What makes someone an effective entrepreneur? How do they get that way? This question drives at what many founders, VCs and business writers spend their careers working to figure out. Yet what does the research say? Is entrepreneurship a skill, a personality type, or pure luck? Can entrepreneurship be taught? If so, can people get […]
Read the postPandemic. Stock market volatility. High debt levels. Waning confidence in the US dollar. A massive number of layoffs. “The worst recession since the Great Depression.” In so many ways, this does not seem like a great moment to start a new company. Yet, despite uncertainty and pain, now might be the right time to begin […]
Read the postDescription “Tranched investments” (AKA milestone-based investments) describe when an investor agrees to fund a company in stages based on a series of milestones. Each stage (or trache) corresponds with a certain accomplishment or pre-determined goal that both parties agree to—this may be a financial metric like revenue or a product development milestone. This approach to […]
Read the postA 2018 study by Carl Fritjofsson (Creandum) and Henri Deshays (Newfund) surveyed 121 company founders and 98 VCs to identify similarities and differences between the two group’s preferences. Source The data here is a couple of years old and individuals may not follow through on their stated preferences; however, this study provides an interesting portrait […]
Read the postA simple yet powerful mental model. You make money in venture capital by investing in companies that are not popular but are successful. There are a number of ways to be non-consensus including being first to know about a company, or investing in a company that others actively dislike or by investing in a region […]
Read the postRace “In 2015, there were 12 black women who had raised more than $1 million in funding, according to Digitalundivided’s new ProjectDiane report. In 2017, there were 34.” “Latinx women are over 18% of the population of women in the US, but they lead less than 2% of women-led startups.” “We found that 79.2% of […]
Read the postThe interest in running a debit card, robust payments program, or being a full-fledged neobank has exploded. For example note the growth, fundraising, and headlines for neobanks or fintechs like Chime, Varo Money, Good Money, Dave, and Aspiration. The opportunity is huge and many big banks are not doing themselves any favors with the slow […]
Read the postAdapted from a TweetStorm. An “index of Fortune 500 companies in which the founder is still deeply involved performed 3.1 times better than the rest over the past 15 years” from Bain & Company Do founder CEOs outperform because they have: – Owner’s mindset – Unique, spiky feature, or capability that gives a business special […]
Read the postSo, you want to be a startup founder. But how do you find an idea worth doing? Despite what startup formation myths say, many founders decided they wanted to be founders and then went in search of a product or problem. It is a much more common pattern than you normally see in the media. […]
Read the postDescription: Revenue-based financing (RPF) is a financing arrangement where a company takes in cash now and pays back over years a percentage of monthly or quarterly top-line revenue (say 1 to 9 percent) until a fixed amount is paid back (usually a fixed multiple of the original cash provided say 2 to 3 times). It […]
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