191–200 of 237 posts
What's the best way for start-ups to get in touch with you? Do you respond to email pitches? What's the worst way to get in touch with you? Have you ever invested in a start-up that pitched you by email?
Cold emails rarely turn into anything.
So far I'm surprised that a) nobody has really asked about exits or returns b) people that have asked questions about their own situations have been incredibly vague c) no questions about background or current work or d) no questions about delicious's creation, founding, and later sale.
I think a lot of us have read Founders at Work. How about this, has your wealth made you happier?
Do you get many business proposals from friends or relatives that you consider bad or uninteresting? How do you tactfully reject them? In general, did you have relationships with friends or relatives that changed in a significant way once you acquired a non-trivial amount of wealth?
How should entrepreneurs screen potential investors to avoid personality or other conflicts? Assuming you failed the above, how do you deal with an investor who's being difficult or disruptive?
You have to talk to other entrepreneurs who took investment from the angel.
While any shareholder can cause problems, especially at that stage, a small percentage / non-board angel can't do TOO much damage, I think. But I've never really been in the situation. Ask grellas.
What do you do at google?
Earlier quoted context omitted.
Lots more convertible debt lately, which I am not thrilled about. Or do you mean numbers? Every deal is different.
I've heard of more capped valuations for convertible debt with negotiable interest and discount rates (and no warrant coverage), but also seen some angels openly demanding priced rounds. Are such capped convertible notes a good middle ground for debt that works like equity? Have you seen any that provide an alternative conversion if no priced round follows?
Earlier quoted context omitted.
Lots more convertible debt lately, which I am not thrilled about. Or do you mean numbers? Every deal is different.
Are you saying that you're not a fan of convertible debt?
I've noticed that both very hot and very cold deals are debt. Hot because they can demand it, and cold because they can't scrape a real round together.
Earlier quoted context omitted.
Valuations are often in the $2mm-$5mm range. Sometimes much higher. Never lower. Calculate it out.
What do you understand the valuation to be when the financing is done as convertible debt?
Stronger deals have no cap, so I am merely hopeful.
I think that delicious is really awesome. I still use it pretty much every day, even though if anything the product has almost declined in quality over the past few years. It feels like Delicious could have been the start of something even larger than a bookmark service, it's my primary resource for finding specific content (eg: rails + tutorial, photo + howto, etc.) I'm aware that that is a fairly large technical ba…
Even if they aren't capable of evolving it, I wish Yahoo would at least make it fast enough that I don't cringe every time I use it.