Venture Hacks

A reader asks:
“My question is how do we value a company with no sales? I understand it’s an arbitrary valuation but is there anything we can possibly base it on? Is there a “default” valuation for companies in a seed round?”
We’ll answer this question with some questions (and answers) of our own:

How much money do [...]

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Summary: Raise as much money as possible. With these caveats: (1) maintain control at any cost, (2) monitor your liquidation preference, and (3) act like you don’t have a lot of money. Also understand that if you do raise a lot of money, you will have to (1) “go big or go home” and (2) [...]

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The latest great quotes from the Venture Hacks Twitter feed: twitter.com/venturehacks (RSS):
Boards
“Don’t let conflicts get in the way of selecting the ideal board member.” – Fred Wilson
“Avoid ‘big names.’ For the most part, they are useless.” – Fred Wilson
“I was on the Spectra board and I think I nearly drove… the company CEO nuts with [...]

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“C’mon—you have $500M and I am raising $1.5M 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 [...]

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Q: What’s the biggest mistake entrepreneurs make when they’re raising money?
Entrepreneurs focus on valuation when they should be focusing on controlling the company through board control and limited protective provisions.
Valuation is temporary, control is forever. For example, the valuation of your company is irrelevant if the board terminates you and you lose your unvested stock.
The [...]

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As this nuclear winter of venture hacks continues, I thought you might enjoy our thoughts on Paul Graham’s The Equity Equation. Paul says,
“Whenever you’re trading stock in your company for anything, whether it’s money or an employee or a deal with another company, the test for whether to do it is the same. You should [...]

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“I assumed my lawyers would have my back on this. I was wrong.”
– Anonymous Entrepreneur
Summary: A cap table shows you who owns what in your company. It calculates how the option pool shuffle and seed debt lower your Series A share price. This article includes a spreadsheet you can use to build your very [...]

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I read, like, and regularly disagree with a great blog called Ask the VC . They recently answered a question about supra pro rata rights—here are our thoughts on the topic.
Q: Can you explain what supra pro-rata is? It seems to be showing up in some VC term sheets now. What’s the impact on the [...]

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Our comments are now threaded! Click the “Reply” link beneath any comment to leave a response. Here’s an example of a threaded comment.
As usual, we’ve received many mind-expanding comments—here are some of the very best. The very lucky winner of a mug for great contributions in the field of venture hacking is indicated with a [...]

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Summary: Seed investors often argue that debt doesn’t incent them to (1) help the business and (2) increase the share price of the eventual Series A. Actually, (1) debt does incent investors to help the business and (2) equity may also incent investors to decrease the Series A share price. That said, you can make [...]

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