Startup Professionals Musings

JUNE 21, 2020

Google reached $1B in revenue within five years of incorporation, and now has a market capitalization of over $1 trillion. Revenue growth (top line) then had to be converted into profit growth (bottom line), before a business was deemed to be self-sustaining and worthy of public investment. Both have worked.

Revenue 434

Revenue Valuation Viral Retention 434

Startup Professionals Musings

MAY 16, 2020

New business models that provide an ongoing revenue stream, or a secondary stream from advertising, raise your margins and can give you some additional satisfaction. This may also be the moment when you get your first big acquisition offer, rather than a clone appearing. Celebrate the ability to pay yourself a salary.

Sweat Equity 435

Sweat Equity Salary Viral Leadership 435

Steve Blank

SEPTEMBER 21, 2012

Either way, the “hurdle” for successful, scalable startups is high, and it gets higher every day as customer acquisition challenges continue to increase. It’s time to bring the leadership team into a room, dissect each key element of the business model, and identify pivots that are worth exploring smartly—where else—with customers.

Startup 332

Startup Cofounder Customer Development Viral 332

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

Steve Blank

NOVEMBER 16, 2009

In it, I got asked a question I often hear: “What if we have a web-based business that doesn’t have revenue or paying customers? And without revenue how do we know if we achieved product/market fit to exit Customer Validation?” However the Customer Development Model and the Lean Startup work equally well for startups on the web.

Customer Development 219

Customer Development Web Developer Customer 219

Duct Tape Marketing

NOVEMBER 15, 2023

With over a decade of experience in his toolkit, he specializes in helping clients build out cross-channel acquisition systems using a mix of owned, earned and paid tactics. Over the last 13 years he’s worked with companies like Target, Jeeter and Shopify to implement performance marketing campaigns. This is John Jantsch.

Channel 66

Channel Acquisition Framework B2B 66

Steve Blank

FEBRUARY 22, 2010

Startups that are searching for a business model need to keep score differently than large companies that are executing a known business model. Yet most entrepreneurs and their VC’s make startups use financial models and spreadsheets that actually hinder their success. Managing the Business. Here’s why.

Balance Sheet 298

Balance Sheet Startup Burn Rate Metrics 298

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.). In contrast, startups search for a business model. (Or to optimize this search. to optimize this search.

Wiki 311

Wiki Lean Management Business Model 311

Startup Professionals Musings

AUGUST 10, 2014

Both have worked.Google reached $1 billion in revenue within five years of incorporation, and now has a market capitalization of over $400 billion. Revenue growth (top line) then had to be converted into profit growth (bottom line), before a business was deemed to be self-sustaining and worthy of public investment.

Revenue 246

Revenue Entrepreneur Valuation Viral 246

Startup Professionals Musings

JUNE 26, 2016

Google reached $1B in revenue within five years of incorporation, and now has a market capitalization of over $400B. Revenue growth (top line) then had to be converted into profit growth (bottom line), before a business was deemed to be self-sustaining and worthy of public investment. Both have worked.

Revenue 145

Revenue Valuation Startup Viral 145

SoCal CTO

OCTOBER 8, 2009

In many cases, I can break it down into: Customer Acquisition Cost – how will you reach prospects, how will you convert them and how much will it cost to convert them Customer Lifetime Value – how much will you make off of each converted customer This very simple model works for a surprising number of business models.

Metrics 225

Metrics Startup Retention Acquisition 225

Steve Blank

MARCH 18, 2011

The Golden Age (1970 – 1995): Build a growing business with a consistently profitable track record (after at least 5 quarters,) and go public when it’s time. 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.

Internet 334

Internet IPO Silicon Valley Agile 334

Startup Professionals Musings

APRIL 2, 2016

New business models that provide an ongoing revenue stream, or a secondary stream from advertising, raise your margins and can give you some additional satisfaction. This may also be the moment when you get your first big acquisition offer, rather than a clone appearing. Celebrate the ability to pay yourself a salary.

Sweat Equity 120

Sweat Equity Salary Startup Viral 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. It typically takes multiple iterations and pivots to find product/market fit – the match between what you’re building and who will buy it.

Startup 120

Startup Lean Venture Capital Advisory Board 120

Startup Professionals Musings

JUNE 26, 2020

Quantify the market opportunity in business terms. For example, “Nielsen projects that the market for smart phones will double every year for the next five years.” If possible, quantify these in non-technical business terms, such as dollars saved or replacement costs over time.

Business Plan 423

Business Plan Product Intellectual Property Elevator Pitch 423

VC Cafe

NOVEMBER 2, 2019

Benchmarks are typically specific to stage/business model/geo. In Rob Go’s words: For seed and Series A deals, investors will also need to see a high-potential team with founder/market fit , a large and attractive market opportunity , and a business model with increasing returns to scale.

B2C 141

B2C Technical Review Startup Retention 141

crowdSPRING Blog

JUNE 6, 2016

A startup’s success is driven in large part by a startup’s ability to drive customer acquisition growth. After all, customers create revenue, and revenue, if the business model is smart, often leads to profits. Not every company has figured out the path to customer acquisition growth, however.

Small Business 48

Small Business Social Media Marketing SEO 48

Startup Professionals Musings

JANUARY 16, 2015

New business models that provide an ongoing revenue stream, or a secondary stream from advertising, raise your margins and can give you some additional satisfaction. This may also be the moment when you get your first big acquisition offer, rather than a clone appearing. Celebrate the ability to pay yourself a salary.

Sweat Equity 120

Sweat Equity Salary Viral Leadership 120

Startup Lessons Learned

OCTOBER 23, 2013

In the Udemy course, Alistair and Ben expand these basics into a description of how to create empathy, stickiness, virality, revenue, and scale. It''s a good measurement because it captures both satisfaction and virality. We often tell founders that a business plan is nonsense. It''s that the business model is complex.

Analytics 167

Analytics Lean Widget Metrics 167

Ben's Blog

MAY 30, 2013

billion acquisition by SAP in 2011. This was by far the largest and most important acquisition in the history of the SaaS category. SAP then put Lars in charge of its newly formed Cloud Business unit, which he promptly grew to $1 billion in annual revenue. Lars is spectacularly qualified. It’s about working for each other.

Denmark 78

Denmark Acquisition Viral Green 78

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. But, if they are not, it’s very hard to use paid acquisition to generate that type of traffic for under $5. Marketing first. Product second.

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. But, if they are not, it’s very hard to use paid acquisition to generate that type of traffic for under $5. Marketing first. Product second.

Founder 48

Founder Sales Cycle Affiliate Retention 48

www.forentrepreneurs.com

FEBRUARY 2, 2010

As they ask management what happened, a common answer will be that the market was really tough, and deals just didn’t close the way that they hoped. They also don’t have a great plan for what they are going to do differently next quarter, other than hope that the market improves, and that more deals will close.

Metrics 55

Metrics Design Entrepreneur Startup 55

ReadWriteStart

JANUARY 27, 2011

Persistent is breaking out of the mold of labor arbitrage, and looking at new and exciting business models. My friend Tony Scott did an outstanding interview with Anand Deshpande , their CEO recently in which Anand discussed his vision for where he wants to take the OPD business. Brainscape. Note, I said, validated. Safarclick.

Dilution 114

Dilution Revenue Finance Entrepreneur 114

Occam's Razor

MAY 2, 2017

That then takes us down the very best way to answer that question, to use the five-step process to build out the Digital Marketing and Measurement Model. tearsofpain One way of removing silos and focusing on the entire business is to leverage Acquisition, Behavior and Outcome metrics. A quick best practice.

Metrics 141

Metrics Acquisition eCommerce Analytics 141

Ben's Blog

MAY 30, 2013

billion acquisition by SAP in 2011. This was by far the largest and most important acquisition in the history of the SaaS category. SAP then put Lars in charge of its newly formed Cloud Business unit, which he promptly grew to $1 billion in annual revenue. Lars is spectacularly qualified. It’s about working for each other.

Denmark 44

Denmark Acquisition Viral Green 44

Steve Blank

APRIL 20, 2021

Shawn immediately said the name I had given the four steps was confusing – I had called it market development – he suggested that I call it Customer Development – and the name stuck. He came up with the concept to simply the search for product/market fit by using an MVP Tree.

Product 436

Product Viral Channel San Francisco 436

Genuine VC

APRIL 30, 2008

Now the new plan for distribution is facilitation through low-cost viral strategies via Facebook and other social media. In fact, Facebook literally published a playbook just over a week ago on marketing virally through their platform. But it goes beyond just widgets and social networks.

Distribution 103

Distribution Widget Viral Social Media 103

Genuine VC

APRIL 30, 2008

Now the new plan for distribution is facilitation through low-cost viral strategies via Facebook and other social media. In fact, Facebook literally published a playbook just over a week ago on marketing virally through their platform. But it goes beyond just widgets and social networks.

Distribution 100

Distribution Widget Viral Social Media 100

Both Sides of the Table

MAY 23, 2012

There are obvious reasons the industry has had less-than-desirable returns, including: massive over-funding of the sector, huge increases in inexperienced venture capitalists that took a decade to peter out, and the massive correction in the value of the public stock markets that closed many exit opportunities for half a decade.

Venture Capital 347

Venture Capital Technical Review LP Mobile 347

The Next Web

AUGUST 19, 2013

This mix is not a good start when it comes to sales and marketing. There were no sales people in the USSR – the government just decided what to produce and in which quantities, – so I pretty much have an anti-­sales­-and­-marketing background. Inbound marketing: Selling one-to-many. LTV ­ CAC = ROI.

Belarus 137

Belarus Viral Channel Startup 137

Startup Lessons Learned

APRIL 14, 2009

What matters is proving the viability of the company’s business model, what investors call “traction.&# Of course this is not at all true of many profitable small businesses, but they are not what I mean by startups.) Most importantly, they have lots of data about the unit economics of their business.

Customer 167

Customer San Francisco Lean Hockey Stick 167

Ben's Blog

MAY 15, 2020

Finally, we’ll zoom out and assess the big picture: how various categories of company may be impacted long-term, how this crisis compares to 2008 (and what that means for early-stage founders), and the industries and business models that are now prime for growth. Same thing for engagement, as well.

Founder 36

Founder Conversion Technical Review Cash Position 36

Startup Lessons Learned

DECEMBER 14, 2009

Lessons Learned by Eric Ries Monday, December 14, 2009 Business ecology and the four customer currencies Lately, I’ve been rethinking the concept of “business model&# for startups, in favor of something I call “business ecology.&# Constructing a working business model is a form of ecosystem design.

Customer 156

Customer San Francisco Viral Lean 156

Seeing Both Sides

FEBRUARY 9, 2015

Conventional wisdom suggests that the most important metrics for a startup - such as unit economics, cost of acquisition, lifetime value, churn rates - typically get better with time. I hear this asserted frequently by entrepreneurs who confidently project their businesses with increasingly improving metrics as they scale into the future.

Metrics 20

Metrics Churn Rate Acquisition SEM 20

Hippoland

OCTOBER 16, 2016

High infrastructure companies Traditionally, software investors have loved being in the software industry because the capital costs are low and also because you can get something into the market quickly. Do you have virality built into the product? How do new users find your product without your having to pay money? I mean REALLY HARD.

Startup 48

Startup Vertical Early Stage Bootstrapping 48

ConversionXL

SEPTEMBER 10, 2019

A lot of folks treat it as a synonym for online marketing. I use a more restrictive definition: A growth team is a product tech team that’s focused on acquisition instead of core product features. I was hired to level-up the marketing team. The team started as all marketers focused on lead generation.

Conversion 133

Conversion Technical Review Channel Engineer 133