Key Ingredients for founders dealing with the Covid-19 situation
In the last ten days, when COVID-19 really hit the western economies, I talked to a large number of excellent founders. Some of them were devastated because, despite the extremely good work they have done for years, an external and uncontrollable event is threatening their venture within a few weeks.
During those days, some of the long-established Venture Capital firms that had gone through several crises produced (or updated) great posts on how founders should adapt their startups quickly to the new financial landscape.
However, the more posts I read, the more I was missing advice on how to change…
Ownership is a means to retain the founders
In the startup jargon, the term “ownership” refers to the percentage of the company that belongs to its founders or any other shareholder. In this post, we will explore how much ownership founders need to maximize the potential of their ventures. We will answer the question “how much dilution makes sense for a founder of a venture-backed startup?”
Founders’ ownership not only matters to entrepreneurs, but it also matters to savvy investors. Why? Because it helps to align the interest of investors and founders and incentivizes founders to stay in the company throughout the whole journey.
Ownership as a mean to retain the founders
When we assess an…
El Coste de Oportunidad es la alternativa que tiene un fundador
En la jerga de las startups, cuando hablamos de “ownership”, nos referimos al porcentaje de la compañía que está en manos de los fundadores o de cualquier otro socio. En este post, vamos a explicar por cuánta dilución tiene sentido para el fundador de una startup de alto impacto.
El “ownership” que tiene un equipo fundador no solo les atañe a ellos, también importa a los inversores más avezados de VC. ¿ Por qué? …
Learn the game of VC fundraising from scratch
At TheVentureCity Growth Program, we, the Bank team (ahoy!), help founders to crack the “VC game”. Our goal is to help founders to a) be efficient when fundraising (so they don’t lose focus) and b) Optimize their equity value through their startup journey.
When you raise funds for your startup, one of the first challenges is to know who is willing to fund it, at which stage, and why. …
Aprende el juego de Venture Capital (VC) de principio a fin
Está de moda, es cool, pero no es tan bonito como lo pintan. O quizá sí, pero hay que saber manejarse y entenderlo. Vamos a intentar dar un poco de luz en el mundo del venture capital desde el comienzo.
Dentro del Programa de Growth de TheVentureCity, ayudamos a los founders a aprender el juego de Venture Capital con un doble objetivo: que sean muy eficientes cuando levanten financiación (de manera que no pierdan el foco en su negocio), y que optimicen el valor de su equity durante todo el viaje de su startup.
Understanding the milestones at every stage toward success
How do you overcome challenges and reduce risk throughout the startup journey? How do you help startups get closer to success without slowing down? How do you know which stage you’re in and what the next step is? These questions can all be resolved by using a roadmap with steps, stages, and milestones that will help you understand where you are at all times without losing focus. And never forget that a company that has been recently started and a startup are not the same things.
In the United States, where there has been venture capital activity for more than…
Entendiendo los hitos en cada etapa hacia el éxito
¿Cómo superar metas y reducir el riesgo en cada fase de una startup? ¿Cómo conseguir que las startups se acerquen cada vez más al éxito sin perder velocidad? ¿Cómo saber en qué punto están y cómo llegar al siguiente? Tener un mapa con pasos, fases e hitos nos servirá para saber en todo momento en dónde estamos, sin perder el foco… y sin olvidar que una startup no es lo mismo que una empresa de nueva creación.
Durante décadas en EEUU, país donde nace el Venture Capital hace más de 60 años, se ha seguido el mismo patrón para definir…
Not all recently created companies are startups nor do they have to be.
A startup is simply a new company; a business that has been recently created. However, for the last five years, many business schools around the world have come up with a different academic definition for what a startup truly is.
The definition of a ‘startup’ that is most accepted by business schools was defined by Steve Blank, a serial entrepreneur and professor at business schools such as Stanford, Berkeley and Imperial College. The definition is as follows: a startup is “a temporary organization designed to look for…
No todas las empresas de reciente creación son startups, ni tienen por qué serlo
Una start-up equivale simplemente a una nueva empresa; es decir, un negocio que haya sido creado recientemente. No obstante, desde hace ya cerca de cinco años, muchas escuelas de negocio de todo el mundo, entienden la definición académica de startup de una forma diferente.
La definición de start-up más aceptada hoy en dichas escuelas de negocios es la de Steve Blank, emprendedor en serie, y profesor de escuelas de negocio como Stanford, Berkeley o Imperial College: una start-up es “una organización temporal diseñada para buscar un modelo de negocio que sea repetible y escalable”. Y una empresa es “una organización…
BuyFresco was a venture-backed startup delivering fresh meal kits and recipes in Spain. I founded it in 2012 and shut it down in July 2016. We sold its assets to El Super, and we made no return on our investment. However, our peers HelloFresh and BlueApron will soon go IPO. Here is why BuyFresco had a different finale.
The start.
Buyfresco’s origin lies in the feedback of some users of my first venture, SupraChef. These users asked us to deliver the ingredients of the recipes displayed on our web app. We thought it was a cool idea but a hard problem to…
Andy Areitio
Partner @TheVentureCity. Previous ventures: @BuyFresco, @Suprachef. Education: @INSEAD, ICADE, and a few failures ;-)
