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November 25, 2021

Helpful resources and tools for Start-up Founders, Angel Investors and anyone interested in Venture Capital

by Kristjan Raude

A list of useful resources, including podcasts, books and websites that can help guide you on your start-up journey whether you are a founder, an angel investor, or just have an interest in the start-up scene.

The team at Funderbeam have been involved in the start-up industry for a long time, with experience as investors, founders, fundraisers and of course, as part of a community that has raised over €48m in funding to date in growth companies (as of Nov 2021).

We decided to list some of our favourite resources that we have used, and continue to use along the way.

Books about Venture Capital, Start-Ups and Growth

These are some of our favourite books that cover Growth, Start-Ups and Angel Investing

J. Calacanis “Angel”

Advice on how to invest in tech start-ups from an experienced Angel Investor, who wasn’t born into the life he created for himself. This is a genuine hustle book, and is all about changing mindset when it comes to investing.

Brad Feld & Jason Mendelson “Venture Deals”

This is a great book for those that want to know a bit more about how VC deals come together, written by two people who have the experience to explain it all in a clear, non-ambiguous way,

“Invested Investor” Peter Cowley

A book for angels and entrepreneurs that aims to provide a guide to some potential pitfalls in the early stage investment space…

David Rose “Angel Investing”

David looks to add some fun to the sometimes daunting process of setting up n start-up investment portfolio. With stories from the 90+ companies David has invested in over the years.

Eric Ries “Lean startup,”

An approach to setting up a business which puts an emphasis on testing the company vision on a regular basis, and using a scientific strategy to manage a start-up company.

Peter Thiel “Zero to One,”

A great read that is all about building the future, focusing on what problems people are NOT solving yet.

Sean Ellis “Hacking Growth”

Somewhat of a bible amongst growth disciples, Hacking Growth is a must read for anyone looking to exponentially scale a start-up.

Ash Maurya: “Scaling Lean”

A superb resource for creating genuine models that help measure success. By focusing on such clear deliverables, Ash makes it easy to understand where along the way you should be doing what interventions, and in what fashion.

Reid Hoffman: “Blitzscaling”

When you are growing fast, you need to be able to scale things in an appropriate manner. This is not just about increasing revenues and adding zero’s to a valuation, this is about learning to grow in a sustainable fashion.

Geoffrey Moore: “Crossing the Chasm” (3rd edition)

Worth reading if you are focused in the tech space. This is all about how people adopt new technology and the importance of understanding that lifecycle in the context of your business.

Gabriel Weinberg: “Traction”

This is a must read for those looking to add new customers, and how to treat them once you have added them!

Podcasts – A list of our favourite podcasts about Angel Investing, Start-Up’s and Venture Capital

Hoffman “Masters of Scale”

An Podcast hosted by Ried Hoffman, a co-founder of Linkedin.

Jason Calacanis “This week in Startups”

Jason interviews the world’s greatest founders, investors and operators.

Jason Calacanis “Angel”

Jason also has a second podcast in which he interviews Angels and VC’s about their investment experiences.

Acquired

Acquired brings you the stories of the largest tech IPOs and acquisitions in history.

A16z podcast

A catch all podcast for discussions about innovation, technology and the role it has in modern society.

Invest Like the Best with Patrick

Exploring the methods and stories of successful investors to help inspire you to improve your own investing strategy.

The Sifted podcast

Bringing together all sorts of stories on tech and the start-up scene in Europe.

News & blogs covering all things tech, start-up and Venture Capital

Techcrunch.com

One of the biggest sites covering all things in the tech and start-up scene.

Sifted.eu

Quite simply a brilliant site covering start-ups, tech and all things Venture Capital.

Paul Graham

Don’t be fooled by the minimalist design of this site, check out the essays and the other wealth of information available to you in this impressive collection.

The Angel VC

Musings from a successful VC, with regular, down to earth blog posts on how to improve your start-ups chance of success.

The SaaS metrics that matter

A really good guide to looking at the metrics that really matter.

Research, data & useful guides

Here we list some websites and various guides for you to check out as and when you may need them. From advice on pitch decks, to growth calculators and start-up focused white papers.

Useful Websites and Links on Angel Investing, Start-ups, and the VC space

CB Insights captures lots of data on Venture Capital, Start-ups and all things tech

CBInsights.com

Crunchbase – One of the biggest portals for information on all things start-up business

Crunchbase.com

10 Years First Round – A really interesting set of observations from a company bridging the gap between seed funding and Series A

http://10years.firstround.com/

Various Guides and Reports

Hayden Capital Quarterly Report

http://www.haydencapital.com/wp-content/uploads/Hayden-Capital-Quarterly-Letter-2021-Q1.pdf?fbclid=IwAR2hsLP3nom4s9ZZz5Md-OLIOE6d_sdVmm7r-lr-4PlB0OKQ1h1qm2gKXjc

Syndicate Room – Publicly available guides

https://www.syndicateroom.com/guides-and-reports

The Enterprise-Sales Learning Curve

https://www.khoslaventures.com/wp-content/uploads/The-Enterprise-Sales-Learning-Curve.pdf

A Quantitative approach to market fit

https://tribecap.co/a-quantitative-approach-to-product-market-fit/

A16Z – Why they prefer founding CEO’s

https://a16z.com/2010/04/28/why-we-prefer-founding-ceos/

Value Led Growth Pricing

https://jinken.substack.com/p/value-led-growth-pricing

Baltics – A Start-up Funding Report

https://www.changeventures.com/baltic-startup-funding-report

Example of a good pitch deck from Sifted

https://sifted.eu/articles/seedcamp-78m-fund-pitchdeck/

Startup Estonia White Papter:

https://media.voog.com/0000/0037/5345/files/Startup%20Estonia%20White%20Paper%202021-2027.pdf

A post mortem on start-up failure

https://www.cbinsights.com/research/startup-failure-post-mortem/

Growth Calculator Tool

http://growth.tlb.org/#_.eyJ1bml0cyI6Im1vbnRoIiwicmV2MCI6Mjg0LCJleHAwIjozNjM5LCJyZXZHcm93dGgiOjAuMDIyMjk2MzQ0OTU1OTczMjEzfQ==

Share your deck

https://brieflink.com/

Lead investor: What does a lead investor do?

https://www.saastr.com/what-does-a-lead-investor-do/

A Guide to Series A Fundraising from Kindred Capital

https://kindredcapital.medium.com/a-practical-guide-to-series-a-fundraising-part-1-940f0616bb9b#3c8b and

https://kindredcapital.medium.com/a-practical-guide-to-series-a-fundraising-part-2-969ea2e3e427 

Option plan

https://www.indexventures.com/optionplan/#expected_funding_rounds_pre_exit=series-b-and-c&employee_country=us&mode=seed

Estonia Model Documents

https://startupestonia.ee/resources

EU Startups

https://app.europeanstartups.co/dashboard

Cap table tool

https://calculator.ledgy.com/5xHoQuLXdR9Rpgq2N

Alex Danco’s Newsletter

https://danco.substack.com/p/why-the-canadian-tech-scene-doesnt

How to build a billion dollar marketplace!

https://andrewchen.com/how-to-build-a-billion-dollar-digital-marketplace-examples-from-uber-ebay-craigslist-and-more/

Amazon Narratives – the Futures Podcast

https://future.a16z.com/podcasts/working-backwards-amazon-bezos-memos-releases-narratives/

How to Angel Invest – in two parts

https://nav.al/angel-1 and https://nav.al/angel-2

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