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Pricing determines your business

A Smart Bear: Startups and Marketing for Geeks

Consider the consequences of these monthly pricing possibilities: $0/mo means your goal is to maximize growth (trust and usage) instead of revenue. Even bootstrapped businesses can make this work (e.g. Rather, it fundamentally determines the nature of the product and the structure of the business that produces it. Think: GoDaddy).

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Bootstrapping vs. Raising Money

Spencer Fry

Days before the conference started, I was asked (and felt honored) to lead two workshops on bootstrapping vs. raising money. Having started and sold 3 successful bootstrapped businesses, and am now running 1 venture capital backed business ( Coach ), this is a topic I know a thing or two about. What's “good” about bootstrapping.

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Disturbing

Austin Startup

Hurricane Irma had a major negative revenue impact on one whose fall book of business was mostly in Florida. We just closed out in 2017 our 10-year early-stage venture fund started in 2000. All of them got into some “pushing the rope” conundrums where there were many things pending but none getting resolved at the speed we hoped.

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What every entrepreneur should know about financing right now

Version One Ventures

We have all heard about the Series A crunch in the Valley (there might actually be up to 2000 companies in the Series A pipeline right now), and perhaps there’s a Series B crunch now too. If not, revenue from your customers will be your best source of financing. That’s okay: many great companies have been built by bootstrapping.

Finance 167
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The rise of the “successful” unsustainable company

A Smart Bear: Startups and Marketing for Geeks

invested, IPO’ed in 2000 for $32/share — stock price now $2. After I sold Smart Bear, that division has increased revenue and profit every year, for five years, even through the 2008/2009 economic disaster. Freeloader — On $3m invested, sold for $38m in 1996 — shut down in 1997. Support.com — On 2.5m

IPO 240
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Fermi estimation for startup business models

A Smart Bear: Startups and Marketing for Geeks

and 5%” or “cost to acquire a customer between $50 and $500″ or “average monthly revenue per customer between $20 and $200.” So they’ll need 1666 customers to achieve their revenue target. (We Including future cancellations, they’ll need to sign up a total of 2000 customers to net 1666.

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Surviving 2016 as a seed stage startup: Don’t batten down the hatches but take an umbrella.

Hippoland

That said, because I know that it may be challenging for our portfolio companies to raise from downstream investors, so it will be extra important for me to believe that companies I invest in will 1) Survive even without downstream capital and 2) Will have the traction to potentially bootstrap for a while if need be. Keep your burn low.