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8 Tips To Get the Most Out of Your Investors and Board

Both Sides of the Table

In his tenure as CEO of DataSift we have never missed a monthly revenue figure. He has grown our US operations from 1 employee (him) to a global organization of 75 employees that will finish the year with 8-digit revenues (90+% recurring) and more than 350% year-over-year growth. That in itself is quite a challenge.

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Why Uber is The Revenge of the Founders

Steve Blank

— Unremarked and unheralded, the balance of power between startup CEOs and their investors has radically changed: IPOs/M&A without a profit (or at times revenue) have become the norm. Typically, this caliber of bankers wouldn’t talk to you unless your company had five profitable quarters of increasing revenue.

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Startup Stock Options – Why A Good Deal Has Gone Bad

Steve Blank

We slept under the tables, and pulled all-nighters to get to first customer ship, man the booths at trade shows or ship products to make quarterly revenue – all because it was “our” company. Not everyone got the same amount of stock. The founders got most of the common stock. Today, that’s not true.

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Why Philosophy and Entrepreneurship?

Feld Thoughts

We didn’t have any financing except for Brad’s credit card and the $10 with which we had purchased our common stock. Much of our revenue for the month had come from one highly productive though erratic undergraduate developer, Mike, who was working on a billable client project.

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Venture Capital Q&A Session

Both Sides of the Table

People buy companies for 3 primary reasons: 1) they want the management team / talent 2) they want the technology or 3) they want the market traction (revenue, customer base, profits, etc). The downside is that people need to buy their stock. In fact, far better if you haven’t raised venture capital. Do it early.

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Cliff Notes S-1: Kayak ? AGILEVC

Agile VC

How They Make Money: Majority of Kayak’s revenue actually comes from advertising on their site (55%), not lead generation or referral fees to travel suppliers as you might think (more on this below). Financial Snapshot: 2010 Revenue: $170 million. Revenue growth: 51% YoY (2010), 1% YoY (2009), 131% YoY (2008).

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Second-Class Investor Citizens: Facebook’s IPO and Dual-Class Equity Structures

Gust

As a quick review, most startups begin life as corporations with a single class of equity securities, referred to as Common Stock , issued to founders, employees, and outside service providers. Options and warrants, when issued, are also typically exercisable for shares of Common Stock.

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