Most founders consider two possibilities when thinking about their exit strategy: IPO or acquisition. The process of startup M&A likely remains shrouded in mystery for founders who have never seen it first-hand. We invited Amit Yoran, CEO of Tenable, and Mike Viscuso, Co-Founder of Carbon Black, on #DreamitLive to answer these questions and more. We pulled out 5 key lessons from the discussion to shed some light on M&A and help you navigate what can either be an extremely rewarding or painful process.

Uncertainty and startups go hand in hand. Whether you’re planning micro-pivots to product development or macro-pivots in light of recent market change, you’ll need a well-tuned internal schema to assess uncertainty. In the wake of the pandemic, startups across all stages have been pressed to make swift decisions and adjust plans. Today, more than ever, the relevant question founders should be asking themselves is: what’s my bet?

Bullpen Capital General Partner Paul Martino on the state of the VC ecosystem in the current economic crisis, the two types of crisis we might be facing over the coming months, the ways that VC deal terms and investment activity might change during the slowdown, and more.

In our most recent episode of DreamitLive, Managing Partner Steve Barsh spoke with Ron Gula, President and Co-Founder of Gula Tech Adventures. In the episode, Steve asked Ron about his “five slide pitch deck.” Ron has the investor perspective as the President of Gula Tech Adventures, but also can empathize with the founder as former founder of his own company, Tenable. Read to see what the five slides include.

In this #DreamitLive, Ron Gula, president of Gula Tech Ventures, joins Steve Barsh to talk about the 5 most common mistakes cyber entrepreneurs make and how to avoid them. They discuss the top mistakes Ron and many other prominent cyber investors see cyber startups making and what these startups need to focus on to not only get investment but to build a market-dominating company.

In this #DreamitLive, Dan Costantino, CISO at Penn Medicine, one of the largest academic medical institutions in the US, speaks with Steve Barsh to talk about the chatter in the CISO community on how cyber startups are dropping the ball and missing huge opportunities.

In this #DreamitLive, Urbantech Managing Director Andrew Ackerman speaks with CREtech CEO Michael Beckerman about the latest trends in innovation in the commercial real estate industry. Michael Beckerman runs CREtech, the largest event, data and content platform in the commercial real estate tech sector.

Real estate data is notoriously fragmented, but a new crop of startups, including Cherre, are helping businesses harness disparate data sources and gain a competitive edge. In this episode, Urbantech Managing Director Andrew Ackerman sits with L.D. Salmanson, founder of Cherre, to discuss his startup’s path to becoming a leader in real estate data.

A thoughtful strategic approach to equity structure and allocation is critical for all startups. Yet, over and over again, startups often make avoidable mistakes that can have catastrophic downstream effects. In this #DreamitLive, Managing Director Adam Dakin speaks with Geoff Starr, Partner at Cooley, about five common mistakes and how to avoid them. Geoff has developed great pattern recognition, having counseled hundreds of startups on raising capital and allocating equity.

Fundraising is hard, and it’s critical to have a game-plan and process for raising capital. In this episode, Steve Barsh discusses some strategies that founders can use to close a new round of funding. He talks about how to create momentum, revenue metrics you’ll need to show for seed and Series A funding, what a typical timeline looks like, how to determine the amount of capital you need to raise, and more.

In this episode of #DreamitLive, Dreamit’s Steve Barsh speaks with Gil Beyda, Managing Director at Comcast Ventures and Founder & Managing Partner at Genacast Ventures. Steve and Gil dive into why pre-IPO unicorn startups are failing and post IPO valuations are dropping.

It's been about a year since Slidebean’s first Youtube video breakthrough. Since then, they’ve added around 20,000 subscribers, and their videos have been watched over 1.7MM times. To celebrate their success, we collaborated with Slidebean to host a Fireside Chat in New York City on October 10th featuring Caya, founder of Slidebean, and Steve Barsh, Managing Partner at Dreamit. from DreamIt Ventures.

In this #DreamitLive, Healthtech Managing Director Adam Dakin speaks with Graftworx founder and CEO David Kuraguntla about his startup’s path to commercialization.

In this DreamitLive, Securetech Managing Director Bob Stasio speaks with ForMotiv Partner Bill Conners about the complex problem of insider threats.

In this DreamitLive, Urbantech Managing Director Andrew Ackerman speaks with StringBean founder and CEO Reuben Levine about the do’s and don’ts of selling into real estate, including how to get into the mind of the buyer, how to de-risk your product to increase the likelihood of making a sale, and how to pursue product-led growth. 

Dreamit Managing Partner Steve Barsh talks about how early-stage startups and their founders should avoid discussion exit strategy with investors and why it’s important to paint a powerful vision for VCs about how you’re going to dominate your market and grow a big, powerful, profitable, and meaningful company. If that all occurs, the right exit strategy will come along.

Steve Barsh speaks with Anthony Bucci about bootstrapping RevZilla from $0 to 250+ people and a successful exit. They talk about Bucci’s ups and downs, leadership ideas, growth, surprises along the way, and key learnings. And they touch upon the founder and startup attributes Anthony finds compelling now that he is angel investing in the next generation of startups.

Dreamit’s Steve Barsh speaks with AJ Bruno about scaling B2B sales from seed to exit. AJ co-founded TrendKite, where he was responsible for all growth operations ($0-$25 million) and which was acquired for $225m by Cision (NYSE: Cision).

In this #DreamitLive event, Dreamit Healthtech Managing Director Adam Dakin speaks with Subha Airan-Javia, CEO of TrekIT, to understand how she turned her passion for creating clinician-friendly tech into a new healthtech startup on a mission to empower clinicians.

Investors are giving you capital to make 10x, 20x, or 100x their investment. To realize this, there must be an exit. Here's how to speak to VCs about exit opportunities without scaring them off.