Startup Professionals Musings

JUNE 26, 2016

Should they focus on increasing revenues and profitability, or entice more and more users with “free” services, to increase their valuation. It’s only been in the last ten years that social media companies, like Facebook and Twitter, have achieved market valuations in billions of dollars, while clearly sacrificing revenue to gain users.

Revenue 145

Revenue Valuation Startup Viral 145

Both Sides of the Table

MAY 13, 2013

But the press (and I suspect many of the senior execs of these companies) don’t really explore the corrosive downside of these acquisition. If I don’t commit to millions of dollars of acquisitions I will … die? So I thought I would. And will investors allow a deal to happen in the first place. We get the mechanics.

Liquidation Preference 357

Liquidation Preference Early Stage Retention Lock-up Period 357

Startup Professionals Musings

AUGUST 10, 2014

Should they focus on increasing revenues and profitability, or entice more and more users with free services to increase their valuation. Startup productivity is embodied in key ratios, including low cost of customer acquisition, high retention and high revenue per employee. Traditionally, it was simple.

Revenue 246

Revenue Entrepreneur Valuation Viral 246

Gust

NOVEMBER 4, 2011

Entrepreneurs and investors who have spent any time dealing with convertible debt seed financing transactions are likely to have encountered the subject of valuation caps. Valuation caps can come into play in settings other than seed-stage convertible note financing rounds. Read on for a fuller explanation. by February 2006).

Valuation 98

Valuation Pre-Money Valuation Merger Vesting 98

David Teten

MAY 1, 2013

There are some automated valuation tools on the web like valuate.com and estibot.com that use search traffic, backlinks, and other data to appraise the value in the domain name. Still, deciding on the right price for a target domain name is almost entirely an exercise in negotiation, not valuation.

Naming 114

Naming Semantic Venture Capital Startup 114

The Equity Kicker

FEBRUARY 27, 2014

Whatsapp, which following last week’s $16bn acquisition by Facebook is now the largest startup M&A deal in history, makes a good case study. This is from a post about the company and exit from their investor Sequoia: From the moment they opened the doors of WhatsApp, Jan and Brian wanted a different kind of company.

Product 123

Product Valuation Retention Acquisition 123

ReadWriteStart

AUGUST 26, 2022

The vast majority of their customer acquisition is word of mouth. When you put those two things together, you get high-quality customers, high LTV, and acquisition at super low costs. And you know, a cost goes out with an acquisition, so whether it’s hiring a salesperson, commissions, or paying Google. David Zhang.

Partner 132

Partner Cofounder Retention Acquisition 132

Tim Keane

MARCH 9, 2011

  If plenty of cash flow regardless of plan for sale/retention of business: Senior bank debt based on cash flow coverage and new assets.  Example two:  Explosive market share growth and revenue in an expanding market with acquisitive players available. Possibilities: 1.    Appropriate covenants.

Finance 83

Finance Bootstrapping Startup Equity 83

This is going to be BIG.

MARCH 30, 2015

I have a feeling that a lot of these "on demand" companies aren''t going to be as gamechanging as we think--and will come back down to earth with valuations that look more like temp agencies than the next big thing. But at what valuation? The later stage guys would just have to wait longer for the company to grow into its valuation.

Hockey Stick 60

Hockey Stick Valuation Startup Maryland 60

The Equity Kicker

MAY 15, 2012

When I read on Techcrunch this morning that Quora has raised $50m at a $400m valuation I thought “‘wow’, that’s interesting, I haven’t heard much about them recently, I wonder how they are getting on”. Here are some of the highlights: they had a ‘fundamental understanding’ of their product and why people use it.

Viral 108

Viral Framework Aggregator Retention 108

Startup Company Lawyer

FEBRUARY 21, 2010

Due to aggregate liquidation preferences that may exceed the acquisition price in an M&A deal, common stock may be rendered worthless. In response to the problem of worthless common stock, some companies have implemented employee retention plans, which are also referred to as M&A carveout plans. Straight Retention Plans.

Retention 31

Retention Liquidation Preference Employee Common Stock 31

Steve Blank

APRIL 1, 2020

Others are cutting their valuations. How can you shift focus to customer retention versus acquisition? The CEO should dial through as many of the largest existing customers to get a firsthand understanding of the magnitude of any revenue shortfall. Some VC’s are walking away from signed term sheets.

South Korea 333

South Korea Salary Business Model China 333

Up and Running

NOVEMBER 12, 2014

Understand Your Business’s Value: Additionally, you must set your business’s strategic funding goals in conjunction with your business’s valuation and share price. Beware—detailing plans to engage in mergers or acquisitions with unspecified companies disqualifies your business from offering or selling crowdfunding securities.

Equity 125

Equity SEC Technical Review Security 125

Rob Go

FEBRUARY 22, 2017

Some companies may be able to escape this sort of valuation pressure for some time, but most companies end up coming down to earth eventually. Companies that send boxes of stuff have retention curves that show customers getting less and less valuable over time. This is very different from subscription commerce, by the way.

Portfolio 36

Portfolio Vertical Retention Valuation 36

Agile VC

FEBRUARY 2, 2012

These companies report gross ad revenue but then subtract out “TAC” (Traffic Acquisition Costs) which is basically accounting-speak for the revenue share they pay to the partner sites where the ads actually appear. This is different from companies like Google and Yahoo! Ergo, Zynga spends more like $250 million on Facebook ads.

IPO 100

IPO South Korea Venezuela Revenue 100

Steve Blank

FEBRUARY 26, 2020

At the end of this post, we’ll discuss the valuation at each step (how much the investors value your company and therefore how much of it you need to give up to get this money) and how much revenue you should generate at each step.). You need to begin to “instrument” your customer acquisition process with analytics. 2M in 18 months.

Cofounder 429

Cofounder Seed Stage Valuation Metrics 429

Hearpreneur

SEPTEMBER 27, 2020

While one may see profits as a success, others may view it as customer satisfaction, employee retention, or innovation. Consistently practiced, this denial leads to a kind of cognitive dissonance that blunts one’s direct engagement with reality and isolates one in a cocoon of other acquisitive businesspeople.

Entrepreneur 134

Entrepreneur .Net Metrics Revenue 134

Both Sides of the Table

OCTOBER 25, 2014

But as I like to tell entrepreneurs, great PR could add $10 million to your valuation or increase your chances of closing a round 2x and either case is a reason to make sure you have good press. You can’t measure the retention benefits but I promise it exists. It’s much hard to get funded as a company nobody has heard of.

PR 415

PR Early Stage Dividend Acquisition 415

VC Cafe

OCTOBER 23, 2022

Revenue can be the result of good marketing, but without taking into account usage and retention, focusing on revenue alone can be misleading. Revenue doesn’t imply product market fit – if people are paying for the product but not using it, you don’t have product market fit. What’s a good North Star Metric?

Metrics 179

Metrics Revenue B2C Portfolio 179

Occam's Razor

APRIL 23, 2012

Choose the right metric and they'll create the most glorious digital experience in the universe, the perfect acquisition campaign, the most amazing customer service channel. This will have huge implications on your paid search strategy, your valuation of clicks you get from Google and Bing. Do we need a loyalty program?

Metrics 152

Metrics Analytics Search Channel 152

abovethecrowd.com

JUNE 2, 2021

Would that help retention and NPS (Net Promote Score)? Could we offer a “dial” to issuers and let them (and perhaps their ad agencies) decide? * * For GS.com , EXCLUSIVE access to GS hot deal might be a critical competitive tool to keep customer acquisition costs low and encourage larger clients to more to our site from a competitor’s.

IPO 82

IPO Customer Matching Silicon Valley 82

Agile VC

NOVEMBER 9, 2015

I’ll address potential valuation further down the post here. It has grown remarkably, has favorable gross margins and customer acquisition payback, and a clear path to profitability. What are customer acquisition costs like? When it comes to valuation, Square will inevitably compared with other payments companies.

IPO 165

IPO .Net Revenue Acquisition 165

Hunter Walker

SEPTEMBER 2, 2022

We don’t aspire to be venture backed, to be a mark-up, or to chase the headline of a valuation. HW: When we first met you had founded Belly , a B2B2C loyalty/retention startup. We were able to intensely focus on selling to business owners, and they drove all consumer acquisition from within their stores. It was our flywheel.

Chicago 79

Chicago Venture Capital Miami Employee 79

steveblank.com

JULY 8, 2011

Research, Web prototyping, Testing and Building Tools Lists of Tools from Others HBS Startup Tribe Tools List – from Tom Eisenmann at HBS PBworks startup tools List Startup Foundry tools list Small Business tools list Groups Lean Startup Circle – Google Group for startup advice Startup Weekend – Launch a Startup in 54 hours The Lean (..)

Software Review 110

Software Review Startup Silicon Valley Analytics 110

ConversionXL

JUNE 19, 2018

Look at your growth team score and ask yourself: are you working in a multi-disciplinary team where you focus on high tempo testing on the entire customer journey for bottom line and valuation impact? Acquisition. Engagement & Retention. Use CXL Institute to train your team members on growth. Monetization. Pretty saturated.

Technical Review 103

Technical Review Agile Analytics Conversion 103

www.vccafe.com

MARCH 11, 2013

great web customer acquisition tutorials. customer retention, churn reduction, lifetime value. Seed Stage Valuation Guide. valuations. mixpanel vs kissmetric vs google analytics review. Analytics blog â?? good analytics tutorials. SEO for Startups â?? good tutorial. Andrew Chenâ??s s Essays â?? Analytics Tools.

Software Review 53

Software Review Technical Review Startup 53