Will Twitter ever be acquired?
Jason M. Lemkin With an $18b market cap today, Twitter would be an “easy” acquisition for any of the tech giants including Facebook, Google, etc. And at a $2b+ revenue run rate, it would not be hugely expensive. Facebook is already worth $300 billion and...
Are any VCs returning money to investors due to lack of great investment opportunities?
Jason M. Lemkin Paul Cohn has all the right answers here. It did happen with a few ’00-’01 vintage type funds that were massively over funded, see, e.g.: VC Mavericks / Crosspoint Venture Partners puts forth some provocative views on investing Top quartile...
Equity versus Convertible Notes: What’s the difference between 1M at a 10M cap (note) versus 1M at a 10M priced round?
Jason M. Lemkin You’ll hear a lot of technical answers here. Debt is “cheaper and faster” because there are fewer legal fees and less documentation, etc. (maybe, not always). Debt is “more expensive” because there is implicit...
After finding out my competitors pricing was 300% higher up front, should I increase the cost so I don’t seem “cheap” even though our monthly saas costs will make up for it?
Jason M. Lemkin Maybe. What you should do is price vs. your perceived comps. Are you “better” than this competitor? If so, charge more. Are you “more enterprise”? If so, charge more, at least, for larger customers. Are you “more...
What does it mean for the tech sector that Square’s IPO is less than its valuation at the last round of financing?
Jason M. Lemkin Not that much as long as Square has a decent, well subscribed IPO. The market sets prices. And they do go up and down. If the last Square rounds were priced “too high” for a ’15 IPO … and it looks like they may have been, with...
Why are founders and startup employees expected to take minimal salary while VC partners rake in $500K-$1M per year plus carry?
Jason M. Lemkin You know, this used to really drive me nuts as a founder. I mean, really. Hearing about the wrong colored stitching in your latest Ferrari. The VC complaining about that at one of my board meetings really bugged me, man. Sorry. SEND IT BACK TO...
I’ll be Speaking at Sales Stack on Tuesday. Come Join Me There With an A+ Line-Up.
This Tuesday at Pier 27 in San Francisco … I’ll be moderating an A+ session at the Sales Hacker Sales Stack conference with some of the best VCs in SaaS — Jason Green (my investor in EchoSign, actually), Tomasz Tunguz (u know this guy), and Stacy...
How is Handy worth $500 mm per its most recent funding round? Seems w massive jump from last valuation of 168m?
Jason M. Lemkin My guess is, if the number truly is a simple, round $500m … then Handy just set a price. And waited. Valuations certainly can be a very “hard science”, quantitative exercise in start-up investing, no doubt. Especially when a...
Is $300m ARR the New $100m?
I know you can’t escape talk of the 7,000 Unicorns these days no matter how hard you try. Â The world’s gone crazy, right? Well, maybe. Â Maybe. Â I don’t understand the negative gross margin ones, that’s for sure. Â But we’re SaaS folks here...
How does an entrepreneur in residence measure their success?
Jason M. Lemkin I think the #1 mistake people make here is thinking VCs are looking for EIRs to act like mini-GPs. VCs don’t want EIRs to source deals. Yes, if it’s a truly amazing deal that’s great, but most VCs think they have plenty of deal flow...
What does it mean that “Late-stage private valuations” aren’t really equity, but more like debt?
Jason M. Lemkin I think it’s a bit of an exaggeration, but the point is a lot of these late-stage stock rounds have one or more characteristics of debt: They come “before” other equity, i.e., they get their money out first, sometimes even multiple...
The New SaaStr Video AMAs … And Podcasts!
If you haven’t seen them yet, every 2 weeks or so we’re doing a SaaStr Video AMA at lunch time on Thursday with a few fun guests. Last week we talked about building an outbound sales team with Brendon Cassidy and Kyle Porter here: Before that, we...
Can B2B startups attract senior talent (VP, COO,…) outside of the Bay Area?
Jason M. Lemkin It’s very, very, very hard today to find seasoned enterprise SaaS VPs outside the Bay Area. But let me define enterprise. I mean, real enterprise. Experience selling to, marketing to, meeting with, big companies. It’s just a factor of...
How much “management control” can you give an investor who wants to invest in your startup? What limits can co-founders put in place to prevent interferences?
Jason M. Lemkin Here’s my zen learning and answer: All that you can really control, and that matters, are board seats. And not “selling” the majority of them. Yes, there are legal “protective provisions” that sort of matter and a great...
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