Startup Professionals Musings

FEBRUARY 1, 2021

Thus, based on my experience as an entrepreneur as well as a startup investor, there are indeed situations where a non-disclosure is highly recommended, and others where the potential good far outweighs the risk. Here are the key considerations from my perspective: Dealing with known or trusted investors and advisors.

Non-disclosure Agreement 399

Non-disclosure Agreement Technical Review Due Diligence Angel Investor 399

Startup Professionals Musings

FEBRUARY 29, 2020

One of the myths I often hear as an advisor to many entrepreneurs is that their lifestyle would somehow be better if they could more easily find other people’s money to build their startup. Usually it pays to move a startup slower rather than risk relationships. Many times friends and family have been broken by failed investments.

Bootstrapping 310

Bootstrapping Advisory Board Startup Venture Capital 310

Startup Professionals Musings

FEBRUARY 10, 2023

Even though the color of their money is always green, all startup investors are not the same. 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. It’s no fun for either side.

Technical Review 345

Technical Review Due Diligence Term Sheet Offshore 345

Startup Professionals Musings

MAY 1, 2020

In my experience, the Silicon Valley startup model, focused on disrupting established industries, has treated the USA well and created some great global businesses. It has played almost no role in the emergence of current non-US bred startups, including Alibaba in China, Waze from Israel, Paytm in India, and many more.

Silicon Valley 312

Silicon Valley Indonesia Venture Capital Global 312

Steve Blank

JANUARY 17, 2023

Three types of organizations – Incubators, Accelerators and Venture Studios – have emerged to reduce the risk of early-stage startup failure by helping teams find product/market fit and raise initial capital. They do the most to de-risk the early stages of a startup. Reducing Startup Risk.

Technical Cofounder 368

Technical Cofounder Intellectual Property Technical Review Incubator 368

Startup Professionals Musings

DECEMBER 6, 2019

The “valley of death” is a common term in the startup world, referring to the difficulty of covering the negative cash flow in the early stages of a startup, before their new product or service is bringing in revenue from real customers. Join a startup incubator. Only one-third make it past their tenth anniversary.

Finance 320

Finance Intellectual Property Technical Review Incubator 320

The Startup Magazine

FEBRUARY 26, 2024

Venture capital: it’s the jet fuel behind many of the most explosive startups turning them into household names. However, as the business landscape evolves at a breakneck pace, so too does the strategy of these financial titans, starting a whole new set of venture capital trends.

Venture Capital 148

Venture Capital Technical Review Due Diligence Early Stage 148

Startup Professionals Musings

NOVEMBER 7, 2021

No real investor or venture capital firm asks for money from the company they are intending to invest in. Work at home to fund your startup. Off-shore unsolicited investor offers. Unsolicited foreign investors that contact you on the Internet need extra scrutiny.

Technical Review 371

Technical Review Due Diligence Non-disclosure Agreement Term Sheet 371

Startup Professionals Musings

NOVEMBER 26, 2022

One of the myths I often hear as an advisor to many entrepreneurs is that their lifestyle would somehow be better if they could more easily find other people’s money to build their startup. Usually it pays to move a startup slower rather than risk relationships. Many times friends and family have been broken by failed investments.

Cost 267

Cost Bootstrapping Advisory Board Startup 267

VC Cafe

JULY 26, 2020

“After the crash, venture capital was scarce to non-existent. VC’s were no longer insisting that startups spend faster, and “swing for the fences”. It was a nuclear winter for startup capital.” ” Steve Blank, “Is the lean startup dead?” Maximum Viable Product.

Lean 214

Lean Seed Capital Startup Burn Rate 214

VC Cafe

APRIL 26, 2021

Readers of VC Cafe know that I collect and curate Israeli startup landscape maps. There are over 88 Israeli insurtech startups vying to be the next in line. In March 2021, Israeli venture capital fund Benson Oak introduced a “passionware” as a new category of software tools and platforms? July 2020 , May 2019.

Israel 215

Israel Technical Review Artificial Inteligence Startup 215

Both Sides of the Table

DECEMBER 16, 2014

We’ve been dying to tell you all for a while that we had raised a new venture capital fund and of course given SEC filing requirements the story was somewhat already scooped by the always-in-the-know Dan Primack a few weeks ago. Why do they invest in venture capital? We raised $280 million.

Las Vegas 396

Las Vegas St. Louis Southern California San Diego 396

Startup Professionals Musings

FEBRUARY 27, 2021

More and more entrepreneurs are hearing about the successful graduates and investors queued behind a few well-known startup incubators, including Y Combinator, TechStars, and the Founder Institute. His tests focus on personality traits alone (ignoring your startup idea), looking for fluid intelligence, openness, and agreeableness.

Incubator 366

Incubator Technical Review Due Diligence Venture Capital 366

Both Sides of the Table

FEBRUARY 12, 2019

Over the past month a colleague ( Chang Xu ) and I sifted through data on the venture capital industry (as we do every year) and made a bunch of calls to VCs and LPs to confirm our hypotheses. As a result of the IPO window shifting we saw a massive inflow of public-market capital into the latest stages of venture.

Venture Capital 328

Venture Capital Technical Review Seed Stage IPO 328

Steve Blank

APRIL 4, 2023

Simultaneously, new startups are forming, and venture capital is already pouring money into the field at an outstanding rate that will only accelerate the impact of this generation of AI. Goldman Sachs economists predict that 300 million jobs could be affected by the latest wave of AI. Welcome to our brave new world.

ChatGPT 424

ChatGPT Artificial Inteligence Intellectual Property API 424

Both Sides of the Table

FEBRUARY 20, 2019

If you haven’t raised any money or if you raised a small round from angels or friends & family I would suggest you avoid setting up a formal board unless the people who would join your board are deeply experienced at sitting on startup boards. What happens at the A-round of venture capital? But it’s quite rare.

Venture Capital 236

Venture Capital Startup Angel Investor Silicon Valley 236

ReadWriteStart

DECEMBER 15, 2022

Startup studios continue to grow in popularity as incubators for new businesses. Rather than simply launching one startup, the startup studio model creates an organization whose business is launching startups. These can then be repeated and improved on with each successive startup.

Incubator 188

Incubator Startup Software Development Software Developers 188

Both Sides of the Table

DECEMBER 11, 2022

Something happened in the past 7 years in the startup and venture capital world that I hadn’t experienced since the late 90’s — we all began praying to the God of Valuation. How might our next phase of the journey seem brighter, even with more uncertain days for startups and capital markets? What happened?

Valuation 466

Valuation San Francisco Ratchet Liquidation Preference 466

Startup Professionals Musings

APRIL 4, 2022

The “valley of death” is a common term in the startup world, referring to the difficulty of covering the negative cash flow in the early stages of a startup, before their new product or service is bringing in revenue from real customers. Join a startup incubator. Use crowd funding. Get a loan or line-of-credit.

Intellectual Property 261

Intellectual Property Technical Review Incubator Bootstrapping 261

ReadWriteStart

APRIL 5, 2023

The last few months have been an unprecedented time for entrepreneurs and startup founders on the market. Figures provided by Crunchbase show venture capital funding dropped by 33% in Q3 2022 compared to Q2 and almost 53% down from the same time in 2021. The days of lavish seed funding rounds are over — for now, at least.

South Africa 136

South Africa New York City San Francisco Silicon Valley 136

Both Sides of the Table

MAY 21, 2019

Managing Your Startup Board?—?A A Short Presentation I was invited to do a keynote presentation at the Khosla Ventures CEO Summit this week in Sausalito. My talk was about “ managing your startup board ” and the full deck is on that SlideShare link and embedded below. link] Managing Your Startup Board?—?A

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Management Startup Dividend Early Stage 234

Startup Professionals Musings

JANUARY 20, 2020

Yet as I mentor entrepreneurs around the country, it still seems to be one of the least understood approaches to startup funding, with more myths than accredited angels and professional venture capital investors combined. With this model, a startup pre-sells their product early, at a cheaper price, in exchange for a pledge.

Accredited Investor 324

Accredited Investor Entrepreneur SEC Equity 324

Hunter Walker

OCTOBER 14, 2024

I was working at a venture-backed apparel startup for 4 years and saw the power of building digitally-native brands through Facebook and Instagram (TikTok was still nascent). Here are Five Questions with Sandro. Hunter Walk: Backstory time! Tell us a bit about Sanzo and how it was founded?

New York City 110

New York City Hockey Stick Distribution Angel Investor 110

VC Cafe

SEPTEMBER 30, 2024

Israeli startups raised $2.43 Israel continues to be a relatively liquid market Another strong indicator for the strength of the Israeli startup ecosystem has been exits/ liquidity, especially given the shortage of exits in the venture capital industry. History shows that the best companies often emerge after a crisis.

Israel 183

Israel Technical Review Startup Generative AI 183

Startup Professionals Musings

JUNE 2, 2021

That means that many companies are now forgoing the rush to go public (IPO), in favor of major equity investments from specialized venture capital funds, such as Japan’s SoftBank. These tolerate negative cash flows for growth. These have the vision and the resources to fund long-term digital success.

Software Review 355

Software Review Algorithm Global IPO 355

Both Sides of the Table

SEPTEMBER 15, 2022

At our mid-year offsite our partnership at Upfront Ventures was discussing what the future of venture capital and the startup ecosystem looked like. million, our Seed Funds mostly between $200–300 million and have delivered median ownerships of ~20% from the first check we write into a startup.

Technical Review 416

Technical Review Pre-Money Valuation San Francisco Valuation 416

View from Seed

APRIL 6, 2021

You have a deep desire to learn the venture capital business and are ready to hustle to meet the next great founder. You have an authentic passion for startups and a deep respect for entrepreneurship. You are a self-starter and enjoy approaching work independently without much direction. You act as an “ invited guest.”.

Technical Review 317

Technical Review Software Review Seed Stage Cofounder 317

The Startup Magazine

OCTOBER 30, 2022

In this article, we will analyse the top 5 technological challenges your startup will face in 2023. . In the case of startups, this poses a number of major challenges including: . The first challenge is closely linked with the growth barriers experienced by most startup companies. Remote Work. Scaling Up. Software Choices.

Technical Review 158

Technical Review Technology Software Review Startup 158

Steve Blank

MARCH 19, 2018

The book explores the role of gender in the tech industry – at startups and venture capital firms – and the interaction between men and women in the two. While Silicon Valley has grown to have global influence, in many ways the cultural leadership from the venture community has dramatically shrunk in the last decade.

Part-Time VPE 354

Part-Time VPE Leadership Silicon Valley Los Angeles 354

The Startup Magazine

FEBRUARY 19, 2025

Artificial intelligence continues to be a bright spot in the world of venture capital. In Q3 of 2024, AI-related startups landed $19 billion USD, which equates to 28% of total venture dollars. The organization recently announced its ninth cohort of seed-stage pet care startups for their 12-week accelerator program.

Artificial Inteligence 97

Artificial Inteligence Engineer Software Software Engineering 97

Startup Professionals Musings

MAY 11, 2020

Even though the color of their money is always green, all startup investors are not the same. 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. It’s no fun for either side.

Technical Review 310

Technical Review Due Diligence Term Sheet Offshore 310

ReadWriteStart

OCTOBER 20, 2023

New startups are created every day – each with fresh ideas and solutions. However, the reality is stark: up to 90% of startups fail, with the average failure rate for the first year standing at 10%. Understanding the Tech Startup Landscape The tech industry today is a mixed bag of opportunities and obstacles.

Technical Review 137

Technical Review Startup Silicon Valley Agile 137

Startup Professionals Musings

SEPTEMBER 8, 2019

Hopefully you can see from this list that the people and processes involved in financing a nonprofit have little in common with angel investors, or the venture capital process. This could work to get you legal or accounting services, but won’t get you cash to pay employee salaries.

Equity 235

Equity Angel Investor Technical Review Exit Strategy 235

Both Sides of the Table

OCTOBER 26, 2020

Venture capital is about backing the leaders of tomorrow who imagine the world as it should be and aren’t constrained by what it is today. As an industry we’re not always as good as we could be about our own “creative destruction” to create the tomorrow of venture capital. So What Does All This Mean?

Partner 361

Partner Management Cofounder San Francisco 361

The Startup Magazine

MARCH 30, 2022

Startups represent an appealing prospect for a lot of investors, with the promise of an early injection of cash paying out in a big way if a business is catapulted to sustainable success over the ensuing months and years. A degree of diversification can go a long way to protecting you from startup failures. The statistics don’t lie.

Technical Review 166

Technical Review Due Diligence Angel Investor Startup 166

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

JANUARY 13, 2020

As a startup mentor, I’m always amazed that some entrepreneurs seem to be an immediate hit with investors, while others struggle to get any attention at all. Finally I realized that venture capital and angel investors are actually humans, despite some views to the contrary.

Intellectual Property 316

Intellectual Property Angel Investor Early Stage Venture Capital 316