A Smart Bear: Startups and Marketing for Geeks

JULY 24, 2012

Venture capitalists are raising money from other investors, institutional investors who expect certain returns from us. The later the round, the higher the letter in the alphabet, the more the expectation of real revenue, real customers, real usage, real traction. And to get those returns, we need very big wins.

Silicon Valley 204

Silicon Valley Software Review Internet Technical Review 204

View from Seed

SEPTEMBER 4, 2018

In two cases, these businesses were doing significant early revenue ($500K/month+), so could be considered “post-seed”, although both of these companies had not raised significant institutional capital before we led their rounds. Of the last 15 investments we’ve made, we’ve been the lead or co-lead investor over 80% of the time. .

North America 120

North America Seed Stage Early Stage Lead Investor 120

Startup Professionals Musings

OCTOBER 12, 2020

Once you have some traction, you can approach venture capital organizations , with funding amounts of $1-10 million for the real rollout, often referred to as the “A-round,” or first institutional funding. This normally means more than 30 employees, and more than $1 million in revenue. Growth and exit stage.

Incubator 429

Incubator Startup Exit Strategy Institutional Investors 429

David Teten

MARCH 5, 2021

BCG (June 2018): “Startups founded and cofounded by women actually performed better over time, generating 10% more in cumulative revenue over a five-year period: $730,000 compared with $662,000.”. ” (I discuss this more in Why are Revenue-Share VCs investing in so many women and underrepresented founders ?)

Cofounder 78

Cofounder Founder Technical Cofounder Technical Review 78

This is going to be BIG.

OCTOBER 12, 2020

One just got a seed term sheet for twice the valuation I put in at in the pre-seed and the other is doing $200k/month in revenue. Meanwhile, I’ve got another company out of the five I invested in out of this new fund also approaching $200k/month in revenue and I just want to go back to investing. Honestly, I hate fundraising.

LP 146

LP Technical Review Software Review Valuation 146

The Next Web

SEPTEMBER 13, 2013

The final piece of my four-part guide to expanding a business into Asia is tailored more towards local startups and a big issue that affects many of them: raising funding from investors. Asia has far fewer VC firms and institutional investors, each of which invests a far smaller amount of capital.

Asia 132

Asia Silicon Valley India Term Sheet 132

YoungUpstarts

JANUARY 3, 2018

If what made you successful isn’t working anymore, don’t wait for an activist investor to force the shift to a new way of competing. Activist Investor Target: CSX Railroad. Seeing an opportunity, activist investor Paul Hilal of Mantle Ridge brought about the installation of railroad veteran Hunter Harrison as CEO.

Agile 113

Agile Malaysia Private Equity Non-Compete 113

Steve Blank

JUNE 15, 2011

Long before others, they saw that these applications could have hundreds of millions of users with “off the chart&# revenue and profits. The awareness phase is where other later-stage investors start to notice the momentum, bringing additional money in and pushing prices higher. The higher the price, the more investments pour in.

Silicon Valley 331

Silicon Valley Stealth Valuation Mississippi 331

David Teten

SEPTEMBER 5, 2014

I’ve written on the expert network industry a fair amount in the past: see How to Earn More Consulting Revenue from Expert Networks and How Executives Can Work with Private Equity and Venture Capital Portfolio Companies.

New York 114

New York Technical Review Networking Advisory Board 114

ReadWriteStart

OCTOBER 2, 2021

Unless the LLC itself specifies otherwise, the company’s profits and losses are passed to members (owners and investors) in proportion to their contribution to the company. And even though an LLC is legally required to report its revenues, profits, and losses, it does not have to pay corporate income taxes on profits.

Technical Review 78

Technical Review LLC IPO Stock 78

Startup Professionals Musings

JULY 5, 2023

Once you have some traction, you can approach venture capital organizations , with funding amounts of $1-10 million for the real rollout, often referred to as the “A-round,” or first institutional funding. This normally means more than 30 employees, and more than $1 million in revenue. Growth and exit stage.

Incubator 305

Incubator Startup Exit Strategy Institutional Investors 305

Startup Professionals Musings

MARCH 22, 2020

Tie payments to your product or service revenue. With “cash flow” obligations, investors receive a percentage of your operating cash flow (if any) until they have been repaid in full, or have achieved a specified percentage return on their investment. Try to avoid obligations with fixed repayment schedules.

Management 308

Management Cram Down Angel Investor Equity 308

Startup Professionals Musings

MAY 4, 2014

Unless you are bootstrapping everything, you need to have a clear plan on what networking and documents are required to get to friends and family, Angel investors, and institutional investors. Billing and revenue collection. Manage human resources. It all has to be written down and maintained.

Startup 268

Startup Institutional Investors Angel Investor Bootstrapping 268

Startup Professionals Musings

SEPTEMBER 7, 2011

Unless you are bootstrapping everything, you need to have a clear plan on what networking and documents are required to get to friends and family, angel investors, and institutional investors. Billing and revenue collection. Manage human resources. It all has to be written down and maintained.

Startup 255

Startup Institutional Investors Angel Investor Bootstrapping 255

Steve Blank

JUNE 17, 2011

They helped build these struggling ventures into the Facebooks’, Twitters’, and Zyngas’ before anyone else appreciated these companies could have hundreds of millions of users with off-the-chart revenue and profits. Really smart money recognizes it’s a bubble and bets against it.)

Investment Bankers 318

Investment Bankers Stock Valuation Venture Capital 318

Startup Professionals Musings

JUNE 15, 2013

Once you have some traction, you can approach venture capital organizations , with funding amounts of $1-10 million for the real rollout, often referred to as the “A-round,” or first institutional funding. This normally means more then 30 employees, and more then $1 million in revenue. Growth and exit stage.

Incubator 256

Incubator Entrepreneur Exit Strategy Institutional Investors 256

Startup Professionals Musings

AUGUST 1, 2010

Unless you are bootstrapping everything, you need to have a clear plan on what networking and documents are required to get to friends and family, angel investors, and institutional investors. Billing and revenue collection. Manage human resources. It all has to be written down and maintained.

Startup 239

Startup Institutional Investors Angel Investor Bootstrapping 239

Startup Professionals Musings

JANUARY 31, 2013

Unless you are bootstrapping everything, you need to have a clear plan on what networking and documents are required to get to friends and family, Angel investors, and institutional investors. Billing and revenue collection. Manage human resources. It all has to be written down and maintained.

Institutional Investors 230

Institutional Investors Angel Investor Bootstrapping Database 230

Startup Professionals Musings

OCTOBER 10, 2014

Tie payments to your product or service revenue. With “cash flow” obligations, investors receive a percentage of your operating cash flow (if any) until they have been repaid in full, or have achieved a specified percentage return on their investment. Try to avoid obligations with fixed repayment schedules.

Founder 254

Founder Cram Down Angel Investor Equity 254

Startup Professionals Musings

MAY 16, 2012

Once you have some traction, you can approach venture capital organizations , with funding amounts of $1-10 million for the real rollout, often referred to as the “A-round,” or first institutional funding. This normally means more then 30 employees, and more then $1 million in revenue. Growth and exit stage.

Incubator 237

Incubator Startup Exit Strategy Institutional Investors 237

Startup Professionals Musings

DECEMBER 28, 2018

Once you have some traction, you can approach venture capital organizations , with funding amounts of $1-10 million for the real rollout, often referred to as the “A-round,” or first institutional funding. This normally means more than 30 employees, and more than $1 million in revenue. Growth and exit stage.

Incubator 236

Incubator Exit Strategy Institutional Investors Angel Investor 236

David Teten

DECEMBER 3, 2019

Excel and Google simply aren’t going to cut it if you expect to build a high quality institutional investor base.”. Beacon technology system , which automatically outbound-solicits a universe of over 10,000 institutional investors, without requiring LPs to register for an online network of funds. .

Technical Review 78

Technical Review Software Review Analytics Private Equity 78

Startup Professionals Musings

JANUARY 13, 2011

Once you have some traction, you can approach venture capital organizations , with funding amounts of $1-10 million for the real rollout, often referred to as the “A-round,” or first institutional funding. This normally means more then 30 employees, and more then $1 million in revenue. Growth and exit stage.

Incubator 230

Incubator Startup Exit Strategy Institutional Investors 230

A Smart Bear: Startups and Marketing for Geeks

FEBRUARY 21, 2011

This is the key, because Q — what an institutional investor would accept — is a well-understood system. So what kind of return does an angel investor need to make on their $84,000? So if that’s the same as P, we’re done.

Equity 276

Equity Salary Hiring Institutional Investors 276

YoungUpstarts

SEPTEMBER 23, 2020

If you’re scared to invest directly in gold, as some people and institutional investors are prone to do, then you can use a gold ETF. You would want to invest some of your small business revenue anyway, and since gold has always been a great inflation hedge, it seems the natural choice.

Institutional Investors 241

Institutional Investors Government Salary Stock 241

ReadWriteStart

JULY 7, 2023

Revenue and profit are two classic indicators of a successful ROI. Do you know which under-the-radar stocks the top hedge funds and institutional investors are investing in right now? When tracking an increase in revenue, a direct correlation was found that for each $1 spend on L&D there was a $4.70 revenue increase.

Programming 148

Programming Developer United States Institutional Investors 148

Up and Running

MARCH 21, 2016

Particularly if you are a first-time entrepreneur, it will be much easier to get investments on good terms (particularly from non-institutional investors) if you have some traction first,” he explains. Investors want proof that your idea is going to work, and nothing proves this better than having real, paying customers.

Cofounder 60

Cofounder Metrics Angel Investor Silicon Valley 60

Both Sides of the Table

JANUARY 19, 2015

Along with Greycroft, I was the first institutional investor in Maker Studios (sold to Disney for nearly $1 billion) and am still the largest investor in Mitu Network , the largest online video producer of Latino content. It just happens to be large, dominant and willing to share revenue with you.

SEM 150

SEM Los Angeles Silicon Valley Acquisition 150

David Teten

SEPTEMBER 23, 2017

Sector funds lend themselves well to doing this because it’s easier to quantify the characteristics which drive value on a sector basis, e.g., if you focus on SaaS companies you can identify annual change of >10% in recurring revenues as an indicator of future stability of revenues.

Private Equity 60

Private Equity Venture Capital Equity Technical Review 60

Rob Go

SEPTEMBER 4, 2018

In two cases, these businesses were doing significant early revenue ($500K/month+), so could be considered “post-seed”, although both of these companies had not raised significant institutional capital before we led their rounds. Of the last 15 investments we’ve made, we’ve been the lead or co-lead investor over 80% of the time. .

North America 36

North America Seed Stage Early Stage Lead Investor 36

Startup Professionals Musings

MARCH 9, 2018

Tie payments to your product or service revenue. With “cash flow” obligations, investors receive a percentage of your operating cash flow (if any) until they have been repaid in full, or have achieved a specified percentage return on their investment. Try to avoid obligations with fixed repayment schedules.

Cram Down 148

Cram Down Angel Investor Equity Dividend 148

David Teten

AUGUST 21, 2019

Or should they look to one of the new wave of Revenue-Based Investors? Revenue-Based Investing (“RBI”) is a new form of VC financing, distinct from the preferred equity structure most VCs use. For more background, see Revenue-Based Investing: A New Option for Founders who Care About Control. But should they?

Revenue 60

Revenue Liquidation Preference Equity Cofounder 60

Startup Professionals Musings

NOVEMBER 27, 2016

Once you have some traction, you can approach venture capital organizations , with funding amounts of $1-10 million for the real rollout, often referred to as the “A-round,” or first institutional funding. This normally means more than 30 employees, and more than $1 million in revenue. Growth and exit stage.

Incubator 120

Incubator Startup Exit Strategy Institutional Investors 120

Startup Professionals Musings

NOVEMBER 11, 2015

Tie payments to your product or service revenue. With “cash flow” obligations, investors receive a percentage of your operating cash flow (if any) until they have been repaid in full, or have achieved a specified percentage return on their investment. Try to avoid obligations with fixed repayment schedules.

Cram Down 120

Cram Down Angel Investor Equity Dividend 120

View from Seed

MARCH 26, 2015

Much digital ink has been spilled about what dollar amount constitutes a pre-seed and how that might affect a startup’s ability to go raise a “normal” seed round from institutional investors. A good heuristic is that you want a potential new investor to think, “Wow!

Seed Capital 120

Seed Capital Institutional Investors Venture Capital Partner 120

ReadWriteStart

APRIL 5, 2012

But the relaxation itself comes with limits, Mitchell tells us - limits that maintain the spirit in which the reporting rules were created, and which many investors actually insisted should remain. So the idea that a) we would allow more IPOs, but b) it had to be consistent with SEC regulations, was really the intent of what we were doing.".

IPO 118

IPO SEC Silicon Valley Startup 118

Up and Running

SEPTEMBER 26, 2016

Venture debt provides a very cost-effective way to receive capital from a big financial institution if you have liquidity or existing financial backing from a well-known investor. Venture debt is a no-brainer if you have liquidity or backing from an institutional investor. The downsides of venture debt?

Covenant 60

Covenant Institutional Investors Balance Sheet Warrant 60