Almost every company I have talked to in the last 2 weeks ( total of about 12 startups) has a question around valuation multiples they should expect for their company. While many are concerned about dilution and loss of control, I think the bigger worry should be the high bar of flawless execution priced into valuations.… Continue reading What Drives Early Stage Valuation Multiples of Tech #Startups?
Category: Archives
The Most Compelling Reason Why You Should Join an Accelerator
Over the last 10 years there has been a dramatic growth in accelerators. While incubators such as ideaLab (Bill Gross, Los Angeles, 1990’s) had existed during the previous bubble, the absolute number of new age accelerators has gone from zero to over 300 in the US alone and from 0 to over 1000 worldwide. At the same… Continue reading The Most Compelling Reason Why You Should Join an Accelerator
Where the New Gigs are? How to Deal with Recession?
Given that the economy is either in a recession or headed towards one, here are some key areas / spots of growth that are still great places to look: 1. Geography: Europe (especially UK), Asia ( India and China) are still rocking and rolling at 8% and 10.5%. Granted any slow down in the US is going to affect them,… Continue reading Where the New Gigs are? How to Deal with Recession?
SaaS Founders Should Take Marketplace Listing Optimization
I wrote about the 3 things to do before your SaaS product launch to increase inbound leads before and also talked about How you can use Marketplace Listing Optimization (MLO) to increase your inbound leads for a SaaS product. One of the things I forgot to mention was why you should take MLO seriously. I will outline that… Continue reading SaaS Founders Should Take Marketplace Listing Optimization
Failing Startups or the Curious Case of “Zombie Startups”
Are accelerators failing startups or the curious case of “zombie startups” jumping from one accelerator to another? On Wednesday I had a chance to interact with 31 entrepreneurs in the IoT space at Plug and play technology coworking space in Sunnyvale. There were 10 companies in the Healthcare IoT area, 11 in the connected car… Continue reading Failing Startups or the Curious Case of “Zombie Startups”
Startup Idea: Shopify for SaaS Companies
There are over 20,000 SaaS companies in the world and growing. They are the new “software ISV” of the 1990’s. Growing like weeds. Getting users, building niche applications and growing revenue. Every SaaS company builds a “specific application” for a “specific user”. They are the domain experts on that application. Every SaaS company development team… Continue reading Startup Idea: Shopify for SaaS Companies
The Rise of the “Sapling Round” in Technology Startups
I was in the valley last week meeting with over 23 investors (primarily seed and series A stage). From Andreessen-Horowitz and Accel to Sigma ventures and True ventures, we had a chance to talk to partners who are looking at over 2000+ deals every year to invest in less than 10 (in the case of… Continue reading The Rise of the “Sapling Round” in Technology Startups
H1B Change to Salary are Less of an Impact than Educational Qualifications for the Visa
The US government announced dramatic changes to the H1B visa which is used by over 85K individuals each year to work in the US. By some estimates there are over 500K workers using the H1B visa in the US. Now, the estimate is to cut these by a third with new rules that change how much employers… Continue reading H1B Change to Salary are Less of an Impact than Educational Qualifications for the Visa
The Surprising Stats on Funding in India #500strong Shows up High
CB Insights has a blog post on funding in India. Here are the 3 most surprising facts that I gathered from the post. 1. Education and training was the #1 funded industry by category. Business intelligence was in the middle of the pack. I am very surprised. I would have put them in reverse. In fact… Continue reading The Surprising Stats on Funding in India #500strong Shows up High
Gartner Magic Quadrant: Team Collaboration and Social Software
There is a new magic quadrant out for Enterprise Team Collaboration and Social Software. This is the first MQ that focuses on this nascent space, so if Gartner has a quadrant they are getting a lot of inquiries from enterprise customers about these offerings. Some thoughts: 1. They have grouped Wiki’s, Blogging tools, Collaboration products… Continue reading Gartner Magic Quadrant: Team Collaboration and Social Software