Startup Professionals Musings

JANUARY 16, 2011

It has been at least a decade since going public via an Initial Public Offering (IPO) has been considered a credible exit strategy for startups. Usually a small company can sell about 20 percent of its stock in an IPO. In 1999, there were 486 IPOs nationwide; just 10 years later, in 2009, there were only 63. How’s the timing?

IPO 223

IPO Social Media Media Exit Strategy 223

Growthink Blog

DECEMBER 27, 2017

Detail your customer retention plan. Detail all revenue streams. Be sure to include all revenue streams. Depending on the type of business, these may include sales of products/services, referral revenues, advertising sales, licensing/royalty fees, and/or data sales. The most common exits are IPOs or acquisitions.

Venture Capital 129

Venture Capital Business Plan Technical Review Private Placement 129

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. This ensures you have some recurring revenue coming to cover overheads in the beginning. Why referrals and retention are the keys to long term growth. Why is boutique fitness booming?

Retention 70

Retention Social Media Software Review Acquisition 70

Startup Professionals Musings

APRIL 15, 2019

Today’s world is full of metrics leading to business growth, including customer logins, revenue per customer, retention, and average solution price. Revenue and competitive position followed. For many companies, the long game is choosing the right strategic partners and acquisitions.

Social Media 218

Social Media India Acquisition China 218

ConversionXL

NOVEMBER 29, 2018

Freemium and free-trial signups have one thing in common: Neither generates revenue. If freemium still seems like a barrier to acquisition, you’ve got plenty of money in the bank, and you’re crossing your fingers for a buyout by Google or Facebook, a fully free product may make the most sense. Free-trial models. Hybrid models.

Customer 119

Customer Conversion Acquisition B2B 119

A Smart Bear: Startups and Marketing for Geeks

JULY 23, 2013

Marketo filed for IPO with impressive 80% year-over-year growth in 2012, with almost $60m in revenue. of revenue, force-feeding sales pipelines with an unprofitable product. SaaS companies earn their revenue over time. Even with a great retention rate (e.g. of revenue, $0.30 Except, they lost $35m.

Business Model 335

Business Model .Net Revenue IPO 335

Startup Lessons Learned

SEPTEMBER 22, 2008

is an elegant way to model any service-oriented business: Acquisition Activation Retention Referral Revenue We used a very similar scheme at IMVU, although we werent lucky enough to have started with this framework, and so had to derive a lot of it ourselves via trial and error. The AARRR model (hence pirates, get it?)

San Francisco 167

San Francisco CPA SEM CTO Hire 167

Both Sides of the Table

NOVEMBER 9, 2012

There simply aren’t a lot of exits above $100m or even IPOs. You need to understand motives of buyer (talent, product, revenue, strategic purchase) and where you fit in. Remote teams can be higher retention for staff. Both can hurt you in an acquisition. ” That’s b t. So entry price matters a lot.

Technology 323

Technology PR Startup IPO 323

Startup Professionals Musings

APRIL 14, 2017

Today’s world is full of metrics leading to business growth, including customer logins, revenue per customer, retention, and average solution price. Revenue and competitive position followed. For many companies, the long game is choosing the right strategic partners and acquisitions.

Social Media 163

Social Media India Acquisition China 163

Agile VC

FEBRUARY 2, 2012

Facebook S-1: The Most Anticipated IPO in a Decade. Here’s my first look at Facebook viewed through the lens of their IPO filing. How They Make Money : Facebook’s primary revenue stream is of course selling advertising on Facebook.com, which in total accounts for 85% of revenue. 2011 YoY Revenue Growth: 88%.

IPO 100

IPO South Korea Venezuela Revenue 100

Both Sides of the Table

JUNE 17, 2017

70–80% of the costs of most startups are employee costs so what you’re really talking about when a company is unprofitable is that they are growing their staff ahead of their revenue. Revenue When I look at an income statement I start by focusing on the revenue line. You need to understand the “quality” of the revenue.

Stock Options 227

Stock Options Startup Dilution Venture Capital 227

Tim Keane

MARCH 9, 2011

If, on the other hand, there is some near term prospect of cash flow (say within six months or a year) but no ability to repay in the meantime, then the entrepreneur may try and find a way to finance his “pre-revenue period” using friends and family money that accepts a somewhat lower payment in recognition of a relationship beyond just investing.

Finance 83

Finance Bootstrapping Startup Equity 83

Mucker Lab

APRIL 6, 2023

You engage the marketing team and you do a lot of acquisition and people are coming. If you work in B2C or e-commerce, you optimize that Add to Cart flow like crazy because that is your revenue. You're really getting enough early users to help you validate to achieve a certain level of retention rate.

Product 78

Product CTO Hire Startup Fractional CTO 78

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

This is going to be BIG.

MARCH 30, 2015

Because companies today have way more revenues than the companies that went public or had huge up rounds back then. And, they aren''t necessarily revenues from other dot coms. They''re consumer, SMB and enterprise revenues--maybe not enough to justify their valuation, but much much further from zero than companies in the past.

Hockey Stick 60

Hockey Stick Valuation Startup Maryland 60

Startup Lessons Learned

DECEMBER 14, 2009

Now, Andrew’s excellent piece that I quoted from above correctly diagnoses two situations where consumer internet companies often get in trouble: They focus too much on short-term revenue, getting caught in a local maximum via constant optimization. They get focused solely on growth. Take the minimum viable product , for starters.

Customer 156

Customer San Francisco Viral Lean 156

Gust

NOVEMBER 4, 2011

Never missing an opportunity for a good war story, I’d like to revisit one high-profile transaction, the $650 million acquisition of MySpace by Fox Interactive Media in 2005, on which I spent many sleepless nights along with the rest of the deal team. Read on for a fuller explanation. Intermix and its advisors weren’t fools. of MySpace, Inc.

Valuation 98

Valuation Pre-Money Valuation Merger Vesting 98