SaaStr

APRIL 3, 2023

Dear SaaStr: What’s The Best Way to Retain Control of Our Startup Once We Start to Raise Outside Capital? At Adobe Sign / EchoSign my answer was only to raise $8m, get to cash-flow positive with much of the money still left in the bank, and sell for an exponential multiple. Sell less of the company. appeared first on SaaStr.

Startup 228

Startup Banking Scaling SaaS 228

Tom Tunguz

JUNE 13, 2022

Public blockchain data enables look-alike modeling not possible on the web without full credit card or banking data. Those fundamental changes create opportunity for marketing startups to serve web3 marketers better. This new marketing discipline will enable the first generation of crypto martech (marketing technology) startups.

Startup 206

Startup Blockchain Banking Advertising 206

SaaStr

MAY 29, 2022

Just not at your startup. And the mistake so many founders make is they want to believe a VP of Sales that’s good in general, good somewhere, would work at their startup. A banking solution? That’s 95% of them out there that just won’t be a fit at your startup. They might work out somewhere else. Often not.

Sales Hiring 233

Sales Hiring Sales Recruiting Startup Sales 233

SaaStr

FEBRUARY 17, 2023

In this edition of CRO Confidential, Sam Blond (former CRO at Brex and current Partner at Founders Fund) hosts his former colleague Lucas Fox (GM of Brex for Startups). Churn vs. Expansion: Where to Start As many startup founders know, in the beginning, acquiring customers is key to getting off the ground.

Retention 192

Retention Revenue Startup Sales Hiring 192

Tom Tunguz

AUGUST 8, 2019

Which sectors see more startup company formation than others? Eight years ago, there were nearly zero AI startups seeded. Blockchain - another exponential curve that shows growth from 0 to 200 startups in eight years. Consumer preferences are evolving and startups are rising to meet the demand. Let’s take a look.

Artificial Intelligence 279

Artificial Intelligence Startup Blockchain Social Media 279

SaaStr

FEBRUARY 21, 2020

Q: How does an investor protect himself when investing in a startup? Investing in startups actually requires a lot of trust by VCs and investors. You can stress test this by examining bank accounts (i.e., And a lot of startups have some bad behavior here. Founders should send over the bank statement each month.

Investment 184

Investment Startup Banking 184

SaaStr

MAY 26, 2021

Or joining a hedge fund or i-bank and being successful there. The post What Inspires Founders to Create Startups appeared first on SaaStr. Your board of directors is your boss if you are a CEO. You still have a boss. It’s not really the money. You can make more money, risk adjusted, getting to be a VP at a Tech Leader.

Startup 153

Startup Banking 153

Tom Tunguz

APRIL 6, 2022

What’s a startup to do? Because this technique is so new, startups have the upper hand: Innovator’s Dilemma redux. Twenty years ago, startups IPOed after 4 years. The fifth cluster of innovation benefits central banks, not startups. Compete on a different axis: reward users with tokens.

Innovation 255

Innovation Banking Government Advertising 255

The Daily Egg

SEPTEMBER 16, 2022

Fundbox is a terrific alternative lender for startups and small businesses limited by traditional banks’ typical loan qualification hurdles. The lender has. The post Fundbox Review appeared first on The Daily Egg.

Banking 284

Banking Startup Business 284

SaaStr

JUNE 22, 2023

Mercury offers banking* for startups — at any size or stage. Launched in 2019, Mercury is trusted by more than 100,000 startups. Mercury is a financial technology company, not a bank. Banking services provided by Choice Financial Group and Evolve Bank & Trust®; Members FDIC.

Scale 175

Scale Banking compliance Forecasting 175

SaaStr

JULY 19, 2020

Q: How stressful is it to run a venture-backed startup? Of course cash in the bank also matters if you aren’t VC backed. The post Why It’s More Stressful to Run a Venture-Backed Startup. Being a CEO in general is pretty stressful ??. You need to know exactly when you run out of money. It’s just different.

Venture Capital 247

Venture Capital Startup Banking B2B 247

SaaStr

JUNE 5, 2023

Assume you get few-to-no offers to buy your startup. Making $2m, $5m, $10m if you have $0 in the bank is so insanely significant. Probably, your bank account is $0 or negative. And it’s even tougher now. Take a look at the latest Pitchbook data here. Acquisitions are way, way down: So saying no is so risky.

Banking 349

Banking Travel Acquisition Startup 349

Baremetrics

SEPTEMBER 26, 2021

It wasn’t until the 1960s that you could take notes from an ATM, which is when automation really started to take off in the banking sector. Front-end processors are connected to various card associations and provide authorization and settlement services to the merchant banks' merchants. What is a merchant account? MasterCard or Visa).

Payment Services 97

Payment Services Merchant Services Payment Methods Payment Solutions 97

SaaStr

OCTOBER 14, 2022

Q: Dear SaaStr: How Do VCs Verify a Startup’s Revenue? At SaaStr Fund, we also generally do a bank account cash flow test. We make sure the bank statements tie to the financial statements given to us. The post Dear SaaStr: How Do VCs Verify a Startup’s Revenue? What can you do, after all? (Is

Revenue 214

Revenue Banking Startup 214

SaaStr

NOVEMBER 30, 2021

Over the last eight years as Y Combinator ’s Managing Director and Group Partner, I’ve advised thousands of startup founders on their businesses. Doing things that don’t scale can often feel counterintuitive to a founder, but it’s an essential part of making it as a small startup. Find the 90/10 solution.

Startup 185

Startup Scaling Banking Product Marketing 185

SaaStr

SEPTEMBER 18, 2023

In Part 2 of Ask Me Anything, Lemkin will answer these questions: How do you balance being authentic as a new startup and getting customers to buy into your vision vs. appearing well put together with everything going on? Some sales folks might disagree, but Lemkin believes startups should be about 85-90% transparent.

Sales Hiring 210

Sales Hiring SaaS Banking AI 210

Scytale

JANUARY 23, 2024

They say it takes a village to raise a child, and in many ways, that rings true for startups – especially when it comes to finding your foothold in the market. We’ve created a list of the 10 best startup conferences to attend in 2024. But first, let’s take a look at what these conferences can mean for startups.

Startup 52

Startup compliance Cybersecurity Healthcare 52

Scytale

JANUARY 23, 2024

They say it takes a village to raise a child, and in many ways, that rings true for startups – especially when it comes to finding your foothold in the market. We’ve created a list of the 10 best startup conferences to attend in 2024. But first, let’s take a look at what these conferences can mean for startups.

Startup 52

Startup compliance Cybersecurity Healthcare 52

SaaStr

OCTOBER 11, 2023

Since starting the company in 2014, there wasn’t a lot of money you could raise in a startup. There wasn’t a “business person,” like many startups have. Picking Your Core Verticals and Selling Outside of “Tech” 70% of Monday’s customers are non-tech — real estate, banking, construction, and even churches. Was this strategic?

Scale 159

Scale Sales Hiring Scaling Banking 159

SaaStr

AUGUST 14, 2023

The traditional practice is that VC funds have the startup pay both their fees and the VC’s legal fees in the financing. So the money to pay these legal fees doesn’t come out of the corporate bank account in many cases. Dear SaaStr: Does The VC Fund Pay for Legal Fees After The Term Sheet is Signed? It doesn’t matter in the end.

Finance 186

Finance Banking Startup Investment 186

Tom Tunguz

MAY 10, 2022

The attack on an algorithmic stablecoin’s peg harkens back to Druckenmiller breaking the Bank of England. VCs revel in the short term liquidity reminiscent of the late 1990s when startups went public in fewer than 4 years. The first three Basel Accords set the minimum amount of capital a bank must hold. Consolidation.

Banking 233

Banking Government Construction Startup 233

Tom Tunguz

APRIL 16, 2023

In 2022, startups raised about $75b from VCs. – [1] The Fed Funds rate is the interest rates banks pays to borrow from the government overnight. About one third of the way through the year, early stage VCs have invested about $16.5b according to PitchBook data, which would imply about $55b for the full year.

Venture Capital 266

Venture Capital Government Marketing Banking 266

SaaStr

SEPTEMBER 14, 2023

Because in the short-term, it often costs basically close to nothing to acquire a smaller startup with cash on hand, or do a corporate VC investment. Billion in cash in the bank (cash, cash equivalents, and marketable securities) — and much more to come in accounts receivable, another $10.75 What do I mean? It has basically $12.5

Acquisition 216

Acquisition Investment Headcount Banking 216

How To Buy Saas

MARCH 5, 2023

Fintech startups have emerged as one of the most innovative solutions for addressing financial management needs. If you’re thinking of starting your fintech startup, this guide will help you understand the basics of how to get started. While we are discussing this topic, some are now keen on having their fintech Startup.

Startup 52

Startup Banking Innovation Mobile 52

Clouded Judgement

MARCH 17, 2023

I want to start by saying I’m no banking expert. Banks are in the business of managing risk. And this part is key - because they are held as HTM the bank is not required to mark them to market. Before the craziness of last week, it was reported the bank had already seen meaningful withdrawals.

Cloud 130

Cloud Banking Investment Startup 130

Tom Tunguz

DECEMBER 16, 2020

Database startups, data movement startups, data quality startups, data lineage startups, machine learning startups will be the zeitgeist of the decade as they shape the next wave of massive innovation. Blockchain technologies become mainstream driven by the adoption of national reserve banks.

Sales Recruiting 279

Sales Recruiting Blockchain Banking Machine Learning 279

SaaStr

MARCH 11, 2023

One is how certain startups will just “grow into their valuations”. Today, a $20m ARR startup growing 100% that magically raised at $1B in 2021 might fetch only a $200m valuation, for example. If you have 10 years of cash in the bank because you raised at a top valuation, make the most of it. This isn’t the end of the world.

Banking 223

Banking Startup Acquisition Pricing 223

Tom Tunguz

FEBRUARY 17, 2022

Over the last few years, I’ve been lucky to work with founders and management teams to sell about $5b of startups. Startups are sold to individuals, not to companies. The champion - often a product leader, the CEO, or a general manager - risks their career by buying a startup. As Simon Sinek would say, start with the why.

Technical Review 271

Technical Review Construction Compensation Acquisition 271

Tom Tunguz

NOVEMBER 5, 2022

8% annual inflation for a startup means losing a month of runway every year. In the mid-2000s, many startups invested their excess cash reserves in instruments called Auction Rate Securities. Startups seeking to sell their ARSs to fund burn were out of luck : no one would buy them. In February 2008, the ARS market seized.

Venture Capital 180

Venture Capital Banking Startup Investment 180

SaaStr

SEPTEMBER 14, 2023

Because in the short-term, it often costs basically close to nothing to acquire a smaller startup with cash on hand, or do a corporate VC investment. Billion in cash in the bank (cash, cash equivalents, and marketable securities) — and much more to come in accounts receivable, another $10.75 What do I mean? It has basically $12.5

Acquisition 186

Acquisition Investment Headcount Banking 186

SaaStr

MARCH 7, 2024

This includes real-time bank connectivity, treasury forecasting, payment automation and automated accounting and reconciliation with e.g. ERPs. Prior to Creandum, Peter started his career at Lazada (South East Asia’s leading e-commerce player) and Paymill (payment startup).

Payments 187

Payments Payment Services Payment Solutions Scale 187

SaaStr

JANUARY 13, 2021

One piece of “evidence” — a lot of fairly successful SaaS startups all sell at about the same point in time … about 5 years in. Making travel less literally painful is a high ROI investment, at least after you are at scale and have a few bucks in the bank. Any startup can drive up its NPS. That doesn’t help.

Travel 361

Travel SaaS Banking Startup 361

Tom Tunguz

OCTOBER 23, 2016

Startups fail when they run out of money. Startups run out of money when they lack focus. Without a maniacal focus on serving customer needs in a unique way, startups can flounder amidst competition. That’s why it’s critical to identify and focus on your startup’s competitive advantage.

Startup 108

Startup Data Analysis Banking Innovation 108

Baremetrics

DECEMBER 7, 2023

Here’s an overview of the series: Part 1: How to Categorize Expenses in a SaaS Startup v2.0 Use area charts for more detail.

Merchant Services 90

Merchant Services Startup DevOps as a Service SaaS 90

Andreessen Horowitz

SEPTEMBER 21, 2023

A diverse range of startups and companies are offering innovative financial solutions to consumers and businesses. Key regulatory changes included the creation of an open banking system, electronic payment funds, regulatory sandboxes, and digital identity verification. The most prominent of these changes was the Fintech Law of 2018.

Payments 83

Payments Payment Services Payment Methods B2B 83

Tom Tunguz

FEBRUARY 14, 2016

Most startups raise seed rounds using convertible notes. Startups that have substantial working capital requirements often employ lines of credit/revolvers. Last, many startups take out term loans. Venture debt can supply additional capital for a startup to grow at a lower cost of capital than equity.

SaaS Payments 100

SaaS Payments Startup SaaS Payments 100

SaaStr

APRIL 3, 2024

As a startup, you can look at it a few ways. They differ from startups because they’re Fortune 100 companies with a lot of legacy, incumbency, and regulation. As startup and tech leaders, we need empathy for where they’re coming from. How do I leverage GenAI in my operations to become more efficient?

Generative AI 213

Generative AI AI Technical Review Software Review 213