Richard's References

From Richard Dale, Sigma Partners, richard@sigmapartners.com,  VentureCyclist blog.

This is a selection of references, opinions and comments on topics of interest to entrepreneurs thinking about starting a business and raising money from VCs. Multiple conflicting opinions are presented because there is no right answer. All these are worth reading - some more than others, but that's for you to decide! Disclaimer: these represent the opinions of their respective authors and NOT those of Richard Dale, nor of Sigma Partners.

Appetizers

A little whimsy: VC Truisms as seen on my twitter stream.

Starting Up

• Read this first: So you want to do a startup!
• Your Idea is NOT Special
• How to create a business without taking money from VCs
• Nobody cares about your secrets
• Startup Mistakes
• Startups in Three Words
• Start-ups should eliminate job titles

Founder Agreements

• Beware of Boomerang Founders Syndrome
• Sharing shares: watch out!
• Ownership Allocations
• Earning a Technical Co-founder

Packaging and presenting

• How to Score an Investment for your Startup
• Presenting your Financials for dumb VCs
   
• Quick Practical Presentation Tips
• What should be in a Powerpoint to VCs
• How to Present to Investors
• 10 steps to pitch a VC (A VC’s advice on how to pitch VCs)
• Good Question! The Eight Best Questions We Got While Raising Venture Capital 
• Be rude to yourself
   
• What makes a good business and plan
• 6 things VCs look for in an investment
• Business plan templates from Score.org
• How NOT to write a business plan
• Write your OWN b-plan
• Say NO to Brokers
• What to send a VC
  • Elevator Pitch
  • Powerpoint Deck
• Crafting the Elevator Pitch

• Presenting to VCs series from Mark Suster
• How to Demo Your Startup
• Madlibs for Pitches
   
• How to Present Traction to Investors
• Lying with Metrics
• Customer LOIs
• Don't make up projections

• General help on better Powerpoint
• Really Bad Powerpoint
• One VCs anti-Powerpoint Rant
  • See more on Powerpoint

Business Models

• The @Dharmesh Test: 16 Questions For Better SaaS Companies
• The SaaS Business Model from David Skok at Matrix
  • Saas Economics Slide Deck
  • SaaS Economics – Part 1: The SaaS Cash Flow Trough
  • SaaS Economics – Part 2: Scaling the Business
• A Magic Number for SaaS Companies - how to decide if you should step on the gas
• Failure Modes

Angels and VCs

• How to Score an Investment for your Startup
• Best practices for raising a VC round
• How to tell the good VCs from the bad
• Interesting intro materials: LearnVC.
• 10 Pragmatic Steps To Raising Venture Capital
• Which investors to avoid…
• What's The Best Structure For A Pre-VC Investment?
• How many investors are too many?
• Glossary for: VCs to IPOs
• 5 Reasons An Angel Investor Will Walk From Your Deal
• VCs don't sign NDAs
  • Why most VCs don't sign NDAs
  • Comments from Paul English

Talking Termsheets and Terms

• Termsheet Terms Cribsheet
• VC Termsheet Series - from Brad Feld
• The Anti-Dilution Clause
• National VC Association Model Documents - from NVCA
• Protecting yourself - from Brad Feld (plus a must-read follow-on)
• Dangers of a High Valuation
• Optimizing your Financing Strategy
   
• Finding Advisors

Now we're cookin'

• Customer Development - not Product Development
• The Business Model Canvas
• What does a startup CEO really do?
• Control spending
• Daily Key to Success
• 10 questions to ask yourself every month
• 13 Things to do every week
• Managing your own Psychology
• A startup’s best friend? Failure
• 10 tips for building a profitable business
• Can you outsource everything?
• Optimizing the Sales Funnel
• Optimizing your Financing Strategy
• Can you outsource sales? from a sales recruiting firm.
• 0 to 20 million: 10 hand-to-hand sales tactics
• The best VAR channel in the world?
• The Anatomy of a Perfect Landing Page

Or we're not ... help!

• RIP Good Times (the famous Sequoia Capital slide deck)
• How to Handle the Downturn: Xconomy’s Top 9 List of Top 10 Lists
• John Doerr: 10 ways for companies to stay afloat in rough times

Hiring (and firing)

• Peggy Thompson of Summative recommends 96 Great Interview Questions to Ask Before You Hire by Paul Falcone.
• Ben Casnocha shares the best reference check strategy ever
• Ready to Hire = Ready to Fire
• Hiring Tips for Startups
• When firing someone, focus on those who remain

Board, not bored

• Various views on running Board meetings
• The First Board Meeting
• How To Build A Good Board
• Albert Wenger on boards
  • The Board package
  • Running the meeting
• Brad Feld on boards
  • Rules for Board Members
  • Recruiting a New Director
  • Board Meetings - Do The Formal Stuff First
  • Board of Directors: The Chairman
  • Board meetings - The Agenda
  • Board meeting minutes
     
• Reinventing the Board Meeting

Exit ... pursued by a bull

• The 9 Most Important Things to Remember If You Want to Sell Your Startup
• Seven M&A Documents Demystified
• David Shanberg comments:
  • What you should expect
  • How you can protect your confidential info while moving the process forward
  • More on moving the process forward
  • Looking out for warning signs

Now you want to be a VC

• The Venture Capital Aptitude Test (VCAT)
• How to get a job in venture capital
• How to be a Venture Capitalist when you grow up…

And for the faint of heart ...
(who don't want to start their own company or be a VC)

• 7 Reasons Why You Need To Work For A Big Company
• Everything You Wanted to Know About Getting a Job in Silicon Valley But Didn't Know Who to Ask
• Making your resume work for you

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