Insights
What we’ve learned building companies.
Lessons from the businesses we’ve built with founders, and the ones that taught us the most.
Page 11 of 17
What every early-stage SaaS founder needs to know.Jason Lemkin is a well-known SaaS investor in the USA. He’s written some amazing posts over the years, but this one is so good, we’re republishing it, along with links to all the supplementary articles for those who want to dig deeper. You can read Jason’s original post here.Read the post →
What are the most critical factors to startup success?Here’s an example of why determination, geniality and serendipity can mean the difference between startup failure and success. I met Sophie Aubard in September 2022. She’s the the founder of Yayloh – a SaaS company that’s fixing the unbelievably broken problem of customer returns in the e-commerce space.Read the post →
What is burn rate and how do you manage it?Maintaining “a healthy burn rate” and budgeting effectively are core responsibilities for any founder. Knowing where to allocate money, and how much, will not only determine the startup’s trajectory but also whether it survives at all. So what do first-time founders need to know? What is burn rate?Read the post →
Everything you need to know about selling a sub-$50 million SaaS company.There’s so much talk about unicorns but 99% of all M&A transactions happen with almost nobody noticing, and 40% die before they had a chance to get started. Here’s what two decades of selling companies worth $5-to-$50 million teaches you, according to the Practical Founders Podcast.Read the post →
If you could incorporate your company anywhere, why pick Singapore?This article was originally published by Patrick McGonagle and his team at Singapore-based corporate services provider, Duellix. When it comes to establishing and growing a successful business, choosing the right location for incorporation is one of the first decisions you want to get right.Read the post →
Is this the best startup job application ever?If it isn’t I’d love to hear a better one. A few weeks ago we started interviewing for our first proper hire. So far we’ve bootstrapped DQ Ventures and done everything ourselves, with the help of our portfolio companies in more recent months. It’s working, so it’s time for scale.Read the post →
I want to invest in startups, should I pick deals or invest in a VC fund?TLDR: angel investing is a skill. It can take years even to start understand what horse you should back, but that’s not even the hard part. The difficult bit is seeing the right investment opportunities in the first place. It’s likely that you’ll find it impossible to get access to the best deal flow, so investing directly should be about more than making money.Read the post →
Meetings should create value not be a distraction. Here’s how.Scot Chisholm, Jeff Becker and Mike Scott, collectively, have built their own multi-million-dollar companies from scratch (and sold them), launched successful podcasts, raised/invested tens of millions in venture capital, and built expansive audiences, both for themselves and for the brands they represent. They know a thing or two about productivity.Read the post →
DealerDoc funding secured!We’re happy to share a recent success. 12 months ago, Oliver, Arjun and James met a very pleasant gentleman in the UK called Richard Hannaford. Richard brought with him two complicated spreadsheets and told the guys how much his calculations had benefitted the motor dealerships he’d been working for.Read the post →
Investor cold email template.There is no doubt that the easiest place to raise from is your personal network. Are you best friends with Marc Andreessen? Happy days. The problem is most people aren’t. Building a network is all very well, but the truth is that, for most founders (especially first-time founders) it’s impossible to build a meaningful relationship with a large enough pool of investors.Read the post →
Update: March 2023Hi everyone – we missed you in November because, for a change, we gave our investor update by video conference. Now we’re back with highlights and insights from Q1. We hope you enjoy! In this update DQ investor event Investing trends and tips DQ business update Articles and posts Oliver’s joke really hits home with the rest of the panel.Read the post →
Why do so many people want to become a startup CEO?For most founders, being a CEO is not enjoyable. It’s a high-stress, people-management job that you do because you have no other choice. You want to make your baby successful and you want your dream to come true so, quite simply, you obsess over it. You simply can’t trust anybody else to do it. What does a startup CEO actually do?Read the post →