Tech.Co

DECEMBER 29, 2023

While the market isn't short of spritely, innovative entrepreneurs, harsh economic headwinds combined with a pullback in investor spending have made it harder than ever for budding businesses to break through. Source: runwayml.com In June, Runway raised $141 million in funding, nudging its market valuation to an envy-inducing $1.5

Startup 212

Startup Generative AI Newsletter Tool 212

Startup Professionals Musings

SEPTEMBER 30, 2013

Every investor expects to see some business traction, both before and after a funding event. I hear a lot of entrepreneurs contemplating their great “idea” for several years with little discernable progress, and looking for money to start. Now investors will pay attention, since scale-up funding is less risky and has a time frame.

Funding 112

Funding Entrepreneur Startup CTO Hire 112

Both Sides of the Table

MAY 13, 2018

The most important advice I could give you before you set out in fund raising mode is to understand that fund-raising a sales & marketing process and needs to be managed. One of the most important aims of a fund-raising process is to keep similar firms at the same stage of your process. Why 8–10 and not just 3–4?

Venture Capital 332

Venture Capital Funding Startup Sales 332

Startup Professionals Musings

OCTOBER 1, 2022

As a mentor to many business professionals and owners, and aspiring entrepreneurs, I find a wealth of innovative ideas, but often less insight on what it really takes to transform ideas into an income stream that can excite new customers into long-term business success. Investors expect this step to be proven successful before funding.

Ideas 145

Ideas Startup Case Study Writing 145

Startup Professionals Musings

APRIL 29, 2023

If your forte is a service, like consulting or web site design, it’s harder to find guidance on what will get you funded, and how you can scale your business. With services, scaling the business often implies cloning yourself, since you are the intellectual property and the competitive advantage. Capture your “secret sauce.”

Startup 111

Startup Training Services Writing 111

Both Sides of the Table

SEPTEMBER 23, 2010

I thought I’d try to look at it from a different lens, that of the entrepreneur. As an entrepreneur you should assume that. Have you looked at competition? How well financed is the competition? When I was fund raising for my second company we had agreed a company-wide deal with Salesforce.com to use our product.

Pricing 292

Pricing Entrepreneur Technical Review Venture Capital 292

Startup Professionals Musings

JANUARY 31, 2021

Based on my experience as an investor and mentor to aspiring entrepreneurs in Silicon Valley and elsewhere, one of the quickest ways to kill your credibility and your startup is to offer a poorly written business plan, or none at all. An entrepreneur who can’t manage a plan, probably won’t be able to manage the new business.

Sample 137

Sample Writing Mentor Content 137

Startup Professionals Musings

AUGUST 3, 2020

If your forte is a service, like consulting or web site design, it’s harder to find guidance on what will get you funded, and how you can scale your business. With services, scaling the business often implies cloning yourself, since you are the intellectual property and the competitive advantage. Capture your “secret sauce.”

Startup 174

Startup Training Services Writing 174

Startup Professionals Musings

MARCH 6, 2023

Aspiring entrepreneurs who rely only on traditional learning vehicles (teachers, classrooms, and risk-free practice) are doomed to failure in anticipating change today. For entrepreneurs, change is the norm, so you have to relish it before you can make it happen. The act of communicating and writing enhances learning.

Social Media 120

Social Media Startup Entrepreneur Education 120

Startup Professionals Musings

OCTOBER 15, 2022

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. Some entrepreneurs love to talk and produce videos, but hate to write anything down. There is no room in this realm for negativism, excuses, or lack of confidence.

Entrepreneur 111

Entrepreneur Social Media Patents Mentor 111

Both Sides of the Table

AUGUST 20, 2015

VC funding. We love capital efficiency until we love land grabs until we abhor over funding until we get huge payouts and ring the bell for more funding until we attract every non-VC on the planet to invest in startups until it crashes and we start the cycle all over again none the wiser. why do I write p.s.’s sometimes?

Funding 150

Funding Venture Capital Startup Marketing 150

Both Sides of the Table

OCTOBER 12, 2014

These tensions seep out in some angels or seed funds publicly or semi-privately deriding later-stage VCs for their “bad” behavior. Prorata investments rights given investors the right to invest in your future fund-raising rounds and maintain their ownership % in your company as your company grows and raises more capital.

Guide 336

Guide Venture Capital Startup Writing 336

Startup Professionals Musings

MAY 27, 2015

Aspiring entrepreneurs who rely only on traditional learning vehicles (teachers, classrooms, and risk-free practice) are doomed to failure in founding a startup today. For entrepreneurs, change is the norm, so you have to relish it before you can make it happen. The act of communicating and writing enhances learning.

Entrepreneur 102

Entrepreneur Social Media Startup Education 102

Startup Professionals Musings

DECEMBER 6, 2014

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. Some entrepreneurs love to talk and produce videos, but hate to write anything down. There is no room in this realm for negativism, excuses, or lack of confidence.

Entrepreneur 107

Entrepreneur Angel Social Media Patents 107

Both Sides of the Table

MAY 23, 2010

If a round of funding does happen then this debt is converted into equity at the price that a new external investor pays with a “bonus&# to the inside investor for having taken the risk of the loan. And startup CEO’s can often suppress the anxiety that goes along with the funding uncertainty – even to themselves.

Startup 290

Startup Funding Venture Capital Pricing 290

Both Sides of the Table

MAY 30, 2018

One of the hardest things about the fund-raising process for entrepreneurs is that you’re trying to raise money from people who have “asymmetric information.” As an entrepreneur it can feel as intimidating as going to buy a car where the dealer knows the price of every make & model of a car and you’re guessing at how much to pay.

Venture Capital 324

Venture Capital Pricing Startup Invest 324

Startup Professionals Musings

MARCH 2, 2020

That’s why I caution my aspiring entrepreneur clients against proclaiming to investors that they are a great “idea” person. Then, he'll need to patent it and create a plan to show opportunity, competition, and financial projections. The bridge from thinking and talking, to doing, is a long and difficult one for many to get over.

Ideas 126

Ideas Writing Examples Outsource 126

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. Some entrepreneurs love to talk and produce videos, but hate to write anything down. There is no room in this realm for negativism, excuses, or lack of confidence.

Entrepreneur 126

Entrepreneur Social Media Patents Mentor 126

Both Sides of the Table

JULY 23, 2014

The rise of “micro VCs” or seed-stage funds. The rise of alternative sources of capital (crowd funding and the like). The VC market has right-sized (returned back to mid 90′s levels & less competition). ” The new narrative is “will my seed funds be able to fund the prorata of their winners?”

Venture Capital 398

Venture Capital Technical Review Startup Seed Funding 398

InfoChachkie

JANUARY 16, 2018

Without taking a dime of outside capital, the company has achieved impressive success in a competitive, SaaS market segment, landing companies such as Nike, Intuit, NASA, AutoDesk and PBS. Semick: In the beginning, many of our conversations were about whether we wanted funding from angel investors and eventually VCs. I’ve been there.

Venture Capital 115

Venture Capital Entrepreneur Santa Barbara SaaS 115

Startup Professionals Musings

APRIL 17, 2020

Even in this age of videos and text messages, the quickest way to kill your startup dream with investors, business partners, or even customers, is embarrassingly poor writing. In the competitive realm of business, you only get one chance to make a great first impression. Keep your writing voice friendly and courteous.

Writing 125

Writing Entrepreneur Summary Email 125

Startup Professionals Musings

JUNE 6, 2020

Aspiring entrepreneurs who rely only on traditional learning vehicles (teachers, classrooms, and risk-free practice) are doomed to failure in anticipating change today. For entrepreneurs, change is the norm, so you have to relish it before you can make it happen. The act of communicating and writing enhances learning.

Social Media 127

Social Media Startup Education Entrepreneur 127

Startup Professionals Musings

OCTOBER 1, 2012

Based on my experience as a mentor and an entrepreneur, if you fail on your first startup, you are about average. Every young entrepreneur knows implicitly that startup success is a long hard road. Of course, a real entrepreneur always takes a failure as a milestone on the road to success. How can you improve your odds?

Entrepreneur 109

Entrepreneur Ideas Resource Statistics 109

Both Sides of the Table

NOVEMBER 29, 2014

This week I wrote about obsessive and competitive founders and how this forms the basis of what I look for when I invest. I had been thinking a lot about this recently because I’m often asked the question of “what I look for in an entrepreneur when I want to invest?” It’s gonna suck, I know. But I explained.

Startup 409

Startup Invest Venture Capital Writing 409

Startup Professionals Musings

MAY 29, 2016

Aspiring entrepreneurs who rely only on traditional learning vehicles (teachers, classrooms, and risk-free practice) are doomed to failure in anticipating change today. For entrepreneurs, change is the norm, so you have to relish it before you can make it happen. The act of communicating and writing enhances learning.

Entrepreneur 61

Entrepreneur Social Media Startup Education 61

Startup Professionals Musings

OCTOBER 22, 2012

It’s a well-accepted axiom in the investor community that entrepreneurs learn more from their failures than their successes. Thus a well-explained startup failure often can actually improve your odds of funding in the next go-round. Don’t focus too much on the competition. Wise people can become great entrepreneurs.

Entrepreneur 97

Entrepreneur Tips Startup Ideas 97

Both Sides of the Table

SEPTEMBER 29, 2013

” And even the venerable Fred Wilson weighed in with how people “ leading vs. following ” in funding rounds play different roles and have different skills. It should help some entrepreneurs to better access early-stage capital and should allow some angel investors better access to deal flow. So there you have it.

Venture Capital 356

Venture Capital Invest Course Technical Review 356

Startup Professionals Musings

DECEMBER 8, 2017

Unless you are a serial entrepreneur with a string of successes behind you, you need a business plan to convince investors that you can build a business out of the dream that has been driving your passion to change the world. Opportunity segmentation and competitive environment. No mention usually means no plan and not competitive.

Startup 65

Startup Writing Patents Competition 65

TechCrunch LA

MARCH 8, 2019

. “If big companies like Google, Facebook and Amazon are prevented from acquiring startups, that actually reduces competition,” Sirinivasan writes. If big companies like Google, Facebook, and Amazon are prevented from acquiring startups, that actually reduces competition. — Balaji S. ” . ”

Technical Review 144

Technical Review Startup Chief Technology Officer Social Media 144

Startup Professionals Musings

MAY 29, 2011

Competition analysis. Here is where you pick a few of these, characterize what they do, and position your own product to show your competitive advantage. Skip the acronyms, write at an eighth-grade level, and talk in terms of “benefits” rather than “features.” Market research and competition. Development and rollout.

Product 93

Product Entrepreneur Outsource Development Competition 93

Both Sides of the Table

JANUARY 15, 2010

Jason started the Open Angel Forum in response to his frustration that entrepreneurs were being charged by some angel organizations to present at their events. As a former entrepreneur, I’m a big supporter of Jason’s goals. In my next post I will write about one of the five companies.

Angel 254

Angel Startup Tech Coast Angels MyShape 254

Both Sides of the Table

APRIL 25, 2013

Competitive sportswoman. Getting involved with political events and fund raisers. She was everything I was looking for in an entrepreneur to back. Kara on one side of the table showing me market sizes, competitive dynamics, product roadmaps, pricing plans for physical products with COGS and gross margins. Stanford MBA.

Startup 398

Startup Design Downey Activity 398

Startup Professionals Musings

JANUARY 31, 2015

Based on my experience as an investor and mentor to aspiring entrepreneurs in Silicon Valley and elsewhere, one of the quickest ways to kill your credibility and your startup is to offer a poorly written business plan, or none at all. An entrepreneur who can’t manage a plan, probably won’t be able to manage the new business.

Startup 109

Startup Writing Mentor Sample 109

Startup Professionals Musings

DECEMBER 8, 2010

Too many entrepreneurs still believe the urban myth that you can sketch your idea on a napkin, and investors will throw money at you. This is sad, since “how to write a business plan” is a frequent topic found in every business journal, and a common title in the business section of every book store. No problem. Marty Zwilling.

Startup 91

Startup Funding Sample Writing 91

InfoChachkie

SEPTEMBER 4, 2012

Most sophisticated investors ignore them, focusing their attention on an entrepreneur's pitch and presentation materials, financial forecast and executive summary. As noted in Entrepreneurs Shouldn't Pitch Their Ideas To Venture Capitalists , most sophisticated investors place their bets on people rather than opportunities.

Venture Capital 211

Venture Capital Summary Technical Review Template 211

Startup Professionals Musings

APRIL 7, 2011

Alain Theriault, better known as StartupCoach , tells entrepreneurs that, on your way to being a great chef, you don't start by writing a cook book (business plan), you work in the kitchen for a while, you learn some tools of the trade, you experiment with a few recipes, you test on willing clients. then you can start writing a recipe.

Entrepreneur 91

Entrepreneur Startup Writing Metrics 91

Both Sides of the Table

JULY 15, 2010

We started this week’s show with a Q&A session where I answered viewer questions about fund raising and the VC industry. Heck, stick around and watch me discuss the seed funding debate that is going on right now and what is happening in the VC industry overall. Finally we covered this weeks deals.

Venture Capital 210

Venture Capital Seed Funding Pricing Southern California 210