Category: Entrepreneurship

Entrepreneurship

Entrepreneurship

Early Exits Your Golden Opportunity Part 1

by Basil Peters | June 18, 2009 | one response

Early Exits - Your Golden Opportunity - Part 1

Highlights of Early Exits - Your Golden Opportunity - Part 1:

  • Entrepreneurs have complex motivations - why are you doing this? The truth about investors. The big news today is the large number of small exits. Most exits are under $20 million.
  • Examples of great companies that sold for under $30 million. Why this is happening now. How early can you sell your compa...

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Entrepreneurship

Start Up Now Keynote Speech at Enterprize 2009

by Basil Peters | February 7, 2009 | no responses

Start Up Now - Keynote Speech at Enterprize 2009

As part of putting something back, I often speak to students about starting companies - ideally while they are still at university. This is a video of my Awards Dinner Keynote speech at Enterprise 2009.Enterprise 2009 on February 7, 2009. My goal was to encourage more students to start companies while they are still at university. I included s...

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Angel Investing

The Built to Flip Controversy

by Basil Peters | October 1, 2008 | 2 Comments

When I first blogged about early exits in BC all of the comments were negative. This wasn't surprising. A lot has been written about the negatives of startups being 'built to flip". The term has a negative connotation - as if something improper is being done. The most popular article on this topic, titled "Built to Flip" was written by Jim Collins and published in Fast Company...

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Angel Investing

Early Exits are Good for Everyone

by Basil Peters | September 1, 2008 | 2 Comments

Whenever I hear an entrepreneur, or angel investor, say “early exit” they have a really big smile on their face. Even some of my VC friends beam when they talk about the jump in their returns if they've gotten lucky with an early exit. In my experience, almost everyone wins in an early exit – the entrepreneurs, the employee share and option holders and the angel investors certainly do. I do acknowledge there are times when early exits are not...

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Angel Investing

Early Exits and Internet Acceleration

by Basil Peters | August 1, 2008 | one response

Companies are being acquired at earlier and earlier stages – often just 2 or 3 years from startup. Why is this happening now? A large part of the answer is that this is another natural consequence of the internet - part of the development of our economy and the evolution of our species. There are some excellent early exit stories in BC. Early exits helped make my Read More

Angel Investing

Early Exits – We Do Them Well in BC

by Basil Peters | July 1, 2008 | no responses

We are better at early exits in BC and Alberta than in any other province in Canada or state in the US. This conclusion came from an excellent research study led by Thomas Hellmann at the UBC Sauder School of Business. This was a significant research project conducted to the highest academic standards. Thomas and his colleagues analyzed 509 exits of Canadian venture capital backed companies that generated a total exit value of $30 billion and compa...

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