Consider a Loan Instead of #vc Money
▻https://hackernoon.com/consider-a-loan-instead-of-vc-money-48ad3b7b8d3c?source=rss----3a8144eab
“If you’re starting a business and you take out a loan, you’re a moron,” said firebrand entrepreneur Mark Cuban in an interview with Bloomberg.However, if you’re a budding entrepreneur, hearing or reading such things from sharks can be disheartening, especially if you’re looking to start with little to no capital. To be fair to Cuban, he did go at length saying that businesses can be launched through sheer effort. Nevertheless, it takes money to make money, even just to make it through the day.There are, however, key instances where additional significant #funding may be needed, for example, when business suddenly picks up and you have to ramp up production to keep up with demand. You’d definitely want to take advantage of such opportunities.In these situations, is getting a small business (...)
Why you shouldn’t raise a ‘friends and family’ round
▻https://hackernoon.com/why-you-shouldnt-raise-a-friends-and-family-round-923083e15df0?source=rs
The centre of the universeModern #startup culture has painted a cliched image of the founder’s journey. It often starts with young friends who have some mix-and-match of these classic tropes:Dropping out of college.Taking crazy risks with their personal finances.Working in some wholly inappropriate location (and sleeping there if you’re really hardcore).Being rejected by early investors and instead scraping together cash from uncles, cousins, parents…anyone you can.We idolize these stories because everyone loves an underdog. The eventual success is all the sweeter for the tough times, the doubts and all the people who said you couldn’t. But there’s a problem with these stories; the majority are cherry-picked PR bullshit. The truth is that most successful founders come from positions of (...)
#angel-investors #seed-investment #early-stage-startup #funding
#ico #funding Strategies decoded: ICOs turn the tables in 2019!
▻https://hackernoon.com/ico-funding-strategies-decoded-icos-turn-the-tables-in-2019-f5742f6dac4c
Funding Strategies decoded: ICOs turn the tables in 2019!Flippenning has always been associated with altcoins like Ethereum & Ripple, both trying to assert their dominance in terms of total market cap. A similar story is expected with Bitcoin, despite being the first #cryptocurrency and dominating the market ever since its inception, the crypto community now believes that with just the payment solution, the future may not be so bright for BTC and it will lose its current market dominance to alternates.Could this be Flippenning 2.0?Flippening 2.0 appears to be a market trend that could witness Initial Coin Offerings becoming less accessible to the public and more exclusive towards high-net-worth individuals and institutions. Originally created to favor decentralization and thus a (...)
Top European VCs for Seed #funding | Startup Stash
▻https://hackernoon.com/top-european-vcs-for-seed-funding-startup-stash-198cea58b7fa?source=rss-
Top European VCs for Seed FundingWhen you create your own startup, one of the most important things to consider is where you will get your early funding from. When you begin your project, revenue is likely to be scarce or merely stable, rather than abundant and the success of your business may be centered around whether or not you can secure external investment to jumpstart your venture.With this in mind, we will be exploring seven European venture capital firms that are experts in their selected industries, who may be able to help you secure the funding that is necessary for your sustained success.SNÖ VenturesSNÖ Ventures are a Norweigan early-stage venture capital firm, that offers investments to technology-related startups and business owners. The team at SNÖ Ventures have extensive (...)
#seed-investment #european-venture-capital #european-seed-investing #european-vcs
How to Start a #fintech Company
▻https://hackernoon.com/how-to-start-a-fintech-company-e12bf425338?source=rss----3a8144eabfe3---
7 Things You Should definitely Know“You have to, to serve these markets, re-imagine how money can be managed and moved because there’s going to be more change in the next five years in financial services than happened in the past 30.”– Dan Schulman, CEO PayPalEven if you don’t trade Bitcoins and are not sure how stocks work, there is still a chance that you might have used some sort of FinTech services like, mobile #payments or online banking solutions. In fact, the adoption of fintech globally reached 33% in 2017 (compared to 16% in 2015).Thus, there is absolutely no denying the fact that technologies will continue to invade the age-old financial industry. Riding on the fintech bandwagon, many millennials and innovators have reinvented their businesses and made a hefty profit in the (...)
eyeo, Adblocker plus and the future of #funding
▻https://hackernoon.com/eyeo-adblocker-plus-and-the-future-of-funding-29f43ff9327b?source=rss---
Some of the eyeo teamContent creators find ourselves in the midst of a quandary. Online content began available for free, and as the web grew we tried to find a way to pay the creators, and for many years that was #advertising.Like many things that initially seemed like a good idea, we took advertising too far, and now readers are bombarded with flying, swooshing, obnoxious attention-grabbing boxes coming from all angles.Naturally, those interested in privacy, battery life, or plain old peace and quiet reacted and started using tools to block advertising. So much so that it’s estimated that 30–40% of users now use some form of ad blocker.Blockers don’t solve the content creators initial problem: getting paid. Some are finding success in paywalls, membership programs, or donations, but many (...)
Medium Killed Hacker Noon’s Revenue : WTF ?
▻https://hackernoon.com/medium-killed-hacker-noons-funding-wtf-157a2f86d9d4?source=rss----3a8144
I started writing on Medium in 2015 around the time I self-published my first book, Un-Crap Your Life.Not long after, I began submitting some of my tech articles to the Medium publication Hacker Noon. Back in 2016 there were fewer than 50K readers on Hacker Noon and even though it didn’t get a huge amount of traffic, I always felt a great deal of satisfaction when my articles got accepted and published in the Hacker Noon publication. My most popular Hacker Noon story chronicles the history of #blockchain visionary, Dan Larimer and has over 50K views at last count.I just learned that Medium cut off Hacker Noon’s sponsorships in September, which effectively killed Hacker Noon’s revenue stream.Hacker Noon has been profitable for a while, having formed partnerships with a small number of tech (...)
What Goldilocks can teach us about how best to get in touch with investors
▻https://hackernoon.com/what-goldilocks-can-teach-us-about-how-best-to-get-in-touch-with-investo
What Goldilocks can teach us about how best to email investorsWe all know this story right?If you don’t live and breathe the tech, #startup, entrepreneur and VC world like most people, it can sometimes be challenging to get in touch with investors. When you go out for your first round of #funding — the friends, family and fools round — it might be your first time asking people you know, your 1st degree of separation, for investment.Generally this will be <$1M and currently called your pre-seed round that will hopefully be enough to build a MVP or prototype and get some early clients/users. At this point, you might just keep it to people you know or potentially reach out or ask for intros to others who might be interested.There is and will always be questions about how to get in touch with (...)
Security tokens and the loophole in corporate #law
▻https://hackernoon.com/security-tokens-and-the-loophole-in-corporate-law-d34b951ee48f?source=rs
This element of corporate law will make or break the security #token industry. 99% of the companies offering a security token in the Netherlands will explore this legal structure — Therefore, it matters.Jordan Belfort throwing out money made from “penny stocks” in the movie ‘Wolf of Wall Street’On a global level, we are currently exploring the vast implications of the forthcoming security token industry. Security tokens are expected to disrupt #finance and access to capital because companies and start-ups will be empowered to turn to the crowd for funding.While building the ecosystem, together with other companies in the Netherlands, I stumbled upon a particular exception in Dutch law. Many issuers could leverage this exception in the near future, which is very good according to some and very bad (...)
How I Built a Company With a $130M Valuation
▻https://hackernoon.com/how-i-built-a-company-with-a-130m-valuation-b112b166bb49?source=rss----3
A snapshot of the team, taken April 20, 2018As countless other stories go, the beginning of StartEngine was a simple one. Today, StartEngine is 33 employees. We have helped 160 companies raise capital from our pool of 150,000+ investors. We have raised $5M on our own platform at a $60M valuation and just announced a $10M ICO, which is in test the waters at a $130M valuation at $10 per share.But before all of this, StartEngine began as a singular idea: I wanted to invest in 60 companies.Setting the goalAfter the second video game company I founded, Acclaim Games, was acquired by Walt Disney (Playdom was the original buyer), I wanted to take a break from the entrepreneurial side of the business and become an investor. Keep in mind that I co-founded Activision in 1991, and it eventually (...)
#bitcoin #startup #funding #crowdfunding #business-development
Unusual Ways To Get #funding For Your #startup
▻https://hackernoon.com/unusual-ways-to-get-funding-for-your-startup-e1fcadc7f510?source=rss----
Note: this article was written with hardware startups in mind, but most of it applies to any other startup.We Know Who Funds Hardware (or Other Categories), But Not WhyTo take the case of hardware startups (our focus at HAX): you can find lists of hardware investors and trends, but it is a bit like giving you a pair of skis and telling you “go that way, really fast, if something gets in your way, turn”. It shows you the pieces but doesn’t tell you how to play the game.▻https://medium.com/media/c6958874d951745384fe56b5f6066f6a/hrefIn a presentation I gave recently I highlighted the following:Classic wayRealityHacksEnd gameMostly because the game is not always what it appears to be.Let’s get started.The Classic WayIt’s the advice you hear everywhere, and then some. I managed to condense it to five (...)
It’s in the business, stop telling me about your tech
▻https://hackernoon.com/its-in-the-business-stop-telling-me-about-your-tech-7ca0015a9c75?source=
TumisuOne recent screening session for the Westchester Angels someone presented to us a retail wind turbine concept that I think may warrant investment.But there was no way to tell.So, he didn’t get funded.Here is why and how to avoid his fate:As good as the core of his idea may still be (I don’t know by the way), there is no way his company is going to raise any money.He could not explain to us the problem he solved or why anybody would be interested. So, none of us could figure out how we would ever make any money. So none of us were interested in investing.His pitch was a technical explanation of the intricacies of his product design. He spent a full quarter of his time (2 out of 8 minutes) on ball bearings!As a rule of thumb any time your initial pitch to early stage investors includes (...)
#startup #funding #storytelling-for-business #angel-investors #marketing-strategies
Budgets, bureaucracy and realpolitik trump #human_rights advocacy
▻http://africasacountry.com/2016/09/budgets-bureaucracy-and-realpolitik-trump-human-rights-advocacy
The year 2015 was El Salvador’s deadliest since the end of that country’s civil war in 1992. According to police records, more than six thousand people were murdered. Elsewhere, in Honduras, Brazil and Columbia, dozens of environmental activists are under attack. And in the Dominican Republic, thousands of Dominicans of Haitian ancestry are on the […]
#LATIN_AMERICA_IS_A_COUNTRY #Americas #Funding #Inter-American_Commission_for_Human_Rights #OAS
Mozilla to Develop Comments Platform With New York Times and Washington Post - NYTimes.com
▻http://www.nytimes.com/2014/06/20/business/media/new-york-times-and-washington-post-to-develop-platform-for-readers-contribu
The New York Times and The Washington Post announced on Thursday that they had teamed up with Mozilla to develop a new platform to better manage their readers’ online comments and contributions.
The platform will be supported by a grant of roughly $3.9 million from the John S. and James L. Knight Foundation, which promotes innovation in journalism.
(...) The platform, which will take approximately two years to complete, will eventually be available for other news organization to download free.