
Inflection Points: Bravery vs. Foolishness - transburgh
http://randfishkin.com/blog/113/inflection-points-bravery-vs-foolishness
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dshah
Probably one of the most brilliantly transparent blog posts I've seen from an
entrepreneur, ever.

My advice to Rand:

1) Don't overthink valuation. 2) The partner is the most important component.
3) You'd be an idiot not to take _some_ money off the table. 4) If you're
going to raise, raise now.

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carbocation
> That said, if the market takes a downturn, we could be looking at 3-5X
> valuation instead – it’s hard to know if Mark Suster’s advice (raise money
> now so when the party’s over, you’re sitting pretty) on this point is right
> and raising money in a good climate is the right thing, or if Warren
> Buffet’s contrarian viewpoint better applies (be fearful when others are
> greedy; be greedy when others are fearful).

Those two pieces of advice (raise money during bubbles vs be fearful when
others are greedy) actually seem aligned. One is from the perspective of the
business raising capital, and the other is from the perspective of the
capitalist looking to make an investment. The business raising capital is
happy to take advantage of irrational exuberance (if it puts them into an
advantageous position), while the investor is wary of being irrationally
exuberant.

In other words, these don't seem to be opposing pieces of advice, but rather
advice coming from opposite perspectives (the capitalist vs the entrepreneur).

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known
Aren't these points covered if we do a SWOT analysis before we do a startup?
<http://www.netmba.com/strategy/swot/>

