Startup Professionals Musings

OCTOBER 16, 2023

Projecting financials is a natural extension of the homework every entrepreneur needs to do on customer opportunity size, product costs, pricing, competition and customer value. Calculate investment amounts and timing. Project your cash burn rate to keep at least 18 months between venture capital or angel investments.

Startup 116

Startup Pricing Sales Statistics 116

Both Sides of the Table

SEPTEMBER 1, 2016

Scott Kupor of A16Z responded with a comprehensive overview of valuation methodology in a post that while accurate feels more targeted at sophisticated Limited Partners (LPs) who invest in funds. This was an industry defining deal on returns in the league of Google, Facebook, Twitter and one imagines Uber. We can’t know.

Venture Capital 264

Venture Capital Invest Funding Competition 264

Startup Professionals Musings

FEBRUARY 10, 2023

Of course you need to discount any investor competitive positioning, but local investment group leaders will quickly tell you the strengths and terms of active investors in your area. Do research on investor visibility via Google and social media. To get the terms you want, it’s better to start with your own term sheet.

Technical Review 138

Technical Review Startup Innocal Offshore 138

socalTECH

OCTOBER 6, 2011

San Diego-based Qualcomm is putting its money behind one of the winners of its second annual QPrize Venture Investment Competition, New York-based Enterproid , Enterproid revealed Thursday. READ MORE>>.

San Diego 159

San Diego Competition Google Mobile 159

Startup Professionals Musings

OCTOBER 21, 2022

The price of entry can be less than $10,000, so the competition is huge and growing rapidly. Cultivate a preferred relationship with Apple, Amazon, Facebook, Microsoft, and Google to ensure the best possible placement of your offering. Position yourself to capitalize on the next frontier. Be aggressive and alert.

Develop 138

Develop Development Platform Mobile 138

InfoChachkie

MAY 22, 2012

The steps outlined below represent an ideal approach to raising capital from sophisticated investors. Send them a private message via Twitter or Quora that contains a compelling link relevant to their investment focus. Major League baseball pitchers spend far more time preparing to pitch than they actually do pitching.

Venture Capital 236

Venture Capital Capital Research Customer 236

Tech.Co

APRIL 24, 2018

Being one small company amongst the sea of thousands of startups vying for customers, capital, and talent, the way to get noticed above the crowd, connect with that next big partner, and raise some capital is to throw your hat in the ring to compete at Startup of the Year. A Strong Alumni Network.

Startup 70

Startup Competition Google Capital 70

Both Sides of the Table

JULY 23, 2014

There has been much discussion in the past few years of the changing structure of the venture capital industry. The rise of alternative sources of capital (crowd funding and the like). 15 years ago we were at the peak of Internet hype with the launch of many over-capitalized businesses with a market size & opportunity was limited.

Venture Capital 398

Venture Capital Technical Review Startup Seed Funding 398

Startup Professionals Musings

FEBRUARY 5, 2021

If you don’t have a destination, don’t waste your money trying to get there, and don’t expect anyone to support you along the way Projecting financials is a natural extension of the homework every entrepreneur needs to do on customer opportunity size, product costs, pricing, competition and customer value.

Startup 147

Startup Pricing Sales Statistics 147

TechCrunch LA

AUGUST 9, 2022

This round is being led by Point72 Private Investments, with previous backers Toba Capital, Index Ventures, Bonfire Ventures, BoxGroup, and VMG Partners also participating.

Help 195

Help Startup UCLA Tool 195

Startup Professionals Musings

MAY 11, 2020

Of course you need to discount any investor competitive positioning, but local investment group leaders will quickly tell you the strengths and terms of active investors in your area. Do research on investor visibility via Google and social media. To get the terms you want, it’s better to start with your own term sheet.

Technical Review 124

Technical Review Funding Innocal Offshore 124

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). I sure hope that Apple is working with Google to make this work. We talked about Facebook.

Venture Capital 225

Venture Capital Google Web Sites 225

Startup Professionals Musings

JANUARY 24, 2020

The price of entry can be less than $10,000, so the competition is huge and growing rapidly. Cultivate a preferred relationship with Apple, Amazon, Facebook, Microsoft, and Google to ensure the best possible placement of your offering. Position yourself to capitalize on the next frontier. Be aggressive and alert.

Mobile 126

Mobile Develop Development Platform 126

Startup Professionals Musings

JULY 11, 2021

Angel and venture capital money always comes with ownership and management implications, starting with the obvious ones outlined in the term sheet for the deal. Also, these peers are now your competition in a portfolio ranking, so you need to know to stay ahead of them in the pack.

Funding 173

Funding Startup Entrepreneur Report 173

Both Sides of the Table

AUGUST 22, 2011

I first heard the term from Chris Fralic at First Round Capital. I talked in specifics about a bunch of my investments including Factual , MongoLab , Maker Studios and Gogii (maker of TextPlus ). I have always been equally impressed with Brew PR who represented them and would hire them for any company in which I had invested.

Company 295

Company Companies Gogii Google 295

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. HauteLook, one of the first firms to capitalize on the sample/private sales market, is already profitable and is growing rapidly. DocStoc vs. Scribd. DocStoc - Profile. Funding: $12.8M.

Southern California 124

Southern California Rustic Canyon SoCal Startup 124

InfoChachkie

SEPTEMBER 17, 2012

Consider the situation in which the entrepreneur wants to accept a financially life-changing offer to sell her company which is vetoed by the investor because the price does not meet its minimal investment return criteria. Avoid too much specificity, as you may risk sounding like yet another startup that is, “Waiting For Google.”

Entrepreneur 253

Entrepreneur Google Invest RSS 253

Tech Zulu Event

MAY 9, 2013

Speaking of the new investment, CapLinked CEO Eric M. Jackson said, “We’re using the proceeds from our financing round to invest in our technology, build new features, and increase sales and support.”. Jackson added that the firm was proud of its product, and even uses its own software to manage their capital raised from investors.

Draper 68

Draper Google Software Engineering Invest 68

Both Sides of the Table

JULY 10, 2010

This episode of This Week in Venture Capital featured Michael Montgomery, president of Montgomery & Co. If you don’t know Montgomery & Co it is one of the premier technology & media focused investment banks in the country (and as Michael corrected me they also have a strong Healthcare / Med tech practice).

Venture Capital 242

Venture Capital Mission Ventures Capital Help 242

InfoChachkie

SEPTEMBER 27, 2018

Given the general consensus that Business School is essentially a farm system for investment banks and consulting firms, I was initially concerned when one of my star entrepreneurial students, Sieva Kozinsky , told me of his plans to attend my alma mater, Wharton. Nothing they learned (at Business School) will help them succeed at innovation.”

Entrepreneur 113

Entrepreneur Allegis Startup Competition 113

Both Sides of the Table

OCTOBER 12, 2014

They often create the biggest tensions between investors who are investing at different stages in the business. 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

Both Sides of the Table

JULY 15, 2010

The reality is that due to competition and a desire to keep legal costs down (convertible debt deals are cheaper to implement than priced rounds) there are many deals done with convertible debt. What advice do you have for people who want to get into venture capital? Google’s investment in Zynga. Don’t.

Venture Capital 210

Venture Capital Seed Funding Pricing Southern California 210

socalTECH

OCTOBER 19, 2018

The funding was led by Moonshots Capital, and also included Techstars and Luma Launch. Patrick Ip: My background is I spent the last three years at Google, working on advertiser retention for small and medium businesses. There, I learned that there is a lot of top level churn from small businesses because Google ads cost too much.

Help 133

Help IP Content Google 133

Both Sides of the Table

SEPTEMBER 15, 2014

Venture Capital is a tricky industry. Many questioned whether it could survive under the fail whale, inevitable competition from Facebook, founder fighting, fights with 3rd-party developers let alone become a revolutionary business that could make money. Far from it. Lots of it. It was an early and smart bet.

Funding 362

Funding Technical Review Ideas Startup 362

Both Sides of the Table

MAY 13, 2013

For the past 5 years or so Google, Facebook and a handful of tech industry giants have been quietly buying scores of early-stage startups for their talent. Almost certainly the startup would have raised some capital. You have been at Google, Salesforce.com, Yahoo! Get yourself in a big demo day competition. Woo the press.

Press 357

Press Startup Yahoo Venture Capital 357

Both Sides of the Table

JUNE 3, 2010

This was really a fun week at TWiVC because we decided to have an entrepreneur come and talk about raising capital rather than having a VC come on. Raised angel money from Rob Lord, Reid Hoffman, Benchmark Capital and others. And the broader question of whether VC’s will continue to invest in the Twitter ecosystem.

Venture Capital 214

Venture Capital Startup Design S3 214

SoCal CTO

JUNE 9, 2010

Draw Your Ideas - A VC : Venture Capital and Technology , May 16, 2010 I saw Jack Dorsey give this talk at The 99% Conference last month. The Yin and Yang of Product and Engineering - A VC : Venture Capital and Technology , May 22, 2010 For a tech company, product and engineering are the heart and soul of the business. Tesla is not.

Startup 248

Startup Venture Capital Conference Social Media 248

Both Sides of the Table

DECEMBER 27, 2011

You have to understand whether they’re likely to yield revenue growth in the near term OR whether you have access to cheap enough capital to fund your losses until your investments pay off. Have easy access to capital by investors who are committed to building businesses at Interent scale. Internet scale.

Startup 418

Startup Venture Capital Sales Technical Review 418

Tech Zulu Event

FEBRUARY 8, 2013

Meet the Graduates: · Connectifier, which connects recruiters to potential job candidates, consists of 4 ex-Google employees and local angel investor, Terrence Yang, has dubbed Connectifier one of the best startups of 2012. YieldMetrics has already raised $1.7 YieldMetrics has already raised $1.7

GRP Partners 96

GRP Partners Startup Tech Coast Angels Bertelsmann 96

Both Sides of the Table

DECEMBER 17, 2009

Ability to Pivot – I don’t like to invest in people that I’ve never met before who come through my office wanting to have a term sheet within 30 days. VCs often tell entrepreneurs that they want to see “traction&# before they’re ready to invest. I then covered Street Smarts. I really respect these guys.

Entrepreneur 291

Entrepreneur Startup Google Yammer 291

Startup Professionals Musings

OCTOBER 21, 2019

Rather than punish them, it may pay you to nurture and manage their outside-the-box thinking, and capitalize on their innovations that help your customers and keep you ahead of the competition. He created a simple Gmail for internal use, and later it became one of the biggest Google offerings.

IBM 53

IBM IBM Java Google 53

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. Other firms like Google bring massive resources to design or engineering and as as corporate VC can offer things normal VC firms can’t offer.

Venture Capital 150

Venture Capital Platform Startup Resource 150

Tech.Co

MARCH 8, 2018

Also at Startup Night will be 25 diverse and innovative startups showcasing their latest products, competing for prizes including: $1K from LaunchKC , Business Extra Points from American Airlines , and a fast tracked spot to the Startup of the Year semifinals competition at Innovate Celebrate 2018. Joanne Chen, Partner at Foundation Capital.

Technical Review 70

Technical Review Startup Software Review Entrepreneur 70

socalTECH

NOVEMBER 14, 2019

in a funding led by Orange County's Okapi Venture Capitalis looking to help direct to consumer brands use better data to direct their marketing and other efforts. So, we decided that if we wanted to try to tackle this as an end-to-end solution, we needed to maintain our competitive edge, and we needed to raise capital to hire staff.

Startup 113

Startup Platform Commerce San Diego 113

Both Sides of the Table

JUNE 22, 2011

I guess that makes USV, Spark Capital, Foundry Group, Accel, Benchmark, Revolution (along with several others) pretty happy right now. million pre-money valuation is now raising $1 million at a $12 million valuation the next investor has nowhere to go but up (or sit out the investment). source: Capital IQ. source: Capital IQ.

Pricing 309

Pricing Marketing Startup Venture Capital 309

InfoChachkie

OCTOBER 29, 2012

Consider the situation in which the entrepreneur wants to accept a financially life-changing offer to sell her company which is vetoed by the investor because the price does not meet its minimal investment return criteria. Avoid too much specificity, as you may risk sounding like yet another startup that is, “Waiting For Google.”

Entrepreneur 145

Entrepreneur Google Invest RSS 145

socalTECH

SEPTEMBER 27, 2013

We caught up with David Siemer , both an investment banker who runs Siemer & Associates (www.siemer.com) and an early stage investor here with Siemer Ventures (www.siemervc.com), to get his thoughts on the subject. You have a unique position, being both in the investment banking as well as being an early stage investor.

Southern California 124

Southern California SoCal Commerce Invest 124