As the online sectors continues to mature, there are more ways to finance your business and increase your growth without sacrificing a large amount of equity. By financing several fast-growing websites, my company has gained a perspective on how the landscape is changing. Here are a few lessons we've learned along the way.
1. Most Capital Raises Have Gotten Smaller
We've all been reading about the series of huge raises that Groupon, Zynga, Facebook and Twitter have completed recently. However, on the other end of the spectrum, startup capital isn't as big budget as it was in the ’90s. The technology to manage and monetize websites has gotten a lot cheaper and easier to deploy. While this means tha t there are fewer barriers to entry nowadays, the downside is that investors simply don't want to invest as much, even in very strong ideas.
A web entrepreneur today is expected to make every dollar count. By leveraging mature open source frameworks and working with cutting edge programming languages and techniques, you should be able to keep your costs under control. As hardware gets cheaper, using languages such as Python and Ruby almost act as virtual leverage, enabling you to afford to create far more for far less. Dynamic language frameworks and barebones budgets are the secret driving force behind the design and ultimate success of Twitter. Doing more with less is always a winning strategy.
2. Angels Have Gotten Organized
Angel investors aren't the exception — they've become the rule. With the multitude of tech billionaires active in Silicon Valley today, angels are beginning to form organizations that rival venture capita l funds in terms of talent and...
