The Equity Kicker

MAY 7, 2013

These firms have had a significant impact on growth over the last 20 years through the bubbles and crashes they create – e.g. the Long-Term Capital Management crash of 1998, the Dot-Com crash of 2000, and the housing meltdown of 2008. Startup general interest' Just less than before.

Development Team Review 94

Development Team Review Business Plan Agile Operations 94

Steve Blank

OCTOBER 24, 2016

After running Microsoft for 25 years, Bill Gates handed the reins of CEO to Steve Ballmer in January 2000. The best are agile and know how to pivot – make a substantive change to the business model while or before their market has shifted. 16 years later it’s just another software company. But today very few of those remain.

Azure 120

Azure Business Model Cloud Artificial Inteligence 120

Steve Blank

OCTOBER 24, 2016

After running Microsoft for 25 years, Bill Gates handed the reins of CEO to Steve Ballmer in January 2000. The best are agile and know how to pivot – make a substantive change to the business model while or before their market has shifted. 16 years later it’s just another software company. But today very few of those remain.

Azure 120

Azure Business Model Cloud Artificial Inteligence 120

Steve Blank

MARCH 18, 2011

What are they, how do they differ and what can startup do to take advantage of them? Paths to Liquidity: a quick history of the four waves of startup investing. 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

Internet IPO Silicon Valley Agile 334

View from Seed

JUNE 17, 2015

I’ve observed what may be an emerging trend, at least in some startups, that I find somewhat unsettling. But I think it’s important to discuss, particularly given today’s heady environment for startups. But I think it’s important to discuss, particularly given today’s heady environment for startups.

Startup 120

Startup Cofounder Seed Stage IPO 120

Agile VC

JUNE 17, 2015

I’ve observed what may be an emerging trend, at least in some startups, that I find somewhat unsettling. But I think it’s important to discuss, particularly given today’s heady environment for startups. But I think it’s important to discuss, particularly given today’s heady environment for startups.

Startup 188

Startup Cofounder Seed Stage IPO 188

Startup Lessons Learned

SEPTEMBER 10, 2008

He wrote it in 2000, and as far as I know has never updated it. I have been thinking a lot about what a new version of this test would look like, given what Ive seen work and not work in startups. but I have not seen that dysfunction in any of the startups I advise, so hopefully its behind us. Its incredibly hard to do.

Software Review 144

Software Review Technical Review San Francisco Continuous Deployment 144

Steve Blank

JULY 15, 2010

The two decades from 1979 when pension funds fueled the expansion of venture capital to 2000 when the dot-com bubble burst were the Golden Age for entrepreneurs and venture capital firms. VC’s invested their limited partners’ “risk capital” in a portfolio of startups in exchange for illiquid stock. Startup lifecycle in an IPO Market.

Venture Capital 297

Venture Capital IPO Liquidity Event Entrepreneur 297

Agile VC

OCTOBER 23, 2012

And even if they wanted the index return, there is essentially no way to buy (or sell) a broad-based basket of VC funds in the way you can trade the S&P 500 or Russell 2000 or other public equity index. Startup outcomes are a power law distribution rather than a standard distribution. What about fund of funds (FoF), you ask?

LP 176

LP Accredited Investor Carried Interest Portfolio 176

Agile VC

JUNE 17, 2015

I’ve observed what may be an emerging trend, at least in some startups, that I find somewhat unsettling. But I think it’s important to discuss, particularly given today’s heady environment for startups. But I think it’s important to discuss, particularly given today’s heady environment for startups.

Startup 100

Startup Cofounder Seed Stage IPO 100

Agile VC

MAY 26, 2011

AGILEVC My idle thoughts on tech startups. Silicon Valley is still emerging from the tech bubble and massive downturn of late 2000-2002. Salesforce.com is a startup with 76,000 subscribers (over 2.1M As I’m fond of saying, startup fundraising isn’t about convincing skeptics but rather finding true believers.

Term Sheet 178

Term Sheet Silicon Valley Technical Review Social Network 178

A Smart Bear: Startups and Marketing for Geeks

OCTOBER 4, 2017

“Founder trouble” is a leading cause of startup death (though data also show that companies with only one founder are more likely to fail , so the conclusion is just that startups are just always likely to fail!). Employee #2 will join a startup for the experience. Or it’s fatal because that was a co-founder.

Government 223

Government Startup Cofounder Technical Support 223

A Smart Bear: Startups and Marketing for Geeks

FEBRUARY 15, 2010

For example, let's say you designed a banner ad for a certain website (cost: $1000) and paid to run the ad for three months (cost: $2000). Here's where you expect me to say how stupid big-business is and how little startups are smart and agile and never make mistakes like that, but that's crap. And possibly you too?

Cost 273

Cost Reputation Agile Sales 273

Agile VC

JANUARY 21, 2015

The startup ecosystem is often full of hyperbole, which is perfectly understandable when you think about it. Not every startup is going to “crush” their original milestones and financial projections. This is the vernacular of today’s startup ecosystem, for better or worse. Do No Harm. Don’t Blindside Them.

Cofounder 188

Cofounder Seed Stage Employee PR 188

Agile VC

OCTOBER 17, 2011

AGILEVC My idle thoughts on tech startups. What we refer to as the PC era (the ’80s, ’90s, and early 2000′s) was not just the desktop phase era but more accurately a desktop corporate computing era. It was only in 2000 that a majority of of US homes had a computer. How to Evaluate Firms for a Seed VC.

Silicon Valley 133

Silicon Valley Seed Stage Syndicate Syndication 133

Steve Blank

JUNE 22, 2009

The original Hewlett Packard which made test and measurement products was spun-out and renamed Agilent. Agilent is a $5.8 Technology changes, culture changes, customer needs change, more agile competitors emerge, etc. The remaining company kept the Hewlett Packard name and focussed on computers.

Silicon Valley 164

Silicon Valley RSS California Agile 164

Agile VC

JANUARY 21, 2015

The startup ecosystem is often full of hyperbole, which is perfectly understandable when you think about it. Not every startup is going to “crush” their original milestones and financial projections. This is the vernacular of today’s startup ecosystem, for better or worse. Do No Harm. Don’t Blindside Them.

Cofounder 100

Cofounder Seed Stage Employee PR 100

Steve Blank

SEPTEMBER 10, 2009

In future posts I’ll describe how Eric Ries and the Lean Startup concept provided the equivalent model for product development activities inside the building and neatly integrates customer and agile development. While that’s not true, it is a fact that entrepreneurs only have one word for “startup.”

Customer Development 196

Customer Development Developer Customer Silicon Valley 196

ReadWriteStart

APRIL 26, 2012

For a technology startup company to launch an initial product and survive long enough to gauge its success, requires two-orders-of-magnitude less money today than at the start of the previous decade. They all went away; they got rolled up in 1999 and 2000 into these too-big-to-fail banking operations," Davidson tells us.

IPO 115

IPO Stock San Francisco Lean 115

Startup Lessons Learned

MAY 25, 2020

So now I'm home-based in Austin, Texas and I'm spending a lot of time with a lot of startups and a lot of CEOs that are trying to scale their companies. So we went back, got our agile teams engaged and in 48 hours, we could put up aerial of people's homes. Be very outcome-driven in the world we're going to. Let's go."

Technical Review 148

Technical Review Balance Sheet Texas Austin 148

Agile VC

MAY 23, 2012

AGILEVC My idle thoughts on tech startups. E-commerce accounts for the vast majority of LL Bean’s revenue today ( it crossed 50% in 2010 though was as low as 15% in 2000 ), but because LL Bean is over a hundred years old and started as catalog & physical store retailer we typically don’t refer to it as an internet company.

Internet 182

Internet Silicon Valley IPO Seed Stage 182

Agile VC

JULY 19, 2012

Back in the 2000-2001 timeframe, a flood of LP capital was coming into the VC asset class given the strong returns of the mid-late 90s tech boom/bubble. Winning in the sense of finding the most promising startups and earning the right to invest in them. A good example of this was Charles River Ventures experience with their 11th fund.

Cofounder 193

Cofounder Limited Partner Early Stage LP 193

Startup Lessons Learned

SEPTEMBER 8, 2009

Lessons Learned by Eric Ries Tuesday, September 8, 2009 What would you want to tell Washington DC about startups? Beyond just those who will be hearing about the lean startup for the first time, Im expecting to shake a lot of hands and have a lot of interesting side conversations. And what hurdles could be eliminated?

DC 90

DC Washington San Francisco SBIR 90

crowdSPRING Blog

JUNE 13, 2017

Brand building at-scale can be different than brand building for a startup or small business. The 2017 Brandz Top 100 Most Valuable Global Brands report offers important branding lessons for startups and small business. Sometimes called “Gen Y”, millennials are the much sought after generation born between 1980 and 2000.

Small Business 53

Small Business Startup Global Design 53

Agile VC

JULY 11, 2012

AGILEVC My idle thoughts on tech startups. Merrill, Pickard, Anderson & Eyre [Silicon Valley] –> Itself an outgrowth of the venture investing arm of the original Bank of America (based in SF), Merrill Pickard backed many startups that ultimately went public. How to Evaluate Firms for a Seed VC. July 11, 2012. And Why 20%?

Silicon Valley 240

Silicon Valley Carried Interest Cofounder Boston 240

Agile VC

APRIL 13, 2012

AGILEVC My idle thoughts on tech startups. Urbanization of Startups. I spent some time with some startups in San Francisco proper, as opposed to the heart of Silicon Valley (see Note 1). Also all the big anchor companies that a startup might want to partner with at that time (eBay, Google, Oracle, Yahoo!, April 13, 2012.

Silicon Valley 185

Silicon Valley San Francisco San Jose Startup 185

Steve Blank

NOVEMBER 1, 2010

billion Iridium was one of the largest, boldest and audacious startup bets ever made. It crashed back down to earth as one of the largest startup failures on record. The result was a classic startup failure writ large. Customer Development, Business Model Design and Agile Development could have changed the outcome.

Business Plan 335

Business Plan Customer Business Model Customer Development 335

Agile VC

NOVEMBER 13, 2012

Sarah also points to the vast global wealth that has to get allocated somewhere as well as a small bump in long term average returns, now that the generally terrible performance of funds from the 2000-2002 time frame (after the tech bubble of the late 90s crashed) no longer factor in to 10 year returns.

LP 154

LP Portfolio Venture Capital IRR 154

Steve Blank

JANUARY 4, 2012

2000 – Digital Video Recorders (DVR) like TiVo allowing consumer to skip commercials was going to be the end of the TV business. Ironically, it was Valenti’s skill in hobbling competitive innovation that negated any need for studios to develop agility, vision and technology leadership. DVR’s reignite interest in TV.

Silicon Valley 336

Silicon Valley Distribution Washington Channel 336