Startup Professionals Musings

SEPTEMBER 25, 2023

Many first-time entrepreneurs find themselves unable to bootstrap their startups, and also unable to find early funding at the venture capital level or even with angel investors. Their only recourse is that first tier of investors, fondly called Friends, Family and Fools. Offer a formal agreement as well as a handshake.

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Startup Funding Equity Invest 109

Startup Professionals Musings

NOVEMBER 26, 2022

For example, Bill Gates founded and grew Microsoft, and Michael Dell built a great technology company, both with no outside funding until they went successful enough to go public years later and sell shares to common stockholders. Of course, this can be positive if you really need the help and experience in making key decisions.

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Funding Startup Satisfaction Venture Capital 107

Startup Professionals Musings

OCTOBER 17, 2022

Venture capitalists (VCs) have long been seen as the top of the pyramid for startup funding sources, but in fact angel investors now fund over twice as many companies, according to a classic Crunchbase article. Of course, every new direction has some challenges, so the super angel model isn’t perfect.

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Guide Venture Capital Funding Class 136

socalTECH

NOVEMBER 7, 2019

Irvine-based Kajabi , which develops a platform that helps both individuals, as well as small- and mid-sized businesses monetize online courses, training materials, and other content, has receive an investment from private equity investor Spectrum Equity. Kajabi said the funding is its first institutional funding since it launched in 2010.

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Equity Funding Training Course 138

Startup Professionals Musings

MAY 21, 2023

Of course, every alternative has advantages and disadvantages, so any given one may not be available or attractive to you. For example, professional investors put great priority on your previous experience in building a business, and they expect to own a portion of the business equity and control for the funds they do provide.

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Startup Capital Equity Funding 106

Both Sides of the Table

SEPTEMBER 10, 2021

We have global opportunities from these trends but of course also big challenges. how on Earth could the venture capital market stand still? Of course we can’t. And as a result of this there are now very robust secondary markets where founders and seed-funds alike are selling down their ownership long before an ultimate exit.

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Venture Capital Writing Invest Pricing 471

Startup Professionals Musings

JUNE 28, 2021

Entrepreneurs who require funding for their startup have long counted on self-accredited high net worth individuals (“angels”) to fill their needs, after friends and family, and before they qualify for institutional investments (“VCs”). Of course, both are impressive, but still small compared to over $300 billion from VC investments annually.

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Funding Startup .Net Invest 144

Both Sides of the Table

MAY 6, 2018

Fund raising. But it’s critical for your business, for you as a leader and people who excel at fund raising have an extreme advantage over those who do not. As a VC I also have to fund raise every three years and these posts 100% apply to VCs raising money, too. It definitely has a “d” in it, as in it’s really not fun, raising.

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Funding Venture Capital Startup Entrepreneur 236

socalTECH

DECEMBER 23, 2020

Here, we have Greg Martin, Founder and Managing Partner of Archer Venture Capital (www.archervc.com). 2020 was a crash course in leadership and we saw many great entrepreneurs step up and rise to the challenge. No longer will you need to be situated in Silicon Valley, or Boston, NY or LA to get venture funding.

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Venture Capital Capital Technical Review Brentwood 124

Both Sides of the Table

SEPTEMBER 18, 2014

On the phone … Me: So, you raised venture capital? It’s like we need a finance 101 course for entrepreneurs. How about you close your first capital (say $500,000) and put in the docs that you have up to [90] days to raise an additional $1 million at the same price at your discretion. We raised a seed round.

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Venture Capital Capital Pricing Doc 417

Startup Professionals Musings

OCTOBER 19, 2022

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. Of course, there are thousands of other companies that don’t achieve their minimum goal, requiring all contributions to be returned. Donation good-cause model.

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Funding Startup Outsource Development Satisfaction 141

socalTECH

SEPTEMBER 23, 2019

Raising capital for a female-led startup can be very diffiult--which is what Justine Lassoff and Melinda Moore found out when they started their own company, LovingEco, in Los Angeles. Melinda Moore: If you think about it, guys have golf courses, and you have things like the PayPal Mafia, and poker games. What is TuesdayNights?

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Help Entrepreneur Capital Startup 224

Startup Professionals Musings

NOVEMBER 22, 2020

They don’t realize that according to statistics from Startup.co , almost 60 percent are funded with personal savings and credit, and another 25 percent get their money from friends and family. That leaves only about fifteen percent that actually get their funding from investors, through crowdfunding, banks, angels, and venture capitalists.

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Funding Tips Startup Statistics 173

Both Sides of the Table

MARCH 1, 2016

At the Upfront Summit in early February, we had a chance to have many off-the-record conversations with Limited Partners (LPs) who fund Venture Capital (VC) funds about their views of the market. In fact, if you add the capital flows of the past ten years, there have been just shy of $50 billion in net cash outlays.

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Venture Capital Capital Marketing Seed Funding 150

Startup Professionals Musings

AUGUST 29, 2020

Of course, every alternative has advantages and disadvantages, so any given one may not be available or attractive to you. For example, professional investors put great priority on your previous experience in building a business, and they expect to own a portion of the business equity and control for the funds they do provide.

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Funding Startup Equity Examples 174

Both Sides of the Table

SEPTEMBER 15, 2014

Venture Capital is a tricky industry. If you’re funding the same stuff as everybody else and if you started your activities when the clues were obvious you’re much less likely to drive enormous returns. When Fred Wilson funded Twitter I guarantee you it wasn’t obvious that it was a billion dollar idea.

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Funding Technical Review Ideas Startup 362

Both Sides of the Table

JUNE 28, 2018

Today the company officially announced its most recent round of capital ?—?having Over the course of the first few months I saw a few people out on the street taking Birds and then a steady uptick in riders. having raised $300 million?—?less Ah, but Bird doesn’t have network effects! There is nothing viral! Not really.

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Santa Monica Funding Startup Course 256

Startup Professionals Musings

JANUARY 19, 2020

Venture capitalists (VCs) have long been seen as the top of the pyramid for startup funding sources, but in fact angel investors now fund over twice as many companies, according the Crunchbase. Of course, every new direction has some challenges, so the super angel model isn’t perfect. Super angels sometimes drive up valuations.

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Funding Venture Capital Startup Class 125

Startup Professionals Musings

JANUARY 11, 2021

Many first-time entrepreneurs find themselves unable to bootstrap their startups, and also unable to find early funding at the venture capital level or even with angel investors. Their only recourse is that first tier of investors, fondly called Friends, Family and Fools. Offer a formal agreement as well as a handshake.

Funding 138

Funding Startup Equity Invest 138

TechCrunch LA

JULY 2, 2020

When it comes to venture capital, Los Angeles is a city on the rise. It’s also the city where investors are spending the most money outside of venture capital’s big major hubs: San Francisco, Boston and New York. Will Hsu, Mucker Capital. Karan Wadhera, Casa Verde Capital. Dana Settle, Greycroft Partners.

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Los Angeles Venture Capital Capital Invest 277

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. I always tell founders … “An investors job is to deploy capital and make a return. Of course there’s no exact number of VCs you should meet?—?these

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Venture Capital Funding Startup Sales 332

Startup Professionals Musings

MAY 11, 2020

Struggling entrepreneurs are often so happy to get a funding offer that they neglect the recommended reverse due diligence on the investors. Taking on equity investors to fund your company is much like getting married – it is a long-term relationship that has to work at all levels. It’s no fun for either side.

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Technical Review Funding Innocal Offshore 124

Both Sides of the Table

JUNE 28, 2011

In this three-part series I will explore the ways that the Venture Capital industry has changed over the past 5 years that I would argue are a direct result of changes in the software industry, not the other way around. I will argue that LPs who invest in VC funds will also need to adjust a bit as well.

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Venture Capital Software Capital Startup 334

TechCrunch LA

DECEMBER 15, 2021

The company’s mobile application lets users take a photo of any bill and then its artificial intelligence-powered “bill-understanding technology” makes sure it gets paid (after a user has provided payment details, of course). But of course, part of its capital will go toward building awareness and growing its headcount.

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Mobile Artificial Inteligence Startup Los Angeles 208

socalTECH

MAY 4, 2021

Irvine-based e-commerce software developer Kajabi said this morning that it has raised a massive, $550M funding round, which values the company at over $2 billion. The company said the round was led by Tiger Global Management and included TPG, Tidemark, Owl Rock Capital and Meritech Capital, along with existing investor Spectrum Equity.

Commerce 113

Commerce Coach Course Equity 113

socalTECH

AUGUST 27, 2021

Los Angeles-based Bright said on Thursday that it has raised $15M in a celebrity-packed funding round, for its online, livestreamed classes. The startup also said that it has added Jessica Alba, Kane Brown, and Maria Sharapova as advisors to the company as part of the funding.

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Class Course Los Angeles Funding 113

Both Sides of the Table

OCTOBER 26, 2020

and of course a relentless pursuit of helping founders succeed. I’ve become fond of saying “if I had a dollar for every person who told me just how much they loooooved Kara Nortman, I’d have a 10x fund.” For example, we’re now already well into our third growth fund that we started in 2015 (the first returned 2x cash in 3.5

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Venture Capital Startup Invest CitySearch 361

socalTECH

JANUARY 16, 2013

According to Eric Robison, the firm's CEO, the funding round will go towards increasing the firm's global reach and expanding content. Lynda.com offers up online education courses on things like Adobe Photoshop, Illustrator, Microsoft Excel, AutoCAD, and much more. Meritech Capital also participated in the funding.

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Funding Santa Barbara ReachLocal Southern California 178

Both Sides of the Table

SEPTEMBER 15, 2022

At our mid-year offsite our partnership at Upfront Ventures was discussing what the future of venture capital and the startup ecosystem looked like. No blog post about how Tiger is crushing everybody because it’s deploying all its capital in 1-year while “suckers” are investing over 3-years can change this reality.

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Venture Capital Marketing Technical Review Seed Funding 416

Tech.Co

JUNE 5, 2024

Starting or growing a small business in 2024 is no easy feat, and one of the biggest obstacles you will face is securing funding. However, you might be surprised to find out how much free capital is available to small businesses in the form of small business grants. As the old adage goes, money doesn’t grow on trees.

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socalTECH

JULY 18, 2013

Thanks to that activity, a new, venture investor has moved into town, Core Innovation Capital (www.corevc.com) , to specifically take advantage of those opportunities. Arjan Schutte: Our fund has a big mission, to invest in financial technology for the emerging middle class. I then moved to New York, where I set up the fund.

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Capital Startup Los Angeles Invest 183

socalTECH

DECEMBER 4, 2020

Los Angeles-based The Skills , a startup which operates an online education site where professional sports players teach different skills, said on Friday that it has raised $5M in a seed funding round. The funding was led by Will Ventures, and also included Global Founders Capital, 8VC, Maveron, Hack VC, and Correlation VC.

Venture Capital 100

Venture Capital Seed Funding Education Course 100

socalTECH

DECEMBER 30, 2015

Today, we have the thoughts of Jeb Spencer of TVC Capital (www.tvccapital.com), a software focused growth equity fund which just raised a new fund, and has had some great success in the market. TVC Capital has also been a big supporter of socaltech over the years. What was the biggest news for you or your firm this year?

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Capital Beverly Hills Artificial Inteligence Equity 100

socalTECH

OCTOBER 1, 2019

Los Angeles-based Knowable , which offers up paid, audio classes on a wide range of topics, said it launched on Tuesday morning, charging students $100 per student for access to a wide range of audio course on topics ranging from launching a startup to sleeping better at night.

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Class Seed Funding Course Los Angeles 113

Startup Professionals Musings

JULY 7, 2018

Unfortunately, some are so focused on this principle that they forget that every business, even nonprofits, have to practice the basic principles of capitalism (build a business model to make money) to cover their costs to do good things another day. You can find dozens more on the Conscious Capitalism web site. Marty Zwilling.

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Capital Entrepreneur Guide Course 57

Startup Professionals Musings

MAY 29, 2021

The professors know how to get grants to fund development for you in strategic focus areas, like biotech, that would otherwise cost you many thousands of dollars. Every university has entrepreneurial courses or evening classes that can provide assistance on creating your initial plan. Early-stage funding.

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Incubator Mentor Class Resource 172

Both Sides of the Table

MAY 28, 2018

He or she wants to know how long the money you will raise will last and whether this is long enough to warrant taking a risk on funding you. Are you raising an appropriate amount of capital relative to your progress, relative to your team size and relative to your needs? Yes, I see plans this pedestrian.

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Venture Capital Capital Funding Demand 247