Entrepreneurship

Frequent Terms

• Ponzi scheme
• Non consensus belief - big need and market

Zero to 1

Some takeaways from Peter Thiel’s book.

Secrets

• What secrets are people not telling you?

  • Secrets, people don’t know about themselves
  • Secrets, they hide because they don’t want others to know.

Ask yourself

• What is forbidden or taboo?
• What are people not allowed to talk about?

Best place to look for secrets is where no one else is looking 👀.

Gary Vaynerchuk said on Instagram: Go acyclical! If they don’t do things a certain way in a particular industry, do it. E.g. if pharmacy is not on Instagram, go there.

Resources and Quotes

• How to Start a Startup - by Sam Altman - best Online Course for Entrepreneurship
• Startup Cemetery: Learn from failed startups
• What makes Entrepreneurs entrepreneurial shared by Besiana Bella from the EF Berlin team

• Sales

  “If you didn’t make 10 sales, you’re not an entrepreneur”

  Quote from Sales advisor Sander Bohlen (Berlin)

Business tools and helpful tips

Pitch Decks

• OpenDeck - 1,200+ startup slides. Searchable by category. Free forever.

  • Free, search for nice slides

• Guy Kawasaki - The Only 10 Slides You Need in Your Pitch

  • The classic advice on how to build a good slide deck
• Great Pitch Deck Examples
• 25+ Best Pitch Deck Examples, Tips & Templates for 2019
• Some classical pitch decks

Ideation

• The 7 All-time Greatest Ideation Techniques

Process Management

Burnout - Connected Apps to run your startup

Entrepreneurship Programs and Opportunities

International

• Entrepreneurs Organization is a network for entrepreneurs (with a good community in Berlin I heard)

Germany

• Erasmus für junge Unternehmer/innen

Fundraising

• A Guide to Seed Fundraising
• The equity equation

Glossary

• Accreditation: An investor is “accredited” according to the SEC if she either A), has a personal net worth of over $1M, not including real estate (it’s unclear whether stock you hold counts toward your net worth), or B), has made a salary of over $200k over the past two years individually, or over $300k over the past two years jointly with a spouse. Technically you have to be accredited to make angel investments, although those requirements become fuzzier when you’re investing other people’s money. Accreditation is designed to protect investors from investing money that they aren’t wealthy enough to afford to lose, and does not take into account how knowledgeable or experienced investors are.
• Common stock A class of stock belonging to the founders and the employees of a startup. The most basic unit of equity ownership.
• Convertible note or debt A form of short-term debt that converts into equity, typically in conjunction with a future financing round; in effect, the investor is loaning money to a startup and instead of a return in the form of principal plus interest, the investor expects to get equity in the company.
• Debt A loan from investors that is never meant to be paid back. It is intended to convert into stock at a future date, based on some to-be-determined price. It assumes that you’re investing in a fast-growing company that will raise subsequent financing rounds quickly.
• Dilution As companies grow and become more valuable, they take in more outside funding. The new investors take equity in the company, reducing the amount that current shareholders own. If a new investor buys 20% of the company, the existing shareholders get diluted 20%. Even though founders generally want to avoid dilution, it’s inevitable and it means they have a smaller piece of a more valuable whole.
• Equity Stock and an ownership stake in a company. An ownership position.
• Equity round / priced round An offering and sale of newly-created stock in a company at an agreed-upon per share price.
• Post-money valuation The value of a company after a fundraising round, calculated by adding the amount raised to the pre-money valuation.
• Preferred shareholder A class of shareholders that have greater claim to the company’s assets than common stockholders and have additional rights. They are first in line to collect a payout if an exit that’s lower than the company’s valuation occurs (i.e., bankruptcy or mergers/acquisitions).
• Pre-money valuation The value of a company before a fundraising round.
• Pro rata A right to invest more capital to preserve your ownership stake in a company as it raises additional rounds.
• SAFE Stands for Simple Agreement for Future Equity. A simple mechanism to make an investment in an early-stage startup. With a SAFE, you are buying the right to buy into a future equity round at a cheaper price.
• Term sheet An agreement in principle that outlines the terms of an investment deal. It is not a contract or a promise to invest, and thus is not binding and does not mean that the investment deal is completed. Think of it as a signal that investors are interested. Some investors only offer term sheets if they’re committed and certain they want to invest (like us at Accomplice); others offer term sheets more freely.

Taken from here.