A great startup pitch can make an investor excited. A great venture capital investment memo has a different job: it helps the investment team decide whether that excitement is actually supported by evidence. An investment memo is a structured document that brings together the most important information about a potential deal. Depending on the VC … Read more
Startup investing is full of exciting stories. A founder might describe a huge market, impressive technology, and a vision to transform an entire industry. But sooner or later, venture investors have to move beyond the story and look at the numbers. That is where startup metrics become important. Metrics help investors understand whether customers are … Read more
A startup can have an exciting product and a huge market, but venture investors eventually need to answer another important question: Can this company actually become a strong business? That is where the business model comes in. A startup business model explains how the company creates value for customers, delivers its product or service, generates … Read more
A startup can have a clever product, an impressive founding team, and even enthusiastic early customers. But venture investors will still ask a fundamental question: Is the market big enough to build a valuable company? That question matters because venture capital funds generally look for businesses capable of rapid growth. The U.S. Securities and Exchange … Read more
Venture capital can look like a difficult industry to enter from the outside. You might imagine that every VC professional has an MBA, years of investment banking experience, and a huge network of startup founders. The reality is more flexible. People can enter venture capital from finance, consulting, technology, entrepreneurship, product management, research, law, and … Read more