Startup Professionals Musings

NOVEMBER 7, 2016

Partnering with outside entrepreneurial efforts is discouraged. Compensation and support carried the corporate burden rate. The burn rate was extremely high, with no one working for equity or deferred compensation. Required pivots and budged changes are painfully slow and over-analyzed.

Technical Review 214

Technical Review Entrepreneur Silicon Valley Burn Rate 214

Startup Professionals Musings

SEPTEMBER 12, 2021

Most of these scenarios involve attracting outside investors, strategic partners, or key team members: You are the team and you don’t need outside funding. They can iterate and evolve their business idea with a low burn rate and minimal dependencies.

Business Plan 316

Business Plan Technical Review Angel Investor Due Diligence 316

Startup Professionals Musings

FEBRUARY 18, 2023

From my perspective as an investor, I recommend that every founder needs to know the answers to these questions, be open and honest in answering them thoughtfully, and without making excuses: What is the current runway and burn rate? Calculate employee stock option values and vesting times, as well as salary.

Sweat Equity 207

Sweat Equity Burn Rate Technical Review Intellectual Property 207

Startup Professionals Musings

NOVEMBER 7, 2014

Most of these scenarios involve attracting outside investors, strategic partners, or key team members: You are the team and you don’t need outside funding. They can iterate and evolve their business idea with a low burn rate and minimal dependencies.

Business Plan 274

Business Plan Technical Review Angel Investor Due Diligence 274

Startup Professionals Musings

JULY 9, 2014

The partner most obsessed with the startup lifestyle tests the water by going to work in an early-stage startup, similar to one they might hope to start someday. What is the startup cash burn rate per month? How much money has been invested so far? Are more investment rounds required (runway)?

Technical Review 250

Technical Review Stock Options Silicon Valley Due Diligence 250

Both Sides of the Table

JULY 13, 2013

And for every time I’ve felt hugely stressed that our burn rate was getting too high, and I didn’t know who else was going to fund the company, and I’m all in on this company, right?” ” Well, I really wanted to be a general partner but there weren’t a lot of general partner openings.

Cofounder 337

Cofounder Technical Cofounder Startup San Diego 337

Steve Blank

FEBRUARY 26, 2013

90 days later, I found out our games are terrible, no one is buying them, our best engineers started leaving, and with 120 people and a huge burn rate, we’re running out of money and about to crash. My wife was a great partner here. This can’t be happening to me. Stage 2: Deny any of it was your fault.

Redemption 225

Redemption Cofounder Silicon Valley Burn Rate 225

Both Sides of the Table

OCTOBER 12, 2010

How can you send some young MBA “biz dev type&# out into battle to sign up partners when you’ve never met with your potential business development collaborators and heard what their goals are and how you can meet them? I only found out through customer meetings. Also, this goes equally for business development.

Hiring 346

Hiring Sales Startup Early Stage 346

Both Sides of the Table

DECEMBER 16, 2009

I just knew that our sales sucked wind and we were burning through tons of cash. I advocated LOUDLY at the board that we needed to cut our burn rate. Listen, I know that if you like what we do then you’ll want a healthy supplier / partner. We were SMOKING cash. I can’t ship those as promised.

Entrepreneur 306

Entrepreneur Burn Rate Cofounder Sales 306

VC Cafe

NOVEMBER 2, 2019

In SaaS the main benchmarks being measured are revenue growth, sales efficiency (unit economics), churn and burn rate. Rob Go: How Much Traction Do You Really Need to Raise a Seed or Series A Round? Software as a Service (Saas) benchmarks. One of my favourite resources for SaaS benchmarking is The SaaS Napkin by Point Nine Capital.

B2C 141

B2C Technical Review Startup Retention 141

YoungUpstarts

MAY 19, 2016

Use burn rate as an example. If you don’t understand how much money your company is burning through each month, how can you expect to intelligently talk about your fiscal health? To become part of the surviving half, use these methods to ensure your startup’s structure stands strong. Read your books from cover to cover.

Technical Review 124

Technical Review Burn Rate IP Intellectual Property 124

Startup Professionals Musings

APRIL 10, 2016

From my perspective as an investor, I recommend that every founder needs to know the answers to these questions, be open and honest in answering them thoughtfully, and without making excuses: What is the current runway and burn rate? Calculate employee stock option values and vesting times, as well as salary.

Sweat Equity 120

Sweat Equity Burn Rate Technical Review Intellectual Property 120

Startup Professionals Musings

APRIL 8, 2015

From my perspective as an investor, I recommend that every founder needs to know the answers to these questions, be open and honest in answering them thoughtfully, and without making excuses: What is the current runway and burn rate? Calculate employee stock option values and vesting times, as well as salary.

Technical Review 120

Technical Review Due Diligence Sweat Equity Burn Rate 120

View from Seed

OCTOBER 24, 2019

Or, if you can’t skip a round, when should you try to work extra hard to minimize dilution and when should you be prepared to take more dilution for the right partner/situation? Also, the benefit of raising a pre-seed from great partners probably outweighs the cost. Founders with limited experience.

Dilution 149

Dilution B2B Burn Rate Early Stage 149

Berkonomics

OCTOBER 5, 2023

Fixed overhead for salaries, rent, equipment leases and more make up the majority of the “burn rate” (monthly expenses) for most companies. And we were able to secure that investment along with a partner from that firm joining our board.

Silicon Valley 118

Silicon Valley Burn Rate Angel Investor Down Round 118

The Next Web

DECEMBER 2, 2013

Henrik Werdelin , the Managing Partner of Prehype , a venture development firm based in New York City that has helped build companies like Tradable , Barkbox , FancyHands , Basno and Path , says recreating Twitter isn’t necessarily difficult, but the layered features will take time to get right. 1) Twitter. 4) WhatsApp.

Cost 168

Cost San Francisco New York City Ruby 168

Berkonomics

AUGUST 10, 2017

Fixed overhead for salaries, rent, equipment leases and more make up the majority of the “burn rate” (monthly expenses) for most companies. And we were able to secure that investment along with a partner from that firm joining our board.

Silicon Valley 97

Silicon Valley Burn Rate Angel Investor Down Round 97

Genuine VC

FEBRUARY 9, 2011

If a brand-name VC is an investor, it means that at one time one single partner at the firm saw enough promise in the venture to make a bet on it – it doesn’t mean that a company is doing well now. What is the burn rate and how much cash is in the bank now?

Startup 146

Startup Burn Rate Technical Review Down Round 146

Startup Professionals Musings

OCTOBER 18, 2015

The partner most obsessed with the startup lifestyle tests the water by going to work in an early-stage startup, similar to one they might hope to start someday. What is the startup cash burn rate per month? How much money has been invested so far? Are more investment rounds required (runway)?

Technical Review 120

Technical Review Entrepreneur Stock Options Silicon Valley 120

Hunter Walker

APRIL 17, 2022

That’s what my business partner and I decided that we wanted in salary from our newest venture fund. What they really meant was that they enjoyed a lifestyle that was built around fees in addition to profit sharing, had a high personal burn rate, and were risk averse to putting more of their capital in the game. 0 per year.

Burn Rate 141

Burn Rate Salary Early Stage .Net 141

YoungUpstarts

AUGUST 19, 2016

While you absolutely need to keep an eye on earnings and burn rate, human capital is ultimately the fuel that makes the machine run. When Chris Cancialosi , founder and partner at gothamCulture, first began hiring for his team, he took into consideration the fact that professional firms often have long or uncertain sales cycles.

Startup 100

Startup Burn Rate Cofounder Salary 100

Tim Keane

DECEMBER 14, 2009

  He is a partner in a pretty much exclusively software seed stage fund, Y Combinator that you can read more about.    A low burn rate is a pearl of great price.    It provides lots of options that high burn rates take away.    A low burn rate is a pearl of great price. 

Burn Rate 60

Burn Rate Angel Groups Seed Stage Startup 60

Berkonomics

MARCH 30, 2010

Fixed overhead for salaries, rent, equipment leases and more make up the majority of the “burn rate” (monthly expenses) for most companies. And we were able to secure that investment along with a partner from that firm joining our board.

Silicon Valley 85

Silicon Valley Burn Rate Angel Investor Down Round 85

techcrunch.com

FEBRUARY 26, 2013

He knows how to advise entrepreneurs on hiring/firing, running teams, managing funding, when/how to control burn rate, and making other tough management decisions in the real environment of startups. How do I measure my partners and myself?

Burn Rate 87

Burn Rate Hiring Engineer Entrepreneur 87

Mucker Lab

MAY 28, 2020

This post originally appeared in TechCrunch back in 2015, written by our co-founder and managing partner Erik Rannala. More and more investors have begun to shun high burn rates. We believe the message applies as much today as it did in 2015 when it was published. --. To be clear, I’m not suggesting that you stockpile capital.

Startup 78

Startup Cofounder Burn Rate Technical Review 78

Both Sides of the Table

MAY 2, 2015

They can show the projections on what this does to burn rate. At DataSift we have grown the business substantively for 13 straight quarters and despite recent press I can confirm that the core business is still growing very quickly – just with more powerful partners than we had in the past. They can help you with pricing.

Operations 150

Operations Metrics Early Stage Non-Compete 150

Startup Professionals Musings

JUNE 27, 2022

Too often they are also hesitant, inexperienced, and fearful of hiring people or finding a mentor to be the partner they need. You know you should have been tracking the burn rate, or inventory requirements, or late receivables, but have found yourself totally distracted by a flock of emergency daily issues.

Burn Rate 329

Burn Rate Differentiation Salary Entrepreneur 329

VC Cafe

FEBRUARY 6, 2011

Jussi Laakkonen , CEO & founder of Applifie, summarized it well: We recently raised our seed round at Applifier and it was led by a silicon valley seed fund MHS Capital, whose general partner is Mark Sugarman. R&D outside SV is normally cheaper, so it helps you keeping your burn rate low.

Silicon Valley 104

Silicon Valley Startup Seed Stage Delaware 104

Both Sides of the Table

MAY 9, 2011

You often have very limited perspective on whether this person will continue to be a great partner 2 years down the line, 4 years down the line, 8 years down the line. You’re only going to find out whether they’re TRULY a great partner after you’ve put in years of money, blood, sweat & tears.

Cofounder 393

Cofounder Founder Vesting Founder Vesting 393

Up and Running

APRIL 27, 2020

Current businesses are finding ways to pivot their business models, revisiting their budgets, and developing new forecasts to minimize their burn rate and maximize their available cash runway. But it doesn’t have to be all bad. .

Software Review 113

Software Review Lean Forecast Business Plan 113

Steve Blank

FEBRUARY 22, 2010

Who are our partners? Regardless of your type of business model you should be tracking cash burn rate, months of cash left, time to cash flow breakeven. As a founder you are testing a series of hypotheses about all the pieces of the business model: Who are the customers/users? What’s the distribution channel? Financials.

Balance Sheet 307

Balance Sheet Startup Burn Rate Metrics 307

Steve Blank

NOVEMBER 18, 2010

A new VP of Sales (then VP of Marketing, then CEO) looks at their predecessors’ strategy, and if they are smart, they do something different (they implement a different pricing model, pick a new sales channel, target different customers and/or partners, reformulate the product features, etc.). No one gets fired.

Burn Rate 252

Burn Rate Management Business Model Customer Development 252

Startup Professionals Musings

DECEMBER 31, 2013

Too often they are also hesitant, inexperienced, and fearful of hiring people or a mentor to be the partner they need. You know you should have been tracking the burn rate, or inventory requirements, or late receivables, but have found yourself totally distracted by a flock of emergency daily issues.

Burn Rate 275

Burn Rate Entrepreneur Differentiation Salary 275

The Next Web

MARCH 8, 2014

But at the end of the day, I’ve learned that being a partner at a successful early-stage VC firm is not quite as different from being a founder as you might think. You might have three to five partners, three to four associates and principals, and some support staff, plus an office to pay for that has to be somewhat presentable.

Partner 138

Partner Burn Rate Early Stage IPO 138

View from Seed

FEBRUARY 12, 2020

I notice some founders (from YC in particular) have been trained to say something like: “we are just starting the process, but things are moving faster than we expect and we are already scheduling follow-up conversations and partner meetings.”. Some founders lay out a specific time frame for when they hope to get the round closed.

Term Sheet 364

Term Sheet Burn Rate Founder Partner 364

Startup Professionals Musings

MARCH 6, 2012

One family partner works for a startup, and the other sticks with a large enterprise company like Intel, HP, Apple, IBM, or Fujitsu. The large enterprise provides one stable income, an excellent set of benefits for the family, and that partner can get off work at 5pm to pick up the kids. What's the monthly burn rate?

Silicon Valley 246

Silicon Valley Burn Rate Startup Stock Options 246

Steve Blank

AUGUST 27, 2012

Other weeks Yuri would be buffeted by the realities of his burn rate, declining bank account and depressing comments from customers. I offered that at Epiphany, my partner Ben’s office was the first place I would go when I thought I had new “insights.” Better, during that time brainstorm them with someone you trust.

Founder 323

Founder Cofounder Advisory Board Burn Rate 323