Both Sides of the Table

SEPTEMBER 23, 2010

They might not actively “collude&# and say “let’s collectively keep the price down&# but in the resulting discussion pricing information will flow – whether intentional or not. They’re not in search of price fixing or collusion, they’re in search of diligence information about the company.

Pricing 292

Pricing Entrepreneur Technical Review Venture Capital 292

Both Sides of the Table

DECEMBER 11, 2022

I started my first company in 1999 and was admittedly swept up in all of this: Magazine covers, fancy conferences, artificial valuations and easy money. In those years I learned to properly build product, price products, sell products and serve customers. Between 2006–2008 I sold both companies that I had started and became a VC.

Venture Capital 466

Venture Capital Startup Marketing Pricing 466

Both Sides of the Table

SEPTEMBER 10, 2021

I’m over-paying for every check I write into the VC ecosystem and valuations are being pushed up to absurd levels and many of these valuations and companies won’t hold in the long term. However, to be a great VC you have to hold two conflicting ideas in your head at the same time. dot-com bonanza. Seed has become an option factory for many.

Venture Capital 471

Venture Capital Writing Invest Pricing 471

TechCrunch LA

AUGUST 19, 2019

The startup has raised $1 million in seed funding from RXBAR founders Peter Rahal and Jared Smith, CXT Investments, and Lean Luxe founder M. ” And in his view, Huron will be set apart with its “ability to create a brand with a tone of voice that resonates, with products that work, at a price point that makes sense for this guy.”

Startup 217

Startup Seed Funding Los Angeles Competition 217

Startup Professionals Musings

MARCH 8, 2021

“Intrapreneurs” are entrepreneurs inside big companies, who do corporate spin-offs. A spin-off is merely a startup spawned by a mature parent (company), and conventional logic would dictate that it has a survival advantage over the lowly startup. Foreign companies in the US like to use spin-offs to find expansion opportunities.

Company 125

Company Companies Startup Examples 125

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

Berkonomics

AUGUST 3, 2023

Bootstrapping: This term describes your ability to start a business with little investment and grow it using internally generated funds. 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. There is a lot to say about retaining control.

Venture Capital 295

Venture Capital Startup Class Invest 295

Both Sides of the Table

JANUARY 29, 2010

Competitiveness - One attribute that I believe most VCs look for in entrepreneurs is competitiveness. If you stumble on to a really good idea believe me it will get competitive really quickly. I know that people who aren’t competitive always find competitive people slightly distasteful. I had to say it.

Competition 296

Competition Entrepreneur Startup GRP Partners 296

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

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

Berkonomics

SEPTEMBER 3, 2020

Investment bankers sometimes slow the process by requiring a cloud-based “data room” and “deal book” to be prepared containing considerable information about a company to help a buyer. Competition opens the deal to more public access, slows the deal and could give competitors wind of an otherwise confidential process.

Invest 156

Invest Competition Pricing Guide 156

InfoChachkie

JULY 28, 2015

Even the eccentric King of Pop communicated the price he was willing to pay for Neverland. However, in many cases, acquiring companies behave less rationally than Mr. Jackson. Citrix politely approached us, told us they had an interest in acquiring our company and then asked us, “How much?”. What is your price?”.

Company 100

Company Companies Santa Barbara Pricing 100

Startup Professionals Musings

MAY 23, 2013

One of the toughest decisions for a startup is how to price their product or service. The alternatives range from giving it away for free, to pricing based on costs, to charging what the market will bear (premium pricing). In this more traditional product pricing model, the price is set at two to five times the product cost.

Pricing 116

Pricing Product Customer Custom 116

Both Sides of the Table

OCTOBER 17, 2009

A few years ago it became fashionable for large VC’s to do seed funding. With open source software (LAMP stack) and cloud computing infrastructure it just wasn’t that expensive to get your company going and founders just wanted to raise less money. I think they definitely qualify as a VC and not a seed fund.

Seed Funding 283

Seed Funding Venture Capital Funding Software Review 283

Both Sides of the Table

MAY 23, 2010

This happens when the company has been making steady progress but hasn’t built enough “ proof &# to raise its next round of financing from external investors. If no financing happened then this “note&# may not be converted and thus would be senior to the equity of the company in the case of a bankruptcy or asset sale.

Startup 290

Startup Funding Venture Capital Pricing 290

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. an investment in your company. Somehow many first-time founders equate “sales” with something that is beneath them. This is where most founders err.

Venture Capital 332

Venture Capital Funding Startup Sales 332

TechCrunch LA

JUNE 10, 2021

Just over three months after its last funding round, European fintech giant Klarna is announcing today that it has raised another $639 million at a staggering post-money valuation of $45.6 In an exclusive interview with TechCrunch, Klarna CEO and founder Sebastian Siemiatkowski said the company has seen explosive growth in the U.S.

Los Angeles 266

Los Angeles Funding CIO Marketing 266

Tech.Co

DECEMBER 29, 2023

As investors continue pouring funding into artificial intelligence and consumer habits shift, many AI and subscription model startups have been enjoying rapid growth. Source: runwayml.com In June, Runway raised $141 million in funding, nudging its market valuation to an envy-inducing $1.5 Organic milk formula product Bobbie.

Startup 210

Startup Generative AI Newsletter Tool 210

Both Sides of the Table

JANUARY 16, 2012

I’ve raised money as a “hot company” and I’ve raised capital when no one would return my phone calls. I raised money as an entrepreneur, like you, in 1999, 2000, 2001, 2003 and 2005 for two different companies. I now observes the fund raising process as a profession. Fund raising is bloody hard.

Develop 366

Develop Development Funding Venture Capital 366

Both Sides of the Table

MARCH 11, 2011

He was a life-long entrepreneur and the first business he created out of college (actually, he founded it while he was at Caltech) was a company that manufactured high quality audio speakers. So he launched a company with exclusively paid search. He said it was better than the Yellow Pages because he would provide pricing transparency.

Competition 350

Competition Idealab Product CitySearch 350

Both Sides of the Table

JUNE 5, 2011

2 preamble issues having read the comments on TC today: 1: I know that the prices of startup companies is much great in Silicon Valley than in smaller towns / less tech focused areas in the US and the US prices higher than many foreign markets. You can be pissed off, but I don’t set prices. That’s stupid.

Startup 336

Startup Pricing Technical Review Marketing 336

Both Sides of the Table

JUNE 28, 2018

My friend Michael Broukhim, founder & co-CEO of FabFitFun and I recently had a catch-up meeting for 3-miles on the Santa Monica “Bird Trail” No company has ever elicited so many questions by friends, colleagues, entrepreneurs, fellow VCs and journalists as has Bird, the company that pioneered the electronic scooter as a service market.

Santa Monica 256

Santa Monica Funding Startup Course 256

TechCrunch LA

DECEMBER 8, 2020

Today, a startup that is doing this in the specific area of distressed property is announcing a round of growth funding to ramp up its team and expand its business. The funding is being led by QED Investors; Founders Fund, Susa Ventures, Navitas Capital, and Prudence Holdings also participated.

Sales 282

Sales Demand San Diego Funding 282

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.”. And in the first quarter of this year, business was up 70% year over year.

Technical Review 185

Technical Review Startup Venture Capital Software Review 185

Startup Professionals Musings

DECEMBER 2, 2022

You can’t succeed in business without an operational model that delivers value to customers at a reasonable price, with an underlying cost that allows you to make a profit. Test your projections against actual published reports from similar companies. Competition. What is the need you fill or problem you solve? Revenue model.

Sales 102

Sales Customer Custom Outsource 102

TechCrunch LA

MARCH 20, 2019

The feature illustrates how Postmates, one of the earlier entrants to the billion-dollar food delivery wars , is trying to remain competitive by appealing to price-sensitive customers. For now, the company’s party feature will only be offered in a handful of the nearly 3,000 U.S. cities in which it currently operates.

Orange County 200

Orange County Long Beach San Diego Los Angeles 200

Startup Professionals Musings

JULY 30, 2010

In my own effort to keep up with the times, I just finished a new book by Landy Chase, titled “ Competitive Selling: Out-Plan, Out-Think, Out-Sell to Win Every Time.” This concept applies equally well to convincing investors to fund you, employees to join you, or customers to buy from you. Establish the competitive playing field early.

Competition 92

Competition Entrepreneur Startup Customer 92

InfoChachkie

MARCH 16, 2010

Even the eccentric King of Pop communicated the price he was willing to pay. However, in many cases, acquiring companies behave in a less rational manner than Mr. Jackson. Citrix politely approached us, told us they had an interest in acquiring our company and then asked us, “How much?”. What is that price?”.

Company 160

Company Companies Pricing Santa Barbara 160

Berkonomics

OCTOBER 10, 2013

Investment bankers sometimes slow the process by requiring a “deal book” to be prepared containing considerable information about a company to help a buyer. Competition opens the deal to more public access, slows the deal and could give competitors wind of an otherwise confidential process. Deal books are expensive to create.

Invest 207

Invest Competition Pricing Startup 207

Startup Professionals Musings

FEBRUARY 15, 2021

For example, I once worked for a small software company selling a sophisticated enterprise workflow solution. As small companies, neither startup could afford to extend their product alone, but through creative leadership, we were able to negotiate a win-win strategic partnership for a joint product. We both often lost as a result.

Startup 173

Startup Outsource Development Examples Customer 173

Both Sides of the Table

APRIL 3, 2014

Most technology startups seem to be funded by product people or business people. Nor do they exist in the investors of early-stage companies. Many great ones don’t thrive in the early phase of a company where the sales is more consultative or evangelical. Sales people will often blame your pricing.

Sales 382

Sales Help Startup Pricing 382

Both Sides of the Table

NOVEMBER 2, 2010

Some objections are real and they end up becoming changes to your product, your service plan or your pricing / bundling. As a founder, when you’ve been dealing with these kinds of objections for a couple of years it becomes natural and you easily handle objections on price, product & competition without much thought.

Sales 289

Sales Startup Training Pricing 289

Both Sides of the Table

AUGUST 30, 2010

I’ve written about the topic of convertible debt at length before specifically about how angels & entrepreneurs should think about pricing. Convertible debt is an investment that “converts&# into equity in the future usually at a discount to your next funding round price and sometimes has a “cap&# (maximum price).

Equity 319

Equity Pricing Venture Capital Entrepreneur 319

Startup Professionals Musings

MAY 29, 2023

In my view, this focus on the wrong skill set is the primary reason why over half of new businesses fail in the first five years, and only one out of a hundred startups get their requested funding from professional investors. Building a company and selling are all about gaining commitments. Value is far more than cost versus price.

Startup 154

Startup Sales Entrepreneur Customer 154

Startup Professionals Musings

MAY 10, 2021

Experienced entrepreneurs will tell you that the initial idea is the easy part, and it’s the later implementation, and the competitive business marketing that are the real creative challenges. I find that startups looking for funding often never even think of asking strategic partners, rather than just venture capitalists.

Ideas 171

Ideas Patents Training Entrepreneur 171

TechCrunch LA

MARCH 31, 2021

The sweeping infrastructure package put forward today by President Joe Biden comes with a price tag of roughly $2 trillion (and hefty tax hikes) but gives startups and the broader tech industry about $1 trillion worth of reasons to support it. ” Climate resiliency . Given the steady drumbeat of climate disasters that hit the U.S.

Startup 229

Startup Technical Review Invest Research 229

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.

Startup 111

Startup Training Services Writing 111