ICP (Ideal Customer Profile) is the codified description of the company or person most likely to buy your product, succeed with it, and retain. It applies to the type of company (B2B) or person (B2C) most likely to buy, succeed, retain, expand, and refer, used to focus sales targeting, marketing messaging, product investment, and pricing on the highest-leverage segment rather than chasing every possible buyer. It is distinct from a buyer persona: ICP describes the account or household; the persona describes the individual decision-maker inside it.
A useful B2B ICP includes firmographic attributes (industry, employee count, revenue range, geography), technographic attributes (current stack, integrations, data maturity), behavioral attrib...
A partner meeting is the meeting at a venture firm where the full partnership reviews a startup and votes on issuing a term sheet. Often called the "Monday meeting" because many VC firms hold their full-partnership meeting on Monday mornings, it happens after the startup has progressed through earlier stages of diligence, and the vote (formal or informal) determines whether a fundraise round actually happens for that firm. It is the meeting founders prepare for most carefully and the meeting where the deal can fall apart based on a single skeptical partner's pushback.
The structure of a typical partner meeting: the sponsoring partner (the partner who's been working with the startup through earlier meetings, often after an in...
An online startup is a company that delivers its product or service entirely or primarily through the internet, with no required physical presence. The model encompasses SaaS, e-commerce, content and media businesses, online marketplaces, and digital service businesses, with no required physical retail location, manufacturing footprint, or in-person service component. It is distinguished from traditional startups by its ability to acquire customers, serve them, and bill them without ever meeting in person.
The four main online startup models each have distinct economics. SaaS (software as a service): customers subscribe to access cloud-hosted software, with recurring revenue and gross margins typically in the 70 to 85 percent...
Paid acquisition is the practice of buying user or customer traffic through paid advertising channels. Channels include search, social, display, video, affiliate, podcast, and influencer, where the marketer pays per click, impression, install, or completed action. It is the fastest-feedback channel in growth marketing and the most ruthless: every dollar in produces a measurable result, and every channel either pays for itself within a defined window or gets cut.
The major paid channels for startups in 2025 and 2026 are paid search (Google Ads, Bing Ads), paid social (Meta, TikTok, LinkedIn, X, Reddit, Pinterest), display and retargeting (Google Display Network, programmatic DSPs), video (YouTube, connected TV), and increasi...
Market research is the systematic gathering and analysis of information about a market (customers, competitors, dynamics, trends, size, segments) to inform strategic and operational decisions. It's conducted through primary research (customer interviews, surveys, focus groups, ethnographic studies) and secondary research (industry reports, public data, competitor analysis, academic studies). It's used at strategic inflection points (founding, market entry, new product launch, pivot decisions) and ongoing (customer feedback loops, competitive monitoring). Discipline varies between consumer-product startups (heavy survey and observational research) and B2B startups (deeper customer interviews with fewer subjects). It is the di...
Outbound marketing is the practice of initiating contact with potential customers through cold email, cold calls, paid interruption advertising, and other push channels. Channels include cold email, cold calls, LinkedIn outreach, direct mail, and paid interruption advertising (display, paid social, TV, radio, podcast ads), where the marketer reaches out to the prospect rather than waiting for the prospect to find them through search or content. It is the methodological counterpart to inbound marketing and the bedrock of most modern B2B sales-development motions.
The modern B2B outbound playbook in 2025 is mostly cold email and LinkedIn at the sales-development tier, supported by intent-data tools (6sense, Demandbase, Bomb...
An independent contractor is a worker engaged by a company on a contract basis rather than as an employee, receiving 1099 income rather than W-2. Contractors control their own work hours, methods, and tools to a significant degree, typically work on specific projects with defined deliverables, and are not eligible for company-provided benefits (health insurance, 401k, paid time off, equity grants in standard employee plans). Proper classification is determined by specific IRS and state-law tests (the IRS uses a "right to control" test with multiple factors; California uses the strict ABC test under AB-5), and misclassification creates significant tax, legal, and financial exposure for companies. It is one of the most-...
An angel investor is an individual who invests their own personal money in early-stage startups, typically $10,000 to $250,000 per deal. The investment is usually in exchange for equity through SAFEs, convertible notes, or priced rounds. Angels usually invest at the pre-seed and seed stages, often before institutional venture capital firms get involved, and they are one of the primary categories of [Startup Investment] at the earliest stages. Many were former startup founders or operators investing back into the ecosystem they came from.
Angels in the US must qualify as accredited investors under SEC Regulation D ($200,000+ annual income, $300,000+ with a spouse, or $1 million+ net worth excluding primary residence), though e...
A financial model is a spreadsheet or planning system that projects a company's revenue, expenses, cash flow, headcount, and key metrics into the future. The model serves as the operating planning document (drives hiring decisions, budget allocation, runway analysis), the capital-raising document (investors review it in diligence), and the board reporting document (actuals are compared against it each month). Model quality is a meaningful signal about how rigorously the company runs its operations. It is the document where many decisions ultimately get tested before they're made.
The core components of a financial model:
Revenue model:
QSBS (Qualified Small Business Stock) is an IRS provision under Section 1202 that excludes up to $10M-$15M (or 10x basis) in capital gains from federal tax. The One Big Beautiful Bill Act (signed July 4, 2025) created a two-regime structure: stock issued on or before July 4, 2025 follows the pre-OBBBA rules ($10M or 10x cost basis cap, $50M gross-assets ceiling, 5-year hold for the full exclusion); stock issued after July 4, 2025 follows the OBBBA rules ($15M cap inflation-adjusted after 2026, $75M gross-assets ceiling, tiered holding with 50% exclusion at 3 years, 75% at 4 years, 100% at 5 years, maximum exclusion up to $750 million). The exclusion is available to founders, early employees, and early investors. It is one of the most v...