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Times Square Strategy Session – Web Startups and Customer Development

Steve Blank

What metrics do we use to see if we learned enough in Customer Discovery ? I gave my boilerplate answer, “I’m a product guy and I tend to invest and look at deals that have measurable revenue metrics. Dave McClure has some great metrics…” It was an honest but vaguely unsatisfying answer.

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LinkedIn: The Series A Fundraising Story ? AGILEVC

Agile VC

Online social networking is a concept still being evangelized even in Silicon Valley… Friendster is in private beta (wasn’t until Oct 2003 they received Google acquisition offer which they turned down for Kleiner/Benchmark round). This is my 2nd time trying this, first time was in 1999. A lot has changed. link] leehower.

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Marketing and Growth Lessons for Uncertain Times

ConversionXL

At the same time, the company contained its operating costs and came out of the recession stronger, bigger, and more profitable than it had been in 1999. The questions that clients ask in the coming months are going to be more focused on business results and less on trends and vanity metrics. Accepting that is key. are moot.”.

Marketing 121
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Turing Distinguished Leader Series: With Partner David Zhang, TVC

ReadWriteStart

The vast majority of their customer acquisition is word of mouth. When you put those two things together, you get high-quality customers, high LTV, and acquisition at super low costs. Do you have other efficiency metrics that you look at when you evaluate businesses to check the quality of growth and the quality of the revenues? .

Partner 132
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The Bar Has Gotten Higher

Seeing Both Sides

When they get customers, they are told to show engagement metrics. When they show engagement metrics, they are told to run some monetization experiments. Isn't there plenty of euphoria and "animal spirits" to go around with the IPO market returning, marquee acquisitions (e.g., I'll wait.).

IPO 44
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It’s Morning in Venture Capital

Both Sides of the Table

In an over-funding environment companies are encouraged to eschew revenues in a land grab to acquire eyeballs, clicks, page views or whatever other vanity metrics give VCs the false comfort that they’re sitting on a gold mine. In 1998 it was 150 million, 1999 250 million and by 2000 it had crossed 350 million.

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Is There a Valuation Bubble for Social Media Companies (and if so, is it Bursting)?

Pascal's View

For me Bubble will always be inexorably linked to what went down in 1999 and 2000 in the internet sector. I will post separately on valuation metrics and the implications of the dichotomy between recent public company valuations and merger & acquisition statistics. It is intentional.