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Is the Lean Startup Dead?

Steve Blank

Reading the NY Times article “ Jeffrey Katzenberg Raises $1 Billion for Short-Form Video Venture, ” I realized it was time for a new startup heuristic: the amount of customer discovery and product-market fit you need to find is inversely proportional to the amount and availability of risk capital. ” Fire, Ready, Aim. And it may work.

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Startup CXO: A Field Guide to Scaling Up Your Company’s Critical Functions and Teams

Feld Thoughts

I’ve been working with Matt since 2000. Matt was the co-founder/CEO of Return Path. The founders of each company talked and, in between efforts to decimate the other, agreed it might be worth merging to survive. He co-founded it in partnership with High Alpha (we are LPs) and SVB. Matt was still CEO.

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Product Launches: 5 Unexpected Lessons from the Real World

ConversionXL

But, increasingly, the Apple hype-fests are a marketing—not a product—showcase. For product launches, long-term success relies on cornerstones of marketing research and execution, like a strong value proposition and full-funnel campaign. Yet while product launches are a risk, they’re not as risky as you think. Image source ).

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8 Ways The Maker Movement Turns Ideas Into Businesses

Startup Professionals Musings

In today’s fast moving market, the basic product development cost and time are critical to survival. With the new rapid prototyping tools, products can be physically built for analysis, rather than just conceptualized. Provides networking with cofounders and strategic partners. These ideas can grow quickly into real products.

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What’s the Difference Between a Small Business Venture and a Startup?

Up and Running

In comparison to traditional business ventures, startups are expected to grow rapidly, at a rate of between 5% and 7% per week in their initial stage – Paul Graham, co-founder of Y Combinator. Your product or service has a huge market. This is why many startup founders launch with exit strategies that focus on a buy-out.

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Five Recruiting Metrics Every Founder Should Track

View from Seed

Ask a founder of a growing startup what they need most, and you’ll often get an answer along the lines of, “We need great people, and we need them fast.”. Founders need to make sure the quality of the startup’s offerings remains high and provide adequate sales and service support for prospective customers and new users.

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Turning the Camera on Chris Dixon

Both Sides of the Table

He’s thoughtful about markets, investors, products and is always very well reasoned in his arguments. This week I sat down with Chris Dixon, co-founder / CEO of Hunch and Partner at Founder Collective in the most recent installment of This Week in Venture Capital.