From the Investors
Justin Kan of Y Combinator reviews how to value your company, raise interest from buyers and navigate the acquisition process in “The Founder’s Guide to Selling Your Company“
Mark Suster of Upfront Ventures warns founders to not blindly trust investors and to adhere to major investor clauses in funding documents in “Why You Don’t Want to Give Financial Information to All of Your Investors“
Tomasz Tunguz of Redpoint Ventures details how to structure an interview process to increase predictability of a candidate’s future performance in “The Most Effective Questions to Use When Interviewing Candidates“
Fred Wilson of Union Square Ventures advises founders to not ‘waste your time’, but to focus on ‘where the real competition happens; product and market’ in “Messing With A Competitor’s Fundraising“
Leo Polovets of Susa Ventures encourages founders to ‘list out 5 – 10 things that you’d like help with’ when writing monthly investor update emails in “Extracting More Value from Investors
Kanyi Maqubela of Collaborative Fund expands on Chris Dixon’s tweet about counterintuitive ideas saying to ’embrace the ridiculous’ in “Plausibility, Possibility, and Paradigms“
Keith Rabois of Khosla Ventures details his fundamental principles of building and running a business for Stanford University and Y Combinator’s How To Start A Startup class in “How to Operate“
Guy Turner of HydePark Venture Partners explores five symptoms of ‘false product market fit’ and provides possible solutions in “Five Signs Your Product Market Fit Isn’t Real“
Christen O’Brien of 500 Startups begins her ‘Sales for Founders’ series to ‘chronicle the hard knocks & lessons (she) learned’ starting a company in “Selling Silicon Valley: A Founder’s Guide to Closing (Big) Deals“
From the Operators
Joseph Walla of HelloSign outlines the many factors that go into determining an early-stage valuation in “Seed Rounds: How to Pick A Valuation“
Startup L. Jackson believes founders need to ‘approach every conversation as an opportunity to learn about the world’ in “The Counterintuitive Thing About Counterintuitive Things“
Mathilde Collin of Front shares her journey successfully navigating the ‘EU/US dichotomy’ of the fundraising process in “The Difference Between Raising Early-Stage Capital in the US vs. Europe: A Founder’s Perspective“
John Sculley formerly of Apple and Pepsi provides his thoughts on what makes a ‘skilled mentor’ in “There’s a Thin Line Between Success and Failure“
David Lang of Medium’s Backchannel explains the potential future he sees within Do-It-Yourself Biology/ Biohacking products in “DIYbio Comes of Age“
Rajen Sanghvi of ShopLocket gives his list of key takeaways from Keith Rabois’ presentation at Stanford and YC’s How To Start A Startup class in “56 Quotes from Keith Rabois on How to Operate“
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