Startup Professionals Musings

JANUARY 19, 2020

They have too many highly paid partners, fat fees, an aging corporate infrastructure and difficulty raising money from institutions. As lifecycle investment partners, they have become weighted down with portfolios still recovering from the economic downturn. Super angels are individuals or small teams using their own money.

Angel Investor 314

Angel Investor Silicon Valley Venture Capital Startup 314

Startup Professionals Musings

JULY 22, 2020

Government grants and industry partners are you best bet here, but Angel investors might give you $250,000 to $1 million, if you have the right business case and credentials. At this point, most Angel investors and a few early-stage VCs will be happy to talk, assuming you have the business model validated, and a large opportunity.

Angel Investor 370

Angel Investor Intellectual Property Investment Bankers Private Equity 370

Startup Professionals Musings

JULY 26, 2010

Non-organic growth would include OEM relationships, finding strategic partners, “coopetition,” as well as acquisitions. Even mergers and acquisitions (M&A) came early. Teaming with another company, or buying another company, can add new geographical locations and new customer segments to the business. Fresh customer base.

Acquisition 214

Acquisition Merger Startup Bandwidth 214

Startup Professionals Musings

NOVEMBER 17, 2012

Non-organic growth would include OEM relationships, finding strategic partners, “coopetition,” as well as acquisitions. Even mergers and acquisitions (M&A) came early. Teaming with another company, or buying another company, can add new geographical locations and new customer segments to the business. Fresh customer base.

Entrepreneur 249

Entrepreneur Merger Bandwidth Acquisition 249

Steve Blank

JULY 15, 2010

VC’s invested their limited partners’ “risk capital” in a portfolio of startups in exchange for illiquid stock. Most of the startups they invested in either died by running out of money before they found a scalable business model or ended up in the “land of the living dead” by never growing (failing to Pivot.). (It

Venture Capital 306

Venture Capital IPO Liquidity Event Entrepreneur 306

Startup Professionals Musings

APRIL 17, 2023

Government grants and industry partners are you best bet here, but Angel investors might give you $250,000 to $1 million, if you have the right business case and credentials. At this point, most Angel investors and a few early-stage VCs will be happy to talk, assuming you have the business model validated, and a large opportunity.

Angel Investor 313

Angel Investor Intellectual Property Investment Bankers Private Equity 313

Startup Professionals Musings

DECEMBER 27, 2014

They have too many highly paid partners, fat fees, an aging corporate infrastructure and difficulty raising money from institutions. As lifecycle investment partners, they have become weighted down with portfolios still recovering from the economic downturn. Super Angels are individuals or small teams using their own money.

Angel Investor 260

Angel Investor Silicon Valley Startup Portfolio 260

Startup Professionals Musings

SEPTEMBER 15, 2011

Non-organic growth would include OEM relationships, finding strategic partners, “coopetition,” as well as acquisitions. Even mergers and acquisitions (M&A) came early. Teaming with another company, or buying another company, can add new geographical locations and new customer segments to the business. Fresh customer base.

Startup 232

Startup Merger Bandwidth Acquisition 232

Startup Professionals Musings

AUGUST 27, 2012

Business model. Marketing, sales, and partners. What is the planned exit strategy (IPO, merger, sale, including likely candidates)? Define the characteristics of the overall industry, market forces, market dynamics, and customer landscape. Investors like $1B markets with double-digit growth rates. Exit strategy.

Elevator Pitch 247

Elevator Pitch Exit Strategy Burn Rate Merger 247

Startup Professionals Musings

MAY 13, 2011

Explain the business model. Many people seem to use the social network advertising model for revenue, but forget it assumes at least 100M users and $50M investment. Marketing, sales, and partners. Convince investors that you have lined up sales channels, strategic partners, and a viable marketing strategy.

Business Plan 290

Business Plan Sweat Equity Exit Strategy Intellectual Property 290

Startup Professionals Musings

AUGUST 13, 2012

Explain the business model. Many people seem to use the social network advertising model for revenue, but forget it assumes at least 100M users and $50M investment. Marketing, sales, and partners. Convince investors that you have lined up sales channels, strategic partners, and a viable marketing strategy.

Business Plan 283

Business Plan Sweat Equity Exit Strategy Intellectual Property 283

Startup Lessons Learned

MAY 31, 2019

Scott Kupor is the managing partner at Andreessen Horowitz, where he’s responsible for all operational aspects of running the firm. It’s meant to support and grow a business until an “exit” in the form of an IPO, a merger or acquisition, or in less than ideal scenarios, a company shutdown. No need to name names.

Lean 108

Lean Venture Capital Conversion IPO 108

Startup Professionals Musings

MAY 19, 2010

Business model. Marketing, sales, and partners. What is the planned exit strategy (IPO, merger, sale, including likely candidates)? Define the characteristics of the overall industry, market forces, market dynamics, and customer landscape. Investors like $1B markets with double-digit growth rates. Exit strategy.

Elevator Pitch 235

Elevator Pitch Exit Strategy Burn Rate Merger 235

Startup Professionals Musings

JUNE 10, 2011

Business model. Marketing, sales, and partners. What is the planned exit strategy (IPO, merger, sale, including likely candidates)? Define the characteristics of the overall industry, market forces, market dynamics, and customer landscape. Investors like $1B markets with double-digit growth rates. Exit strategy.

Elevator Pitch 234

Elevator Pitch Exit Strategy Burn Rate Merger 234

YoungUpstarts

NOVEMBER 19, 2017

by Marek Danyluk, managing partner at Space Executive. Mergers and acquisitions with tech giants and corporates. Later stage funding can be provided for startups that have fully matured with a wide user base and a working business model.

Venture Capital 196

Venture Capital Asia Later Stage Artificial Inteligence 196

Startup Professionals Musings

JULY 4, 2014

Government grants and industry partners are you best bet here, but Angel investors might give you $250,000 to $1 million, if you have the right business case and credentials. At this point, most Angel investors and a few early-stage VCs will be happy to talk, assuming you have the business model validated, and a large opportunity.

Angel Investor 232

Angel Investor Intellectual Property Investment Bankers Private Equity 232

Entrepreneurs-Journey.com by Yaro Starak

FEBRUARY 11, 2011

The realization of my idea started on an international trip when I was working as a consultant in mergers and acquisitions. I don’t exactly remember today how I thought about the Sam’s Club concept , but maybe because our family had shopped there for years it had come to mind among the mix of various other business models.

SEO 86

SEO PPC America Design 86

YoungUpstarts

OCTOBER 7, 2014

The bad news (for HP) first: - Confusion and uncertainty among many of HP’s channel partners and customers. HP will reassure both groups, but some will take this occasion to reevaluate their partners or vendors, to the benefit of HP’s competition, notably Lenovo and Dell. Potential division of key assets, especially HP Labs. .

Merger 171

Merger Channel Social Network Stock 171

www.inc.com

SEPTEMBER 24, 2011

Even with the turmoil in the capital markets in the second half of 2007, it was another record year for merger and acquisition activity. One of the ways vendors and partners--whose behind-the-scenes assistance often is crucial to a start-ups success--can get a piece of the action is to exchange services for equity. Select Services.

Arizona 40

Arizona Equity Iowa Venture Capital 40

Austin Startup

NOVEMBER 12, 2017

Let’s talk first about an angel round to individual investors, all of whom may be duly accredited but many of whom may have no background that enables them to understand fully your idea and your business model. Large deals take the same management time and attention as smaller ones and are a better use of partner resources.

Term Sheet 48

Term Sheet Technical Review Due Diligence Merger 48

Startup Professionals Musings

AUGUST 19, 2018

Government grants and industry partners are you best bet here, but Angel investors might give you $250,000 to $1 million, if you have the right business case and credentials. At this point, most Angel investors and a few early-stage VCs will be happy to talk, assuming you have the business model validated, and a large opportunity.

Angel Investor 184

Angel Investor Intellectual Property Investment Bankers Private Equity 184

Startup Professionals Musings

AUGUST 18, 2017

If you are proposing a merger or acquisition, or simply seeking an investor for your business, the process is the same. This may seem intuitively obvious, but as an angel investor, I have heard hundreds of new business pitches that focus heavily on the product, but don’t tell the rest of the story.

Merger 146

Merger Angel Investor Social Media Audience 146

Startup Professionals Musings

APRIL 22, 2010

Explain the business model. Many people seem to use the social network advertising model for revenue, but forget it requires at least 100M users and $50M investment. Marketing, sales, and partners. Convince investors that you have lined up sales channels, strategic partners, and a viable marketing strategy.

Business Plan 186

Business Plan Exit Strategy Sweat Equity Intellectual Property 186

Gust

AUGUST 5, 2012

Explain the business model. Many people seem to use the social network advertising model for revenue, but forget it assumes at least 100M users and $50M investment. Marketing, sales, and partners. Convince investors that you have lined up sales channels, strategic partners, and a viable marketing strategy.

Business Plan 182

Business Plan Sweat Equity Exit Strategy Intellectual Property 182

Gust

AUGUST 19, 2012

Business model. Marketing, sales, and partners. What is the planned exit strategy (IPO, merger, sale, including likely candidates)? Define the characteristics of the overall industry, market forces, market dynamics, and customer landscape. Investors like $1B markets with double-digit growth rates. Exit strategy.

Elevator Pitch 146

Elevator Pitch Exit Strategy Burn Rate Merger 146

Startup Professionals Musings

MAY 29, 2015

Non-organic growth would include OEM relationships, finding strategic partners, “coopetition,” as well as acquisitions. Even mergers and acquisitions (M&A) came quickly. Teaming with another company, or buying another company, can add new geographical locations and new customer segments to the business. Fresh customer base.

Merger 120

Merger Acquisition Differentiation Channel 120

Startup Professionals Musings

FEBRUARY 13, 2016

How does your business model make money? Good causes such as feeding the world’s hungry may help your marketing but may not sustain a business. The business model has to clearly define who is your customer, market penetration expected, how much customers pay versus total costs and the investment required to sustain cash flow.

Sweat Equity 120

Sweat Equity Advisory Board Liquidity Event Startup 120

Startup Professionals Musings

AUGUST 13, 2016

Government grants and industry partners are you best bet here, but Angel investors might give you $250,000 to $1 million, if you have the right business case and credentials. At this point, most Angel investors and a few early-stage VCs will be happy to talk, assuming you have the business model validated, and a large opportunity.

Matching 120

Matching Angel Investor Intellectual Property Investment Bankers 120

Steve Blank

FEBRUARY 19, 2015

Today he runs SynbiCITE , the UK’s synthetic biology consortium of 56 industrial partners and 19 Academic institutions located at Imperial College in London. Along with the rest of British industry, the pharmaceutical sector was under going massive re-organization and mergers creating much of today’s big pharma in the process.

Lean 120

Lean Startup Massachusetts Merger 120

The Next Web

OCTOBER 2, 2013

That’s why the free business model is so popular in China. Jenny Lee, a partner at venture capital firm GGV Capital which has a presence in both the US and China, also observes that in the US, the willingness to pay for an app is pretty high — especially for a utility tool, which is what CooTek’s TouchPal X Keyboard essentially is.

China 122

China Developer Intellectual Property Mobile 122

Scott Edward Walker

OCTOBER 13, 2011

When I reviewed the invoice, I saw the partner was billing us at $740 an hour, a senior associate at $595 an hour and a junior associate at $350 an hour. The first thing you should do is call the partner and tell him that you have a problem with the fees. The problem is we’re getting killed on fees. Negotiate Lower Rates.

Los Angeles 85

Los Angeles San Francisco New York City Silicon Valley 85

VC Cafe

JANUARY 15, 2024

M&A/ Exits – This situation is compounded by a narrowing window for mergers and acquisitions (M&A) and initial public offerings (IPOs). Instead of purely chasing high-growth ventures, many PE firms focused on companies with robust business models and clear paths to profitability.

IPO 88

IPO Valuation Israel Private Equity 88

Reid Hoffman

MARCH 19, 2019

What makes this tricky is that markets evolve, and an innovative technology or business model can transform a normal market into a Glengarry Glen Ross market. In it we explicitly state: “The real value creation comes when innovative technology enables innovative products and services with innovative business models….What

Cofounder 28

Cofounder Business Model IPO Non-Compete 28

Ben's Blog

SEPTEMBER 20, 2011

This is a guest post by Marc Andreessen, co-founder and general partner of Andreessen Horowitz. billion page views, add recurring subscription revenue to Glam’s business model, and most importantly, set up the combined company to be the leading social media content company on the web.

Cofounder 58

Cofounder Merger Social Network Web 58

Professor VC

DECEMBER 8, 2015

one company running out of cash and another with cash but searching for a business model). One of the first I was exposed to was the merger between Peter Thiel's Confinity/PayPal and Elon Musk's X.com. Not surprisingly, the merger was highly dilutive, particularly to Confinity/PayPal shareholders.

Merger 28

Merger LP IPO Redemption 28

Startup Professionals Musings

OCTOBER 25, 2020

People tell me there may be over 8,000 dating sites with scientific matchmaking algorithms worldwide, but I couldn’t find one that focused on scientifically matching companies and people for business-to-business (B2B) relationships. Understand required changes to the current business model.

B2B 388

B2B Matching Partner Algorithm 388

techcrunch.com

OCTOBER 23, 2010

In Meebo’s case, for example, I was lucky enough to partner up with Elaine and Sandy. No looking for partnerships (who’s going to partner with you anyway?). Trust me, once you’ve launched and achieved traction, you’ll have your pick of mentors, VCs, partners and all the legal expenses you need. Partner up? No legal muck.

Technical Review 84

Technical Review Cofounder Technical Cofounder Software Review 84