Startup Professionals Musings

SEPTEMBER 19, 2011

Nail the business model. Leverage your customer conversations to predict and validate your business model. Don’t forget a viable financial model of costs, margins, customer acquisition, and break-even. Don’t forget a viable financial model of costs, margins, customer acquisition, and break-even.

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Startup Angel Investor Technical Review Incubator 286

ReadWriteStart

JUNE 1, 2020

In very few specific cases, depending on the nature of the business, the business model might demand a considerable gestation period or extensive research and development. For these businesses, it is imperative to get funding from the start without which the company cannot be set up. Incubators and Accelerators.

Startup 150

Startup Entrepreneur Elevator Pitch Seed Stage 150

Steve Blank

OCTOBER 10, 2011

Instead the business press dumped on the founders for “selling out.” In 2010 it got worse with an Act in parliament about the Monitoring of Foreigners’ Corporate Acquisitions. Startup incubators, business angels and VCs are starting to emerge. Finnish culture makes risk-taking and sharing hard.

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Finland Naming Russia Government 324

ReadWriteStart

JUNE 16, 2011

You can read more about Freshdesk on the 1M/1M Incubation Radar today. The company already has paying customers and a validated business model. You can also read more about Bizosys on the 1M/1M Incubation Radar today. They have an opportunity ahead to build a billion dollar company.

India 123

India Bootstrapping Non-Compete Entrepreneur 123

Steve Blank

NOVEMBER 18, 2016

Most often the first acquisitions in a hype cycle are for the “shiny objects” – the technology, the team and the tools. The irony is that the acquisitions made later in the hype cycle – when companies have built real products that customers want, are the ones that generate revenue and profit for the acquirer.

Artificial Inteligence 318

Artificial Inteligence Lean Exit Strategy Startup 318

Steve Blank

MARCH 4, 2014

The Enterprise: Business Model Execution We know that a startup is a temporary organization designed to search for a repeatable and scalable business model. The corollary for an enterprise is: A company is a permanent organization designed to execute a repeatable and scalable business model.

IRR 335

IRR Startup Business Model Agile 335

Both Sides of the Table

MARCH 25, 2016

After a year in the market, MakeSpace was growing rapidly and our biggest issue was CAC (customer acquisition costs) relative to payback period (when we get our marketing investment back) and relative to LTV (lifetime value). As they see you grow the become intrigued and probably analyze your business model and potential.

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Startup Seed Money DC Software Review 150

ReadWriteStart

MARCH 24, 2011

Additional work in figuring out the precise go-to-market consumer, academic institution, or enterprise - each is a different business), and consequent business model and pricing model will help enhance the company's valuation. His customer acquisition strategy, however, needs a lot of work.

Illinois 114

Illinois Entrepreneur Silicon Valley Chicago 114

ReadWriteStart

JUNE 2, 2011

During today's roundtable, we worked with two entrepreneurs and also had a segment on our yearlong engagement with incubators around the world. The 1M/1M team has invested significant resources to engage with and understand the challenges of the Incubator industry around the globe.

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Incubator San Jose Silicon Valley India 114

ReadWriteStart

SEPTEMBER 10, 2010

And EVEN if you ARE an experienced entrepreneur, all but just a few VCs still want to see customer validation, business model validation and traction, before they will invest. Her main questions were around customer acquisition and financing. All three of today's roundtable companies will soon be featured on Incubation Radar.

Cloud 115

Cloud Silicon Valley Incubator Finance 115

Steve Blank

MAY 29, 2019

The easy part is, “Let’s have an incubator.” My contribution has been, “Why don’t we design classes more closely modeled to what innovators and entrepreneurs actually do.” Today the capstone class is most often experiential, team-based, hands on, focused around the search for a repeatable and scalable business model.

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Incubator Lean Programming Government 331

Startup Professionals Musings

OCTOBER 5, 2015

Seed-stage, meanwhil e, is technically that critical period when you need funding to do solution- and business-model development, to prove that your new product or service works, before you try to sell it to customers. Startup incubator seed funding. Most investors won’t touch a first-time entrepreneur at this stage.

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Seed Stage Finance Early Stage Startup 120

ReadWriteStart

APRIL 1, 2011

As for business model, Jigar wants to sell services like refilling cards. Our discussion today was around prioritization of the next few critical steps around customer acquisition and validation. 3gSimplified is a very early concept that has just launched, and the market feedback will be rolling in over the next few months.

India 119

India Guerilla Entrepreneur New Zealand 119

VC Cafe

SEPTEMBER 26, 2010

Launch48 is a new kind of micro-incubator taking place over the course of a weekend, which enables entrepreneurs to pitch their concept in one minute, in order to find team mates who are interested in pursuing the idea. It’s nice to have protected IP, but that will mostly matter later on in the event of an acquisition.

Elevator Pitch 102

Elevator Pitch Incubator Technical Review Startup 102

Austin Startup

APRIL 27, 2019

the business was the same and through acquisitions it became to be worth $1.33 It had a gut-wrenching pivot as the first business model didn’t work and today is thriving with its new one. Our pivot wasn’t a business model pivot?—?it No matter the name?—?the billion as the juggernaut it is today.

B2C 51

B2C Austin Cofounder IPO 51

View from Seed

APRIL 24, 2019

Couple that noise with the flurry of AI/messaging startups from a few years back (set off by Facebook’s WhatsApp acquisition), in conjunction with app developers’ notification euphoria… all of which have resulted in a state on our mobile phones where “ our brains being overloaded with push notifications about nothing.”. (Our

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SMS San Francisco Channel Dilution 207

ReadWriteStart

MAY 3, 2011

and SEO as two of the most effective and affordable customer acquisition strategies. First up, Raj Sheth from Bangalore, India, presented Recruiterbox , a SaaS recruitment management tool for small businesses, with co-founders Raghu Kancherla and Girish Redekar. and an affiliate program would also help with customer acquisition.

Acquisition 115

Acquisition SEO San Francisco India 115

Steve Blank

NOVEMBER 18, 2016

Most often the first acquisitions in a hype cycle are for the “shiny objects” – the technology, the team and the tools. The irony is that the acquisitions made later in the hype cycle – when companies have built real products that customers want, are the ones that generate revenue and profit for the acquirer.

Artificial Inteligence 120

Artificial Inteligence Lean Exit Strategy Startup 120

Up and Running

MAY 4, 2015

Jackie Wu of Jackie, a company that makes flying security cameras and received funding after pitching an incubator, says: “The biggest thing is, you have to know what the problem you’re solving is and how your product/service will solve it. Explain your plan for customer acquisition. Describe your revenue model.

Technical Review 60

Technical Review Entrepreneur Software Review Houston 60

Steve Blank

DECEMBER 17, 2015

In the second stage, it moves into Investing, Inventing, Incubating and Acquiring technologies and companies, and in the third stage building product(s ). Academics, consultants, incubators. In exchange, the startups provide companies with their disruptive ideas, technologies and business models. Silicon Valley, Boston).

Silicon Valley 120

Silicon Valley Incubator Acquisition Business Model 120

Steve Blank

FEBRUARY 12, 2015

In this first step, the goal of a startup is to search for a repeatable and scalable business model. Sales (and/or customer acquisition in a multi-sided market) becomes achievable by a sales force (or network effect or virality) without heroic efforts from the founders.

Startup 120

Startup Lean Venture Capital Advisory Board 120

The Startup Magazine

APRIL 25, 2017

Drop shipping is a retail business model; however, it differs from traditional models in that the owner only purchases product from a vendor when an order has been placed by a customer. When you don’t have to pack and ship your own products, you can devote resources to other core business processes.

Incubator 60

Incubator Business Model Differentiation Acquisition 60

YoungUpstarts

OCTOBER 31, 2016

Brent Freeman is the co-founder and president of Stealth Venture Labs , an early stage venture lab based in Los Angeles and San Francisco that focuses on incubating and accelerating scalable e-commerce businesses using operational expertise, data science, digital marketing systems, and compelling business models.

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Los Angeles Stealth San Francisco Cofounder 100

ReadWriteStart

JANUARY 27, 2011

Also, an Incubation Radar profile on CrowdEngineering explains more about this very, very cool company doing crowdsourced customer support. Persistent is breaking out of the mold of labor arbitrage, and looking at new and exciting business models. Brainscape. The answer to the question is neither. Note, I said, validated.

Dilution 114

Dilution Revenue Finance Entrepreneur 114

Steve Blank

OCTOBER 24, 2017

— all great things when you are executing and scaling a known business model. However, there was no way for founders to share this information with other founders (this was life before the Internet, incubators and accelerators). Board Control. For three decades (1978-2008), investors controlled the board. The founders.

Founder 245

Founder Technical Review CTO Hire IPO 245

Steve Blank

AUGUST 5, 2010

Fairchild Semiconductor became the progenitor of a flood of Silicon Valley chip companies and at the same time the adoption of the limited partnership as the model for Venture Firms gave VC’s their own profitable business model. Their capital needs are low at the front end. Lean Angels.

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Lean Internet Silicon Valley Venture Capital 258

Austin Startup

DECEMBER 3, 2017

It’s one way of de-risking the business. If you are a qualified candidate for a prominent accelerator or incubator program in your field of interest, and, if you get accepted, you should go. But, it’s not a town to know and gain access to corporate America if that is a key component of your business model.

Atlanta 48

Atlanta Albuquerque Incubator Austin 48

Steve Blank

NOVEMBER 25, 2013

Investors sitting through Incubator or Accelerator demo days have three metrics to judge fledgling startups – 1) great looking product demos, 2) compelling PowerPoint slides, and 3) a world-class team. We now have the tools, technology and data to take incubators and accelerators to the next level. We think we can do better.

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Oakland Incubator Lean Metrics 326

Both Sides of the Table

MAY 23, 2012

This has led to the creation of incubators, accelerators and seed funds. When I was graduated from university in 1991 it was only the really committed who eschewed the corporate world for creating tech startup businesses. From this we have seen a commensurate boom in the number of startup companies. Bottom of the sales funnel.

Venture Capital 347

Venture Capital Technical Review LP Mobile 347

Steve Blank

OCTOBER 10, 2017

Rich realized that while the Department of Defense DoD spends a lot of money and has lots of requirements and acquisition processes, they don’t work well with a rapid innovation ecosystem. The process recognizes that Innovation isn’t a single activity (an incubator, a class, etc.). It is a process from start to deployment.

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Lean SBIR Incubator Curation 212

Startup Lessons Learned

MAY 15, 2020

The customer acquisition costs are going down. If you can reduce your cost per customer acquisition, if you can connect in a way that expands your email database, adds more customers and allows you to connect in new ways, that's setting a platform for the future for you. They said, "What shall we do? Shall we amp up advertising?"

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Dallas Employee Government Social Media 68

Professor VC

FEBRUARY 18, 2011

The LinkedIn acquisition of CardMunch a few weeks ago caught my attention. Techcrunch called it one of the " most like-minded and forward-thinking acquisitions I’ve ever seen " I met with the founders of CardMunch several months ago when they were out raising their Series Seed round. The last blogger in Silicon Valley.

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Acquisition San Jose Angel Investor IPO 31

Seeing Both Sides

AUGUST 16, 2012

TripAdvisor may be one of the most fascinating companies I know and so I was excited to dig into their business model as part of my series on scaling. TripAdvisor is more of a classic consumer Internet success story, but with even more powerful network effects and an amazing business model. Henry Harteveldt, Forrester.

Part-Time VPE 54

Part-Time VPE Software Review Costa Rica Technical Review 54

Steve Blank

DECEMBER 8, 2015

Wants to promote intrapreneurship to extend its business model and retain creative employees like Google, Amazon, and Facebook do. Acquiring a growth-stage private startup can provide a faster ROI at lower risk than the acquisition of an early- stage startup. Will an Innovation Outpost provide results at the speed we need?

Silicon Valley 120

Silicon Valley Acquisition Boston Early Stage 120

Steve Blank

JULY 29, 2013

Its goal is to take the original idea and search for a repeatable and scalable business model - first by finding product/market fit, then by testing all the parts of the business model (pricing, channel, acquisition/activation, partners, costs, etc.). This is the group who will build the company.

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Cofounder Advisory Board Customer Development Leadership 335

Startup Professionals Musings

NOVEMBER 27, 2017

Innovation doesn’t always make you a winner in business. In my role as an angel investor in startups, almost every pitch I see highlights some real innovation in technology, business model, or market opportunity. Billion-dollar businesses are seldom about a single transaction with any customer.

Silicon Valley 136

Silicon Valley Differentiation Angel Investor Incubator 136

Steve Blank

SEPTEMBER 9, 2015

Innovation in an existing company is not just the sum of great technology, key acquisitions, or smart people. Or if a CEO proudly boast about their corporate incubator, but the incubator’s parking lot is empty at 5:15 pm. —– Corporate Innovation Requires an Innovation Culture.

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Startup Silicon Valley Incubator Matching 120