Both Sides of the Table

DECEMBER 11, 2022

Sure, we built SaaS products before the term even existed but at 31 it was hard to delineate reality from what all of the monied people around us were telling us what we were worth. In those years I learned to properly build product, price products, sell products and serve customers. Until we weren’t. It’s just not me.

Valuation 466

Valuation San Francisco Ratchet Liquidation Preference 466

Startup Professionals Musings

APRIL 4, 2022

The “valley of death” is a common term in the startup world, referring to the difficulty of covering the negative cash flow in the early stages of a startup, before their new product or service is bringing in revenue from real customers. Nevertheless, it’s an option that doesn’t cost you equity. Use crowd funding.

Intellectual Property 261

Intellectual Property Technical Review Incubator Bootstrapping 261

Startup Professionals Musings

OCTOBER 19, 2022

In fact, perhaps the most important model, equity crowdfunding for non-accredited investors was legalized via the SEC way back in 2016, and its impact is still not fully understood. Product pre-order model. With this model, a startup pre-sells their product early, at a cheaper price, in exchange for a pledge. In the U.S.,

Accredited Investor 352

Accredited Investor Startup SEC Equity 352

Startup Professionals Musings

MAY 25, 2020

Yet one of the first things a potential equity investor asks about is your exit strategy. Equity investments are not loans, so there is no loan payback period or interest payments. Equity investments are not loans, so there is no loan payback period or interest payments. Find a private equity firm or friendly individual.

Exit Strategy 376

Exit Strategy Startup Private Equity Equity 376

Startup Professionals Musings

AUGUST 19, 2020

Deferred payments start with stretching the payables period but, more importantly, include giving employee equity in lieu of a higher salaries and negotiating vendor deferred payments out of future revenues. That should equate to an adequate valuation for a $2 million follow-on Series-A round, without giving away all the equity.

Burn Rate 310

Burn Rate Hockey Stick Salary Angel Investor 310

ConversionXL

OCTOBER 7, 2021

The classic lifespan of successful products is a story in four parts: Introduction Growth Maturity Decline. How this story plays out has a lot to do with the type of product and how it’s improved over time, if at all. In this article, we’ll look at the different stages of the product lifecycle through the lens of marketing.

Product 142

Product Marketing Software Review Social Media 142

Startup Professionals Musings

FEBRUARY 8, 2021

In fact, the cost may be minimal, if you do your networking and build a relationship with an experienced business executive or two in your domain who are willing to share and give back for a nominal retainer, perhaps one percent of your new startup equity. The cost of a co-founder is usually fifty percent of your equity.

Advisory Board 356

Advisory Board Bandwidth Cofounder Technical Review 356

Startup Professionals Musings

JANUARY 20, 2020

In fact, perhaps the most important model, equity crowdfunding for non-accredited investors was only legalized via the SEC in 2016, so its impact is still in the early stages. Product pre-order model. With this model, a startup pre-sells their product early, at a cheaper price, in exchange for a pledge. Startup equity model.

Accredited Investor 324

Accredited Investor Entrepreneur SEC Equity 324

Startup Professionals Musings

JUNE 30, 2019

The “valley of death” is a common term in the startup world, referring to the difficulty of covering the negative cash flow in the early stages of a startup, before their new product or service is bringing in revenue from real customers. Nevertheless, it’s an option that doesn’t cost you equity. Use crowd funding.

Intellectual Property 219

Intellectual Property Technical Review Startup Incubator 219

Startup Professionals Musings

JANUARY 24, 2021

Here investors are looking for feature problems or quality issues on the current product. A hard look will be taken at the technology maturity, the current development progress, and customer satisfaction with early product shipments. Startup equity investments imply a long-term business relationship, lasting an average of five years.

Technical Review 379

Technical Review Due Diligence Term Sheet Bankruptcy 379

Startup Professionals Musings

JUNE 2, 2021

As a simple example, the Wal-Mart website now shows shoppers more products that they may like, based on previous purchases. That means that many companies are now forgoing the rush to go public (IPO), in favor of major equity investments from specialized venture capital funds, such as Japan’s SoftBank.

Software Review 355

Software Review Algorithm Global IPO 355

Startup Professionals Musings

MAY 22, 2020

Most founders like to talk about their many months or years of sweat-equity , but cash invested is a stronger commitment. If the company has been around for more than a couple of years, and still has no product or revenue flow, there better be a good explanation. When did this effort really start, including pivots?

Technical Review 436

Technical Review Due Diligence Sweat Equity Burn Rate 436

Startup Professionals Musings

MAY 14, 2023

Deferred payments start with stretching the payables period but, more importantly, include giving employee equity in lieu of a higher salaries and negotiating vendor deferred payments out of future revenues. That should equate to an adequate valuation for a $2 million follow-on Series-A round, without giving away all the equity.

Burn Rate 258

Burn Rate Hockey Stick Management Salary 258

Startup Professionals Musings

FEBRUARY 10, 2023

Taking on equity investors to fund your company is much like getting married – it is a long-term relationship that has to work at all levels. Investor due diligence on a startup is not a mysterious black art, but is nothing more than a final integrity check on all aspects of your business model, team, product, customers, and plan.

Technical Review 345

Technical Review Due Diligence Term Sheet Offshore 345

Both Sides of the Table

FEBRUARY 6, 2013

But not anal if one founder who shares equity graciously with early employees who are treated as “co-founders” My idea startup team is heaving on tech personnel but also has strong product management. Without strong PMs you build crappy products that nobody needs or that real people can’t use.

Cofounder 388

Cofounder Early Stage Startup Silicon Valley 388

Startup Professionals Musings

FEBRUARY 27, 2021

By way of a definition, a business or startup incubator is a company, university, or other organization which provides resources to nurture young companies, usually for a share of the equity, hoping to capitalize on their success, or at least strengthen the local economy. Initial funding. Expert mentoring and training.

Incubator 366

Incubator Technical Review Due Diligence Venture Capital 366

Startup Professionals Musings

MAY 11, 2020

Taking on equity investors to fund your company is much like getting married – it is a long-term relationship that has to work at all levels. Investor due diligence on a startup is not a mysterious black art, but is nothing more than a final integrity check on all aspects of your business model, team, product, customers, and plan.

Technical Review 310

Technical Review Due Diligence Term Sheet Offshore 310

View from Seed

APRIL 6, 2021

You have unbounded curiosity for emerging trends, a love for experimentation, and you’re always eager to dive into new products and technologies before others do. You know the ecosystem and have a network that is additive to the rest of the team. You are intentional about developing a point of view on new sectors that we can learn from.

Technical Review 317

Technical Review Software Review Seed Stage Cofounder 317

The Startup Magazine

SEPTEMBER 15, 2020

Venture capital is a type of private equity. The downside to venture capital is that the company or individual doing investing generally get equity in the company. One difference between venture capital and private equity deals, in general, is that venture capital focuses on emerging companies. What is Venture Capital Funding?

Venture Capital 166

Venture Capital Technical Review Software Review Security 166

Both Sides of the Table

JANUARY 4, 2014

I think as a tech industry we have bred a culture that places more emphasis on product excellence than managing human behavior. Of course it makes no sense to have great people management and a crappy product. One who wants to commercialize his product and start charging while the other prefers to not charge.

Founder 340

Founder Cofounder Sacramento Technical Review 340

YoungUpstarts

JANUARY 10, 2020

sales to product development), the problems will continue to exist. Clients should be made aware of product improvements or new solutions that are in the works. A dissatisfied customer is generally the result of a communication breakdown. If a company doesn’t have the right mechanisms in place to relay issues between departments (i.e.:

Customer 347

Customer Development Team Review Advisory Board Private Equity 347

Startup Professionals Musings

SEPTEMBER 29, 2018

Deferred payments start with stretching the payables period but, more importantly, include giving employee equity in lieu of a higher salaries and negotiating vendor deferred payments out of future revenues. That should equate to an adequate valuation for a $2 million follow-on Series-A round, without giving away all the equity.

Burn Rate 223

Burn Rate Hockey Stick Startup Salary 223

Startup Professionals Musings

FEBRUARY 25, 2023

Yet one of the first things a potential equity investor asks about is your exit strategy. Equity investments are not loans, so there is no loan payback period or interest payments. Equity investments are not loans, so there is no loan payback period or interest payments. Find a private equity firm or friendly individual.

Exit Strategy 264

Exit Strategy Private Equity Equity Technical Review 264

Steve Blank

MARCH 12, 2014

Therefore we needed them to think and learn about two parts of a startup; 1) ideation - how to create new ideas and 2) customer development – how do they test the validity of their idea (is it the right product, customer, channel, pricing, etc.). Customer Discovery in the Real World. You need to propose disruptive solutions.

Lean 335

Lean Customer Development Startup Silicon Valley 335

Startup Professionals Musings

OCTOBER 6, 2023

Here investors are looking for feature problems or quality issues on the current product. A hard look will be taken at the technology maturity, the current development progress, and customer satisfaction with early product shipments. Startup equity investments imply a long-term business relationship, lasting an average of five years.

Technical Review 296

Technical Review Due Diligence Term Sheet Bankruptcy 296

Startup Professionals Musings

NOVEMBER 4, 2022

You need to have a technical genius on the team to get your startup product off the ground. Being the leader doesn’t mean more equity, nor does it mean the leader will necessarily be CEO. The rest can come from early hires (with stock options to assure commitment), equity investors, or even strategic partners.

Technical Cofounder 309

Technical Cofounder Cofounder Advisory Board Startup 309

Startup Professionals Musings

FEBRUARY 9, 2020

You need to have a technical genius on the team to get your startup product off the ground. Being the leader doesn’t mean more equity, nor does it mean the leader will necessarily be CEO. The rest can come from early hires (with stock options to assure commitment), equity investors, or even strategic partners.

Technical Cofounder 308

Technical Cofounder Cofounder Advisory Board Stock Options 308

ReadWriteStart

JUNE 1, 2020

You must have a prototype or a minimum viable product (MVP). To fund the sudden spike in production, funds will be required for additional inventory and wages. It is going to cost a lot of money just to get the initial batch of products to test the market and would definitely require external funding. Sources of Funding.

Startup 150

Startup Entrepreneur Elevator Pitch Seed Stage 150

Both Sides of the Table

SEPTEMBER 28, 2014

We’re going to start aggressively spend money on marketing our product. Gross margin (GM) is the amount of profit you make per sale of your product or service taking into account your total costs of selling that product or service. So money spent should add equity value or create IP that eventually will.

Burn Rate 383

Burn Rate Balance Sheet .Net Valuation 383

View from Seed

JULY 6, 2020

You have unbounded curiosity for emerging trends, a love for experimentation, and you’re always eager to dive into new products and technologies before others do. You know the ecosystem and have a network that is additive to the rest of the team. . You are intentional about developing a point of view on new sectors that we can learn from.

Technical Review 257

Technical Review Software Review Hiring Seed Stage 257

Both Sides of the Table

MAY 27, 2013

In this period (less than 2 years) he has brought on incredibly talented senior execs is sales, marketing, product management, client services, finance, vp engineering and more. You may know how much to pay in cash or equity for your new VP Engineering. Growth like this, this early in a company’s lifecycle rarely happens.

Advisory Board 365

Advisory Board CTO Hire Fractional CTO Los Angeles 365

Steve Blank

MARCH 31, 2014

In spite of this, private equity funds have used the rallying cry of efficiency to hijack corporate strategy and loot the profits that historically would have been reinvested into research and development and new products. Smart companies are always looking to make their current products better – and there are many ways to do this.

Private Equity 330

Private Equity Metrics China Intellectual Property 330

YoungUpstarts

DECEMBER 10, 2020

Robertson notes that over $50B has been spent by private equity on tech deals in 2020. A report on remote work productivity during the pandemic found that global productivity among employees working from home due to COVID-19 has dropped. These are small businesses, companies that are nimble and can shift easily.

Technical Review 279

Technical Review Private Equity Equity Employee 279

VC Cafe

FEBRUARY 25, 2025

In contrast, 80% of seed rounds are equity-based. Equity-based deals accounted for 80% of seed deals. Israeli founders are capitalising on the stronger foundations available to ship AI products, and focus on the US market almost from day one. SAFE agreements were used in 94% of pre-seed deals. Investors closed an average of 3.5

Technical Review 88

Technical Review Israel Early Stage Generative AI 88

A Smart Bear: Startups and Marketing for Geeks

MARCH 21, 2017

Rather, buyer behavior is rooted in their strategy — a combination of product thesis, their theory of their market’s evolution, how they need to position for customers and against competitors, their long-term brand development, geographic expansion plans, and so on. Startups shouldn’t act smug about this. This had to be remedied.

Balance Sheet 242

Balance Sheet Vertical Acquisition Revenue 242

View from Seed

SEPTEMBER 18, 2019

As a seed-stage company, it is understandable to have a nascent (or non-existent) product and a barebone team relative to the great ambition of the company. The “product roadmap”. The “product roadmap”. Zooming out of the first 18 months, you want to articulate how you see the product evolving to achieve its long-term vision.

Part-Time VPE 195

Part-Time VPE Seed Stage CTO Hire Forecast 195

Steve Blank

OCTOBER 23, 2023

The larger the company, the more they’ll separate out business development and sales, with business development focused primarily on lead generation and sales focused on sealing the actual sale of the product or service. You just have to go in and work through the mechanics of selling them on your product or service.

Government 241

Government Advisory Board Salary Sales Cycle 241