Both Sides of the Table

JANUARY 16, 2014

For all the things he’s likely known for, he probably hasn’t yet built a strong relationship as an early stage venture investor (he invests often in later-stage deals where he is very respected). He called me 15 months later excited to show me his metrics and wanted to talk about his A round.

Silicon Valley 333

Silicon Valley Early Stage Later Stage Technical Review 333

Steve Blank

OCTOBER 24, 2017

. — Unremarked and unheralded, the balance of power between startup CEOs and their investors has radically changed: IPOs/M&A without a profit (or at times revenue) have become the norm. The startup process has become demystified – information is everywhere. Not every startup ended up this way. Board Control.

Founder 281

Founder Technical Review CTO Hire IPO 281

Startup Professionals Musings

MAY 4, 2016

The number of startups rose in 2015 for the first time in five years, with the largest year-over-year increase in two decades. Who would not want to joint the unicorns (recent startups with a current valuation of over $1 billion)? Successful startup teams today have a mix of remote employees, freelancers, and contractors.

Intellectual Property 120

Intellectual Property Startup Angel Groups Social Media 120

The Next Web

SEPTEMBER 13, 2013

Thomas Clayton has started and run numerous high-tech startups in Silicon Valley. He is currently CEO of Bubbly , a social media startup backed by Sequoia Capital, SingTel Innov8, and JAFCO. The company is one of the largest VC–backed startups in Southeast Asia, having raised over $60M in funding. Sequoia , Accel , NEA , etc.).

Asia 132

Asia Silicon Valley India Term Sheet 132

View from Seed

MARCH 19, 2015

If you’re in the tech startup industry today, you get the sense that every one of your peers wants to take on the entire world. ” Startups launched around seemingly mundane, insular problems glow about their abilities to change the world. ” So I left Google to do another startup, Agitar Software.

Product 120

Product Technical Review Marketing Lean 120

Steve Blank

MARCH 17, 2020

With the Covid-19 virus a worldwide pandemic, if you’re leading any startup or small business, you have to be asking yourself, “What’s Plan B? If you’re running a startup or small business, your first priority (after your family) is keeping your employees and customers safe. What are the new financial metrics? How do you know?

Burn Rate 436

Burn Rate Startup Valuation Sales Cycle 436

Both Sides of the Table

FEBRUARY 15, 2016

There is much talk these days that startup valuations have decreased and may continue to do so and that the amount of time it takes to fund raise may take longer. You don’t even realize that the later-stage investor doesn’t support you any more. You are in a classic cap table pinch.

Burn Rate 150

Burn Rate Cap Table Valuation Software Review 150

YoungUpstarts

JUNE 15, 2015

He may have been named by Silicon Valley thought leader Paul Graham as one of the five most interesting startup founders since 1979, but Sam’s curious penchant for wearing t-shirts over long-sleeve shirts suggests that he’s definitely too young for me. What I fell in love with was Sam’s How To Start A Startup class at Stanford.

Cofounder 100

Cofounder Delaware Startup Technical Review 100

David Teten

DECEMBER 3, 2019

See Bessemer Venture Partners’ A comprehensive guide to security for startups. Data companies focused on early-stage startups include Aingel , fundsUP , Preseries , PredictLeads , and Sploda. For more on gathering data and using it to assess companies, see How to Assess Startups Using Machine Learning. 2) Market .

Technical Review 78

Technical Review Software Review Analytics Private Equity 78

Steve Blank

JUNE 15, 2010

The role of a founding CEO in a startup searching for a business model is radically different than a CEO building and growing a company. So if you’re the founder of a startup, you may want to consider who you take money from. What startup stage do they typically invest in? What Startup Stage Do they Invest In?

Founder 232

Founder Vesting Later Stage Early Stage 232

YoungUpstarts

JUNE 22, 2020

Startups require nurturing, monitoring, and sustained investments to get off the ground. How will your startup benefit from well-crafted and valuable content? Good content that’s likely to impress search engines contains the following metrics. Can Great Content Help Startups? This will ultimately make your content great.

Affiliate 230

Affiliate Startup Later Stage Search 230

David Teten

SEPTEMBER 23, 2017

An investor had few hard metrics other than the actual financials, and little technology to make the process scaleable. Over the past few decades, better metrics became available, and investors could take a more analytical, data-driven approach. ” Historically, investing was a manual, artisan process.

Private Equity 60

Private Equity Venture Capital Equity Technical Review 60

Both Sides of the Table

MAY 27, 2016

I was speaking recently to the team at NuOrder , an LA-based company we’re an investor in about “realism in startups” — an impromptu talk I have given to any of our portfolio companies who ask. During the Q&A I was asked about how I make investment decisions in early-stage businesses. Mission driven, commercially focused.

Early Stage 254

Early Stage Non-Compete LP Later Stage 254

David Teten

JANUARY 13, 2015

I think the same goes for startup entrepreneurialism. Don recommends: Don’t just do startups “for us”. Avoid being labeled as startup from a “special group” program. I used to joke I was always “integrating” startup socials (forgive me for not giving Asian people their due credit as being minorities).

Venture Capital 60

Venture Capital Advisory Board Greece Cofounder 60

Duct Tape Marketing

SEPTEMBER 22, 2022

17:16] Is there a small set of metrics that you rely on? [19:43] We have the, again, all the DNA, as you said of a startup culture, right? Is there a small set of metrics that you rely on as. 14:08] As a mature organization, how do you balance the need for branding versus the need to acquire more users? [17:16]

SEO 98

SEO Channel Campaign Audience 98

Duct Tape Marketing

JANUARY 4, 2023

17:16] Is there a small set of metrics that you rely on? [19:43] We have the, again, all the DNA as you said, of startup culture, right? Is there a small set of metrics that you rely on as. 14:08] As a mature organization, how do you balance the need for branding versus the need to acquire more users? [17:16]

SEO 95

SEO Audience Channel Campaign 95

View from Seed

SEPTEMBER 14, 2021

Warning – this assumes some basic knowledge of VC performance metrics. Both early- and late-stage startup valuations are currently elevated. For context, seed-stage pre-money valuations are up 24% from H1 2020 to H1 2021. Early-stage valuations are up 70%, and late-stage valuations are up 103% (source Pitchbook ).

Valuation 319

Valuation Pre-Money Valuation Distribution Early Stage 319

David Teten

JANUARY 9, 2018

In venture capital, in particular, early-stage companies are often operating in frontier industries, where the rules are unpredictable and conventional analytic frameworks may be misleading. – Internal diversity.

Venture Capital 60

Venture Capital Private Equity Silicon Valley Differentiation 60

David Teten

JANUARY 9, 2018

In venture capital, in particular, early-stage companies are often operating in frontier industries, where the rules are unpredictable and conventional analytic frameworks may be misleading. – Internal diversity.

Venture Capital 60

Venture Capital Private Equity Silicon Valley Differentiation 60

View from Seed

FEBRUARY 27, 2019

Given the common challenges encountered by founders as they navigate through this hiring decision, I thought I’d outline some of my thoughts below that can hopefully serve as a simple framework when it comes to making the first Analytics hire at your startup. Analytics vs. Finance?—?what’s what’s the difference (and what do you need)?

Analytics 149

Analytics Hiring SQL Forecast 149

View from Seed

SEPTEMBER 14, 2021

Warning – this assumes some basic knowledge of VC performance metrics. Both early- and late-stage startup valuations are currently elevated. For context, seed-stage pre-money valuations are up 24% from H1 2020 to H1 2021. Early-stage valuations are up 70%, and late-stage valuations are up 103% (source Pitchbook ).

Valuation 295

Valuation Pre-Money Valuation Distribution Early Stage 295

K9 Ventures

JUNE 5, 2015

So while the infrastructure cost and startup costs may have declined, the operating costs have increased. Together this means that Seed stage companies need to run longer and at a higher expense structure, meaning they need to raise a lot more capital. Well, enter the Pre-Seed round, where the startup raises closer to $500K.

Seed Stage 48

Seed Stage Venture Capital Early Stage Valuation 48

View from Seed

FEBRUARY 17, 2015

Going to business school and becoming a startup founder are often positioned as conflicting choices by the media and startup bloggers. That’s a pretty astounding figure, especially when you consider that many students in the latter years of that cohort have yet to raise or have yet to raise later-stage, larger rounds.

North America 120

North America Founder Cofounder San Francisco 120

Reid Hoffman

JANUARY 19, 2021

True, many boards are dysfunctional, but when you build a great startup board, it will be a powerful tool that can help the CEO make the company successful. This essay, which is based on Part 1 of a two-part episode of the Greymatter Podcast, will cover the fundamentals of building great startup boards.

Startup 36

Startup Cofounder Advertising Hiring 36

Version One Ventures

SEPTEMBER 6, 2017

Naively thinking that the problem was our own capacity to sift through the large quantity of startups (and not the fact that there is a large noise to signal ratio), I asked myself, what if I just developed a model to find more companies? I then applied some ML algorithms in an attempt to predict startup success.

Seed Stage 126

Seed Stage Later Stage Algorithm API 126

View from Seed

JUNE 5, 2018

The quest for building such hiring machine is universal across companies at various stages. Keeping that in mind, we designed the program in such way that later-stage portfolio companies such as Dia&Co and MealPal could gain insights alongside younger ones such as Voodoo Manufacturing , ExecThread , and Virgent Realty.

Hiring 120

Hiring Portfolio Metrics B2C 120

Both Sides of the Table

AUGUST 25, 2015

In a period of “uncertainty” about the future venture capital rounds take longer – particularly later-stage deals. And it doesn’t change the fact that our late-stage venture markets are over-valued relative to public markets, so either. public stocks go up and privates can grow into IPOs; or.

Balance Sheet 150

Balance Sheet Valuation Burn Rate Stock 150

The Startup Magazine

OCTOBER 24, 2018

You can go with the base plan for starters and choose to upgrade in the later stages for additional features such as full API access and multiple monetization options. Video performance analytics to see video metrics, audience metrics, and popular content trending on the platform. Multiple monetization options.

Software 135

Software Bandwidth API Flash 135

cdixon.org

AUGUST 3, 2012

Entrepreneurs and investors have been enamored with consumer internet startups for the last few years. Some observations: - Thousands of early-stage consumer web/mobile companies were started and funded in last 24 months. Hence, many early-stage consumer startups are switching to transactional models. -

Bridge Financing 86

Bridge Financing Early Stage Valuation Later Stage 86

View from Seed

MARCH 10, 2015

So that was an early tradeoff the team made as a startup within a startup. NVV: Even though BR was a later-stage startup at that point, you mentioned being that proverbial “startup within a startup.” NVV: What key metrics did you track to make sure you were heading in the right direction?

Mobile 120

Mobile San Francisco Curation Seed Stage 120

ReadWriteStart

AUGUST 26, 2022

I founded a startup years ago, and that’s how I started getting a taste of it. The startup didn’t work out, but I found ways to be around it, whether it was on the sales side in Goldman for a few years. How does that translate into advice that you give to your startups? What guidance for your portfolio companies?

Partner 132

Partner Cofounder Retention Acquisition 132

View from Seed

SEPTEMBER 14, 2021

Warning – this assumes some basic knowledge of VC performance metrics. Both early- and late-stage startup valuations are currently elevated. For context, seed-stage pre-money valuations are up 24% from H1 2020 to H1 2021. Early-stage valuations are up 70%, and late-stage valuations are up 103% (source Pitchbook ).

Valuation 156

Valuation Pre-Money Valuation Distribution Early Stage 156

Rob Go

AUGUST 12, 2013

A popular meme in startup investing right now is on the increasingly data-driven nature of the industry. These companies did have some solid metrics, but they did not see hockey-stick like momentum and there were still a hundred reasons why they could fail. Now, I don’t think quantitative approaches to VC are useless.

Hockey Stick 69

Hockey Stick Early Stage Later Stage Portfolio 69

K9 Ventures

OCTOBER 10, 2017

If the Micro-VCs are looking for Series A-like metrics, what does a company do when it’s just getting started? Well, enter the Pre-Seed round, where the startup raises closer to $500K. That post was written with later stage companies in mind, but I’m now starting to see the same issues crop up in companies at earlier stages as well.

Seed Stage 82

Seed Stage Finance Later Stage Equity 82

This is going to be BIG.

MARCH 30, 2015

Will this bubble also end in a blaze of glory with companies shutting down left and right in a massive startup apocalypse? Enter the Zombie Startup Apocalypse. All of the sudden, Facebook ad pricing would become reasonable enough again for startups to start using it. Doesn''t every good run have to come to an end?

Hockey Stick 60

Hockey Stick Valuation Startup Maryland 60

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

Austin Startup

AUGUST 30, 2018

Austin has built a name for itself within the startup scene, ranking among the top cities in the U.S. For the Central and Southern regions of the United States, the city is the crowned jewel of startup communities. The tens-of-millions-of-dollars rounds aren’t going to the early-stage startups. for funding amounts.

Austin 48

Austin San Francisco Early Stage Later Stage 48