Startup Professionals Musings

DECEMBER 28, 2010

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. Depending on the availability of staff and needed information, the due diligence process generally takes 2–6 weeks to perform.

Technical Review 229

Technical Review Due Diligence Term Sheet Angel Investor 229

Startup Professionals Musings

OCTOBER 6, 2023

For the elite startups and entrepreneurs who manage to attract the investor they dream of, and survive the term sheet negotiation, there is still one more hurdle before the money is in the bank. This is the mysterious and dreaded due diligence process, which can kill the whole deal.

Technical Review 296

Technical Review Due Diligence Term Sheet Bankruptcy 296

Startup Professionals Musings

MAY 11, 2020

Even though the color of their money is always green, all startup investors are not the same. Struggling entrepreneurs are often so happy to get a funding offer that they neglect the recommended reverse due diligence on the investors. Personally visit another startup funded by this investor. It’s no fun for either side.

Technical Review 310

Technical Review Due Diligence Term Sheet Offshore 310

Startup Professionals Musings

APRIL 18, 2021

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. Depending on the availability of staff and needed information, the due diligence process generally takes 2–6 weeks to perform.

Technical Review 380

Technical Review Due Diligence Term Sheet Angel Investor 380

Startup Professionals Musings

JANUARY 17, 2015

For the elite startups and entrepreneurs who manage to attract the investor they dream of, and survive the term sheet negotiation, there is still one more hurdle before the money is in the bank. This is the mysterious and dreaded due diligence process, which can kill the whole deal.

Technical Review 120

Technical Review Due Diligence Startup Term Sheet 120

Gust

NOVEMBER 14, 2011

After you have successfully attracted angels or venture capital with your business case, your million dollar product idea, and you have a signed term sheet, there is still one more hurdle to overcome before investors write the check. This is the dreaded “due diligence” process. Product or service readiness. Waste no time.

Technical Review 152

Technical Review Due Diligence Intellectual Property Private Equity 152

Startup Professionals Musings

SEPTEMBER 10, 2014

Even though the color of their money is always green, all startup investors are not the same. Struggling entrepreneurs are often so happy to get a funding offer that they neglect the recommended reverse due diligence on the investors. Personally visit another startup funded by this investor. It’s no fun for either side.

Technical Review 257

Technical Review Due Diligence Term Sheet Offshore 257

Both Sides of the Table

SEPTEMBER 25, 2010

Having re-read it, I believe his real premise instead is, “Fixed-size, multi-investor angel rounds are such a bad idea for startups that one wonders why things were ever done that way.&#. Either would be fine with startups, so long as they can easily change their valuation. When I’m in, I’m in. rings true to me.

Finance 286

Finance Term Sheet Technical Review Warrant 286

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

Both Sides of the Table

APRIL 13, 2011

My initial desire to blog came from something that’s always been my approach to investing – I’m a nerd and I love to play with the technology and part of my approach has really been to understand things both at a user level and at a reasonably deep tentacle level. Brad on blogging. How did you start blogging? “My Is that when it became big?

Technical Review 288

Technical Review Venture Capital Silicon Valley Software Review 288

Both Sides of the Table

OCTOBER 19, 2014

Because the hundreds of millions that it takes to greenlight a theatrical film could never be absorbed by a startup and because they way we experience media & characters has evolved dramatically over the past 20 years to a point where the starting point for media is often digital, gaming or even graphic novel oriented. And Seriously.

Technical Review 373

Technical Review North America Los Angeles Cofounder 373

The Startup Magazine

SEPTEMBER 15, 2020

Many companies need venture capital funding, including startups. It is a type of financing that investors can provide to startups and small businesses which are believed to have the potential for success in the long term. They often invest in the technology industry and in other areas with great potential for growth.

Venture Capital 145

Venture Capital Technical Review Software Review Security 145

Both Sides of the Table

JULY 29, 2009

You finally get your first term sheet. They’re giving me 48 hours to sign the term sheet or it expires? Will they really pull the term sheet if I don’t sign? Will they really pull the term sheet if I don’t sign? First, every term sheet has an expiration date in it.

Term Sheet 197

Term Sheet Technical Review Due Diligence Venture Capital 197

Both Sides of the Table

FEBRUARY 14, 2010

We were super excited by their offering – they had patented technology in a field that we believe will continue to grow massively. During the final pre-term sheet due diligence we discovered that the CEO had had a felony arrest for a significant crime that he hadn’t disclosed to us.

Technical Review 284

Technical Review Due Diligence Entrepreneur Early Stage 284

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

Both Sides of the Table

AUGUST 8, 2009

They get positive product reviews on TechCrunch, GigaOm or Paidcontent.org. It’s marketing 101 for tech companies in terms of how you market to customers. And I know many stories of Benchmark or similar investors writing term sheets after the first meeting. They hire key staff. They make progress.

Technical Review 309

Technical Review Term Sheet Venture Capital Revenue 309

Startup Professionals Musings

JANUARY 20, 2019

But people are still begging for more technology or laws, often to protect them from themselves. Deposit required to hold your terms. In this scam, you are offered a very attractive term sheet due to close in 90 days or so, with a deposit required to hold your position while due diligence is being conducted.

Technical Review 228

Technical Review Non-disclosure Agreement Due Diligence Term Sheet 228

Steve Blank

NOVEMBER 5, 2009

Unfortunately in early stage startups the drive for financing hijacks the corporate DNA and becomes the raison d’etre of the company. Chasing funding versus chasing customers and a repeatable and scalable business model, is one reason startups fail. The goal of their startup in this stage becomes “getting funded.”

Customer Development 270

Customer Development Developer Customer Silicon Valley 270

Both Sides of the Table

MARCH 15, 2010

I’ve talked about how Twitter is a new form of RSS (curated RSS), it’s a a new form of IM / SMS , it’s a place where business is conducted and it’s a place where advertising will drive leads due to the link sharing nature of Twitter. I started reading Brad’s “term sheet&# series.

Social Network 347

Social Network Networking Southern California Term Sheet 347

SoCal CTO

JULY 13, 2010

Some great content around the intersection of startups and being a Startup CTO in June this year. This continues my series of posts: Top 29 Startup Posts May 2010 Startup CTO Top 30 Posts for April 16 Great Startup Posts from March There was some really great content in June. It shows a lack of interest.

Cofounder 175

Cofounder Technical Cofounder Term Sheet Startup 175

Gust

MAY 22, 2012

We now have an investment in Cascade ProDrug, using technology developed at our own University of Oregon (based in Eugene, where I live) to help people fight cancer by reducing the toxic effects of chemotherapy. We have a standard term sheet as a starting point. This year we started with more than 30 submissions from startups.

Technical Review 111

Technical Review Oregon Due Diligence Term Sheet 111

Startup Professionals Musings

SEPTEMBER 26, 2013

But people are still begging for more technology or laws, often to protect them from themselves. Deposit required to hold your terms. In this scam, you are offered a very attractive term sheet due to close in 90 days or so, with a deposit required to hold your position while due diligence is being conducted.

Technical Review 202

Technical Review Non-disclosure Agreement Due Diligence Entrepreneur 202

Startup Professionals Musings

MARCH 27, 2016

Even though the color of their money is always green, all startup investors are not the same. Struggling entrepreneurs are often so happy to get a funding offer that they neglect the recommended reverse due diligence on the investors. Personally visit another startup funded by this investor. It’s no fun for either side.

Technical Review 120

Technical Review Due Diligence Term Sheet Offshore 120

ReadWriteStart

MARCH 31, 2020

Venture capital investment is one of the top places startups look out for when seeking funding for their business alongside other popular options like angel investing and crowdfunding. In the same vein, various technological innovations such as artificial intelligence have made VC funding easier and less biased.

Technical Review 175

Technical Review Artificial Inteligence Startup Term Sheet 175

Gust

DECEMBER 27, 2012

The expectation is that in an era of increasing technology and decreasing costs, you will be bringing them an operating company with at least some traction. Start by letting absolutely everyone know that you’ve got a great startup looking for early investors. Now, and only now, are you prepared to start fundraising.

Software Review 164

Software Review Term Sheet Technical Review Angel Investor 164

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

Both Sides of the Table

SEPTEMBER 2, 2009

year old boy and another one due in 1 months. Many term sheets ensued. I had that against the backdrop of several term sheets. Tags: Pitching VCs Start-up Advice VC Industry startup technology vc venture capital. And then the offer came in to buy my company. Tweet This Post Facebook.

Founder 329

Founder Liquidation Preference Term Sheet Participating Preferred 329

ithacaVC

DECEMBER 9, 2013

We (Cayuga Venture Fund) just signed up a term sheet with a new company (Company X). Rather I want to briefly comment on the process leading up to the term sheet and next steps. So our diligence and exploration process took us 4 months. It involved Company X finding a technology lead during our process.

Term Sheet 58

Term Sheet Cap Table Technical Review IP 58

Both Sides of the Table

MAY 10, 2018

I remind founders that the no’s come early because it’s super easy to qualify out a deal that you know is unlikely due to stage, focus, geography, competitive deal you’ve done or even just the fact that you’re too busy right now. When you finally get a term sheet you get three. These are the “lemons that ripen early.”

Term Sheet 232

Term Sheet France Technical Review Restful 232

Tim Keane

JANUARY 12, 2010

Startups and angels: Along the way to success. 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. The Valuation Question. Let’s start at the end.

Term Sheet 68

Term Sheet Valuation Dividend Liquidation Preference 68

Steve Blank

NOVEMBER 12, 2009

But Cafepress’s most memorable moment was when the founders used a “Lessons Learned” VC pitch to raise their second round of funding and got an 8-digit term sheet that same afternoon. The presentation didn’t have a single word about Lean Startups or Customer Development. Here’s how they did it.

Venture Capital 245

Venture Capital Silicon Valley RSS Hockey Stick 245

Steve Blank

APRIL 9, 2009

If these sound like reasonable answers to you, and you are in a startup/small company, update your resume. Titles are not your job When I pressed my staff to explain why marketing did trade shows, or wrote press releases or penned data sheets, the best I could get was “why that’s our job.”

Silicon Valley 271

Silicon Valley Technical Review RSS PR 271

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

VC Cafe

JANUARY 30, 2023

It’s also worth checking YC’s series A due diligence checklist. A well-organised data room can play a crucial role in making the process more efficient, and get the money quicker into the startup’s bank account. Today, I want to share another resource that is a bit underrated – the data room.

Technical Review 79

Technical Review Due Diligence Cap Table Startup 79

This is going to be BIG.

APRIL 13, 2022

Whenever I submit a term sheet, I always caveat it by saying the following: “This is the one time we’re completely misaligned. What’s harder to notice for a founder is all of the things that a founder isn’t being asked to review in detail that a VC has no problem trusting the founder on. Founders seem to get that.

Founder 166

Founder Fiji CTO Hire Term Sheet 166

VC Cafe

AUGUST 11, 2022

And so a large part of the VCs time is focused on the question ‘who should I invest in’ Equally important though, is the question of why should a founder/ startup take your money. If you agree that the top founders are likely to receive multiple term-sheets, then the importance of founder-investor fit increases.

Founder 187

Founder Term Sheet Cofounder Venture Capital 187

Mucker Lab

AUGUST 27, 2014

At the time, LA and Santa Clara were both the epicenter of the technology industry due to the significant overlap between the aerospace/military industry (Los Angeles) and the computing business (Silicon Valley). Given our backgrounds, we often get asked about what makes the tech scene in Los Angeles different from that in the Valley.

Los Angeles 138

Los Angeles Southern California Silicon Valley Technical Review 138