View from Seed

DECEMBER 8, 2015

This notion of founder/market fit is incredibly important for pre-product companies who are out raising seed capital or pre-seed (aka genesis rounds) — both of which we invest in. The other consideration around PMF is the cost and time that will be required to really show demonstrable PMF.

Product 120

Product Startup Early Stage Seed Capital 120

View from Seed

OCTOBER 22, 2015

It doesn’t need to be extremely granular with all the minutiae of your expenses, but since employees are most often the overwhelming cost-drivers — and there aren’t too many early on in a company’s life — it’s prudent to build the expense lines on an employee by employee basis. The post How Much Seed Capital Should You Actually Raise?

Seed Capital 120

Seed Capital Seed Stage Demand Finance 120

Up and Running

AUGUST 12, 2014

Paul Graham, another notable investor and co-founder of seed capital firm, Y Combinator, looks for the equivalent of “passion” before deciding whether or not to invest in a founder. You may know “the secret of the market,” a secret that is revealed by spending time on something.

Venture Capital 90

Venture Capital Founder Angel Investor North America 90

Steve Blank

JUNE 11, 2013

And what are its costs? If you’re a scalable startup, you want to spend small amounts of money (seed capital) as you run experiments testing your hypotheses. How do we attract, keep and grow customers? What are revenue strategy and pricing tactics? Who are the partners? Who to take money from? Why small amounts?

Venture Capital 335

Venture Capital IRR Liquidity Event Business Model 335

View from Seed

DECEMBER 4, 2014

This needn’t be some terribly complex formula that tries to do a cost accounting of everyone’s contribution to the decimal point. 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. Experience/Seniority/Role.

Equity 315

Equity Founder Sweat Equity Cofounder 315

Austin Startup

FEBRUARY 19, 2019

It is an independent supplier of the Smart B/L™ solution, which provides an extremely fast, safe, reliable, and cost-effective way to process Bills of Lading anywhere in the world. It did not matter whether we were doing it from Ljubljana, Hong Kong, or any place in the world. How and when did your team come together?

Slovenia 62

Slovenia Technical Review Startup Seed Capital 62

Hunter Walker

MARCH 10, 2025

What does client offboarding look like, how long would it take and how much would it cost? I’ve said before this is one reason why we are very very careful about investing in addiction or mental health startups. And perhaps most essential, have a plan for what happens if the company doesnt succeed.

Software 87

Software Cap Table Accredited Investor B2C 87

Agile VC

DECEMBER 4, 2014

This needn’t be some terribly complex formula that tries to do a cost accounting of everyone’s contribution to the decimal point. 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

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.

Valuation 336

Valuation Founder Seed Stage Angel Investor 336

Genuine VC

MARCH 24, 2014

The five conditions for a Series A financing which he enumerated are: a core team ready to scale, demonstrable market size, repeatable cost effective customer acquisition, metric momentum, and plausible monetization. But unfortunately these are neither necessary nor sufficient for raising that round, and are instead merely guideposts.

Seed Capital 212

Seed Capital Metrics Cofounder Revenue 212

View from Seed

MAY 14, 2019

A number of blog posts recently have mentioned this, but we seem to be experiencing a rise in repeat founders starting new businesses and raising seed capital. You needed to find the most scrappy and cost efficient way to get a product out, and in the process learned tons about the market and customer you are trying to serve.

Founder 256

Founder Agile Cofounder Seed Capital 256

Steve Blank

JUNE 11, 2013

And what are its costs? If you’re a scalable startup, you want to spend small amounts of money (seed capital) as you run experiments testing your hypotheses. How do we attract, keep and grow customers? What are revenue strategy and pricing tactics? Who are the partners? Who to take money from? Why small amounts?

Venture Capital 227

Venture Capital IRR Liquidity Event Business Model 227

Gust

SEPTEMBER 29, 2011

The first is that they are the easiest deals to bang out quickly and cost-effectively, keeping the amount of legal work and negotiation on both sides to a minimum. Experienced investors often don’t feel the need to involve legal counsel in most typical convertible debt seed or angel round investments. There are two principal reasons.

Finance 178

Finance Term Sheet Preferred Stock Bridge Financing 178

View from Seed

SEPTEMBER 11, 2019

If in the long run your B2C business is likely to have an ad-based revenue model, the ability to acquire a large number of users at zero or extraordinarily low cost is critical. So these startups should look to raise seed capital either before launch or once they can show early revenue for proof points.

Seed Stage 149

Seed Stage B2B Seed Capital Revenue 149

K9 Ventures

JUNE 5, 2015

That in turn requires more capital. In addition, the competition for and the cost of hiring people, especially in the San Francisco Bay Area, has gone up dramatically. So while the infrastructure cost and startup costs may have declined, the operating costs have increased. more traction means it takes longer.

Seed Stage 48

Seed Stage Venture Capital Early Stage Valuation 48

The Startup Magazine

JANUARY 14, 2020

From startup costs to creating a detailed training manual for employees, some things you need and some can wait for another day. Many failed entrepreneurs believed that as long as they had a large amount of seed capital, they could begin their startup and before long make it big. Photo by Clark Tibbs on Unsplash.

Seed Capital 109

Seed Capital Startup Audience Restful 109

The Startup Magazine

MAY 7, 2024

Lastly, note that using free crowdfunding sites provides an excellent cost-effective solution compared to seed capital or personal loans with high-interest rates. Whether it be medical expenses, education costs, or catastrophe relief funds , GoFundMe serves as an ideal platform for personal or charitable campaigns.

Campaign 148

Campaign Seed Capital Social Network Global 148

Agile VC

DECEMBER 4, 2014

This needn’t be some terribly complex formula that tries to do a cost accounting of everyone’s contribution to the decimal point. 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

ReadWriteStart

APRIL 2, 2012

Doing so would reduce costs for companies while still adhering to the first principle of investor protection.". In our survey of emerging growth company CEOs, 86% of respondents listed accounting and compliance costs as a major concern of going public. But it is also a good way for hucksters to fleece suckers.". Discuss.

IPO 121

IPO Startup Florida Seed Capital 121

Hunter Walker

JANUARY 11, 2021

Which leads us to the fundamental difference between, say, a small self-funded online therapy practice and one that has taken millions of dollars in seed capital: the latter can acquire a larger number of patients much faster using investment dollars for both customer acquisition and to subsidize the economics of serving those clients.

Startup 157

Startup Venture Capital Seed Capital Software 157

The Next Web

DECEMBER 31, 2013

Access to capital continues to be a challenge in Europe. Getting seed capital (1M EUR or less) has become easier, but raising significant money (25M EUR and more) to turn your company in a global business continues to be difficult. Large companies also provide an important ‘exit strategy’ for startups.

Europe 149

Europe Government Silicon Valley Entrepreneur 149

Feld Thoughts

AUGUST 12, 2011

Revenues and costs should both be based off of a robust set of assumptions. While they’ve been hard at work on their product, they’ve also incorporated the company, now named SayAhh (thanks Mac!) as a C-Corp in Delaware. Build a financial model that forecasts the P&L. This should tie to your GL for “Actuals” (i.e.

Balance Sheet 137

Balance Sheet Forecast Cap Table Early Stage 137

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

The Startup Magazine

MARCH 16, 2019

If you have an angel investor , you need to show them that their seed capital is being used wisely. When shopping for office furniture, the cost is a crucial factor. Here are all the factors to consider when selecting the ideal office furniture: Your budget. When starting, your budget is among your highest priorities.

Angel Investor 99

Angel Investor Seed Capital Employee Design 99

YoungUpstarts

APRIL 12, 2016

Most businesses – online or offline, need seed capital to get established and without access to these funds, launching a business can seem like an improbable dream. This way, you can focus your initial days of business in building the marketplace instead of developing an app that costs money. That does not have to be the case.

Cofounder 100

Cofounder Sweat Equity Startup Seed Capital 100

Growthink Blog

MAY 23, 2011

With this seed capital – more often than not totaling between $100,000 and $1,000,000 - the company accomplishes a number of key technical milestones, gets a beta customer or two, and then goes on a "road show" to venture capitalists around the country for capital to “scale” the business. There are a lot of dark, hard days.

Angel Investor 112

Angel Investor Venture Capital Sweat Equity Cram Down 112

Gust

SEPTEMBER 5, 2012

Structuring this kind of seed investment as a loan only makes sense because, as it turns out, a convertible note is a convenient “hack” to make it quicker, easier and cheaper to inject seed capital into an early stage startup while giving investors some protection (debt is ahead of equity in line in the event the company is liquidated).

Finance 134

Finance Convertible Security Equity Seed Stage 134

Steve Blank

APRIL 28, 2016

Before co-founding Biota Technology , he was an investor and entrepreneur-in-residence at Seed Capital , a investing in science-based innovation. Switching from venture capital to startup founder required a different mindset, Ajay said: All day in a VC firm, you’re saying ‘no’. Steven : Nope, hubris.

Entrepreneur 120

Entrepreneur Cofounder Seed Capital Texas 120

Steve Blank

APRIL 28, 2016

Before co-founding Biota Technology , he was an investor and entrepreneur-in-residence at Seed Capital , a investing in science-based innovation. Switching from venture capital to startup founder required a different mindset, Ajay said: All day in a VC firm, you’re saying ‘no’. Steven : Nope, hubris.

Entrepreneur 120

Entrepreneur Cofounder Seed Capital Texas 120

Business Plan Blog

DECEMBER 10, 2013

The most important principle of startup fundraising that every entrepreneur needs to know is: raise enough capital to achieve a set of milestones that will allow the company to attract the next round of investment. Below are the milestones that you will need to achieve in order to attract seed investment from Angels: Business Plan.

Angel Investor 55

Angel Investor Intellectual Property Seed Capital Advisory Board 55

Haystack

AUGUST 18, 2019

.” 2/ Lateral Competition – The number of “seed” funds has also grown during this boon. More and more seed capital has flooded into the market, making the situation for funding seed rounds ~$2M-ish total size more competitive. Samir Kaji from First Republic has been writing on this for years.

Seed Stage 108

Seed Stage Cap Table Early Stage Malaysia 108

Steve Blank

NOVEMBER 24, 2010

Today open source software has slashed the cost of software development from millions of dollars to thousands. For consumer hardware, no startup has to build their own factory as the costs are absorbed by offshore manufacturers. The New Structure of the Venture Capital industry. Entrepreneurship as It’s Own Management Science.

Silicon Valley 335

Silicon Valley United States Venture Capital Software Review 335

thebarefootvc

MARCH 8, 2012

I helped launch NYCSeed in 2008 in response to the lack of seed funding available in NYC. Now we have an overabundance of capital at that stage. However, while the cost of starting a tech company has plummeted this past decade, for the most part it still takes significant dollars to grow and scale game-changing companies.

Silicon Valley 69

Silicon Valley Ghana Venture Capital India 69

Business Plan Blog

NOVEMBER 22, 2013

Depending on the complexity of your product you may or may not be able to complete a working prototype or beta version with your FFF capital. You will also need proposals for the cost to develop the minimum viable product (the features that allow the product to be deployed). Founding Team, Key Hires, Advisory Board. Market Validation.

Intellectual Property 55

Intellectual Property Advisory Board Startup Seed Capital 55

ReadWriteStart

NOVEMBER 5, 2019

The rounds were conducted from 2008 to 2010, starting from seed capital. To set a lousy price in relation to its quality and cost. These results were obtained after the following rounds of financing of more than 1000 technology companies in the United States.

Venture Capital 77

Venture Capital Cofounder Finance United States 77

www.thestartup.eu

OCTOBER 23, 2010

Posted by Stefano Bernardi On June - 21 - 2010 It’s a known fact that seed capital is very scarce in Italy. Let’s break down their costs: Logo design: a simple contest on 99designs with a $300 prize. Total cost: $5000. Total cost: $100. TheStartup.eu Meet Tipsandtrip. CEO Marco Magnocavallo.

Bootstrapping 49

Bootstrapping Italy Sweat Equity Europe 49

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. If the value is there, then ask yourself if the cost is worth it. OK, enough with disclosures.

Incubator 50

Incubator Equity Programming Cloud 50