broker

Definition

Financially obliterated; what happens when you've spent all your capital on ideas that looked good on a napkin at 2 AM. A state every entrepreneur fears and half have experienced.

Example Usage

After the Series B fell through, the founder went broker than a poker player in Vegas.

Source: Financial vernacular, archaic usage

Related Terms

Beginner

sales-led growth

A go-to-market strategy dependent on human sales teams to drive customer acquisition, typical in complex B2B products with long sales cycles. The opposite of letting the product sell itself.

🚀 Startup / VC

Intermediate

down-round

A funding round at a lower valuation than the previous round, signaling either terrible execution or terrible timing. Triggers anti-dilution provisions and existential crises among founders.

🚀 Startup / VC

Beginner

Series A, B, C

Sequential institutional funding rounds designated by letters, theoretically indicating maturity but practically just measuring how much money you've convinced people to give you. The alphabet of ambition.

🚀 Startup / VC

Advanced

preference stack

The hierarchical order in which different classes of investors get paid during an exit, determined by liquidation preferences from multiple funding rounds. It's a legal game of Jenga where common stockholders usually lose.

🚀 Startup / VC

Intermediate

capital call

The formal demand from a general partner to limited partners to wire their committed funds, usually with 10-30 days notice and an implied "or else" hanging in the air. It's how venture funds move committed money from promised to deployed.

🚀 Startup / VC

Beginner

entrepreneurial

Having the qualities of someone who starts businesses, takes risks, and believes their idea will totally disrupt an industry despite statistical odds suggesting otherwise. It's the adjective form of optimistic delusion mixed with genuine innovation and an unhealthy comfort with uncertainty. Basically, it describes people who see opportunities where normal humans see reasons to keep their day job.

🚀 Startup / VC

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See “broker” in Corporate Speak, Gen-Z Slang, Pirate Speak, and more.

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