article thumbnail

Is the Lean Startup Dead?

Steve Blank

Most entrepreneurs today don’t remember the Dot-Com bubble of 1995 or the Dot-Com crash that followed in 2000. As a reminder, the Dot Com bubble was a five-year period from August 1995 (the Netscape IPO ) when there was a massive wave of experiments on the then-new internet, in commerce, entertainment, nascent social media, and search.

Lean 335
article thumbnail

Can You Trust Any vc's Under 40?

Steve Blank

Over the same 30 years, Venture Capital firms have honed their skills and strategies to match Wall Streets needs to achieve liquidity for their portfolio companies. One of the biggest mistakes entrepreneurs make is misunderstanding the role of venture capital investors. What Do VC’s Do?

Insiders

Sign Up for our Newsletter

This site is protected by reCAPTCHA and the Google Privacy Policy and Terms of Service apply.

article thumbnail

Welcome to the Lost Decade (for Entrepreneurs, IPO’s and VC’s)

Steve Blank

If you take funding from a venture capital firm or angel investor and want to build a large, enduring company (rather than sell it to the highest bidder), this isn’t the decade to do it. The collapse of the IPO market and dysfunctional math in the venture capital community has stacked the odds against you. Here’s why.

article thumbnail

New Rules for the New Internet Bubble

Steve Blank

The Golden Age (1970 – 1995): Build a growing business with a consistently profitable track record (after at least 5 quarters,) and go public when it’s time. Dot.com Bubble ( 1995-2000): “ Anything goes” as public markets clamor for ideas, vague promises of future growth, and IPOs happen absent regard for history or profitability.

Internet 334
article thumbnail

Startup Communities: Creating A Great Entrepreneurial Ecosystem In Your City

Feld Thoughts

Pre Internet Bubble (19952000). Venture Capital Matters. The table of contents, as of today, follows. The Boulder Entrepreneurial Community. Boulder As A Laboratory. Before the Internet (1970 to 1994). The Internet Bubble (2001 – 2002). The Beginning of the Next Wave (2003 – 2011). Embrace Weirdness.

Community 142
article thumbnail

The VC Model is “broken” (again? yawn!)

VC Adventure

In the latest lob into the morass that has become somewhat of a sport amongst journalists and those that follow the venture capital industry, Carl Schramm and Harold Bradley write in BusinessWeek about “ How Venture Capital Lost Its Way ”. Venture capital funding is down - from an “astonishing” 1.1%

article thumbnail

What if it’s 1996, not 1999?

Seeing Both Sides

The Internet bull market continued to run for four more years after the Open Market IPO, finally ending in the spring of 2000. The average venture capital fund raised between 1995 and 1997 returned more than 50% per year. Matrix had a fund in 1998 that yielded an eye-popping 514+% IRR.

IPO 48