YoungUpstarts

AUGUST 10, 2017

Roughly 27 percent of startups can’t get the funding they need to take their business to the next level, according to the National Association of Small Businesses. For the last eight quarters, the number of angel and seed stage deals has declined, according to an Eisner Amper VC report.

Software Review 124

Software Review Technical Review Due Diligence Startup 124

YoungUpstarts

APRIL 7, 2016

With countless roadblocks along the way, it’s not uncommon for a startup to falter to the point of folding before it has ever reached even the simplest of business goals. The solution: Startup Labs. What is a Startup Lab? The Startup Lab usually takes equity in return for talent that is dedicated to the company.

Seed Stage 100

Seed Stage Silicon Valley Incubator Asia 100

VC Cafe

FEBRUARY 27, 2024

A founder asked me what makes a $2M round “pre-seed”? especially if the startup already has a product and revenue? And why do we still sometimes hear about pre-seed rounds that look more like a series A in pricing and size? Defining the pre-seed round It’s futile to look for ‘one true’ definition.

Valuation 186

Valuation Software Review Generative AI Technical Review 186

View from Seed

DECEMBER 6, 2018

Another full-stack short-term rentals startup ? It seems as though in many categories, especially in consumer internet space, a handful of startups pursuing quite similar or even apparently identical ideas launch within months of each other. Another d2c gourmet pet food company ? Another affinity-based co-working space?

Seed Stage 120

Seed Stage Startup Cofounder Stealth 120

View from Seed

MAY 24, 2021

You have a point of view on emerging technology and business models, and you are not afraid to voice your conviction. You have a deep desire to learn the venture capital business and are ready to hustle to meet the next great founder. You have an authentic passion for startups and a deep respect for entrepreneurship.

Technical Review 120

Technical Review Software Review Seed Stage Cofounder 120

VC Cafe

FEBRUARY 21, 2023

This is a question startup founders ask themselves multiple times a week. Understanding the benchmarks on conversion, retention, and churn for your business is therefore critical. Understanding the benchmarks on conversion, retention, and churn for your business is therefore critical. How are we doing?

Retention 109

Retention Conversion Churn Rate B2C 109

View from Seed

APRIL 30, 2015

There’s been a lot of digital ink spilled around the various types of capital available to startups today. At NextView, for instance, one of our more popular posts centers on atypical seed rounds to know. As a startup grows, venture debt becomes a viable option to continue that growth. Business model?

Term Sheet 120

Term Sheet Equity Startup Seed Stage 120

VC Cafe

SEPTEMBER 2, 2022

With the investor slowdown we’ve seen so far in 2022, approximately 30% globally in Q2 2022 (compared to the equivalent period last year, according to Crunchbase ) it’s more difficult for startups to get funded, which increases the important of finding the right investor, as quickly as possible.

Technical Review 166

Technical Review Early Stage Cofounder Portfolio 166

Hunter Walker

AUGUST 31, 2023

At the time Melania was in discussions with Ethena about joining the startup as VP People, happily employed at a larger company but knowing she wanted new challenges. Hunter Walk: One of my favorite things to do for founders is speaking with people who are considering joining their startup. In my opinion, this is a hugely risky move.

Employee 124

Employee Startup Vertical Leadership 124

Hunter Walker

DECEMBER 24, 2016

When we started Homebrew in 2013 our industry was, in retrospect, probably midway through a cycle where innovations were in business model rather than underlying technology. Observing a handful of companies, such as Uber, Airbnb, Warby Parker, founders were taking those models and trying to apply them to other verticals.

Technical Review 48

Technical Review Business Model Technology Software Review 48

www.paulgraham.com

OCTOBER 23, 2010

Want to start a startup? You need three things to create a successful startup: to start withgood people, to make something customers actually want, and to spendas little money as possible. Most startups that fail do it becausethey fail at one of these. Most startups that fail do it becausethey fail at one of these.

Startup 105

Startup Cofounder Software Stock 105

Tim Keane

DECEMBER 14, 2009

Startups and angels: Along the way to success. Starting Startups.   He is a partner in a pretty much exclusively software seed stage fund, Y Combinator that you can read more about.    He is a partner in a pretty much exclusively software seed stage fund, Y Combinator that you can read more about. 

Burn Rate 60

Burn Rate Angel Groups Seed Stage Startup 60

mashable.com

NOVEMBER 3, 2010

The Small Business Tips Series is supported by Bantam Live , a web-based collaboration workspace with “Social CRM&# for small business teams. For the first-time entrepreneur or founder looking for seed stage funding, this circle can be especially difficult to penetrate. and Path Intelligence.

Angel Investor 80

Angel Investor Startup San Francisco Social Media 80

Mucker Lab

AUGUST 27, 2014

My father eventually decided on Santa Clara (Saratoga, more specifically), and so I grew up in the shadows of the orchards of Cupertino and the nondescript concrete startup boxes of Santa Clara. Encyclopedic knowledge of term sheets and startup buzzwords can be quickly learned, trained, and packaged.

Los Angeles 138

Los Angeles Southern California Silicon Valley Technical Review 138

Startup Professionals Musings

JULY 22, 2020

Luckily, not all investors are looking for the same thing, so it pays to know what type of investors are most interested in what your startup brings to the table. The key is understanding how potential investors see you, and especially how they view the maturity stage of your startup. Congratulations!

Angel Investor 370

Angel Investor Intellectual Property Investment Bankers Private Equity 370

Startup Professionals Musings

OCTOBER 5, 2015

I challenge any entrepreneur, for example, to define the difference between "seed-stage" and "early-stage" financing. Asking for early-stage money before you have customers and revenue will likely kill your credibility with real investors. A seed-stage “super angel.”

Seed Stage 120

Seed Stage Finance Early Stage Startup 120

VC Cafe

FEBRUARY 26, 2023

” – Marc Andreessen In the book “ Super Founders “, author Ali Tamaseb, studied 200 Unicorns, aka startups valued at over $1 billion, started between 2005 to 2018. Israeli startup Mobileye , which was acquired by Intel for $15 billion, is a great example of a company that exhibited extreme resilience.

Founder 88

Founder Cofounder Seed Stage Valuation 88

Up and Running

JUNE 14, 2010

And the beneath-the-surface rumblings were about how it was screwing up the venture capital business model. He cites Seed Deals Account for 26% of Early-stage Web Investments in which Giga Om points out the rise of a relatively new class of angel investors, which they call super angels.

Disintermediation 66

Disintermediation Venture Capital Angel Investor Seed Stage 66

Startup Professionals Musings

MARCH 14, 2020

Undefined business model or very low gross margins. They are not interested in research and development, or funding at the idea stage. For seed stage funding, entrepreneurs should be looking to friends and family, crowd funding, and relevant institutions. Solution development undefined or incomplete.

Due Diligence 308

Due Diligence Intellectual Property Preferred Stock Startup 308

VC Cafe

APRIL 4, 2024

This creates a challenge, but also an opportunity for startups in the generative AI space. 70% of the startups in the current batch (170 out of 243) are AI companies. How can startups even compete against big tech, scale ups and other startups? Case in point: this week was Ycombinator’s W24 demo day.

Generative AI 78

Generative AI Artificial Inteligence Technical Review ChatGPT 78

Startup Professionals Musings

FEBRUARY 5, 2023

According to most definitions, an entrepreneur is one who envisions a new and different business, meaning one that is not a copy of an existing business model. Many entrepreneurs have a passion and an idea, or even invent a new product, but are never able to execute to the point of creating a startup.

Matching 270

Matching Entrepreneur Startup Seed Stage 270

The Next Web

OCTOBER 23, 2013

There aren’t a tonne of funds focused on seed-stage funding worldwide, but we can add a new one to the list today. SparkLabs , the company behind the accelerator program in Korea , is expanding its scope with its first seed-stage fund that will “help great startups go global.”.

Seed Stage 139

Seed Stage Asia Israel Silicon Valley 139

Mucker Lab

APRIL 6, 2023

Hila Qu joined Mucker’s Tony Yang for an Ask-Me-Anything (AMA) conversation about Product-Led Growth (PLG) for Startups to kickoff the 2023 Mucker Growth Series. Hila Qu has been the Head of Growth or VP of Growth at a number of different companies and startups, most notably Acorns and GitLab. Hila is a mentor with Mucker Capital.

Product 78

Product CTO Hire Startup Fractional CTO 78

Startup Professionals Musings

MAY 10, 2020

According to most definitions, an entrepreneur is one who envisions a new and different business, meaning one that is not a copy of an existing business model. Many entrepreneurs have a passion and an idea, or even invent a new product, but are never able to execute to the point of creating a startup.

Matching 317

Matching Seed Stage Angel Investor Business Model 317

Startup Professionals Musings

JULY 4, 2014

Luckily, not all investors are looking for the same thing, so it pays to know what type of investors are most interested in what your startup brings to the table. The key is understanding how potential investors see you, and especially how they view the maturity stage of your startup. Congratulations!

Angel Investor 232

Angel Investor Intellectual Property Investment Bankers Private Equity 232

Startup Professionals Musings

APRIL 17, 2023

Luckily, not all investors are looking for the same thing, so it pays to know what type of investors are most interested in what your startup brings to the table. The key is understanding how potential investors see you, and especially how they view the maturity stage of your startup. Congratulations!

Angel Investor 313

Angel Investor Intellectual Property Investment Bankers Private Equity 313

VC Cafe

MARCH 12, 2025

Fusion Ventures report, like most we’re seeing, shows a dominance of AI-related ventures at the pre-seed stage. Within the pre-seed landscape, there two primary categories of AI-related ventures: Core AI Development: This category encompasses ventures focused on fundamental advancements in artificial intelligence.

Artificial Inteligence 88

Artificial Inteligence Seed Stage Israel Valuation 88

View from Seed

MARCH 15, 2017

VC evaluation of seed-stage startups can seem arbitrary or imitative at times. Internally, the scarcity of tangible business metrics – product usage or revenue multiples for example – can make an investment decision feel daunting. Any seed stage company’s strategy is a constant work-in-progress.

Due Diligence 265

Due Diligence Seed Stage Portfolio Metrics 265

Up and Running

MARCH 11, 2015

Fortunately, many of the top VCs share their thoughts on their blogs and are full of advice for startups, both big and small. Eric Ries of The Lean Startup has called Andrew Chen’s blog “one of the best entrepreneurship blogs of all time.” This is the home of Jason Cohen, software startup founder, bootstrapper, investor, and mentor.

Venture Capital 60

Venture Capital Technical Review Silicon Valley Cofounder 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

Hunter Walker

MAY 4, 2014

We think of Homebrew as our startup, just one which writes checks instead of code. Second, we did an investment where we actually decided to own more than 10% because of the nature of the business model. For a seed stage fund like Homebrew, chasing hot markets seemed like madness.

Software Review 106

Software Review Vertical Seed Stage Portfolio 106

Austin Startup

MAY 11, 2017

We make a majority of our investments in those sectors and prioritize proven business models. A New Kind of Venture Firm AutoChrome Autochrome is an inception and seed stage venture capital fund. We invest at the earliest stages in transformative companies that are leveraging technology to move our species forward.

Private Equity 48

Private Equity Venture Capital Technical Review Seed Stage 48

Startup Professionals Musings

DECEMBER 11, 2022

Undefined business model or very low gross margins. They are not interested in research and development, or funding at the idea stage. For seed stage funding, entrepreneurs should be looking to friends and family, crowd funding, and relevant institutions. Solution development undefined or incomplete.

Due Diligence 271

Due Diligence Intellectual Property Entrepreneur Preferred Stock 271

Agile VC

MARCH 30, 2012

How to Evaluate Firms for a Seed VC. AGILEVC My idle thoughts on tech startups. Is “Data” a Business Model? Several years ago I wrote a post about the three business models of the consumer web : commerce, advertising, and user-paid premium services. How To Think About The Future. March 30, 2012.

Business Model 113

Business Model Silicon Valley Advertising B2B 113

Agile VC

FEBRUARY 5, 2014

This is especially true for those with a media / ad based business model (e.g. But B2B startups need to take a different tack. We invest in internet enabled companies at NextView and our portfolio is roughly equally split between consumer and B2B businesses.

Revenue 234

Revenue Product B2B Marketing 234

YoungUpstarts

JANUARY 6, 2014

Instead of the old “throw-money-at-a-good-idea” approach, I based our strategy on the belief that the best startups are the ones that can become revenue-positive shortly after takeoff with as little upfront investment as possible. But as an avowed startup junkie, I’m always looking forward to the next thing.

San Francisco 154

San Francisco Business Model Silicon Valley Coder 154

The Startup Magazine

JULY 25, 2024

Starting a new business is an exciting journey, but it often requires a significant amount of money to get off the ground. link] Business News Daily reports that a startup needs around $184,830 a year at its initial stages, with around five employees on board. Why do investors not want to fund startups at times?

Security 158

Security Hungary Poland Startup 158