The magic number!
June 14, 2006
For years my YEO forum has talked about ‘how much is enough’ in the sense of how much money is enough. Yesterday Brian and I were at Jeff 
Clavier’s (our favorite VC these days) house watching World Cup soccer (or football as Jeff might call it) - France played Switzerland. Jeff wasn’t pleased that the game was so boring, but it did give us a chance to talk about business. The topic of what is the magic number for a founder to sell versus raise capital came up.
Founders with interesting web properties often have a choice to either sell or raise outside capital. Jeff described what I call the ‘magic number’ where founders will sell versus raise capital. He believes $10MM is today’s magic number. In the bad old days I was offered (not in writing) $10MM for my equity in LayerOne and I scoffed at the offer. By 2001 I would have jumped at $1MM, much less ten. Today my number is a little higher.
France ended up tying Switzerland in the end - Jeff was not pleased.
