Jonathan Greechan’s Post

Fresh Q2 2024 data on US startup valuations 📈 To the primary round data: 𝗣𝗿𝗲-𝗦𝗲𝗲𝗱 (𝗿𝗼𝘂𝗻𝗱𝘀 𝗼𝗳 $𝟭𝗠-$𝟮𝗠 𝗼𝗻 𝗦𝗔𝗙𝗘𝘀 𝗼𝗿 𝗡𝗼𝘁𝗲𝘀) • Q1: $9M val cap median • Q2: $10 val cap median • Honestly this bounces around this range, so no major change 𝗦𝗲𝗲𝗱 𝗼𝗻 𝗦𝗔𝗙𝗘𝘀 (𝗿𝗼𝘂𝗻𝗱𝘀 𝗼𝗳 $𝟮𝗠+ 𝗼𝗻 𝗦𝗔𝗙𝗘𝘀) • Q1: $13M val cap (post-money SAFE) • Q2: $14M val cap • Again, nothing major 𝗣𝗿𝗶𝗰𝗲𝗱 𝗦𝗲𝗲𝗱 • $12.6M in Q1, rose to $14.1M in Q2 • Pretty close to all-time highs for pre-money valuation 𝗦𝗲𝗿𝗶𝗲𝘀 𝗔 • Effectively flat from Q1 to Q2, steady at $40M pre-money valuation 𝗦𝗲𝗿𝗶𝗲𝘀 𝗕 • 13% rise to a $124M in Q2 𝗦𝗲𝗿𝗶𝗲𝘀 𝗖 • A nice, round $200M median in Q2 The overall trend is for these pre-money valuations to continue to tick upwards from recent lows in 2023 - but all of these valuation changes are happening against a backdrop of fewer total rounds. We don't have a full count of fundraising activity from Q2 yet (full report out in ~3 weeks) but my educated guess is that Q2 was only a slightly better quarter in total rounds and cash than Q1. For more data including round sizes and splits by primary/bridge, be sure to check out the First Cut: State of Private Markets report live now at Carta. Download the addendum for even more precise figures. Give me a shout in the comments for a direct link or if an Excel version would be useful! #cartadata #startups #valuations #founders #fundraising  

Maven is having a killer quarter after a strong last 12 months. People rarely share this publicly, so here's an insider look into how we've navigated product/market fit: Maven’s initial launch was wildly successful. We started a movement. The phrase we coined, “cohort-based course,” showed up in countless startup pitch decks. We were on a $4M GMV run rate in 3 months. It was intoxicating. After the launch energy faded, we faced reality. We had no product: we were hand-holding instructors behind the scenes. This resulted in a 73% instructor revenue retention rate, and many instructors were telling us we weren’t critical to their business. Today: It took 2 years, but we’re now at 120-140% instructor revenue retention. Our business is growing despite a tough market, and professionals are actually using (and loving) our product to speed up their careers. We made a few critical decisions that led to 3 big breakthroughs: Breakthrough #1: We started by looking at follower counts; now we focus on real professional expertise. Our first persona was creators with 100ks of followers, but Maven was often their 3rd or 4th priority. Simply put, they didn’t NEED us, but they were bringing in a ton of revenue. We shifted away from creators to experts, eventually losing 95% of our first $4M in course sales. This shift took 2 years, but it worked – Maven now has hundreds of “subject matter expert” instructors who have spent 10-15 years in their field. Today, Maven has its killer value proposition: we offer ambitious professionals access to the experienced operators to take their career to the next level. Lesson: Persona is key. Focusing on who really needs your product is more important than short-term traction. Sometimes the early signals are wrong, and you need to course correct. Breakthrough #2: We started as a platform; now Maven is a marketplace. When starting Maven, I envied the Substack business and modeled Maven off of it. Maven would provide software while the creator would bring the users. This was a failure of “business by analogy.” In the course world, instructors didn’t value software the way creators did in the newsletter world. They demanded we create a marketplace, and students were increasingly asking us why they couldn’t easily find great courses on Maven. I knew from my time at Udemy and Lyft how hard it is to build a two-sided marketplace, so I resisted this for 1.5 years of heavy internal debate. Eventually, we launched the Maven marketplace. Now, hundreds of thousands of students browse Maven’s courses to find something that can help them in their careers. 25%+ of all course sales come from Maven’s marketing, which has been critical to our instructors and students. Lesson: Find your own path. You can be inspired by other companies, but ultimately every market and situation is different. Be willing to change even the big things when your customer demands it. I reached LinkedIn's character limit so check the comments for the rest!

Excited to host James Currier from NFX as our next Venture Trailblazer. They built powerful free tools for Founders and VCs, like Signal, which I recommend for fundraising.

🚀🌴Big Thanks to Startup Grind Miami & Mana Tech for an amazing event tonight with us at Founder Institute #Florida. -> Roxette Irvine, Molly Walsh, James Irvine 👏👏 We all enjoyed an insightful fireside chat with Kwamara Thompson and Jonathan Greechan, FI Co-Founder & CEO, and heard stories about the #VC and #startup industry from back in 2009 when Founder Institute started. Did you know, the first ever FI session was held at a class room at Stanford University that happen to be available in the evenings and they were thinking to record the sessions and sell DVDs to make money. Kudos to Joan Zhang, Dr. Lascelle A. Sweetland MS, MBA, Ed.D & Ines Lucena for a great event!