Runway, SAFEs, cap tables, term sheets, and investor updates: fundraising without the fog.
A down round feels like slipping on the ice. But in a downturn it is the controlled self-arrest that holds your startup on the mountain. Here is how to take a down round.
Startup valuation methods and multiples are less like solving a sum and more like sizing up a poker hand. Here's how to read the table and bet a number you can back.
An option pool is equity you set aside for future hires. Size your option pool like a garden bed: to what you will actually plant, not to a template a blog handed you.
Term sheet explained for founders: treat the document like a bridge you'll cross on your worst day. Here's how to test the deck, the cables, and the supports before you sign.
A plain 409a valuation guide for founders: think of it as the vital signs an independent doctor reads on your common stock, why a low reading is healthy, and how it protects your team.
Cap table dilution feels like losing your kitchen. It's really staffing it. A founder's guide to adding stations on purpose so you can serve far more covers.
A safe vs convertible note guide that treats your first raise like a chess opening: the early moves look small, but they set the pawn structure your whole cap table inherits.
When to raise a round is a timing call, like reading a weather window. You launch when the front is favorable and you still have fuel, not when the tanks run dry.
How much runway do you need? Enough to reach your next camp, a milestone or a raise, with a reserve in hand. Never enough to chase the summit and strand the climb.
Venture debt is a tourniquet for a startup that is bleeding cash. It buys you time by stopping the bleed, but left on too long it costs you the limb. Here is when to tie it on and when to take it off.
