Disrupting disruption with disruptive disruptions since 2010.
The first fundraising round from people who love you enough to give you money despite zero evidence your idea will work. The most expensive way to ruin Thanksgiving dinner conversations.
The percentage of a VC fund set aside for follow-on investments in existing portfolio companies. The math that determines whether your investor can actually support you in the next round or just awkwardly watch.
Speeding up the vesting schedule of stock options, typically triggered by acquisition or termination. It's the consolation prize when your startup gets acquired and you're suddenly unemployed.
The art of building a valuable company while raising as little outside funding as possible, preserving founder ownership and bragging rights. It's increasingly rare in an era of mega-rounds and bloated valuations.
Raising capital by selling ownership stakes in the company rather than borrowing money. It's the fundamental bargain of venture capital: you get money now, investors get a piece of your future success (or failure).
A corporate action where shareholders finally get to convert their paper wealth into actual money—or discover their shares are worthless after preferences. It's payday or apocalypse, with no middle ground.
A single slide in a pitch deck, often discussing one specific aspect of the business in vague, aspirational terms.
A contractual provision that lets majority shareholders force minority investors to join in selling the company, whether they like it or not. Democracy dies in cap tables.
A punitive clause forcing existing investors to participate in future rounds or lose their special privileges—the venture capital equivalent of 'put up or shut up.' Popular after market downturns when companies need to separate real believers from fair-weather friends.
An investment strategy of making many small bets across countless startups, hoping a few will hit big enough to compensate for the inevitable carnage. The venture capital equivalent of buying lottery tickets in bulk.
The startup world's euphemism for customers abandoning ship, measured as the rate at which subscribers cancel or stop using your service. It's the metric that keeps SaaS founders up at night, because acquiring new customers is expensive but losing existing ones is devastating. High churn is basically your business slowly bleeding out, but with spreadsheets.
Having the qualities of someone who starts businesses, takes risks, and believes their idea will totally disrupt an industry despite statistical odds suggesting otherwise. It's the adjective form of optimistic delusion mixed with genuine innovation and an unhealthy comfort with uncertainty. Basically, it describes people who see opportunities where normal humans see reasons to keep their day job.
A buyout mechanism where one co-founder can offer to buy out another at a specific price, and the recipient must either sell at that price or buy the offerer's shares at the same price. The nuclear option for irreconcilable founder disputes.
A venture fund structure where capital commitments are made quarterly rather than in one large closing, allowing GPs to start investing immediately. The subscription model comes to venture capital.
The internal practice at VC firms of writing detailed investment memos that analyze potential deals. Where partners commit their hottest takes to writing so they can be mocked later when wrong.
A resilient company that survives on minimal resources and refuses to die despite market conditions that would kill competitors. They're scrappy, resourceful, and nearly impossible to eliminate.
A go-to-market strategy dependent on human sales teams to drive customer acquisition, typical in complex B2B products with long sales cycles. The opposite of letting the product sell itself.
A provision in IPO underwriting allowing underwriters to sell additional shares if demand exceeds expectations, typically up to 15% more. Named after the first company to use it, because finance people hate straightforward names.
The mythical J-curve trajectory where metrics stay flat forever and then suddenly shoot straight up, resembling a hockey stick. Every founder claims this is coming; few actually achieve it.
A contractual restriction preventing insiders from selling shares after an IPO, typically 90-180 days. Because letting founders dump all their stock on day one would be honest but catastrophic for stock price.
A fancy term for someone who invests in or undertakes risky business ventures, particularly in the startup ecosystem where optimism meets capitalism. These bold souls throw money and energy at unproven business ideas, hoping to strike gold before bankruptcy strikes them. It's like being an explorer, except instead of discovering new lands, you're discovering new ways to burn through Series A funding.
The magical period where startup founders burn through investor cash while "validating their business model," ostensibly nurturing their fledgling company from idea to viable business. Like hatching eggs, except the eggs cost millions of dollars and most of them produce nothing. Incubators and accelerators love this word because it makes burning money sound scientific and inevitable.
Stock-like compensation arrangements that mimic equity ownership without actually granting shares, often used to avoid dilution or regulatory complications. All the incentive alignment with bonus legal complexity.
Someone who receives equity for occasionally responding to emails and allowing you to use their name on your website. The advisor-to-impact ratio is the lowest in all of business, yet every startup has seven of them.