Disrupting disruption with disruptive disruptions since 2010.
Someone who attends board meetings but lacks voting rights, typically a junior investor or potential future investor. They're flies on the wall with NDAs and calendars full of meetings they can't influence.
Having personal capital at risk in an investment or venture, theoretically aligning interests between founders and investors. It's the 'put your money where your mouth is' principle, except everyone's mouth is usually writing checks their bank account can't cash.
The process of slapping a number on something that probably doesn't have a real value. In venture capital, it's educated guessing dressed up as financial analysis—your startup is worth $100M because we feel like it is, and also because everyone else paid way too much for similar companies.
The phase between seed funding and Series A where many startups run out of money and crash; basically startup purgatory.
A theoretical timeline for when a company will stop losing money and become self-sustaining; usually a fictional document written for investors.
Shaping materials with specialized equipment, or—in startup-speak—'getting the factory ready before we realize we can't afford it.' The expensive setup phase nobody budgets correctly for.
How much you spend to gain one customer—a depressing metric that determines whether your unit economics work at all.
Startups built on fundamental scientific breakthroughs rather than clever software—the kind of company that requires physics PhDs and takes 10 years to become profitable, beloved by investors who want long-term moonshots.
The annual fee (typically 2% of committed capital) that VC fund managers charge to keep the lights on, whether or not they make good investments. The guaranteed money that pays for offices, salaries, and kombucha before carried interest kicks in.
The speed at which a startup moves from inception to market dominance within its category. The term is sometimes used when discussing execution speed and competitive moats simultaneously.
A fundraising approach where a startup accepts investor commitments and transfers shares on multiple dates instead of a single closing. It's like a progressive dinner party for term sheets.
The noble art of convincing individuals, corporations, and foundations to part with their money for your cause, institution, or startup dream. In education, it's what keeps universities building new buildings with donors' names on them. In nonprofits and startups, it's a full-time job disguised as networking events and carefully crafted pitch decks.
The messy dissolution of a startup partnership, romantic relationship, or team dynamic—often marked by awkward equity discussions, passive-aggressive Slack messages, and lawyers getting involved.
The total revenue you expect from one customer during their entire relationship with your company—usually wildly overestimated.
A funding round with so many small investors that the cap table looks like a nightclub guest list—lots of names, minimal commitment from anyone. Usually signals either a hot deal everyone wants a piece of, or a desperate founder who couldn't land a lead investor.
To abandon ship faster than a rat on the Titanic. In startup parlance, when a feature, product, or entire business model gets the axe because it's hemorrhaging money or nobody wants it. No ceremony, no fanfare—just gone.
The early-internet ideology that all digital content and services should be freely available to everyone, or at least subsidized by someone else willing to foot the bill. A utopian dream that helped kill the dot-com bubble.
A limit on how much an investor's ownership can be diluted by future funding rounds. Basically the investor saying 'screw everyone who comes after me.'
Net Promoter Score—a survey asking customers how likely they are to recommend you (0-10). Mostly used to confirm whatever founders already believe about customer satisfaction.
The portion of TAM you can actually reach with your sales and marketing strategy—much smaller than TAM but still wildly optimistic.
That mythical moment when your product stops being something you force people to use and they actually want it. Also known as 'the point founders finally sleep at night.'
A startup fundraising round with overwhelming investor demand, usually led by a top-tier firm with multiple others fighting for allocation. The velvet rope nightclub of venture capital.
The additional value investors pay for governance rights and control provisions beyond pure economics, willing to pay higher prices for board seats and veto powers. The surcharge for not trusting founders to run the company they founded.
The mythical center where everything important supposedly happens, whether it's a transportation network, a startup ecosystem, or your company's Slack workspace. Every city with a coworking space now claims to be 'the next innovation hub,' conveniently ignoring that actual hubs require more than overpriced lattes and motivational wall decals. In practice, it's where resources flow in, get distributed inefficiently, and occasionally produce something useful.