What is the story with the unicorns? Is there a tech investment bubble? What on earth is going in in the venture investing world? The short answer is that we’re at a crux of a paradigm. The paradigm wrapped around investing venture capital in startups. Few people I talk to know that venture capital, as practiced today, is a fairly new concept. People instead assume...
The U.S. State Department sends delegations to visit Fledge every month or two. We’ve had visitors from: Norway, Albania, Poland, Romania, and Switzerland; Oman, Dubai, Saudi Arabia and Jordon; Mexico, Brazil, and Columbia; Bangladesh and Pakistan, and more. The delegates that visit are typically either social entrepreneurs or working for (typically government sponsored) organizations...
My morning today includes 18 pitches at the quarterfinals of Social Venture Partners Seattle’s Fast Pitch competition. 18 first-time entrepreneurs, each with just five minutes and no Q&A, hoping to impress the judges enough to make it to the semi-finals. It’s a tough format. 40 judges in auditorium seating in a University of Washington classroom. 40 judges staring down on the...
In the last post, I talked about how revenue-based investments are a lower cost of capital than traditional equity. In this post, as promised, I’ll explain how they also better align the the incentives of investor with the entrepreneur. To start with, always remember to put yourselves in the other person’s shoes when raising money. Investors invest to make a positive return on their...
Revenue-based investments are quite uncommon in startup investing, and as such, few entrepreneurs and few investors understand their benefits. The traditional form of startup capital is equity, with investors expecting a “10x” return on their investment, i.e. they expect that the company will be acquired for a sufficient amount that the investment will earn the investor at least 10...
Just about every post I write comes from a conversation with an entrepreneur or fellow investor. Same with almost every chapter in every one of The Next Step series of books I’ve published. When the same topic keeps coming up, I write it down so I don’t have to explain for the third time to the next entrepreneur who asks. When is the best time to launch your company? Have you...
Sometimes blowing up a dam is the wrong metaphor for tackling a big problem. Sometimes the only way to tackle a big problem is to work on it methodically, bit by bit. The analogy is chopping down a tree. Not some little tree planted by the sidewalk to prettify the neighborhood, but instead like the trees that used to grow here in Seattle. 300 foot tall, 30 feet around (a.k.a. 100 meters tall...
Sometimes the key lessons in life are learned at the oddest moments. One lesson in particular comes back to my mind at least once per week, as I push forward on my entrepreneurial endeavors and help other entrepreneurs do the same. The lesson comes from an obscure movie, Force 10 from Navarone. Harrison Ford’s first lead role, albeit second billing on the credit to Robert Shaw, who was...
As the collective we bootstrap the impact ecosystem, hole after hole becomes more apparent. Business models. Talent. Funding. Etc. Far less obvious, but as important, is the information hole. Specifically, the lack of information on what is happening around the impact-oriented world. And where it’s happening. And who is making it happen. This is one assumption I discovered very...
In the world of social responsibility, co-ops are a corporate form that stands out as an functioning design. Consumer co-ops are a well-worn form for grocery stores (PCC and a dozen others here in Washington State), for retailers (see the multi-billion dollar REI), producers (see Organic Valley and Equal Exchange), and savings (see any credit union). Expanding that cooperative ethos across the...
