Steve Blank

JUNE 11, 2013

———– One of my ex students came out to the ranch to give me an update on his startup. It all starts with understanding what a startup is. What’s a Startup? Just as a reminder, a startup is a temporary organization designed to search for a repeatable and scalable business model. Why small amounts?

Venture Capital 335

Venture Capital IRR Liquidity Event Business Model 335

Startup Professionals Musings

JUNE 13, 2020

They fail to realize that the considerations are quite different for each, which can make or break their investment efforts, and ultimately their startup. More importantly, the focus on numbers tends to hide other more subjective issues that could be more important for any given startup. How big is your startup opportunity?

Angel Investor 314

Angel Investor Entrepreneur IRR Valuation 314

Startup Professionals Musings

AUGUST 2, 2014

They fail to realize that the considerations are quite different for each, which can make or break their investment efforts, and ultimately their startup. More importantly, the focus on numbers tends to hide other more subjective issues that could be more important for any given startup. How big is your startup opportunity?

Angel Investor 266

Angel Investor Entrepreneur Venture Capital IRR 266

David Teten

NOVEMBER 17, 2011

This is the third of three blog posts on financial modeling for startups. The first was on best practices in building financial models , and the second was a template financial model for a startup. Download the Startup Options Valuation model here. Valuing startups is a far fuzzier process. Participa.me

Employee 155

Employee IRR Startup Mexico 155

Steve Blank

JUNE 11, 2013

———– One of my ex students came out to the ranch to give me an update on his startup. It all starts with understanding what a startup is. What’s a Startup? Just as a reminder, a startup is a temporary organization designed to search for a repeatable and scalable business model. Why small amounts?

Venture Capital 227

Venture Capital IRR Liquidity Event Business Model 227

Startup Professionals Musings

MAY 9, 2011

Marty: Welcome to Startup Professionals interviews. Luckily for me (and regardless of what anyone else says, there is a lot of luck involved in angel investing), I have since had significant positive exits to companies like Kodak, CBS and Facebook, and the current value of my portfolio is approaching the 30% IRR that rational angels target.

New York 221

New York Accredited Investor Advisory Board IRR 221

Hunter Walker

APRIL 21, 2025

I entered venture capital with some beliefs – many of which still hold true (such as ‘your LPs are your business partners, not your customers’). Cash flow for small firms in pro rata, bridge rounds, and so on is a real challenge, and it impacts young startups disproportionately.

Venture Capital 72

Venture Capital Cap Table San Francisco Early Stage 72

VC Adventure

OCTOBER 5, 2020

Ian Hathaway, who recently co-authored the second edition of Startup Communities with my partner, Brad, sent me the chart below which highlights how that translates to returns in venture capital as an asset class. If you were going to have several of these, of course, that would work out for your fund. on a gross basis.

IRR 174

IRR Venture Capital Community Partner 174

Both Sides of the Table

OCTOBER 17, 2019

I had just left Salesforce.com where I was VP, Products, after they had acquired my second startup. The first check I wrote was just over 10 years ago into a company called Invoca who just announced a new $56 million in funding led by Scott Hilleboe at HIG Growth Partners. Over the past 2.5

IP 223

IP Intellectual Property IRR Cofounder 223

Startup Professionals Musings

JUNE 5, 2016

They fail to realize that the considerations are quite different for each, which can make or break their investment efforts, and ultimately their startup. More importantly, the focus on numbers tends to hide other more subjective issues that could be more important for any given startup. How big is your startup opportunity?

Angel Investor 120

Angel Investor IRR Valuation Startup 120

K9 Ventures

MAY 14, 2011

The companies go through a 3-6 month long startup bootcamp and then typically try to raise angel/seed funding. Most angels invest for a couple of reasons – some do it because they genuinely love the startup space and this is their way of continuing to be involved in a startup, sometimes vicariously.

Preferred Stock 125

Preferred Stock Seed Stage Incubator Accredited Investor 125

Feld Thoughts

AUGUST 1, 2018

The $750 million fund combines all of our prior fund strategies – our early stage, early growth, and partner fund investments – into a single fund. When we started Foundry Group, we had four equal partners. We now have seven equal partners. The seven partners all work directly with the companies and partner funds.

Syndicate 17

Syndicate Syndication IRR Canada 17

K9 Ventures

NOVEMBER 30, 2008

The General Partners (GPs) are the operating guys. The money that the GPs and other employees of the firm invest comes from Limited Partners (LPs) — typically the big university endowments, retirement funds, charitable organizations, family offices and high net-worth individuals. This is what makes it more difficult to scale.

IRR 48

IRR Venture Capital LP Early Stage 48

David Teten

JULY 10, 2017

Angel investing is an exceptionally high-return asset class; I have collected twelve studies on angel returns in the US and UK, which show median internal rate of return (IRR) between 18 and 38 percent. My proposed model looks a bit like the way many VC funds operate internally, except with far more Partners than normal.

Employee 60

Employee Balance Sheet Syndicate Syndication 60

Steve Blank

MARCH 31, 2014

Just look at the disruptive challenges that businesses face today– globalization, China as a manufacturer, China as a consumer, the Internet, and a steady stream of new startups. Perhaps that’s because where established companies might see risks or threats, startups see opportunity. Building Innovation Internally is Hard.

Private Equity 330

Private Equity Metrics China Intellectual Property 330

View from Seed

AUGUST 17, 2021

It’s by far the longest time I’ve spent working on any one thing, and I feel very blessed to have been able to work with my partners, colleagues, founders, and collaborators. My partners will tell you that I am an incredibly impatient person. You want someone who will challenge you and be an intellectual sparring partner.

IRR 205

IRR Dilution Founder Portfolio 205

David Teten

AUGUST 21, 2019

The RBI investor is motivated to help the company grow because that speeds up the pace of revenue payback, and therefore IRR. Keith Harrington, Co-Founder & Managing Director at Novel Growth Partners, writes, “RBI may not work for a company with a super high growth trajectory, because the payments could be very large”. .

Revenue 60

Revenue Liquidation Preference Equity Cofounder 60

View from Seed

AUGUST 17, 2021

It’s by far the longest time I’ve spent working on any one thing, and I feel very blessed to have been able to work with my partners, colleagues, founders, and collaborators. My partners will tell you that I am an incredibly impatient person. You want someone who will challenge you and be an intellectual sparring partner.

IRR 156

IRR Dilution Founder Portfolio 156

View from Seed

AUGUST 17, 2021

It’s by far the longest time I’ve spent working on any one thing, and I feel very blessed to have been able to work with my partners, colleagues, founders, and collaborators. My partners will tell you that I am an incredibly impatient person. You want someone who will challenge you and be an intellectual sparring partner.

IRR 136

IRR Dilution Founder Portfolio 136

Steve Blank

AUGUST 5, 2014

When I was where you are, 36 years ago (can ya believe it) I didn’t have a plan—but I did have an aspiration: I wanted to go to Silicon Valley and I wanted to work in startups. Eventually I left Oracle, wanting to do another startup. Problem is, startups that have world changing potential are not that easy to find.

Venture Capital 335

Venture Capital Silicon Valley Chicago Cofounder 335

Both Sides of the Table

MAY 19, 2018

Or if you’re a VC raising from LPs you have to list all of your deals, your investment value, your carrying value, your multiples, your IRRs, TVPIs, DPIs, etc along with net cashflows plus your previous LPAs. I never thought of this until I became the Founder & CEO of my first startup company. Some people find this elitist?—?I

Cap Table 336

Cap Table Due Diligence Forecast Churn Rate 336

abovethecrowd.com

APRIL 20, 2016

In February of last year, Fortune magazine writers Erin Griffith and Dan Primack declared 2015 “ The Age of the Unicorns ” noting — “Fortune counts more than 80 startups that have been valued at $1 billion or more by venture capitalists.” Next came Rolfe Winkler’s deep dive “ Highly Valued Startup Zenefits Runs Into Turbulence. ”

IPO 40

IPO Term Sheet Silicon Valley Valuation 40

Hippoland

NOVEMBER 13, 2016

It takes a long time to see the results of a startup that does well. A common intermediary milestone for most investors is IRR (internal rate of return) of the fund. So there are a lot of unrealized gains built into the IRR of an early fund. Company progress on KPIs, including revenue, typically do not get factored into IRR.

IRR 48

IRR Valuation Portfolio Due Diligence 48

Agile VC

NOVEMBER 13, 2012

Some of the firm’s partners may move on to new jobs during this phase but at least some are usually still around. 4) VCs Keep Quiet About Fading Away - As described above, VC firms usually die gradually and quietly rather than spectacularly and publicly as is sometimes the case for startups. So at a fund level (e.g.

LP 154

LP Portfolio Venture Capital IRR 154

This is going to be BIG.

JULY 30, 2015

You don't want the "average" fund, because average funds don't do well--just like you don't want to model the average startup, because you might as well draw a big flaming hole in the ground. Do seed investors have Limited Partners with different return expectations than Series A and beyond investors? Time is the enemy of IRR.

Venture Capital 60

Venture Capital Pre-Money Valuation IRR Valuation 60

Ben's Blog

AUGUST 17, 2020

OH in South Park, San Francisco (or on Zoom from Big Sky, Montana): “OMG, crazy – that firm just paid 100x revenue to invest in [insert hot startup here] – what could they be thinking?” Not too shabby! Ultimately, determining a valuation is a delicate balance between many factors.

Valuation 36

Valuation Balance Sheet Cofounder Forecast 36

David Teten

NOVEMBER 23, 2020

Blue Future Partners, a venture capital fund of funds, recently interviewed me on ESG in venture capital. I’m also incubating a startup, Action Tank , to help other NGOs accomplish their goals using their supporters’ unique expertise. Concentration in consumer/branded products startups. Why is that? Firm revenues.

Venture Capital 60

Venture Capital Partner Technical Review Cofounder 60

Hunter Walker

MARCH 17, 2025

We figured that given their commitment to the asset class, so long as we did our job well and treated them like partners in our business, they would show up each fund to back us. No reason to sell winners prematurely just because of original fund length, especially given our LPs are largely cash-on-cash return focused more than IRR.

IRR 89

IRR LP Institutional Investors Portfolio 89

Hippoland

NOVEMBER 6, 2016

I was comparing my small personal angel portfolio and my investments at 500 Startups, and I noticed that on a percentage basis, the companies in my personal portfolio have been able to raise more money on average and more easily than companies in my 500 portfolio. It really pains me to write this post…but it has to be said. Why is that?

Portfolio 48

Portfolio IRR Later Stage Bootstrapping 48