Happy New Year and here’s to an effective 2008. Here are the three most effective hacks of 2007. We maintain a Cheat Sheet of all the hacks, but try to apply these three if you don’t have time to apply them all. Create a market for your shares You need strong alternatives to hack a term sheet. Create alternatives with focus: pitch and negotiate with all your prospective investors at once. Focus compounds scarcity and social proof, which closes deals. Focus also yields a quick yes or no from investors—either way, yo... lire la suite
Lien du post: http://feeds.venturehacks.com/~r/venturehacks/~3/210283919/2007-hacks
We get lots of email from people asking for advice. We’re going to start answering the most interesting questions here, so everyone can participate in the discussion. Got a question? Send it to ask@venturehacks. com. We read every question. Names will be changed to protect the innocent.
We’ve started a Venture Hacks page on Twitter: twitter. com/venturehacks (RSS). We’ll be posting interesting quotes, links, and other things we like. We’ve started with a few quotes: Common stock is decorative. – Anonymous Investor → Valuation is temporary, control is forever.
Happy New Year and here’s to an effective 2008. Here are the three most effective hacks of 2007. We maintain a Cheat Sheet of all the hacks, but try to apply these three if you don’t have time to apply them all. Create a market for your shares You need strong alternatives to hack a term sheet.
We took the approach of wanting to get to know the different partners and the different possibilities and to see where there was the best fit. Partnerships take a lot of work—you want to go out on a few dates before you get married. Yes, we dated a few people but didn’t get married… and so there were a few unhappy girlfriends out there.
Once the term sheet is signed, the power shifts away from the startup to the purchaser. The typical term sheet will give the purchaser the discretion to step away from the deal if due diligence is unsatisfactory, or if the necessary internal approvals are not obtained. Suzanne Dingwall Williams, on M&A
Brian Norgard (Newroo founder and Venture Hacks investor) recently interviewed my brother, Farbood Nivi, about his experience raising money for Grockit from Benchmark et al: Brian: Tell me about the funding process. Farbood: I think raising money is great fun. The bottom line is that the money has to be spent.
Summary: Don’t send long business plans to investors. Don’t ask for NDAs. Don’t share information that must remain confidential. Understand that investors care about traction over everything else. In Parts 1 and 2 of ‘What should I send investors? , we covered the elevator pitch and deck.
PowerPoint plans greatly increase your chance of getting a term sheet, or at least the dignity of a quick no. David Cowan, Bessemer Venture Partners Summary: An introduction and elevator pitch are critical to getting a meeting. You can also provide a “ten-slide” deck that tells a compelling story about your team, product, traction, and plans.
Summarize the company’s business on the back of a business card. Sequoia Capital Summary: An introduction captures an investor’s attention, but a great elevator pitch gets a meeting. The major components of the pitch are traction, product, and team. If you’re building an interesting company, people will offer to introduce you to investors—it makes them looks good.
Q: Everybody is telling us to raise smart money. What’s the difference between smart money and dumb money? The best assumption to make is that your VC’s primary value add is the cash they are investing. Then you’ll always be surprised on the upside. Marc Andreessen
C’mon—you have $500M and I am raising $1. M and you want me to take the first $25K to pay your legal expenses for doing the deal? That’s like your dad giving you your allowance and then asking you to buy him a hot dog. When we were raising money for Flixster I thought that must be a trick—like if I agreed to that term they would pull the term sheet at the last second and say I failed the secret fiscal responsibility test.
Rich Skrenta, a founder of Topix and the Open Directory Project, recently wrote about Spice Girls VC: So one day a few years ago I’m sitting in a VC’s office having a chat. I had a few ideas rattling around in my head but the VC had his eyes on a then-current space which was hot.
I know plenty of VCs that behave the way I do and plenty that don’t. Brad Feld, on keeping decks to himself Summary: A deck can help you get a meeting but it can also get in the hands of the competition. Whether you send a deck depends on who wants the meeting most.
Summary: When lawyers defer their legal fees, they expect equity for the risk of not getting paid. If their risk is low or they’re not deferring fees, you can say no. In any case, offer them the right to invest $25K-$50K in your financing instead of giving them free equity. A reader asks:
Don Valentine from Sequoia Capital and Cisco’s founders, Len Bosack and Sandy Lerner, discuss Len and Sandy’s termination in this rare video: We don’t know the actual facts of the matter and we don’t care who is “right”. The lesson here is that, right or wrong, you don’t want to look back and feel the way Len and Sandy do (except for the many millions they made).
Nintendo annonce avec un peu de retard la disponibilité de la Chaîne Concours de Miis sur les Wii Européennes. Comme son nom le laisse deviner, cette chaîne permet de faire participer les célèbres avatars virtuels à des concours de popularité, mais aussi d'apprécier les créations d'autres possesseurs de.
Nouvelle version du logiciel PSP permettant de sniffer les réseaux Wifi (non compatible PSP Slim Lite) Nouveautés/Correctifs : Le lancement de l'application et le scan Wifi sont plus rapides- Ajout d'une option de sauvegarde des screenshots via le nouton 'note' (à.
Chose promise, chose due. Rappelez-vous (index. php? option=com_content task=view id=717 Itemid=3) suite aux problèmes de connexion rencontrés par de nombreux joueurs sur le Xbox Live, Microsoft avait promis réparation. Eh bien sachez que ça sera bientôt chose faite. En plus de présenter ses plates excuses, la firme de Redmond offrira.
Cela n’a pas encore été annoncé officiellement par Sony, mais c’est désormais une certitude la console portable de Sony offrira prochainement la possibilité de téléphoner grâce à Skype. Il n’y a pour l’instant pas de détail particulier, mais Sony mentionne clairement Skype sur son site de promo (http:
Tehpola, Sepp256 et Emu_Kidid viennent de sortir Wii64 (la version r200 de Mupen64GC), un émulateur N64 pour GameCube et Wii. Nouveautés/Correctifs: GUI remplacée- Menu système- Menu de navigation de fichiers- Gameplay resumable après avoir quitté le menu- Option de Reset du jeu- Les ROMs multiples peuvent être chargées sans.