Read about HubSpot’s latest round of venture capital fundraising and see what takeaways you find applicable to your own company.
Brian Halligan, co-founder and CEO of HubSpot, writes in Fortune about his experience landing $35 million in the company’s latest venture capital fundraising round.
Skip the arguments and read six lessons on the freemium model to decide if it’s right for you.
Jules Meltz and Daniel Barney of IVP write in TechCrunch that freemium is under fire. “For some,” the two say, “freemium is a costly trap, a business model that sacrifices revenues and forces a startup to support freeloaders who will never become paying customers.” To help decide if freemium is the right model for your business, Meltz and Barney present six lessons for software companies considering which way to go.
Acquisitions can often provide a lucrative and exciting exit for entrepreneurs and their shareholders. They can also be a headache if founders don’t understand six reasons why acquisitions fail after they’ve been completed.
While acquisitions tend to provide thrilling windfalls for startup founders and their shareholders, the afterglow of those exits don’t often last long. That’s because, as serial entrepreneur and University of Michigan professor Jim Price writes in a post for Business Insider, history shows that most M&A deals are never as sweet as they initially appear, and there are numerous reasons why acquisitions fail in the end.
Learn how accounting as a strategy can benefit your business.
Jeff Haden of Blackbird Media writes in Inc. that accounting as a strategy can be a vital part of a company’s overall plan, and inventory accounting makes a great example.
Read about the money mistakes that scuttle many startups and how to avoid them.
Martin Zwilling, angel investor and startup mentor, writes in Business Insider that “many startups fail before reaching that magic ‘cash-flow positive’ position” due to money mistakes in “handling common business finances.” He outlines these common missteps and adds that he’s seem them so often that all entrepreneurs ought to pay attention.
Want to know exactly what to look for in investors? Read the definitive guide on startup fundraising from an entrepreneur who’s been to the rodeo a few times before.
Semil Shah, entrepreneur in residence at Javelin Venture Partners, knows that when it comes to startup fundraising, “there’s no shortage of blog posts, message threads,” and noise. To combat this, Shah is trying to present “what first-time, early-stage founders who are potential candidates for Series A funding truly want in an investment partner.”
Read ten collected posts on bootstrapping a business that cover everything from basic budgeting to designing a beautiful workspace on the cheap.
Dani Fankhauser of Mashable presents a series of posts that the blog has put together focused on bootstrapping a business. Fankhauser and the Mashable staff “talked to a ton of entrepreneurs about how they got started, what tools they live by, and what they wished they had known at the beginning.” Fankhauser then presents ten posts of tips and tricks “for aspiring business owners who are looking to raise money, start a tech startup, or build their own brand.”
Thinking it might be time to raise VC funding? When considering your options it pays to approach investment as you would a partnership, not just a deal.
After all, securing an investment isn’t a one-time transaction where two parties shake hands and never see each other again. “There’s a deal at the front end, but there’s also a secondary deal hopefully at the back end,” explains OpenView Associate Ricky Pelletier, “And there’s a lot of time in between where you have to be comfortable with the person you’re working with.”
A new funding calculator takes the mystery out of investment and what your bottom line is when your startup is acquired.
Anthony Ha of TechCrunch writes about a new funding calculator from SmartAsset that aims to clear up “a lot of the confusing jargon” that startups have to deal with when seeking investment.
More than ever, it’s important for companies to lay the foundation and properly prepare for the IPO process at an early stage of their development.
Facebook’s IPO fiasco may have taken some of the air out of many founders and CEOs’ dreams of monumental IPO success, but that doesn’t mean tech companies should be abandoning their own plans and preparations for going public.