Disqus - Latest Comments for pranay

Re: Thankfully, ….

Pranay Srinivasan — Thu, 28 Nov 2019 13:01:52 -0000

Thankful for your blog and the effort you put in EVERY Day to put your wisdom and thoughts out into the world.
Happy Turkey Day to you, Joanne and the Wilson / Solomon family!

Re: Cash Management In Startups

Pranay Srinivasan — Wed, 27 Nov 2019 19:28:50 -0000

Thank you. Learning every day. Still Seed stage but the model is open enough for people to grasp within a few days. Takes discipline is all.

Re: Cash Management In Startups

Pranay Srinivasan — Wed, 27 Nov 2019 09:09:10 -0000

I use my cash forecast as my business planning model in "live" mode i.e. I use and update it weekly - I also combine PNL and Cash based accounting to keep the numbers real and match with the bank statement every 2 weeks. Its tough to match up numbers weekly because of the way debits occur for payroll etc - But it becomes more realistic if you budgeted $50k in burn and actually spend $70k in burn because you had some incidentals and you see it over 3 months and realize thats your actual burn.. Not $50k.

Accountants are useless here because classical accounting doesn't help at all - except *maybe* with AR forecasting to show who you need to push for receivables.

I keep my model on Dropbox and share it with investors so they can "Dip" into it multiple times whenever they see fit.

I also create projections and snap shot them by versioning them for board meetings 2X a year so I can actually go back to those projections and see what the assumptions were and where they changed (they always change)

After 6+ years of startup-ing I have a model that shows both ATL and BTL numbers and is operable for Operators.

The Sales numbers and churn are linked to a Sales Model that models out churn and growth and I plug in actual numbers every month to update that model as well.

Re: The Summer Semester is ending

Pranay Srinivasan — Sat, 31 Aug 2019 09:28:40 -0000

Richly deserved for sure but I'm sure a LOT of early stage founders out there are going to lose out on your knowledge, insight and passion. I've been extremely grateful and thankful for your guidance and continue to look up to you as a mentor, guide and advisor.
You're one of my favorite people and I hope I am able to pay it forward in some small way.

Re: Clueless?

Pranay Srinivasan — Sat, 17 Aug 2019 16:34:18 -0000

"And as I watched those poor, hapless peasants rattle the gates of the prison, I sympathized with their plight and wondered why they couldn't open the locks with their teeth.."

Re: Why Gross Profit Is More Important Than Revenue

Pranay Srinivasan — Tue, 09 Jul 2019 16:54:34 -0000

Thank you

Re: Why Gross Profit Is More Important Than Revenue

Pranay Srinivasan — Tue, 09 Jul 2019 11:25:41 -0000

Doesnt Gross Profit (big $$ / unit) favor big ticket sale items vs Gross Margin (big % on small purchase) favor software companies with larger margin percentages?

Re: Still discovering Paris…and our anniversary

Pranay Srinivasan — Fri, 21 Jun 2019 00:27:37 -0000

Congrats and my best wishes to you both.

Re: WTF?

Pranay Srinivasan — Sat, 25 May 2019 07:36:48 -0000

There are 70 to 100 shark attacks (false accusations) worldwide every year, 5 to 15 result in death (men getting fired). Over 100 million sharks (women) are taken (sexually harrassed) every year by humans (men). That is approximately 11,000 sharks killed (women harassed) every hour.
2 "JAWS" movies do not make it dangerous to swim in the water, people.
STOP HUNTING SHARKS. STOP BLAMING WOMEN.

Re: Make America Great Again by Increasing COGS Through Tariffs on Hardware Startups

Pranay Srinivasan — Wed, 22 May 2019 18:25:25 -0000

A number of companies are switching to Taiwan and South Korea. Relatively higher ex-fty but lower landed costs

Re: Motherhood

Pranay Srinivasan — Sun, 12 May 2019 15:05:53 -0000

Happy Mothers Day Joanne. There are days I feel like your kid :)

Re: The Long Game

Pranay Srinivasan — Thu, 02 May 2019 13:24:23 -0000

Off-topic question:
How did the VC fund cycles work around returnpath - especialy when you say Flatiron invested in Returnpath - Were those just rolled into a vehicle for LPs, were they paid off, or was it just kept open?

Re: Evolving, LA to NYC.

Pranay Srinivasan — Mon, 01 Apr 2019 18:35:21 -0000

New places to find alpha - tech businesses are now just businesses.

Re: The College Take Down

Pranay Srinivasan — Tue, 19 Mar 2019 11:09:29 -0000

There's a storm coming - the wealth divide will consume all semblance of nuance when 40 wealthy people are tarred as the face of the American dream - paves the way for convenient socialist rhetoric

Re: Another week/weekend in LA

Pranay Srinivasan — Sat, 16 Mar 2019 11:37:02 -0000

Wow i have to check out Tartine Bianco now.

Re: Didn’t your parents tell you?

Pranay Srinivasan — Wed, 13 Mar 2019 23:55:02 -0000

Such a fine line between confidence and arrogance.

Re: Rethinking AVC

Pranay Srinivasan — Tue, 12 Feb 2019 14:37:12 -0000

I do subscribe to AVC on email but mostly see your posts on my mobile web browser. I can see how replying by email would elicit more honest, open commenting which is possibly less sensationalist and more constructive. Will try that.

Re: Rethinking AVC

Pranay Srinivasan — Mon, 11 Feb 2019 11:06:44 -0000

Wont email volume increase when people want to write back to your email newsletter with their "thoughts"?

Re: The Free And Open Internet

Pranay Srinivasan — Sun, 10 Feb 2019 12:11:38 -0000

Possibly in this particular instance. I was proposing a more general idea. Some articles should be free to read always

Re: The Free And Open Internet

Pranay Srinivasan — Sun, 10 Feb 2019 11:12:26 -0000

Fractional payment systems with a universal login (similar to Siri / Apple pay) would resolve this.
Asking WaPo not to ask for money to read Dingell is not the answer - being able to pay $1.25 to get 1 day access to read that article seamlessly thru Apple Pay or something is the answer.

We would pay for fractional content because its been researched, curated and edited by people whose livelihoods depend on it.

A subscription is a commitment. If WaPo journalism is awesome, we will keep paying that $1.25 per day to read articles until they reach their targeted cost.

After all we paid for the paper every day.

Pranay

Re: Debt Funding

Pranay Srinivasan — Wed, 06 Feb 2019 12:53:29 -0000

This is a topic very close to my heart.
Debt issuance in smaller businesses, unprofitable businesses, non-traditional channels, smaller boutiques, new startups, all need better underwriting and better understanding.
Old monolithic business credit systems deserve to die.
Understanding new forms of cashflow, underwriting with correct risk factors, making advances at a reasonable rate risk-adjusted, making sure you have the correct information all makes a difference.
There is a potential market where $200-300k equity slug kicks off the business but $500-700k of debt at a 9-15% per year interest makes better sense - one that starts with 25-50k and grows as the business grows.
Having accounting, supply chain, finance and sales / receivables all interlinked on a realtime basis helps alleviate any kind of bad signalling. There is tech to build this all.

Re: My Mom’s Haiku Project

Pranay Srinivasan — Tue, 08 Jan 2019 11:46:44 -0000

Staring into the
Abyss of uncertainty
Hire Better People

Re: New Year’s Eve 2018

Pranay Srinivasan — Tue, 01 Jan 2019 00:37:13 -0000

Happy New Year 2019, Joanne! Wishing you and your loved ones a healthy, happy and prosperous new year!

Re: What Will the Job Market look like in 5 years?

Pranay Srinivasan — Wed, 19 Dec 2018 10:34:36 -0000

Theres increasing amounts of remote and independent contractor work. LA in many ways is decades ahead of the the rest of US here - the gig economy has existed here in the movie industry where technical teams move from project to project and get well paid.

The middle of america is catching up as the fringes get too expensive to work - time was, the cost arbitrage was from San Francisco to India but now its San Francisco to Phoenix or Salt Lake City.

Hopefully as this money drives inwards - multiple HQs from Amazon, billions on new offices by Apple and Google we will see additional satellite opportunities grow.

My hope is that this blends into web technology skills becoming a skill like plumbing and electricians - Kenzie Academy in Indiana is doing something cool to push this forward.

Pranay

Re: Some Weird Accounting

Pranay Srinivasan — Wed, 24 Oct 2018 09:42:31 -0000

Pretty sure since the conv note debt + interest converts to equity at conversion, no taxable event created. Never issued 1099s to investors for multi year conv notes.
Investors never cared about the interest.
Easiest is to keep interest at Fed rate so it doesnt look like a profitable txn based on interest carried.
Also if its mentioned that interest just accrues into additional shares - should be OK.
Taxable event seems only when conv notes are *paid back* in case no conversion which is Super rare and super shitty for investors since they want preferred stock not interest.
These are just my opinions as founder.
- Pranay