Had an interesting conversation with an entrepreneur this morning about pre-money valuations. What he consider the company worth differed significantly from what I suggested. For the record, I was approaching this conversation to solely provide feedback about the overall idea.
Obviously, we were approaching the valuation from different perspectives and with different goals. That said, I would be interested in seeing a larger data set of startup valuations. I have set up a poll that will collect segmentation, size, company stage, pre-money and post-money valuations and expected raise amounts. We are not capturing who submitted or what company the info is for. All the information submitted will be available to everyone online.
This is a first attempt at gaining a clearer picture of different valuations. Any additional feedback about how to optimize the poll, please contact me directly. Feel free to submit or not, it is completely up to you.
Here are the links:
Submit a Company Valuation >>
See the data >>
About nathan kaiser
Great suggestion from http://twitter.com/wesm
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Real_options_analysis
Just to stir the pot, I would submit for debate the notion that your Startup is worth what someone is willing to pay for it – no more, no less. What an entrepreneur thinks his/her venture might be worth pre-money is largely irrelevant. When an investor puts their money on the table that is the first time that a value is established and baselines any worth discussion from that point on. That’s just the way it is.
Well… not quite. If no one is willing to buy it or invest in it, then it is worth its net discounted profits summed from now until when it goes out of business… which is hopefully higher than zero.
That being said, I assume that most people are in this game to sell their first born as fast as they can turn straw into gold, in which case you would be totally right.