Both Sides of the Table

MAY 19, 2018

the most counter-intuitive fund-raising advice you’ll ever get I’m about to offer you some fund-raising advice that flies directly in the face of what most conventional wisdom will tell you. Let me start out with my premise: “Data rooms are where fund-raising processes go to die.” I have to back up and give you more context.

Funding 336

Funding Venture Capital Startup Email 336

Both Sides of the Table

SEPTEMBER 28, 2014

Gross Burn vs. Net Burn. Burn rate in case you don’t know is the amount of money a company is either spending (gross) or losing (net) per month. (it Net burn is the amount of money you are losing per month. I often see companies burning $100,000 per month (net) looking to raise $6-8 million.

Startup 383

Startup Company Companies .Net 383

Both Sides of the Table

MAY 20, 2018

Every entrepreneur wants to hear “yes” during the fund-raising process but I would argue that being too risk averse and not pushing hard enough and be willing to hear a “no” is what holds back many people from “yes.” These are similar to the pipeline reviews I used to do with sales reps when I was a CEO.

Funding 189

Funding Software Review Entrepreneur Venture Capital 189

Startup Professionals Musings

DECEMBER 2, 2022

I expect that should seem intuitive to all entrepreneurs, but every investor I know has many stories about startup funding requests with major business model elements missing. The most common failures are solutions looking for a problem, lack of a defined market, or an inadequate revenue model. Target market. Sales/Marketing.

Sales 102

Sales Customer Custom Outsource 102

socalTECH

JUNE 14, 2017

Pasadena-based Episona has raised $4M in seed funding, to go towards expansion of its male fertility testing product, Seed, the company said last week. According to Episona, the funding came from the Pasadena Angeles, as well as other high-net worth individuals from Pasadena and San Francisco.

Pasadena 133

Pasadena Pasadena Angels Seed Funding .Net 133

Startup Professionals Musings

OCTOBER 8, 2022

In reality, a simple Excel spreadsheet model customized around your assumptions can save you hours and avoid a wasted expense in validating alternative vendor and marketing decisions. What if you need to change your market size and volume projections? Yet they can be done by a simple financial model in a few milliseconds.

Startup 147

Startup Pricing Sample Customer 147

Both Sides of the Table

JUNE 19, 2017

That is, how much should your company be willing to lose in cash every month as you make investments in staff and equipment that funds technology, sales, marketing and management. The Basics The starting point — the 101 — is knowing the difference between gross burn and net burn.

Startup 212

Startup Venture Capital .Net Capital 212

Both Sides of the Table

DECEMBER 27, 2011

To grow faster businesses need resources in today’s financial period to fund growth that may not come for 6 months to a year. The most obvious way to explain this is with sales people. You may have leverage when you DO need to fund raise. Gross Profit (also called Gross Margin or sometimes “Net Revenue”).

Startup 418

Startup Venture Capital Sales Technical Review 418

Berkonomics

AUGUST 10, 2017

Since this number is budgeted and pre-authorized, managers tend to focus upon other things such as sales, marketing and product development issues. There is an art to efficient management of a process, whether that is the process of bringing a product to market from R&D to production or developing a new product’s launch program.

Venture Capital 243

Venture Capital Product Resource Marketing 243

Both Sides of the Table

JUNE 17, 2017

To grow faster businesses need resources in today to fund growth that may not come for 6 months to a year. The most obvious way to explain this is with sales people. They don’t want high burn rates but they will never fund slow growth. COGS” represents the amount that each sale costs you.

Startup 227

Startup Venture Capital Sales Course 227

Startup Professionals Musings

JANUARY 6, 2020

In reality, a simple Excel spreadsheet model customized around your assumptions can save you hours and avoid a wasted expense in validating alternative vendor and marketing decisions. What if you need to change your market size and volume projections? Yet they can be done by a simple financial model in a few milliseconds.

Startup 123

Startup Pricing Sample Customer 123

Startup Professionals Musings

JUNE 7, 2021

The market for domain investors has taken a big step down in the last few years, since the Internet Corporation for Assigned Names and Numbers ( ICANN ) has rolled out top-level domains for every country, like.us First you have to find the current owner, using WHOIS , or other lookup functions available on the net.

Startup 136

Startup Pricing Tips .Net 136

Startup Professionals Musings

SEPTEMBER 30, 2011

Two founders have spent $200K of personal and family funds over a one year period to start the company, get a prototype site up and running, and have already generated some “buzz” in the Internet community. Assign probabilities to active customer sales efforts, just as sales managers do in quantifying a salesman’s forecast.

Funding 98

Funding Startup Patents Outsource Development 98

socalTECH

AUGUST 2, 2017

How do you take a new, genetic test to market, and how do you bridge the gap between research and the market? For those who aren't familiar with the process, how is it that you're able to go to market so quickly with something like this without having to deal with a long FDA review? Let's talk about the recent funding round?

USC 100

USC Technical Review Startup Southern California 100

Both Sides of the Table

JULY 16, 2010

The VC industry grew dramatically as a result of the Internet bubble - Before the Internet bubble the people who invested in VC funds (called LPs or Limited Partners) put about $50 billion into the industry and by 2001 this had grown precipitously to around $250 billion. What accelerated this was the collapse of the public stock markets.

Venture Capital 311

Venture Capital Startup Seed Funding Rustic Canyon 311

socalTECH

JULY 10, 2017

We talked with Tim about how they're now applying this to a new market. With each company that we've started, we've concentrated on a particular market. PointPredictive is focused on the automotive lending market. They were the first company to bring artificial intelligence and machine learning scoring to the commercial market.

Artificial Inteligence 124

Artificial Inteligence Software Review San Diego .Net 124

socalTECH

DECEMBER 4, 2008

CalPERS, the California pension fund which is a major limited partner in venture capital funds here, apparently sold its stake in Palomar Ventures III, L.P. CalPERS has been selling funds on the secondary market as it seeks to pare down its holdings. sometime earlier this year.

Palomar 100

Palomar .Net Venture Capital Equity 100

Both Sides of the Table

APRIL 25, 2011

It would not be a big stretch to image a well run service business like this making 15-25% net profit margins. I could go on-and-on with all of the sales-blocking messages you will hear when you try to charge for a product. That is $12 million in profits over 3 years. Who are your competitors – how much do they charge?&#.

Services 332

Services Venture Capital IP Startup 332

InfoChachkie

JULY 28, 2015

He told the homeowner that he represented someone who wanted to purchase the ranch at a substantial premium over its current fair market value. My House Is Not For Sale. Our response was that there was no “price” as our company was not for sale. VC Funding Alternative. We were not rude nor indignant.

Company 100

Company Companies Santa Barbara Pricing 100

Startup Professionals Musings

MAY 14, 2012

I expect that should seem intuitive to all entrepreneurs, but every investor I know has many stories about startup funding requests with major business model elements missing. The most common failures are solutions looking for a problem, lack of a defined market, and giving away the product. Target market. Sales/Marketing.

Sales 97

Sales Customer Custom Outsource 97

Berkonomics

MARCH 30, 2010

Since this number is budgeted and pre-authorized, managers tend to focus upon other things such as sales, marketing and product development issues. There is an art to efficient management of a process, whether that is the process of bringing a product to market from R&D to production or developing a new product’s launch program.

Venture Capital 212

Venture Capital Product Resource Marketing 212

Both Sides of the Table

JANUARY 5, 2010

Being tenacious without the mental flexibility to pivot based on market feedback is a disaster. They often make great team members such as head of products, CTO, head of sales, CFO, etc. Partners in VC funds only wanted to fund entrepreneurs who had a certain percentage of their net worth tied up in their venture.

Entrepreneur 293

Entrepreneur Startup Venture Capital CTO Hire 293

Both Sides of the Table

NOVEMBER 3, 2009

The last couple of years has also seen the huge initial success of Ycombinator, the Lean Startup and many other product driven approaches to going to market. Broadly speaking this last trend has been healthy as it has brought an increase focus on launching products that you can test with the market and on capital efficiency.

Web 2.0 334

Web 2.0 Venture Capital Web Technical Review 334

Startup Professionals Musings

AUGUST 1, 2013

The sad truth is that cash flow surprises kill many startups, even though they should have been adequately funded to survive. Seasonal sales fluctuations eat cash. Fluctuating sales means more inventory is required to cover the ups and downs. Sales volumes are still ramping up while marketing expenses are at max.

Startup 114

Startup Sales Layoffs Slides 114

socalTECH

AUGUST 8, 2016

Last week El Segundo-based Wpromote acquired fellow marketing agency Standing Dog, in a deal which brings the company to 260 employees, and continues to grow the company. Our clients are everyone from fast growing, freshly funded startups, to the Fortune 100. They don�t need digital sales, they need to drive people into stores.

Acquisition 100

Acquisition Paid Search El Segundo SEO 100

InfoChachkie

JULY 11, 2011

In the past, venture debt was often viewed as a funding vehicle of last resort. The nature of the company’s business model requires it to fund certain costs before it is paid by its customers. Thus, even though the company is cash flow positive, its growth is constrained by the amount of payables it can fund. welcome back.

Equity 235

Equity Startup Invest Funding 235

Startup Professionals Musings

JANUARY 29, 2011

I expect that should seem intuitive to all entrepreneurs, but every investor I know has many stories about startup funding requests with major business model elements missing. The most common failures are solutions looking for a problem, lack of a defined market, and giving away the product. Target market. Sales/Marketing.

Sales 98

Sales Customer Custom Outsource 98

Both Sides of the Table

MAY 24, 2021

It has historically been the case that VCs would rather fund the promise of 100x in a company with almost no revenue than the reality of a company growing at 50% but doing $20+ million in sales. The Valley has obsessed with a quick up-and-to-right momentum story because we were thought to live in “winner take most” markets.

Venture Capital 363

Venture Capital Capital Funding Startup 363

Startup Professionals Musings

NOVEMBER 3, 2014

When someone asks me for the best way to fund a startup, I always say bootstrap it, meaning fund it yourself and grow organically. Despite all the focus you hear on external investors, over 90% of startups today are self-funded. Despite all the focus you hear on external investors, over 90% of startups today are self-funded.

Organization 111

Organization Startup Summary Entrepreneur 111

Startup Professionals Musings

NOVEMBER 26, 2012

Two founders have spent $200K of personal and family funds over a one year period to start the company, get a prototype site up and running, and have already generated some “buzz” in the Internet community. Assign probabilities to active customer sales efforts, just as sales managers do in quantifying a salesman’s forecast.

Startup 108

Startup Invest Patents Outsource Development 108

InfoChachkie

FEBRUARY 29, 2016

Too bad, as the initial funding round has increased over 4,000 times in value, making a $250,000 investment worth more than $1,100,000,000. Two hundred and fifty thousand would have netted my firm more than one billion dollars. s/w sales vs real-world fulfillment of a service). . Nope, that’s not a typo. If so, not a great fit.

Venture Capital 100

Venture Capital Email Invest Services 100

Startup Professionals Musings

OCTOBER 12, 2010

You can also use this space to keep track of innovators (R&D personnel) and rainmakers (sales & marketing personnel). Customers: A company’s only sustainable source of cash is sales, so you need to keep track of your business development efforts. Detail isn’t important; tracking your progress is. His website is [link].

.Net 89

.Net Metrics Competition Template 89

Startup Professionals Musings

JANUARY 17, 2016

Seasonal sales fluctuations eat cash. Fluctuating sales means more inventory is required to cover the ups and downs. Sales volumes are still ramping up while marketing expenses are at max. These are “up front” costs that can’t wait the four or five months before the sales and revenue catch up.

Startup 64

Startup Sales Layoffs Slides 64

socalTECH

MARCH 2, 2011

For this morning's interview, we talked with Westlake Village-based PurePhoto (www.purephoto.com), which is looking to help photographers market and sell their photographs. Finally, I decided it was time to remove the safety net, and had an idea of my own to pursue, so I started by own company. How is the company funded?

Westlake Village 164

Westlake Village Yahoo Commerce Social Network 164

Startup Professionals Musings

JANUARY 10, 2013

Now the real work begins – promotion, marketing, blogging, and all types of search engine marketing. A simple example might be mortgage calculator to add to your real estate sales site. You can’t get it all right the first time, and the market will be gone if you try to include every feature in the first version.

Sites 78

Sites Commerce Startup Tool 78

InfoChachkie

MARCH 16, 2010

He told the homeowner that he represented someone who wanted to purchase the ranch at a substantial premium over its current fair market value. My House Is Not For Sale. Our response was that there was no “price” as our company was not for sale. Open up a “sales process” and solicit bids from multiple companies.

Company 160

Company Companies Pricing Santa Barbara 160

Startup Professionals Musings

AUGUST 14, 2015

Funding is only one of the critical resources you need to start a business. Common financial metrics include burn rate, gross margin, revenue growth and net profit. You also need a sales pipeline, customer acquisition costs and marketing costs as a percent of revenue. Define metrics to keep on track for the journey.

Startup 101

Startup Metrics Resource Mentor 101