Both Sides of the Table

SEPTEMBER 29, 2009

They should heed the age old advice that raising slightly more money while you can is always better than trying to optimize future valuations. Should VC’s really be impacted by public market valuations when the money that they’re investing today should be for returns in 7-10 years? Short answer – yes.

Burn Rate 263

Burn Rate Valuation Pre-Money Valuation Private Equity 263

Steve Blank

JUNE 27, 2017

Its employees and investors don’t depend on an existing revenue stream. If they select a business model that targets industry incumbents, they don’t have to worry about upsetting existing customers, partners or distribution channels. Every Airbnb rental is a lost night of revenue for hotels that hate it.

Startup 306

Startup New York City Valuation Distribution 306

Startup Professionals Musings

AUGUST 31, 2012

Make sure your plan answers every relevant question that you could possibly imagine from your business partners, spouse, and potential investors. Don’t expect them to believe your $100M revenue projection, if you are still waiting for the first revenue dollar. Get a real customer and real revenue. Only real results count.

Intellectual Property 260

Intellectual Property Sweat Equity CTO Hire Fractional CTO 260

Startup Professionals Musings

JUNE 17, 2011

Make sure your plan answers every relevant question that you could possibly imagine from your business partners, spouse, and potential investors. Don’t expect them to believe your $100M revenue projection, if you are still waiting for the first revenue dollar. Get a real customer and real revenue. Only real results count.

Intellectual Property 253

Intellectual Property Sweat Equity CTO Hire Fractional CTO 253

Both Sides of the Table

JULY 17, 2018

A firm like ours has almost 100 different investments across all the various partners so we get to see some businesses very intimately. " Revenue doesn't pay your bills, GM does  —  @msuster 2/ Founders obsess with revenue as a vanity metric. Some even grow "bad" revenue just to show growth.

Founder 242

Founder Dilution Software Review Later Stage 242

Both Sides of the Table

JUNE 22, 2011

Ah, but today’s Internet companies have real revenue! In addition to FOMO it is partly driven by massive increase in valuations for earlier-stage companies who raised money at bit seed prices but who still have product risk. And for some that means that despite waiting they may see worse valuations in the future than now.

Saudi Arabia 309

Saudi Arabia Valuation IPO Technical Review 309

Startup Professionals Musings

MAY 22, 2010

Make sure your plan answers every relevant question that you could possibly imagine from your business partners, spouse, and potential investors. Don’t expect them to believe your $100M revenue projection, if you are still waiting for the first revenue dollar. Get a real customer and real revenue. Only real results count.

Intellectual Property 222

Intellectual Property Sweat Equity CTO Hire Fractional CTO 222

VC Cafe

FEBRUARY 27, 2024

especially if the startup already has a product and revenue? Everyone moved to earlier stage – part of the decline in late stage investing is the ‘baggage’ of companies that previously raised money at inflated valuations that they would struggle to justify in today’s market.

Valuation 186

Valuation Software Review Generative AI Technical Review 186

Both Sides of the Table

AUGUST 9, 2011

Venture Capitalists typically have partners’ meetings on Mondays. So the industry formed around a day of the week when all partners could avoid having company board meetings or traveling. Valuations were enormous relative to progress in companies. This article was originally published on TechCrunch. Why is that?

Stock 305

Stock Technical Review Marketing Greece 305

Startup Professionals Musings

JANUARY 7, 2013

Your friends and family are really the only answer until you have a significant revenue stream. Use friends, family, and angels, if possible, to get a product, revenue, and customers first before the VC connection. Investment firms specialize by business sectors, and each partner within the firm has a specialty.

Venture Capital 252

Venture Capital IPO Elevator Pitch Initial Public Offering 252

Steve Blank

SEPTEMBER 14, 2009

Each VC firm/partner has a different spin on what to weigh more.) Five Quarters of Profitability During the 1980’s and through the mid 1990’s startups going public had to do something that most companies today never heard of – they had to show a track record of increasing revenue and consistent profitability.

Silicon Valley 237

Silicon Valley IPO Technical Review Venture Capital 237

Startup Professionals Musings

SEPTEMBER 16, 2023

Who would not want to join the unicorns (recent startups with a current valuation of over $1 billion)? Investors and partners now look only for a framework of your business essentials, within the context of your opportunity, solution, and financials. Just make sure you can fill in all the details.

Intellectual Property 261

Intellectual Property Entrepreneur Angel Groups Social Media 261

Startup Professionals Musings

JUNE 26, 2013

It’s higher risk, but higher return, to pick the big winners early, before Angels have set unreasonable valuations and restrictive terms. Being “lifecycle investment partners” has a downside. VCs are finding that they don’t need the “large” funds of $100M to $500M to support a portfolio, if they focus on early-stage startups.

Angel Investor 231

Angel Investor Entrepreneur Early Stage Silicon Valley 231

Startup Professionals Musings

JUNE 25, 2012

Just don’t quit your day job before your new company is producing revenue. Use this approach before you have a real valuation, a real product, or any real customers. Partner with distributor or beneficiary. Friends and family. After bootstrapping, friends and family are the most common funding sources for early-stage startups.

Technical Review 257

Technical Review Bootstrapping Venture Capital Incubator 257

Startup Professionals Musings

SEPTEMBER 9, 2010

It’s higher risk, but higher return, to pick the big winners early, before angels have set unreasonable valuations and restrictive terms. Being “lifecycle investment partners” has a downside. VCs are finding that they don’t need the “large” funds of $100M to $500M to support a portfolio, if they focus on early-stage startups.

Technical Review 215

Technical Review Early Stage Venture Capital Startup 215

Both Sides of the Table

MARCH 1, 2011

Around 2003, Quigo was doing tens of millions of dollars in revenue with two main products: a ready-to-use, search engine marketing solution for advertisers called FeedPoint and a contextual advertising platform for publishers called AdSonar. The Union Square Ventures partners started whispering in his ear that “it’s all about social now”.

Semantic 302

Semantic Acquisition Valuation Angel Investor 302

Startup Professionals Musings

MARCH 16, 2011

Just don’t quit your day job before your new company is producing revenue. Use this approach before you have a real valuation, a real product, or any real customers. Partner with distributor or beneficiary. Friends and family. After bootstrapping, friends and family are the most common funding sources for early-stage startups.

Technical Review 233

Technical Review Bootstrapping Startup Venture Capital 233

The Startup Magazine

NOVEMBER 1, 2021

To grow your brand and increase revenue, here are some handy tips on how to optimise your affiliate marketing strategy. You need to know the risk factors when picking affiliate partners, otherwise you run the risk of losing revenue. Source: Pixabay. Find the Right Affiliates. Establish a Robust Affiliate Network.

Affiliate 197

Affiliate Marketing Technical Review Software Review 197

Startup Professionals Musings

AUGUST 25, 2018

Those that do it right also have the unprecedented opportunity to join the elite ranks of 250 unicorns (relatively new companies with a current valuation of over $1 billion). These days you can create a C-corp or LLC online quickly at a low cost, to serve you well in signing partners, intellectual property, investors, and revenue.

Technical Cofounder 184

Technical Cofounder Intellectual Property Silicon Valley LLC 184

Hunter Walker

DECEMBER 13, 2020

If things are going great, you still may get a lower valuation or smaller round. It doesn’t matter what industry, what product, what revenue model, what stage of development. Of course you’ll have lots of functional partners who basically sell as a job responsibility. How does this harm occur? Yes and No.

Technical Cofounder 162

Technical Cofounder Cofounder Startup Matching 162

David Teten

AUGUST 20, 2019

A new wave of Revenue-Based Investors are emerging who are using creative investing structures with some of the upside of traditional VC, but some of the downside protection of debt. Revenue-Based Investing (“RBI”) is a new form of VC financing, distinct from the preferred equity structure most VCs use. ” .

Revenue 60

Revenue Cofounder Founder Venture Capital 60

Gust

JUNE 17, 2012

Just don’t quit your day job before your new company is producing revenue. Use this approach before you have a real valuation, a real product, or any real customers. Partner with distributor or beneficiary. Friends and family. After bootstrapping, friends and family are the most common funding sources for early-stage startups.

Technical Review 164

Technical Review Bootstrapping Venture Capital Incubator 164

The Next Web

SEPTEMBER 13, 2013

Many Asian entrepreneurs tell me that they want to raise funds from Silicon Valley firms because they perceive the valuations to be higher. In India, the leading firms are slightly more concentrated with Sequoia India , Accel Partners , and Nexus Venture Partners being a cut above the rest.

Asia 132

Asia Silicon Valley India Term Sheet 132

Startup Professionals Musings

MARCH 1, 2010

Just don’t quit your day job before your new company is producing revenue. Use this approach before you have a real valuation, a real product, or any real customers. Partner with beneficiary company. Friends and family. After bootstrapping, friends and family are the most common funding sources for early-stage startups.

Technical Review 149

Technical Review Bootstrapping Startup Venture Capital 149

YoungUpstarts

SEPTEMBER 16, 2015

by John Vrionis, partner at Lightspeed Venture Partners. What’s critical for entrepreneurs to understand is that valuations for startups do not increase at a linear rate; they increase geometrically based on achieving the right milestones. It’s part art, part science.

Valuation 100

Valuation Dilution Chicago Technical Review 100

Startup Professionals Musings

AUGUST 25, 2017

They come at the early stage while a startup has no revenue or valuation, so professional investors are hard to find. Provides networking with cofounders and strategic partners. In today’s fast moving market, the basic product development cost and time are critical to survival.

Technical Cofounder 153

Technical Cofounder Intellectual Property Wiki Cofounder 153

Both Sides of the Table

MARCH 1, 2016

At the Upfront Summit in early February, we had a chance to have many off-the-record conversations with Limited Partners (LPs) who fund Venture Capital (VC) funds about their views of the market. LPs See The Over-Valuations and Don’t Like It. All isn’t completely rosy in the LP views of the venture industry.

Venture Capital 150

Venture Capital LP Silicon Valley Marketing 150

Both Sides of the Table

FEBRUARY 16, 2017

My job as a VC isn’t to beat myself up or any other partner up for the one deal we didn’t do. We felt proud to be the lead investor in Maker Studios at a sub $5 million valuation. And we feel great about the many companies in LA that have now reached serious revenue growth.

IPO 214

IPO Los Angeles Technical Review Silicon Valley 214

VC Cafe

JULY 5, 2010

To learn more, VC Cafe interviewed Brian Rosenzweig, one of the managing partners in the new fund and the former marketing director at 21Ventures. Our objective is to double, triple or quadruple the valuations of these companies and get them ready for larger investments from VCs or other funding sources. Janvest: Yes.

Israel 106

Israel Technical Review Software Review Seed Stage 106

VC Cafe

SEPTEMBER 22, 2022

“The Centaur is a business that reaches $100 million of annual recurring revenue (ARR)—a rare breed of cloud business, part of an elite subset of the growing unicorn herd.” But becoming a Unicorn, or receiving a billion dollar valuation is no longer an indication of growth. ” Bessemer.

Software Review 109

Software Review Israel B2C Open Source 109

VC Cafe

OCTOBER 16, 2024

Voice AI applications will unlock $10B of new software TAM over the next five years Bessemer Venture Partners Remember when talking to machines felt like science fiction? For example Speak and Praktika, which use voice AI for language learning, grew very quickly to over $20M in revenue in the last 12 months.

Vertical 170

Vertical Generative AI B2C CTO Hire 170

The Startup Magazine

FEBRUARY 21, 2024

The most poignant of these challenges was the quest for capital partners, which was not just about securing capital but about finding collaborators who were willing to believe in the vision and commit to the long-term journey. Are there new revenue streams you can tap into? Are there inefficiencies that you can iron out?

Technical Review 158

Technical Review Due Diligence Bankruptcy Intellectual Property 158

David Teten

JANUARY 19, 2021

(co-written with Jamie Finney, Founding Partner at Greater Colorado Venture Fund. More and more startups are pursuing Revenue-Based VCs , but “RBI” doesn’t fit everyone. Flexible VC 101: Equity Meets Revenue Share. His work on VC and small communities can be found at greatercolorado.vc/blog. Of the Inc. 5000 companies, only 6.5%

Cofounder 78

Cofounder Technical Review Equity Dividend 78

Startup Professionals Musings

MAY 4, 2016

Who would not want to joint the unicorns (recent startups with a current valuation of over $1 billion)? Investors and partners now look only for a framework of your business essentials, within the context of your opportunity, solution, and financials. Just make sure you can fill in all the details.

Intellectual Property 120

Intellectual Property Startup Angel Groups Social Media 120

YoungUpstarts

NOVEMBER 20, 2019

by Lu Zhang, founder and managing partner of Fusion Fund. You may be able to generate revenue, but VCs want exponential growth. Instead, find the VCs that would make the most sense to partner with from a strategic perspective and explain why you want them to take the lead. Like you, they’re looking for opportunity.

Technical Review 140

Technical Review Due Diligence Early Stage Differentiation 140

betashop.com

OCTOBER 8, 2012

This past week while I was in Tokyo for meetings with potential partners for Fab, I was invited to participate in a panel discussion on startups. million registered users, 7500 supplier partners, 600 team members, and a run-rate of more than $150M in sales in just 15 months. Never, ever, choose your investors based on valuation.

Technical Review 108

Technical Review Technology Software Review Valuation 108

Startup Professionals Musings

APRIL 24, 2011

Your friends and family are really the only answer until you have a significant revenue stream. Use friends, family, and angels, if possible, to get a product, revenue, and customers first before the VC connection. Investment firms specialize by business sectors, and each partner within the firm has a specialty.

Venture Capital 233

Venture Capital Revenue Elevator Pitch Silicon Valley 233