Andy Dunn Quotes

One of the things we urge Y-Combinator companies to do is to have profitability in grasp. If you need to get profitable before your A round of money, you ought to be able to do that.

I would say raising capital is one of the weakest things for most entrepreneurs.

Generally, you want to raise capital either when you have to or when it's really easy. If the company desperately needs money, and they can't figure out any other way, then they need to raise money. Or if someone's offering you easy money on good terms, you should take it because you can use it for good things.

Good companies are always fundraising. Whether you're meeting people or considering firms, you're always fundraising.

Being women behind a massively growing business is not an easy task, and the journey to find the right investors and to secure true partners has proven that.

I remember looking up to most any venture capitalist as someone who could make my little company happen with a single million-dollar check.

Venture-backed startups with billion dollar market caps are called 'unicorns' because they are supposed to be rare mythical creatures that few entrepreneurs will ever ride.

Good startups usually take 10 years.

The story of my billion-dollar business starts like this. I borrowed $1,000 from a friend.

Learn to raise capital by any means necessary. That's your primary job as an entrepreneur. You must continually raise capital from family and friends, banks, suppliers, customers and investors.

I have seen a lot of now-great companies at their earliest stages, and these early-stage startups are not built by the senior people who know how to run and scale big-company machines.

As a serial entrepreneur, angel investor and public company CEO, nothing irks me more than when a startup founder talks about wanting to cash in with an initial public offering.

Struggling to start a small business is all-encompassing. It is a 24-hour job that places strain on those involved. As well as worrying about your own mortgage and kids, you worry about those of your staff.

I remember going out to raise my Series A and ending up with multiple term sheets when I had gone to Silicon Valley probably four times at that point and coming back with nothing.

The problem for new businesses isn't corporate taxes. Anyone who has actually started a new business knows you don't make enough money for years to pay any meaningful tax on it.

I've had a lot of help... from Marc Andreessen and Ben Horowitz, venture capitalists. They've helped me out a ton.

Finding initial funds is the primary barrier most entrepreneurs face. Many people don't have three or six months' worth of savings to free themselves up to do months of unpaid legwork.

Great VCs are more than mere investors; they are often seasoned leaders who have built companies themselves.

Our goal is simply to make entrepreneurship more accessible to everyone around the world throughout the entrepreneurial journey, from inspiration to IPO.

Access to capital is one of the most important first steps entrepreneurs take when starting a business, and it is also one of the biggest difficulties, especially for our veterans.

Making the first million is hard; making the next 100 million is easy.

Every new startup business creates new opportunities. It doesn't matter whether you have a new app for college students or a home medical device for senior citizens; there are other multibillion noncompetitive corporations that are spending millions of dollars trying to market their goods and services to your same audience.

What would I advise an aspiring young entrepreneur? Certainly I'd say read the works of great entrepreneurs and investors like Ben Horowitz, Peter Thiel, and many others. But what's more important is to get real experience at a great startup.

While it can be challenging for women with disruptive, technology-based ideas to acquire significant funding, in my experience, once I was able to raise that funding, I was met with droves of people offering to help me fulfill my dreams.

I'm hard-pressed to think of companies that don't need venture capital that are going after big opportunities. I think, in almost all cases, if they're going after big opportunities, they are going to need to raise quite a bit of money.