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. Like any sale you first need to plan your “prospects” and qualify whether or not they’d be a good fit for your product?—?an an investment in your company.

Venture Capital 332

Venture Capital Funding Startup Sales 332

Both Sides of the Table

SEPTEMBER 28, 2011

That great productivity drain that we somehow all buy into. So I ask you – if you’re being reactive to somebody else’s emails are you really being as productive in your company as you could be? You’re writing a freaking blog post! Fund raising. I never get grumpy that people write.

Email 314

Email Product Startup Writing 314

TechCrunch LA

FEBRUARY 13, 2020

Riot Ventures , the Los Angeles-based, early-stage and deep technology investment firm is going out to market to raise a $75 million second fund to finance the development of startups in LA and beyond, according to fundraising documents viewed by TechCrunch. Oculus, Snap, Tinder and others.

Los Angeles 126

Los Angeles Artificial Inteligence Invest Angel 126

Berkonomics

DECEMBER 31, 2020

The company was funded entirely by grants from the National Institute of Health, amounting to millions of non-dilutive dollars in all. And we should not forget that non-profits of all types depend upon grants for a significant amount of their funding, often employing professional grant writers on staff or as consultants.

Equity 156

Equity Writing Education Research 156

Startup Professionals Musings

MARCH 22, 2020

The only way an entrepreneur can really dodge this issue is to totally fund the startup with personal funds (bootstrapping). That means writing down and signing the terms of the agreement, after making sure everyone understands them. Tie payments to your product or service revenue.

Funding 123

Funding Startup Equity Venture Capital 123

socalTECH

OCTOBER 11, 2018

This morning, Moonshots Capital (www.moonshotscapital.com), led by Kelly Perdew and Craig Cummings , announced its first formal fund, a $19M seed stage fund. In October of last year, we did a first close on our first committed fund, which we're announcing. It's much better with committed funds and bigger checks.

Capital 164

Capital Funding Startup Venture Capital 164

Both Sides of the Table

AUGUST 20, 2015

VC funding. We love capital efficiency until we love land grabs until we abhor over funding until we get huge payouts and ring the bell for more funding until we attract every non-VC on the planet to invest in startups until it crashes and we start the cycle all over again none the wiser. You grow from 8 to 45 people over night.

Funding 150

Funding Venture Capital Startup Marketing 150

socalTECH

JANUARY 8, 2020

in a funding round, according to the company. The funding was led by Switch Ventures, and also included Bessemer Venture Partners, Toba Capital, plus Gerald Risk, Peter Kelly, Jonathan Erlich, and Blaine Vess. The company is led by CEO Malte Kramer. READ MORE>>.

Services 100

Services Marketing SEO Writing 100

Both Sides of the Table

AUGUST 14, 2009

Very few people fund individuals. Product : You should build a product or a prototype. You cannot be just a biz dev type, salesperson, marketing genius or whatever and divorce yourself from product. Great companies are built by having great products. And a great product starts with the founder.

Angel 291

Angel Funding Venture Capital Startup 291

Both Sides of the Table

APRIL 2, 2010

I’m writing this series because if you better understand how VC firms work you can better target which firms make sense for you to speak with. I’m writing this post to explain to entrepreneurs what you should be thinking about in terms of the VC’s you approach and the size and stage of their funds.

Venture Capital 269

Venture Capital Funding Invest GRP Partners 269

Startup Professionals Musings

SEPTEMBER 7, 2018

This process costs money, which professional investors are not willing to contribute, since their interest is in scaling a proven product and business model into a growth business. Acquiring seed-stage funding is admittedly tough, but a source that I find often overlooked is government grant funding, accessible in the U.S.

Funding 90

Funding Technical Review Startup Research 90

Startup Professionals Musings

APRIL 29, 2023

The critical success factors for a product business are well known, starting with selling every unit with a gross margin of 50 percent or more, building a patent and other intellectual property, and continuous product improvement. Low cost and low margin products can be winners, if the volume is high enough.

Startup 111

Startup Training Services Writing 111

Both Sides of the Table

AUGUST 1, 2010

There has been much discussion about VCs doing seed funding in the past year. I’ve written about it myself (Is VC Seed Funding Dead?) and (Is There Really a Signaling Problem with VC Seed Funding?). Knowing What the Seed Funding Policy of your VC is. million of our $200 million fund for seed funding.

Seed Funding 298

Seed Funding Funding Venture Capital GRP Partners 298

TechCrunch LA

JULY 14, 2021

The startup’s ambitions aren’t cheap, FlyMachine tells TechCrunch it has raised $21 million in investor funding to bankroll its plans. The funding has been led by Greycroft Partners and SignalFire, with additional participation from Primary Venture Partners, Contour Venture Partners, Red Sea Ventures, and Silicon Valley Bank.

Platform 310

Platform Los Angeles Startup Venture Capital 310

Startup Professionals Musings

AUGUST 26, 2022

Most business advisors I know will say that writing a business plan is the first step to starting your own business, but I believe that a better first step is to do a self-analysis of your real drivers, strengths, and assumptions before committing to this lifestyle. Assess your own resources as well as funding sources.

Social Media 105

Social Media Writing Ideas Resource 105

TechCrunch LA

JULY 2, 2020

From larger fund investors like Mark Suster and Kara Nortman at Upfront Ventures to Dana Settle at Greycroft Partners; to early-stage investors like Will Hsu at Mucker Capital; TX Zhuo at Fika Ventures, the responses were generally upbeat about the future opportunities for Los Angeles startups.

Los Angeles 277

Los Angeles Venture Capital Capital Invest 277

Startup Professionals Musings

SEPTEMBER 12, 2021

Most of these scenarios involve attracting outside investors, strategic partners, or key team members: You are the team and you don’t need outside funding. In fact, they are probably in such a hurry to give you money that they don’t want you to waste time writing anything down and passing it along to new investors.

Technical Review 126

Technical Review Writing Entrepreneur Slides 126

Startup Professionals Musings

SEPTEMBER 30, 2013

Every investor expects to see some business traction, both before and after a funding event. If you have a product description, that’s necessary, but not sufficient. If you have neither, and choose to approach an investor, you will get no attention, and probably never again get a shot at funding with that investor.

Funding 112

Funding Entrepreneur Startup CTO Hire 112

Startup Professionals Musings

AUGUST 3, 2020

The critical success factors for a product business are well known, starting with selling every unit with a gross margin of 50 percent or more, building a patent and other intellectual property, and continuous product improvement. Low cost and low margin products can be winners, if the volume is high enough.

Startup 174

Startup Training Services Writing 174

Both Sides of the Table

OCTOBER 17, 2019

I had just left Salesforce.com where I was VP, Products, after they had acquired my second startup. As I was trying to figure out the role I wanted to play in the VC world I decided I wanted to focus on businesses that were building deeply technical products to solve problems for business users.

Venture Capital 223

Venture Capital IP Startup Google 223

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. They might decide to delay new product features or upgrading technology infrastructure. But no doubt their bodies feel the stress.

Startup 290

Startup Funding Venture Capital Pricing 290

Both Sides of the Table

MARCH 24, 2014

As a result I didn’t write my first venture capital check until March 2009 – exactly 5 years ago. That company was Invoca, which just announced a $20 million fund raise led by Accel. So I think it’s now fair to rate me at 9/10 on follow-on fundings. 5 years ago. Sourcing high-quality leads : 9/10. ” Yup.

Venture Capital 387

Venture Capital Downey Writing Press 387

Startup Professionals Musings

OCTOBER 1, 2022

One of the best ways to assess development risk is to build and test a prototype, or minimum viable product (MVP). Investors expect this step to be proven successful before funding. Don’t be hesitant to use focus groups, crowd funding, and personal interviews to quantify interest. Be ready to pivot at any point in the process.

Ideas 145

Ideas Startup Case Study Writing 145

Both Sides of the Table

JULY 25, 2010

I’ve been meaning to write about this for a while and was going to use AngelList by Nivi & Naval as the basis for my example and the perfect prompt came yesterday when I read Fred Wilson’s blog post on AngelList. Obviously I’m assuming that you have a great product and/or strategy. So how does this apply to you?

Guide 293

Guide Funding Venture Capital Technical Review 293

Both Sides of the Table

OCTOBER 26, 2014

Yesterday I wrote a post about The Silent Benefits of PR in which I pointed out that most young companies I encounter don’t fully grasp the benefits of PR because they are less measurable than product milestones or customer acquisition analyses (like CAC/LTV). It super charges a business that is closer to product delivery.

Press 319

Press Startup Writing Training 319

Startup Professionals Musings

AUGUST 25, 2023

To keep you out of this statistic, I recommend the following steps to all aspiring business owners as they step into this new and exciting world of managing your own business: Solidify your funding plan before you start spending. The remainder use outside funding, including crowdfunding, friends and family, banks, and investors.

Social Media 98

Social Media Metrics Media Tool 98

socalTECH

MAY 25, 2016

Santa Monica-based March Capital Partners (www.marchcp.com) has just announced a brand new, $240M venture investment fund, led by longtime venture investing veterans Jim Armstrong, Sumant Mandal, Gregory Milken and Jamie Montgomery. What is the investment focus for this fund? All of that represents opportunity, as well.

Southern California 113

Southern California Capital Funding Invest 113

Startup Professionals Musings

APRIL 19, 2014

You see, investors invest in people, before they invest in ideas or products. If you set around quietly waiting for someone you know to offer you money to fund a startup, you will probably have a long wait. We would all love to have a million dollars of funding to “do it right” and build the company of our dreams. Don’t be one.

Startup 106

Startup Funding Technical Review Ideas 106

Startup Professionals Musings

APRIL 21, 2013

The biggest excuse most startup founders mention is too much to do building a product, mapping strategy, investors, etc. I know that finding time is hard, and good writing is simply not what most people do. Once you gain real traction as an expert in your space through the blog, investors will put you at the top of their funding list.

Blogging 104

Blogging Product Startup Writing 104

SoCal CTO

JANUARY 18, 2011

I have been through many months with them but because of lack of funds, I spent lot of time doing non-technical work for first 4-5 months, spending time with them on putting pitches for investors, cash flows, budgets, writing business plans, product prototype setups etc. What happens when this round of funding begins to dry up?

CTO 167

CTO CTO Hire CTO Coach Equity 167

Startup Professionals Musings

AUGUST 20, 2012

Why is it that most of the business plans I see are really product plans? I define a product plan as a detailed description of your product or service, with a bit of business thrown in at the end. A business plan is a detailed description of your business, with a bit of product description thrown in near the front.

Product 92

Product Outsource Development Competition Outsource 92

socalTECH

APRIL 25, 2013

Los Angeles-based SBIR Source , which maintains an online database of grant opportunities from the Federal Small Business Innovation Research (SBIR) program, said this morning that it has launched a new product, GrantIQ. sbir source grantiq database small business innovation research grant funding' READ MORE>>.

Research 166

Research Tool Writing Competition 166

Startup Professionals Musings

MAY 29, 2011

Why is it that most of the business plans I see are really product plans? I define a product plan as a detailed description of your product or service, with a bit of business thrown in at the end. A business plan is a detailed description of your business, with a bit of product description thrown in near the front.

Product 93

Product Entrepreneur Outsource Development Competition 93

Startup Professionals Musings

FEBRUARY 22, 2021

You see, investors invest in people, before they invest in ideas or products. If you set around quietly waiting for someone you know to offer you money to fund a startup, you will probably have a long wait. We would all love to have a million dollars of funding to “do it right” and build the company of our dreams. Don’t be one.

Invest 135

Invest Technical Review Startup Ideas 135

Both Sides of the Table

APRIL 21, 2020

Seed deals, for example, are easier to get funded than a late-stage deal for obvious reasons. But there are some deals that will get funded even though not necessarily seed: If you’re in an anointed category that will serve a post Covid-19 world well. It may take much longer to close deals than you’d like. In a word: Yes.

Venture Capital 263

Venture Capital Marketing Startup Writing 263

SoCal CTO

JANUARY 18, 2011

I have been through many months with them but because of lack of funds, I spent lot of time doing non-technical work for first 4-5 months, spending time with them on putting pitches for investors, cash flows, budgets, writing business plans, product prototype setups etc. What happens when this round of funding begins to dry up?

CTO 150

CTO CTO Hire CTO Coach Equity 150

Both Sides of the Table

AUGUST 29, 2016

On the surface that sounds unremarkable — fundings happen daily. But this isn’t just any funding. That’s why this funding story is different. It’s a Chanukkah story where 18 months of venture capital funding ends up lasting more than 4 years and where against all odds the underdog succeeds. of credit for its success.

Venture Capital 199

Venture Capital Summary Writing Funding 199