Both Sides of the Table

SEPTEMBER 16, 2009

When you start your company the very first question you need to ask yourself is which kind of customers do you want to serve. Many start-ups (and even growth firms) lack this discipline and they therefore serve customers off all sizes. These are really massive customers. Avoid elephants in your early stages.

Startup 389

Startup Early Stage Demand Channel 389

Steve Blank

FEBRUARY 23, 2009

Alone in a ski cabin with the snow coming down outside, and my wife and daughters out on the slopes all day, I started collecting my thoughts by writing a series of “lessons learned” stories that I had hoped would become my memoirs.

Redemption 126

Redemption Silicon Valley RSS California 126

ReadWriteStart

APRIL 26, 2012

Bullpen is one of a growing number of early-stage funds - or, perhaps more accurately, "earlier-stage," since even his is no longer the first out of the gate. They all went away; they got rolled up in 1999 and 2000 into these too-big-to-fail banking operations," Davidson tells us. Brown & Sons, Montgomery Securities.

IPO 115

IPO Stock San Francisco Lean 115

David Teten

FEBRUARY 6, 2013

Susan Balloch is a Managing Director of Golden Seeds, an angel fund that invests in early stage companies founded or led by women. Karen Bantuveris has 15 years experience as a consultant in customer centric- leadership development, marketing strategy and business process design. 6:30 Registration. 7:00 Panel discussion.

Private Equity 114

Private Equity North America Cofounder Angel Groups 114

Startup Lessons Learned

FEBRUARY 7, 2013

A few of the detailed case studies include: Tech legend Bill Gross building an MVP in 1999 to test demand for online car sales, which grew into CarsDirect.com. AppFog creating "high-hurdle" experiments to surface authentic early adopters with real pain. LitMotors approach to using Lean Startup to create a new vehicle category.

Lean 167

Lean Entrepreneur Agile San Francisco 167

Both Sides of the Table

DECEMBER 13, 2010

By 1999 we had grown into the largest independent consulting firm in the world. By 1999 it seemed like everybody was growing, though. I left Andersen Consulting in 1999 at the height of the market. In other words, in a strong market even turkeys can fly. Ameet was right. Avoid the latest fads, trends or PR announcements.

Turkey 302

Turkey Differentiation IP Technical Review 302

The Next Web

JUNE 20, 2013

When cloud services company Cornerstone OnDemand got its start in Los Angeles in 1999, the odds were against it. In its early stages, losing a customer would have doomed the startup, so it placed a strong emphasis on service. “We Three months after getting up and running, the tech bubble burst and all the money dried up.

Cloud 118

Cloud Southern California Los Angeles New York City 118

thebarefootvc

AUGUST 26, 2015

I’ve seen several cycles in the market since I first started venture investing in 1999, and I believe there has been no greater potential for wealth creation in the sector than there is now. However, many variables come into play when investing at the early stage. Build solid relationships with strategic partners and customers.

Marketing 40

Marketing Investment Bankers Valuation China 40

thebarefootvc

AUGUST 26, 2015

I’ve seen several cycles in the market since I first started venture investing in 1999, and I believe there has been no greater potential for wealth creation in the sector than there is now. However, many variables come into play when investing at the early stage. Build solid relationships with strategic partners and customers.

Marketing 40

Marketing Investment Bankers Valuation China 40

thebarefootvc

JULY 26, 2015

I’ve seen several cycles in the market since I first started venture investing in 1999, and I believe there has been no greater potential for wealth creation in the sector than there is now. However, many variables come into play when investing at the early stage. Build solid relationships with strategic partners and customers.

Marketing 40

Marketing Investment Bankers Valuation China 40

Both Sides of the Table

OCTOBER 15, 2009

When you’re an early-stage startup that hasn’t raised any institutional money you end up doing almost every job function of the company yourself. This can often happen when there is a good product built but no real customer adoption yet. This is part of my ongoing series Startup Advice. This is what happened to me.

Founder 299

Founder Technical Review Startup Venture Capital 299

Steve Blank

APRIL 11, 2013

Set up in 1999, Innofund offers grants ($150 – $250K), loan interest subsidies and equity investment. Innofund is designed to bridge early stage technology companies that have innovative technology and good market potential but are too early for commercial funding (banks or VCs.) Seed Funding (Innofund).

Programming 278

Programming Technical Review SBIR China 278

Both Sides of the Table

MAY 23, 2012

Try charging customers for your product when you have 12 competitors giving the product away free finances by $20 million of VC. In 1998 it was 150 million, 1999 250 million and by 2000 it had crossed 350 million. We have lower costs to create companies – leading to more early stage innovation. The Exit Problem.

Venture Capital 347

Venture Capital Technical Review LP Mobile 347

Both Sides of the Table

SEPTEMBER 2, 2009

A friend of mine is a serial entrepreneur and is running a high-profile, early stage company in NorCal. Coupled with my participating preferred from 1999 and 2000 I had more than $55 million of liquidation preferences. I believe this is wrong. Let me start with a couple of stories. He’s been at it since 2005.

Founder 329

Founder Liquidation Preference Term Sheet Participating Preferred 329

Startup Lessons Learned

JULY 9, 2009

In the summer of 1999, I started working on a startup from my college dorm. Id been on the internet since I was playing MUDs as a kid, but by 1999 I felt Id already missed the boat. You can even see the humiliating evidence of my smug incompetence in this absurd article from 1999.) I pretty much missed all the trends.

San Francisco 94

San Francisco Lean Continuous Deployment DC 94

Steve Blank

APRIL 11, 2013

Set up in 1999, Innofund offers grants ($150 – $250K), loan interest subsidies and equity investment. Innofund is designed to bridge early stage technology companies that have innovative technology and good market potential but are too early for commercial funding (banks or VCs.) Seed Funding (Innofund).

Programming 170

Programming Technical Review SBIR China 170

Both Sides of the Table

JANUARY 16, 2012

I raised money as an entrepreneur, like you, in 1999, 2000, 2001, 2003 and 2005 for two different companies. And trust me, if you’re early stage you DO want to meet Bryce. He’s awesome for early-stage entrepreneurs. Meet early. I’ve raised seed rounds and A-D rounds. Not so much.

Developer 366

Developer Silicon Valley PR Las Vegas 366

BeyondVC

JUNE 8, 2004

I have always been a big believer of the hosted software or ASP (application service provider) model since we made our first investment in LivePerson in January 1999. One of our main competitors of that era was Kana, which at that time, did way better than LivePerson in terms of customers, revenue, and market capitalization.

Demand 60

Demand Bandwidth Hosting IPO 60

Austin Startup

FEBRUARY 24, 2019

Opportunity cost is very real for any stage company, but it is critical for an early-stage one. and build a lifetime profile of all of their customers’ interactions. It is in their best interests to do so because of the two reasons I cite above about why they want to be known as the “cool kids” in the first place.

Software Review 48

Software Review Sales Cofounder Analytics 48

Both Sides of the Table

JANUARY 31, 2010

Mine started this way … I started my first company in the “go-go years&# of the Internet: 1999. We raised a seed round of capital in 1999 and our first venture capital round was the first week of March 2000 (e.g. Dinners were consumed with customers or in hotels and often past 10pm. We were based in London.

Entrepreneur 308

Entrepreneur Silicon Valley San Diego Non-Compete 308

Austin Startup

NOVEMBER 29, 2017

This 4-part story takes stock of the Austin ecosystem based on the 4Cs framework — culture, capital , customers , and competencies. It follows up on my posts discussing why early stage startups should — or should not — move to Silicon Valley. Should Early Stage Startups Move to Austin? The Case for Culture.

Early Stage 54

Early Stage Austin Silicon Valley Texas 54

Seeing Both Sides

SEPTEMBER 15, 2015

until the late-stage go-to-market phase may be too late. Hiring talent and gathering customer feedback are even harder when teams are so physically far apart, and this separation can make it harder to build culture, forge partnerships, and raise capital. So how early should the founders pack their bags and ship out to the U.S.?

Cofounder 20

Cofounder Technical Review United States 20

Scalable Startup

FEBRUARY 1, 2013

So originally the customer was the Department of Defense. It was the first customer for the computer. The advantage of the consumer businesses is they tend to be much broader-based, much larger number of customers, that tend to over time be a lot more predictable. But I would say the market is schizophrenic.

Software Review 22

Software Review Startup Venture Capital Stock 22

Professor VC

DECEMBER 8, 2015

Both companies were relatively well capitalized, building peer to peer payments businesses and spending a significant amount of their funding on customer acquisition. By the way, this month is the 10-year anniversary of iControl's Series A financing and I haven't been able to get liquid on a single share. Hope that changes in 2016.

Merger 28

Merger LP IPO Redemption 28