Berkonomics

FEBRUARY 23, 2023

Competitors, seeing a successful development of a niche, flock into the competitive void with products or services built with a fresh view of the current environment. So, the question: load up with more equity and dilution? What about those unicorns? Or sell now?

Pricing 156

Pricing Invest Equity Entrepreneur 156

Berkonomics

AUGUST 3, 2023

There is a lot to say about retaining control. 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. Venture, private equity and more: Here we lump a large number of investor classes into one.

Venture Capital 295

Venture Capital Startup Class Invest 295

Both Sides of the Table

SEPTEMBER 10, 2021

On the other hand, the biggest winners will turn out to be much larger than the prices people paid for them and this will happen faster than at any time in human history. So in our earliest stages we’re about 70% seed and 30% pre-seed. However, to be a great VC you have to hold two conflicting ideas in your head at the same time.

Venture Capital 471

Venture Capital Writing Invest Pricing 471

Startup Professionals Musings

MAY 1, 2021

Aspiring entrepreneurs ask me why their great idea hasn’t sold; they talk about it endlessly, and they expect others to do the development, finance, and marketing work for them. Those at the other extreme don’t look up from the grindstone long enough to notice whether all their work is producing sweat equity or just sweat.

Startup 160

Startup Patents Competition Social Network 160

Startup Professionals Musings

NOVEMBER 4, 2022

Yet every entrepreneur I meet wants to talk about the idea, and rarely mentions the team. Being the leader doesn’t mean more equity, nor does it mean the leader will necessarily be CEO. The combination of technical insight, founder authority, and sales experience is a hard-to-beat advantage in a competitive market.

Technical Advisors 123

Technical Advisors Startup Outsource Development High Tech 123

Both Sides of the Table

JULY 15, 2010

We started this week’s show with a Q&A session where I answered viewer questions about fund raising and the VC industry. – I spoke about GRP’s recent exit of Ulta in which we returned $320 million to our limited partners. Can you please expand on your post about distributed teams? Great exit. -

Venture Capital 210

Venture Capital Seed Funding Pricing Southern California 210

TechCrunch LA

SEPTEMBER 18, 2019

Lots of firms are now talking about this pretty actively.”. Sieg recently joined us on Equity , TechCrunch’s venture capital podcast, to explain the firm’s “rise of the rest” philosophy. Competition for access to deals in the Bay Area, however, has priced many investors out of the most sought-after rounds.

Venture Capital 211

Venture Capital Funding Seed Funding Activity 211

Xconomy

MAY 17, 2019

During his tenure as FDA commissioner, Scott Gottlieb often spoke about generics as a market force that could help tame climbing drug prices. A lawsuit is now claiming that many top generic drug makers routinely conspired to avoid competition. But such tools only work when companies play fair.

Pricing 79

Pricing Competition Tool Marketing 79

TechCrunch LA

DECEMBER 8, 2020

With those two funding rounds all equity-based, to buy up property itself and provide $10,000 cash advances to all sellers, Sundae previously also raised a debt fund from high net worth individuals, and it has a “very large” debt facility from Goldman Sachs that it also non-dilutive, Stech said.

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. We love that ethos — it matches with our thinking about backing entrepreneurs who don’t fit into the stereotypical box,” Kim said. Image Credits: Eano CEO and founder Stella Wu / Eano.

Technical Review 185

Technical Review Startup Venture Capital Software Review 185

Berkonomics

JUNE 8, 2017

There is a lot to say about retaining control. 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. Venture, private equity and more: Here we lump a large number investor classes into one.

Venture Capital 266

Venture Capital Class Invest Equity 266

Startup Professionals Musings

FEBRUARY 9, 2020

Yet every entrepreneur I meet wants to talk about the idea, and rarely mentions the team. Being the leader doesn’t mean more equity, nor does it mean the leader will necessarily be CEO. The combination of technical insight, founder authority, and sales experience is a hard-to-beat advantage in a competitive market.

Technical Advisors 123

Technical Advisors Outsource Development Startup High Tech 123

Tech Zulu Event

AUGUST 4, 2015

For example, there are the private company valuation figures that get bandied about: think the numbers people reference for Uber and AirBnB for example. Business valuations = the price of the company. The industry’s competitive dynamics. Do you see the overlap with the factors that come into play for equity valuations?

IP 40

IP Equity Examples Guide 40

TechCrunch LA

JUNE 10, 2021

The company has about 4,000 employees with several hundred in the U.S. They can also do things like initiate refunds, track deliveries and get price-drop notifications. With this round, the company is again giving 1% of the equity raised back to the planet. True competition is coming to this space, this decade,” he said.

Los Angeles 266

Los Angeles Funding CIO Marketing 266

Both Sides of the Table

MAY 23, 2010

a loan) that is later converted to equity at the time of the next financing. 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. Maybe the market views this as not worth the price you paid?

Startup 290

Startup Funding Venture Capital Pricing 290

Both Sides of the Table

APRIL 14, 2012

Clichés abound about, “You know what would be cool? What I want to talk about today is one of the insider baseball discussions of our industry this past week: The odd fact of the $500 million financing round completed just before the company sold for a B. Think about it. You are either bought for stock or for equity.

Venture Capital 316

Venture Capital Pricing Social Network Acquisition 316

Berkonomics

AUGUST 27, 2015

In the case of technology and Internet-related companies, competitive advantage will have only a relatively short lifespan and that therefore the window of opportunity is not infinite. The Flipper’s executives usually have significant equity holdings, either actually owned or reflected in stock options.

Entrepreneur 120

Entrepreneur Equity Competition Pricing 120

Both Sides of the Table

JUNE 22, 2011

I spoke about a lot of things during the keynote. I spoke about how Amazon Web Services deserves far more credit for the last 5 years of innovation than it gets credit for and how I believe they spawned the micro-VC category. I will write more about this in the next 2 weeks. If you are interested the Vimeo is here.

Pricing 309

Pricing Marketing Startup Venture Capital 309

Startup Professionals Musings

FEBRUARY 13, 2016

Entrepreneurs who are looking to attract investors need to develop and pitch a plan -- preferably written -- that answers every potential investor question about your startup before it is asked. Investors want to hear about customers with money who have a painful problem that you can solve now.

Invest 108

Invest Startup Slides Equity 108

InfoChachkie

JULY 11, 2011

By combining our equity investment with a tranche of venture debt, the company has avoided a larger equity round, which would have significantly diluted the Founders’ ownership share. Dollar Blend – Many venture debt lenders require that their funds be accompanied by an equity investment, generally from legitimate venture capitalists.

Equity 235

Equity Startup Invest Funding 235

Startup Professionals Musings

AUGUST 17, 2014

Projecting the financials should be the last step of your business plan preparation, since it assumes you already know the opportunity size, customer buying habits, pricing, costs, and competition. Here are some basic “rules of thumb” that every Angel or venture capital equity investor uses, to help you anticipate their reactions.

Equity 99

Equity Venture Capital Invest Pricing 99

Both Sides of the Table

JULY 11, 2010

I recently wrote a blog post about why I believe that startup teams in close proximity perform better. We know prices of deals, compensation, who’s doing well / poorly, etc. We know prices of deals, compensation, who’s doing well / poorly, etc. Entrepreneurs need to share more information with each other.

Startup 285

Startup Venture Capital Incubator Entrepreneur 285

Both Sides of the Table

JANUARY 4, 2014

Yesterday I wrote a post about “ the politics of startups ” in which I asserted that all companies have politics, which in its purest sense is just about understanding human psychology. Equity for the future? Of course it makes no sense to have great people management and a crappy product.

Startup 340

Startup Technical Review Course Press 340

Both Sides of the Table

JULY 16, 2010

Lots of discussion these days about the changes in the VC industry. The VC industry grew dramatically as a result of the Internet bubble - Before the Internet bubble the people who invested in VC funds (called LPs or Limited Partners) put about $50 billion into the industry and by 2001 this had grown precipitously to around $250 billion.

Venture Capital 311

Venture Capital Startup Seed Funding Rustic Canyon 311

Startup Professionals Musings

SEPTEMBER 13, 2015

Yet every entrepreneur I meet wants to talk about the idea, and rarely mentions the team. Being the leader doesn’t mean more equity, nor does it mean the leader will necessarily be CEO. The combination of technical insight, founder authority, and sales experience is a hard-to-beat advantage in a competitive market.

Technical Advisors 105

Technical Advisors Outsource Development Startup High Tech 105

Both Sides of the Table

MARCH 11, 2010

Recently I’ve been debating with a number of young startup companies that are raising money in the next few months, “what is the right about of capital to raise at a startup?&#. I’ve spoken about this in a post entitled, “ Do you even need VC ?&# How does your brother-in-law feel about that?

Startup 319

Startup Venture Capital Capital Competition 319

socalTECH

MARCH 6, 2017

We caught up with co-founder Clark Landry to chat about his new startup, which he co-founded with Michael Ritter. We'd get together every two or three months to grab coffee or lunch, and talk about what we're up to. We reconnected, talked about this, and I was thrilled at the opportunity to work with Michael on this.

Media 153

Media Mobile Startup Acquisition 153

Startup Professionals Musings

MAY 28, 2013

Projecting the financials should be the last step of your business plan preparation, since it assumes you already know the opportunity size, customer buying habits, pricing, costs, and competition. Here are some basic “rules of thumb” that every Angel or venture capital equity investor uses, to help you anticipate their reactions.

Startup 97

Startup Equity Entrepreneur Venture Capital 97

Both Sides of the Table

OCTOBER 15, 2016

I sat standing 1 foot away from somebody who’s been in prison for 15 years of his life and I had 60 seconds to open up to him about something that causes me pain in my life while he stairs into my eyes I found myself going deeper than I would with even friends or family. Similar men had just gotten done telling me about their own childhoods.

Writing 150

Writing Startup Design Training 150

Both Sides of the Table

JULY 10, 2010

For entrepreneurs who want to learn about how to work with investment banks, how to position yourself to be acquired and what the IPO markets look like this is the episode to watch. They can also help raise larger rounds of capital and often at higher prices. 1 party = low price. We discussed: 1.

Venture Capital 242

Venture Capital Mission Ventures Capital Help 242

Startup Professionals Musings

AUGUST 13, 2012

Pick a specific solution that you have built or prototyped, rather than rambling about all the possible things that could be done with your idea. It always amazes me how an entrepreneur can define his market opportunity so broadly, and then assess his competition so narrowly in the next breath. Competition and sustainable advantage.

Competition 113

Competition Metrics Startup Invest 113

Startup Professionals Musings

FEBRUARY 18, 2018

Yet every entrepreneur I meet wants to talk about the idea, and rarely mentions the team. Being the leader doesn’t mean more equity, nor does it mean the leader will necessarily be CEO. The combination of technical insight, founder authority, and sales experience is a hard-to-beat advantage in a competitive market.

Technical Advisors 57

Technical Advisors Startup Outsource Development High Tech 57

Startup Professionals Musings

JUNE 11, 2014

Yet every entrepreneur I meet wants to talk about the idea, and rarely mentions the team. Being the leader doesn’t mean more equity, nor does it mean the leader will necessarily be CEO. The combination of technical insight, founder authority, and sales experience is a hard-to-beat advantage in a competitive market.

Technical Advisors 98

Technical Advisors Startup Outsource Development High Tech 98

Startup Professionals Musings

AUGUST 7, 2015

When pitching to investors, entrepreneurs always seem to start with a customer pitch, then add a slide or two about the business. In reality, they need a separate pitch about the business, carrying over only a slide or two about the solution. Competitor positioning and sustainable competitive advantage.

Product 103

Product Slides Customer Custom 103

Startup Professionals Musings

NOVEMBER 21, 2016

They expect to hear about founders and team member’s prior experience in building a startup, and knowledge in the relevant solution domain. Even non-profits need money to scale, but their pitch should be to philanthropists, not equity investors. The average valuation for Angel investments is about $2.5

Funding 98

Funding Startup Innocal Entrepreneur 98

Startup Professionals Musings

MAY 18, 2013

Aspiring entrepreneurs ask me why their great idea hasn’t sold; they talk about it endlessly, and they expect others to do the development, finance, and marketing work for them. Those at the other extreme don’t look up from the grindstone long enough to notice whether all their work is producing sweat equity or just sweat.

Startup 100

Startup Patents Competition Social Network 100

Both Sides of the Table

MAY 13, 2018

Your entire process should be about “testing” whether your prospect has Interest Authority to make a decision Budget Is willing to continue spending actual time with you and analyzing you. Today I want to talk about the process and how to allocate your time. I wrote about it here. You can short-hand this as “engagement.”

Venture Capital 332

Venture Capital Funding Startup Sales 332