Wednesday, December 01, 2010

Angel Bubbles: No Bubbles

Image representing Y Combinator as depicted in...Image via CrunchBase
Naval Ravikant: There is No Angel Bubble. There are Many Angel Bubbles.: The total amount of additional capital flowing through the Silicon Valley early-stage ecosystem, thanks to Super-Angels and newly minted millionaires, is on the order of half-a-billion dollars or so. It’s no more than a middling-sized VC fund. Would the emergence of a new VC fund be considered a bubble? Would the collapse of one signal disaster? ..... Most of the small companies being funded will fail, but the ones that hit will generate fantastic returns. And because of their small size and operating costs, a greater percentage will be able to get “ramen profitable” than was traditionally possible. ..... we’re all going to have to become even more comfortable with failures, re-starts, and the kind of team re-combination that one sees from one Y Combinator Demo Day to the next. ..... Angel investment valuations have been climbing very quickly ..... a small number of high-profile Angel investments, moving small amounts of capital but at very high valuations, can make the entire market look overvalued. ..... Seed is the new Series A .... an incredible renaissance in technology, with smart phones taking computing to local arenas and social networks taking it into the mainstream populace ..... we’re going to see the equity gap narrow between the founders of raw startups and early key team members.
I think this is new, uncharted territory, rather than bubble territory. Bubble would be if we were a year or two from imminent collapse. I don't think we are.

Good times are here. Entrepreneurs have more choices. That is a good thing.

No one ever said all startups will succeed. But many will. Just like old school VCs complain of high priced early stage startups, too many of them are sitting in their comfy chairs thinking when those small startups get modestly big, they will have no choice but to come to them. Not true. New forms of exits have emerged. There are super exists when you get bought by a much bigger company. There are exits where you become profitable pretty early, are never bought, and have no hopes of going IPO, but you are profitable. What's there to complain?

That early stage profitability might be the best kind of exit.

Something similar is happening in music. There will still be very few Madonnas and U2s, but there are tons of music groups that will be able to make just enough money to be able to do music full time. How is that bad?
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