Cofounder search is the process of identifying and recruiting a co-founder for a startup, typically through existing networks, cofounder-matching platforms, or industry events. Networks include former colleagues, school friends, and mutual introductions through trusted contacts. Platforms include Y Combinator Co-Founder Matching, CoFoundersLab, and FoundersList. Events include hackathons, founder meetups, pitch competitions, and accelerator demo days. The search is most commonly pursued by non-technical founders looking for a technical cofounder, technical founders looking for a business cofounder, or solo founders seeking general partnership. Network-based recruiting has dramatically higher success rates than platform-base...
A non-compete agreement is a contractual provision restricting a former employee from working for competitors for a defined period within a defined geographic scope. Sometimes standalone, sometimes part of an employment agreement or restrictive covenants, it typically runs 6-24 months and covers specific cities, states, or worldwide. Employers use non-competes to protect against employees taking competitive knowledge and customer relationships to competitors. Enforceability varies dramatically by jurisdiction (unenforceable in California, North Dakota, Oklahoma; varying in other states; federal rule changes in 2024-2025 affected enforceability for many workers). It is one of the most-litigated and most-jurisdiction-dep...
Venture capital (VC) is institutional money invested in early- and growth-stage private startups by professional fund managers in exchange for preferred equity. The expectation is a 10x or larger return at a successful exit (acquisition or IPO). It is the dominant funding source for high-growth, high-risk technology companies that need significant capital before they can become profitable.
A venture capital firm is organized as a fund with three roles: limited partners (LPs) who provide the capital (pension funds, endowments, family offices, sovereign wealth, high-net-worth individuals), general partners (GPs) who manage the fund and make investment decisions, and the portfolio companies the fund invests in. A t...
The Rule of 40 is the SaaS heuristic stating that revenue growth rate plus profit margin should be 40% or more. The metric provides a single number balancing growth (which drives valuation but costs cash) and profitability (which signals capital efficiency). It is widely used by SaaS investors as a quick health check at growth and scale-up companies, with the underlying logic being that companies should either grow fast enough to justify burn (high growth + negative profit OK) or be profitable enough to justify slower growth (modest growth + positive profit OK). It is a useful directional metric and one frequently misapplied at early-stage where the math doesn't work yet.
The calculation:
Basic formula:
A vision statement is the articulation of the future state the company is working to create, typically 5-20 years out. It provides direction for strategic decisions and inspiration for the team. The vision sits alongside but distinct from the mission statement (which describes what the company does now). Vision statements are often more aspirational and abstract than mission statements (which should be concrete and present-tense). The rare good vision statements paint a specific enough picture of the future that they actually guide long-term strategic choices. It is one of the higher-leverage documents at company founding when written well and one of the most-skipped or most-generic when written poorly.
The components of a ...
A Certificate of Good Standing is the state-issued document confirming a corporation or LLC is properly registered, current on filings, and authorized to do business. Also called a Certificate of Existence, Certificate of Status, or Certificate of Authorization depending on the state, it is commonly required during fundraising due diligence, M&A processes, foreign qualification in additional states, opening business bank accounts, and certain commercial contracts where counterparties want to verify the entity is in good standing. It is the "proof of compliance" document that surfaces during transactions and reveals any administrative debt the company has accumulated.
The basics: each state's Secretary of State o...
Series B funding is a growth-stage equity round raised to scale a business that has already proven its model. The round expands the team, market reach, sales capacity, and revenue engine, with investors focused on growth efficiency and a clear path to market leadership rather than on finding product-market fit (which should already be established). It's where the focus shifts from "find what works" to "scale what works."
The 2025 benchmarks (Carta and PitchBook):
| Metric | 2025 typical range | Notes |
|---|---|---|
| Round size | $30M-$40M | $40M-$80M for hot sectors or larger ARR companies |
| Post-money valuation | $120M-$160M (median ~$135M) | Down from $200M+ peaks in 2021 |
| Pre-money valuation | $90M-$130M | After pool refresh |
| Founder dilution | 15... |
Jobs To Be Done (JTBD) is a customer-research framework focused on the underlying job a customer hires a product to do, not demographics or features. The job covers the functional progress the customer is trying to make plus the emotional and social dimensions. The central thesis is that people don't buy products, they hire products to make progress in their lives. It was popularized by Harvard Business School professor Clayton Christensen in The Innovator's Solution (2003) and Competing Against Luck (2016), drawing on earlier work by Anthony Ulwick (Outcome-Driven Innovation, ODI).
The canonical illustration is the milkshake story from Christensen's research with a fast-food chain: the chain wanted to sell more milkshakes a...
A Stock Purchase Agreement (SPA) is the principal closing document in a priced equity financing, governing the sale and purchase of newly-issued preferred stock. It contains the financing terms (share count, price, closing date), the company's representations and warranties to investors, the conditions that must be satisfied before closing, the indemnification structure if reps prove untrue, and the closing mechanics. It is the "definitive document" of the priced round, accompanied by the certificate of incorporation amendment, the Investor Rights Agreement, the Voting Agreement, and the Right of First Refusal and Co-Sale Agreement (ROFR/Co-Sale).
The standard content of a Stock Purchase Agreement:
Product analytics is the measurement and analysis of user behavior within a product, used to understand engagement, identify friction, and inform roadmap decisions. It captures events (clicks, page views, feature usage), user properties (segments, tenure, plan tier), and funnels (multi-step journeys) through tools like Mixpanel, Amplitude, PostHog, and Heap. It is a foundational discipline for product-led companies and increasingly standard across modern SaaS. It is distinct from marketing analytics (acquisition channels) and from business intelligence (financial and operational metrics).
The core capabilities:
Event tracking: capture user actions (signup, feature use, button clicks, page views).
User identification: tie e...