Useful resources for (present and future) investment analysts — Part 2

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In Part 1 of this investment analyst resources series, I introduced you to a list of newsletters, books etc. I rely on when doing market research and trend scouting. The goal of Part 2 is to support you in your daily tasks as investment analyst like evaluating deal terms and doing due diligence by providing you with KPI spreadsheets, lists on tools, trend reports and much more (again with a focus on B2C marketplaces and direct-to-consumer startups)💪🏽. I hope this is useful to you and let me know what you think!

Venture Capital & Terms

1. How to get a job in VC in the first place? The interview of Femstreet with GoingVC gives useful tips and tricks here
2. Why do VCs behave the way they do? Andreas Göldi, partner at btov Partners, explains the reasons for the “typical VC behavior” here
3. What is a cap table? If you have to build a cap table and you don’t know where to start: find help here and here
4. What are typical Series A terms in Europe? Michael Schuster from Speedinvest explains the most common terms and gives practical examples here
5. How to implement new VC-tools at your company? Francesco Corea wrote a medium article on the VC tech stack here and provides a complete list on Notion here
6. What to keep in mind when doing a tech due diligence? Decoding VC addresses the most important points of a technical DD here
7. How to develop an investment thesis? Interesting read on bottoms up investing at Benchmark instead of a top-down approach here

Startups

1. How to do a proper pitch deck? Michael Wolfe wrote this comprehensive article on all that should be included in the deck and shares some other good resources here
2. How to prepare a board deck? Sequoia’s Bryan Schreier gives tips on how to run an effective board meeting here
3. What should founders have ready if they’re raising their Series A? Y Combinator has put together a list here
4. How to evaluate products and KPIs in an investment context? Andrew Chen’s 80 slide deck which he prepared for his interview process at a16z provides you with the necessary scaling tricks here
5. Growth vs. Profitability? Startups often face a balancing act between growth vs. profitability — Pete Flint addresses this issue here

Marketplaces, KPIs and Business Models

1. Overall, what should you look at when evaluating a marketplaces startup or when challenging your marketplace idea? I really like the Marketplace Scorecard by Speedinvest X as it touches on basically everything to consider. You can find here
2. Which metrics does a marketplaces startup have on average in which round? FJ LABS put it together in a useful matrix here (here is another one from 2016 vs. 2018)
3. How to kickstart and scale a marketplace business? I love the posts by Lenny Rachitsky because they give very practical insights and share best practices of the top-notch marketplaces out there here
4. Which questions should a marketplaces founder ask himself or herself? The questions can be grouped into four key areas: network effects, type of supply, incentives, and the size and frequency of interaction. Read about them here, here and here
5. How do network bridges, engagement drivers and defensibility work in the context of a marketplace? I like these three blog posts on those crucial aspects to address as a marketplace
6. What KPIs should a marketplaces startup track and report to potential investors? Version One Ventures created a sophisticated spreadsheet here (and find them explained here).
7. Where do marketplaces stand now and what’s next? a16z proposes that a new age of service marketplaces will emerge here
8. What KPIs should a mobile subscription startup track? Nico Wittenborn of AdjacentV1 gives access to this useful dashboard here
9. Is the freemium model the right business model for your product? Point Nine Capital give a balanced opinion on it here
10. Still not enough inputs on marketplaces? Here’s the complete list of articles the book “The Lean Marketplaces” referred to and here’s an Airtable overview serving as a curated knowledge library with topics on liquidity, metrics, network effects, growth strategies and much more

Trends

1. What is the next big thing in technology? Gartner’s hype cycle describes what we should look out for as investors here
2. 🧀 What are the future megatrends in Switzerland? The report by swissfuture gives valuable insights on these megatrends and the related challenges we’ll face here
3. What are other trends to look out for? Schibsted publishes a yearly outlook on people, technology and business trends here
4. How does life in 2030 look like? a16z takes a chance to answer this question here
5. What are the main consumer technology trends in 2020? Heartcore Capital summarizes the biggest vertical trends in the consumer technology space here

Other

1. What is the impact of COVID-19 on European Tech? This dashboard by Gonz Sanchez from Seedtable summarizes it pretty well
2. 🌈Why do women face challenges in the startup ecosystem? And more importantly: what to do about it? Find a comprehensive list of articles from investors and entrepreneurs sharing their experiences as well as academic researchers and journalists by Lola from Hummingbird Ventures here
3. What is disruptive innovation? One could sometimes get the impression that everything is “disruptive” in today’s world. But what does “disruptive” mean anyway? Get the basics by Clayton M. Christensen here
4. Still bored? Here’s a list of 450 Ivy League online courses to take for free