Grab your CEO and have lunch. Chances are, she has once started just like you. And everybody has to eat at some point. Here are some questions that are great for getting some insights on strategy, challenges, and culture -- even if you only have five minutes: What the biggest frustration in your job? What's … Continue reading Lunch with Your CEO: 7 Great Questions to Ask.
Angel, seed, and early-stage venture capital investments are getting more and more expensive over the last 10 years. Investors write larger checks but don't get more ownership at the same rate. Last Monday, Pitchbook released their 1H 2019 Valuation Report (data as of 06/30/2019). The report has interesting charts, such as: Two charts from PitchBook's … Continue reading Early-stage Ownership is Getting More Expensive for Angels, VCs
The number of new early-stage VC funds with a focus on US-based pre-seed, seed, and early-stage startups grew from 163 (vintage 2014) to 490 (vintage 2019) [1]. As I wrote two weeks ago in "Rapid Decline of New U.S.-based IT Startups", the number of newly founded US startups in information technology declined from 5,856 (2014) … Continue reading US: More Early-Stage VC Funds are Targeting Fewer Startups
"Every A-round is $10M nowadays. That's the new norm. There is too much money in the market." I think I carelessly quipped something along these lines in the past three weeks. And I was wrong. I had fallen into the average-bias of VC-world, into false signaling of few outliers. As I wrote earlier (and so … Continue reading Massive Early-Stage Funding — I Was Wrong.
The number of new IT startups with headquarters in the U.S. is rapidly declining. There are less and less IT startups founded every year since 2013. I was looking for something else at Pitchbook but stumbled over this massive decline: Startups founded by year with primary focus on Information Technology ("IT") and headquarter in the … Continue reading Rapid Decline of New U.S.-based IT Startups
We hear about the "Startup A-team" both from our portfolio companies and in pitches. So what's the bar for a Startup A-team? And how do you rank people within an A-team of a Startup? Regardless of industry, I always recommend looking at the "USMC Fitness Report (1610)" as a starting point. Yes, it is from … Continue reading Jocko on Startups: What’s an A-Team?
What does your customer want to buy? Are they using your product as a stepping stone or enabler to a much bigger transformation? Or are you part of a larger product and fit the puzzle? Are you selling a product or a platform? I listened into sales conversations at one of our startups. The product … Continue reading Sales Strategy — Selling a Product Versus Selling a Platform.
Sales people have to close deals. The VP of Sales has to make sure to hit her quarterly target. Everyone hates the deals that are stalling, that seem to be stuck. As a board member, I have to be strategic. Slow-moving deals are a unique opportunity to uncover systemic problems in the sales motion, reveal … Continue reading Sales — Five reasons why I love slow moving deals.
We often get the question about "Leading Unicorn Venture Capital Firms". And emerging fund managers are sometimes taken aback when we are unfazed about their two unicorns in their portfolio and continue our due diligence. Business Insider just published an article about early-stage investors with billion-dollar outcomes. [DISCLAIMER BELOW] [EDIT 5/28/2019, 08:38 PDT -- I … Continue reading Leading Unicorn VC Firms and The Long Tail
SEG: 1Q19 SaaS M&A Update, via http://softwareequity.com/research/ SaaS multiples of venture-backed SaaS Startups are driven down by volume and choice. Tom Tunguz has written a lot about SaaS multiples, specifically about Where are SaaS Companies Priced After the 2018 Correction. We are getting a lot of inquiries from VCs, entrepreneurs, and LPs alike about pricing. … Continue reading Volume and Choice drive down Startup SaaS M&A Multiples.
