The anatomy of a startup, illustrated - TNW Entrepreneur. Creating an Early Stage Pitch Deck. Last week I gave a presentation on creating early stage pitch decks (primarily focused on the seed round).
I took a (fuzzy) picture of my white board talk (very professional on a few fronts, I know) and thought it would be valuable to post it here. And please take this for what it's worth: just one investor's opinion. As is true with everything - the best answer is "it depends". It depends on your background, your company, your raise, and your audience. "Startup and Go" - First Steps to Building a Technology Company , by Founder Institute And StartupDigest. 6 Tips for Entrepreneurs Looking for Press. Almost all startups love press, and luckily it’s not too hard to get some extra exposure every once in a while.
For the startups that are dying for to be mentioned, here are 6 tips to get press: 1. 36 places to submit your startup Check out this neat list of 36 places (with a few bonus ones) to submit your startup for some coverage. Since many of these places are outlets that love the latest scoop on anything innovative, and are always excited to hear from new companies, your chances of getting some press when you start here is high. I’d even add social news sites like Digg and Reddit, since Hacker News was mentioned as a bonus to the list of 36 sites, but the trick here is to NOT submit your own startup, instead, find a friend who might be something of a power user on those sites and have that friend submit your startup to their followers and hopefully the traffic will flow on in. 2. 3. 4. 5.
SEOMoz has been incredibly generous in offering a free version of their Opensiteexplorer tool. 6. Meeting with a VC - bijansabet.com. Much has been written about the VC process over the years.
The best VC and founder blogs have a done an amazing job at shedding some light and advice on a process that had previously been mysterious and confusing. Some of the important ways to prepare are to choose your VC targets wisely, do they have the same style as you do, do they share your vision, check references, and be clear about your objectives in the meeting. Partnering with a VC is a big one and should not be considered lightly. Yesterday, Mark Suster shared his thoughts about how to best prepare for the actual meeting itself. Mark describes a number of things in his post including who should be in the room, who should do the talking and an outline for your powerpoint deck. Venture Capital. How I Got Kicked Out of Y Combinator and Then Raised $1.5m for My Startup - Jon Is Your Friend.
VC industry dynamics. About the VC industry. LiquidSpace — Find a better space to work. VC - Silicon Valley ecosystem. VC approach and process (finance) More capital entering the lower level of the startup funding ecosystem. By: Valto Loikkanen Again this post in Funding post continues from the topic of serious bootstrapping trend.
More start-ups being capital efficient (good thing for entrepreneurs) etc. This comment below highlights the current trend very well: IPOs by LinkedIn, Facebook, Twitter and others could alter venture capital landscape. Against the backdrop of a moribund market for initial public stock offerings and a venture capital industry hobbled by a recession, the half-dozen social-networking companies expected to go public in the coming year -- likely candidates include Groupon, Twitter, LinkedIn and, the granddaddy IPO of all, Facebook -- could be silver-winged angels.
Some venture capital investors stand to make a killing from these IPOs -- though those that missed these deals could close up shop amid a VC industry downturn. At the same time, a wave of successful IPO launches may trigger a ripple effect, fattening the coffers of the survivors so they can fund a new slew of social-media derring-do. This anticipated IPO flurry comes at a time when Silicon Valley's once high-flying club of venture capitalists has been rattled and cut down in size.
Startup Tools. Startup Tools 1.
Startup Tools Click Here 2. Angels & VC. Business Angels. The rise of the angels. This is Naval’s keynote from Capital Factory‘s demo day.
It’s called The Rise of the Angels, but it should be called The Rise of the Entrepreneur. It’s excellent. Video: The rise of the angels Here are the slides. Make sure you check out Slide 8 for a draft Entrepreneur’s Bill of Rights. Slides: The rise of the angels Some of my favorite quotes from the presentation: Venture Capital Investors - Texas Investment Network - TX Angel. Super Angels to Super VCs: The Changing Face of Venture Capital. Prefinery: Beta Management Software. San Francisco Wants to Tax Your Stock Options– All of Them. Few people are aware the San Francisco has had a tax provision in its municipal code since 2004 that requires companies to pay a payroll tax on gains from employee stock options.
No one pays it, and San Francisco hasn’t enforced it to date, but companies are becoming increasingly agitated that the city may change that policy at any time. The number of high profile and high value startups based in San Francisco – like Twitter and Zynga – may be too big of a temptation for the city to ignore. Recently, I heard San Francisco Mayor Ed Lee on our local NPR station talking about how important it was to keep Twitter’s headquarters in San Francisco. To those worried that the recent talks between Twitter and the City were stalling, his words must have been reassuring.
But if Lee really wants to keep Twitter– and thousands more tech jobs– in San Francisco he needs to defuse this much bigger ticking tax time-bomb now. To be clear, this is not a trend. SEC. 902.1. – PAYROLL EXPENSE. The tax rate? Startup Central.