Tom Tunguz

FEBRUARY 27, 2014

Raising capital from venture capitalists at any stage can seem like a very strange, ambiguous and amorphous process. I’ve written about the way Redpoint diligences/researches a startup and its market and what questions we tend to ask at each stage. In this post, I’ll focus on the process from entrepreneur’s point of view. When raising capital, entrepreneurs will see potential investors move through four phases of investment decision-making process: screening, socialization, dil

Startup 124

Startup Finance Investment Data 124

CloseSaaS

FEBRUARY 28, 2014

When selling on the phone, oftentimes sales reps don't understand how to structure a call. If you don’t have the right plan going into a sales call, it’s going to be much harder to close the deal.

Sales 52

Sales 52

The Angel VC

FEBRUARY 23, 2014

More than two years ago I wrote about what we look for in early-stage SaaS startups. Since then we've looked at hundreds of SaaS startups and have gained additional insights through the work that we've been doing with the SaaS startups that we have invested in. Therefore I thought it would be time for a follow-on post with some additional thoughts. In the original post I focused primarily on early metrics as an indicator of product/market fit and of a favorable CAC/CLTV ratio in the future.

Startup 152

Startup SaaS Acquisition Scale 152

Tom Tunguz

FEBRUARY 26, 2014

The process of creating the right culture in a startup has always been mysterious to me. Each company’s culture evolves in its own way. I’ve wondered whether the culture is set by the personalities of the founders, or prominently displayed value statements and mission, or biases purposely imposed in the hiring processes like Google’s googliness filter.

Startup 100

Startup Marketing 100

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Payments

Tom Tunguz

FEBRUARY 22, 2014

From zero to $19B of business value in five years; WhatsApp’s sale to Facebook is an important moment in the history of the consumer web. The deal proves distribution, reach and large user bases aren’t the competitive moats they once were. Apple’s App Store and Google Play have leveled the playing field to such an extent that a startup can command 10% of the market cap from a $200B company.

Acquisition 100

Acquisition Scale Mobile Innovation 100

Tom Tunguz

FEBRUARY 25, 2014

A few days ago, Simply Business published an infographic and data on the acquisition patterns of Amazon, Apple, Facebook, Google and Yahoo. Looking at that data, I wondered which acquirers pay the most for startups. Ideally, this data provides some negotiating leverage to founders selling their businesses. I’ve prepared three charts and a table to tell the story.

Startup 100

Startup Acquisition Pricing Innovation 100