View from Seed

OCTOBER 21, 2014

As the seed-stage startup fundraise process has received more transparency in recent years, ranging from published advice on how to raise seed capital to increased availability through AngelList, Funders Club, and various accelerator programs, I’ve noticed another trend emerging. Lower-Than-Market Value.

Valuation 336

Valuation Founder Seed Stage Angel Investor 336

Startup Professionals Musings

SEPTEMBER 14, 2010

Entrepreneurs sometimes assume an initial agreement with an angel is a commitment, so they start spending before any money is received. It’s true that angel investors typically do not present entrepreneurs with overly complicated deal structures, especially when compared to venture capitalists. Anti-dilution protection. Marty Zwilling.

Term Sheet 227

Term Sheet Pre-Money Valuation Due Diligence Post-Money Valuation 227

mashable.com

NOVEMBER 3, 2010

This dynamic births serial entrepreneurs and motivates angels and venture capitalists to pull their friends into investment deals. For the first-time entrepreneur or founder looking for seed stage funding, this circle can be especially difficult to penetrate.

Angel Investor 80

Angel Investor Startup San Francisco Social Media 80

Startup Professionals Musings

JANUARY 27, 2012

Entrepreneurs sometimes assume an initial agreement with an Angel is a commitment, so they start spending before any money is received. It’s true that Angel investors typically do not present entrepreneurs with overly complicated deal structures, especially when compared to venture capitalists. Anti-dilution protection.

Term Sheet 223

Term Sheet Pre-Money Valuation Due Diligence Angel Investor 223

Agile VC

DECEMBER 4, 2014

But delaying or avoiding the conversation often results in it being more awkward than it needs to be. And lastly, a chunk of our CEO Reid Hoffman’s equity was attributed to the fact that he provided the initial ~$750K in seed capital for the company.

Cofounder 255

Cofounder Equity Founder Sweat Equity 255

Austin Startup

FEBRUARY 19, 2019

But, we jumped that hurdle successfully last year, when we presented our idea to the world through an ICO platform, where we raised our seed capital to make it happen. Many entrepreneurs confirm that the drive of innovating and making their idea shine is just too powerful to let go of. How and when did your team come together?

Slovenia 62

Slovenia Technical Review Startup Seed Capital 62

Feld Thoughts

OCTOBER 15, 2013

Provide some sort of seed capital to their founders. Take a small amount of equity (usually ~6%) and overall have terms that are favorable to entrepreneurs. Have a strong management team who are typically proven entrepreneurs. Take no less than 5 and no more than 12 companies at a time.

Global 179

Global Networking United States Seed Money 179

Gust

SEPTEMBER 29, 2011

The most successful serial entrepreneurs in the world may found three or four, perhaps even eight or ten venture-backed startups over the course of their careers. Others have discussed in detail the pros and cons of convertible debt vs. seed equity rounds. Let’s take it from the top: Why convertible notes?

Finance 178

Finance Term Sheet Preferred Stock Bridge Financing 178

Genuine VC

AUGUST 14, 2012

For entrepreneurs, seeking seed capital means meeting with numerous VC firms and sometimes dozens of angels… fun? Introductions to customers, long-term advisors, business development partners can result from the fundraising process, as those early conversations turn into real relationships. Those three letters.

Seed Capital 163

Seed Capital Customer Development Partner Developer 163

Gust

OCTOBER 17, 2011

Entrepreneurs sometimes assume an initial agreement with an angel is a commitment, so they start spending before any money is received. It’s true that angel investors typically do not present entrepreneurs with overly complicated deal structures, especially when compared to venture capitalists. Anti-dilution protection.

Term Sheet 158

Term Sheet Pre-Money Valuation Due Diligence Angel Investor 158

Agile VC

DECEMBER 4, 2014

But delaying or avoiding the conversation often results in it being more awkward than it needs to be. And lastly, a chunk of our CEO Reid Hoffman’s equity was attributed to the fact that he provided the initial ~$750K in seed capital for the company.

Cofounder 173

Cofounder Equity Founder Sweat Equity 173

SoCal CTO

NOVEMBER 5, 2009

It was a great conversation and I thought it would be a good idea to do some visible networking with Aaron to get to know him better. I feel too many people are discouraging, and as a result, too many entrepreneurs are discouraged and give up. Many entrepreneurs have an idea but don’t know how to monetize it.

Los Angeles 150

Los Angeles Southern California Startup SEO 150

Up and Running

MAY 2, 2014

It’s a simple truth that every entrepreneur knows: Getting the capital to start or grow your business is often harder than running the business itself. Instead, people want to get to know you, the entrepreneur, and to see your progress, even if over a short time period. Fundraising is hard work. So what’s the takeaway?

Angel Investor 146

Angel Investor Seed Capital Venture Capital Early Stage 146

Business Plan Blog

NOVEMBER 13, 2013

Raising Seed Capital. Most startup founders do not have enough capital to launch their companies and need to raise money at some point. Since investment in a startup is risky and most people are reluctant to contribute funds, startup entrepreneurs can use different ways to make funding from FFF look less risky.

Finance 93

Finance Accredited Investor Angel Investor Seed Capital 93

Feld Thoughts

JULY 29, 2011

Finance Friday’s gets off the ground with today’s post by introducing you to an imaginary startup, the entrepreneurs that we’ll being following throughout the series, and their first challenges: splitting up the founders’ equity and addressing the case where one of the founders provides the initial seed capital for the business.

Equity 137

Equity Finance Denver Pre-Money Valuation 137

View from Seed

FEBRUARY 3, 2015

Today, NextView Ventures is excited to release a pillar project in our Growth Guides series: pitch deck templates for raising seed capital. These help address a common question which we frequently receive from entrepreneurs about how to create startup pitch decks for this crucial financial milestone.

Seed Stage 120

Seed Stage Startup Seed Capital Audience 120

maplebutter.com

JANUARY 8, 2013

If you’re an Entrepreneur, you can do it from any place in the world. How important is education when I know I want to be an entrepreneur? When you are a young entrepreneur and you have a project (say a new age TV show) and you need to raise capital for the project. If you’re a young entrepreneur, than congrats!

Technical Review 44

Technical Review Startup Cofounder Software Review 44

Seeing Both Sides

AUGUST 28, 2017

Instead I will make a few observations about how an investor might think about the impact of ICOs / token launches on the venture capital industry, in particular, and some of the downstream ramifications that need to wrestled with. Need for growth capital. Fuzzy Governance. Seeking Liquidity.

Early Stage 20

Early Stage Equity Venture Capital Government 20

Seeing Both Sides

AUGUST 28, 2017

Instead I will make a few observations about how an investor might think about the impact of ICOs / token launches on the venture capital industry, in particular, and some of the downstream ramifications that need to wrestled with. Need for growth capital. Fuzzy Governance. Seeking Liquidity.

Early Stage 20

Early Stage Equity Venture Capital Government 20

Gust

OCTOBER 5, 2011

In case it isn’t clear by now, angel investors aren’t in the business of making risky early stage investments in order to earn 6% interest on their money, or even 10%— the upside is all in conversion to equity—so the interest rate isn’t a major point of negotiation. These deal terms are simple but significant.

Finance 79

Finance Preferred Stock Term Sheet Early Stage 79

Steve Blank

JULY 20, 2015

Today he is the founder of M34 Capital , a seed capital fund that focuses on early-stage projects being spun out of academic and corporate research labs. Up until then] the capstone class – meaning the best class you could take for being an entrepreneur in a university – was how to write a business plan.

Government 120

Government Channel Southern California Lean 120

Austin Startup

OCTOBER 12, 2018

Over 500 tech executives, startup founders, investors and aspiring entrepreneurs came together for an unforgettable day of in-depth discussions, workshops and a $200,000 surprise. Find out from Austin’s best entrepreneurs and executives who are shaping the landscape of tomorrow’s companies in an inclusive and empathetic manner.

Cofounder 48

Cofounder Texas Dallas Seed Capital 48

Reid Hoffman

DECEMBER 6, 2019

As part of connecting with local Argentinian entrepreneurs and part of the amazing Endeavor networks here and South America, Wences and I recorded a podcast to share what I and Silicon Valley can learn from the robust entrepreneurial ecosystem down here. My quintessential teacher here is Wences.

Argentina 36

Argentina Global Silicon Valley South America 36

Austin Startup

APRIL 28, 2019

I put that in quotations, because, as I’ll expound, there is a start-up industrial complex that is designed to fleece novice founders from their seed capital with predatory fees, terms, etc. Also, I’m going to start just writing accelerator, because writing accelerator/incubator over and over just reads poorly.

Incubator 50

Incubator Equity Programming Cloud 50

Software By Rob

JANUARY 8, 2019

In general I'm eager to see people explore new ways of supporting entrepreneurs. We are happy to speak with you at any revenue level, but somewhere in the $150k-range is when founders may start to look for seed capital. Would love to chat and see how/if we can help. — Rand Fishkin (@randfish) October 12, 2018.

Early Stage 46

Early Stage Valuation Seed Capital Revenue 46

Startup Lessons Learned

MAY 25, 2021

In this conversation Eren and I talked about his journey from a small town in Turkey to founding the education startup Udemy, also quite successful, to Carbon Health and eventually Carbon Health's vaccination efforts. Here's my conversation with Eren Bali. We had to raise some seed capital. It's beaten.

Silicon Valley 60

Silicon Valley Turkey Los Angeles California 60