Christoph Janz of Point Nine Capital outlines – in detail – the top six data points he recommends founders have prepared before raising a Series A or B in “6 Things to Pre-empt  90% of Due Diligence“

Jay Acunzo of NextView Ventures and Glen Mello of Silicon Valley Bank discuss how and when startups can use venture debt to their advantage in “What Is Venture Debt and How Should Startups Use It?”

Alex Taussig of Highland Capital offers his philosophies on investing and lists ‘some beliefs [he] holds strongly about opportunities in technology today’ in “How to Be Contrarian in a Bull Market”

Angel Investor Ed Zimmerman gives his reasons why he’s going to continue to invest in the current startup market he believes became a bubble in 2014 in “The Economically Irrational View of the Frothy Tech Market”

Linus Dahg of Wellington Venture Capital answers his question, ‘what return potential are VCs looking for when assessing startups and why?’ in “One Reason You’re Not Being Funded – VC Math Explained”

Cankut Durgun of Aslanoba Capital says, ‘startups should focus on building a valuable business, not financial engineering’ and details a few valuation scenarios in “Liquidation Preferences”

Alida Miranda-Wolff of Hyde Park Angels helps founders understand the many stages of funding in “Understanding the Early Investment Stages”

Albert Wenger of Union Square Ventures explains why adding ‘end user observation and using one’s own product’, alongside quantitative A/B testing ‘is crucial’ for product development in “Empathy and Product Development”

From the Operators

Jake Thomas of AddThis defines the cultural values of an AddThis employee to convey ‘what intrinsically ties us together as a company’ in “Introducing the AddThis Cultural Values & How We Live Them”

Caroline Fairchild of LinkedIn tells the story of how Ben Horowitz of Andreessen Horowitz had no idea that Slack would be one of his most successful investments in “How Ben Horowitz Accidentally Invested in Slack”

Stacey Wolfe of Laicos reflects on her first 30 days at Laicos, how they practice the Lean Startup methodology, and what she’s learned in “My First 30 Days at a Lean Startup”

Ben Erez of Life360 reviews the things he’s learned about startup operations since joining Life360 a year ago in “Startup Operations Are Super Fertile Grounds for Learning”

Dom Goodrum of Percolate admits that he didn’t really know what he was doing when he first started building Percolate’s design team and tells his journey of ‘getting to this point’ in “Great Design Leaders Make Bets to Knock the Blurs Into Shape”

In The News 

Dan Primack of Fortune reports that Circa may be seeking a buyer he says as a result of failing to raise a new round of venture capital in “Exclusive: News App Circa Is Seeking A Buyer”