Startup Lessons Learned

APRIL 14, 2009

Lessons Learned by Eric Ries Tuesday, April 14, 2009 Validated learning about customers Would you rather have $30,000 or $1 million in revenues for your startup? All things being equal, of course, you’d rather have more revenue rather than less. And yet revenue alone is not a sufficient goal. More on that in a moment.

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Customer San Francisco Lean Hockey Stick 167

Cracking the Code

NOVEMBER 10, 2009

It is intriguing to see the M&A dynamics in the space, highlighting the interest of tech companies for recurring revenue streams - even SAP announced in their analyst call earlier this month that they were moving from perpertual licenses to five year term licences. on January 1st 2008. 1st 2008 with a base value of 100.00

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Cracking the Code

NOVEMBER 10, 2009

Cloud accounting is all about matching revenue and costs to consumption…well, except for professional services! SaaS companies use different metrics to calculate renewals. 1st 2008 with a base value of 100.00 ► 2008. (11). The Bessemer 10 laws of SaaS - Fall 2008 Release. Happy New Year 2008!

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Cracking the Code

NOVEMBER 13, 2008

Thursday, November 13, 2008. 1st 2008 = base 100) This number compares to the Nasdaq reaching a low point of -46% and currently showing a -40% drop year to date. Would the median EV/2010 multiple of CARR (as a surrogate to forward revenue) be a valid approach? 1st 2008 with a base value of 100.00 Cracking The Code.

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Cracking the Code

JANUARY 22, 2009

For SaaS companies, we found that MRR is the best metric on which to base sales commissions. While it may make sense to offer very slight adjustments for favorable payment terms and one time revenue, net additions to MRR should dominate the sales rep’s thoughts. How do you clawback revenue from the sales guy? Cindy said.

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Cracking the Code

FEBRUARY 25, 2008

Monday, February 25, 2008. The Index reference point starts on January 1st 2008 at 19,187.81 As I was building the spreadsheet, I also included the revenue multiples for this set of companies, both for the trailing 12-month (TTM) and the forward 12-month (FTM). 1st 2008 with a base value of 100.00 ▼ 2008. (11).

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Ben's Blog

MAY 15, 2020

Finally, we’ll zoom out and assess the big picture: how various categories of company may be impacted long-term, how this crisis compares to 2008 (and what that means for early-stage founders), and the industries and business models that are now prime for growth. What are those metrics? Are we right or wrong about these things?”

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Cracking the Code

DECEMBER 16, 2006

however, public SaaS companies like Concur, Saba, Taleo, LivePerson and Ultimate are growing 50-100% per year and trading at an average 5x trailing revenue multiples (I excluded salesforce leading the pack with 9x!) whereas traditional software companies of this size have a growth rate of less than 10% and revenue multiples of 2-2.5x.

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Both Sides of the Table

MAY 23, 2012

In an over-funding environment companies are encouraged to eschew revenues in a land grab to acquire eyeballs, clicks, page views or whatever other vanity metrics give VCs the false comfort that they’re sitting on a gold mine. The opportunity to transact at the point of purchase increases the sheer number of revenue opportunities.

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Startup Lessons Learned

JANUARY 27, 2009

These are companies that generate revenue by offering a free product with an upsell or premium version. At a high level, anything that drives virality should be free. To take your specific example about virality - why do we want to have more users sign up? January 28, 2009 1:54 AM startupcfo said.

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San Francisco Lean Continuous Deployment DC 148

Cracking the Code

OCTOBER 10, 2008

Friday, October 10, 2008. The Bessemer 10 laws of SaaS - Fall 2008 Release. When we first published Bessemer’s Top 10 Laws for Being "SaaS-y" in early 2008 in conjunction with our annual invitation-only SaaS CEO Summit, we were overwhelmed with the positive response and feedback we received. Great list! Great list!

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Startup Lessons Learned

DECEMBER 14, 2009

In a previous post , I covered the three main drivers of growth: Paid, Sticky, and Viral. A business that strives for something like this should absolutely be charging money from day one, in order to establish baselines for their two key metrics: CPA (the cost to acquire a new customer) and LTV (the lifetime value of each acquired customer).

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Customer San Francisco Viral Lean 156

Cracking the Code

MAY 25, 2010

A few highlights from the different keynotes and speakers On top of Jason, we also had the chance of having many great speakers at the event and here are a few quotes and notes that I have taken during the different keynotes and panels: Joe Payne, CEO of Eloqua moderated the panel on Revenue Performance Management. ► 2008. (11).

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Startup Lessons Learned

SEPTEMBER 29, 2008

Lessons Learned by Eric Ries Monday, September 29, 2008 Q&A with an actual reader One of my favorite things about having a blog is the feedback I get in comments and by email. Luckily, the metrics helped us figure out the difference. Were looking to metrics to determine how users interact with our product.

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San Francisco Lean Continuous Deployment DC 68

Startup Lessons Learned

APRIL 7, 2010

At least, not in the traditional sense of trying to squeeze every tenth of a point out of a conversion metric or landing page. Even if it shows improvement in some micro metric, does that invalidate the overall design? That was evident in the metrics and in the in-person usability tests. No one feature is to blame.

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San Francisco Lean Metrics Design 154

Cracking the Code

MARCH 10, 2008

Monday, March 10, 2008. I found this approach interesting, but it seems to me that gross margin is a more relevant benchmark than revenues, given that the GM of saas companies varies by type of application and size of the company (for example NetSuite went from about 50% GM three years ago to close to 70% today). Cracking The Code.

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Sales Software Review Marketing Technical Review 79

Duct Tape Marketing

DECEMBER 14, 2017

We’ve had over 20,000 people download that free tool that we built, and the key metric there is if somebody has used that free tool, their conversion rate on our paid product is three times higher than those who have not. In 2008, and 2009, we were really starting to grow. It was a huge piece of the puzzle for us.

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Cracking the Code

SEPTEMBER 2, 2008

Tuesday, September 02, 2008. The Deutsche Bank report has a very interesting chart on the topic presenting the Free Cash Flow margins vs. the revenue growth four years post IPO for select software leaders: As you can see, with 20% Free Cash Flow margin and a 50% growth rate, Salesforce is well positioned in the pack! ▼ 2008. (11).

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Entrepreneurs-Journey.com by Yaro Starak

JUNE 19, 2010

It made this site very sticky and it grew organically through viral word-of-mouth as a result of doing that. Adding Ad Revenue. I hired those writers, the traffic increased, I started getting more revenue from advertising, and the income increased to about $1,500 per month as a result of that. I had someone running the forum.

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betashop.com

OCTOBER 8, 2012

It has been awesome, flattering, and humbling to see that post went viral and has been seen by so many thousands of people — mainly aspiring entrepreneurs — and has been translated into many languages. Jason is also an investor in and Board Member at RJ Metrics. Notable prior investments: TweetDeck. Jason is a product guy.

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Technical Review Technology Software Review Valuation 108

Cracking the Code

JULY 6, 2007

SaaS business metrics: why are they different? I was surprised today when I went through the NetSuite IPO filling (S1) to see that it looked very much like any Enterprise software document - not a single mention of churn or % of recurring revenues. Different models require different performance metrics. Friday, July 06, 2007.

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Software Review Metrics Valuation Technical Review 66

Cracking the Code

FEBRUARY 4, 2008

Monday, February 04, 2008. A few times per year, Bessemer organizes a CxO event for our portfolio companies and we decided to focus our first session of 2008 on Software-as-a-service (SaaS). What metrics should I be using to drive a saas business? If you want to learn more on SaaS metrics, you can read my previous blog post.

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