Startup Professionals Musings

DECEMBER 11, 2019

He is regarded by many as the number-one authority on virtual staffing and personal outsourcing, and is himself a successful entrepreneur based in the Philippines. I was impressed with his summary of the top ten outsourcing mistakes made by entrepreneurs, followed by real guidance on how they can and should be avoided. Be flexible.

Outsource Development 121

Outsource Development Outsource Entrepreneur Summary 121

socalTECH

JULY 10, 2019

The company has raised $1.9M in seed funding, from E&A Venture Capital and SOSV. We spoke with CEO and co-founder Spencer Price to learn more about the company. Spencer Price: Halla is the only software company to dynamically profile human tastes so we can help people make better choices. What is Halla?

Pricing 113

Pricing Startup North Hollywood Platform 113

Both Sides of the Table

JUNE 5, 2016

In other words, it isn’t that VCs suddenly got smart, it’s that the costs of starting a company went down dramatically. There was an explosion in number of startups both because it was cheap and there was tons of available capital. This works in a booming market or in a company that never hits any headwinds. Rise of Angels.

Venture Capital 150

Venture Capital Capital Funding Seed Funding 150

Both Sides of the Table

FEBRUARY 14, 2016

There is much discussion online and also in small, private groups, about why the price of technology companies – public and private – are falling. Valuing any company can be difficult because it requires a degree of forecasting future growth & competition and ultimately the profits of the organization.

Startup 150

Startup Company Companies Venture Capital 150

Startup Professionals Musings

JANUARY 20, 2020

Even if you ignore all the hype around crowdfunding, there can be no doubt that it is a real alternative for entrepreneurs to achieve visibility and funding today. With this model, a startup pre-sells their product early, at a cheaper price, in exchange for a pledge. Product pre-order model. Donation good-cause model.

Entrepreneur 129

Entrepreneur Outsource Development Satisfaction Equity 129

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. I explain in the video what happened in my first company (e.g.

Venture Capital 282

Venture Capital Capital Startup Pricing 282

Both Sides of the Table

SEPTEMBER 28, 2014

But what IS the right amount of burn for a company? 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 Conversely if you’re burning $600,000 per month (yes, some companies do) then you only have 5 months of cash left. Gross Burn vs. Net Burn.

Startup 383

Startup Company Companies .Net 383

Both Sides of the Table

JANUARY 20, 2011

I was having a chat with an entrepreneur who I really like and who I try to mentor from time-to-time. He was price signaling without knowing it. His company had raised seed money already. By stating the amount of the fund raise, you set price expectations without knowing it. One problem. That happens A LOT.

Pricing 284

Pricing Venture Capital Competition Startup 284

Both Sides of the Table

MARCH 1, 2010

I call it the entrepreneur thesis. I’m not talk about the age old debate amongst investors whether you back entrepreneurs, markets or products (or as people like to hedge – product / market fit). It’s entrepreneurs I back. It’s what I call the “entrepreneur thesis.” So what is the “entrepreneur thesis?”

Entrepreneur 321

Entrepreneur GRP Partners Venture Capital Invest 321

Startup Professionals Musings

AUGUST 20, 2021

It’s good for professionals, who get more control, and good for companies, who need more flexible staffing. In my view, the gig economy is a key driver to the current boom in entrepreneurship – every professional and consultant is actually a solo entrepreneur. Quantify value to the client as price boundaries.

Pricing 149

Pricing Mentor Entrepreneur News 149

Berkonomics

FEBRUARY 23, 2023

When do you sell your company? Those of us in the business of calculating (guessing) this mythical peak in value often make the same mistake as our entrepreneurs. Companies sometime run out of cash in the midst of their increasing success, and often find that sources of loans or investment are not freely flowing at the moment of need.

Pricing 156

Pricing Invest Equity Entrepreneur 156

Both Sides of the Table

FEBRUARY 6, 2017

It was only a year ago that many in the Venture Capital industry were predicting that “winter was coming” and to be fair the author of this post was chief amongst them. But the reality is that “global warming” massively blunted the effects of winter and my prognosis for VC fundings of entrepreneurs in 2017–2018 is now very sunny indeed.

Venture Capital 150

Venture Capital Capital Funding Startup 150

socalTECH

DECEMBER 28, 2017

This morning, we have a contribution from investor and investment banker Peter Cowen of Sutton Capital Partners. Sutton Capital Partners is a technology investment banking firm and we are, investors in local SaaS/subscription companies and is well known as the host of the annual Recurring Revenue Conference.

Capital 124

Capital Southern California SaaS SoCal 124

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.” VC firms see thousands of deals and have a refined sense of how the market is valuing deals because they get price signals across all of these deals.

Venture Capital 324

Venture Capital Pricing Startup Invest 324

Berkonomics

JANUARY 28, 2021

I can’t tell you how many times I’ve walked away from deals where the entrepreneur insists on a start-up pre-money valuation that is so high, no angel could expect to make a return upon the investment, even with a reasonable sales price for the company down the road. Here’s the “what.”. And here’s the “why.”. More of my stories.

Outsource Development 156

Outsource Development Startup Outsource Venture Capital 156

Startup Professionals Musings

OCTOBER 16, 2021

With the low cost of e-commence entry, and powerful Internet technologies, they require minimal capital to start, perhaps as little as $500. Dal LaMagna, in his humorous classic “ Raising Eyebrows: A Failed Entrepreneur Finally Gets It Right ,” leads with the foundational principle of micro-businesses, which is to start small.

Entrepreneur 121

Entrepreneur Writing .Net Commerce 121

Both Sides of the Table

OCTOBER 3, 2011

I’m often asked the question about why there aren’t more women who are entrepreneurs. My inspiration to become an entrepreneur came from my mom, not my dad. She was the dominant figure in my family and was both an entrepreneur and a community leader. AWS helped lower the cost of starting a company by 90%.

Entrepreneur 341

Entrepreneur Venture Capital Startup Blogging 341

Both Sides of the Table

MAY 23, 2012

Many observers of the venture capital industry have questioned whether its best days are behind it. Looking ahead at the next decade I am excited by what I believe will be viewed as one of the best and most rational investment periods for venture capital due to seven discrete factors: 1. This article originally ran on PEHub.

Venture Capital 347

Venture Capital Capital Technical Review Startup 347

Berkonomics

FEBRUARY 16, 2023

Here’s the IRS take on the issue: It is no secret that the IRS carefully looks below the surface for personal use of company assets (including cash) in its corporate income tax audits. Or of the reaction of your accounting person when asked to book obvious personal uses of the corporate credit card as company expense.

Entertainment 156

Entertainment Email Entrepreneur Pricing 156

Both Sides of the Table

OCTOBER 8, 2014

” It’s the most common refrain I hear from investors and even entrepreneurs these days. What is perhaps different from other regions is that we have large indigenous aerospace industry and a big high-tech import/export trade as opposed to a lot of software companies. “There’s something going on in LA.”

Entrepreneur 376

Entrepreneur Snapchat Startup Google 376

Both Sides of the Table

APRIL 14, 2010

It’s meant to be a bit provocative but the reality is that I give this advice to entrepreneurs all the the time and I usually leave the “e&# off of the end. I learned all of this myself on your side of the table raising money at my first company. Dealing with an artificially high price can make fund raising hard.

Venture Capital 289

Venture Capital Capital Startup Pricing 289

Startup Professionals Musings

SEPTEMBER 16, 2022

He is regarded by many as the number-one authority on virtual staffing and personal outsourcing, and is himself a successful entrepreneur based in the Philippines. I was impressed with his summary of the top ten outsourcing mistakes made by entrepreneurs, followed by real guidance on how they can and should be avoided. Be flexible.

Outsource Development 138

Outsource Development Outsource Summary Training 138

Both Sides of the Table

AUGUST 22, 2011

I first heard the term from Chris Fralic at First Round Capital. Feature, not a company. Whether something is a feature or a company is clearly subjective. And sometimes features (say, Twitter) turn into companies. At minute eight I spoke about group messaging companies as “features, not companies.&#

Company 295

Company Companies Gogii Google 295

Both Sides of the Table

NOVEMBER 19, 2009

I had a picture in the office of my first company with the logo above and the capital letters JFDI. (In In case it’s not obvious it’s a play on the Nike slogan, “Just Do It.&# ) I believe that being successful as an entrepreneur requires you to get lots of things done. Good entrepreneurs are wrong often.

Entrepreneur 414

Entrepreneur Technical Review Slides CTO Coach 414

Both Sides of the Table

JUNE 30, 2011

This is the final part of a 3-part series on the major changes in the structure of the software & the venture capital industries. But … Downsizing Venture Capital. The venture capital business itself is going through an even more fundamental change than just the entry of a new category at the earliest stage.

Venture Capital 289

Venture Capital Capital Cloud Computing Marketing 289

InfoChachkie

SEPTEMBER 17, 2012

However, certain questions can be tricky for an entrepreneur to answer. Below are five common questions an entrepreneur will encounter when seeking venture funding. Handled appropriately, these questions provide investors a window into an entrepreneurs’ soul, which minimizes the chances of a future misalignment.

Entrepreneur 253

Entrepreneur Google Invest RSS 253

Both Sides of the Table

AUGUST 30, 2010

My advice to entrepreneurs was and is “ when the hors d’oeuvres tray is being passed take two ” (e.g. So I agreed to offer my current thinking on the economy and what it portends for the VC industry & fund raising for entrepreneurs. raise money now to weather any storms). I doubt they will ever catch up.&#.

Entrepreneur 298

Entrepreneur Venture Capital Technical Review Startup 298

socalTECH

MAY 25, 2016

Santa Monica-based March Capital Partners (www.marchcp.com) has just announced a brand new, $240M venture investment fund, led by longtime venture investing veterans Jim Armstrong, Sumant Mandal, Gregory Milken and Jamie Montgomery. So, you will see March participating in the early stage with consumer companies. Big ideas rule the day.

Southern California 113

Southern California Capital Funding Invest 113

TechCrunch LA

MAY 20, 2021

Eano, she said, offers competitive and transparent pricing so that homeowners aren’t surprised as a remodeling project goes on. The company plans to take its new capital and “go deep into the product side.”. Image Credits: Eano CEO and founder Stella Wu / Eano. So they come to us and we basically take care of it all.”

Technical Review 185

Technical Review Startup Venture Capital Software Review 185

TechCrunch LA

MAY 14, 2020

Ettitude , the Los Angeles-based, direct-to-consumer startup making sustainable bedding and sleepwear from bamboo fibers, has raised a sustainably sized round that should keep the company going even in the face of an economic recession. she relocated and took her company with her. ”

Sample 184

Sample Startup Los Angeles Sales 184

Berkonomics

JUNE 8, 2017

The subject of raising money is critical to many businesses and a passing option to others, depending upon the capital efficiency of the enterprise. You will realize much more from the ultimate sale of your business even if at a considerably lower price than if splitting the proceeds with investors.

Venture Capital 266

Venture Capital Class Invest Equity 266

InfoChachkie

MARCH 4, 2019

In addition to creating a franchise chain which exceeded 500 locations at its peak, Martha Harper was also one of the world’s first social entrepreneurs, helping thousands of middle-class women create their own businesses and control their destinies. Social Entrepreneuring (Before It Was Cool). Martha’s Legacy Lives On.

Entrepreneur 100

Entrepreneur Class Template Patents 100

Both Sides of the Table

MAY 4, 2013

When I was new at Venture Capital I was trying to figure out the business. What price? Because entrepreneurs often went to lawyers at their earliest stages to get their company registration done. Entrepreneurial lawyers like Don Lee , Dave Young or Ted Wang are good at sussing out which entrepreneurs are high potential.

Venture Capital 347

Venture Capital Startup Pricing Invest 347

Berkonomics

NOVEMBER 11, 2021

Venture capitalists sometimes make an error in directing their portfolio company CEOs to push resources to the limit and scale the business to immense size quickly, all to seize market share. It was true for Amazon and other visionary companies that grabbed market share during the early Internet era. But beware.

Venture Capital 156

Venture Capital Social Media Invest Marketing 156

Startup Professionals Musings

SEPTEMBER 20, 2019

For example, if it’s getting harder to charge a price premium for the product you’re marketing, or others are offering your subscription service for free, it may be time to start thinking in a new box. Another example is seeing substitute versions of a product, like eBooks, for a low price displacing hardcover books.

Entrepreneur 93

Entrepreneur eBook Metrics Examples 93

Startup Professionals Musings

OCTOBER 21, 2022

One of the quickest ways to become an entrepreneur these days is to develop and publish a smartphone app. The price of entry can be less than $10,000, so the competition is huge and growing rapidly. If you want to drive up the demand for your core product, one smart tactic is to drive down the price of all complementary products.

Develop 138

Develop Development Platform Mobile 138

Both Sides of the Table

SEPTEMBER 5, 2012

My initial reaction to Adeo when we spoke was that while it may have solved some issues (debt versus equity) it didn’t solve the ones that I’ve been warning entrepreneurs about most loudly. A standard entrepreneur retort I heard back then (2008-09) was “I don’t know what my company is worth now.

Startup 354

Startup Pricing Equity Venture Capital 354