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Understand the Funding Process and What Investors Want to See

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Some very small businesses—particularly those that offer the professional or personal services of a single individual—can be launched and grown with few or no resources other than human time and talent. But most businesses require some money before they can be started—to pay for software, buy tools or equipment, lease office space, or pay for the time worked by employees or outside contractors.

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Startup Strategies: The Strategic and Financial Significance of Intellectual Property

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Startups are often at the forefront of innovation, developing new technologies, products, and services that disrupt traditional industries and bring fresh ideas and approaches that drive technological advancements. In that regard, startups often rely heavily on their ideas, and the unauthorized replication of those ideas may result in a loss of control over the unique aspects of a startup’s offerings.

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Why Every Angel Needs to Invest in at Least 20 Companies

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When people hear about the 25 percent annualized rate of return that active angel investors obtain, they assume that there must be some secret involved—perhaps an old-boy network of hidden links that connects angels to brilliant entrepreneurs and tech innovators or a mathematical algorithm developed by some genius at MIT that helps angels identify and invest in the businesses that are guaranteed to be the Apples, Googles, and Facebooks of tomorrow.

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7 Tips On Written Communications To Startup Investors

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Even in this age of videos and text messages, the quickest way to kill your startup dream with investors, business partners, or even customers, is embarrassingly poor writing. Being very visible in the startup community, I still get an amazing number of badly written emails, rambling executive summaries, and business plans with one paragraph per chapter.

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Market Research in Tech: Avoiding Investment Blunders

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Know your market and competition, or don’t spend a dime on anything else. I love absolutes – statements with no wiggle room for gray-area responses. Well, here is one of those, and it deals with market research first and foremost. Let me tell you a short story at my own expense. The post Market Research in Tech: Avoiding Investment Blunders appeared first on Gust.

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What does a “discount” mean in a convertible note?

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A note is a loan. That is, a lender gives a company $100, and the company writes a note to the lender stating "we will pay you back $100 one year from today, along with 10% [or some other number] per year interest". The convertible part means that in addition to the straight repayment mentioned above, the lender and the company agree that instead of the company paying back the loan in cash, if the company raises money by selling stock to another investor before the loan is due, then the original

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What Is a C-Corporation?

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A C-Corporation, often referred to as a “C-Corp,” is a legal business structure that separates the company from its owners, providing limited liability protection to shareholders. It is the most common type of corporation in the United States, offering several benefits and flexibility for startups aiming for rapid growth and outside investment. The post What Is a C-Corporation?