View from Seed

DECEMBER 4, 2019

At the time, I spent most of my time describing the metrics themselves and how VCs and their LPs evaluate performance based on these measurements. If you aren’t familiar with these metrics, I recommend reading the original post to get a sense of the numbers that I’ll be reviewing here. So, is this good or bad?

LP 256

LP IRR Distribution Portfolio 256

Both Sides of the Table

JANUARY 25, 2015

Nowhere is this more obvious than eCommerce where many companies juice growth through massive over-spending on customer acquisition only to hit a break wall when consumers don’t love the brand and keep coming back once the heroine-induced traffic disappears. Not vanity metrics. Push yourself hard to be honest with yourself.

Product 150

Product B2B Warrant Technical Review 150

www.forentrepreneurs.com

FEBRUARY 2, 2010

Blog About Log in Register Startup Killer: the Cost of Customer Acquisition In the many thousands of articles advising entrepreneurs on what they have to focus on to build successful startups, much has been written about three key factors: team, product and market, with particular focus on the importance of product/market fit.

Acquisition 103

Acquisition Cost Customer Entrepreneur 103

David Teten

DECEMBER 16, 2015

I review a lot of board decks with a beautifully hand-crafted page with metrics for the company. Good metrics are comparable across industries; comparative ; readily understandable; and help drive decisions. Comparative means that you can compare a metric across time periods, groups of users, or competitors. So how do you do it?

Metrics 60

Metrics Analytics Balance Sheet .Net 60

David Teten

JANUARY 19, 2021

This structure allows for alignment on the front end, and real-time flexibility for performance metrics,” says Samira Salman , a family office investor and advisor. . Flexible VCs have created structures based on other company performance metrics than revenues, such as profits or founder salaries. Flexible VC 102: Variations.

Cofounder 78

Cofounder Technical Review Equity Dividend 78

Haystack

DECEMBER 29, 2018

6/ Venture Capital In Expansion Phase. Public investors, cross-over investors, and even traditional private equity firms have taken notice, further blurring the lines of what constitutes true venture capital. the firm may have a right to raise up to $100B but may not call all of it). That will take a long time to settle.

Technical Review 165

Technical Review Venture Capital Russia China 165

YoungUpstarts

JULY 31, 2019

In these scenarios, most founders will have trouble tapping the institutional Venture Capital market and will have to do a bridge round or multiple bridge rounds. . This also applies in acquisition conversations. Exacerbating the problem are the subjective standards by which many young companies are evaluated.

Cofounder 127

Cofounder Burn Rate Technical Cofounder Seed Capital 127

SoCal CTO

MARCH 11, 2013

If you do build the MVP and show it to them, they will ask you about your metrics. They really want metrics, not a product. The real question you should be asking is "When I've built this product and show you the following metrics, would you invest?" What The Heck Does “Traction” Really Mean To A VC?

Algorithm 264

Algorithm Metrics Viral Venture Capital 264

Startup Professionals Musings

AUGUST 21, 2021

In my experience, here are some of the key elements of that “second-stage” of entrepreneurship: Move from small investors to major venture capital. Explosive growth to an enterprise normally requires a scalable sales model, a well-documented process with incentives, training, and metrics for tracking and management.

Merger 379

Merger Due Diligence SEC IPO 379

Both Sides of the Table

MAY 23, 2012

Many observers of the venture capital industry have questioned whether its best days are behind it. Looking ahead at the next decade I am excited by what I believe will be viewed as one of the best and most rational investment periods for venture capital due to seven discrete factors: 1.

Venture Capital 347

Venture Capital Technical Review LP Mobile 347

Startup Professionals Musings

AUGUST 1, 2021

You never have the time and resources for International expansion, acquisitions, venture capital investors, or going public. Data – Define a handful of key metrics to free you from managing personalities, egos, subjective issues, emotions, and intangibles. Conventional strategies don’t seem to work for you.

Entrepreneur 436

Entrepreneur Venture Capital Operations Social Media 436

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. One of the biggest mistakes entrepreneurs make is misunderstanding the role of venture capital investors. What Do VC’s Do?

Silicon Valley 217

Silicon Valley IPO Technical Review Venture Capital 217

Steve Blank

MAY 29, 2011

Founders that learn are more successful : Startups that have helpful mentors, track metrics effectively, and learn from startup thought leaders raise 7x more money and have 3.5x We found 4 different major groups of startups that all have very different behavior regarding customer acquisition, time, product, market and team.

Technical Cofounder 333

Technical Cofounder Early Stage Startup Silicon Valley 333

SoCal CTO

MARCH 9, 2007

Technology Advisor Technology Roles in Startups Pricing Customer Acquisition Sunk Costs and More -. User Interface Beyond the Web Site ► November (7) Negative Customer Acquisition Costs - Creative Sta. ► February (2) CTO Founders / Cofounders Part-Time Startup CTO? Early Stage Marketing and Branding – Farida Fotouh.

Technical Cofounder 150

Technical Cofounder Southern California Los Angeles CTO Hire 150

Steve Blank

NOVEMBER 16, 2009

What metrics do we use to see if we learned enough in Customer Discovery ? I gave my boilerplate answer, “I’m a product guy and I tend to invest and look at deals that have measurable revenue metrics. Dave McClure has some great metrics…” It was an honest but vaguely unsatisfying answer.

Customer Development 219

Customer Development Web Developer Customer 219

SoCal CTO

MARCH 20, 2007

Technology Advisor Technology Roles in Startups Pricing Customer Acquisition Sunk Costs and More -. User Interface Beyond the Web Site ► November (7) Negative Customer Acquisition Costs - Creative Sta. ► February (2) CTO Founders / Cofounders Part-Time Startup CTO? Early Stage Marketing and Branding – Farida Fotouh.

Technical Cofounder 150

Technical Cofounder Southern California Search Engineer 150

SoCal CTO

MARCH 13, 2007

Technology Advisor Technology Roles in Startups Pricing Customer Acquisition Sunk Costs and More -. User Interface Beyond the Web Site ► November (7) Negative Customer Acquisition Costs - Creative Sta. ► February (2) CTO Founders / Cofounders Part-Time Startup CTO? Early Stage Marketing and Branding – Farida Fotouh.

Technical Cofounder 150

Technical Cofounder Southern California Los Angeles Internet 150

Both Sides of the Table

DECEMBER 27, 2011

When they look at buying your company they often think in terms of “how long will it take until I earn back the profits to pay for my acquisition price?” They raised $5 million in venture capital to fund growth. ” If you’re not profitable you’re purely a cost center to them.

Startup 418

Startup Revenue Technical Review Flash 418

SoCal CTO

MARCH 1, 2007

Technology Advisor Technology Roles in Startups Pricing Customer Acquisition Sunk Costs and More -. User Interface Beyond the Web Site ► November (7) Negative Customer Acquisition Costs - Creative Sta. ► February (2) CTO Founders / Cofounders Part-Time Startup CTO? Early Stage Marketing and Branding – Farida Fotouh.

Technical Cofounder 150

Technical Cofounder Networking Southern California Los Angeles 150

www.forentrepreneurs.com

FEBRUARY 2, 2010

Blog About Log in Register Designing startup metrics to drive successful behavior Great companies are almost always run by great management teams. Good metrics should also be actionable, and drive successful behavior. In a follow up post, I will use this technique to walk through the design of a set of metrics for a SaaS company.

Metrics 55

Metrics Design Entrepreneur Startup 55

SoCal CTO

MARCH 12, 2007

Technology Advisor Technology Roles in Startups Pricing Customer Acquisition Sunk Costs and More -. User Interface Beyond the Web Site ► November (7) Negative Customer Acquisition Costs - Creative Sta. ► February (2) CTO Founders / Cofounders Part-Time Startup CTO? Early Stage Marketing and Branding – Farida Fotouh.

Technical Cofounder 150

Technical Cofounder Southern California Los Angeles CTO Hire 150

SoCal CTO

MARCH 20, 2007

Technology Advisor Technology Roles in Startups Pricing Customer Acquisition Sunk Costs and More -. User Interface Beyond the Web Site ► November (7) Negative Customer Acquisition Costs - Creative Sta. ► February (2) CTO Founders / Cofounders Part-Time Startup CTO? Early Stage Marketing and Branding – Farida Fotouh.

Technical Cofounder 150

Technical Cofounder Southern California Los Angeles CTO Hire 150

SoCal CTO

MARCH 5, 2007

Technology Advisor Technology Roles in Startups Pricing Customer Acquisition Sunk Costs and More -. User Interface Beyond the Web Site ► November (7) Negative Customer Acquisition Costs - Creative Sta. ► February (2) CTO Founders / Cofounders Part-Time Startup CTO? Early Stage Marketing and Branding – Farida Fotouh.

Open Source 150

Open Source Business Model Technical Cofounder Southern California 150

Reid Hoffman

MARCH 23, 2021

The metrics from the dashboard are the key inputs for collective decisions. You can always instrument your business and gather metrics, but that doesn’t mean the data you gather will be useful. For example, if you haven’t achieved product-market fit, instrumenting every aspect of customer acquisition is overkill. CONCLUSION.

Venture Capital 46

Venture Capital Metrics Investment Bankers Framework 46

David Teten

AUGUST 6, 2015

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. If assumptions get better over time (lower customer acquisition, higher gross profit, better retention), note how you plan to achieve those milestones in the model.

Balance Sheet 60

Balance Sheet Software Review Forecast Acquisition 60

This is going to be BIG.

FEBRUARY 26, 2010

Knewton's Online Marketing Director is the key partner to the VP, Online Marketing and is responsible for helping the team drive customer acquisition and revenue growth through SEM (paid search), SEO, Affiliate Marketing, and Email. Tags: First Round Capital Venture Capital & Technology nextNY.

San Francisco 92

San Francisco CTO Hire Developer EC2 92

YoungUpstarts

APRIL 5, 2019

But flattering media attention too easily shifts focus away from the metrics that matter. Call me old school, but I believe in metrics like growth, revenue, and profit. All other metrics are irrelevant. Venture capital has a big say in which companies and projects see the light of day. They’re ripe for acquisition.

Valuation 162

Valuation Cofounder Metrics SEC 162

YoungUpstarts

SEPTEMBER 7, 2014

Because of these nuances, startups selling to enterprise customers must be even more diligent in tracking the right growth metrics. Here are a few metrics your startup should be watching: 1. The payback period is the amount of time it takes to recoup your acquisition cost. Lifetime Value/Cost of Acquisition.

Metrics 219

Metrics Churn Rate Startup Acquisition 219

Steve Blank

JUNE 23, 2016

As a consequence, corporations used metrics like return on net assets (RONA), return on capital deployed, and internal rate of return (IRR) to measure efficiency. These metrics make it difficult for a company that wants to invest in long-term innovation. Risk capital has provided financing for new ideas in the form of startups.

Architecture 227

Architecture IRR Balance Sheet Liquidity Event 227

SoCal CTO

MARCH 22, 2007

Technology Advisor Technology Roles in Startups Pricing Customer Acquisition Sunk Costs and More -. User Interface Beyond the Web Site ► November (7) Negative Customer Acquisition Costs - Creative Sta. ► February (2) CTO Founders / Cofounders Part-Time Startup CTO? Early Stage Marketing and Branding – Farida Fotouh.

Technical Cofounder 150

Technical Cofounder Southern California Los Angeles CTO Hire 150

Cracking the Code

FEBRUARY 23, 2011

The sales productivity ratio (measured with the Customer Acquisition Cost or CAC ratio) are also fairly similar for the two groups (except for a small cap dip in Q4 09) and therefore do not explain the difference Why is scale so much rewarded by public markets? Venture Capital. (3). SaaS business metrics: why are they different?

Software Review 101

Software Review Technical Review Valuation Europe 101

View from Seed

SEPTEMBER 14, 2021

Warning – this assumes some basic knowledge of VC performance metrics. Was this a lost decade for venture capital? My hypothesis is that one of the biggest drivers of extreme outperformance for less mature funds is outlier acquisitions that happen early in a fund’s life. . Ok, let’s jump in.

Valuation 319

Valuation Pre-Money Valuation Distribution Early Stage 319

View from Seed

SEPTEMBER 14, 2021

Warning – this assumes some basic knowledge of VC performance metrics. Was this a lost decade for venture capital? My hypothesis is that one of the biggest drivers of extreme outperformance for less mature funds is outlier acquisitions that happen early in a fund’s life. . Ok, let’s jump in.

Valuation 295

Valuation Pre-Money Valuation Distribution Early Stage 295

YoungUpstarts

FEBRUARY 22, 2017

Corporate transactions including mergers and acquisitions (M&A) and initial public offerings (IPO) bring necessary capital and resources to a growing company. Mergers and acquisitions can be fairly contentious and not all shareholders agree that it is in their best interest for Company A to buy Company B.

IPO 147

IPO Prospectus Merger Initial Public Offering 147

Version One Ventures

DECEMBER 11, 2013

Get your metrics under control: Putting the “pedal to the metal” makes the most sense if you understand your LTV (lifetime value) per customer and CAC (customer acquisition costs). The post Growth versus capital efficiency appeared first on Version One Ventures.

Early Stage 162

Early Stage Venture Capital Acquisition Bootstrapping 162

Cracking the Code

NOVEMBER 10, 2009

While poised with a limited number of transactions this year, the world of public Cloud Computing and SaaS companies has been marked by two events in the past few months: the acquisition of Omniture by Adobe and the high profile IPO of LogMeIn, a leading provider of PC remote access and support with a very interesting freemium model.

Software Review 48

Software Review Technical Review IPO Cloud 48

This is going to be BIG.

SEPTEMBER 29, 2014

What about when a company clearly makes a stupid acquisition? Adam D''Augelli , a very smart investor over at True Ventures, mentioned to me the other day something that rang true--that the best entrepreneurs update their investors with metrics, not stories. Random Stuff Venture Capital & Technology'

Venture Capital 137

Venture Capital Metrics Acquisition Entrepreneur 137