Mucker Lab

JULY 11, 2023

To test your website’s page speed, Jacque mentions Google Pagespeed Insights (PSI) which tests 5 metrics relevant to the diagnosis of page load speed: First Contentful Paint (FCP): This metric evaluates the duration from the initiation of the page load to the moment any element of the page's content becomes visible on the display.

SEO 78

SEO Technical Review HTML Software Review 78

VC Cafe

SEPTEMBER 2, 2022

What most improved your primary metric? Weeks to launch? Users/prospective users talked to in the last week? what have you learned from them? On a scale of 1-10, what’s your morale? Biggest obstacle? What are your top 1-3 objectives for next week.

Technical Review 166

Technical Review Early Stage Cofounder Portfolio 166

Hunter Walker

JUNE 22, 2014

I was excited to recently see YC President Sam Altman evangelize for adding an investor or outside Director to a seed stage startup. With larger seed financings these days, your next investors are expecting more polished companies come A Round.

Seed Stage 93

Seed Stage Early Stage Metrics Startup 93

View from Seed

OCTOBER 15, 2014

Over the summer, based on feedback from our portfolio and the broader startup community, NextView created pre-formatted board deck templates for seed-stage startups — part of our Growth Guides series. As Rob Go wrote , board decks and board meetings can waste loads of time at the seed stage.

Seed Stage 331

Seed Stage Cap Table Metrics Burn Rate 331

SiliconHills

OCTOBER 22, 2021

Gradient Works, a sales tech startup based in Austin, announced this week it has raised $2 million in seed-stage funding. The company is founded by Hayes Davis and Jenn Deering Davis, previously founders of Union Metrics, a social media analytics company that merged with TrendKite in 2018.

Seed Stage 125

Seed Stage Social Media Austin Analytics 125

View from Seed

NOVEMBER 14, 2019

But for less well known founders, a series A requires pretty significant revenue, growth, and retention metrics. Because of this, there is a glut of companies out there that can’t quite get to a series A and are raising second or third seed rounds. So, investors can wait around asking for more traction.

Seed Stage 331

Seed Stage Cofounder Retention Founder 331

Version One Ventures

NOVEMBER 28, 2018

By fostering a metrics mindset in your organization from the start, you can run experiments more effectively and efficiently as you work on product-market fit. These metrics will become your business’ North Star for everyone to rally around. At this stage, you should be hiring smart, hungry generalists, rather than specialists.

Seed Stage 163

Seed Stage Portfolio Metrics Hiring 163

View from Seed

SEPTEMBER 3, 2019

Almost 5 years ago we released a resource for founders looking for guidance on their seed stage pitch decks. This year, we are rereleasing a new and improved version of our seed stage pitch deck template. Product, growth, and financial metrics). What do you do? Is it working? Why does it matter? What do you want?

Seed Stage 159

Seed Stage Metrics Matching Search 159

Both Sides of the Table

FEBRUARY 20, 2019

As per the chart above, I highly recommend keeping a founder dominated board at the seed stage. Whether the seed investor gets a permanent seat or a temporary seat will largely depend on: The size check they wrote (If it’s a $1.5m If your metric move immediate up-and-to-the-right? But it’s quite rare.

Venture Capital 236

Venture Capital Startup Angel Investor Silicon Valley 236

View from Seed

MARCH 19, 2015

I recently caught up with Savoia, who shared how this process works and how seed-stage startups might adopt it to find product-market fit more quickly and more cheaply. Pretotyping evolved as a set of tools, techniques, and metrics to help you make sure that your idea is The (very elusive) Right It. AS: Good question.

Product 120

Product Technical Review Marketing Lean 120

View from Seed

SEPTEMBER 11, 2019

*This post is part of our “pitch deck” series where we dissect the seed stage pitch deck and discuss the ideal flow for a pitch. Now it’s time to set the stage with the early traction you have. Seed stage VCs are realistic about how much traction a very raw company might have.

Seed Stage 149

Seed Stage B2B Seed Capital Revenue 149

Hippoland

DECEMBER 15, 2015

What this really translates to is that I’ll be extra careful to make sure that a company has really solid unit metrics - growth matters but unit economics matter more, especially in times like these. So, if you are a seed stage startup with a lot of traction and solid unit metrics, you will get funded.

Seed Stage 48

Seed Stage Angel Investor Bootstrapping Startup 48

View from Seed

SEPTEMBER 16, 2019

*This post is part of our “pitch deck” series where we dissect the seed stage pitch deck and discuss the ideal flow for a pitch. This can take the form of customer quotes, NPS scores, usage and engagement metrics, negative churn, and referral metrics. You can read the rest of the posts in the series by clicking here *.

Seed Stage 192

Seed Stage Metrics PR Leadership 192

View from Seed

NOVEMBER 18, 2014

This focus translates into big top line figures, including some admittedly vanity metrics and pretty graphs to tell the startup’s story to investors (though with less substance and less focus on business metrics or even deep engagement for now). Generate Real Revenue. Another approach to raise Series A is to drive meaningful revenue.

Syndicate 333

Syndicate Syndication Seed Stage Startup 333

K9 Ventures

JUNE 5, 2015

Almost two years ago, in a private/closed meeting with K9 Ventures’ LPs only, I claimed that: What was being referred to in the press as the “Series A Crunch” was not because fewer Series A deals were being done, but because there were too many Seed deals being done. Seed stage was super tough. Pre-Seed is the New Seed.

Seed Stage 48

Seed Stage Venture Capital Early Stage Valuation 48

David Teten

JANUARY 19, 2021

This structure allows for alignment on the front end, and real-time flexibility for performance metrics,” says Samira Salman , a family office investor and advisor. . Flexible VCs have created structures based on other company performance metrics than revenues, such as profits or founder salaries. Flexible VC 102: Variations.

Cofounder 78

Cofounder Technical Review Equity Dividend 78

View from Seed

OCTOBER 28, 2019

To some degree the best way to describe a pre-seed round is that you know it when you see it, as the definition is squishy… but most pre-seed rounds are characterized as relatively small ($750K or less), early in company formation (pre-product), and typically followed by a larger “seed” round ($1M-$3M) within 12 months.

Seed Stage 247

Seed Stage Finance Dilution Early Stage 247

View from Seed

SEPTEMBER 25, 2019

*This post is part of our “pitch deck” series where we dissect the seed stage pitch deck and discuss the ideal flow for a pitch. Investors want to know the critical thinking behind the inputs and value-drivers of the business, and how that results in the outputs on the critical metrics and finances.

Seed Stage 166

Seed Stage Retention Restful Valuation 166

Genuine VC

MAY 29, 2014

It’s been five years now since large VC ‘signaling’ entered the seed stage entrepreneur’s lexicon. It seems as though it’s been talked about ad nauseum in the blogosphere, but we see first-hand as entrepreneurs we’re investing in at NextView Ventures work through building their seed round syndicates, it really is a tough issue.

Syndicate 166

Syndicate Syndication Seed Stage Valuation 166

Agile VC

MAY 26, 2011

I certainly bear no ill will to the various firms that ultimately passed on our fundraise… as a seed stage VC myself now I can appreciate how hard it is evaluating companies at the earliest stages of development. I co-founded NextView Ventures , a seed-stage VC firm based in Boston, in 2010. Read More ».

Term Sheet 178

Term Sheet Silicon Valley Technical Review Social Network 178

View from Seed

SEPTEMBER 14, 2021

Warning – this assumes some basic knowledge of VC performance metrics. Both early- and late-stage startup valuations are currently elevated. For context, seed-stage pre-money valuations are up 24% from H1 2020 to H1 2021. Early-stage valuations are up 70%, and late-stage valuations are up 103% (source Pitchbook ).

Valuation 319

Valuation Pre-Money Valuation Distribution Early Stage 319

View from Seed

SEPTEMBER 14, 2021

Warning – this assumes some basic knowledge of VC performance metrics. Both early- and late-stage startup valuations are currently elevated. For context, seed-stage pre-money valuations are up 24% from H1 2020 to H1 2021. Early-stage valuations are up 70%, and late-stage valuations are up 103% (source Pitchbook ).

Valuation 295

Valuation Pre-Money Valuation Distribution Early Stage 295

View from Seed

JUNE 10, 2020

When the culmination of an accelerator is a Demo Day show, then that is what teams prepare for and the resulting metrics by which they’re measured. Some prospective seed stage VCs may consider the remaining startups “passed over” and of lesser quality, when in reality great startups take time to mature and blossom. .

Cofounder 177

Cofounder Syndicate Syndication Alabama 177

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

K9 Ventures

OCTOBER 10, 2017

A follow-up post, titled The Seeds Have Changed: An Epilogue , on June 5, 2015, explained this further: Pre-Seed is the New Seed. If the Micro-VCs are looking for Series A-like metrics, what does a company do when it’s just getting started? Or if the traction is not yet interesting enough to attract a full Seed round?

Seed Stage 82

Seed Stage Finance Later Stage Equity 82

K9 Ventures

APRIL 9, 2014

Instead, it was more of a result of over-funding at the seed stage. There was simply too much money coming in to the seed stage, which increased the supply of companies at the seed stage. They’re starting to use similar metrics and structures as what the old Series A folks used to.

Mezzanine 134

Mezzanine Seed Stage Early Stage IPO 134

BeyondVC

JANUARY 29, 2017

Introduce your pricing page too soon and that is the metric that Series A investors will track religiously. Bet the farm on developer love and metrics only and you may never get enough traction to get to that next round. Optimizing for Price at Seed Stage is a Mistake. Without the developers, you have no customers.

Revenue 60

Revenue Developer Open Source Seed Stage 60

Mucker Lab

AUGUST 9, 2023

Vetting the Shows: Ensure the podcasts have good metrics and are worth the investment of time. If you are the founder of a seed-stage company interested in learning more about Mucker funding, apply to MuckerLab and/or contact us. Getting on Podcasts: Engage with the community by featuring as a guest on selected podcasts.

SEO 78

SEO PR Reputation Engineer 78

Agile VC

JUNE 5, 2011

4) Unique Reporting of Accounting: Much has been made in the press that Groupon has chosen to report alternative non-GAAP metrics in addition to GAAP accounting. IMO this is much ado about nothing, as any comptentent analyst can look at Groupon’s GAAP and non-GAAP metrics and get a good sense of the business. Read More ».

North America 100

North America Chicago Boston Silicon Valley 100

View from Seed

SEPTEMBER 14, 2021

Warning – this assumes some basic knowledge of VC performance metrics. Both early- and late-stage startup valuations are currently elevated. For context, seed-stage pre-money valuations are up 24% from H1 2020 to H1 2021. Early-stage valuations are up 70%, and late-stage valuations are up 103% (source Pitchbook ).

Valuation 156

Valuation Pre-Money Valuation Distribution Early Stage 156

The Next Web

FEBRUARY 27, 2014

I like to break-out startup growth into four stages, not too dissimilar to four years of high school education: freshman, sophomores, juniors and seniors. Sophomores are beta site to full production site with initial users (seed stage angels—raise $500K to $1MM). Back into a valuation that gets your investor a 10x return.

Valuation 167

Valuation Forecast Seed Stage .Net 167

Genuine VC

AUGUST 3, 2010

During the seed stage where Micro VCs invest, there are three primary diligence factors: Team and individuals – The information discovery here involves conversations with former coworkers, cofounders, partners, investors, and customers. Quicker diligence is not lesser diligence at the seed stage for Micro VCs. ?

Seed Stage 123

Seed Stage Cofounder Metrics Forecast 123

Startup Lessons Learned

AUGUST 24, 2009

Despite all the energy invested in talking to authors about the size of their platform, very few gatekeepers have a rigorous set of metrics for measuring it. The problem is that there are no other metrics they can look at to judge the content of a book to know if it’s worth reviewing. Is that a lot? In that I see opportunity.

San Francisco 113

San Francisco Lean Technical Review Distribution 113

Austin Startup

MAY 9, 2018

Growth is the only metric that matters to a VC, and it is impossible to do this if no one can look at the cat, so to speak. That time usually happens when you’re ready to go to market (seed stage) or getting traction and want to scale (A round investing).

Non-Compete 55

Non-Compete Stealth Seed Stage Metrics 55

Rob Go

OCTOBER 14, 2012

Early Progress: Performance is a difficult thing to measure as a seed stage fund given the time horizons and the fickleness of private company valuations. In either case, it’s a decent enough quantitative metric and an interesting data point at this stage in the portfolio’s progress. OUR INDUSTRY.

New Hampshire 50

New Hampshire Croatia Omaha Portfolio 50

Hunter Walker

APRIL 11, 2015

Without betraying his confidence I think it’s ok to share that for UpCounsel this metric is well over 50% on a monthly basis. UpCounsel is still a seed stage company so while they’re in a healthy seven digit GMV runrate, they actually haven’t done much work at all on customer success or reactivation marketing.

Seed Stage 48

Seed Stage Cofounder Forecast Revenue 48

View from Seed

JUNE 16, 2015

And that product is a highly engaged seed-stage investment where we are usually the lead or co-lead in a round and will often take a board seat. Here are some top-line metrics that I think are worth shooting for: For marketplace businesses: $5M-$10M in annual GMV run rate. For SaaS: At least $100K in MRR.

Boston 120

Boston Syndicate Syndication eCommerce 120