Tim Keane

JANUARY 12, 2010

Term-sheets and Valuations: Thinking about Negotiations. Please see later version of this post on May 16, 2010 Entrepreneurs are often not experts in the area of term-sheet negotiations and all of the surrounding issues.   Investors sometimes “present” the terms they’d like and expect the entrepreneurs to react.

Term Sheet 68

Term Sheet Valuation Dividend Liquidation Preference 68

Both Sides of the Table

AUGUST 8, 2009

Your friends and advisers tell you that this means you need revenue because in this economy VC’s will only fund businesses with revenue. So if it’s not necessarily revenue that’s preventing an investment, then WTF is traction? They get positive product reviews on TechCrunch, GigaOm or Paidcontent.org.

Technical Review 309

Technical Review Term Sheet Venture Capital Revenue 309

View from Seed

SEPTEMBER 4, 2018

Amidst the rise of new funds, new technologies, and potentially disruptive late stage players, I thought it was important to share what we consider to be our core operating principles here at NextView. . As seed funds have raised larger and larger funds, more have developed the muscle around issuing term sheets and “leading”.

North America 120

North America Seed Stage Early Stage Lead Investor 120

Both Sides of the Table

JULY 29, 2010

We received so much positive feedback from our This Week in Venture Capital show walking through valuation calculations & term sheets that we decided to do a Q&A show this week to address topics that entrepreneurs want to learn about. Q: “If you have a term sheet on the table how should you leverage with other VCs?&#

Venture Capital 282

Venture Capital Term Sheet Valuation Stock Options 282

Agile VC

MAY 26, 2011

AGILEVC My idle thoughts on tech startups. This also appears as a guest post at Fortune’s Term Sheet. Silicon Valley is still emerging from the tech bubble and massive downturn of late 2000-2002. We got to term sheet a bit quicker, but from start to the close was basically June to Nov 2003.

Term Sheet 178

Term Sheet Silicon Valley Technical Review Social Network 178

YoungUpstarts

OCTOBER 12, 2017

Many of these companies are pre-revenue and in the cash burn stage as they try to establish their technology and market. Obtaining term sheets, note agreements, or even emails from lead investors stating their intentions to continue funding the entity may help support management’s assertion that they can raise more capital.

San Francisco 133

San Francisco Forecast Early Stage Term Sheet 133

David Teten

DECEMBER 3, 2019

When I met my now-wife, I realized that any technology that can find me a spouse is a killer app. I’d argue that the same type of technologies that have revolutionized dating can revolutionize our industry. . I walk through below how progressive investors are using technology and analytics throughout all of their operations.

Technical Review 78

Technical Review Software Review Analytics Private Equity 78

Both Sides of the Table

DECEMBER 17, 2009

Ability to Pivot – I don’t like to invest in people that I’ve never met before who come through my office wanting to have a term sheet within 30 days. Yes, there is the mythical company you all heard about that walked into Sequoia and had a term sheet 24 hours later. I’m sure that happens.

Entrepreneur 291

Entrepreneur Term Sheet Early Stage Affiliate 291

The Next Web

SEPTEMBER 13, 2013

Thomas Clayton has started and run numerous high-tech startups in Silicon Valley. They want to see cash flow quickly (you cannot wait 2-3 years before determining your revenue model, like in Silicon Valley), so make sure you’re ready for this next step and have a solid plan in place on how to accomplish it.

Asia 132

Asia Silicon Valley India Term Sheet 132

Austin Startup

NOVEMBER 12, 2017

Is third-year revenue of $10M good or bad? If, however, you bring them a technology deal that is outside their comfort zone, they literally need it handed to them on a platter. In that case, you are not making a specific offer; you are soliciting a terms sheet. A price of $2 per share means nothing in itself.

Term Sheet 48

Term Sheet Technical Review Due Diligence Merger 48

This is going to be BIG.

OCTOBER 12, 2020

Moat, the biggest exit out of the bunch, was sourced when I met Mike Walrath at a tech event. He said they’d consider any “special situations” funds I was doing—at which point I realized that he had never even looked at the deck and had zero intentions of doing any real diligence. I had a few people on the hook, but it was short-lived.

LP 122

LP Technical Review Software Review Valuation 122

Steve Blank

APRIL 9, 2009

And it was going to mention the two words that SuperMac marketing needed to live and breathe: revenue and profit. competitive analyses, channel and customer collateral (white papers, data sheets, product reviews), customer surveys, and market requirements documents. Two paragraphs, Five bullets.

Silicon Valley 272

Silicon Valley Technical Review RSS PR 272

K9 Ventures

APRIL 27, 2011

As a two person team Arlo and AJ built out the whole site and the back-end technology — and built it to scale — at one point they did a A/B test on Zappos and were easily able to handle all the traffic coming to the Zappos test site while being able to show results from the enormous Zappos inventory.

Software Review 134

Software Review Technical Review IP Finance 134

This is going to be BIG.

SEPTEMBER 30, 2012

How else can you explain this headline matching a story about a professional social network still trying to explore revenues raising $17mm on an $80mm valuation? This is a company that, according to the article, got term sheets from half of the VCs that expressed interest in the company. Perhaps I need to rethink that.

Venture Capital 112

Venture Capital Marketing Term Sheet Software Review 112

Rob Go

SEPTEMBER 4, 2018

Amidst the rise of new funds, new technologies, and potentially disruptive late stage players, I thought it was important to share what we consider to be our core operating principles here at NextView. . As seed funds have raised larger and larger funds, more have developed the muscle around issuing term sheets and “leading”.

North America 36

North America Seed Stage Early Stage Lead Investor 36

Scalable Startup

MARCH 7, 2012

Investor groups are cutting out the management, bus dev, sales, and marketing professionals, trying to get raw, young engineering teams that have never negotiated a term sheet to give away their IP rights and equity for next to nothing. The signal to noise ratio continues to degrade, but it’s actually moving into the next phase.

Software Review 26

Software Review Technical Review Los Angeles Due Diligence 26

Sophia Perl of Wisdom

NOVEMBER 9, 2010

Some of the finalists were generating revenues already and/or have very promising strategic partnerships lined up. Use the 10-5-3-1 formula for raising money: Have 10 great meetings with investors, 5 of those do detailed due diligience on your company, get 3 term sheets, and 1 transfer into your bank account!

CTO Hire 49

CTO Hire Cofounder Fractional CTO San Francisco 49

Sophia Perl of Wisdom

NOVEMBER 9, 2010

Some of the finalists were generating revenues already and/or have very promising strategic partnerships lined up. Use the 10-5-3-1 formula for raising money: Have 10 great meetings with investors, 5 of those do detailed due diligience on your company, get 3 term sheets, and 1 transfer into your bank account!

CTO Hire 40

CTO Hire Cofounder Fractional CTO San Francisco 40

Both Sides of the Table

FEBRUARY 25, 2010

We had many term sheets (it was 1999 and we had a pulse) and we were deciding which one to take. We were trying to optimize around a few criteria: price, size of round, number of syndicate partners and, of course, terms. We ended up agreeing a term sheet for $16.5 6 weeks’ later he didn’t have other term sheets.

Technical Review 301

Technical Review Term Sheet Due Diligence Venture Capital 301

Berkonomics

DECEMBER 17, 2020

In most cases, these applicants for equity funding must be rooted in technology to apply to this limited discussion. You will be given a “term sheet” during the process, calling out the terms proposed for the investment. Friends and family investors. Accelerators.

Equity 62

Equity Finance Liquidity Event Angel Groups 62

reidhoffman.org

NOVEMBER 12, 2013

we weren’t the natural leader of a market or technology trend that everyone was paying attention to, we didn’t have substantial organic growth, and. we had no revenue. As a result, we knew that our pitch would need to steer into investors’ biggest concern: the lack of revenue. Investors see a lot of pitches. Why is it valuable?

Entrepreneur 111

Entrepreneur Viral Revenue Networking 111

Steve Blank

NOVEMBER 5, 2009

A Progress Graph on the right visually shows how far you’ve come (in whatever units of goodness you’re tracking – revenue, units, users, etc.) Good if you have your own money, better if the cash comes from investors, but best if it’s revenues from customers.

Customer Development 270

Customer Development Developer Customer Silicon Valley 270

Both Sides of the Table

SEPTEMBER 2, 2009

We should end the year with a few million in fully recurring revenue and we’re projected to double next year. But more spend = more viral opps = more revenue down the road. >50% of our revenue in now viral. year old boy and another one due in 1 months. Many term sheets ensued.

Founder 329

Founder Liquidation Preference Term Sheet Participating Preferred 329

www.paulgraham.com

APRIL 28, 2010

I wassurprised recently when I realized that all the worst problems wefaced in our startup were due not to competitors, but investors.Dealing with competitors was easy by comparison. There never has to be atime when you have no revenues. I dont mean to suggest that our investors were nothing but a dragon us. Whendel.icio.us

Technical Review 76

Technical Review Startup Software Review Angel Investor 76

abovethecrowd.com

APRIL 20, 2016

In late 2015, many public technology companies saw a significant retrenchment in their share prices primarily as a result of a reduction in valuation multiples. A high performing, high-growth SAAS company that may have been worth 10 or more times revenue was suddenly worth 4-7 times revenue. Who are the Sharks?

IPO 40

IPO Term Sheet Silicon Valley Valuation 40

techcrunch.com

NOVEMBER 2, 2010

I wouldn’t recommend this if you’re meeting with more than 2 people, but this meeting was one of my best and resulted in a term sheet. This is typically due to the founder bringing an excess of slides, most of which at this point are unnecessary. Deep technology overview. Why did this work? Slide 2: The Numbers.

Technical Review 100

Technical Review San Francisco Framework Term Sheet 100

Startup Lessons Learned

AUGUST 17, 2020

They found ways to support longterm care facilities, homeless shelters, and other locations serving those most at risk, all while schools, their main source of revenue, were closed. We literally started just as we got our first term sheet for investment on the day that we graduated from business school in June of 2006.

Cofounder 60

Cofounder Security Founder Entrepreneur 60

Life Beyond Code

SEPTEMBER 27, 2011

One Million by One Million is a global initiative that aims to nurture a million entrepreneurs reach a million dollars each in annual revenue and beyond by 2020, thereby creating a trillion dollars in global GDP and ten million jobs. 1M/1M Program has a bold mission. This is where numerous ventures fail.

Programming 116

Programming Silicon Valley Bootstrapping Technical Review 116

mashable.com

JUNE 11, 2013

For young entrepreneurs, especially non-technical founders like myself, it feels like our big idea is all we have, and we want to guard it like a defenseless baby. And usually, its something that has a serious revenue-generating impact on my company. Follow @mashable. see more > Search. Social Media. Entertainment. US & World.

Cofounder 111

Cofounder Technical Review Startup Software Review 111

ReadWriteStart

OCTOBER 6, 2011

Sramana Mitra is the founder of the One Million by One Million (1M/1M) initiative, an educational, business development and incubation program that aims to help one million entrepreneurs globally to reach $1 million in revenue and beyond. The company has generated excellent investor interest and multiple term sheets.

Silicon Valley 118

Silicon Valley India San Francisco Entrepreneur 118