David Cummings

Outstanding summary Patrick, was prepared for a piece of dry content marketing but many gold nuggets as usual!

I would add a couple of supplementals unique to 2018 for those of us raising capital in a SAAS or looking to liquidate:

1) The "SAAS Napkin" for 2018, a survey of ~50 Series A / Series B funded companies that have shared with regard to growth / churn / etc. Links here https://www.producthunt.com/posts/saas-funding-napkin-3 and explanation here https://medium.com/point-nine-news/what-does-it-take-to-raise-capital-in-saas-in-2018-204d0a46cb23

2) The fascinating rise of Private Equity companies as a liquidity / funding option outside of larger co Acquisition / VC money as observed by the founder of Pardot (~$100m exit to SalesForce) - https://davidcummings.org/2017/10/03/private-equity-as-the-saas-savior/

Is your company profitable now? Are you selling your product now? If not, you're just gonna burn an extra $15K out of the gate. I can think of MANY better uses for $15K than on a domain. Can't you?

I am a perfectionist so in theory I love the idea of getting the perfect domain name. In practice, I would urge you to register an original domain name (unless money is no object for you). The perfect domain is nice, but not essential. Do you really need pizza.com (sold $2.6 million in 2008) to sell pizza?

Two final comments:

- You will have leverage with investors when you're making money.

- Helpful guidelines for choosing a domain: see http://davidcummings.org/2010/05/29/the-domain-name-challenge/ and http://davidcummings.org/2010/08/07/more-domain-name-searching-tips/

Entrepreneurship:

http://cdixon.org/

http://derekandersen.me/

http://davidcummings.org/

http://viniciusvacanti.com/

http://www.steveblank.com/

http://37signals.com/svn

Startup/Tech Marketing:

http://www.responsys.com/blogs/nsm/

http://startup-marketing.com/

http://blog.kissmetrics.com/

http://unbounce.com/blog/

Venture Capital:

http://bhorowitz.com/

http://www.bothsidesofthetable.com/

http://www.feld.com/wp/

http://www.avc.com/

http://vcinjerusalem.typepad.com/vcinjerusalem/

http://sixkidsandafulltimejob.blogspot.com/

http://redeye.firstround.com/

http://informationarbitrage.com/

Costs are low enough in Atlanta that you can actually start your business without raising capital. Unthinkable, at least for an extended period of time, in most other cities.

Most businesses shouldn't raise money either because they're not going to grow fast enough to fit the VC model or they're going to dilute the founders so much that the wind gets sucked out of the sails. For example, learn from an Atlantan that just sold his Pardot no-investor-raised-money business for $95 million, http://davidcummings.org/2010/05/08/when-raising-money-makes-sense/.

Working on answering my own question here, in the hopes that this may help someone else down the road. Here's one article that argues against startups going down the "white label" path:

http://www.startupcfo.ca/2012/06/why-i-hate-white-labeling-for-startups/

And another that takes a dim view of pure "white labeling" but suggests co-branding as a valid option:

http://davidcummings.org/2011/08/11/white-labeled-software-strategies-for-startups/

s-1
https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=11779453

s-2 amendment
https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=11893368

Summary
https://davidcummings.org/2016/05/26/notes-from-twilio-s-1-ipo-filing/