Disrupting disruption with disruptive disruptions since 2010.
Moving to build or sell products at a lower layer of the technology infrastructure, typically where margins are thinner but the market is larger. Often happens when companies realize their original niche is too small.
Preferred stock that must choose between taking its liquidation preference OR converting to common and sharing the remaining proceeds—can't do both. The slightly-less-greedy version of investor terms.
A fledgling company designed for rapid growth and scale, typically fueled by venture capital, caffeine, and the unwavering belief that this time will be different. These entrepreneurial ventures aim to disrupt industries, change the world, and achieve unicorn status—though most will pivot three times and run out of runway first. It's where innovation meets delusion in the most optimistic way possible.
In medieval times, a water-filled ditch that kept invaders at bay; in modern business, the metaphorical competitive advantages that protect a company from rivals trying to steal its lunch money. Warren Buffett popularized this term to describe sustainable competitive advantages like strong brands, network effects, or regulatory barriers. The wider the moat, the harder it is for competitors to storm your castle and the more VCs will swoon over your pitch deck.
The soul-crushing moment when a founder's ownership percentage shrinks because the company issued more shares to new investors. It's weaker coffee, but for equity—you still own shares, they're just worth relatively less of the pie. Every funding round brings this special joy, where you simultaneously celebrate getting money and mourn losing control.
Provisions allowing minority shareholders to join a sale if majority shareholders exit—the friendlier sibling of drag-along rights. It's protection ensuring you can't get abandoned while insiders cash out.
Total Addressable Market, Serviceable Addressable Market, and Serviceable Obtainable Market—three increasingly pessimistic estimates of how much money you might theoretically make. The trilogy of optimism, realism, and 'if everything goes perfectly.'
Rights allowing majority shareholders to force minority shareholders to join in selling the company. Corporate democracy's escape hatch, where your vote doesn't matter if enough people with more shares decide differently.
An internal document where VCs justify their investment thesis to partners, typically written with supreme confidence that will be mocked at the next downturn. The receipts for future 'I told you so' moments.
The art of building a valuable company while raising as little outside funding as possible, preserving founder ownership and bragging rights. It's increasingly rare in an era of mega-rounds and bloated valuations.
General Partner, the VC fund managers who make investment decisions and carry legal liability for the fund's operations. They're the ones whose names are on the door and whose reputations are on the line.
The year a venture capital fund closes and begins making investments, used to compare fund performance across similar time periods. It's like birth year for wine or funds—context that matters for quality assessment.
Acronym for product-market fit, used by people too busy crushing it to say three whole words. It's the startup world's obsession with abbreviations meeting their obsession with the only metric that actually matters.
A Stripe-era instrument designed to be even simpler than convertible notes—basically a promise to give equity someday, maybe.
The accumulating list of failed startups and failed startup founders—a real place we're all slowly joining.
Emergency funding meant to tide a startup over until the 'real' funding round happens, often at desperate terms. Named after a bridge because you're hoping it doesn't collapse before you reach the other side.
A reserve of shares set aside to recruit employees with stock options, typically carved out before valuation to dilute founders rather than investors. A necessary evil that feels like robbery when you're calculating founder ownership.
The actual money behind venture capital—pension funds, endowments, and rich people who give VCs money to invest and hope they know what they're doing. They're 'limited' because they can't tell the GP how to do their job.
A go-to-market strategy where the product itself drives customer acquisition, retention, and expansion rather than traditional sales teams. Users fall in love before ever talking to a salesperson.
Stock-like compensation arrangements that mimic equity ownership without actually granting shares, often used to avoid dilution or regulatory complications. All the incentive alignment with bonus legal complexity.
A startup that aims to be both profitable AND socially responsible, as opposed to unicorns that prioritize growth at any cost. They're real, sustainable, and less likely to leave a trail of layoffs and burned capital.
A venture capital firm that's functionally dead but still managing old funds, unable to raise new capital but too undead to fully shut down. They're not investing in new companies but still collecting management fees from their limited partners.
The magical moment when your paper wealth becomes actual money you can spend—typically through an acquisition or IPO. It's what everyone's working toward but few actually experience.
Limited Partner, the institutional investors and wealthy individuals who provide capital to VC funds, essentially the VCs' VCs. They're the puppetmasters who rarely appear but whose capital enables the whole show.