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 227

Customer Development Web Developer Customer 227

Both Sides of the Table

MARCH 25, 2016

It turns out that to build a successful company you ultimately need this strange thing called “revenue” that people don’t just hand you: You need to earn it. And there’s this other thing called “gross margin,” which shows the quality of your revenue. How much ad revenue does TripAdvisor make?

Startup 150

Startup Seed Money DC Software Review 150

Steve Blank

SEPTEMBER 14, 2009

Over the same 30 years, Venture Capital firms have honed their skills and strategies to match Wall Streets needs to achieve liquidity for their portfolio companies. While there was an occasional bad apple, the public markets rewarded companies with revenue growth and sustainable profits. What Do VC’s Do?

Silicon Valley 233

Silicon Valley IPO Technical Review Venture Capital 233

View from Seed

SEPTEMBER 11, 2019

At NextView we invest across the spectrum of seed stage companies so roughly 1/3rd of the companies we invest in are pre-product, roughly 1/3rd are post-product but pre-revenue, and perhaps 1/3rd have some very early revenue. You’re obviously not showing charts of user growth, number of customers, or revenue.

Seed Stage 149

Seed Stage B2B Seed Capital Revenue 149

YoungUpstarts

DECEMBER 5, 2018

by Walker Deibel , Managing Director of Centra and author of “ Buy Then Build: How Acquisition Entrepreneurs Outsmart the Startup Game “ If I asked you to name a business success story, what would you think of? The VC game is one of portfolio management. This is why, as of 2008, the average VC fund is $350 million.

Startup 182

Startup Acquisition Portfolio Venture Capital 182

Steve Blank

DECEMBER 3, 2012

Enter the Business Model Canvas. With the business model canvas in hand, we can now approach rethinking corporate innovation strategy and structure. Existing companies and their operating divisions implement known business models. Operating divisions execute the known business model.

Business Model 334

Business Model Customer Development United States Operations 334

ConversionXL

MARCH 19, 2020

The best drivers apply the brakes just ahead of the curve (they take out excess costs), turn hard toward the apex of the curve (identify the short list of projects that will form the next business model), and accelerate hard out of the curve (spend and hire before markets have rebounded). Progressive. Image source ).

Marketing 121

Marketing Campaign Non-Compete Lean 121

David Teten

AUGUST 6, 2015

To help me, I interviewed the two most knowledgeable people I know about financial modeling. My colleague Paul Bianco serves as interim CFO for a number of ff Venture Capital ’s portfolio companies, and has built and reviewed hundreds of financial models. Use an appropriate number of significant digits. 16) Cash is king.

Balance Sheet 60

Balance Sheet Software Review Forecast Acquisition 60

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. Hubspot’s average revenue per customer: $8,670 per year. Moz’ average revenue per customer: $1,295 per year.

Initial Public Offering 148

Initial Public Offering IPO SEC Valuation 148

K9 Ventures

SEPTEMBER 8, 2015

After the acquisition of SneakerLabs, he served as the Vice-President of Interactive Technologies for E.piphany. 2) New market (less common form, examples are Lyft and eShares) and 3) New business model (least common, non-K9 portfolio examples are PriceLine and SolarCity). We don’t have categories of interest.

San Francisco 48

San Francisco Early Stage Portfolio Software Engineering 48

Seeing Both Sides

JULY 11, 2013

Across our portfolio and in my own entrepreneurial experience, I have seen three main sales models work successfully in scaling B2B sales: 1) Enterprise; 2) Telephone; and 3) Developer-driven. The typical quota for a sales rep varies by type of business model (SaaS vs. perpetual), product gross margin (e.g.,

Sales 50

Sales Technical Review Software Review B2B 50

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. 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.

Seed Stage 120

Seed Stage Finance Early Stage Startup 120

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

Steve Blank

JULY 15, 2010

VC’s invested their limited partners’ “risk capital” in a portfolio of startups in exchange for illiquid stock. 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.). Source: NVCA.).

Venture Capital 302

Venture Capital IPO Liquidity Event Entrepreneur 302

Steve Blank

AUGUST 31, 2009

So what’s wrong the product development model? The first hint lies in its name; this is a product development model, not a marketing model, not a sales hiring model, not a customer acquisition model, not even a financing model (and we’ll also find that in most cases it’s even a poor model to use to develop a product.)

Customer Development 243

Customer Development Developer Customer Silicon Valley 243

Steve Blank

APRIL 1, 2020

But other businesses like law firms, contracting firms, real estate firms, will take hits, too. Your revenue plans are no longer valid. What’s your monthly cash burn at your new low revenue level? Days 3 and 4: Prepare new business model and operating plan. The ripple effects won’t be obvious at first.

South Korea 334

South Korea Salary Business Model China 334

Austin Startup

NOVEMBER 12, 2017

A frequent metaphor I use in customer acquisition, fundraising, or any kind of deal making is that you as the founder and promoter should present the finished meal on the dining table and not drag your counterparts into the kitchen. Is third-year revenue of $10M good or bad? A price of $2 per share means nothing in itself.

Term Sheet 48

Term Sheet Technical Review Due Diligence Merger 48

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. Hubspot’s average revenue per customer: $8,670 per year. Moz’ average revenue per customer: $1,295 per year.

Initial Public Offering 77

Initial Public Offering IPO SEC Valuation 77

View from Seed

JANUARY 24, 2018

When we create new platform initiatives, our team tries to think about how we can be the most impactful with our portfolio companies. Today, we’re thrilled to announce a new program that we hope will help our portfolio companies with two of these bullets. Building a great product. We want to talk to you! Back to Top).

Operations 176

Operations Cofounder Technical Review Angel Investor 176

Steve Blank

DECEMBER 17, 2015

These partnerships may take the form of Proof of Concept projects with startups, getting to know VC firms and their portfolios, and familiarizing themselves with university groups doing research in the established strategic problems. (It In exchange, the startups provide companies with their disruptive ideas, technologies and business models.

Silicon Valley 120

Silicon Valley Incubator Acquisition Business Model 120

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. A typical ad-based revenue stream on a media website is around $5 per 1000 eyeballs ($5m CPM and give or take $1-$20ish CPMs). 2) B2B startups have high margins.

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. A typical ad-based revenue stream on a media website is around $5 per 1000 eyeballs ($5m CPM and give or take $1-$20ish CPMs). 2) B2B startups have high margins.

Founder 48

Founder Sales Cycle Affiliate Retention 48

www.forentrepreneurs.com

FEBRUARY 2, 2010

The company has just missed its quarterly revenue forecast. Lets take an example, and look at how they might do this: They will be able to tell you that revenue is composed of deals. To compute revenue, you multiply average deal size by number of deals. Bookings is the pre-cursor to Revenue. Obvious, isn’t it?

Metrics 55

Metrics Design Entrepreneur Startup 55

VC Cafe

OCTOBER 23, 2022

I was recently in a board meeting for one of my portfolio companies, and we had a discussion that must happen in almost every board meeting. The CEO shared the revenue target for the year at X, and the revenue target for next year at 3X. One of the board members asked a simple question: “Why is revenue our North Star KPI?”

Metrics 179

Metrics Revenue B2C Portfolio 179

David Teten

DECEMBER 3, 2019

However, in private markets, there is more room to optimize across all 11 steps of the investing process: firm management , marketing, fundraising , origination , manage relationships, due diligence, negotiation, monitoring, portfolio acceleration , reporting, and.

Technical Review 78

Technical Review Software Review Analytics Private Equity 78

Hippoland

AUGUST 16, 2018

But outcome-differentiation is probably lacking – people who use Mailchimp use it to increase revenue by selling more products / services via their emails. The best way to assess what VCs actually like is to look at their portfolio. That’s a feature difference.

Sales Cycle 54

Sales Cycle Differentiation Early Stage Bootstrapping 54

Both Sides of the Table

MAY 23, 2012

In an over-funding environment companies are encouraged to eschew revenues in a land grab to acquire eyeballs, clicks, page views or whatever other vanity metrics give VCs the false comfort that they’re sitting on a gold mine. The opportunity to transact at the point of purchase increases the sheer number of revenue opportunities.

Venture Capital 347

Venture Capital Technical Review LP Mobile 347

Hippoland

AUGUST 16, 2018

But outcome-differentiation is probably lacking – people who use Mailchimp use it to increase revenue by selling more products / services via their emails. The best way to assess what VCs actually like is to look at their portfolio. That’s a feature difference.

Sales Cycle 48

Sales Cycle Differentiation Early Stage Bootstrapping 48

Hippoland

JULY 10, 2016

But different investors will want to focus on different things; some investors may want to talk more in depth about product while others may want to dive into your customer acquisition details. Let me give you an example: several of our newer portfolio companies are both marketplaces and SaaS workflow tools. This is a growing trend.

Metrics 48

Metrics Revenue Business Model Differentiation 48

Startup Professionals Musings

JUNE 2, 2013

The single most important ingredient of success is not the idea, but having a team in place that has impeccable integrity, can iterate the product quickly, pivot the business model as necessary, and keep costs down in the process. This requires a visible focus on the company’s revenue model, the costs to get there, and cash on hand.

Cram Down 269

Cram Down Angel Investor Intellectual Property Venture Capital 269

Reid Hoffman

OCTOBER 21, 2019

Disclosure: * denotes a current or former Greylock portfolio company.). But to answer the question, “Is WeWork an example of blitzscaling, and perhaps even more importantly, is blitzscaling appropriate for its business model?” In any industry, you live and die by the numbers— user acquisition, margins, growth rate, and so on.

Silicon Valley 53

Silicon Valley Software Review Technical Review United Kingdom 53

Startup Lessons Learned

JANUARY 10, 2011

I hear similar things for pre-revenue startups that are on schedule, on time, and on budget - even though they are busy building something that nobody wants. (In It rarely occurs to either party that the founders could be busy inventing the next disruptive product, but doing so in a non-disruptive way.

Silicon Valley 167

Silicon Valley San Francisco Lean Investment Bankers 167

Duct Tape Marketing

APRIL 14, 2022

So there was always the affiliate program and then all this other and business development, I think now it's all coming under one roof under one platform. If I can build a partner program using software with a thousand different partners, with a thousand different tactics, I, I have inherently a, a diversified portfolio.

Marketing 88

Marketing Affiliate Channel Software Review 88

Hippoland

FEBRUARY 12, 2018

2) What is the business model and the potential unit economics? Certain investors tend to gravitate towards certain business models. At a high level, business is simple! :) You bring revenue in and your costs send money out the door. You want your revenue to be higher than your costs. Or in between?

Seed Stage 48

Seed Stage Business Model B2B Email 48

Hippoland

FEBRUARY 12, 2018

2) What is the business model and the potential unit economics? Certain investors tend to gravitate towards certain business models. At a high level, business is simple! :) You bring revenue in and your costs send money out the door. You want your revenue to be higher than your costs. Or in between?

Seed Stage 48

Seed Stage Business Model B2B Email 48

Reid Hoffman

JANUARY 26, 2021

For a business issue, I’ll say something like, “Here are three reasons why advertising might be this company’s most important business model. This is why advertising is a really good business model. When I’m on a board, you will rarely hear me say, “You should do X,” unless it is a very specific legal issue.

Startup 36

Startup Equity Early Stage Green 36

Steve Blank

DECEMBER 8, 2015

Do we believe “startup-driven” innovation (innovation that comes from relationships with external, early-stage companies) should be part of the corporate innovation portfolio? Wants to promote intrapreneurship to extend its business model and retain creative employees like Google, Amazon, and Facebook do.

Silicon Valley 120

Silicon Valley Acquisition Boston Early Stage 120