Biz School

So one of the guys involved in this little adventure has been given an absolutely amazing opportunity. He works for a start-up that is being run by the early stage start-up guys that jump from business to business, work their magic for a year or two and then jump to the next one. They are start-up experts. You ever decide you want to do something you know nothing about, and you just wish you could sit down for a beer with a pro and pick their brain. well these guys, are those guys, for us right now. and they have offered to coach us and put us through a homebrew "business school for start-ups". now there is a small catch. my buddy has to stick around and work for these guys for us to get to go to school. I have 2 opinions on this. first that its a little sneaky, and after being myself spectacularly jaded by the promises never fulfilled, I worry that he is gonna take them up on their offers only to be disappointed with the results. but secondly and more importantly, I think this is a hell of an opportunity. this could totally be one of those defining moments, one of the reasons that we win when everyone around us loses. this could be huge. In assistance of his decision making, brain hurting, couple weeks of reflection he has put together a list of questions. which I promptly wavifyed and started twiddling with. its a great brain dump (see below). now a lot of the things on the list I think were gonna figure out within minutes in the line of fire. but there are a few of these things (the VC stuff in particular) that I just don't know how else you figure out. For me I'm going to be carrying a copy of this list with me on my adventures into resignation and when I go brain picking over the coming weeks. its really going to be one of those things where every answer and opinion helps paint a picture. so without further ado, the list:

• How does the VC market work?

  • what are the different types of investments people make and what are the important points?
    • common stock, preferred stock, liquidation preferences
    • rights of first refusal, right of first offer
    • convertible venture debt, loans
    • vesting schedules
    • government grants
    • personal investments
    • angles
  • How important is it to balance your investors (trying to prevent a single entity from having overwhelming control)?
  • How are valuations calculated? pre-money, post-money, how does it all matter? What's the dance?
  • How do valuations change over time?
  • Dilution? What do you want, don't want? How do you avoid it?
  • Stock issuances? What mechanics does it provide? Under what conditions can you issue more?
  • What does the VC market as a whole look like? Who are the players there?
  • What are some of the difference between Silicon Valley VC's and East coast ones? How about those in Ontario/Canada?
  • How much money do you look for at different points and how much ownership do you give up?
  • How should we deal with angle funding? Money from friends and family?
    • When is it good? When is it bad?
    • What's reasonable compensation?
  • Time sheets? WTF?
  • Funding rounds? AA, A, B, C? What's it all mean? What do people expect at each step?
  • Where are VC's looking for you to aim? What do they want to see for an exit?

• Board of directors

  • When do you need one?
  • How do you go about finding a people to be on your board?
  • What kind of compensation is involved here?
  • How involved does the board end up being?

• Hiring executives?

  • How does hiring for the different roles very?
  • Compensation?
  • Where do you look for people?
  • When do you start looking for a CTO, CEO, CFO...
  • What are you look for in each of these roles?
  • How long can/should each of us fill these positions?

• What goes into a pitch deck?

  • What are people looking to hear?
  • How do you judge their response?

• Market experts and advisors

  • How do you find them?
  • How do you go about asking for advice?
  • Who are important people, companies, groups in some of the areas we're looking at?

• Market research and business plans

  • What do we need to do?
  • How much is enough?

• Acquisitions and partnerships

  • How do you approach someone?
  • How do you let someone approach someone approach you?
  • What's the dance that's done here?
  • What's some of the legal side of this?
  • What do you have to be careful of?
  • When would you want to try and acquire someone else? talent? users?

• IPO's

  • When, Where, How?
  • Difference for investors as an exit?

• Lawyers

  • When do we need them?
  • How do you find the right ones?
  • Special startup lawyers?

• Networking

  • Where do you find all of these people to schmooze with? Potential investors, media, partners?
  • Conferences? picking the right ones?

• Formation of the company

  • What structure options do we have? How do they all matter?
  • What goes into an operating plan?
  • How do we divide up equity?
  • How much do you plan for the dissolution of the company (someone wants to leave...)?
  • How do you set salaries for the founders? When does this change and how?
  • When we want to operate in the US and Canada what do we have to do?
  • When do we have to pick these things?
  • Location? How much does it matter? How do we hurt ourselves starting in a non-hub city? (the valley, Boston, Austin TX...)

• Growth of a company

  • Dealing with growing pains?
  • Finding the right people and how to compensate them?
  • How quickly do we need to settle on an idea? We've got lots of ideas? How long should we spend feeling them out?

• Media/PR

  • When to you need to start worrying about it?
  • How do you manage the media? Things like "leaking" to the right people?
  • Generating "buzz"? Seems hokey but everyone talks about it.
  • Traditional media vs "social media"?
  • Dealing with negative press? Upset users? Bad reviews?
  • Keeping a company blog? does it really help?

• When to release products?

  • Finding the balance between quality and time?
  • Dealing with bad product releases? And God forbid recalls
  • Diversity in the product offering? When does it matter? too many eggs in one basket problems one way, fingers in too many pies the other

• Monetization

  • Deciding between freemium, ad supported, traditional products
  • Enterprise vs consumer?

• Competition

  • What can or should you do about competition?
  • Differences between established players (where you're entering the market) and new comers to your game?
  • What goes into positioning your self against others?

• Culture

  • What things go into building a good culture?
  • What should you be careful of?
  • How do you manage the culture of the company as it grows?