Startup Professionals Musings

MAY 28, 2013

Most entrepreneurs struggle with financial projections, not wanting to commit to numbers they can’t deliver, and having no clue what investors might consider reasonable. Here are some basic “rules of thumb” that every Angel or venture capital equity investor uses, to help you anticipate their reactions. Gross margins greater than 50%.

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Startup Professionals Musings

NOVEMBER 21, 2016

Others, like Guy Kawasaki , have irreverently called some of these “entrepreneur lies,” but I prefer to think of them as innocent enhancements or omissions that can kill your deal. It takes a huge upfront investment to attract users, before advertisers are interested. Entrepreneurs in this category are usually dreamers.

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Funding Startup Innocal Entrepreneur 98

Both Sides of the Table

JUNE 30, 2011

With more competition in early-stage many VCs are investing smaller amounts at earlier stages. The venture capital business itself is going through an even more fundamental change than just the entry of a new category at the earliest stage. Hedge funds and growth equity firms returning to their traditional segments of the market.

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Both Sides of the Table

APRIL 14, 2012

“it’s smart to use an impending investment valuation to drive a higher acquisition valuation” I would like to amend her statement slightly to read, “it’s smart to use an impending investment valuation to drive an higher acquisition.” You are either bought for stock or for equity.

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Venture Capital Pricing Social Network Acquisition 316

Both Sides of the Table

MARCH 2, 2011

I was thinking back to a few previous “insider baseball&# blog debates that raged for several weeks: AngelGate (aka Bin38 secret cabal), convertible debt vs. equity, bubble vs. not, and now the AngelList discussion. It sure wasn’t when I was a first-time entrepreneur. But to entrepreneurs can be gold. Same thing.

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Email Blogging Venture Capital Writing 287

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 ). You never got around to agreeing exact equity splits but you had many conversations about it. Much of this is unfounded – some is not.

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socalTECH

DECEMBER 11, 2017

We sold that to a very large private equity company. They invested in 2014, and asked me to meet with Dallas Imbimbo, the CEO and Founder. We went a little too fast, and took on too many categories at first. Then there was haggling back and forth about price. One of my partners was St. Cloud Capital.

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Both Sides of the Table

MAY 5, 2011

I’m an entrepreneur at heart so I’m always inspired when I hear stories about innovation. It’s why my investment philosophy is called, “ the entrepreneur thesis.&#. Who’s going to help you with improving your marketing / positioning to become a clear platform category leader like Twilio?

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Venture Capital Technical Review Startup Press 317

Both Sides of the Table

MAY 15, 2010

It’s always fun chatting with Jason because he’s knowledgeable about the market, quick on topics and pushes me to talk more about VC / entrepreneur issues. We’re staring to get the hang of how to divide the show up into talking about deals but also talking about issues for entrepreneurs during funding. Short answer: no.

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