Duct Tape Marketing

AUGUST 23, 2023

The Impact of Community written by John Jantsch read more at Duct Tape Marketing Marketing Podcast with Lloyed Lobo In this episode of the Duct Tape Marketing Podcast , I interview Lloyed Lobo. He is the co-founder of Boast.ai, where he leveraged the Community-Led Growth model to bootstrap the company.

Community 54

Community Kuwait Cofounder Bootstrapping 54

Startup Professionals Musings

JULY 22, 2020

For example, if you have a proven product, real revenue, a big potential market, and are ready to scale up the business, every investor will be interested. Investors call this the seed stage , where money is required to build a market and a real product. The final product works great, and all the early users love it.”

Angel Investor 370

Angel Investor Intellectual Property Investment Bankers Private Equity 370

Haystack

NOVEMBER 12, 2018

By all accounts, the Utah-HQ’d company did everything the right way, was an overnight success 16 years in the making, and only raised venture capital as a growth company after years of bootstrapping. Of course, SAP or others could’ve made a run at Qualtrics earlier, and who knows – maybe folks had tried and failed.

Acquisition 105

Acquisition Utah IPO Venture Capital 105

Startup Professionals Musings

OCTOBER 19, 2015

That’s why I recommend that they find a co-founder who loves business challenges, including marketing and finance. Thus it’s a waste of time for most entrepreneurs to be looking for investors until they have a product and some customer revenue. Most founders bootstrap product development.

Technical Review 120

Technical Review Intellectual Property Cofounder Bootstrapping 120

Eric Friedman

FEBRUARY 7, 2023

Let’s Get Building Even though the world and markets are going through many changes now that the pandemic is over, momentum still needs to be improved. It’s evident in the rise of companies like WhatsApp and Instagram that employed a mere 20+ people before their acquisition. I wanted to take things a step further.

Engineer 78

Engineer United States Software Engineering Bootstrapping 78

A Smart Bear: Startups and Marketing for Geeks

OCTOBER 11, 2010

WhenBusy is a bootstrapped startup that lets people schedule meetings with you in currently-available time-slots without you having to share your calendar [disclosure: I'm an advisor]. He didn't just "tell it like it is," he gave up his marketing secrets and opened his company books. Infection built-in, not bolt-on. That's compelling.

Software Review 261

Software Review Technical Review Viral Software Developers 261

ConversionXL

NOVEMBER 25, 2020

In this article, I’ll show you how to turn YouTube into a core part of your marketing efforts. Beardbrand’s marketing strategy. We’re a bootstrapped company that started with more time than money. As we’ve grown, we’ve generated more cash, which has allowed us to diversify our marketing strategy. Click-through rate (CTR).

Channel 129

Channel Metrics Algorithm Video 129

ReadWriteStart

JULY 12, 2023

Gesto decided to scale InvGate after bootstrapping for the past 14 years. Companies can increase their revenue potential and access new customer bases by expanding into new markets. Companies in the IT management industry need customer acquisition and retention strategies that work to set them apart from the competition.

United States 121

United States Management Mexico Artificial Inteligence 121

ReadWriteStart

NOVEMBER 3, 2011

In How To Defend Your Dream Against All Odds , Alex and I explore the company's journey to $200 Million in revenue, while their VCs wrote them off. Zoho is already over $100 million in revenue and is seeing tremendous traction. Having turned down all overtures for investment, Zoho continues merrily on in its bootstrapping path.

North Carolina 116

North Carolina San Diego Entrepreneur Balance Sheet 116

ReadWriteStart

SEPTEMBER 10, 2010

Whether it is in the emerging markets or in the U.S., They already have several customers including some telcos, and are at about $350,000 in revenues. Because customer financing equals revenue, not equity. That's why, I advised Gio to keep going with further execution on his business and build more revenue traction.

Cloud 115

Cloud Silicon Valley Incubator Finance 115

Tim Keane

MARCH 9, 2011

Can you bootstrap your way to positive cash flow?   If the answer is relatively soon, then bootstrapping is a very serious consideration.    Even if it isn’t soon, early bootstrapping can reduce risk and increase chances for success, resulting in more aligned interests for entrepreneurs and investors.

Finance 83

Finance Bootstrapping Startup Equity 83

ConversionXL

MARCH 31, 2021

The most successful agencies are beginning to invest more time and money in content marketing to establish expertise in their industry and, more importantly, generate inbound appointments. What drove you to seek out content marketing as a growth solution? Cash flow is a matter of life or death when bootstrapped and pre-funding.

Audience 127

Audience Non-Compete Distribution Channel 127

Startup Professionals Musings

AUGUST 19, 2018

For example, if you have a proven product, real revenue, a big potential market, and are ready to scale up the business, every investor will be interested. Investors call this the seed stage , where money is required to build a market and a real product. The final product works great, and all the early users love it.”

Angel Investor 184

Angel Investor Intellectual Property Investment Bankers Private Equity 184

The Startup Magazine

OCTOBER 13, 2019

Whether a brand new bootstrapped startup or corporate giant, your altitude, sustainability, and traction has everything to do with your team. You can try to out-market your competition. Smaller companies with hotter brands can make for great acquisitions. Acquiring revenues can be very important. You can copy them.

Intellectual Property 101

Intellectual Property IP Acquisition Startup 101

Austin Startup

DECEMBER 17, 2017

John Imlay of MSA occasionally took me on road shows with analysts to talk about his new acquisition Peachtree Software. Hurricane Irma had a major negative revenue impact on one whose fall book of business was mostly in Florida. I got the message. Might your company be the bell-ringer that makes one of them a big winner?

Silicon Valley 48

Silicon Valley Atlanta Software Review Early Stage 48

ReadWriteStart

JULY 18, 2011

The market just isn't that efficient to truly determine the best. I look for a smart ass team, building a kick ass product, in a big ass market," he said. The size of the target market is a gut test, he said, for whether whatever market the company is building for is interesting enough. The stages of funding.

Investment Bankers 153

Investment Bankers Technical Review Cofounder Due Diligence 153

ReadWriteStart

OCTOBER 21, 2010

At today's roundtable, we had some very interesting discussions on creative bootstrapping. First up today was Justin Beck with PerBlue , a mobile and social gaming company that makes the iPhone and Android game Parallel Kingdom that has been in the market for a couple of years. Read Creative Bootstrapping to a $350 Million Exit.

Bootstrapping 113

Bootstrapping IP India Silicon Valley 113

The Startup Toolkit

SEPTEMBER 28, 2014

The company becomes valuable and someone buys the whole thing (acquisition). Within the second category, there are 3 types of acquisitions which each behave quite differently: The company has failed, but manages to sell off something of value (patents, team, etc) on the way out (asset sale or talent acquisition).

Dividend 50

Dividend Acquisition Founder Bootstrapping 50

A Smart Bear: Startups and Marketing for Geeks

MAY 1, 2012

Sacha demonstrated the benefits of selling many copies of an eBook at a low price, while Jarrod pointed out the advantages of higher prices, bringing in more revenue with 1/6th the number of units sold. Market size Suppose the total addressable market is small. Market size Suppose the total addressable market is small.

Customer 320

Customer Revenue Acquisition Cofounder 320

Startup Professionals Musings

SEPTEMBER 7, 2015

Entrepreneurs often ask me why investors expect financial projections for a new startup even before the product is built and while the market is still being defined. I recently saw a startup projecting $50 million in revenue for the first year. Revenue projections show penetration of target opportunity. Neither extreme is good.

Liquidity Event 120

Liquidity Event Startup Initial Public Offering Equity 120

Startup Professionals Musings

JULY 4, 2014

For example, if you have a proven product, real revenue, a big potential market, and are ready to scale up the business, every investor will be interested. Investors call this the seed stage , where money is required to build a market and a real product. The final product works great, and all the early users love it.”

Angel Investor 232

Angel Investor Intellectual Property Investment Bankers Private Equity 232

ReadWriteStart

JANUARY 27, 2011

I have discussed at length why revenue sharing channel deals may serve as perfectly fine alternatives to raising equity (or even complements) because of their non-dilutive nature. It certainly will be a better way to bootstrap the company. I also advised Andrew to greatly tighten his product and go-to-market strategy.

Dilution 114

Dilution Revenue Finance Entrepreneur 114

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.

Customer 167

Customer San Francisco Lean Hockey Stick 167

Rob Go

DECEMBER 28, 2011

Perhaps it’s been missed by most, but I think it was a remarkable year for this sector within this market. market cap. 61M in Q3 revenue, up 28% YoY. Raised $174M in its IPO in April, current market cap ~$550M. in its IPO, current market cap of $282M. in its IPO, current market cap of $282M.

Technical Review 54

Technical Review Boston Software Review IPO 54

OnlyOnce

JULY 9, 2013

The book has been described by a few CEOs who read it and commented early for me along the lines of “The Lean Startup movement is great, but this book starts where most of those books end and takes you through the ‘so you have a product that works in-market – now what?’ What About Sales & Marketing?, questions”.

Startup 95

Startup Advisory Board Elevator Pitch Forecast 95

Startup Professionals Musings

FEBRUARY 25, 2023

Equity is stock, but private company stock has no market value until the company goes public or is sold or merged with another company. Of course, if you are able to bootstrap your startup, and don’t anticipate the need for outside investors, you can technically ignore the first two points. You can kick-off your next startup.

Exit Strategy 264

Exit Strategy Private Equity Equity Technical Review 264

Hearpreneur

DECEMBER 8, 2019

On the heels of seeing the 10% influencer base increase the referrals process yielded, the team at Intellifluence pushed to create a brand-to-brand referral program as well, intent on creating user acquisition flywheels wherever possible. What makes me really proud though is we’ve been 100% bootstrapped for our 3.5

Entrepreneur 115

Entrepreneur Technical Review Vertical Las Vegas 115

Startup Professionals Musings

AUGUST 13, 2016

For example, if you have a proven product, real revenue, a big potential market, and are ready to scale up the business, every investor will be interested. Investors call this the seed stage , where money is required to build a market and a real product. The final product works great, and all the early users love it.”

Matching 120

Matching Angel Investor Intellectual Property Investment Bankers 120

Software By Rob

NOVEMBER 15, 2011

I received the following question from a reader: I was wondering if you had any thoughts on cost of customer acquisition for freemium businesses. When you calculate it out, it seems that paid marketing efforts like AdWords are almost universally doomed to fail. Have you seen paid acquisition work for freemium businesses?

Acquisition 56

Acquisition Customer Bootstrapping Viral 56

Startup Professionals Musings

FEBRUARY 5, 2012

At this stage, your startup better be selling a commercial offering, have price and cost validated, with significant customer sales and a real revenue stream. Companies at this stage must have a large market, good traction, and be focused on scaling infrastructure and market adoption. Lesser amounts remain in the angel realm.

Investment Bankers 241

Investment Bankers Venture Capital Startup Initial Public Offering 241

Startup Professionals Musings

OCTOBER 5, 2015

Asking for early-stage money before you have customers and revenue will likely kill your credibility with real investors. Luckily, there are some new entrants and approaches to seed-stage funding -- if you know whom to ask -- that can supplement the friends, family and bootstrapping approaches traditionally recommended.

Seed Stage 120

Seed Stage Finance Early Stage Startup 120

Startup Professionals Musings

MAY 25, 2020

Equity is stock, but private company stock has no market value until the company goes public or is sold or merged with another company. Of course, if you are able to bootstrap your startup, and don’t anticipate the need for outside investors, you can technically ignore the first two points. You can kick-off your next startup.

Exit Strategy 376

Exit Strategy Startup Private Equity Equity 376

View from Seed

MARCH 16, 2016

Look out for bootstrapped CarGurus , one of the leading used-car properties, targeting over $150M in revenue this year. Put all that together, and consider that this is a company that thinks in decades or even centuries, and we’re bound to see both more jobs and more acquisitions. Want the next TripAdvisor or Wayfair?

Boston 215

Boston Early Stage Artificial Inteligence Semantic 215

The Next Web

DECEMBER 6, 2013

Drew Myler is Interaction Designer at Signal , a Chicago-based provider of mobile marketing technology. This article is part of Drew’s series, 12 Days of Ideas: Building and Marketing Web Products, published his personal blog. A company lives and dies by its revenue stream, especially when trying to bootstrap the business.

Churn Rate 136

Churn Rate Product Chicago Bootstrapping 136

Startup Professionals Musings

OCTOBER 13, 2010

At this stage, your startup better be selling a commercial offering, have price and cost validated, with significant customer sales and a real revenue stream. Companies at this stage must have a large market, good traction, and be focused on scaling infrastructure and market adoption. Lesser amounts remain in the angel realm.

Investment Bankers 231

Investment Bankers Venture Capital Startup Initial Public Offering 231

Hippoland

AUGUST 8, 2018

One thing I’ve noticed is that almost every repeat, previously-successful-founder focuses on the same thing for their respective startups: customer acquisition. Diving in a bit more into some thoughts here: 1b) Ad-based revenue streams generally have terrible unit economics. Marketing first. This is obvious.

Founder 48

Founder Sales Cycle Affiliate Retention 48

Hippoland

AUGUST 8, 2018

One thing I’ve noticed is that almost every repeat, previously-successful-founder focuses on the same thing for their respective startups: customer acquisition. Diving in a bit more into some thoughts here: 1b) Ad-based revenue streams generally have terrible unit economics. Marketing first. This is obvious.

Founder 48

Founder Sales Cycle Affiliate Retention 48