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.

Startup 174

Startup Training Services Writing 174

Startup Professionals Musings

NOVEMBER 28, 2020

Of course, that’s both the good news and the bad news for aspiring entrepreneurs, since it means more competition, and the business landscape is changing faster than ever. The days of lengthy, text-heavy, business plan documents prepared by expensive experts are behind us. Incorporating a business entity early through online services.

Tips 161

Tips Startup Social Media News 161

Startup Professionals Musings

SEPTEMBER 21, 2020

Finally you create and document your recipe (business plan). Have you projected sales and marketing costs, cash flow, and capital requirements? Develop metrics with which to measure yourself and use these to incrementally expand and improve your offering as fast as the market and capital will allow. Don’t stand still.

Startup 156

Startup Coach Metrics Marketing 156

socalTECH

DECEMBER 17, 2019

San Diego-based Trust & Will , a startup which offers up online services to help people create trusts, wills, and guardianships, has raised $6M in a new funding round, the company said on Tuesday. The startup had announced $2M in an earlier funding in January of 2019. READ MORE>>.

Tech Coast Angels 100

Tech Coast Angels San Diego Seed Funding Competition 100

Startup Professionals Musings

JANUARY 7, 2013

Based on the final report for 2012 from Thomson Reuters and the National Venture Capital Association (NVCA), it may appear that IPOs are back as a viable startup exit strategy. The dot.com heydays of free flowing venture capital and supercharged IPOs are not back. Don’t try to talk your way to a deal before you have the documentation.

Venture Capital 101

Venture Capital Startup Capital Seed Funding 101

Both Sides of the Table

FEBRUARY 20, 2019

Why you should set up a board at the seed round of funding I know these days with SAFE documents and rolling convertible notes many founders prefer not to set up a board early on. What happens at the A-round of venture capital? This is the norm and unless you have a hugely competitive round it’s not worth fighting.

Startup 236

Startup Venture Capital Tips Capital 236

Startup Professionals Musings

APRIL 24, 2011

I just read the Q1 2011 report from CB Insights , which shows venture capital is back. billion jump in funding over the same quarter of 2010 with a similar number of deals, so it clearly shows a trend to larger deal sizes for fewer startups. Back to VCs, Silicon Valley venture capital firms are still the most active.

Venture Capital 93

Venture Capital Startup Capital Seed Funding 93

Both Sides of the Table

FEBRUARY 25, 2010

Morgan Stanley then funded one of our competitors. It quickly became impossible to raise venture capital. It isn’t even a story about raising venture capital or M&A. Don’t over shop – If the deal you’re involved with involves raising venture capital or selling your company you naturally want some competition.

Venture Capital 301

Venture Capital Technical Review Startup Technical Advisors 301

socalTECH

JULY 8, 2010

Whoever wins, these are some of the local firms in interesting markets--and their tough, well-backed head-to-head competition--worth watching. DocStoc, based in Santa Monica, is headed by Jason Nazar , and offers a way for people to share and purchase professional documents. Funding: Around $4.0M. Funding: $12.8M.

Southern California 124

Southern California Rustic Canyon SoCal Startup 124

Startup Professionals Musings

MAY 29, 2022

Thus, today around 90 percent of successful startups are still acquired by bigger companies versus an IPO, as the safer and preferred method of growth and funding. There is no accommodation for smaller public companies, who can’t be competitive in their space with the new accounting, documenting, and reporting processes required.

Startup 98

Startup Report IBM IBM 98

Both Sides of the Table

OCTOBER 19, 2009

On December 3rd Brad Feld wrote a one paragraph blog post titled “ Raising Venture Capital &# in which he linked to my blog. I had intended to talk about how bad the process could become, not to name-and-shame anybody (and The Funded was not yet around). Thus is venture capital. Thus begins the venture capital dance.

Venture Capital 274

Venture Capital Blogging Startup Slides 274

Startup Professionals Musings

DECEMBER 8, 2018

Finally you create and document your recipe (business plan). Have you projected sales and marketing costs, cash flow, and capital requirements? Develop metrics with which to measure yourself and use these to incrementally expand and improve your offering as fast as the market and capital will allow. Don’t stand still.

Startup 81

Startup Coach Metrics Marketing 81

Both Sides of the Table

NOVEMBER 3, 2009

This is part of my ongoing series of posts and I need to file this one under both Raising Venture Capital and Startup Advice. Many of these businesses were what First Round Capital called FNACs (features, not companies – this acronym has always stuck with me). What about your competition – how much do they charge?

Web 2.0 334

Web 2.0 Venture Capital Web Technical Review 334

Both Sides of the Table

JUNE 18, 2010

What a pleasure that I got to spend an hour talking with both Om Malik (whom I’ve always respected his views) and Paul Jozefak , a venture capital partner at Neuhaus Partners in Germany (and formerly the head of Europe for SAP Ventures). FTC is considering an investigation into Apple’s anti-competitive practices.

Venture Capital 225

Venture Capital Google Web Sites 225

Startup Professionals Musings

AUGUST 27, 2012

The approach I recommend is to build the investor presentation first, by iterating on the bullets with your team, and then fleshing out the points into a full-blown text-based business plan document. Competition and sustainable advantage. List and position your competition, or alternatives available to the customer.

Slides 99

Slides Competition Sample Sales 99

Startup Professionals Musings

SEPTEMBER 2, 2018

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.

Services 72

Services Startup Training Writing 72

Tech Zulu Event

MARCH 7, 2013

CapLinked also netted in new customers such as Thomson Reuters, Sun Capital, and Equity Partners, NextView Ventures and crowd-funding service AI Verified which will take advantage of its iPad compatibility, bulk uploading, and reporting tools. According to Eric M.

Mobile 91

Mobile Report Pricing Tool 91

Startup Professionals Musings

NOVEMBER 4, 2016

Finally you create and document your recipe (business plan). Have you projected sales and marketing costs, cash flow, and capital requirements? Develop metrics with which to measure yourself and use these to incrementally expand and improve your offering as fast as the market and capital will allow. Don’t stand still.

Entrepreneur 93

Entrepreneur Startup Coach Metrics 93

Tech Zulu Event

MARCH 16, 2015

Why raise funds? This seems like an obvious question but you need to be clear why you’re looking to raise in order to come up with an effective game plan and determine your best funding option. And when it comes to timing, wait until you’ve come up with a working prototype and developed your product before you seek external funding.

Startup 40

Startup Venture Capital Equity Funding 40

socalTECH

FEBRUARY 3, 2010

If you compare that to the broader venture capital market--recent MoneyTree numbers said that VC deals were off a third in early stage--we were off by less. What should startups be doing to get funding nowadays, versus a more normal year? Scott Sangster: I'm a serial entrepreneur, and I have been angel funding personally.

Tech Coast Angels 182

Tech Coast Angels Technical Review Angel Southern California 182

Startup Professionals Musings

AUGUST 31, 2019

Today around 90 percent of successful startups are still acquired by bigger companies, as the safer and preferred method of growth and funding. There is no accommodation for smaller public companies, who can’t be competitive in their space with the new accounting, documenting, and reporting processes required.

Startup 84

Startup Technical Review Report IBM 84

Startup Professionals Musings

AUGUST 13, 2012

No investor wants to wait that long for his payback, or fund the years of waiting. It always amazes me how an entrepreneur can define his market opportunity so broadly, and then assess his competition so narrowly in the next breath. Competition and sustainable advantage. Asserting you have no competition is not credible.

Competition 113

Competition Metrics Startup Invest 113

Startup Professionals Musings

MAY 13, 2011

No investor wants to wait that long for his payback, or fund the years of waiting. It always amazes me how an entrepreneur can define his market opportunity so broadly, and then assess his competition so narrowly in the next breath. Competition and sustainable advantage. Asserting you have no competition is not credible.

Competition 116

Competition Metrics Startup Sales 116

Startup Professionals Musings

JUNE 10, 2011

The approach I recommend is to build the investor presentation first, by iterating on the bullets with your team, and then fleshing out the points into a full-blown text-based business plan document. Competition and sustainable advantage. List and position your competition, or alternatives available to the customer.

Slides 93

Slides Competition Sample Sales 93

Startup Professionals Musings

JUNE 27, 2014

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.

Services 105

Services Startup Training Writing 105

Both Sides of the Table

MAY 13, 2013

Almost certainly the startup would have raised some capital. And precisely because buyers usually prefer to have limited money go to investors – investors almost always have the ability to say “no” to transactions in the terms of their funding documents (aka “blocking rights”). Go do a startup.

Press 357

Press Startup Yahoo Venture Capital 357

Startup Professionals Musings

MAY 19, 2010

An alternative approach, which I prefer, is to build the investor presentation first, by iterating on the bullets with your team, and then fleshing out the points into a full-blown text-based business plan document. Competition and sustainable advantage. List and position your competition, or alternatives available to the customer.

Slides 94

Slides Competition Sample Sales 94

Startup Professionals Musings

AUGUST 17, 2016

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.

Services 61

Services Startup Training Writing 61

Startup Professionals Musings

DECEMBER 16, 2015

Boy wearing Oculus Rift via Wikipedia As an advisor to many entrepreneurs, I still hear frequently the irrational exuberance that crowdfunding is the quick alternative for startups that are passed over by overly demanding angels or venture capital investors. He points out that the word crowd precedes funding in crowdfunding.

Startup 53

Startup Equity Entrepreneur Demand 53

Startup Professionals Musings

MAY 4, 2016

Of course, that’s both the good news and the bad news for aspiring entrepreneurs, since it means more competition, and the business landscape is changing faster than ever. The days of lengthy, text-heavy, business plan documents prepared by expensive experts are behind us. Incorporating a business entity early through online services.

Startup 61

Startup Social Media News Tool 61

Both Sides of the Table

JANUARY 3, 2016

While firms define platforms differently, let’s just say they are the services that a VC offers outside of investment capital and partner time on boards or providing intros. Of course not every VC has the fund size or the fee size to build services at this scale yet many provide extremely well-regarded programs that are valuable.

Venture Capital 150

Venture Capital Platform Startup Resource 150

Startup Professionals Musings

SEPTEMBER 11, 2017

Today around 90 percent of successful startups are still acquired by bigger companies, as the safer and preferred method of growth and funding. There is no accommodation for smaller public companies, who can’t be competitive in their space with the new accounting, documenting, and reporting processes required.

Startup 87

Startup Technical Review Report Entrepreneur 87

Startup Professionals Musings

FEBRUARY 1, 2015

Today 70 percent of successful startups are still acquired by bigger companies, as the safer and preferred method of growth and funding. There is no accommodation for smaller public companies, who can’t be competitive in their space with the new accounting, documenting, and reporting processes required.

Startup 98

Startup Technical Review Report Entrepreneur 98

Both Sides of the Table

FEBRUARY 1, 2015

Crowd funding now exists. In preparation for her reentry into VC she spoke with many mentors of hers for advice on venture capital. Document management? They are there to help you correct your course when you want to make decisions that their history and wisdom tells them might lead you into a dark alley. Platforms have changed.

Venture Capital 150

Venture Capital Course Guide Entrepreneur 150

Both Sides of the Table

FEBRUARY 10, 2011

When I meet with Tom offline it’s obvious that he immediately is thinking about product issues, technology trends, funding rounds, etc. At Sony, he didn’t feel like he could “steer the ship” and get his ideas heard so he left and started GUBA, GUBA had no seed funding. at a level of specificity you don’t always find in VCs.

Angel 302

Angel Startup Ideas .Net 302

Startup Professionals Musings

APRIL 22, 2010

No investor wants to wait that long for his payback, or fund the years of waiting. It always amazes me how an entrepreneur can define his market opportunity so broadly, and then assess his competition so narrowly in the next breath. Competition and sustainable advantage. Asserting you have no competition is not credible.

Invest 74

Invest Tips Competition Metrics 74

Startup Professionals Musings

SEPTEMBER 11, 2013

There is no accommodation for smaller public companies, who can’t be competitive in their space with the new accounting, documenting, and reporting processes required. Public companies of any size must comply immediately with the full reporting requirements of the SEC. Public companies are always at risk for takeovers.

Startup 97

Startup Report Entrepreneur Statistics 97