You may find here a step-by-step guide including understanding your value proposition, links & resources on how to land a VC job, or where to get inspired.
USEFUL LINKS
Breaking into VC
- 1st Steps into a Venture Capital,
- A Guide to Breaking into Venture Capital,
- VC Jobs and Career Resources,
- VC interview,
Angel Investor
Venture Capital
- Credo Ventures Guidelines,
- Education Center,
- Jak se dělá Due Dilligence,
- Tech & VC: The Foundation,
- Terez Machackova’s (Credo Ventures) Notion,
- Twitter terms,
- Startup Valuations,
- VC jargons & acronyms,
If you want to meet more people from the startup & venture capital community in the whole world, feel free to join:
Useful Newsletters & Updates:
- Rex Woodbury, Index Ventures, subscribe here, <digitalnative@substack.com>,
- Connie Loizos, StrictlyVC, subscribe here, <connie@strictlyvc.com>
- Andrew Chen, a16z, subscribe here,
Favorite Podcasts:
- Harry Stebbings: The 20 Minute VC,
- TechCrunch: Equity,
- Mike Gelb: The Consumer VC,
- Fellow_app: SuperManagers,
- Coefficient Labs & Sean Goldfadean: Demo Day,
- Justin Gordon: Just Go Grind,
- Guy Raz: How I Built This,
Educational Programs for VCs:
- Startup School by Y Combinator (free),
- Kauffman Fellows X Techstars Venture Deals Course,
- Private Equity and Venture Capital via Coursera,
- Going VC,
- a16z Crypto School,
- Venture University,
Disclaimer: Links & newsletters are added continuously.
THE STARTUP VALUATION
It’s not an easy thing to declare the value of a startup, SME, or company, especially when there is low or no revenue.
A mature company (unlike early-stage startups) consists of hard facts and figures to follow. A revenue stream and financial records help you define the value of the business. The usual approach leads to EBITDA, which defines the value of the company based on earnings before interest, taxes, depreciation, and amortization (EBITDA = Net Profit + Interest + Taxes + Depreciation + Amortization).
But what about pre-revenue projects? There are several methods that vary depending on the investor.
The approach of an Angel Investor differs from the one of a VC fund. And to make it even more complicated, there are Angel Investors and VC funds with a focus on a different industry. So what one investor values as an advantage, the second one sees as a questionable value. The same case comes in software/hardware comparing or a customer focus (B2B, B2C, B2G, B2B2C, etc.).
The evaluation process consists of five major fields divided into specific ones, depending on the stage, industry, and market. The major fields focus on (i) problem (assessment, solution, recognition, etc.), (ii) solution (assessment, complexity, maturity, etc.), (iii) USPs (declaration, Competitive Advantage Type, POV, etc.), (iv) product/service (type, location, market, etc.), (v) scalability (declared, monetization, POV, etc.) and (vi) team (founders, experience, expertise, etc.). Especially in the pre-revenue stage, there is room to evaluate projects based on your feeling. (based on a presumption you are an experienced & skilled entrepreneur/investor yourself). As it is a subjective rating, it is not included in this evaluation method.
Thank you for reading this.
In case of any questions, improvements, or suggestions, feel free to reach out to us via LinkedIn, Twitter, or email tom.cironis@gmail.com.
Happy Unicorn Hunting!
