By David Norris in Friday Feeding — Jun 27, 2014

Friday Feeding Vol. 16

Each Friday I share 5 articles that I found interesting or useful.

This week, these 5 stood out...

Wow - this is an excellent read. Startups are hard. What does it feel like to fail? "We had users and traction, then we fell off a cliff. My 4 year emotional rollercoaster just came to an end." Kudos to Nikki for sharing like this.

Great framework. "A concise, easy way to communicate customer needs to design and engineering teams to build the right things."

How do you value a startup? Chris explains that "In early stage finance, valuation is driven much more by your relative position in the valuation stack than any measure of "intrinsic" value."

Gabriel states, "Once you raise money from a professional investor, your interests are fully aligned: everyone wants to see the biggest exit in the shortest amount of time. ...All of this is AFTER the investment." He points out that "the longer the process takes, the more information they will have on your business" (and therefore be in a better position to decide). Personally, I do not wish to ever consciously take advantage of an entrepreneur in this situation; I know how stressful it is to be looking at the end of the runway. He suggests leaving plenty of time for fundraising (I agree on that point). All said, my view is that the best approach is to generate competition for the deal so that you're not reliant on one investor. Easier said than done.

Interesting findings here in a US survey of ecommerce customers, notably that men drive just as much spending online as women and that men are more likely to make purchases on mobile. I wonder if this is because men value function and convenience over experience?