Posted by Caroline Cummings on November 16th, 2015
How to Make Your Gust Account Stand Out to Investors
Before you read any further, I want you to know that I’ve personally used Gust to raise money for my first tech startup. I know a lot of other entrepreneurs who use or have used Gust to seek funds, but their profiles don’t always get attention from investors. Below are
Posted by Eileen Carey on October 5th, 2015
A year ago, in mid September 2014, I walked out of a Starbucks in San Francisco with the very first check from an angel investor for Glassbreakers. Though it was only $5,000, it was enough to prove to myself and my co-founder, Lauren Mosenthal, that we could actually fundraise for our startup. We already had 1,000 women signed
Posted by Guest Author on September 2nd, 2015
By Paula Taas, Founder Institute
You’ve created an amazing founding team, you’ve built a brilliant product that has been gaining a lot of traction, and now you’re looking to expand your company. How do you continue to build your business? By searching for a lead investor in your next funding round.
The lead investor is the
Posted by Bill Payne on May 15th, 2015
Entrepreneurs seem genuinely surprised to find that investors in Peoria or Little Rock are not willing to invest in startup companies at Silicon Valley prices. After all, they just read in TechCrunch that investors funded a company similar to theirs at an $8 million pre-money valuation!
The valuation of startup companies shouldn’t be impacted by location, should they? Guess again!
Posted by David S. Rose on September 28th, 2014
To begin with, it is important to understand some basic facts about the world of entrepreneurial finance:
There are many more entrepreneurs than there are investors, with the result that only one company out of every 400 that seeks venture funding actually receives it. As such, the competition from an entrepreneur’s standpoint is very, very tough. In order to be
Posted by David S. Rose on July 27th, 2014
If founding a startup was easy, there would be a lot more of them, and the percentage that are successful would be much higher.
Unfortunately, it isn’t.
The essence of entrepreneurship is creating a new venture where one does not already exist in the market as you find it. As such, the founding process is one in which the entrepreneur
Posted by Bill Payne on May 8th, 2013
US angel investors have been a robust source of seed stage capital for years. More recently, we have experienced significant growth in the number of funded seed stage deals, due to the emergence of accelerators, super angels and new seed stage funds. Unfortunately, we are now suffering a Series A startup funding crunch, that is, a lack of seed stage
Posted by Bill Payne on March 26th, 2013
A couple of years ago, Paul Graham (Y Combinator) tweeted “Convertible notes have won. Every investment so far in this YC batch (and there have been a lot) has been done on a convertible note.”
The truth is convertible debt has not won. Many sophisticated angel investors and angel groups refuse to invest in convertible debt in seed/startup deals. Why?
Posted by Bill Payne on March 21st, 2013
Investors regularly confuse entrepreneurs with their various approaches to validating deals prior to investment (a process called “due diligence”). A few seed stage investors (angels, super angels or seed stage VCs) have coffee with an entrepreneur and quickly learn enough to write checks. Other investors or groups of investors study deals for months before investing. Why do some investors take
Posted by Antone Johnson on October 15th, 2012
An impromptu Twitter debate arose among Fred Wilson, Dave McClure, Mark Suster, Chris Dixon and others about convertible debt, priced equity rounds, and the nuances of early stage financing. It was such a good discussion that Fred asked that someone Storify it. I’ve done that here and expanded it with some additional references, background info and light commentary.
http://storify.com/antonejohnson/convertible-debt-priced-equity-rounds-and-timing
