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. How does that stack up?

Customer 167

Customer San Francisco Lean Hockey Stick 167

ConversionXL

MARCH 19, 2020

The HBR study contrasts Office Depot and Staples during the 2000 recession: Office Depot cut 6% of its workforce, but it couldn’t reduce operating costs significantly. At the same time, the company contained its operating costs and came out of the recession stronger, bigger, and more profitable than it had been in 1999. Image source ).

Marketing 121

Marketing Campaign Non-Compete Lean 121

This is going to be BIG.

FEBRUARY 26, 2010

Senior VP of Operations/COO – ROBLOX - San Francisco, CA Tree forts. We are one of the fastest growing game and kid sites in 2009, according to comScore. Our revenues have increased every quarter for the past two years. Wooden blocks. Erector Set. Tinker Toys. We are also one of the stickiest sites on the internet.

San Francisco 92

San Francisco CTO Hire Developer EC2 92

ConversionXL

MAY 1, 2017

Reporting in the Harvard Business Review on a major study of growth stalls they conducted, Olson and his colleagues cite the case of the iconic brand Levi Strauss, which hit a historic high mark of sales in 1995, reaching revenue of $7 billion, but then, starting in 1996, saw a decline in sales so precipitous that by 2000, revenue was down to $4.6

Technical Review 127

Technical Review Algorithm Channel Analytics 127

Duct Tape Marketing

NOVEMBER 9, 2022

Smart Execution is the secret sauce of the growth and marketing operating system Clare Price has created that has helped so many businesses achieve clarity, confidence, and control of all their marketing functions. The answer: Smart execution. Questions I ask Clare Price: [1:26] What is your backstory and entrepreneurial journey?

Marketing 76

Marketing Differentiation Sacramento Small Business 76

Duct Tape Marketing

FEBRUARY 19, 2020

So I helped, I was one of his first employees and wound up becoming the chief operating officer and running part of the firm and we grew at our peak to around 50 people or so. Yeah, we started in late 2009, so a little over 10 years old. And our monthly revenue is smooth out, so we don’t have those peaks and valleys anymore.

Leadership 73

Leadership Developer Curation Hiring 73

Steve Blank

OCTOBER 24, 2017

— Unremarked and unheralded, the balance of power between startup CEOs and their investors has radically changed: IPOs/M&A without a profit (or at times revenue) have become the norm. Typically, this caliber of bankers wouldn’t talk to you unless your company had five profitable quarters of increasing revenue. The founders.

Founder 245

Founder Technical Review CTO Hire IPO 245

Growthink Blog

JUNE 25, 2014

As detailed last week , since March 2009 the S&P index has almost tripled, while real estate prices are up 10.5% By almost any objective standard, paying into the billions of dollars for businesses with little revenues and/or significant operating losses - as is the case with all the companies mentioned above - is absurd.

South America 81

South America Marketing Private Equity Russia 81

ConversionXL

AUGUST 19, 2016

This “gap” first came to fruition in 2009 when retailers decided that the best way to attract mobile users was to create a mobile application. Marketers should also be looking at acquisition (visits, unique visitors, pageviews), behavior (pages per visit, time on site, bounce rate), and revenue (if you’re eCommerce).

Mobile 48

Mobile Technical Review Software Review Metrics 48

Ben's Blog

MAY 15, 2020

In normal times, every company operates against some hypothetical growth model—a data-driven framework that describes how your product grows and how you acquire new users. In normal times, every company operates against some hypothetical growth model—a data-driven framework that describes how your product grows and how you acquire new users.

Founder 36

Founder Conversion Technical Review Cash Position 36

Steve Blank

DECEMBER 7, 2010

Business schools teach aspiring executives a variety of courses around the execution of known business models, (accounting, organizational behavior, managerial skills, marketing, operations, etc.). What are your hypotheses around customer acquisition costs? Class Lecture/Out of the Building Assignment: What’s a revenue model?

Wiki 311

Wiki Lean Management Business Model 311

Both Sides of the Table

JUNE 18, 2010

We talked about the negative effect of Apple’s closed system attitude but how that will be a gift to the market because Apple’s cracking of the operator hegemony has forced the industry to innovate. Self-reported 60mm daily unique as of Dec 2009, games played by 250mm people a month (AppData). We talked about Facebook.

Venture Capital 225

Venture Capital Non-Compete Vertical Europe 225

www.forentrepreneurs.com

FEBRUARY 2, 2010

The company has just missed its quarterly revenue forecast. Lets take an example, and look at how they might do this: They will be able to tell you that revenue is composed of deals. To compute revenue, you multiply average deal size by number of deals. Bookings is the pre-cursor to Revenue. Obvious, isn’t it?

Metrics 55

Metrics Design Entrepreneur Startup 55

Austin Startup

JANUARY 14, 2011

Raul’s contribution to PetsMD as a member of our Advisory Board for the last year has been outstanding,” said Tina Cannon Co-Founder and Chief Operating Officer. While at 3M, he was promoted to Global Business Manager, where he headed a 3M Electronics business with over $100 Million in revenue, 380 employees and seven factories.

Advisory Board 63

Advisory Board Merger LLC Europe 63

K9 Ventures

OCTOBER 10, 2017

It is what Seed used to be from 2009-2013, until the Seed rounds got fat and bloated and the bar for raising a Seed round became a lot higher. Seed is the new Series A. (~$2M used get for building product, establishing product-market fit and early revenue). 6M-$15M used to scale customer acquisition and revenue).

Seed Stage 82

Seed Stage Finance Later Stage Equity 82

Steve Blank

NOVEMBER 5, 2020

Joe Felter , Raj Shah and I designed a class to examine the new military systems, operational concepts and doctrines that will emerge from 21st century technologies – Space, Cyber, AI & Machine Learning and Autonomy. She served as the Under Secretary of Defense for Policy from February 2009 to February 2012.

Technology 300

Technology China United States Government 300

www.foliomag.com

JULY 31, 2012

2009 Eddie and Ozzie Awards Winners. Social media audiences have effectively become another universe of prospects to tap, which means measurement and tracking is essential to yielding from these visitors both direct and indirect revenue. Operations. Mergers and Acquisitions. . --> Suppliers. Webinars Events. CRM Systems.

Social Media 40

Social Media Rhode Island Media South Dakota 40

Both Sides of the Table

JUNE 12, 2010

Mo was graduated from Wharton, worked in investment banking, spent 6 years at IAC (including in an operational role for Connected Ventures which includes College Humor, Busted T’s and Vimeo) before joining Spark Capital in 2008. Company grew by more than “400% each year” for past few years [assume growth metric = revenues].

Venture Capital 217

Venture Capital Los Angeles Oakland Asia 217

www.paulgraham.com

APRIL 28, 2010

October 2009 (This essay is derived from a talk at the 2009 Startup School.) Even if they were operating in the same area, they had a different goal. Theres very little focus on the cost of customer acquisition. That would have focused us on finding revenue streams early. Want to start a startup?

Technical Cofounder 110

Technical Cofounder Startup Cofounder Founder 110

betashop.com

OCTOBER 8, 2012

At Fab, our virtual product is our website & apps, our physical products are the merchandise we sell, and our experience product is our operations and service. Do they operate in silos or do they foster teamwork and collaboration? The only thing that matters is how good your product is. All the rest is noise. Manages Horizontal.

Technical Review 108

Technical Review Technology Software Review Valuation 108

Cracking the Code

OCTOBER 18, 2019

Ten years ago, in October 2009, Salesforce was a dominant force among the 21 public SaaS companies, with a valuation that represented one third of their combined $22 billion market capitalisation. 2009, CapitalQ, Yahoo! Full presentation available here. Source: The Angel VC Blog, BVP SaaS benchmarking Oct. billion collectively.

Europe 48

Europe IPO API 48

Cracking the Code

OCTOBER 10, 2008

Be prepared to cross the desert - SaaS requires R&D and sales expense up front for a multi-year stream of revenue, so it demands enough investment capital to fund 4+ years of runway. Farming is also often overlooked, but can help grow customer accounts and revenues from 30% upwards (if successful). Great list! Philippe Botteri.

Software Review 48

Software Review North America Europe Metrics 48

VC Cafe

JULY 4, 2011

The ratings agency noted that the improvement in public finances reflects both revenue growth as a result of buoyant output, as well as expenditure control, resulting from the adoption of new fiscal rules. in 2009 and debt moderated to 76.6% Following the acquisition, Trifon will become DG’s chief digital officer.

Balance Sheet 90

Balance Sheet Acquisition Africa 90

techcrunch.com

OCTOBER 23, 2010

Tweet View Comments Guest Author Sep 20, 2009 This guest post was written by Meebo CEO Seth Sternberg. This is the first post in what’s going to be a series of blogs on how to go from nothing – no connections, no team, no money and no knowledge of how the startup industry really works – to operating a growing business.

Technical Review 84

Technical Review Cofounder Technical Cofounder Software Review 84

VC Cafe

FEBRUARY 1, 2011

Data from the Central Bureau of Statistics show that the number of vacancies in the business sector from December 2009 to December 2010 rose by 57% to 56,800 slots. It operates in 140 countries worldwide. billion in 2010, has made 14 acquisitions over the last six years, the largest of which was PBM Holdings Inc.,

Architecture 92

Architecture Dividend Minneapolis 92

VC Cafe

JULY 5, 2010

In this time, as I said previously, we are looking to improve the valuations of our companies and get them ready for either a VC investment round (and an equity buy-out for us), or a strategic acquisition, such as Google’s acquisition of LabPixies back in April after 2 years of operating with just Angel capital.

Technical Review 106

Technical Review Software Review Seed Stage 106

Hearpreneur

DECEMBER 15, 2017

My research was valuable enough for a large corporation that is known for creating a popular operating system to give us about $250K in funding. My entire staff had been laid off due to an acquisition by an aggressive v.c. increase not only brand share but also revenue. I was a Ph.D. 13- I had no other choice.

Entrepreneur 115

Entrepreneur Czech Republic Retention B2C 115

VC Cafe

JANUARY 16, 2011

Previous Israeli exhibitors lists are available MWC 2009 and MWC 2010. i-nigma was successfully deployed by hundreds of enterprises, among them operators, advertisers, integrators and solution providers. For the third consecutive year , VC Cafe puts the spotlight on the Israeli companies exhibiting in the MWC 2011 event.

Mobile 103

Mobile Securities and Exchange Commission Flash IP 103