Over time, I’ve developed a certain approach to negotiating term sheets with entrepreneurs. The whole “email a term sheet document” back and forth method seemed inefficient to me. And, it put too much focus on redline edits rather than listening to each other. So, I don’t trade paper as a starting point. Here’s what I
Category: Technology and VC
Your VC Isn’t Enthusiastic. What to Do?
Sometimes, VCs behave in puzzling ways. Say you’re an entrepreneur, and you’ve made good progress with your company. But, you sense your VC isn’t jumping up and down. My advice? Take that VC out for a coffee or a meal and ask him/her this question: How are we doing relative to other companies in that
Why Your B2B Cost Strategy Must ‘Fit’
Your B2B cost strategy must match your B2B revenue model, or your business model won’t click. Let me explain. I wrote in the past about B2B revenue models (here) and the differences between the perpetual licensing and subscription pricing models. The summary is this. If you charge $1 for your software, a licensing model lets you get that
No Free Lunch with Venture Debt
I sometimes hear entrepreneurs extol venture debt because it is “free money.” Low interest, non-dilutive capital. In my experience, there’s no free lunch in the capital markets. That’s certainly the case with venture debt. The interest is low for a reason. Venture debt is simply a loan. There are interest and warrants attached. There are
A Snowy New Year’s Eve
We are skiing up in Vermont for a few days and are pretty far north, near Canada. Some shots above. As a VC, you almost never go offline. So, I check email a few times each day and had a call with one of our companies. But, there are many people who almost never
When Your VC Financing Is a ‘Busted Auction’
Auctions are curious things. Moreover, the mere perception of being in an auction is more than enough to inject fear into a discussion. I’m writing this because of two things. First, I connected recently with another VC, who commented that his firm was about to invest in its first [insert here name of famous incubator] company.