VC Cafe

SEPTEMBER 26, 2022

The past year was a wild ride for startups and founders, giving a whole new meaning to the ”rollercoaster” aspect of being an entrepreneur. Patrick Collison , self-made billionaire founder of Stripe. Bill Gates , founder of Microsoft. ValuatIon should be a function of value, not ego. Our goals, their goals.

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Founder Startup Valuation Pre-Money Valuation 187

VC Cafe

OCTOBER 16, 2024

Sierra AI , founded by Bret Taylor (former co-CEO of Salesforce, CTO of Facebook and current chairman of OpenAI) is currently raising hundreds of millions of dollars at $4 billion valuation, just a year or so from launch after unlocking AI voice agents for companies. billion to re-hire the founders of Character.ai

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Vertical Generative AI B2C CTO Hire 169

VC Cafe

SEPTEMBER 5, 2024

Paul Graham’s recent essay, Founder Mode , describes the mindset that founders need to adopt to navigate the early stages of building a startup, and how they’re different than ‘manager mode’ which is traditional management/corporate best practices.

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Management Technical Review Venture Capital Generative AI 104

Both Sides of the Table

MAY 30, 2018

I thought I’d write a post about how to talk about valuation at a startup and give you some sense of what might be on the mind of the person considering funding you. It’s not uncommon for a VC to ask you how much capital you’ve raised and what the post-money valuation was on your last round. is to start with just the data.

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Valuation Post-Money Valuation Pre-Money Valuation Cofounder 324

VC Cafe

OCTOBER 31, 2022

It’s a tough time for a lot of startup founders right now. This is not meant to be a negative post, but rather a temperature check of today’s market environment and the levers founders can pull on to survive this period. What is a founder to do? Startups, Don’t Pin Your Hopes on VC Dry Powder ( Source ).

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Founder Technical Review Down Round Liquidation Preference 174

VC Cafe

AUGUST 11, 2024

billion valuation of your foot traffic analytics platform that crossed the $100M in ARR! tech #Israel #venturecapital #innovation #startups #founders Answer – the lady with the blue background is real. QUOTE OF THE WEEK “It’s not the size of the dog in the fight, it’s the size of the fight in the dog.”

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Israel Iran Technical Review Cofounder 78

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. The 7 Traits of “Super Founders” 1. They are able to articulate this vision in a way that inspires others and generates excitement.

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Founder Cofounder Seed Stage Valuation 89

Altgate

DECEMBER 15, 2010

@altgate Startups, Venture Capital & Everything In Between Skip to content Home Furqan Nazeeri (fn@altgate.com) ← No one wants to tell you your baby is ugly More on Liquidation Preferences → Pre-Money Valuation vs Number of Founders Posted on December 15, 2010 by admin Here’s a chart of the day worth sharing.

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Both Sides of the Table

JUNE 28, 2018

My friend Michael Broukhim, founder & co-CEO of FabFitFun and I recently had a catch-up meeting for 3-miles on the Santa Monica “Bird Trail” No company has ever elicited so many questions by friends, colleagues, entrepreneurs, fellow VCs and journalists as has Bird, the company that pioneered the electronic scooter as a service market.

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San Francisco Valuation Los Angeles Technical Review 256

View from Seed

OCTOBER 31, 2018

The main value propositions are: user experience and value – home sellers can manage the entirety of their selling activities through its app and cloud-based platform, from valuation to showing scheduling to negotiation and closing, while paying a $5,000 flat fee vs. the industry tradition of 3% commission.

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Atlanta Cofounder Software Review Technical Review 159

blog.nahurst.com

JULY 19, 2010

The graphic below balances the risks cofounders take with their relative contributions to help answer this question. This covers one of the most common situations I encounter: For a pre-funding web startup whose team includes only a non-technical cofounder, how much equity should an incoming technical cofounder get?

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Technical Cofounder Cofounder Equity Salary 43

The Startup Magazine

AUGUST 11, 2023

Analysts perform a valuation of the company in question before the beginning of any round of funding. The management of a company, its established track record, the size of the market, and the level of risk all play a role in determining a company’s valuation. What is the Evaluation of the Funding?

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Seed Stage Technical Review Early Stage Due Diligence 125

Hunter Walker

DECEMBER 13, 2020

If things are going great, you still may get a lower valuation or smaller round. Can your lack of interest or skill in “selling” be counter-balanced by a cofounder or team that’s great at it? And a non-CEO cofounder who can sell the heck out of your company is just about the next best thing to being skilled yourself. Yes and No.

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Technical Cofounder Cofounder Startup Matching 149

ReadWriteStart

JANUARY 28, 2022

This article will assist you in gaining a fundamental understanding of equity valuation, kinds of equity, and other related topics. Equity for Co-founders. Founders can compensate them in either equity or salary as per their preference. This range decreases if there are more founders. What is Company Equity?

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YoungUpstarts

MAY 29, 2011

The report was co-authored by Berkeley and Stanford faculty members along with other contributors including Steve Blank , the Sandbox Network and blackbox teams. Founders that learn are more successful. However, this does not mean that investors don’t have a significant effect on valuations and M&A). Solo founders take 3.6x

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Silicon Valley Cofounder Technical Cofounder Startup 230

View from Seed

FEBRUARY 16, 2016

As of January 20, 2016, based on the “CrunchBase Unicorn Leaderboard,” there are 157 unicorns (companies with $1 billion+ valuations) which have not IPOed or been acquired—and more start-ups reaching unicorn status every day. 38 unicorns, or 1 in 4 (24%), have at least one MBA founder. Key Insights. Red Ventures (HBS, Wharton).

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Programming St. Louis Cofounder India 120

Steve Blank

SEPTEMBER 5, 2018

Jeff Katzenberg has a great track record – head of the studio at Paramount, chairman of Disney Studios, co-founder of DreamWorks and now chairman of NewTV. Lean was designed to inform the founders’ vision while they operated frugally at speed. ” Fire, Ready, Aim. He just hired Meg Whitman. The result?

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YoungUpstarts

OCTOBER 24, 2013

One of the challenges for investing in startups has always been the lack of an established way for founders and investors to actually measure and decide on the valuation of the startup concerned. ” Ideaspotting investment pre-money valuation valuation Worthworm'

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Pre-Money Valuation Web Technical Review Angel Investor 150

Steve Blank

OCTOBER 24, 2017

Why do these founders get to stay around? Because the balance of power has dramatically shifted from investors to founders. VCs competing for unicorn investments have given founders control of the board. A pre-IPO board usually had two founders, two VCs and one “independent” member. Technology Cycles Measured in Years.

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Founder Technical Review CTO Hire IPO 278

David Teten

JANUARY 19, 2021

(co-written with Jamie Finney, Founding Partner at Greater Colorado Venture Fund. From RBI, Flexible VCs borrow the ability to reap meaningful returns without demanding founders build for an exit. By tying payments to actual revenues, founders and investors remain aligned around the company’s real-time performance, good or bad.

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Cofounder Technical Review Equity Dividend 78

Both Sides of the Table

AUGUST 14, 2017

I read commentary or Twitter or blogs and realize that there are also strongly held convictions that there are these evil VCs who do terrible things to mostly altruistic founders. But unlike the popular press reporting of this conflict — 80% of the time it is founder-to-founder conflict and not investor-to-founder conflict.

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Cofounder Stock Options Equity Technical Review 217

David Teten

AUGUST 20, 2019

Many are reporting that they’re seeing a more diverse pool of applicants than traditional equity VCs… even though virtually none have a particular focus on women or underrepresented founders. For more background, see Revenue-Based Investing: A new option for founders who care about control.

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Revenue Cofounder Founder Venture Capital 60

VC Adventure

JUNE 14, 2022

Certainly from the venture perspective, VCs (Foundry included) pitch themselves to companies, co-investors, and LPs as more than just capital. Most founders don’t feel they are getting value from their investors, even in areas like follow on rounds where they would hope to see specialized experience. The answer may surprise you.

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Technical Review Due Diligence Portfolio Venture Capital 150

Startup Professionals Musings

AUGUST 25, 2018

Those that do it right also have the unprecedented opportunity to join the elite ranks of 250 unicorns (relatively new companies with a current valuation of over $1 billion). Co-mingling personal and business funds and accounts creates legal risk and tax liability, and makes your efforts look like a hobby.

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Technical Cofounder Intellectual Property Silicon Valley LLC 184

ReadWriteStart

MAY 30, 2022

While investors can seem like a solution to countless problems you encounter as a founder, don’t be too hasty to start eating from their hands. Your employees and cofounders deserve their stakes since they’ve helped you scale to an exit. If you’re in a rush to sell, will your investors allow you to accept less than your valuation? .

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Bootstrapping Startup Equity Silicon Valley 147

YoungUpstarts

SEPTEMBER 20, 2019

by Alejandro Cremades , cofounder of Panthera Advisors and author of “ The Art of Startup Fundraising: Pitching Investors, Negotiating the Deal, and Everything Else Entrepreneurs Need to Know “ Why should entrepreneurs intentionally be generous when negotiating with investors? Generosity is nowhere on their radar.

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Technical Cofounder Entrepreneur Cofounder Post-Money Valuation 127

YoungUpstarts

APRIL 22, 2018

by Thomas Smale, founder of FE International. What if there was somewhere you could go where you can be surrounded by founders just like you? Or where you can network with established, successful founders and investors? Or where you can network with established, successful founders and investors? Here are the top 10: 1.

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Las Vegas Software Review Affiliate Cofounder 124

Berkonomics

JANUARY 28, 2021

I can’t tell you how many times I’ve walked away from deals where the entrepreneur insists on a start-up pre-money valuation that is so high, no angel could expect to make a return upon the investment, even with a reasonable sales price for the company down the road. Why fight about valuation, or disappoint the founder at the outset?

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Early Stage Valuation Pre-Money Valuation Cofounder 62

Startup Professionals Musings

AUGUST 25, 2017

They come at the early stage while a startup has no revenue or valuation, so professional investors are hard to find. Provides networking with cofounders and strategic partners. In today’s fast moving market, the basic product development cost and time are critical to survival.

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Technical Cofounder Intellectual Property Wiki Cofounder 153

The Equity Kicker

SEPTEMBER 24, 2014

We see this all the time at Forward Partners where we invest right from the idea stage and most of the companies get a first version of their product live for less than £30k (that generally includes founder salaries and time spent doing customer research). The second development is SEIS and EIS.

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Early Stage Development Team Review Technical Review Software Review 119

Small Business Force

AUGUST 31, 2013

Picking a partner or co-founder isn't like finding a new friend. I came to find that they had differing ideas about timing, valuation, to whom they should sell and how long or whether they would stay with the company. Picking the right partner or co-founder for your business can portend whether that business succeeds or not.

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Cofounder Partner Technical Review Founder 40

Startup Professionals Musings

SEPTEMBER 20, 2021

They come at the early stage while a startup has no revenue or valuation, so professional investors are hard to find. Network with potential cofounders and strategic partners. Here are some key positives from an entrepreneur perspective: Shorten the time and cost from idea to prototype.

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Mucker Lab

MAY 28, 2020

This post originally appeared in TechCrunch back in 2015, written by our co-founder and managing partner Erik Rannala. These lost startups land higher valuations, have larger teams, outsource more product development and spend more money on customer acquisition than their peers. Hire the wrong people. It’s an art. Lose focus.

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Startup Cofounder Burn Rate Technical Review 78

Agile VC

APRIL 17, 2011

Kayak was started here in my backyard of Boston… co-founder & CTO Paul English and the product/engineering team is based here in Concord MA. Co-founder & CEO Steve Hafner and the business team are based in Norwalk, CT. Post-money valuation probably no higher than $12M (2). Series A-1 Preferred.

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Pre-Money Valuation Liquidation Preference Dividend Common Stock 113

YoungUpstarts

SEPTEMBER 11, 2013

By Alan Lobock, co-founder, Worthworm. Sometimes the list of challenges may feel never ending – from writing the business plan to finding the right partner – but one of the single most important challenges entrepreneurs face is calculating a realistic, defensible pre-money valuation. . What valuation methods did you use?

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Pre-Money Valuation Valuation Angel Investor Cofounder 133

Steve Blank

MARCH 12, 2014

For the second startup, we chose a year-old web/mobile startup whose market is college bound teens, with a founder who had skipped the initial customer validation process. Knowing they had 3 weeks before presenting to the company co-founders, the kids felt intensity like no traditional classroom could generate.

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VC Cafe

APRIL 4, 2024

While investments to generative AI startups are red hot, founders have to battle quite a few investor biases. Despite being less than 2 years old, Mistral is now looking to raise funding at a $2 billion valuation in December 2023. Shameless plug, at Remagine Ventures , we’re looking to back founders that have internalised this.

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Generative AI Artificial Inteligence Technical Review ChatGPT 78