Steve Blank

MAY 6, 2015

Build a product, get it into the real world, measure customers’ reactions and behaviors, learn from this, and use what you’ve learned to build something better. Repeat, learning whether to iterate, pivot or restart until you have something that customers love. Build, Measure, Learn sounds pretty simple. Waterfall Development.

Lean 120

Lean Agile Business Model Customer Development 120

Steve Blank

JUNE 3, 2010

They start with an innovation, search for a repeatable business model, build the infrastructure for a company, then grow by efficiently executing the model. outpace an existing company’s business model. You want to start executing the business model. Creative Destruction. Just like a startup.

Search 242

Search Agile Customer Development Technical Review 242

A Smart Bear: Startups and Marketing for Geeks

JANUARY 13, 2015

Often your best estimate of any metric or market behavior or business model component is at best accurate within a power of ten, for example “expected conversion rate between 0.5% and 5%” or “cost to acquire a customer between $50 and $500″ or “average monthly revenue per customer between $20 and $200.”

Business Model 120

Business Model Affiliate Startup Bootstrapping 120

Steve Blank

SEPTEMBER 14, 2009

Five Quarters of Profitability During the 1980’s and through the mid 1990’s startups going public had to do something that most companies today never heard of – they had to show a track record of increasing revenue and consistent profitability. They taught you about customers, markets and profits.

Silicon Valley 217

Silicon Valley IPO Technical Review Venture Capital 217

Steve Blank

MARCH 31, 2014

I’m honored to be at a university noted for knowledge, and in a city with 2000 years of history – home of Gaudí one of the 20 th century’s greatest innovators. Companies horde cash and squeeze the most revenue and margin from the money they use. These innovations do not require change in a company’s existing business model.

Private Equity 325

Private Equity Metrics China Intellectual Property 325

YoungUpstarts

DECEMBER 5, 2013

I have been involved in many of these innovations, mainly through my last startup venture, a company that became the world’s leading provider of credit card loyalty solutions with bank customers in 30 countries. We, as an industry, have lost track of the original business goals of loyalty and have turned the process into a monstrosity.

Programming 150

Programming Turkey Social Media Redemption 150

ConversionXL

MARCH 19, 2020

The best drivers apply the brakes just ahead of the curve (they take out excess costs), turn hard toward the apex of the curve (identify the short list of projects that will form the next business model), and accelerate hard out of the curve (spend and hire before markets have rebounded). Promotion. Pragmatic. Image source ).

Marketing 121

Marketing Campaign Non-Compete Lean 121

Steve Blank

MARCH 18, 2011

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

Internet IPO Silicon Valley Agile 334

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. Until 1995 startups going public typically had a track record of revenue and profits. Number of Venture Backed Liquidity Events 1991-2000.

Venture Capital 297

Venture Capital IPO Liquidity Event Entrepreneur 297

K9 Ventures

SEPTEMBER 8, 2015

Kumar was the Founder, President and CEO of SneakerLabs, a company which developed software and services for web-based customer interaction. 2) New market (less common form, examples are Lyft and eShares) and 3) New business model (least common, non-K9 portfolio examples are PriceLine and SolarCity). Frighteningly Early.

San Francisco 48

San Francisco Early Stage Portfolio Software Engineering 48

Both Sides of the Table

JUNE 22, 2011

I know that most people who are close to them tend to deny their existence, as we saw in the great housing bubble of 2002-2007 and the dot com bubble of 1997-2000. Ah, but today’s Internet companies have real revenue! Those with strong business models suddenly stand out when the tide goes out. and profits!

Saudi Arabia 309

Saudi Arabia Valuation IPO Technical Review 309

Seeing Both Sides

JULY 11, 2013

Before this occurs, the sales process is a craft or an art - custom-made by the founder or evangelist sales VP. You dive deep into a customer development process, working closely with a few customers who feed you requirements and are willing to trial an imperfect product that is evolving quickly. I''ll discuss each one below.

Sales 50

Sales Technical Review Software Review B2B 50

Steve Blank

OCTOBER 4, 2010

It was not until October 2000 that Google offered its version of a pay per click advertising system -AdWords -allowing advertisers to create text ads for placement on the Google search engine. Google is a $25 billion dollar company with most of its revenue from AdWords. Implicit Customer Discovery and Validation in Fast Followers.

Silicon Valley 317

Silicon Valley Differentiation United States Customer Development 317

A Smart Bear: Startups and Marketing for Geeks

OCTOBER 23, 2012

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

IPO Flash Bootstrapping Private Equity 240

Austin Startup

AUGUST 20, 2017

Your original business plan will probably go out the window when you land your first customer. Customers are choices made by your startup. Customers pay you money so you can keep the lights on. Your business works as intended if you can attract customers that fit into the context of your operation.

Technical Review 48

Technical Review Software Review Cap Table Securities and Exchange Commission 48

www.inc.com

SEPTEMBER 24, 2011

Internet and Online Business. Business Software. Why Arizona Bay started taking stock from its customers instead of cash. Dave Graham Business Venture Capital Private Equity GlobalLogic Inc. Jumpstart was one of Grahams first clients; it signed on shortly after he founded Arizona Bay, in 2000. Leadership.

Arizona 40

Arizona Equity Iowa Venture Capital 40

Reid Hoffman

MARCH 19, 2019

But in today’s world, speed-to-scale entrepreneurship is what we need to improve society, transform industries, and create massive value for customers, employees, and investors. Customers value and benefit from the convenience, price, and selection of Amazon, which is why the company is, by a wide margin, America’s largest bookseller.

Cofounder 28

Cofounder Business Model IPO Non-Compete 28

www.usatoday.com

JULY 16, 2012

Americas new business model: Sharing. The dot-com boom of early 2000 saw a proliferation of similar anything-at-your-service start-ups. What distinguishes the latest generation of start-ups is a confluence of new technologies and more-efficient business models that leave much of the logistical heavy-lifting to peers who share.

San Francisco 105

San Francisco Technical Review Zimbabwe New York City 105

Both Sides of the Table

MAY 23, 2012

In 1998 there were around 850 VC funds and by 2000 there were 2,300. By 2000 the total LP commitments had mushroomed to more than $100 billion. Try charging customers for your product when you have 12 competitors giving the product away free finances by $20 million of VC. The Funding Problem. Today’s Normalization.

Venture Capital 347

Venture Capital Technical Review LP Mobile 347

Growthink Blog

MARCH 28, 2018

Because in his lifetime, he founded and grew not one, not two, but three multi-billion dollar businesses. With three different business models. Combined with the passion and guts was an inherent foresight as to the overriding business importance of predictable customers and recurring revenue.

Chicago 48

Chicago Business Model Acquisition Video 48

Steve Blank

MAY 5, 2016

Founders will always encounter naysayers, shut out the voices and listen to the customers instead. It gets you to a business faster. Including that there are a lot of naysayers in the education business. . … If you feel passionate, and have positive customer feedback, then go do it. So I decided to ignore the naysayers.

Brazil 158

Brazil Entrepreneur Cleveland Cofounder 158

Cracking the Code

NOVEMBER 13, 2008

The fact that SaaS valuations are being more affected by the downturn than the Nasdaq can be surprising given the supposed resiliency of the SaaS model (recurring revenues) but it translates the public investors belief that SMB software spend is going to be hit very hard by this recession. With this decline, the average EV/08 rev.

Software Review 48

Software Review Technical Review Valuation Portfolio 48

Steve Blank

MAY 5, 2016

Founders will always encounter naysayers, shut out the voices and listen to the customers instead. It gets you to a business faster. Including that there are a lot of naysayers in the education business. . … If you feel passionate, and have positive customer feedback, then go do it. So I decided to ignore the naysayers.

Brazil 120

Brazil Entrepreneur Cleveland Cofounder 120

Hearpreneur

JANUARY 7, 2017

I’ve built a loyal customer base and by selling directly through image consultants, stylists, at shows and on my website I am able to give my clients top quality at almost wholesale affordable prices. (I Our business has started little bit over a month ago, but we have already had more success that we have expected.

Entrepreneur 91

Entrepreneur LLC Cofounder Green 91

crowdSPRING Blog

MAY 1, 2013

But marketing, when planned and executed correctly, can also lead to more sales and revenue. In many cases, the goal of online marketing (especially for small businesses), is to directly increase sales by targeting potential customers using different online channels. Your customers have also learned to ignore those ads.

Small Business 107

Small Business Marketing Affiliate PPC 107

YoungUpstarts

OCTOBER 27, 2011

Here are ten mom-and-pop businesses that turned into empires: The Coffee Bean & Tea Leaf. The Coffee Bean & Tea Leaf, also known as “The Bean” to loyal customers, is a Los Angeles based, family-run coffee and tea company that’s owned and operated by International Coffee & Tea, LLC. Wrigley Company.

Southern California 162

Southern California Las Vegas Honolulu Massachusetts 162

Both Sides of the Table

FEBRUARY 17, 2010

I was living in Europe in 2000 when the first WAP phones (Wireless Access Protocol) were introduced. We evangelized to customer about the problems of on premise software. - And being gateways to the customer they naturally extracted their pound of flesh from mobile application developers. Absolute Power Corrupts, Absolutely.

Flash 326

Flash Mobile Application Development Cloud 326

Austin Startup

MARCH 31, 2010

It’s also financially rewarding, with up to $2000 in rewards for a great idea. The current business model for expert consultants is a brick and mortar industry with revenues of about 1/2 a Billion dollars per year. Q: How has customer adoption been so far? It’s more than just Q&A though.

Elevator Pitch 63

Elevator Pitch Curation Vertical Bootstrapping 63

Steve Blank

NOVEMBER 1, 2010

When it was spun out as a a separate company, Iridium’s 1990 business plan had assumptions about potential customers, their problems and the product needed to solve that problem. They made other assumptions about the type of sales channel, partnerships and revenue model they would need. A Business Plan Frozen in Time.

Business Plan 335

Business Plan Customer Business Model Customer Development 335

SVPG

SEPTEMBER 30, 2016

From the customer’s point of view, they would rather wait a little longer and have a better platform-specific solution, than simultaneously ship a generic product on all platforms. They had a couple experienced co-founders, including the now legendary Reed Hastings, but the problem was that they were stuck at about 300,000 customers.

Product 60

Product Technical Review Software Review Engineer 60

Seeing Both Sides

AUGUST 16, 2012

TripAdvisor may be one of the most fascinating companies I know and so I was excited to dig into their business model as part of my series on scaling. TripAdvisor is more of a classic consumer Internet success story, but with even more powerful network effects and an amazing business model. Big Data meets travel…in 2000.

Part-Time VPE 54

Part-Time VPE Software Review Costa Rica Technical Review 54

Occam's Razor

MAY 2, 2017

Let’s look at XX completely different types of business, and pick just six metrics (two each for A, B and O) that would be the very best ones to measure their digital success. The goal is for each company’s Google Data Studio to not look like a CDP (customized data puke), but to be a focused strategic dashboard with an emphasis on IABI.

Metrics 141

Metrics Acquisition eCommerce Analytics 141

Steve Blank

JUNE 22, 2009

We Changed Our Mind In 1966, 10 years after Hewlett’s memo, Hewlett Packard’s revenue and headcount had grown ten fold; $200 million and 11,000 employees – all from test and measurement equipment. For the first 25 years HP’s business model was static. However, no markets last forever.

Silicon Valley 164

Silicon Valley RSS California Agile 164

BeyondVC

NOVEMBER 17, 2006

From the introduction of our solutions in 2000 through September 30, 2006, our enterprise subscriber base has grown to approximately 1,500 companies who spend from $2,000 to more than $100,000 annually, including companies such as Wal-Mart, Home Depot, Procter & Gamble, Merrill Lynch, UPS and Cisco Systems. million, $0.9 million and $1.8

IPO 60

IPO Investment Bankers Demand Revenue 60

www.chubbybrain.com

SEPTEMBER 28, 2011

The negativity either impacted investment funding (venture capital fell off a cliff in 2009) or the customers they were targeted as was the case for Untitled Partners who were building a platform for fractional art ownership. I don’t know about you, but my favorite part about startups is talking about new products and new business ideas.

Cofounder 89

Cofounder Startup Technical Cofounder CTO Hire 89

maplebutter.com

JANUARY 8, 2013

I would focus on one product and set a goal to generate $1M in yearly revenue from it. Outsourcing is something a big company, with a known customer / problem (that has revenue & traction) does to save cost. I don’t have any formal business training and I actually think it’s served me well. Talk to your customers.

Technical Review 44

Technical Review Startup Cofounder Software Review 44

Start Up Blog

AUGUST 10, 2023

The market size is over $US10 billion globally in revenue. The entire mating process and the business models which have underpinned it have changed more radically in the past 20 years than they did in the previous 2000 years. We now expected that people in a relationships met online. What happens next is easy to imagine.

Mauritius 62

Mauritius Artificial Inteligence Indonesia Generative AI 62