Companion pages (listed to the right and in the nav bar) cover resources and insights related to lean startup logic/methods; product design; product management; business development; marketing; and sales, among other issues.
Entrepreneurial Finance Basics
- In their book Venture Deals, Brad Feld and Jason Mendelson offer a terrific, in-depth explanation of term sheets, funding strategy, VC motivations, etc.
- Jeff Bussgang of Flybridge Capital provides an overview of entrepreneurial finance and how venture capital works in his book, Mastering the VC Game
- The VentureHacks archives provide an excellent set of links to resources on fundraising and other startup management topics
- Steve Blank's amazing list of resources for entrepreneurs includes lots of links to advice on fundraising, cap table calculators, term sheet generators, etc. Scroll down to "Starting and Running a Startup Advice" about one-third of the way down the page
- DFJ VC Heidi Roizen shows how liquidation preferences can leave little on the table for founders and employees when a startup loses momentum and suffers a down round; Union Square Ventures Albert Wenger on the same theme
- Rob Go of NextViewVentures shares questions a founder might get from a savvy VC and explains what the VC is really looking for
- CB Insights presents the venture finance funnel, i.e., the fraction of companies that raise a subsequent round, starting with seed; NextView's Jay Acunzo shows how many VCs Series A aspirants need to pitch to get funded
- Fred Wilson of Union Square Ventures on tradeoffs between valuation and % equity ownership, on working capital financing and on customer financing
- Eric Paley of Founder Collective describes how/why an investor's interest can fade
- Y Combinator's Paul Graham on fundraising and investor herd dynamics
- Mark Suster of Upfront Ventures offers a primer on fundraising, discusses what to watch out for when raising VC, describes the risks from setting valuation too high then subsequently suffering a down round, asks whether startups should announce their funding rounds, discusses the pros and cons of raising money from strategic investors and explains why entrepreneurs should try to close deals fast
- Suster on what to look for in a VC; Christoph Janz on the same topic; Kamal Hassan on how VCs can destroy value
- Yipit co-founder/CEO Vin Vicanti on lessons learned from raising Series A
- Steve Blank exhorts entrepreneurs to remember that fundraising is a means to an end, and to carefully consider when it makes sense to take outside capital
- Bonobos founder/CEO Andy Dunn points out venture capitalists' shortcomings in his "Dear Dumb VC" post
- Blake Masters' summary of Peter Thiel's Stanford CS183 lecture on the motives/methods of venture capitalists
- Chris Dixon of a16z on best practices for a VC round
- David Beisel of NextView Ventures discusses the importance of having VC partner buy-in for a Series A round
- Furqan Nazeeri's blog offers a wealth of insightful posts on fundraising
- Bussgang describes the VC due diligence process
- Fundraising tips from HubSpot co-founder/CTO Dharmesh Shah
- YC's Geoff Ralston provides a primer on seed fundraising
- VC Gil Dibner on "the angel trap," i.e., raising just enough from angels to get started, but not enough to have confidence you can reach milestones need to raise the next round
- Chris Dixon on the right amount of seed capital to raise, shopping your term sheet, taking seed money from VCs, ideal first round terms, best practices for raising a seed round, and the signaling impact of seed round VC choices
- Advice for entrepreneurs in accelerators from NextView Venture's Rob Go
- Beisel on how to find and close angels; how to select investors in a seed VC syndicate; and the motives of different types of angel investors
- Bussgang on how to raise your first round
- Brad Feld on standardized seed financing documents
- BuysideFX co-founder/CEO Ty Danco reviews reasons why an angel will walk away from a funding opportunity
- Rob Go's flowchart of a seed VC's "Should I invest?" decision process; his analysis of whether team or traction is more important in deciding whether to make an early stage investment
- Roger Ehrenberg of IA Capital Partners on tradeoffs between VC and angel funding
- Zumper founder/CEO Anth Georgides offers tips for first-time entrepreneurs negotiating with VCs
- LinkedIn CEO Reid Hoffman’s criteria for making angel investments
- Dan Weinreb discusses the pros and cons of working with angel groups in seed rounds
- Danco and Dharmesh Shah give guidance on how to update angel investors
- Aaron Hall, founder/CEO of Boatbound, offers a primer for raising funds on AngelList
- Paul Graham on angel investors' motivations
- Marc Andreessen on how much money to raise -- and how much is too much
- Fred Wilson discusses how much money a startup should raise and target burn rates at different stages in a startup's life cycle
- Scripted.com cofounder Sunil Rajaraman created a tool to help entrepreneurs project their costs and determine how much capital to raise
- Equity simulator from OwnYourVenture that calculates impact on % ownership by round of $ raised, size of option pool, etc.
- Wilson Sonsini term sheet generator
- Fred Wilson on how option pools impact startup valuation, ideal first round terms, negotiations with VCs over valuation, and typical dilution levels
- Term sheet tune-up tips from VentureHacks
- Rob Go on why VCs have a 20% equity ownership target
- Suster on super pro rata rights; Beisel on the same topic; Angel investor Dave Lerner on the same topic
- Suster discusses when investors in the same round should get different share prices
- Suster and Fred Wilson each discuss strategy for pricing follow-on rounds
- Brad Feld explains why pre-and post-money valuations often are confused with convertible notes
- David Hornik and Fred Wilson each discuss the pros and cons of convertible notes
- Attorney Scott Edward Walker offers a primer on convertible note terms; SaaStr's Jason Lemkin provides a similar overview
- Suster on the pros/cons of convertible debt; Dixon on the same topic