Entrepreneurship
Build the investor partnership
When outside capital comes onto the agenda, understand how a fund makes its money, tie the size of your round to the milestones it buys, read a term sheet for its economics rather than its headline price, and design the exit before you need it.
Your learning route
The program order
Complete the programs in order to finish the route. Each one brings short lessons, applied practice and a realistic business case together.
Plus and Pro members can create a verifiable Stratify certificate when the route is complete.
- Program 01
Understand VC economics and whether you fit
Foundational: you learn how venture capital makes its money and whether your venture fits that model. By the end of this program you can explain a fund's economics and the 2 and 20 structure, show why returns come from a handful of investments, name the difference between the investor's portfolio game and the founder's single bet, and judge whether your own venture suits this kind of capital.
- A needle in a haystack
- The money inside the fund
- Rounds and the pressure of fund size
Apply it: What the investor is looking at
5 lessons · ≈3 hours
- Program 02
Design how much capital you need and from whom
Intermediate: you read the investor's decision process, tie the size of your round to the milestones it buys, and decide whose capital to take. By the end of this program you can show where the funnel narrows, explain why a warm introduction works, size a round against a valuation inflection point, and work out whether a given fund's economics fit your venture.
- The funnel and its capacity
- How the door gets opened
- How much to raise
Apply it: Whose capital to take
5 lessons · ≈3 hours
- Program 03
Read a term sheet for its economics
Intermediate: you learn to read how a term sheet distributes money and control. By the end of this program you can separate the economic terms from the control terms, work out when a liquidation preference actually pays, explain how protective provisions produce a veto from a minority stake, and show who absorbs the dilution of an option pool.
- Two functions of a non-binding document
- Three instruments of control
- Who gets paid first
Apply it: The option pool and the real price
5 lessons · ≈3 hours
- Program 04
Manage the investor and design the exit
Advanced: you manage the partnership after the investment and design the exit from the start. By the end of this program you can show why bad news has to travel early, name the three channels an investor adds value through, tell apart the kind of failure that closes the door on your future, and explain why a sale and an IPO produce different outcomes for a founder and an investor.
- Trust and the flow of information
- Where an investor is useful
- Failure and two happy endings
Apply it: A sale or an IPO
5 lessons · ≈3 hours