High Tech Startup: The Complete How-To Handbook for Creating Successful New High Tech Companies - Hardcover

Nesheim, John L.

Hardcover

ISBN 10: 0914405713 ISBN 13: 9780914405719

Publisher: Electronic Trend Pubn, 1997

Synopsis

High Tech Startup was written by John Nesheim to help creative people be more successful in the process of converting a good idea into a financable business. The book focuses on high technology startups, typically venture backed. The lessons presented also apply to creating new enterprises within existing corporations.

High Tech Startup has become a "classic". It is popular in Silicon Valley. Universities use it as a textbook. The book has been purchased in major high tech centers around the world. Governments have used it to recommend economic policies. Consulting firms use it in their practices. Over 3,000 new enterprises have used it.

High Tech Startup is a practical book with lots of tips and how-to's. It contains case studies of real Silicon Valley startups, both successes and failures, and includes analysis of difficult situations which startups encounter along the way. Hard-to-find stock tables show how much founders and investors actually got in real companies. Chapters explain the required stages in the startup process from idea to the initial public offering.

Tips and explanations highlight how to create a winning business plan, chapter by chapter.

You will learn how founders value their company and how they calculate prices for each round of venture capital funding. Specific tables explain how venture capitalists and investment bankers make their money and why understanding what motivates them makes you a better negotiator. The book also discusses alternative funding sources.

Specific chapters review how to select a good lawyer, accounting firm and startup coach. You will learn how a core team can avoid legal problems when leaving their employers and how to protect intellectual property.

The book describes what venture capitalists look for in a startup and what they expect of the core founding team. It also explains how boards of directors work for high tech startups and how the leadership must deal with investors, accountants, attorneys, and Wall Street, before and after the IPO.

About this title

About the Author

John Nesheim (jnesheim@aol.com) is a veteran of Silicon Valley where he has lived since 1976. He earned his engineering degree at the University of Minnesota and MBA at Cornell University - Johnson Graduate School of Management. His career includes McKinsey & Company, National Semiconductor and Valid Logic. John has testified to Congress on behalf of the Semiconductor Industry Association and the American Electronics Association. He is a frequent speaker, lecturer and writer. Since 1981, John has devoted his time to coaching and advising engineers with their new enterprises. His emphasis has been on finding methods and techniques that can make a new enterprise succeed by competing more strategically.

From the Back Cover

High Tech Startup contains answers to these key questions:

What should I think about before I do a startup as either a founder or employee?
What will the personal costs be to me and my family?
How do I select a good lawyer, CPA and startup coach?
How much stock do people get in a startup?
What percentage of my company do venture capitalists get?
How does the core team avoid legal problems when leaving their employers?
How do I protect my technology?
Should I deal exclusively with venture capitalists?
What other sources of capital are there, and what are the pros and cons of each?
How do I attract alternative sources of capital?
What do venture capitalists look for in a startup? What will they expect of the core founding team?
How do we deal with our investors, accountants, attorneys, and Wall Street, before and after the IPO?

Here are some of the comments by experts:

"A must read for all high tech entrepreneurs. The business guide for beginners."
- Bill O'Meara, former President and CEO, C-Cube Microsystems.

"Super book by startup-guru of Silicon Valley."
- George Gilder,author of Telecosm, and Wealth and Poverty.

"A must-read primer for entrepreneurs."
- Donald Civetusa, Sr. Vice President, Silicon Valley Bank.

"Nesheim's book provides an invaluable practical guide for high tech adventurers."
- David Ben Daniel, Professor of Entrepreneurship, Cornell University.

"This is the book I wish I'd had when I did my first company."
- Gordon Campbell, Founder and Chairman, Chips and Technologies, Inc.

From the Inside Flap

There are 600,000 new businesses started in the United States every year--about seven times as many as were started each year in the boom years of the Fifties and Sixties. Most of these new businesses will fail the first year.

A typical venture capital (VC) firm reviews 1,000 high tech business plans a year; it funds about six of them, and sees only 10 percent of the funded startups reach IPO (initial public offering).

Most high tech startup proposals go unfunded because their business plans and market strategies were poorly thought out. Fewer than one out of 47,000 business plans that are submitted to VCs reach IPO. Private and corporate venture capitalists complain that everyone is wasting a lot of valuable time and money-and they say that the chances of success in launching a new high tech business could be dramatically increased if the startup entrepreneur and/or corporate new business manager had access to, and used, the lessons learned from actual venture experiences. They could avoid the common pitfalls in starting a business.

High Tech Startup presents a classic strategy for starting a high tech company and for securing multi-round financing. It provides more than 23 case studies that were carefully chosen to reveal how the classic strategy can be modified to fit the special objectives of the founding team.

Excerpt. © Reprinted by permission. All rights reserved.

"The amount of stock given up by founders is spelled out in Chapter 7 in detailed tables for a number of famous startups. Research of Securities and Exchange Commission (SEC) documents by Saratoga Venture Finance revealed that CEO founders should expect to get to IPO owning not much more than 3 percent of their companies. That share of stock will be worth about $6.5 million at that time. They will have to work big breaks to be able to cash in all their chips within two years after the IPO. Three years to IPO is rare, five is common."

"Is a startup worth the personal cost required? That is among the key issues for the CEO considering a startup. Before a would-be founder can answer the personal questions, he or she must focus on another question: 'How should I plan and control the venture capital formation process, from seed through multi-round financing to IPO so that I have an unfair advantage in getting the funds I need in order to succeed?'"

Edition details

• Publisher: Electronic Trend Pubn
• Publication date: 1997
• Language: English
• ISBN 10: 0914405713
• ISBN 13: 9780914405719
• Binding: Hardcover
• Edition number: 1
• Number of pages: 322