Administrivia#
- Venture Hacks: The Mug
- Get Venture Hacks via email
- Home improvement
- Our top 10 posts of 2009 — dominated by customer development
- Get Venture Hacks on Facebook
Advisors#
- Everything you ever wanted to know about advisors, Part 1
- Everything you ever wanted to know about advisors, Part 2
- Lawyers are referees, not coaches
- Advice is for learning, not copying
- (A bit of) Decision-making for startups
- We teach entrepreneurship like every vertical market has the same set of rules
AngelList#
- Launch: AngelList, a curated list of angel investors
- Launch: StartupList — a new way to reach angels
- StartupList: Day 1 — Thank You
- StartupList: The first startup gets funded
Angels#
- Office Hours: Technical Error Edition
- Potpourri: Introductions, Auctions, Tranches, and Co-Investors
- Raise money from VCs or angels?
- How do I find a lead investor? Part 1
- How do I find a lead investor? Part 2
- Lijit's CEO on raising money from angels
- Do you know any idea investors?
- How to be an angel investor, Part 2
- "Angel investors are becoming the dominant force in consumer internet venture capital"
Anti-Dilution#
Auctions#
- Office Hours: Technical Error Edition
- Potpourri: Introductions, Auctions, Tranches, and Co-Investors
- Create a market for your shares
- How is raising money like buying a car?
- What's the biggest mistake entrepreneurs make?
- Complete business diligence before you sign a term sheet
- Should I shop around?
- Tips from a ex-VC who helps entrepreneurs raise money
Board of Directors#
- Create a board that reflects the ownership of the company
- Make a new board seat for a new CEO
- What are the benefits of debt in a seed round?
- Why do investors want protective provisions?
- What's the biggest mistake entrepreneurs make?
- What's the difference between smart money and dumb money?
- Trust, but verify: Why investors want control
- Control is a one way street
- Opening board meetings to the entire company
- Take guidance from VCs, not orders
Books#
- John Doerr of Kleiner Perkins on building Intuit
- Randy Komisar on the Rocket Ship investment model
- Randy Komisar’s 'The Monk and the Riddle'
- Books for Entrepreneurs: Bargaining for Advantage
- Books for Entrepreneurs: Agile Software Development
- Customer Development: How to develop your customers like you develop your product
- Five whys, Part 1: The startup immune system
- The OODA Loop: Playing chess with half the pieces
- Books for Entrepreneurs: Extreme Programming Explained
- We don't pay you to work here
- The spontaneous optimism that drives startups
- The Human Equation: How to organize people for profit
- Launch: Pitching Hacks, The Book
- Venture Hacks Bookstore
- How to share secrets in a negotiation
- Emotions at work
Budget#
Business Plans#
Case Studies#
- How is raising money like buying a car?
- Grockit's founder on pitching investors
- Investors might share your plans with the competition
- Terminating Cisco's founders
- Trust, but verify: Why investors want control
- Half-Assed Startup: Start your company and keep your day job
- John Doerr of Kleiner Perkins on building Intuit
- How much money should we raise?
- Lijit's CEO on raising money from angels
- From incoherent to high concept pitch
- High concept pitch: Feedburner for iPhones
- Mike Cassidy: Speed as THE primary business strategy
- A Hollywood for startups
- Elevator pitches with bullets
- How Steve Jobs pitches a startup
- "Agile methods and startup companies… go perfectly together."
- How IMVU learned its way to $10M a year
CEO#
- Make a new board seat for a new CEO
- Accelerate your vesting upon termination
- Supersize your vesting with these microhacks
Closing#
- Complete business diligence before you sign a term sheet
- Discuss your plans before signing a term sheet
- When investors try to re-negotiate a term sheet
- How to close a term sheet quickly
- 5 New Year's resolutions for closing deals in 2010
Co-Founders#
- Get vested for time served
- Accelerate your vesting upon termination
- Supersize your vesting with these microhacks
- Paul Graham: "Look in the mirror"
- A quick and dirty guide to starting up
- Updated: A quick and dirty guide to starting up
- How to pick a co-founder
- Interview: How to pick a co-founder
- When to fire your co-founders
Co-Investors#
Comments#
- Reactions to Venture Hacks
- Comments: Legal fees, options pools, and vesting
- Comments: Convertible debt and vesting
- Comments: Convertible debt
- Comments: Startup founders speak
- Reactions to Recommended
- How to moderate (and write) comments
- Comments of the week: Legal fees, financial projections, and fit
Compensation#
- Everything you ever wanted to know about advisors, Part 2
- I have a job offer at a startup, am I getting a good deal? Part 1: The offer
- We don't pay you to work here
- The Human Equation: How to organize people for profit
Conferences#
- O'Reilly Startup Camp
- Notes from Startup School 2009
- I'm speaking at The Future of Funding
- [Startup Digest]: "The best startup events in 27 cities"
- I'm speaking at SXSW + Holding a SXSW MEETUP
Convertible Debt#
- Should I raise debt or equity?
- Comments: Convertible debt and vesting
- Keep your Series A options open if you raise debt
- What are the benefits of debt in a seed round?
- Make your debt attractive to investors
- Comments: Convertible debt
- Supersize your debt with these microhacks
- How to make a cap table
Customer Development#
- Randy Komisar on the Rocket Ship investment model
- Customer Development: How to develop your customers like you develop your product
- How IMVU learned its way to $10M a year
- Take a course from the king of customer development
- The Venture Hacks Podcast
- Don't launch? But the New York Times is on the phone!
- The king of customer development starts a blog (and tweets too)
- What is the minimum viable product?
- Customer Development, Classes 3 and 4
- Sell it before you build it
- It's very easy to underprice your product
- We teach entrepreneurship like every vertical market has the same set of rules
- Customer Development, Class 5: IMVU
- Steve Jobs does customer development
- Steve Jobs does customer development: No new features
- Customer Development Patterns
- Take our Twitter Survey
- Customer development by the book
- The sultans of startup marketing
- The ignorant VC
- 3 customer development case studies
- Sometimes the feature is the product
- How to bring a product to market / A very rare interview with Sean Ellis
- How to measure product/market fit with survey.io
- Marketing science Q&A with Sean Ellis
- When the cost of customer acquisition exceeds your ability to monetize them
- The Billy Mays method of picking startups
- How to bring a product to market, Part 2 — after product/market fit
- My experiments in lean pricing
- How to optimize web apps with KISSmetrics
Decisions#
Decks#
- What should I send investors? Part 2: Deck
- What should I send investors? Part 3: Business Plans, NDAs, and Traction
- Is it safe to send my deck to investors?
- Comments: Startup founders speak
- How should I format my deck?
Dilution#
- Office Hours: Technical Error Edition
- How do we set the valuation for a seed round?
- Chris Dixon: How much seed money should I raise?
Dividends#
Downturn#
- Sequoia’s advice is good advice anytime
- "Financings are blowing up"
- "They blew an opportunity to remain optimistic"
- Paul Graham: "Look in the mirror"
- When investors try to re-negotiate a term sheet
- The spontaneous optimism that drives startups
- Lowering the water level: Do bad economies spur innovation?
- In a board room, somewhere in Silicon Valley…
Due Diligence#
Employees#
- I have a job offer at a startup, am I getting a good deal? Part 1: The offer
- I have a job offer at a startup, am I getting a good deal? Part 2: The company
- (Not so) Scary terms in offer letters
- What does an employee offer letter look like?
Entrepreneurs#
- Should I sell my company or raise capital?
- Entrepreneurs: Missionaries, not mercenaries
- Randy Komisar’s 'The Monk and the Riddle'
- "It ain't about right, it's about money."
- 10 skills I look for before writing a check, Part 1
- 10 skills I look for before writing a check, Part 2: Perspiration and Appetite for Risk
- 5 New Year's resolutions for closing deals in 2010
- Top 10 reasons why entrepreneurs hate lawyers
- 10 skills I look for before writing a check, Part 3: Detail Orientation, Competitiveness, Decisiveness
Equity#
- The Equity Equation
- Should I give my lawyers equity?
- Everything you ever wanted to know about advisors, Part 2
- I have a job offer at a startup, am I getting a good deal? Part 1: The offer
- (Not so) Scary terms in offer letters
Event#
- Get drunk with VCs and help charity
- Our first online workshop: How to pitch investors
- I'm speaking at SXSW + Holding a SXSW MEETUP
Execution#
- How do I find a lead investor? Part 3
- Everything you ever wanted to know about advisors, Part 1
- Marc Andreessen on cognitive bias
- Lawyers are referees, not coaches
- Advice is for learning, not copying
- A quick and dirty guide to starting up
- Updated: A quick and dirty guide to starting up
Feedback#
Future Financings#
- Keep your Series A options open if you raise debt
- Why do investors want protective provisions?
- How much money should we raise?
Hiring#
- The Option Pool Shuffle
- We're Hiring: One (Wo)man Developer Army
- How well do investors recruit?
- Mike Cassidy: Speed as THE primary business strategy
- I have a job offer at a startup, am I getting a good deal? Part 1: The offer
- I have a job offer at a startup, am I getting a good deal? Part 2: The company
- (Not so) Scary terms in offer letters
- What does an employee offer letter look like?
- When to fire your co-founders
Ideas#
Innovation#
Interview#
- Tom Perkins of Kleiner Perkins Interviewed
- Vinod Khosla: "Big opportunities are changing the structure of society"
- How to be an angel investor, Part 2
- What is the minimum viable product?
- Opening board meetings to the entire company
- Interview: How to pick a co-founder
- How to bring a product to market / A very rare interview with Sean Ellis
- How to measure product/market fit with survey.io
- How to bring a product to market, Part 2 — after product/market fit
- How to optimize web apps with KISSmetrics
Introductions#
- Potpourri: Introductions, Auctions, Tranches, and Co-Investors
- What should I send investors? Part 1: Elevator Pitch
- How do I find a lead investor? Part 2
- Who makes the best introductions to investors?
- Launch: AngelList, a curated list of angel investors
- Launch: StartupList — a new way to reach angels
- StartupList: The first startup gets funded
- It takes more than one intro to get a meeting
Investing#
Investment Criteria#
Investment Theses#
IP#
Launch#
- Term Sheet Hacks: Get a Great Deal
- Venture Hacks Office Hours
- Ask Venture Hacks
- Getting Recommended
- Launch: Pitching Hacks, The Book
- Don't launch? But the New York Times is on the phone!
- Opening board meetings to the entire company
Lawyers#
- Term Sheet Hacks: Get a Great Deal
- Comments: Legal fees, options pools, and vesting
- A few hacks from our personal blogs
- Should I pay my investor's legal fees?
- Should I give my lawyers equity?
- Comments: Startup founders speak
- Lawyers are referees, not coaches
- Just Say No: VC terms that can really hurt (Part 2)
- 5 New Year's resolutions for closing deals in 2010
- Top 10 reasons why entrepreneurs hate lawyers
- Bram Cohen: "Lawyers can’t tell you you can’t do something"
- A list of social startup lawyers
Layoffs#
Lead Investors#
- How do I find a lead investor? Part 1
- How do I find a lead investor? Part 2
- How do I find a lead investor? Part 3
- Daddy, what's a soft circle?
Lean#
- The Laws of Productivity
- Startup Lessons Learned
- Lean startups find their moment
- Books for Entrepreneurs: Agile Software Development
- "Agile methods and startup companies… go perfectly together."
- Pivotal Tracker: The iPod of project management software
- Five whys, Part 1: The startup immune system
- Five whys, Part 2: How to get started
- Five whys, Part 3: Legacy startups
- The OODA Loop: Playing chess with half the pieces
- Books for Entrepreneurs: Extreme Programming Explained
- My visit to American Apparel
- Lowering the water level: Do bad economies spur innovation?
- How IMVU learned its way to $10M a year
- 10 examples of minimum viable products
- No ocean boiling please
- My experiments in lean pricing
Legal Documents#
Limited Partners#
- A brief history of your investors (and their investors)
- "He has no clue whether it will be another Google, yet he has to make promises that only hucksters can make."
- More diligence and less capital coming for startups (and their investors)
Liquidation Preference#
M&A#
- Accelerate your vesting upon a sale
- Make your debt attractive to investors
- Supersize your debt with these microhacks
- Why do investors want protective provisions?
- Should I sell my company or raise capital?
- M&A Hacks
- How common is accelerated vesting on change in control?
Markets#
- How do I find a lead investor? Part 2
- A quick and dirty guide to starting up
- Updated: A quick and dirty guide to starting up
Meetup#
Mis-alignment#
Misc#
NDA#
- What should I send investors? Part 3: Business Plans, NDAs, and Traction
- Investors might share your plans with the competition
- Is it safe to send my deck to investors?
- "NDAs up the wazoo"
Negotiation#
- Term Sheet Hacks: Get a Great Deal
- HubSpot's founder on negotiating with investors
- How is raising money like buying a car?
- Should I shop around?
- Books for Entrepreneurs: Bargaining for Advantage
- How to share secrets in a negotiation
- Just Say No: VC terms that can really hurt (Part 2)
- How to re-negotiate with your customers — and not lose a single one
- In a board room, somewhere in Silicon Valley…
No#
Office Hours#
Option Pool#
- The Option Pool Shuffle
- Focus on your share price, not your valuation
- Comments: Legal fees, options pools, and vesting
- How to make a cap table
Options#
Organization#
- Extraordinary Organizations: $170M company with no titles except "plant" manager
- My visit to American Apparel
- We don't pay you to work here
- The Human Equation: How to organize people for profit
- Opening board meetings to the entire company
Pitching#
- What should I send investors? Part 1: Elevator Pitch
- What should I send investors? Part 2: Deck
- What should I send investors? Part 3: Business Plans, NDAs, and Traction
- Grockit's founder on pitching investors
- Is it safe to send my deck to investors?
- High concept pitches for startups
- From incoherent to high concept pitch
- High concept pitch: Feedburner for iPhones
- A Hollywood for startups
- Elevator pitches with bullets
- How Steve Jobs pitches a startup
- How should I format my deck?
- Why startup pitches fail (and how to fix them)
- Raising money is a black swan
- Launch: Pitching Hacks, The Book
- Our first online workshop: How to pitch investors
- Pitching Hacks, in paperback
- How to raise money without lying to investors
- When you're raising money, the competition isn't the competition
- "He has no clue whether it will be another Google, yet he has to make promises that only hucksters can make."
Pitching Hacks#
- Coming Soon: Pitching Hacks, The Book
- Pitching Hacks is almost here / Calling all testers
- Pitching Hacks: Beta test update
- Launch: Pitching Hacks, The Book
- How we encourage word of mouth for Pitching Hacks
- Pitching Hacks at Stanford
- Pitching Hacks, in paperback
Plans#
- Discuss your plans before signing a term sheet
- Sequoia’s advice is good advice anytime
- Take guidance from VCs, not orders
- How to raise money without lying to investors
- "He has no clue whether it will be another Google, yet he has to make promises that only hucksters can make."
Podcast#
- The Venture Hacks Podcast
- How to be an angel investor, Part 2
- What is the minimum viable product?
- Opening board meetings to the entire company
- Interview: How to pick a co-founder
- How to bring a product to market / A very rare interview with Sean Ellis
- How to measure product/market fit with survey.io
- Get our interviews on the Venture Hacks Podcast
- How to bring a product to market, Part 2 — after product/market fit
- How to optimize web apps with KISSmetrics
Positioning#
Presentations#
- Our top 10 term sheet hacks
- A quick and dirty guide to starting up
- Customer Development: How to develop your customers like you develop your product
- Updated: Our top 10 term sheet hacks
- Updated: A quick and dirty guide to starting up
- How IMVU learned its way to $10M a year
Pro Rata#
Protective Provisions#
- What are supra pro rata rights?
- Why do investors want protective provisions?
- What's the biggest mistake entrepreneurs make?
- Trust, but verify: Why investors want control
- Control is a one way street
Psychology#
- Create a market for your shares
- Marc Andreessen on cognitive bias
- "They blew an opportunity to remain optimistic"
- The spontaneous optimism that drives startups
- Emotions at work
- 5 New Year's resolutions for closing deals in 2010
- Most inspiring speech ever
Quotes#
- Burt Rutan: "Confidence in nonsense is required"
- Tom Perkins of Kleiner Perkins Interviewed
- T-Shirts for VCs
- Mark Cuban: "Most businesses don’t need more cash, they need more brains"
- Vinod Khosla: "How would you compete against yourself?"
- Venture Hacks: "Competitors copy success, not ideas"
- Kent Beck: "If you’re having trouble succeeding, fail"
- Randy Komisar on the Rocket Ship investment model
- "Delay decisions until the last responsible moment"
- Eric Ries: "In a startup, both the problem and solution are unknown"
- Paul Graham: "Look in the mirror"
- FBI Negotiator: "If they’re talking to you, you have leverage"
- Dharmesh Shah: "Write a blog, not a business plan"
- Robert Heinlein: "Specialization is for insects"
- Steve Jobs: "Apple is only its ideas"
- Paul Buchheit: "Consider spending less time talking, and more time prototyping"
- Mike Maples: "My opinion is interesting, but irrelevant."
- Hey, have you heard of Twitter?
Recommended#
Resources#
- HubSpot's founder on negotiating with investors
- A few hacks from our personal blogs
- Why investors don't always do the right thing
- M&A Hacks
- Burt Rutan: "Confidence in nonsense is required"
- T-Shirts for VCs
- Marc Andreessen on cognitive bias
- Tips from a ex-VC who helps entrepreneurs raise money
- Free ideas. Just add execution.
- Startup Lessons Learned
- The king of customer development starts a blog (and tweets too)
- The Startup MBA
- Customer development by the book
- Best of the startup blogs
- Startup Boy is back
- The long tail of VC blogs
- The long tail of VC twitterers
- The sultans of startup marketing
- Weekend reading
- Get the best of the startup blogs
Reverse Diligence#
- Is the VC Industry Doomed?
- What's the difference between smart money and dumb money?
- Discuss your plans before signing a term sheet
- 5 New Year's resolutions for closing deals in 2010
Speed#
- Mike Cassidy: Speed as THE primary business strategy
- The OODA Loop: Playing chess with half the pieces
Sponsor#
- Our Sponsor: Charles River Ventures
- Sponsor: Charles River Ventures
- Get drunk with VCs and help charity
- The problem with VC motivation
- The ignorant VC
- Thanking our supporters
- Just Say No: VC terms that can really hurt
- Just Say No: VC terms that can really hurt (Part 2)
- Take guidance from VCs, not orders
- The Arrogant VC: Why VCs are disliked by entrepreneurs
- The Arrogant VC: Why VCs are disliked by entrepreneurs, Part 2
- 5 New Year's resolutions for closing deals in 2010
- Top 10 reasons why entrepreneurs hate lawyers
- How to raise money without lying to investors
- Launch: Sponsor Posts — ads that rule
- When to fire your co-founders
- How to optimize web apps with KISSmetrics
- More diligence and less capital coming for startups (and their investors)
Starting Up#
- Half-Assed Startup: Start your company and keep your day job
- Mike Cassidy: Speed as THE primary business strategy
- Do you know any idea investors?
- Ideas need not apply
- A quick and dirty guide to starting up
- Updated: A quick and dirty guide to starting up
Startup News#
StartupList#
- Launch: StartupList — a new way to reach angels
- StartupList: Day 1 — Thank You
- StartupList: The first startup gets funded
Strategy#
- Mike Cassidy: Speed as THE primary business strategy
- The OODA Loop: Playing chess with half the pieces
Summary#
- The top 3 hacks of the year
- Our top 10 term sheet hacks
- Updated: Our top 10 term sheet hacks
- Our new archives
Survey#
Term Sheet#
- Term Sheet Hacks: Get a Great Deal
- Complete business diligence before you sign a term sheet
- Discuss your plans before signing a term sheet
Term Sheet Tune-Up#
Termination#
Timing#
Tools#
Traction#
Tranches#
Twitter#
- Twitter updates
- Take our Twitter Survey
- Put your tweets on your blog
- "Your next feature won't save you"
- "Real wealth creation will take founding, seniority, or staggeringly large exits."
- The long tail of VC twitterers
- Morale, distribution, profit, and games
- Startup News, the first 2 weeks
- Get Venture Hacks on Facebook
- Give tweet a chance
Valuation#
- The Option Pool Shuffle
- Focus on your share price, not your valuation
- What are the benefits of debt in a seed round?
- Make your debt attractive to investors
- What are supra pro rata rights?
- How to make a cap table
- The Equity Equation
- What's the biggest mistake entrepreneurs make?
- How do we set the valuation for a seed round?
- "Financings are blowing up"
- Chris Dixon: How much seed money should I raise?
Value Add#
- A few hacks from our personal blogs
- What's the difference between smart money and dumb money?
- How well do investors recruit?
- Randy Komisar’s 'The Monk and the Riddle'
VC Industry#
- Why investors don't always do the right thing
- What's the biggest mistake entrepreneurs make?
- Is the VC Industry Doomed?
- Should I sell my company or raise capital?
- M&A Hacks
- Tom Perkins of Kleiner Perkins Interviewed
- Randy Komisar’s 'The Monk and the Riddle'
- Vinod Khosla: "Big opportunities are changing the structure of society"
- "Angel investors are becoming the dominant force in consumer internet venture capital"
- The Arrogant VC: Why VCs are disliked by entrepreneurs
- The Arrogant VC: Why VCs are disliked by entrepreneurs, Part 2
- How to raise money without lying to investors
- A brief history of your investors (and their investors)
- "He has no clue whether it will be another Google, yet he has to make promises that only hucksters can make."
- More diligence and less capital coming for startups (and their investors)
Vesting#
- Get vested for time served
- Accelerate your vesting upon termination
- Accelerate your vesting upon a sale
- Comments: Legal fees, options pools, and vesting
- Supersize your vesting with these microhacks
- Comments: Convertible debt and vesting
- Terminating Cisco's founders
- How common is accelerated vesting on change in control?
- Just Say No: VC terms that can really hurt
