Business 101 for startups by Fred Wilson
Last week’s financing options post was about getting your customers to finance your business. This week’s post is about getting your suppliers to finance your business.
Truth be told, this is not very common in the startups I work with. The more capital intensive your startup is, the more you can and should think about…
Continue readingFinancing Options: Vendor Financing
I wrote in an earlier post in this series that friends and family is the most common form of startup financing. If you are talking explicitly equity investments, then that is probably true. But the most common way that startup businesses get money to get going is they sell something to someone. In this context, someone means customers.…
Continue readingFinancing Options: Customers
Governments will provide capital for startups and I’ve seen many entrepreneurs over the years take advantage of this form of financing. The grants are usually “free money” in the sense that they do not need to be paid back and they don’t cost any equity.
But nothing in life is free. You do pay for this money in ways that…
Continue readingFinancing Options: Government Grants
This is the second in a series of posts about financing options for startups. By “financing” I mean obtaining cash to fund your business. There are all sorts of strategies to avoid needing funding, but this series is not about them.
I did not have this option in my original list but it was suggested so many…
Continue readingFinancing Options: Contests/Prizes/Accelerator Programs
This is the first in a series of posts about financing options for startups. By “financing” I mean obtaining cash to fund your business. There are all sorts of strategies to avoid needing funding, but this series is not about them.
Many entrepreneurs turn to friends and family for their first funding needs. In fact, it is common for non-tech…
Continue readingFinancing Options: Friends and Family
I got a bunch of great suggestions in my kickoff post on this topic last week. Based on that feedback, the series is going to look like this:
…
Continue readingFinancing Options For Startups
We’ve talked about this issue before here at AVC. Investors like to require that an unissued option pool is in the pre-money valuation calculation when they put money into early stage companies. If you don’t entirely understand what I am talking about here, go click on that link at the start of the post. Hopefully it will explain the…
Continue readingSizing Option Pools In Connection With Financings
I went back and looked at all the MBA Mondays post I’ve written to date and what jumped out at me was a lack of discussion of financing options. Since the audience for MBA Mondays is largely entrepreneurs and the technology industry, I will frame this discussion in the context of what options are available for small tech companies. In…
Continue readingFinancing Options For Small Tech Companies
Today on MBA Mondays we are going to talk about competition. For most businesses, competition is a given. When I walk to work, I am often struck how many local businesses have competitors literally right across the street. Clearly competition is something you can learn to live with and still operate successfully. In fact, there are some very good things…
Continue readingCompetition – The Pros and Cons
I’m wandering a bit on MBA Mondays right now. I don’t have a strong view of where to take this thing next. So I’m just going to post about stuff I think people should understand until I find the next vein we can mine for a while.
Today, I’d like to talk about ordinary income vs capital gains.…
Continue readingOrdinary Income vs Capital Gains