Tricia Meyer

If you are a startup raising capital, particularly in Utah, try to have a consultation with Tim Nielsen re: strategy. This recent post will give you some flavor. Think: which KPIs truly drive business success, and therefore funder interest. I would add an emphasis on aligning metrics with growth stages and strategic priorities. This resonates with my experience that the most valuable KPIs often evolve as a startup progresses. And it's crucial to regularly reassess and adjust your KPIs. What's critical at one stage may become less relevant as the business evolves. For instance, a B2B SaaS startup might initially focus on user acquisition, but later shift towards measuring customer lifetime value or net revenue retention as the product matures.

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We believe in extreme vetting of our founders. You can't build a unicorn if you spend time on silly stuff, like seeing family and friends. Grow up, and focus on investor returns. #vc #startups #investment

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We need more leaders that are thoughtful as well as innovative, and Lindsey Redd is one of those Founders. After meeting in Y Combinator, it's been so great to continue supporting each other throughout this crazy journey. Ali and I love nothing more than to catch up with other folks that are working through the challenges and excitements that come with early startup life. Check out what she's up to at Loula (YC W23), she's changing the game in supporting mothers and expecting parents! 🚀 #startups #founderjourney #ai #aitechnology #customerservice #customersuccess #customerexperience #startuplife #sanfrancisco

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🚨🚨HOT TAKE ALERT 🚨🚨 “As a startup, we need as much cash flow as possible. Pour gas on the fire. Get as much revenue as possible.” This is a common thing we hear from startup founders early on. In a lot of ways, they’re not wrong; more revenue gives you more cash to grow, and it's an important metric that investors look at. 💰 🤔 🔍 But sometimes, there’s more to consider than just “get money!” 🤑 When you get a contract offer with a big client or customer, it can be tempting to sign off and just watch the cash roll in. 💸💸 But sometimes that revenue comes with strings. 🎣 Specifically what you want to look out for is the urge to specialize your product/services to custom fit just that big company. 😔The problem is, you don’t just want one big customer—you want a bunch of customers, big and small. 🚀🚀 That’s the only way to sustain growth. 🌱 You don’t want to become a factory for just one client. So sometimes, you have to say no. 😔 It hurts, but sometimes it’s the smart thing to do! 🤓☝️ You never want to enter into a contract you can’t hold up or promise services to a client that you won’t be able to fulfill… and you should never sacrifice a good product and smart business plan in order to chase the green. 🌟 #MatthewGlickLegalServices #StartupAttorney #CorporateAttorney #TechStartupLawyer #DealFramework #BusinessNegotiation #LegalTerms #FreeLegalAdvice #Revenue #CashFlow

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Do you know any companies that are stuck or going through a rough time? At Palm Venture Studios, we believe some companies close that don't deserve to. Our mission is to identify these hidden gems and provide the support they need to thrive. We specialize in investing in and scaling companies, leveraging our expertise to turn challenges into opportunities. If you know a company in need of a lifeline or a fresh new chapter, let's connect and explore how we can help. #BusinessGrowth #Investing #CompanyTurnaround #Founders

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I recently sat down with a group of Forum Ventures founders about to go out to fundraise and the topic of SAFE rounds came up. The context focused on the pros/cons of raising a priced vs a SAFE round and the conversation notably shifted toward the dilution implications of a SAFE round. Founders are keenly aware of the top line dilution of any funding round - ie selling 20% of their startup for $3M at a $15M cap - but very few fully grasp the implications of doing a SAFE round vs a priced round. The universal standard for institutional VC investors is a post money SAFE. This document essentially outlines ownership that an investor will have in a startup just prior to the execution of a priced round. Most importantly though, it is structured so that an investor in that SAFE will not be diluted by subsequent SAFE's that are issued. This is where founder education around the implications of this structure are not fully appreciated. In a situation where a founder continues to stack subsequent SAFEs, they don't actually convert until the first priced round and the net dilution they are taking is actually more than they realize. Here is a practical example - take a situation where a founder has already sold 15% of their business on a post money SAFE in a pre-seed round, and is now choosing to sell another 20% in a seed round. If the founder opts to raise this money on SAFEs, the dilution of that additional 20% will come entirely from common equity holders- meaning they will now own 65%. If SAFE holders were also diluted by that round, as they would be in a priced round, the founder would own 68%. This dynamic becomes more dramatic the more capital a founder raises on SAFEs. Note - this is a high level example and does not include an option pool carve out or other round nuances. Almost universally, when a founder raises their first priced round, there is some degree of sticker shock at the outright dilution on their cap table, particularly when options pools are factored in. This pain is even more acute when a founder has raised a fair amount of capital on SAFEs along the way. There are certainly benefits to raising SAFE round, mainly cash in hand 6-8 weeks faster and not having to decide on board seats too early, but I encourage all of our founders to run through cap table modeling and correctly account for the implications of SAFE rounds before they make fundraising decisions.

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Founders, you're losing deals by not having a clear discovery call plan. I've seen this a lot where founders looking to scale up their early sales efforts are going into it thinking the product will get them through the sale In most cases, this isn't the truth You need to have some sort of framework to make the selling motion more repeatable Instead of demo'ing the product, try learning more about them and their challenges first. Your goal should be to know enough to build a customized demo for them. This will help in building solid relationships, build value throughout the process and likely speed up deals on the back end of it. If you don't know where to start, hit me up and I'm happy to lay out some early sales structure for founders! Go crush it out there 🤙

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**STARTUP FRIENDS -- if you're at TechCrunch #DISRUPT this week, let's connect! We have two things going on: 1) If you are a Foundersuite or Fundingstack user, we are doing several 5-min "mini-interviews" at Disrupt. DM me here on LInkedIn if you'd like to be featured ( = free social media love for your #startup :) 2) Join us for a FREE "Funders + Founders After Event" with our friends at FundVoyage and Nixon Peabody LLP featuring startup pitches, wine and h'ordeuvres (took me a few tries to spell that correctly... :) Reg link 👇 STARTUP TRIVIA: can you correctly name what's going on in this photo? Post your answer in the comments :) #startups #venturecapital #entrepreneurship #raisingcapital

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Millennial founder David W. Riggs of Pneuma recalls the pivotal moment he checked his company's books and realized they'd crossed the million-dollar ARR rate three months earlier without much effort! This milestone sparked a major shift in his approach: "𝘛𝘩𝘦𝘳𝘦'𝘴 𝘭𝘰𝘵𝘴 𝘰𝘧 𝘱𝘦𝘰𝘱𝘭𝘦 𝘵𝘩𝘢𝘵 𝘯𝘦𝘷𝘦𝘳 𝘮𝘢𝘬𝘦 𝘪𝘵 𝘵𝘰 𝘢 𝘮𝘪𝘭𝘭𝘪𝘰𝘯, 𝘢𝘯𝘥 𝘐 𝘫𝘶𝘴𝘵 𝘥𝘪𝘥 𝘪𝘵 𝘸𝘩𝘪𝘭𝘦 𝘩𝘢𝘷𝘪𝘯𝘨 𝘧𝘶𝘯. 𝘓𝘦𝘵'𝘴 𝘵𝘢𝘬𝘦 𝘵𝘩𝘪𝘴 𝘢 𝘭𝘪𝘵𝘵𝘭𝘦 𝘮𝘰𝘳𝘦 𝘴𝘦𝘳𝘪𝘰𝘶𝘴𝘭𝘺 𝘢𝘯𝘥 𝘴𝘦𝘦 𝘸𝘩𝘦𝘳𝘦 𝘪𝘵 𝘨𝘰𝘦𝘴…." Check out the BizMafia episode to learn how David turned his passion into a thriving business and his advice for budding entrepreneurs who might be on the brink of unexpected success. 👇 Bryan Taylor #entrepreneurship #startups #wherebusinessgetsmade

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🗣 Startup Founders (particular early stage) I'd love to pay it forward and help you! What's top of mind or what questions do you have that I can (potentially) share thoughts on? From hiring and team building, to designing a cohesive product or fundraising. Run wild!

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This brilliantly summarizes my experience with raising capital.

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I'm officially launching my new business today: Early Stage Labs. We help Seed and Series A startups level up with fractional execs in finance + growth. If you need the horsepower and execution of an experienced operator but don't want to add heavy FTE burn to your runway, I'd love to see if we can support you. We have been quietly building in 2024 and are up to 11 CFOs and 5 growth folks on the team. We can't wait to roll up our sleeves and get into it. Learn more about what we're doing here: https://lnkd.in/eddDSWCn -- I was out on a walk with my wife back in 2018. I had been running a bootstrapped startup for a few years and was talking to her about a pivot we were making. She asked me what it was that I loved about the business I was building. Simple question, but I paused and had to spend a few days thinking about it. I remember coming back to her and telling her how much I love the art and the act of creating something from nothing. How it’s difficult and nuanced and sometimes even feels impossible. But how - when you get it right - man, it can feel like magic. I’ve built and sold a few businesses since then. We sold our last one to Healthline in 2021. I then jumped to the other side of the table and I’ve been the General Partner of a seed-stage venture fund since 2022. I love deals. I love getting into the hard and dirty parts of a business that can really move the needle. And I love delighting customers. I’m a scrappy, gritty founder who loves finding high impact + low burn ways to move businesses forward, and I think I’ve found that here. I think we’re really doing that for our customers. Early Stage Labs is a love letter, of sorts, to this beautiful, treacherous, wondrous world of startups that I’ve - for some strange f’ing reason - made my home over the last two decades. Here’s to the ride.

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When we asked CPG founders who they wanted at Founderland... Their answer was clear: People who can help them grow their business & achieve their goals. Specifically: - The top retailers - The most founder-friendly investors, and - Other founders they can learn from and share with This conversation that I'm hosting at Founderland is a perfect representation of this group, plus one BIG bonus. We're also including Joel Toledano and ChargeUp.ai which is one of my favorite tech companies that is supporting consumer brands today. They automate the retail deduction and chargeback process for brands, saving them an insane amount of time and money. Such a cool co. Excited to teach, share and connect...and get some deals done, while of course having lots of fun. Joel Toledano Jen Zeszut Kim Coffin Deb Conklin

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"I’m a big believer in balance to ensure long-term sustainability. When I created my goals for the year, I made sure to plan within four categories: money (business), fun, personal wellness, and relationships. My high-level goal is to be intentional about each of these categories. This allows me to stay balanced and make sure I’m prioritizing all the critical building blocks of my happiness and health." Read my full interview with Grace N. on the challenges of building a business from scratch, my advice for other women founders, and more! https://lnkd.in/ghmpWMMH

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I GIVE BLCK because the future deserves a surge of Black Wealth Transfer events, the future requires Black Fund Managers, and the future needs Black Founders supported by Black investors. We’re raising $100k to keep BLCK VC going. Chip in to something that is shifting the odds in our favor with capital management. #BVI #BVIMAFIA #BVI2 #GIVEBLCK

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Worst Startup Advice 🚨 What’s the worst advice you’ve heard as a founder? Chances are, “fail fast” might be on your list. In this episode of The Founder’s Journey Podcast, Peter Dean and I sit down with Scot Chisholm—CEO of Highland and Haskill Creek, and founder of Classy—to dissect one of the most misunderstood pieces of startup advice. Here’s what we dive into: ✅ Why “fail fast” often gets misinterpreted ✅ How founders can avoid floundering in their early stages ✅ The importance of calibrating your vision without abandoning it too soon 🎙️ Scot brings the hard truths every founder needs to hear. 🎧 Don’t miss this insightful conversation—our YouTube podcast video goes live at 10 am Denver time! 💬 What’s the worst startup advice you’ve ever received? Drop it in the comments!

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Switching, swapping, and experimenting are essential in startups. Remember, Chick-fil-A started as a small burger place. Building greatness takes time and resilience. #GetMoney2024 #Perseverance #StartupStruggles #BusinessGrowth #Success #BlakeJoseph

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Hold on to your bootstraps, entrepreneurs ✋🏼Your friendly neighborhood Idea Incubator (a.k.a. TRAIN EM) is hatched and ready to launch 🚀 That's right, We are open for business! Feast your eyes on our services page, a buffet of delicious tech goodies🧑🏼‍💻:We're talking sizzling SaaS, GenAI, mobile apps that dodge the crash landing🛬☝🏻, web experiences smoother than silk 🧈and cloud applications that, well, exist in the cloud 🌩️ (shocking, I know). So ditch the ramen diet and let's turn your million-dollar idea into a reality... even if it's just a really good app for identifying pigeons wearing hats.🗿 Reach out today! #OpenForBusiness #NapkinToNextBigThing (Probably not a fidget spinner again, please.)

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