Both Sides of the Table

MAY 13, 2013

The Aqui-hire Business. Let’s assume $2 million in seed money. If the money comes from professional investors it usually has a “liquidation preference” meaning that their money comes out before the founders or common stock. It says if you want to make “real” money - quit.

Liquidation Preference 357

Liquidation Preference Early Stage Retention Lock-up Period 357

Board Effect

JUNE 9, 2021

They simply don’t have the seed money to get a business or organization off the ground. It may also be worthwhile to consider hiring a grant writer to champion the process. The funds you receive from a grant could potentially cover the cost of hiring professional help.

Government 78

Government Technical Review SBA Angel Investor 78

Both Sides of the Table

DECEMBER 9, 2013

If you’re a venture-backed tech company or even an early-stage business fueled by angel or seed money I assume you have a good group of board members or advisors who will give you time to be helpful and they want to be helpful. should we ramp up sales hires now or wait for more traction?

Advisory Board 337

Advisory Board Valuation Stock Options Seed Money 337

Startup Professionals Musings

JANUARY 21, 2013

Most schools have business plan competitions, and even give out seed money to winners. But these won’t help you much finding investors, key executive hires, and pitfalls to avoid in the real world. Once you graduate, you can’t take that course you need, and even the advisors are gone. Business networking is key.

Entrepreneur 264

Entrepreneur Seed Money Social Network Business Plan 264

Startup Professionals Musings

DECEMBER 6, 2011

Most schools have business plan competitions, and even give out seed money to winners. But these won’t help you much finding investors, key executive hires, and pitfalls to avoid in the real world. Once you graduate, you can’t take that course you need, and even the advisors are gone. Business networking is key.

Entrepreneur 264

Entrepreneur Seed Money Social Network Business Plan 264

pandodaily.com

NOVEMBER 29, 2012

We know this: As many as a thousand companies who’ve received seed rounds won’t be around in a year — maybe six months. There simply won’t be soft-landings and acqui-hires for all of them. The number of seed and angel investors has exploded in recent years, buoyed up by a number of factors.

Technical Review 93

Technical Review Silicon Valley Incubator Syria 93

Both Sides of the Table

NOVEMBER 18, 2012

Think about it – most entrepreneurs who manage to raise seed money or venture capital usually raise enough money for 12-18 months maximum. You hire them, you own them now. Hire fast, fire faster. Many times it’s less. To hide your demons so that you don’t scare the bejesus out of your employees.

Monaco 420

Monaco Cofounder Chicago Mexico 420

Both Sides of the Table

JUNE 17, 2017

If you hire 6 senior sales reps in January at $120,000 / year salary then you’ve taken on an extra $60,000 per month in costs yet these sales people might not close new business 6 months. If you don’t have a strong balance sheet and can’t hire more people that’s fine — but understand this may lead to slower growth.

Stock Options 227

Stock Options Startup Dilution Venture Capital 227

Startup Professionals Musings

SEPTEMBER 12, 2010

Most schools have business plan competitions, and even give out seed money to winners. But these won’t help you much finding investors, key executive hires, and pitfalls to avoid in the real world. Once you graduate, you can’t take that course you need, and even the advisors are gone. Business networking is key.

Seed Money 225

Seed Money Social Network Networking Business Plan 225

Startup Lessons Learned

MAY 31, 2019

First, the introduction of seed money as an institutional form of capital. Before the mid-2000s, we mostly had individual angels writing small checks from their personal capital, but over the last 10-15 years we’ve seen hundreds of new institutional seed funds formed.

Lean 108

Lean Venture Capital Conversion IPO 108

Both Sides of the Table

AUGUST 1, 2010

I think the issue was mostly framed initially by Chris Dixon in his article The Problem with Taking Seed Money from Big VC s. If we invest the follow-on money comes from our non-seed fund (e.g. But in all reasonable circumstances were in. the $190 million). We already have one example, which is Ad.ly.

Post-Money Valuation 298

Post-Money Valuation Term Sheet Warrant Partner 298

www.paulgraham.com

APRIL 28, 2010

It wasnt because they werent accredited investors that I didntask my parents for seed money, though. When we were starting Viaweb,I didnt know about the concept of an accredited investor, anddidnt stop to think about the value of investors connections.The reason I didnt take money from my parents was that I didntwant them to lose it.

Technical Review 76

Technical Review Startup Software Review Angel Investor 76

Gust

JANUARY 13, 2013

Most schools have business plan competitions, and even give out seed money to winners. But these won’t help you much finding investors, key executive hires, and pitfalls to avoid in the real world. Once you graduate, you can’t take that course you need, and even the advisors are gone. Business networking is key.

Entrepreneur 180

Entrepreneur Seed Money Social Network Business Plan 180

Both Sides of the Table

APRIL 3, 2010

Chris Dixon provided some commentary on Twitter that he believes I missed “the most important point about fund size.&# He’s specifically referring to his point of view that entrepreneurs shouldn’t take seed money from “big VC’s&# (he defines them as > $100 million).

Venture Capital 265

Venture Capital Term Sheet Early Stage Silicon Valley 265

www.reincubate.com

FEBRUARY 1, 2010

Hiring a good team of PHP developers is neither likely nor easy for the non-technical. Like PHP, when hiring Microsoft programmers there’s much to be wary of.NET powers sites of all sizes (though relatively few massive ones) and is very common.NET has some CMS frameworks such as dotnetnuke and Community Server which often distract startups.

Fractional CTO 40

Fractional CTO CTO Technical Review CTO Hire 40

www.paulgraham.com

AUGUST 1, 2008

We could hire employees, but we want to be forced to figure out how to scale investing. As the volume of startups increases, big companies will start to develop standardized procedures that make acquisitions little more work than hiring someone. At Y Combinator we still only have four people, so we try to standardize everything.

Web 54

Web Startup Silicon Valley Technical Review 54

Version One Ventures

SEPTEMBER 8, 2014

With the influx of seed money, much has been written about the fact that start-ups that are taking far more funding than they need. I’ve seen many start-ups rush to hire new staff and tackle brand new verticals or international markets when it’s just not time yet. Pitfall #4: Culture of “we’ve done it”.

Guerilla 158

Guerilla Seed Money Vertical Early Stage 158

YoungUpstarts

APRIL 27, 2017

Hiring Staff. Hiring staff is a crucial stage in any startup’s success. Hiring staff for a startup is different from hiring staff for an existing big business. One of the benefits of the hiring process for startups is that it’s usually more intimate. Essentially you’ll need seed money, to begin with.

Startup 133

Startup Seed Money Hiring Framework 133

The Startup Magazine

OCTOBER 5, 2020

In return, you may be able to get your hands on some seed money for your college startup. Hiring your peers as employees or partners is a win win situation for everybody involved. College campuses are rife with financial opportunities. You just need to go out and look for them. . These include: Young Entrepreneur Council.

Seed Money 107

Seed Money Startup eCommerce .Net 107

The Next Web

DECEMBER 30, 2013

The result is a rapidly-growing local tech economy: tech hiring is among the highest in the nation at 1.7 In 2012, Denver startups raised more than $280M, with 33 startups raising $1M or more. Denver Mayor Michael B. percent, handily outpacing Silicon Valley’s 0.45

Denver 166

Denver Silicon Valley San Jose Colorado 166

The Startup Magazine

AUGUST 12, 2020

As a trucking business owner, you may still have to drive from time to time but you have the flexibility to hire others to do the driving for you. When you own a business, you can boost your revenue substantially by courting new clients, hiring more foot soldiers, or being more prudent when it comes to costs.

Seed Money 111

Seed Money United States Revenue Hiring 111

www.businessinsider.com

SEPTEMBER 6, 2012

Google Ventures has made more than 100 seed investments, Maris said, including some past and present Y Combinator companies, and is making one to two new ones a week. Parse, one of the most-anticipated startups in Silicon Valley these days , went through Y Combinator last year and raised seed money from Google Ventures , for example.

Silicon Valley 54

Silicon Valley Startup Valuation Venture Capital 54

Scalable Startup

AUGUST 9, 2018

High growth startup companies need seed money to get things going. They need the money to rent offices, hire staff, and establish their initial presence (website, incorporation, marketing). This article is based on my experiences and the typical mistakes I see every week in startup land.

Technical Cofounder 20

Technical Cofounder Silicon Valley Early Stage Cofounder 20

Up and Running

MAY 30, 2018

My first company, Digital-Tutors , grew from a startup in my living room with $54 of my own seed money into a multi-million-dollar business with customers around the world. I was proud of the fact that we never used any outside investment money to grow the company. As leaders, we want to hire great team members to do great work.

Startup 107

Startup Seed Money Employee Conversion 107

Version One Ventures

SEPTEMBER 8, 2014

With the influx of seed money, much has been written about the fact that start-ups that are taking far more funding than they need. I’ve seen many start-ups rush to hire new staff and tackle brand new verticals or international markets when it’s just not time yet. Pitfall #4: Culture of “we’ve done it”.

Guerilla 90

Guerilla Seed Money Vertical Early Stage 90

Up and Running

SEPTEMBER 11, 2013

He is also the founder of Hallspot , a new social networking site exclusively for college students that has raised hundreds of thousands in seed money and will launch on September 27 at Thorne’s alma mater, where more than 6,000 students have pre-registered for the service. Did you make any mistakes in the hiring process?

Social Network 82

Social Network Oregon Programming Cofounder 82

Gust

OCTOBER 2, 2014

Think about it – most entrepreneurs who manage to raise seed money or venture capital usually raise enough money for 12-18 months maximum. You hire them, you own them now. Hire fast, fire faster. Many times it’s less. So at any given point you are likely operating with a maximum of 9 month’s cash. Center seat.

Monaco 122

Monaco Cofounder Chicago Mexico 122

This is going to be BIG.

APRIL 16, 2018

You think you're getting this big fat check compared to the seed money you raised, but they're actually doing something more like dipping their toes in the water. It's like making a hire that you can't fire--so having the chance for multiple interviews over a longer period of time is important and to your advantage.

Due Diligence 85

Due Diligence Early Stage Term Sheet Vesting 85

Berkonomics

MARCH 30, 2012

Most economists, however, purport that our recovery will never stabilize until small businesses can access capital, hire new employees, and grow. Crowd Funding: The Internet is at work here, especially for obtaining early stager seed money.

Intellectual Property 76

Intellectual Property Entrepreneur Small Business Administration SBA 76

This is going to be BIG.

SEPTEMBER 7, 2012

I think I'm terrific at helping early stage teams by rolling up my sleeves and doing what's necessary--getting them hires, PR, product strategy help to find that market fit. What I'm not good at--or, rather, simply haven't done yet, is sit on a board for seven years helping a company go from $20mm in revenue to $100 million in revenue.

Later Stage 99

Later Stage Down Round Pre-Money Valuation Early Stage 99

Campus Entrepreneurship

NOVEMBER 11, 2010

BTW, I don’t know how old Murdoch is, but his new hire, Joel Klein of Clinton and NYC-Bloomberg pedigree, is not a fresh, young hot shot. ’s efforts will focus on providing seed money to start-ups working on new technologies in the education arena.

New York City 34

New York City Seed Money New York Global 34

This is going to be BIG.

MARCH 23, 2015

in seed money instead of $1.5M You should target 18 to 24 months of runway post Series Seed." You just wind up spending it faster--and moving fast with lots of money, especially for a first time founder, is bound to be more mistake-prone and less focused. Yay, participation trophies! Why not raise $2.5M

Post-Money Valuation 60

Post-Money Valuation Valuation Pre-Money Valuation Seed Money 60

Rob Go

NOVEMBER 15, 2016

Obviously, the best path is to do both, but that’s not very helpful My advice is typically to keep teams really small after the seed round to prove as much as you can, even if it takes longer. Instead, what I often see is that the minute seed money is in the bank, founders try to staff up very quickly. 3 years if needed.

Product 28

Product Seed Stage Seed Money Metrics 28

techcrunch.com

OCTOBER 23, 2010

Inevitably, the excuses begin: I need to hire people to build the product. I need money for the servers. No raising money. In later posts I’m going to get into more detail on specific topics like hiring, raising money, what types of ideas have the potential to get big, finding your founders, and the like.

Technical Review 84

Technical Review Cofounder Technical Cofounder Software Review 84

This is going to be BIG.

JANUARY 6, 2014

A founder will raise one party round worth of seed money and they''ll go teach a class on how to raise venture capital. A BD person at an aqui-hire will write a book on the art of the deal. in funding, and expand from 3 employees to 13—three of which I’d recruited and hired. Growth hacking? ” So.

Startup 158

Startup Venture Capital IPO Viral 158