Great article on the founding of Twitter on TechCrunch.
Great case for a business plan resource to look at the Equity Fingerprint. Great jump in valuation between rounds. Amounts raised look likes: Round 1, Y combinator round some $50k; Round 2, angel round, $550k; Round 3 VC A round $7.2million (which included Sequoia Capital, Greylock, SV Angel, Ashton Kutcher and Youniversity Ventures); Round 4 VC B “in the process of closing a whopper of a funding round: $100 million or more at a $1 billion-plus valuation”. Go read the article.
Hat tip via Twitter:
@abrams Jonathan Abrams by Scobleizer
Wow! “@newsyc20: Airbnb Has Arrived: Raising Mega-Round at a $1 Billion+ Valuation tcrn.ch/jNqguQ (bit.ly/kTSBR8) #trending”
Paul Graham, founder of Y Combinator, meets five entrepreneurs on stage for Office Hours where he tries to find out how the founder is going to build their business.
It is a great video as you can see all the mistakes I would make as the entrepreneurs talk too much about the wonderful technology. They are all incredibly gifted people but seem to have no feel for thinking of how the consumer will want to use their product. Also most talk about the features and have not developed an elevator pitch. It is just great to see that I am not the only one who makes the mistakes. Also people are so enthusiastic about their idea, they duck the question of who would want to pay or use their product. Great teaching tool. Wonderful to ask students to watch the video, discuss the learning issues and then submit them to Office Hours.
Hat tip: Alexandre Passos
Brad Feld ran a post on Terms Sheets back in 2005 and it stands good today.
Go read!
Hat tip: Fred Wilson of www.avc.com
http://www.feld.com/wp/archives/2008/06/revisiting-the-term-sheet.html