Both Sides of the Table

JUNE 28, 2018

Until recently it was headquartered 2 blocks from our offices in Santa Monica so we literally saw it emerge under our feet and we proudly invested in the last 3 rounds of financing. You can expect some strong competition, but it’s unlikely that there will be 5 great scooter companies. having raised $300 million?—?less

Santa Monica 256

Santa Monica Funding Startup Course 256

Startup Professionals Musings

SEPTEMBER 18, 2010

Even if you know your product/service suite down cold, understand the strengths/weaknesses of the competition, and have built pro forma financials that are sane. Make the repayment terms as clear as possible at either the beginning or end of the Executive Summary. They will likely only read your plan’s Executive Summary – at first.

Writing 97

Writing Summary Ideas Research 97

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. Exec Summary: Most companies (98+%) in the world (even tech startups) should be very profit focused. If you don’t, somebody else WILL!”

Startup 418

Startup Venture Capital Sales Technical Review 418

Startup Professionals Musings

APRIL 21, 2012

Here is a summary, with some of the pros and cons or special considerations for each: Product or service is free, revenue from ads and critical mass. This also requires a huge investment to get to critical mass, and real work to differentiate and sell premium services to users locked-in as free. Competitive positioning.

Pricing 112

Pricing Competition Customer Custom 112

Startup Professionals Musings

MARCH 17, 2013

But safely seeking equity investments from the crowd via the Jobs Act of 2012 is problematic and has still not been defined. When pitching to consumers, online or offline, the feedback will likely be on features and design. Multiple micro-investments are not manageable. Amount of funding provided is usually not enough.

Funding 106

Funding Equity Entrepreneur Sample 106

Startup Professionals Musings

AUGUST 31, 2014

Here is a summary, with some of the pros and cons or special considerations for each: Product or service is free, revenue from ads. This also requires a huge investment to get to critical mass, and real work to differentiate and sell premium services to convert users to paying customers. Cost-based model. Tiered or volume pricing.

Startup 114

Startup Pricing Customer Custom 114

Startup Professionals Musings

MAY 23, 2013

Here is a summary, with some of the pros and cons or special considerations for each: Product or service is free, revenue from ads. This also requires a huge investment to get to critical mass, and real work to differentiate and sell premium services to “convert” users to paying customers. Cost-based model. Tiered or volume pricing.

Pricing 116

Pricing Product Customer Custom 116

Startup Professionals Musings

SEPTEMBER 23, 2010

Having a defensible competitive advantage or “barrier to entry” is another critical step to funding, and another common stumbling block during all phases of the funding process. Build an investor presentation and summary. Prepare an investment-grade business plan. Start early on this one, or you will lose the opportunity.

Angel 89

Angel Funding Technical Review Startup 89

Startup Professionals Musings

JUNE 25, 2011

Crowd-pitching is an offline event, but logically similar, which give several candidates an opportunity to pitch to a crowd of interested people for a couple of minutes, after which the crowd “votes” with some play-money to pick the best candidate, who then wins some nominal investment amount or services. Intellectual property is jeopardized.

Funding 92

Funding Startup Social Media Sample 92

Startup Professionals Musings

DECEMBER 26, 2010

Here is a summary, with some of the pros and cons or special considerations for each: Product or service is free, revenue from ads and critical mass. This also requires a huge investment to get to critical mass, and real work to differentiate and sell premium services to users locked-in as free. Competitive positioning.

Pricing 98

Pricing Product Startup Competition 98

Tech Zulu Event

MARCH 16, 2015

There’s plenty of capital out there, but there’s also a lot of competition for startup funding. If you go this route, be careful to make the stakes clear: i.e., that they could lose their whole investment. Angels (invest their own money) and super angels. Designate a point person to handle the relationships.

Startup 40

Startup Venture Capital Equity Funding 40

Startup Professionals Musings

DECEMBER 1, 2017

As an experienced business advisor, here is my current summary, with some of the pros and cons or special considerations for each: Product is free, revenue is from advertisers. Advantages for your business include a stable revenue stream, customer retention, and increasing customer investment over time.

Pricing 66

Pricing Customer Custom Advertising 66

SoCal Delicious

JANUARY 9, 2014

This helps to add some constraints to the design process as everyone has a clear idea of what the product isn’t. Design as an afterthought Mistakenly, many early-stage startups often don’t see value in investing in design early on, believing it is a luxury which can be bolted on later like some kind of magic stardust.

Startup 78

Startup Design Customer Custom 78

Both Sides of the Table

AUGUST 3, 2009

As should Eric Sikola and ExpenseBay who won the “Showoff&# judges competition ( Photos featured here taken by (cc) Kenneth Yeung – [link] ). We had an excellent opening panel on early-stage investing with Dave McClure (Founders Fund – NorCal), Brad Feld (Foundry Group, Boulder) and Andy Sack (Founders Co-Op, Seattle).

Twiistup 228

Twiistup SoCal Southern California Yammer 228

Startup Professionals Musings

MAY 21, 2010

Crowd-pitching is an offline event, but logically similar, which give several candidates an opportunity to pitch to a crowd of interested people for a couple of minutes, after which the crowd “votes” with some play-money to pick the best candidate, who then wins some nominal investment amount or services. Intellectual property is jeopardized.

Funding 59

Funding Startup Social Media Sample 59

Startup Professionals Musings

JUNE 26, 2020

To be clear, I define a product specification as the technical definition of your product, to be used for development and testing purposes, with a quick business summary for context. Call out your top competitors, highlighting your sustainable competitive advantage, including patents, trade secrets. and trademarks.

Product 169

Product Summary Startup Examples 169

Both Sides of the Table

MARCH 11, 2011

Summary notes, as always, provide below. Bill doesn’t think you should over invest in them but he does believe in protecting ideas when you have a true invention and many of his companies have done so. His first “real&# business came in college where he designed audio speakers. It was a pleasure to write them myself.

Competition 350

Competition Idealab Product CitySearch 350

Both Sides of the Table

APRIL 2, 2014

There’s an old joke in software development, “How much time does it take to design software?” ” Answer: As long as you have scheduled for the design phase. Design with no constraints becomes a research project. Not funny, “ha, ha” but pretty apropos. CEOs are time-driven creatures.

Software 344

Software Startup Design Course 344

Both Sides of the Table

JANUARY 16, 2012

Executive Summary. Partners make investment decisions. If you want to watch the video version summary of my advice on fund raising it’s here. ” In VC terms that means the key questions you need to answer are, is this investor: Geographically focused and have they invested in my geography before? Tell a friend!

Develop 366

Develop Development Funding Venture Capital 366

Both Sides of the Table

JANUARY 11, 2011

A summary of what we discussed is below: Not 100% in order of the video, but close. In the video I describe how to best play this meeting and why, without a champion going into the meeting, you’re unlikely to get an investment. Competition. If you don’t, make sure you follow up and ask for feedback. Market sizing.

Venture Capital 340

Venture Capital Slides Doc Startup 340

Both Sides of the Table

DECEMBER 12, 2016

Why Invest? For six years before that he was at Siebel who was the market leader in CRM before Salesforce, and he has both a masters in product design from Stanford and an MBA. And while my relationship with Chuck was critical to my investment, so too was the leadership of Trevor Templar , the Chief Revenue Officer. Why Invest?

Software 105

Software Mobile Artificial Inteligence Oracle 105

Frank Addante

JUNE 4, 2006

► August (1) Invest in Transparency & Active Communication ► July (1) The Fear of Success ► May (2) Optimized for Speed = 30% Waste Happy 1st Birthday Rubicon Project! We invested the first $1 million to develop version 1.0 Blogger Template originally design by Web-Kreation Converted By Jacky Supit

Startup 40

Startup Venture Capital Email CTO Hire 40

Both Sides of the Table

FEBRUARY 12, 2017

The 30-minute interview of Jonah Peretti is here but my summary in the notes below. But I knew I had to look for investments in “software meets X (often known as Vertical Software solutions)” rather than necessarily horizontal enterprise software applications.

Buzzfeed 210

Buzzfeed Media Content News 210