatives’ Subcommittee on Investor Protection, Entrepreneurship, and Capital Markets (Committee on Financial Services) hearing on “Going Public: SPACs, Direct Listings, Public Offerings, and the Need for Investor Protections” May 2021. IPO market. In the first quarter of 2021 alone, SPACs raised $87.9

SEC 36

SEC Accredited Investor IPO Technical Review 36

The Equity Kicker

AUGUST 19, 2015

If you read this Techrunch post profiling 50 of the current YC companies you will notice that many of them are up and running with customers and revenues. In the words of an alum from the 2006 cohort: Companies are joining YC at a much later stage.

Later Stage 60

Later Stage Private Equity Venture Capital Valuation 60

Both Sides of the Table

MAY 24, 2021

It has historically been the case that VCs would rather fund the promise of 100x in a company with almost no revenue than the reality of a company growing at 50% but doing $20+ million in sales. The Valley has obsessed with a quick up-and-to-right momentum story because we were thought to live in “winner take most” markets.

Venture Capital 363

Venture Capital LP Valuation Later Stage 363

Startup Professionals Musings

MAY 4, 2016

Minimum viable products (MVPs) are recommended for validating the market, with iterative enhancement to quickly meet market feedback. Before you bring on partners, develop intellectual property, raise capital, or generate revenues, you need to establish an official business entity. Measuring progress with big data and analytics.

Intellectual Property 120

Intellectual Property Startup Angel Groups Social Media 120

David Teten

MARCH 18, 2021

Thirty-four VC firms in OpenVC call themselves “early-stage” Yet, 30% of those don’t actually invest in pre-revenue startups. The modal VC thesis is: “We invest in great teams addressing large markets with disruptive solutions” Who invests in lousy teams addressing tiny markets with outdated solutions?

Technical Review 78

Technical Review Cofounder Venture Capital Deal Flow 78

Startup Professionals Musings

MAY 29, 2022

The reasons are a lot more complex than the meltdown of key investment banks in the US a few years ago, so don’t expect any real change in the numbers soon, especially with recent stock market downturns. Violent market swings usually hit public companies first. Executives are also at risk for insider trading and employment practices.

IPO 245

IPO SEC Prospectus Startup 245

Startup Professionals Musings

FEBRUARY 1, 2015

Yet they see warning lights flashing, based on a still fragile global economy, and volatile markets ahead. The reasons are a lot more complex than the meltdown of key investment banks in the US a few years ago, so don’t expect a big change in the numbers soon, even with recent stock market rallies.

IPO 120

IPO SEC Prospectus Startup 120

Both Sides of the Table

JUNE 5, 2011

2 preamble issues having read the comments on TC today: 1: I know that the prices of startup companies is much great in Silicon Valley than in smaller towns / less tech focused areas in the US and the US prices higher than many foreign markets. I can’t control the market. Private markets for stocks are the opposite.

Pre-Money Valuation 336

Pre-Money Valuation Valuation Silicon Valley Stock 336

David Teten

DECEMBER 3, 2019

In liquid markets, most of the calories expended on technology and analytics are focused on trade selection, or “ origination ”. I use another live Google doc to maintain my database of companies I’m marketing to other VCs. 2) Market . Many tools designed for B2B marketing in general are also relevant to investors.

Technical Review 78

Technical Review Software Review Analytics Private Equity 78

Steve Blank

MAY 9, 2017

I’ve seen the Valley grow from Sunnyvale to Santa Clara to today where it stretches from San Jose to South of Market in San Francisco. But in the 20 th century, dominated by hardware, software, and life sciences, technology swings inside an existing market happened slowly — taking years, not months.

Restful 222

Restful Silicon Valley Puerto Rico San Jose 222

This is going to be BIG.

MAY 9, 2022

I’ve been asked by portfolio companies and plenty of others about how they should be changing their strategy given the stock market pullback and what they’ve been hearing on “VC twitter”. Ok, so if you’re a fundable company, you’re a fundable company—great big market, relevant team, solid plan. But, you know what?

Stock 97

Stock Marketing Valuation Later Stage 97

Both Sides of the Table

JULY 27, 2014

We both agree that the later-stage valuations are being driven up to a point that feels irrationally priced [he uses b-round SaaS valuations as an example and I am willing to be even more broad based]. The only point we didn’t seem totally aligned on was what we happening to the “middle of the VC market.”

Valuation 309

Valuation Pre-Money Valuation Later Stage Non-Compete 309

David Teten

SEPTEMBER 23, 2017

The extreme example of this are algorithmic investors in the public markets, who design algorithms which trade on the designer’s behalf, as opposed to making trading decisions directly. High-frequency trading, algorithmic by its nature, is estimated to account for at least 50% of US equity markets trading volume. . 1) Market fund.

Private Equity 60

Private Equity Venture Capital Equity Technical Review 60

thebarefootvc

JANUARY 27, 2014

I think that later stage valuations are frothy (for reasons I explain below) while earlier stage valuations are starting to stabilize from previous highs (with the exception of the superstar serial entrepreneur) - turns out scaling in a sea of competition (both startup and entrenched) is not so easy.

Technical Review 63

Technical Review Valuation Venture Capital Investment Bankers 63

Up and Running

MAY 13, 2015

We also learn about content marketing from Candice Landau, and share our thoughts on 3D printing. Content Marketing for Small Businesses (feat. Content Marketing Institute. Great examples of good content marketing ( GoPro’s YouTube Channel , Jell-O’s Recipes , John Deere’s The Furrow ). Jonathan: Yeah.

Business Plan 60

Business Plan Marketing Oregon Small Business 60

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. Traction and revenue? These are value-creation milestones. Business model?

Term Sheet 120

Term Sheet Equity Startup Seed Stage 120

The Next Web

SEPTEMBER 13, 2013

The region’s other strong VC presence resides in Japan, which has the typical Japanese model of a few large firms dominating the market. The rest of Asia is still developing with far more angel and early-stage investors than mid-to-later stage folks. Valuations are based more on typical later-stage type of metrics.

Asia 132

Asia Silicon Valley India Term Sheet 132

ReadWriteStart

MARCH 3, 2021

Still, you need to find some way to pull your company out of this early-stage quicksand. You’ll build momentum with marketing, advertising, sales, and other strategies optimized for quick, self-sustaining growth. Many new businesses have a small customer base, limited revenue, and a finite amount of funding to work with.

Early Stage 125

Early Stage PPC Retention Churn Rate 125

VC Cafe

JANUARY 2, 2023

Israeli public tech companies saw market cap decline of 65% in 2022. As a result, I expect to see slower pace of investing across stages. Lower valuations , especially in later stage. Down rounds, especially for growth stage companies, and bridge rounds galore. ” Fred Wilson. ” Fred Wilson.

Valuation 158

Valuation Down Round Venture Capital 158

ConversionXL

JUNE 2, 2022

Ask 10 people what account-based marketing (ABM) is and you’ll get 10 different answers. Some see it as a sales tactic, while others view it as a content marketing strategy. In this article, you’ll learn how to define your ABM strategy so you can target the right accounts and increase your revenue. Coordinated.

Customer 98

Customer Marketing Channel Acquisition 98

Steve Blank

JUNE 11, 2013

Sigh… What I should have been hearing is the search for the business model, specifically the progress on product/market fit, but I hear the fund raising story first at least 90% of the time. The test is: If you add one more sales person or spend more marketing dollars, does your sales revenue go up by more than your expenses?

Venture Capital 333

Venture Capital IRR Liquidity Event Business Model 333

Hunter Walker

JULY 18, 2022

Multiples dropped in public and private markets, growth expectations were cut, and business models with high spend for promise of future ROI became quite unfavorable. Your runway is impacted by the absence of projected revenue. Note: I don’t want to hear seed companies complain about “the market.” That’s not changing.

Valuation 117

Valuation Cap Table Startup Later Stage 117

Berkonomics

JUNE 16, 2022

We can invent lots of metrics to measure progress for a leader, including revenue, profit, employee satisfaction, cost containment, percentage of available market, and more. I prefer a financial goal, such as “achieve $20 million in revenue within five years.” What is your leadership end game goal?

Later Stage 62

Later Stage Early Stage Valuation Acquisition 62

Both Sides of the Table

DECEMBER 3, 2013

I’m super proud to announce that DataSift has just completed a $42 million financing round coming at the end of a year where its revenue grew several hundred percent year-over-year. Considering our revenue is SaaS revenue this achievement is even more remarkable. I’m an early-stage investor. Not so DataSift.

Iran 358

Iran API San Francisco Nigeria 358