Both Sides of the Table

MAY 23, 2010

If a round of funding does happen then this debt is converted into equity at the price that a new external investor pays with a “bonus&# to the inside investor for having taken the risk of the loan. And startup CEO’s can often suppress the anxiety that goes along with the funding uncertainty – even to themselves.

Startup 290

Startup Funding Venture Capital Pricing 290

socalTECH

OCTOBER 23, 2012

One of the biggest complaints that local entrepreneurs have with Los Angeles has been a dearth of local sources of venture capital. However, the recent surge in startup activity has attracted a lot more capital into the area, including a significant amount of capital from LA's latest fund: Karlin Ventures (www.karlinvc.com).

Funding 253

Funding Startup Invest Commerce 253

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. The best entrepreneurs in our industry focus on it year-round as opposed to just once every 18 months. It definitely has a “d” in it, as in it’s really not fun, raising.

Funding 236

Funding Venture Capital Startup Entrepreneur 236

InfoChachkie

SEPTEMBER 17, 2012

However, certain questions can be tricky for an entrepreneur to answer. Below are five common questions an entrepreneur will encounter when seeking venture funding. Handled appropriately, these questions provide investors a window into an entrepreneurs’ soul, which minimizes the chances of a future misalignment.

Entrepreneur 253

Entrepreneur Google Invest RSS 253

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. One of the most important aims of a fund-raising process is to keep similar firms at the same stage of your process. Why 8–10 and not just 3–4?

Venture Capital 332

Venture Capital Funding Startup Sales 332

Startup Professionals Musings

SEPTEMBER 18, 2022

Don’t bash the competition. Every investor knows how vulnerable a new startup is to competitors, so investors always ask about your sustainable competitive advantage in the marketplace. That says you are competitive today, have a real barrier to entry, and the potential to remain ahead of the competition for a long time.

Competition 133

Competition Patents Resource Invest 133

Both Sides of the Table

APRIL 23, 2017

Fund raising is hard for everybody. Fund raising is like a funnel where you need a bunch of potential leads in the top end and only a few will reach the bottom. Start Early The single biggest mistake founders make is waiting until they have too little cash in the bank before fund raising. you can usually get a sense of things.

Funding 238

Funding Venture Capital Startup Course 238

socalTECH

FEBRUARY 14, 2011

The venture capitalists we look at to fund our deals are certainly tightening down, there's no question about that. What is not happening, is those marginal deals that would have gotten funded a number of years ago, when things were better, are not making it. So you don't see as many people looking for funding now?

Tech Coast Angels 231

Tech Coast Angels Technical Review Angel Southern California 231

Startup Professionals Musings

DECEMBER 14, 2019

Don’t bash the competition. Every investor knows how vulnerable a new startup is to competitors, so investors always ask about your sustainable competitive advantage in the marketplace. That says you are competitive today, have a real barrier to entry, and the potential to remain ahead of the competition for a long time.

Competition 120

Competition Patents Resource Invest 120

Both Sides of the Table

FEBRUARY 17, 2011

A year ago I blogged about one of my most common mantras that applies to sales, biz dev & fund raising alike: “ Time is the Enemy of all Deals.&#. When times are really good for fund raising many teams delay to maximize their valuation. Sometimes this pays off, other times it doesn’t. So here’s my framework.

Help 303

Help Startup Competition Framework 303

Both Sides of the Table

JULY 22, 2010

Due to competitive markets we ended up with a pretty good term sheet until we needed to raise money in April 2001 and then we got completely screwed. Brad Feld hadn’t written his seminal “ term sheet series &# and The Funded hadn’t yet been created. But this example above is all entrepreneur math, not the VC’s.

Venture Capital 405

Venture Capital Pricing Startup Funding 405

Startup Professionals Musings

FEBRUARY 14, 2021

In their passion and excitement about a new product or service, entrepreneurs tend to continually narrow the scope of potential competitors, and often claim to have no direct competitors. Competition for your new hydrogen fuel auto engine is not limited to other hydrogen auto engine offerings, or even other autos.

Competition 166

Competition Funding Startup Patents 166

Both Sides of the Table

APRIL 25, 2013

Competitive sportswoman. Getting involved with political events and fund raisers. She was everything I was looking for in an entrepreneur to back. Kara on one side of the table showing me market sizes, competitive dynamics, product roadmaps, pricing plans for physical products with COGS and gross margins. Stanford MBA.

Startup 398

Startup Design Downey Activity 398

Both Sides of the Table

SEPTEMBER 1, 2016

Rolf Winkler wrote a piece in the WSJ about A16Z’s returns in which he says they “lag behind Sequoia, Benchmark and Founders Fund.” 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.

Venture Capital 264

Venture Capital Invest Funding Competition 264

Both Sides of the Table

AUGUST 10, 2013

It’s only 12 minutes long and if you’re a first-time entrepreneur (or second time, frankly) I encourage you to watch it if for nothing else than to get a sense that your struggles are universal. This naive optimism is why I believe younger entrepreneurs are more likely to produce insanely big outcomes.

Startup 412

Startup Press Course Entrepreneur 412

Startup Professionals Musings

JULY 11, 2021

As an angel investor to startups, I’m still surprised to find entrepreneurs who expect investors to give them money, and assume no strings attached. If the entrepreneur wants total control of their own venture, with no one looking over their shoulder, they should work within the limits of their own resources, a process called bootstrapping.

Funding 173

Funding Startup Entrepreneur Report 173

Berkonomics

APRIL 24, 2014

Often I see executive summaries from entrepreneurs who have never managed any form of business, or even managed employees in their past life, and who don’t know the first thing about business formation and managing for growth. I used to tell them to find a partner with knowledge in business creation and management.

Coach 250

Coach Seed Funding Summary Incubator 250

Berkonomics

APRIL 11, 2019

An entrepreneur pitches using a deck with no slide for competition. We have no competition.”. Professional investors laugh when they hear an entrepreneur come out with that one. It is a failed litmus test for the entrepreneur, even if the plan is for a totally new device or service that could take the world by storm.

Competition 120

Competition Slides Research Sales 120

Both Sides of the Table

OCTOBER 26, 2020

leadership, mentorship, competitiveness, communications, relationship-building?—?and 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.” She had all of the skills and traits we sought?—?leadership, Does This Mean You’re Retiring? I’m only 52!

Venture Capital 361

Venture Capital Startup Invest CitySearch 361

Both Sides of the Table

NOVEMBER 15, 2014

I then got my MBA at University of Chicago so I secretly pull for local entrepreneurs as long as they don’t make me visit in the Winter any more. A few years later they announced $150 million in a funding round at $1 billion+ valuation and are ramping up jobs to secure their market-leading position. Perhaps – who knows?

Company 369

Company Companies Startup Snapchat 369

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

SEPTEMBER 23, 2020

A continuing question I hear from young entrepreneurs is whether a university degree is important to startup success, or just a distraction in achieving their purpose in the world. Both provide entrepreneurial “head start” programs for aspiring entrepreneurs, free legal guidance, and access to experienced staff members.

Entrepreneur 157

Entrepreneur Mentor Class Resource 157

Startup Professionals Musings

JUNE 7, 2020

As a startup investor, I often see business proposals looking for funding that really look like expensive hobbies looking for donations. I still see entrepreneurs who spend money and time for months on a new business idea without any separation of personal and business funds, and any formal accounting system for their new business.

Entrepreneur 131

Entrepreneur Outsource Development Startup Competition 131

socalTECH

NOVEMBER 7, 2019

Los Angeles-based ECMC Foundation , a foundation that provides funding to both nonprofit and for-profit ventures focused on college success and career readiness, has helped backed two female entrepreneurs, along with investment firm Chloe Capital. Live, where women entrepreneurs pitched live for up to $250,000 in funding.

Entrepreneur 113

Entrepreneur Los Angeles Invest Competition 113

socalTECH

JUNE 6, 2013

The startup, headed by serial entrepreneur Matthew Graczyk, says its tool gives users access to all of the sites they''ve bookmarked on a single page, making it easier to save and navigate to a user''s favorite sites. The firm said it is in the midst of raising $1M in funding for the venture. READ MORE>>.

Tool 230

Tool Sites Competition Los Angeles 230

Both Sides of the Table

JANUARY 21, 2010

I recently read a post over on VentureHacks titled, “ Top Ten Reasons Entrepreneurs Hate Lawyers &# written by Scott Walker (who blogs on legal issues for entrepreneurs ). So eventually you have your company funded but only 2 of the 5 people who started the company are still around. the link is here.

Startup 318

Startup IP Southern California Entrepreneur 318

Both Sides of the Table

JUNE 5, 2011

I have conversations with entrepreneurs and other VCs on a daily basis about fund raising, the prices of deals, how much companies should raise, etc. For example: If you were to invest $41 million into a company (and one could assume that you owned between 33-50%) then the company is worth $82-123 million at funding.

Startup 336

Startup Pricing Technical Review Marketing 336

Both Sides of the Table

JUNE 30, 2011

The result was a massive increase in startups & a whole group of new funding sources: both angels & “micro VCs&#. With more competition in early-stage many VCs are investing smaller amounts at earlier stages. We all know the result of the over-funding of the asset class – poor returns in aggregate for the industry.

Venture Capital 289

Venture Capital Capital Cloud Computing Marketing 289

InfoChachkie

JULY 18, 2011

Seuss’ Green Eggs and Ham and Marcia Brown’s Stone Soup , the seemingly innocuous board game Monopoly has played a pivotal role in the edification of several generations of entrepreneurs. The players who go first have a higher probability of landing on an available property during their initial trips around the board.

Entrepreneur 216

Entrepreneur Startup Outsource Development Paramount 216

Startup Professionals Musings

FEBRUARY 5, 2020

As a mentor to entrepreneurs, I tend to see many of the same obstacles appearing in every new startup, and since I don’t want to appear to be a downer , I’m not sure how to properly warn people ahead of time to be on the alert for these challenges. Too many entrepreneurs think that expert external advisors are suspect, or will slow them down.

Startup 131

Startup Entrepreneur Examples Customer 131

Both Sides of the Table

OCTOBER 12, 2014

These tensions seep out in some angels or seed funds publicly or semi-privately deriding later-stage VCs for their “bad” behavior. 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

MARCH 30, 2011

The part of the movement that resonates the most with me (in my words) is that entrepreneurs should keep their capital expenditures really low while they’re experimenting with their product and determining whether there is a large market for what they do. This benefits you, the entrepreneur. It takes options off of the table.

Development Team Review 374

Development Team Review Technical Review Startup Resource 374

Both Sides of the Table

SEPTEMBER 27, 2010

The VC industry has different segments in it that have different fund sizes, different investment amounts and different risk / return expectations. We need people at all stages of the funding lifecycle and not just VCs. These days that’s not the case and it’s a great outcome for entrepreneurs and for innovation.

Venture Capital 308

Venture Capital Training Startup Entrepreneur 308

Both Sides of the Table

NOVEMBER 29, 2014

This week I wrote about obsessive and competitive founders and how this forms the basis of what I look for when I invest. I had been thinking a lot about this recently because I’m often asked the question of “what I look for in an entrepreneur when I want to invest?” And I have continued to practice what I preach.

Startup 409

Startup Invest Venture Capital Writing 409

Both Sides of the Table

SEPTEMBER 29, 2013

” And even the venerable Fred Wilson weighed in with how people “ leading vs. following ” in funding rounds play different roles and have different skills. It should help some entrepreneurs to better access early-stage capital and should allow some angel investors better access to deal flow. So there you have it.

Venture Capital 356

Venture Capital Invest Course Technical Review 356

Startup Professionals Musings

SEPTEMBER 6, 2020

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. His focus is on sales, but I see the same skills needed for entrepreneurs. Consensus and change are hard.

Entrepreneur 134

Entrepreneur Startup Sales Customer 134

Both Sides of the Table

MARCH 11, 2010

I’ve seen too many entrepreneurs try to do things on the cheap. But there are also problems / risks: - the funding environment might change dramatically – there may never be a next round (see: March 2000, September 11, 2001 and September 2008). - But the lower end also has risks. that is the correct amount to raise.

Startup 319

Startup Venture Capital Capital Competition 319