Startup Lessons Learned

SEPTEMBER 2, 2008

In a subscription business, maybe your attrition starts matching your acquisition, balancing like magic. Or your cost of customer acquisition just magically floats up to match your customer lifetime value. Nothing seems to matter. In an eyeballs business, you just cant seem to acquire or activate that next step-up of customers.

San Francisco 60

San Francisco Continuous Deployment Lean DC 60

Agile VC

MAY 26, 2011

Online social networking is a concept still being evangelized even in Silicon Valley… Friendster is in private beta (wasn’t until Oct 2003 they received Google acquisition offer which they turned down for Kleiner/Benchmark round). I co-founded NextView Ventures , a seed-stage VC firm based in Boston, in 2010. Read More ».

Term Sheet 178

Term Sheet Silicon Valley Technical Review Social Network 178

Startup Lessons Learned

APRIL 14, 2009

Go on an agile diet quickly. With a product development team that is not shipping, any agile methodology will surface major problems quickly. Labels: agile , customer development 15comments: Scott Shapiro said. If you find yourself in this kind of situation, what can you do? Great post! You do a great job articulating.

Customer 167

Customer San Francisco Lean Hockey Stick 167

Agile VC

MAY 21, 2012

On the consumer facing side, the number of companies doing multiple acquisitions of $100M+ was extremely short… Google, eBay/PayPal, Amazon, and Microsoft are at the top of the list. <$100M) acquisitions for several years now, but they’ve mainly been acquihires. IAC and Yahoo! Author howerl. Filed under Uncategorized.

Acquisition 162

Acquisition Silicon Valley B2B Seed Stage 162

Agile VC

MARCH 13, 2012

Patents and the threat of patent infringement lawsuits provide maximum leverage against a competitor when they’re in the middle of a strategic inflection point… a major financing, acquisition, or large product launch. I co-founded NextView Ventures , a seed-stage VC firm based in Boston, in 2010. Read More ».

IP 100

IP IPO Social Network Silicon Valley 100

Agile VC

FEBRUARY 21, 2012

The first of these to exit was recently announced, with Groupon’s acquisition of Hyperpublic , though most of the portfolio will continue to build for a long time. It’s great to have an innovative and thoughtful group of investors here in Boston. Best of luck. PMarchetti. Congratulations! Read More ».

LP 100

LP Seed Stage Silicon Valley Limited Partner 100

Agile VC

AUGUST 22, 2011

Salesforce is trying to create a platform both through internal efforts on Force.com and acquisitions (e.g. I co-founded NextView Ventures , a seed-stage VC firm based in Boston, in 2010. Microsoft has two massive platforms in Windows and Xbox, and has been thrashing about for a decade trying to build one in mobile. Author howerl.

Silicon Valley 113

Silicon Valley Seed Stage Startup Syndicate 113

Startup Lessons Learned

JUNE 21, 2010

To see proof of this, simply observe the results of the large majorities of corporate acquisitions of startups. Fundamentally, the lean startup is a methodology for coping with uncertainty and unknowns with agility, poise, and ruthless efficiency. A startup is greater than the sum of its parts; it is an acutely human enterprise.

San Francisco 168

San Francisco Startup Lean Continuous Deployment 168

Startup Lessons Learned

OCTOBER 7, 2008

The App Store is a channel for customer acquisition. I think its helpful to think about two kinds of competition for distribution: acquisition competition and retention competition. If your app has incredibly strong retention, you will probably do very well with the current PR/new app system of acquisition. So what can you do?

San Francisco 68

San Francisco Lean Retention SEM 68

Agile VC

MAY 16, 2012

Back in 2010 we were observing more and more new B2B startups emulating the product and customer acquisition strategies of existing consumer web companies which my partners & I have long been familiar with. I co-founded NextView Ventures , a seed-stage VC firm based in Boston, in 2010. Pingback: watch inception online.

Seed Stage 124

Seed Stage Silicon Valley B2B Syndicate 124

Agile VC

FEBRUARY 2, 2012

These companies report gross ad revenue but then subtract out “TAC” (Traffic Acquisition Costs) which is basically accounting-speak for the revenue share they pay to the partner sites where the ads actually appear. I co-founded NextView Ventures , a seed-stage VC firm based in Boston, in 2010. link] leehower. Read More ».

IPO 100

IPO South Korea Venezuela Revenue 100

Agile VC

MARCH 8, 2012

And finally margins matter… a $50-100M software company can go public given it’s 80-90% gross margins, an e-commerce company with 20-30% gross margins and high customer acquisition costs needs to be much bigger (probably 5-10x at least). I co-founded NextView Ventures , a seed-stage VC firm based in Boston, in 2010.

IPO 100

IPO Silicon Valley Revenue Seed Stage 100

Startup Lessons Learned

MARCH 24, 2009

Why, we just unified acquisition and engagement! I do think the concept allows us to unify acquisition and engagement, and is important for that reason. helping you balance engagement vs acquisition. Combining agile development with customer developm. March 25, 2009 9:16 AM Jesse Farmer said. Expo SF (May.

Metrics 88

Metrics San Francisco Lean Viral 88

Startup Lessons Learned

DECEMBER 14, 2009

If you haven’t figured out the ecosystem, growth is useless – whether it is a acquisition-only viral loop, like Tagged, or an advertising blitz like countless dot-bombs. They get focused solely on growth. This isn’t helpful either, as countless companies have shown. They get focused solely on growth. Expo SF (May.

Customer 156

Customer San Francisco Viral Lean 156

Agile VC

APRIL 13, 2012

Here in Boston the same dynamic as Silicon Valley has been afoot… at least in the software/internet sphere, the majority of startups have migrated from the suburban loop of Rt 128 back into the urban core of Boston & Cambridge. I co-founded NextView Ventures , a seed-stage VC firm based in Boston, in 2010. Read More ».

Silicon Valley 185

Silicon Valley San Francisco San Jose Startup 185

Agile VC

AUGUST 12, 2011

3) Repeatable, cost effective customer acquisition – Nothing whets a Series A investor’s appetite like a startup that’s shown $1 of incremental marketing spend will yield $2-3 of gross margin. I co-founded NextView Ventures , a seed-stage VC firm based in Boston, in 2010. Author howerl. Filed under Uncategorized.

Seed Stage 113

Seed Stage Silicon Valley B2B Acquisition 113

Agile VC

JUNE 25, 2012

His co-founder/CMO Alex Cote has run customer acquisition programs that have attracted millions of users via a range of channels. I co-founded NextView Ventures , a seed-stage VC firm based in Boston, in 2010. Thanks Ahmed, appreciate the feedback and hope you have an oppty to check out Cloze’s beta. Read More ».

Cofounder 140

Cofounder Stealth Silicon Valley Mobile 140

Agile VC

JUNE 12, 2012

But while it was a little less understood outside the payments world, their acquisition of TxVia theoretically gives them some of the plumbing they’d need to create a store of value or couple a Google mobile payments product to existing financial accounts. I co-founded NextView Ventures , a seed-stage VC firm based in Boston, in 2010.

Mobile 250

Mobile Disintermediation SMS Government 250

Startup Lessons Learned

DECEMBER 16, 2008

We were trying to broaden the conversation beyond just viral customer acquisition. Kent Beck keynote, "To Agility, and Beyond" Six streaming locations Interviews ► March (7) New conference website, speakers, agenda Two new scholarship programs for lean startups Speed up or slow down? Expo SF (May. Amazon PostRank

Viral 140

Viral San Francisco Lean Continuous Deployment 140

Steve Blank

MAY 3, 2022

With offices in Silicon Valley, Austin, Boston, Chicago and Washington, DC, this is the one DoD organization with the staffing and mandate to match commercial startups or scaleups to pressing national security problems. that can make 1,000’s of extremely low cost, attritable systems – “ the small, the agile and the many.”

Ukraine 316

Ukraine China Private Equity Russia 316

Startup Lessons Learned

JANUARY 30, 2009

This is why agility is such a prized quality in product development. As with many Silicon Valley failures, a flawless PR launch turned into a flawed customer acquisition strategy. Labels: agile , customer development 5comments: William Pietri said. Even a great architecture becomes inflexible. We can skip the chasm. Great post!

San Francisco 150

San Francisco Lean Agile Continuous Deployment 150