Disrupting disruption with disruptive disruptions since 2010.
A structural competitive edge that's difficult or impossible for competitors to replicate, like proprietary technology, exclusive partnerships, or regulatory capture. What founders claim to have and what actually exists rarely overlap perfectly.
The percentage of a VC fund's investments that return zero, typically 50-70% despite everyone's confident pitches. The number partners don't mention at LP meetings unless forced.
A system where VCs give small pools of capital to well-connected individuals to make investments on the firm's behalf. A brilliant way to outsource deal flow while paying in equity instead of salary.
The percentage of a company a VC aims to own to make an investment worthwhile relative to their fund size. It's why large funds often can't invest in your seed round—they need bigger slices.
A governing body that theoretically oversees your startup but mostly just attends meetings and questions your decisions, led by the investors who own significant stakes.
A provision that adjusts an investor's ownership if future funding rounds happen at lower valuations. Basically a rich person's insurance policy.
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.
The VC who actually makes investment decisions and sits on boards, bearing unlimited liability but collecting management fees and carried interest. The person founders pitch to, hoping they're in a good mood.
Restructuring a company's capital stack—often a euphemism for 'things went poorly and we need to reset everyone's expectations and ownership.' Can range from modest adjustments to burning everything down and starting over.
The process of taking an idea, product, or technology and transforming it into something that actually makes money, because apparently innovation for its own sake doesn't pay the bills. It's the startup world's coming-of-age ceremony, where brilliant concepts either become profitable products or expensive lessons. Essentially, it's the bridge between "we built something cool" and "people are actually buying it."
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.
The strategy for how a fund allocates capital across different investments, stages, sectors, and check sizes. The art of arranging your bets so at least one or two have to work out mathematically.
A delightfully depressing portmanteau describing the growing army of hustlers who call themselves entrepreneurs but are really just unemployed people with a business card and a prayer. These brave souls combine the precarious instability of gig work with the delusion of startup success, making "founder" sound way better than "between opportunities." Welcome to late-stage capitalism's participation trophy.
The modern equivalent of passing the hat, except the hat is a slick website and you're asking thousands of strangers on the internet to fund your dream project, questionable invention, or potato salad. It's democratized investing meets collective optimism meets occasional fraud.
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.
The degree to which a founder's background, skills, and experience align with the problem they're trying to solve. VCs love backing someone who's lived the pain they're addressing.
The corporate buzzword for 'doing something new' that appears in every mission statement and keynote presentation. To innovate is to revolutionize or introduce novelty, though in practice it often means adding an app to something that worked fine without one. Companies that claim to innovate daily are usually just iterating on someone else's idea with a slightly different shade of blue.
A spreadsheet model showing how acquisition proceeds flow to different shareholders based on liquidation preferences and other terms—usually revealing that founders get far less than their ownership percentage suggests. It's where equity dreams go to die.
The person you start a company with based on four hours of friendship and mutual delusion, who will become either your closest ally or your most expensive breakup. Dating is easier than finding a compatible co-founder.
The fancy business term for a proposal or offer, usually dressed up with adjectives like 'value' or 'unique' to make it sound more impressive than 'hey, wanna buy our stuff?' In startup pitch decks, the 'value proposition' is that one slide where founders explain why anyone should care about their idea, typically using a Venn diagram that doesn't quite make sense. A good proposition answers 'what's in it for me?' before the listener falls asleep.
Restructuring that gives early investors and employees liquidity without selling the company, like a pressure release valve for cap table tension. An exit without the exit.
Making investment decisions at lightning speed with minimal diligence, named after Tiger Global's spray-and-pray approach during the 2020-2021 bubble. High velocity, low conviction, maximum FOMO.
The specific order in which investment proceeds are distributed among LPs and GPs based on the fund's legal agreements. It's the pecking order that determines who eats first at the exit feast.
A startup incubator or accelerator where fledgling companies are artificially nurtured in batches, given standardized advice, and released into the wild to either soar or become someone's acqui-hire. Like its fish farm counterpart, success depends on carefully controlled conditions, periodic feeding (of capital), and accepting that most won't make it to maturity. The industrial approach to entrepreneurship for founders who enjoy being treated like salmon.