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How does a VC go about pitching an LP when raising a fund?

My personal experience for a first-time fund: What LPs that invest in new / emerging managers want is
  • a strong warm intro AND
  • at least strong early results.
Weak intros don’t work. An investment thesis without results doesn’t really work. And results alone are not enough, unless they are insanely good. Because there are too many managers out there that are 4x-5x+, at least as individuals. But warm intros from other top managers … if they really vouch for you … and you have at least strong early results, is magic. And less common that you’d think. Most GPs will not vouch for other GPs, not really. After all, they are competition. At least for LP capital, if not deals. In fact, most GPs will subtly recommend their LPs not invest in other managers. LPs can only manage so many managers. So when a successful GP in an LP’s portfolio Continue reading "How does a VC go about pitching an LP when raising a fund?"
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Writing Emails That Work: In Conversation With Copywriting Specialist Laura Lopuch

In the world of sales development, as is the case with most jobs, there is more than one way to skin a cat.
Getting meetings, reaching quotas, generating pipeline and, ultimately, realizing new revenue for your organization (whatever that company may be) is a challenging process and worthy of a nuanced and varied prospecting methods. The post Writing Emails That Work: In Conversation With Copywriting Specialist Laura Lopuch appeared first on Predictable Revenue.
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The Top 10 Pieces of Advice I’d Give to My Younger CEO Self

Recently a post on Twitter had my reflecting on the top advice I’d give to my younger CEO self: I missed one of the key Top 10 points — I ran out of 240 characters on Twitter), but thought it might be worth breaking them down in more detail on SaaStr below:
  1. Go Long.
This can be hard.  The first start-up I ever joined as an employee was quickly acquired for $200m, which became $1 billion (!) by the time the deal closed, we IPO’d … and then our acquirer went bankrupt.  Poof.  I lost $12,000,000 on paper in 12 months, and it went to $0.  Boy that was hard.  To lose it all. It was tough to recover from that.  And even harder to think about Going Long.  Instead, it sort of makes you think about taking the First Good
?
Continue reading "The Top 10 Pieces of Advice I’d Give to My Younger CEO Self"
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The Top 10 Pieces of Advice I’d Give to My Younger CEO Self

Recently a post on Twitter had my reflecting on the top advice I’d give to my younger CEO self: I missed one of the key Top 10 points — I ran out of 240 characters on Twitter), but thought it might be worth breaking them down in more detail on SaaStr below:
  1. Go Long.
This can be hard.  The first start-up I ever joined as an employee was quickly acquired for $200m, which became $1 billion (!) by the time the deal closed, we IPO’d … and then our acquirer went bankrupt.  Poof.  I lost $12,000,000 on paper in 12 months, and it went to $0.  Boy that was hard.  To lose it all. It was tough to recover from that.  And even harder to think about Going Long.  Instead, it sort of makes you think about taking the First Good
?
Continue reading "The Top 10 Pieces of Advice I’d Give to My Younger CEO Self"
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Data from 1 Million Sales Calls Explains the Difference Between Top Reps and Everyone Else

The most decisive factor separating your superstar reps from everyone else on your team comes down to their sales conversations. The sooner you understand this, the sooner you can begin closing the quota attainment gap between the two groups. Gong’s data science team has used our conversation intelligence platform to analyze almost one million conversations between B2B salespeople and buyers. And no matter which way you slice the data, it’s clear: There are almost always major differences between how “A-players” and “B-players” run sales conversations. Try to find obvious differentiators in other aspects of sales — like activity volume and metrics — and you’ll likely be unsuccessful. Apart from sales conversations, amazing reps and average reps look pretty similar. They send out the same quantity of emails. They run the same number of calls and schedule the same amount of demos. They spend a comparable time at work. But, when
When to talk about price
Discovery call talk listen ratios
sales team conversations
Continue reading "Data from 1 Million Sales Calls Explains the Difference Between Top Reps and Everyone Else"
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Are VCs worse when they are risk averse?

Risk averse VCs are bad if you want to take a lot of risk. If you want to raise a ton of money, have a high burn rate, hire tons of sales reps quickly. But … if you don’t plan to raise another round. If you aren’t burning a lot of money. If you don’t need to ask your VCs for more money. Then risk averse VCs sometimes can be nice. They won’t pressure you to go harder and faster than you want to. View original question on quora The post Are VCs worse when they are risk averse? appeared first on SaaStr.
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What is the best way to politely tell a potential investor or group of investors that their notion of a fair startup valuation is so insanely greedy that you’d rather jump off a cliff than take that kind of financial haircut?

Just decline politely. This is what works best. If they ask why, just say you can’t do the deal at that valuation. They will either let it drop there. Or they will offer to pay a higher price. Easy peasy. View original question on quora The post What is the best way to politely tell a potential investor or group of investors that their notion of a fair startup valuation is so insanely greedy that you’d rather jump off a cliff than take that kind of financial haircut? appeared first on SaaStr.
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Can founders force a reluctant VC to exit (assuming there is a reasonable return for all)?

Sort of. Generally speaking, there is no legal or contractual way to make a VC sell / exit. There can be some exceptions, but usually there are no “drag along” or forced put rights in standard terms and conditions. But … Unless (x) the VCs control the company (own > 50%+) AND (y) are willing to step in and put a CEO in, or be the CEO … the founders have a lot of de facto power here. Because they can give the VCs a choice — take the keys, or let us sell. So most VCs that have been around for a while generally adopt 1 of 2 attitudes here:
  • the founders know when to sell, and as long as we make money, we are supportive (even if the VCs would rather not sell) and/or
  • the VCs have a bench of CEOs to put into companies.
Smaller funds rarely Continue reading "Can founders force a reluctant VC to exit (assuming there is a reasonable return for all)?"
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Can founders force a reluctant VC to exit (assuming there is a reasonable return for all)?

Sort of. Generally speaking, there is no legal or contractual way to make a VC sell / exit. There can be some exceptions, but usually there are no “drag along” or forced put rights in standard terms and conditions. But … Unless (x) the VCs control the company (own > 50%+) AND (y) are willing to step in and put a CEO in, or be the CEO … the founders have a lot of de facto power here. Because they can give the VCs a choice — take the keys, or let us sell. So most VCs that have been around for a while generally adopt 1 of 2 attitudes here:
  • the founders know when to sell, and as long as we make money, we are supportive (even if the VCs would rather not sell) and/or
  • the VCs have a bench of CEOs to put into companies.
Smaller funds rarely Continue reading "Can founders force a reluctant VC to exit (assuming there is a reasonable return for all)?"