The 411 On Startups (tm)

Valuation and Option Pool — Understand the trade off

May

2012

One of the more contentious things in the negotiation between an entrepreneur and a VC over a financing, particularly an early stage financing, is the inclusion of an option pool in the pre-money valuation. As my friend Mark Pincus likes to say, “it’s just another way to lower the price”. I’ll accept that critique. And ...

Current Pre-money Valuations of Pre-revenue Companies

May

2012

I just returned from the 2011 Angel Capital Association Summit in Boston, April 4-6, 2011. It was attended by over 500 angels and associates, including about 60 international angel leaders. It was an excellent meeting – the best yet of the half-dozen or so US ACA angel Summits to date. On Wednesday afternoon, I was ...

Vesting Calculator for Restricted Stock and Stock Options

May

2012

Options and restricted stock in a startup are subject to vesting. This is done to associate the rewards of equity ownership with the time and effort put into creating value for the company. Although vesting schedules can be infinitely flexible in theory, in practice they don’t vary that much. You’ll find that the majority of ...

Getting Access to the Old Boys’ Club (how to approach a VC)

May

2012

Many VC websites have a tab that will tell you that you can submit your business plans to enquiries@vc_company.com or some similar generic email address. But does it really work? Can you really send your business plan over the transom and expect to get a positive response? The short answer is “no” – don’t waste ...

Angel No More: Why One of Silicon Valley’s Savviest Investors Has Shut His Wallet

May

2012

Kevin Hartz is sitting this one out. Sure, Hartz is busy with his day-job as CEO of online ticketing startup Eventbrite, but it’s not a time management thing that keeps him from his usual angel-investing habit. It’s more a money management thing. Hartz doesn’t like to invest his when there is so much sloshing around ...

5 ‘IP’ Mistakes Start-ups Should Avoid

May

2012

Venture capitalists, angel investors and start-up lawyers these days tend to be obsessed with “intellectual property,” or IP. And for good reason: In the information economy, the core assets of a new venture are likely to be talented people, the IP they create, and little else. To maximize future value, founders should try to lay ...

Fred Wilson: what crowdfunding means for the VC business

May

2012

For the past couple of decades, venture capitalists have had the upper hand. They’ve had the funding and, traditionally, they’ve held most of the power in the startup ecosystem. But, Fred Wilson, managing partner of Union Square Ventures (and beloved blogger), believes that balance of power is shifting (As noted in Stacey’s take on a similar notion ...

Kauffman Foundation Bashes VCs For Poor Performance, Urges LPs To Take Charge

May

2012

The Kauffman Foundation, which has ties to the venture industry, has issued a damning study of the business that addresses long-running concerns about poor performance and concludes that the limited partners who invest in funds have no one but themselves to blame. The report, “We Have Met The Enemy…And He Is Us,” draws on lessons ...

The reality of returns on angel investment

May

2012

A majority of all new, angel-backed companies fail completely, so if you invest in only one company, the odds are that you will LOSE ALL YOUR MONEY, not just “not make a profit”. Several studies and mathematical simulations have shown that it takes investing the same amount of money consistently into at least 20-25 companies before your ...

Conversion Discounts in Convertible Notes

May

2012

Convertible promissory notes do not include a stated pre-money valuation. Instead, the convertible note seed investor and startup agree that the pre-money valuation for the convertible note investment will be determined by the pre-money valuation the startup receives at the Series A round. However, the convertible note investor does not receive the Series A pre-money ...