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John Tabis was doing fine at his old job. More than fine, actually: he was Director of Corporate Brand Development at Disney.

But instead of continuing to rock the cushy corporate life, John teamed up with his friend Juan Pablo (JP) Montufar-Arroyo and launched The Bouqs, an online flower delivery company. Neither of them had very much money so they went to friends and family and pulled together $13,000 to get started.

That was four years ago. Today, they’re working with nearly $20 million in VC money — and John definitely doesn’t miss Disney.

A native Ecuadorian who grew up on a rose farm, JP witnessed firsthand the low prices, slow payment, and rampant waste that plague the traditional flower supply chain. And on the online branding side ...

Several years ago, we joked that Lyft’s investors— a motley crew that includes Japanese conglomerates, billionaire hedge funds, other ride-sharing startups, sharp elbowed activists like Carl Icahn — and major venture capitalists like Andreessen Horowitz, Founders Fund and Floodgate — as the coalition of billionaires investing against Uber as much as they were investing in Lyft.

On October 19, another one joined the ranks: Alphabet — Google and Waymo’s parent company — lead a new $1 billion Lyft round. The same one embroiled in a multi-billion trade theft lawsuit with Uber. The same one that was once also an investor in Uber. This has never been an industry where allies stay allies forever. And Lyft’s co-founders John Zimmer and Logan Green ...

Venture capital is one of the most popular forms of investment capital among startup companies. Unfortunately, very few entrepreneurs have an in-depth understanding of how the venture capital industry actually works or how it relates to their desire to raise capital.

A quick primer on the fundamentals of venture capital funding. Learn how venture capital funding works and how big the universe is for venture capital as a whole.

The following guide will help you understand the mechanics of the venture capital industry, the process for identifying the right venture capital firm to approach, and the actual pitch process used by entrepreneurs looking to raise venture capital.

Understanding Venture Capital

What’s the difference between an associa...

What if I told you that selling a company for $40 million could net you more money than if you sold it for $200 million?

On its face, it sounds ludicrous, I know! But what's missing in that formula isn't the exit price, but how much of that exit we get to put in our pocket as we raise more rounds of capital.

More importantly, our opportunities to sell for $40m are dramatically more abundant than selling for $200m (or more!). That means every time we raise capital, while it sounds like we're improving our chances of an outcome, we're also reducing our options to find an exit at all.

Real Founder Dilution Numbers

CapShare released a study of 5,000 startup cap tables to determine how much equity Founders have at each stage of a funding round. ...

We all love to act like we’re reinventing the wheel here in Startup Land. And, sometimes, (maybe even a lot of the time), we are. The startup world has dramatically changed how the business world operates: from company perks to customer service to everyone suddenly thinking that an open plan office is less oppressive than one with cubicles.

(Spoiler alert: It’s not.)

We’ve also invented a new understanding around the stages of a startup business. Granted, it’s not a total reinvention of the business stage wheel — maybe “evolution” is a better descriptor for how we’ve come to determine the stages of a startup. But there are parts of this “new model” that are certainly unique to our particular way of doing things. And one of those parts is th...

For busy startup teams, the name of the game — today more than ever — is productivity.

FitStars CEO and co-founder Mike Maser sums it up perfectly: “When you’re building a vision, a team and a product all at once, time is your ultimate currency. Every day presents both the opportunity to break ground and the risk of losing ground. At the end of the day I’d trade anything for an extra hour to ensure we’ve taken a step forward.”

And when you’re a startup, working at the breakneck speed of startups, it’s only natural that things start falling through the cracks. Social media gets neglected, correspondence goes unresponded-to. Every startup has a laundry list of items they should be doing but aren’t — or things they are doing, but could be doi...

Looking at startup news publications such as TechCrunch or Mashable, a new entrepreneur might think that every startup raises capital and walks away with MILLIONS in their pockets after a quick and easy overnight success followed by an acquisition by Google or Facebook. These sensationalized stories are actually very misleading and do not represent the daily grind of startup life.

Here are some of the common startup myths debunked:

1. You MUST Be Technical

Being technical is pretty important if you’re planning on starting an internet startup. So if you’re not technical, it is a good idea to learn at least some technical skills. Dennis Crowley, founder of Foursquare, was non-technical before he founded his first startup, Dodgeball, later sol...

“Because you’re worth it.”

The L’Oréal Fallacy afflicts those founders who find themselves faced with an offer for their company and the chance of an exit.

This is the moment many have dreamed of. But life is no respecter of dreams: the potential exit is often smaller than the founder has hoped. The founder finds himself conflicted: wanting an exit, but believing that the offer on the table undervalues his work and the potential of his company.

The L’Oréal Fallacy is the belief that you should hold out for the exit you deserve—because you’re worth it.

This fallacy corrupts decision making at a crucial point—the point when monetary success is actually a tangible prospect.

First-time founders, in particular, should take their exit when they c...

Coming up with a great business idea isn’t a problem. The problem is in actualizing that idea and turning it into a profitable business. The next thing that follows is the million-dollar question: “Where do I get capital to turn my idea into a profitable business?” Unless you have ready cash laying in the bank or a wealthy relative ready to come to your rescue, raising capital to start or grow your business isn’t the easiest thing to do. Resourceful entrepreneurs will always find ways of bootstrapping their ventures. However, depending on the nature of your business, there is a limit to which you can do that. It reaches a time when you need hard cash to move forward. In that regard, you need to find ways of raising capital.

The source of yo...

Imagine getting married to someone you hardly knew just because you "really needed to get this marriage thing going, and they seem qualified enough at the time." Does that sound like the recipe for a healthy long-term relationship? Probably not. But that's pretty much how most of us select our future spouse for our startups (aka "The Cofounder").

At some point, we inevitably step back and ask "Is this really the right person to be my long-term co-founder or did I just do a shotgun wedding with this weirdo?" Which invariably leads to "How can I tell if this is the 'right' co-Founder, and if it isn't — how do I unwind this thing?

To be fair, these are questions most Founders will end up asking, and if we're not, it doesn't mean our co-founder...