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How much does our first $20 angel investor get? Well, he gets to participate like he was investing $20 today, plus he gets a discount to the valuation. So instead of getting $20 / $750 = 2.67% of the company, maybe he got a 20% discount to the valuation, so he gets $20 / (.8 * $750) = 3.33% of the company. (We're ignoring the effect of interest here for simplicity, but he probably effectively has $21 and change invested by now in real life.)
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We haven't discussed valuation caps yet. Valuation caps are intended to prevent the startup dragging its feet on raising money, thus building up lots of worth in the company, and then the angel investor getting cheesed. For example, if they had just grown through revenues for a year or two, they might be raising money at a valuation of $1,250. In that case, $20 only buys you 2% of the company (remember, he gets a 20% discount : $20 / (.8 * $1250) = 2%), which the angel investor might think doesn't adequately compensate him for the risk he took on betting on a small, unproven thing several years before. So we make him a deal: he gets to invest his $20 at the same terms as the VCs do if, and only if, the valuation is less than $750. If it is more than $750, for him and only him, we pretend it was $750 instead. This means that under no circumstances will he walk away with less than $20 / (.8 * $750) = 3.33% of the company, as long as the company goes on to raise further investment. (Obviously, if they fold, he walks away with nothing. Well, technically speaking, with debt owed to him by a company which is bankrupt and likely has no assets to speak of, so essentially nothing.)
I think that just about covers it. Make sense? Anybody feel free to correct me if I botched something here, this is not quite my bag.
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I think "black and white" is a problem here... I see no reason why Arrington can't be right while McClure can honestly believe that there was nothing wrong with the meeting.
Conspiracy theories grow on the basis of black and white, good vs. evil, etc. Outside of programming, aren't we all used to varying shades of gray?
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wolfrom said Arrington right and McClure honestly believe.
Believe is very different to wrong. If Arrington is right, McClure is wrong in his belief. He can still honestly believe it though.
One, or all, of Christians, Muslims and Atheists are wrong in their belief, but they can all honestly believe.
I'm not being pedantic here, if you read wolfrom's statement with the correct meanings you'll see how wrong your comment is, even if you honestly believed it.
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What kind of self-respecting conspiracy that aims to subvert the startup world with collusion among major players discuss their doings over twitter? Someone please buy these guys a copy of Cryptonomicon.
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A Silicon Valley angel conspiracy without Ron Conway isn't really much of a conspiracy.
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It doesn’t take someone deeply engulfed in the situation to figure out what McClure is talking about. Clearly, Ron Conway
, founder of SV Angel
and the most prominent angel investor in Silicon Valley, sent an email to other angels involved in the situation. Clearly, that email was in opposition to McClure’s stance that those at the meeting were doing nothing wrong. David Lee
, who McClure mentions, is a partner at SV Angel and was at the meeting.
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So I did what any self respecting blogger would do – I drove over to Bin 38, parked my car and walked in.
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- Complaints about Y Combinator’s growing power, and how to counteract competitiveness in Y Combinator deals
- Complaints about rising deal valuations and they can act as a group to reduce those valuations
- How the group can act together to keep traditional venture capitalists out of deals entirely
- How the group can act together to keep out new angel investors invading the market and driving up valuations.
- More mundane things, like agreeing as a group not to accept convertible notes in deals (an entrepreneur-friendly type of deal).
- One source has also said that there is a wiki of some sort that the group has that explicitly talks about how the group should act as one to keep deal valuations down.
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Part of the answer is that this crop of startups will get bought out earlier than those who have come before them. Look at Hot Potato. Josh Kopelman said "we've only been investors for a couple of months" about Hot Potato. That is a good outcome for the founders. Not so much for the investors. But it is going to happen more and more as large tech companies look for teams that have a proven record of building and launching strong products.
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Union Square Ventures' first fund was raised in 2004. We invested in twenty-one companies and we still have sixteen active companies. And we still have $25mm on reserve for them. Christina and I calculated last week that about half of those sixteen active companies still might need more funding from us. So we have eight "kids who have not yet reached adulthood". That is six years after we raised the fund.
The thing that nobody understands until you've lived through it is just how long it takes for some companies to get profitable and self sustaining. And just how long it takes for some companies to get liquid and leave the portfolio.
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Less is More
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he founder and CEO of another of our portfolio companies is wrapping up a large round and he showed me his pitch deck. Guess what? Six slides. I had nothing to do with his deck. But it was a work of art.
Like many things in life, less is more in fundraising slides. You can explain your business in mind numbing detail or you can inspire an investor and let them imagine. Guess what works better?
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I learned this lesson when Brad and I starting raising USV 2004 in the fall of 2003. We retained an advisor to help us raise the fund and they told us to keep our deck to "six slides." I was aghast. How could Brad and I possibly take all that we had done and learned in almost 20 years in the venture business and put it into six slides?
But the advisor won that argument. Two things happened. We learned to simplify our story and we learned how to create six killer slides. And killer slides are not slides with a dozen bullets each. They are six powerful points that combine to tell the meat of the story.
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The day-long Revenue Bootcamp held July 10, 2009, on the Microsoft campus in Mountain View, Calif., brought together some top-notch experts to share tips, hints, lessons and advice about how to increase traffic with Search Engine Optimization, Search Engine Marketing and face-to-face meetings.
This video, “Fireside chat,” is the last in a series recorded during the one-day conference organized by Kawasaki.
All of the videos will remain available on building43.com.
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在我这三创茶馆,非“创”莫谈。不瞒各位,今儿个要说的,是一个戳创业投资界心窝子的话题——投资失败打了眼,看错人。各位都知道,这两年投资圈内发生了一些著名的恶性投资失败案例,像PPG、ITAT、亚洲传媒、中科智等。他们的商业模式很牛,创业团队的Resume(履历)大都光闪闪,给他们投资的都是知名的投资机构,赛富、IDG、鼎晖、红杉、凯鹏华盈、集富亚洲、高盛、美林、摩根士丹利。这些打着“创业”旗号的家伙在创业过程中,甚至有的自创业之日起就出现了欺诈、圈钱、撕毁合约、触犯法律的行为,最终导致企业失败。查立(乾龙创投创始合伙人)说得好,哪家VC没有血泪史。咱今天的话题,不是为了揭伤疤,指短处,而是聊聊成功创业家的素质底线究竟在哪儿?这些失败案例中的创业者有着怎样的价值观、人性弱点、道德瑕疵。
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沈南鹏:失败案例这两年暴露的比较多,部分原因和市场环境及金融危机有关。仁兄(指三创教主)常说“黄金十年”的概念,好年份里问题被掩盖了。当经济增长放缓,竞争更加激烈,原来预期很快可以上市的企业,出现各种经营问题,甚至亏损,创业者人性的弱点就可能暴露出来。他是不是一个真正的创业家,是否有足够的定力和诚信度,表现得很鲜明。有的创业者全力以赴,但因为市场、商业模型等等原因而失败,仍然值得尊敬。但有些从创业第一天起,就知道他根本做不到那些“计划”,纯粹为了圈钱而创业,这就是道德问题。
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Andreessen, who became synonymous with Internet success after co-founding Netscape, first spoke about his investing collaboration with Horowitz on the Charlie Rose Show last night. We followed up with him this morning, and he confirmed that the partnership is a venture capital fund.
We’re still working to nail down more specific details. The firm registered with the California Secretary of State under the name Andreessen Horowitz in July 2008 and has taken an office on Page Mill Road in Palo Alto, Calif.
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