Since founding Sequoia Capital in 1972, Don Valentine has financed many of the companies (Apple, Oracle, Electronic Arts, NVIDIA, Cisco, Google, YouTube, etc.) that have been Silicon Valley’s biggest technology and business success stories. In this View From The Top, he describes some of the insights that allowed him to lead Sequoia through almost four decades of disruptive changes, creating several new industries along the way.
Category: Funding & Finances (Page 9 of 15)
Naomi Kokubo
by Naomi Kokubo, Editor of Founders Space
Quickbooks Pro is an excellent way to get started. For an early-stage startup, the simplest solutions are often the best. You can use Quickbooks Pro yourself or hire a professional to keep your books. Either way, you can get the job done.
Bill Reichert
by Bill Reichert at Garage Technology Ventures
By now, you’ve probably already read several articles, web pages—even books—about writing the perfect executive summary. Most of them offer a wealth of well-intended suggestions about all the stuff you need to include in the executive summary. They provide a helpful list of the forty-two critical items you should cover, and then they tell you to be concise. Most guides to writing an executive summary miss the key point: The job of the executive summary is to sell, not to describe.
Richard Hsu
by Richard Hsu at One Page Blog
When David Hornik (author of VentureBlog and VentureCast) hosted “Late Night with David Hornik” at VatorSplash, venture capitalist Alex Rosen from IDG Ventures did a fantastic David Letterman-style “Top Ten Reasons to Raise Money Now,” which he kindly let me respost below:
Naomi Kokubo
by Naomi Kokubo, Editor of Founders Space
Class F stock was invented by The Founder Institute and Yokum Taku (a Silicon Valley lawyer) to help protect founders. Typically, when a startup receives venture funding, the founders wind up with Common Class shares, while the investors get Preferred Class shares. So what is Class F stock? Class F stock gives founders some added benefits, including 10 votes per share, some protective rights similar to those of preferred stockholders, and the right to elect a director that has two votes on the Board.
Feisal Mosleh
by Feisal Mosleh of New Ventures Partner at Juldee Innovation Group
Here’s a novel way to raise cash without even giving up equity. The catch?
Naomi Kokubo
by Naomi Kokubo, Editor of Founders Space
I’m always looking around for good sample pitch decks. Entrepreneurs keep asking me how to create the best pitches for VCs and angels. Well, here’s a good one that I came across today: View Pitch Deck.
Bill Reichert
by Bill Reichert at Garage Technology Ventures
Sometimes there is nothing more powerful than the passion and vision of an entrepreneur. But sometimes passion and vision are just not enough. It helps to understand the criteria that venture capital firms use to decide which companies to fund.
Adam Toren
by Adam Toren, cofounder of YoungEntrepreneur.com
Everyone knows that the first thing you have to do before you start a business is to create a business plan, right? At least that’s what one school of thought tells us. I’ve seen everything from comments on blogs to entire books dedicated to the belief that no business can succeed without a business plan. Some people even get a little heated over the mere suggestion that creating a business plan might not always be absolutely necessary. And these business plan purists do raise a valid point. Without any planning, your chances of success in anything are slim to none.
Matthew Toren
by Matthew Toren, cofounder of YoungEntrepreneur.com
Everywhere you look in the entrepreneurial press – blogs, magazines, news stories – you see a lot of coverage of companies who acquired millions of dollars in startup funding, second-round VC financing, and angel investments. So it’s no wonder a lot of new entrepreneurs believe that bringing in outside funding is a necessary step in the startup process. Visions of nice offices, a hefty payroll account, new equipment – and let’s not forget a salary for the founder – can further cement an entrepreneur’s desire for someone with deep pockets to back their new venture.
