Startup Professionals Musings

APRIL 17, 2023

At this point, most Angel investors and a few early-stage VCs will be happy to talk, assuming you have the business model validated, and a large opportunity. You are now entering the rollout stage , with money required for marketing, hiring a full-time team, and a production process. Congratulations!

Angel Investor 313

Angel Investor Intellectual Property Investment Bankers Private Equity 313

Steve Blank

SEPTEMBER 14, 2009

On top of all this it was considered very bad form not to have at least four additional consecutive quarters of profits after an IPO.) What this meant for entrepreneurs and VC’s was simple, profound and unappreciated today: VC’s worked with entrepreneurs to build profitable and scalable businesses.

Silicon Valley 217

Silicon Valley IPO Technical Review Venture Capital 217

NZ Entrepreneur

SEPTEMBER 29, 2021

experiments to build a product, find customers, test business models and hire amazing people. Creating this value is anchored in finding a repeatable, scalable business model. pivot the business. Generating liquidity usually entails either selling the venture or an IPO. Risk and reward. change the CEO.

Technical Review 88

Technical Review Software Review New Zealand Due Diligence 88

Startup Professionals Musings

JULY 22, 2020

At this point, most Angel investors and a few early-stage VCs will be happy to talk, assuming you have the business model validated, and a large opportunity. You are now entering the rollout stage , with money required for marketing, hiring a full-time team, and a production process. Congratulations!

Angel Investor 370

Angel Investor Intellectual Property Investment Bankers Private Equity 370

Growthink Blog

DECEMBER 27, 2017

In describing the competitive landscape, show how your business model creates competitive advantages, and – more importantly – defensible barriers to entry. The most common exits are IPOs or acquisitions. And when describing competitors’ weaknesses, be sure to use objective information (e.g. market research).

Venture Capital 129

Venture Capital Business Plan Technical Review Private Placement 129

Steve Blank

MARCH 18, 2011

Dot.com Bubble ( 1995-2000): “ Anything goes” as public markets clamor for ideas, vague promises of future growth, and IPOs happen absent regard for history or profitability. With Netscape’s IPO , there was suddenly a public market for companies with limited revenue and no profit. The New Bubble : (2011 – 2014): Here we go again…. (If

Internet 334

Internet IPO Silicon Valley Agile 334

Austin Startup

APRIL 27, 2019

HomeAway is another one of our five tech IPOs in the last five years. 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

B2C 51

B2C Austin Cofounder IPO 51

Steve Blank

JULY 15, 2010

The collapse of the IPO market and dysfunctional math in the venture capital community has stacked the odds against you. Most of the startups they invested in either died by running out of money before they found a scalable business model or ended up in the “land of the living dead” by never growing (failing to Pivot.).

Venture Capital 297

Venture Capital IPO Liquidity Event Entrepreneur 297

Austin Startup

MAY 10, 2021

three companies he previously worked for had successful exits including two acquisitions and one IPO. Georgoff’s has extensive experience and expertise with developing and launching software as a service (SaaS) products and scaling a variety of business models. We’re thrilled to welcome Mike to our team.

Hiring 104

Hiring Product United States Startup 104

Startup Lessons Learned

SEPTEMBER 22, 2008

Lessons Learned by Eric Ries Monday, September 22, 2008 The three drivers of growth for your business model. The AARRR model (hence pirates, get it?) He also has a discussion of how your choice of business model determines which of these metric areas you want to focus on. Choose one.

San Francisco 167

San Francisco CPA SEM CTO Hire 167

Up and Running

JULY 10, 2019

Meanwhile, Soulcycle, the spinning obsession of every trendy New Yorker, filed for IPO in 2018 only to withdraw at the last minute. The longer you can keep your customers (often through a subscription type business model ), the less you have to spend to find new customers. Why is boutique fitness booming?

Retention 70

Retention Social Media Software Review Acquisition 70

Version One Ventures

OCTOBER 7, 2014

Rick Perreault of my portfolio company Unbounce recently called my attention to an interesting comparison between two SaaS models: Hubspot & Moz – A Tale of Two (Very Different) SaaS Business Models. After the IPO, they can recover those losses. Hubspot made $161.8 million from 2009-2013. Moz made $72.5

Initial Public Offering 148

Initial Public Offering IPO SEC Valuation 148

View from Seed

MARCH 3, 2015

Ellie Mirman was the first marketer hired by the CMO of HubSpot, the Boston-based marketing software startup that IPOed in 2014. NextView Ventures: Thinking back to before anyone knew HubSpot or the company was headed towards an IPO, where did you even start to market the company?

Marketing 120

Marketing Sales Cycle Startup CTO Hire 120

David Teten

JANUARY 19, 2021

The value ascribed by subsequent investors (in a secondary); buyers (acquisition); or the public markets (IPO). Typical business stage. An already proven business model and its already valuable assets. Typical business model. Yes, typically preferred equity. 15-20% sold per round. Volatile, uncapped.

Cofounder 78

Cofounder Technical Review Equity Dividend 78

Startup Professionals Musings

AUGUST 19, 2018

At this point, most Angel investors and a few early-stage VCs will be happy to talk, assuming you have the business model validated, and a large opportunity. You are now entering the rollout stage , with money required for marketing, hiring a full-time team, and a production process. Congratulations!

Angel Investor 184

Angel Investor Intellectual Property Investment Bankers Private Equity 184

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. Most investors won’t touch a first-time entrepreneur at this stage.

Seed Stage 120

Seed Stage Finance Early Stage Startup 120

YoungUpstarts

NOVEMBER 13, 2012

Google reportedly turned down buyout offers from Microsoft shortly before the 2004 IPO. Google’s value has grown from $23 billion at the time of the IPO to over $200 billion today. eBay was ultimately unable to generate sufficient profits and synergies from the acquisition. Questionable business model.

IPO 162

IPO Exit Strategy San Francisco Startup 162

Seeing Both Sides

NOVEMBER 1, 2011

The CEOs on the panel were (from left to right): Michael Simon, CEO/founder of LogMeIn (2009 IPO) . Scott Griffith, CEO ZipCar (2010 IPO). Gail Goodman, CEO Constant Contact (2007 IPO). Colin Angle, CEO/cofounder of iRobot (2005 IPO). Niraj Shah, CEO/cofounder of Wayfair ($500m revenue).

Technical Cofounder 45

Technical Cofounder Cofounder IPO Boston 45

The Startup Toolkit

SEPTEMBER 28, 2014

The company becomes valuable and someone buys the whole thing (acquisition). It gets very big and very valuable and you go public (IPO). 5mm/year) and someone buys you to add that revenue to their portfolio (revenue-based acquisition). Most big ($100mm+) acquisitions follow this pattern. You’re making solid revenue (e.g.

Dividend 50

Dividend Acquisition Founder Bootstrapping 50

Up and Running

JUNE 16, 2014

Make no mistake, you will need to have a business model or a business plan that shows just where you sit in relation to your competitors. An exit strategy is not your plan for when the business fails, but rather, your strategy for returning money to investors. What will make it hard for others to rise above you?

Exit Strategy 91

Exit Strategy Advisory Board Business Plan Portfolio 91

Version One Ventures

OCTOBER 7, 2014

Rick Perreault of my portfolio company Unbounce recently called my attention to an interesting comparison between two SaaS models: Hubspot & Moz – A Tale of Two (Very Different) SaaS Business Models. After the IPO, they can recover those losses. Hubspot made $161.8 million from 2009-2013. Moz made $72.5

Initial Public Offering 78

Initial Public Offering IPO SEC Valuation 78

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. In the 20th century tech companies and their investors made money through an Initial Public Offering (IPO). Board Control.

Founder 245

Founder Technical Review CTO Hire IPO 245

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

Startup Professionals Musings

JULY 4, 2014

At this point, most Angel investors and a few early-stage VCs will be happy to talk, assuming you have the business model validated, and a large opportunity. You are now entering the rollout stage , with money required for marketing, hiring a full-time team, and a production process. Congratulations!

Angel Investor 232

Angel Investor Intellectual Property Investment Bankers Private Equity 232

Startup Professionals Musings

FEBRUARY 13, 2016

How does your business model make money? Good causes such as feeding the world’s hungry may help your marketing but may not sustain a business. The business model has to clearly define who is your customer, market penetration expected, how much customers pay versus total costs and the investment required to sustain cash flow.

Sweat Equity 120

Sweat Equity Advisory Board Liquidity Event Startup 120

YoungUpstarts

MARCH 30, 2017

What is your business model? Social enterprises have unique challenges when building a business model. Social enterprises need a business model that demonstrates value while remaining true to a social mission. Social entrepreneurs need to know what is at the heart of what they are trying to achieve.

Global 100

Global Argentina Elevator Pitch Business Model 100

Scalable Startup

AUGUST 26, 2014

There’s a lot of buzz about the Amazon acquisition of TWITCH this week. Red Hat was one of the first of these types of companies bridging open source with big finance, leveraging Linux support into a profitable business, also leveraging the enterprise. They kind of invented this business model. What will come next?

Founder 42

Founder Los Angeles PHP Open Source 42

Startup Professionals Musings

AUGUST 13, 2016

At this point, most Angel investors and a few early-stage VCs will be happy to talk, assuming you have the business model validated, and a large opportunity. You are now entering the rollout stage , with money required for marketing, hiring a full-time team, and a production process. Congratulations!

Matching 120

Matching Angel Investor Intellectual Property Investment Bankers 120

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. In 1980 Genentech became the first IPO of a venture funded biotech company.

Lean 258

Lean Internet Silicon Valley Venture Capital 258

thebarefootvc

JANUARY 15, 2020

acquisition of Plaid by Visa, in a highly competitive deal, shows how even the largest incumbents are feeling pressure to innovate and need to think outside of their current business models. Along those lines, I have been spending time thinking of the the continued digitization of the financial services sector.

Disintermediation 69

Disintermediation Aggregator China API 69

Startup Professionals Musings

JUNE 26, 2020

If possible, quantify these in non-technical business terms, such as dollars saved or replacement costs over time. Provide specifics on the customer business model. The options here include going public (IPO), merger/acquisition, liquidate, or no exit, just paying off investors.

Business Plan 423

Business Plan Product Intellectual Property Elevator Pitch 423

Startup Professionals Musings

NOVEMBER 2, 2018

It probably had more to do with the fact that they had doubled their sales annually for several years, and still managed to squeeze out a profit of $11M in their year of acquisition. At the other extreme, I don’t condone greedy and unethical business practices to unjustly shake down customers and employees alike.

Intellectual Property 48

Intellectual Property Initial Public Offering Merger Acquisition 48

View from Seed

JANUARY 24, 2018

For this reason, we’ve partnered with Guild members who have experience across different kinds of customers, business models, and distribution channels. He was previously VP Product at Runkeeper (sold to Asics), a General Manager and Director of Product at Zynga (IPO), and Director of Product at Conduit Labs (sold to Zynga).

Operations 176

Operations Cofounder Technical Review Angel Investor 176

Hunter Walker

MARCH 8, 2014

At a more mature technology company you’re protecting and extending your business model. We tend to think much more highly of the folks who were “pre IPO” or “pre acquisition” than those who might have joined the team right after.

Liquidity Event 134

Liquidity Event Early Stage Seed Stage Startup 134

The Next Web

AUGUST 5, 2013

Talent acquisition. What’s crazy about this is that the guy who’s actually making money is being laughed at — it’s just so much better to have a gazillion eyeballs (and no business model). VC fund (A, B, C…). The default route is to raise money, and go big or go home. Few people stop to think about the consequences.

Chile 122

Chile Canada Bootstrapping IPO 122

Mucker Lab

APRIL 6, 2023

Are there types of companies, market segments, industries, or business models where PLG does not make sense? You engage the marketing team and you do a lot of acquisition and people are coming. Before you scale the acquisition like crazy, really figure out how to activate new users, how to convert them.

Product 78

Product CTO Hire Startup Fractional CTO 78

cdixon.org

AUGUST 3, 2012

. - Facebook’s market cap is about half of what most tech investors expected before the IPO. - Some consequences: - For consumer startups with non-transactional models (ad-based or unknown business models), you need something closer to 10 million users versus 1 million users to get Series A funded. -

Bridge Financing 86

Bridge Financing Early Stage Valuation Later Stage 86