A Startup is More Valuable on Day 1 than Day 100

There’s an interesting phenomenon that takes places with startups looking to raise money: the startup is more valuable on day one than on day 100. Naturally, you’d think that working over three months on a business would make it more valuable, but for startups with no operating history a clean slate makes it easier to paint a big picture on this new, valuable business. You see, after 100 days, the entrepreneur should have launched the product or service in a minimum viable manner, have prospects and (hopefully) customers, and be well on his/her way to making money.

The strange disconnect occurs when the company starts generating revenue and has paying customers. Now, with real numbers, an investor can start doing projections and come up with a model for how the company will grow and be valued. Almost always this results in a company valuation which is less than the pie-in-the-sky value assigned to the business on day one.

So, if you’re raising money, and have a track record (required to raise money in Atlanta for an idea-stage startup), think hard about how the value of the business is likely to be higher at the beginning when you don’t have real-world data.