Both Sides of the Table

SEPTEMBER 5, 2012

When convertible debt first started being introduced as a “faster, cheaper way to get startups funded” they didn’t have pricing built into them. ” And some seed stage investors told me, “I prefer not to fight over price now. They’ll get priced soon enough by a VC.” Enter “the cap.”

Startup 354

Startup Pricing Equity Venture Capital 354

Both Sides of the Table

NOVEMBER 15, 2010

It’s a killer CEO, great product, market ripe for disruption, experienced product team and great CMO who has relevant experience from her former life. Given a few more data points I would have liked to have invested but given the market speed it looks unlikely. Investors are writing checks for dots. Dots produce bubbles.

Invest 411

Invest Technical Review Venture Capital Startup 411

Both Sides of the Table

NOVEMBER 14, 2010

While many of my friends bragged about their 5 condos in Florida I kept talking about how the real estate market was in a bubble – their gains an illusion. I pointed to several Economist articles I had read that mapped historical prices of real estate for 400 years and how on average property values grow at no more 1.5%

Invest 299

Invest Angel Technical Review Venture Capital 299

Both Sides of the Table

OCTOBER 12, 2014

Prorata rights are one of the most important rights of a private market technology investors and yet are seldom fully understood. For starters some funds are small and thus while they put $750k into your company to own 10% of your company they might not be able to write another $2 million if you then raise a $20 million round (10%).

Guide 336

Guide Venture Capital Startup Writing 336

Both Sides of the Table

MAY 5, 2013

.” In the article I discussed the downside of raising capital at a too high of a price and referred people to a previous article I had written encouraging founders to raise “ At the Top end of Normal ” as opposed to stratospheric prices. And no amount of explanations, “we raised in a frothy market.

Pricing 302

Pricing Seed Funding Invest Venture Capital 302

Both Sides of the Table

JUNE 22, 2011

They have seen one side of a market where many of us have seen the ebb and flow multiple times. Still, market amnesia by ordinarily rational actors always surprises me. I will write more about this in the next 2 weeks. I believe a bubble occurs when a market is willing to pay greater than intrinsic value for an asset class.

Pricing 309

Pricing Marketing Startup Venture Capital 309

Both Sides of the Table

DECEMBER 27, 2011

I find it amusing when a journalist writes an article about a prominent startup (either privately held or preparing for an IPO) and decries that, “They’re not even profitable!” If you have a market lead then raising capital and making investments now will help you as others enter the market.

Startup 418

Startup Venture Capital Sales Technical Review 418

Both Sides of the Table

FEBRUARY 3, 2011

This is to drive marketing and any IT or infrastructure spend can be seen as such. How did you determine the right price points for your product? How did you determine the right price points for your product? Like many companies they experimented with many pricing models. When they increased price from $9.99

Startup 303

Startup Venture Capital Pricing Writing 303

Both Sides of the Table

FEBRUARY 5, 2011

I’ve started writing up some of those sales & marketing lessons and I plan to continue to build that section out over time. They like a solid product, well defined pricing, good references to sell against, a clear quota and well defined competitors. Sales people will often blame your pricing.

Sales 316

Sales Startup Pricing Customer 316

Both Sides of the Table

JUNE 27, 2021

Shots on Goal Being great as a startup technology investor of course requires a lot of things to come together: You need to have strong insights into where technology markets are heading and where value in the future will be created and sustained You need be perfect with your market timing. I’ve definitely been wrong on market value.

Funding 294

Funding Startup Writing Invest 294

Both Sides of the Table

MARCH 3, 2012

I had been looking around at several deals in late 2008 as the markets were tanking. I got a call from a VC friend of mine who said, “we’re looking at this deal but can’t write the full check. I decided to write a $2+ million check along with my co-investor who offered $750k. I think you should look at it.”

Venture Capital 356

Venture Capital Pricing Startup Writing 356

Both Sides of the Table

JULY 27, 2014

I wrote my version here and Scott wrote an excellent write-up of his views here. We both agree that the later-stage valuations are being driven up to a point that feels irrationally priced [he uses b-round SaaS valuations as an example and I am willing to be even more broad based]. Each of the two videos is about 10 minutes long.

Venture Capital 309

Venture Capital SaaS Writing Funding 309

Both Sides of the Table

AUGUST 30, 2010

My original thinking from Oct ’09 was, while I didn’t (and still don’t) have a crystal ball I worried that: consumers were over-stretched with debt (and make up 77% of the economy), unemployment would continue to rise, which in turn would drive the stock market south and cut the rate of M&A activity and VC investment even further.

Entrepreneur 298

Entrepreneur Venture Capital Technical Review Startup 298

Both Sides of the Table

FEBRUARY 11, 2012

As a result I’ve really resisted writing about negotiations. Sometimes I even say, “I will change price / terms if I need to. If I forget to write, “Don’t Negotiation Piecemeal” after that then remind me. Your job is to offer a price (or terms) and walk. submitting term sheets.

Pricing 305

Pricing Startup Examples Writing 305

Both Sides of the Table

MAY 4, 2013

What price? Should I trust my instincts for founders and products or should I be more focused on the market size or business plan? The only way for a company to be overvalued is if there’s someone willing to pay that price. ” Therefore one goal of Y Combinator appears to be “get the highest price and best terms.”

Venture Capital 347

Venture Capital Startup Pricing Invest 347

Both Sides of the Table

APRIL 14, 2012

…” I’ll write soon on my views of why I believe Instagram took off as a social network and what I think comes next. You’ve found yourself in a super hot category and – let’s face it – it’s still a very frothy venture capital funding market so you may have loads of VCs chasing you.

Venture Capital 316

Venture Capital Pricing Social Network Acquisition 316

SoCal CTO

JANUARY 5, 2011

Steve Blank , January 25, 2010 10 Tips for Adding Game Mechanics to a Non-Gaming Service - ReadWriteStart , September 21, 2010 Startups & VCs: Learn How to Design, Market, & Eat Your Own. - . - 500 Hats , February 1, 2010 When to Use Facebook Connect – Twitter Oauth – Google Friend Connect for Authentication? First Principles.

Startup 378

Startup Venture Capital Blogging CTO Coach 378

Both Sides of the Table

JUNE 1, 2011

As a market we seem to be incapable of temperance. And even the best teams combined to create big innovations sometimes don’t time markets well, are surprised by unexpected technology breakthroughs by competitors or just don’t find the magic the leads to mass customer adoption. I started by writing 3-4 times / week.

Startup 391

Startup Blogging Venture Capital Writing 391

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. I’m not sure I really even need to write this at length because Nivi absolutely nailed the topic in his article “ The Option Pool Shuffle.&#.

Venture Capital 405

Venture Capital Pricing Startup Funding 405

Both Sides of the Table

NOVEMBER 2, 2010

This is part of a series on sales & marketing. Some objections are real and they end up becoming changes to your product, your service plan or your pricing / bundling. Prices are too high – Inexperienced sales reps will try to convince you they need to lower price to win deals.

Sales 289

Sales Startup Training Pricing 289

Both Sides of the Table

MAY 4, 2013

What price? Should I trust my instincts for founders and products or should I be more focused on the market size or business plan? The only way for a company to be overvalued is if there’s someone willing to pay that price. ” Therefore one goal of Y Combinator appears to be “get the highest price and best terms.”

Startup 361

Startup Venture Capital Pricing Technical Review 361

Both Sides of the Table

FEBRUARY 12, 2019

As a result of the IPO window shifting we saw a massive inflow of public-market capital into the latest stages of venture. In this post I set out to explain why the seed market emerged as its own category in the first place and why it’s declined as of late. ( The “A Round” of my startup in 1999 was $16.5

Venture Capital 328

Venture Capital Invest Seed Funding Startup 328

Both Sides of the Table

JULY 29, 2010

on the entrepreneur side of the table) when I raised at too high of a price. The A round was done in February 2000 (end of the bull market) and my B round was done in April 2001 (bear market). So don’t raise money at a cheap price, but don’t get too far ahead of yourself either. Bad behavior but prevalent.

Venture Capital 282

Venture Capital Capital Startup Pricing 282

Both Sides of the Table

SEPTEMBER 27, 2010

We need venture debt, factoring companies and public markets. A new group of investors have clustered around writing earlier-stage, smaller checks. Price creep hurts investors. But it also hurts entrepreneurs – Mike asked people about what they were doing to keep prices down. We all know that. That’s awesome.

Venture Capital 308

Venture Capital Training Startup Entrepreneur 308

Both Sides of the Table

NOVEMBER 3, 2010

One of the most obvious places where you see this is in sales & marketing. I call this “arming & aiming&# your sales teams where you need to standardize both the assignment of territories, industries & accounts (aiming) as well as the process of selling, the collateral, the legal agreements & pricing.

Sales 296

Sales Pricing Startup Custom 296

Both Sides of the Table

OCTOBER 30, 2014

I think this is a combination of being realists as venture capitalists that outsized returns in our funds must come from taking on bigger, more impactful projects that can move markets. Could we produce this at cost?

Technical Review 418

Technical Review Software Review CTO Hire IP 418

Startup Professionals Musings

NOVEMBER 15, 2013

Here is my edited summary of their ten principles, which I like and may convince you that you don’t need a business plan at all, or at the very least will help you write a better one later: A new venture is a means, not an end. Too much hesitation will kill any new venture, as markets move quickly and difficulties mount.

Writing 102

Writing Startup Entrepreneur Capital 102

Berkonomics

AUGUST 17, 2023

A personal story as an investor … [Email readers, continue here…] My very first investment as a professional angel was in a small startup where the entrepreneur’s vision fueled my imagination in the audio market niche where I had run a business in an earlier life.

Invest 296

Invest Capital Startup Entrepreneur 296

Both Sides of the Table

MARCH 31, 2012

The idea that the course asks students to write public blog posts is a testament to its more modern teaching style. My list of excuses includes: product, pricing, competition and lack of sales support. In my post I specifically talked about the integration of marketing and sales.

Startup 319

Startup Sales Course Competition 319

Both Sides of the Table

MAY 27, 2016

I answered in the same way I always do so I thought I’d just write it publicly. “I I spend hours thinking about the products, competitors, market opportunities, recruiting and financing of these businesses. Anyway, since I’ve now been asked three times in the past week I thought I’d just write publicly what I often say privately.

Invest 254

Invest Writing Pricing Metrics 254

Both Sides of the Table

MARCH 1, 2016

At the Upfront Summit in early February, we had a chance to have many off-the-record conversations with Limited Partners (LPs) who fund Venture Capital (VC) funds about their views of the market. I suspect those days will end soon, and 61% of LPs polled said they felt VCs were coming back to market too quickly.

Venture Capital 150

Venture Capital Capital Marketing Seed Funding 150

InfoChachkie

OCTOBER 8, 2012

Evidence of validation manifests itself in many forms and is derived from a variety of market forces. As shown below, the most impactful form of traction is when your venture repeatedly convinces rational, third-party customers to happily part with their hard-earned cash, at a market price, in exchange for your solution.

Venture Capital 265

Venture Capital RSS Customer Custom 265

Both Sides of the Table

FEBRUARY 27, 2011

This is a blog post I really didn’t want to write. I didn’t want to write it because I have mixed feelings about AngelList. I didn’t want to write it because the bloggosphere doesn’t always do nuance well. So why I am writing it then? AngelList is a great way to market your deal.

Venture Capital 267

Venture Capital Writing Blogging Startup 267

Berkonomics

MARCH 15, 2012

One way to mitigate this is by using early money to create a prototype, to perform market research, to complete the first generation of the product, or to deliver the service to a satisfied customer. Second: Market risk. Are you ahead or behind the market with your product or service? Third: Management risk.

Outsource Development 200

Outsource Development Ideas Resource Patents 200

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 also trust VC’s to determine the right price to pay for the company securities that they buy.

Startup 290

Startup Funding Venture Capital Pricing 290

Berkonomics

JUNE 29, 2017

[Email readers, continue here…] My very first investment as a professional angel was in a small startup where the entrepreneur’s vision fueled my imagination in the audio market niche where I had run a business in an earlier life.

Invest 243

Invest Entrepreneur Sales Startup 243

socalTECH

JANUARY 23, 2013

The software allows teams within companies to schedule and create online, customized social marketing campaigns, complete with fancy graphical templates, one click deployment to social networks, and much more. She said that PromoJam is looking to "democratize enterprise social marketing" with the new turnkey system. READ MORE>>.

Tool 190

Tool Services Social Network Template 190