Party Round? When Startups Should And Shouldn’t Take It
Party rounds, or mass syndication, is when a startup raises from multiple investors, none of which individually has a large enough stake, instead of having the traditional notion of a lead and follow investors....
What Is The Right Valuation? 4 Core Principles For Entrepreneurs
Deciding on the right valuation is both an art and a science (and some would say black magic). Common sense dictates that something’s value is whatever someone else is willing to pay. While that...
How To Learn / Unlearn About An Industry? 5 Practical Suggestions For Entrepreneurs
Saw an opportunity, decided to build a company around it, but don’t have much experience in the space? It’s the story of many startups, including some of the most successful ones. Have a lot of...
AI Startups + Fundraising = What Are The Metrics?
What do I need to show in order to raise my next round? All entrepreneurs face that question at some point and it may be the single piece of advice they most ask. This...
Observations on Token Derivatives – Part One
In Part 1, we introduce FTX’s MOVE Contract with profit and loss visualisation, and how to use the MOVE Contract. Derivatives have become a competitive field in cryptocurrency trading. Whether it's traditional complex derivatives like...
Why Are Startups Taking Longer Than Ever To Go Public?
Technology startups since the past decade are staying private for much longer. During the dot-com boom (and bust) of the 2000s, many software and internet companies were going public as early as four years...
Having A Hard Time Reconnecting With A VC? 5 Practical Tips
Many previous articles have talked about how to connect with investors, including how VCs can suck but you can minimize the pain, doing your own diligence on them, and working with smaller versus larger...
Startups And The Series A1 Trap
Hit the magical $1M ARR a year after your A but not so sure if you should be raising a B? And at the current burn your cash is going to last for 6...
Pitch right down the middle
Ideas are only as good as their pitches, and pros are the masters of pitch selection to improve business proposals. Three of the best in the business -- Evan Wyk, Brant Pinvidic and Brian Cristiano...
What Do VCs Do All Day? 5 Visible Activities And The 1 Mostly Invisible...
Remember the widely circulated series of memes “What people think I do” a few years back? Well, one of the VC versions is posted above and humorously captures the mismatch of perceptions. The truth...
Startups And Impact Investors – Good or Bad?
Value = Valuation. Valuation -> Profits. Profits!= Profiteering. Are you a startup wondering about this sequence? Then you may want to consider working with impact investors. There are benefits and pitfalls in doing so, before...
Startups, VCs and Tranched Rounds? Yes Sometimes, No Mostly
Tranched rounds is the idea that an investor will commit to a total financing and give out portions as the entrepreneur achieves certain milestones. A tranche is ultimately a negotiation and there isn’t a...
Food Automation: A Tidal Wave Of Startups
In the US there are more food outlets than ever before, which is to be expected given increased prosperity and population growth. But what is even more significant is restaurants are growing at twice...
How Do VCs Find And Fund Your Startup? – 4 Major Paths Of Deal...
Following up from the last article “VCs Suck? Here Are 5 Practical Ways For Entrepreneurs To Minimize The Pain,” this post is focused on the other perspective. VCs get flooded with business proposals, as...
VCs Suck – 5 Practical Ways For Entrepreneurs To Minimize The Pain
I hear on an almost daily basis a startup complaining about VCs, mostly about lack of response or lack of clarity. Having been both an entrepreneur and an investor I often find bell curves...
Would You Have Invested? 7 Lessons In How Venture Capitalists Decide
Hindsight is 20/20 -- once a company has succeeded its success almost seems pre-ordained. But when it is just starting that is hardly the case, in fact, chances are if you poll even experts...
Hardware Startups: 3 Strategies For Succeeding
“Hardware is hard” -- there are good reasons for the saying. At least compared to software, hardware typically takes longer to build and is harder to upgrade, since there is no such thing as...
7 Use Cases for Blockchain-based Crowdfunding
Startups from around the world have found crowdfunding to be an extremely viable alternative to traditional venture capital. To date, crowdfunding initiatives have raised $34 billion, which roughly added $65 billion to the global...
WeWork: A Pre-IPO Alternative Data Analysis
Most investors will have heard that co-working company WeWork plans to go public this fall. Its tequila-swigging, surfer dude CEO Adam Neumann makes renting office space sound like a spiritual movement. Despite WeWork’s staggering losses,...
The Rise of Non-Traditional VCs
Non-traditional VCs playing the startup game is nothing new but the scale at which they are participating now is bigger than ever. Pitchbook called it “tourist investors” -- perhaps questioning their staying power -...