Tag: VC

When to borrow to grow your business

I am often asked about when or if a company should take on debt to help grow their business. Here are my thoughts: Sources of Capital There are three source of capital to grow your business: Revenue – well, actually, […]

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How venture capital works

Do you understand how VC funds work? If you want to raise VC, it’s important to know this. Here’s how they work: Let’s take a $100M fund, called Acme Ventures. $100M is pretty small for VC funds these days, but […]

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Finding the right investor for your business

There is so much written about fundraising, yet many founders make basic mistakes. That was OK in the last 18 months when $ were flowing. Now, there is no room for error. This list is an actual pipeline from from […]

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Doing more with less

All markets are cyclical. They go up and down. Expand and contract. The startup funding market is no exception. After the longest bull run on record, CEOs got used to a world where capital felt free. It was abundantly available […]

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Sometimes you don’t need an investment bank

Back when I was an investment banker, I joked regularly that bankers have a well-deserved bad reputation. The fact is, most bankers are useless. Especially in the mid-market (where most VC and PE funded companies are). They charge far too […]

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To pivot or not to pivot…

The term “pivot” was added to the startup vocabulary in the past decade or so to describe when a startup changes its mission or focus. Some pivots are small, such as changing the target customer from enterprise to mid-market. Others […]

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