There are a lot of misunderstandings about convertible notes and how they work, but one misunderstanding that I have not seen described well is the issue of the valuation cap vs. the discount and what the relative benefits of either outcome would be for investors and founders. First, a quick summary of how convertible notes […]
The New Normal is coming and Venture Capital Investors Have Just Two Years to Back the Winners. Part One – the Future of Work.
Brad Feld and Ian Hathaway describe the startup community as a “complex system” in their new book, The Startup Community Way, By this they mean that it is inherently unpredictable and needs to be managed by more formulaic systems ranging from simple (like making coffee) to complicated (like having a financial audit for your company) to […]
Like many of you, I attended my first virtual conference a few months ago and while the content was great, I missed the networking that I value so much from conferences. Now, I’m planning my second virtual conference of my own and I’m prioritizing not only implementing technology that supports networking, but making sure that […]
If you are a startup CEO, or work for a startup – these are challenging times. The world as you know it is on hiatus, and uncertainty reigns. I would like to share some wise advice from my friend and fellow board member at the Angel Capital Association, Pat LaPointe from Frontier Angels in Bozeman, […]
First of all, you shouldn’t create an exit strategy for an investor – it’s actually the first question you should answer for yourself if you’re thinking about a startup. You see, the exit strategy is about understanding who your customer is. Not the customer who buys your widget or app that you make, but the […]
Pitching your startup to angel and VC investors can seem like groundhog day – doing the same thing over and over and over. Let’s do the math. The average angel writes a $25,000 check. You have to pitch to at least ten or twenty investors before getting to a “yes”. The average startup raise is […]
Impact investing has always been focused on creating positive social and/or environmental outcomes. At some points, Impact Investing has struggled to define itself as compared with philanthropy. Both require measurable positive outcomes, and some philanthropies accomplish outcomes that startups cannot while some startups accomplish outcomes that philanthropies cannot. How are we to choose? One way […]
Measuring Impact has become a major challenge for impact investors. The main reason is that for all their good intents, organizations that develop impact metrics ultimately end up trying to fit a square peg into a round hole. Impact metrics systems struggle to compare apples and oranges in order to demonstrate that the social and […]
All impact investing can be divided into primary or secondary impact and impact investors should understand the difference. We define “primary impact” as impact that is caused by the company carrying out its mission. Whenever a primary impact company sells its goods or services, there is social and/or environmental good that comes from it. Secondary […]