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The Due Diligence Hierarchy of Pain

View from Seed

When a founder is raising money, he/she should expect that any serious investor will conduct some level of due diligence before getting to yes. More mature companies will have to answer more detailed questions around their tech, product, and business. This could look somewhat different depending on the maturity of the business.

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How To Prepare Your New Venture For Investor Scrutiny

Startup Professionals Musings

This is the mysterious and dreaded due diligence process, which can kill the whole deal. Some entrepreneurs do very little to prepare for due diligence, assuming all the talking has already been done, and the business plan and results to-date tell the right story. Visit reference customers, partners, and vendors.

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The Audacious Plan to Make Electricity as Easy as WiFi

Both Sides of the Table

The practical uses for uBeam technology is limitless. Did anybody hold patents that would prevent us from using this technology? I seldom hire patent attorneys during due diligence but this was too important. We hired IP specialists to review prior art. Did the physics actually work? Was it safe? It was impressive.

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4 Keys To A Successful Integrity Check With Investors

Startup Professionals Musings

This is the mysterious and dreaded due diligence process, which can kill the whole deal. Some entrepreneurs do very little to prepare for due diligence, assuming all the talking has already been done, and the business plan and results to-date tell the right story. Visit reference customers, partners, and vendors.

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5 Steps To Finding The Best Investor For Your Startup

Startup Professionals Musings

Struggling entrepreneurs are often so happy to get a funding offer that they neglect the recommended reverse due diligence on the investors. Investor due diligence on a startup is not a mysterious black art, but is nothing more than a final integrity check on all aspects of your business model, team, product, customers, and plan.

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Can Your New Venture Pass The Scrutiny Of Investors?

Startup Professionals Musings

If your startup is great enough to get a term sheet from angel investors or a venture capitalist, the next step for the investor is to complete the dreaded due diligence process. Some startups do nothing to prepare for the due diligence process, assuming the people and business plan documents will speak for themselves.

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How to Make Better Reference Calls

Both Sides of the Table

Reference calls. Ask for at least 5 references. As your candidate for at least 5 references. Ask for at least 5 references. As your candidate for at least 5 references. Don’t worry about the fact that these are the references that the candidate has hand-picked – that’s part of the process.