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We made it to Friday, folks. If you’re anything like me, that means ending the workday with a well-deserved nap and reruns of “The Office.” Tweet, honk or After to me about your favorite way to end the week.
Mark your calendar for one Twitter Space event on Tuesday, December 13 at 1PM PST / 4PM EST with Builders VC investor Andrew Chenwith whom will speak Walter about the role technical reporting plays in shaping ecosystems.
See you on Monday! — Christine
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The businesskinda.com Top 3
Startups and VC
More layoffs this week if Ingrid reports on Primer, an e-commerce infrastructure start-up in the UK that announced it was laying off a third of its staff due to a series of restructurings to manage current and future trading market conditions.
In the meantime, Hey believes you need the perfect summary slide for your pitch deck and has found some for you (requires a businesskinda.com+ subscription).
And we have three more for you:
How to respond when a VC asks about your startup’s valuation
Image Credits: boschetto photography (Opens in a new window) /Getty Images
When a VC inevitably asks about your valuation expectations, it’s a trick question: If your answer is too high, that’s a red flag, while a lowball number undervalues the company.
“We’ll let the market price this round” is an appropriate answer, but only if you’ve already gathered substantial data points from other investors — and can respond with a few questions of your own, says Evan Fisher, founder of Unicorn Capital.
“If that’s all you’re saying, you’re in trouble because it could also be interpreted as ‘we have no idea’ or ‘we’re taking what we’re given,'” Fisher said.
Rather than being left out in the cold, he advises founders to pre-pitch investors of their next round and use takeaways from those conversations to shape current valuations.
In the article, Fisher includes sample questions “you’ll want to ask any VC you speak to,” along with other tips that will help “when they ask the valuation question.”
Three more from the TC+ team:
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Big Tech Inc.
We’re here with our mouths open when we learned that crypto news publication The Block received some significant – and undisclosed – loans from former FTX CEO Sam Bankman-Fried’s Alameda Research company. As a result, CEO Michael McCaffrey is gone and Bobby Moran, the company’s chief revenue officer, takes over the role, but if Jaquelyn and Alex write, now the conflict of interest will take some time to recover, if at all possible.
While we wait for the Federal Trade Commission to send news of Microsoft’s fate with Activision, Kyle writes that the cloud services giant has acquired another company, this time Lumenisity, a startup developing high-speed cables for transmitting data.
And three more for you:
Janice has been with businesskinda for 5 years, writing copy for client websites, blog posts, EDMs and other mediums to engage readers and encourage action. By collaborating with clients, our SEO manager and the wider businesskinda team, Janice seeks to understand an audience before creating memorable, persuasive copy.