Steve Blank

NOVEMBER 12, 2019

As there was no venture capital, these early startups were funded by early sales to weapon systems prime contractors and subcontractors. Within a decade, the rise of venture capital in Silicon Valley enabled startups to find commercial customers rather than military ones.

Government 308

Government Artificial Inteligence Silicon Valley North Korea 308

SoCal CTO

MARCH 1, 2010

Startup Killer: the Cost of Customer Acquisition | For Entrepreneurs , February 2, 2010 Looks at the critical equation around customer acquisition cost vs. customer lifetime value similar to what I discussed in Startup Metrics but in more depth. Great stuff. How Unique Is A Unique Visitor? -

Acquisition 150

Acquisition Cofounder Technical Cofounder Cost 150

Both Sides of the Table

NOVEMBER 3, 2009

This is part of my ongoing series of posts and I need to file this one under both Raising Venture Capital and Startup Advice. and the subsequent acquisition sprees of companies like Google, Yahoo!, Let’s take your revenue line. How will your costs scale as your revenue scales. portfolios. Here’s why.

Business Plan 334

Business Plan AJAX Venture Capital Technical Review 334

VC Cafe

AUGUST 2, 2022

billion revenue in 2021 for Epic Games and was played by 83.3 billion acquisition of Weta Digital, Peter Jackson’s VFX company, gives Unity capabilities in creating hyper realistic virtual environments using RT3D (real-time 3D) technology. billion revenue in 2021, a 107% increase year-on-year. Fortnite generated $5.8

IP 206

IP Cofounder Valuation Acquisition 206

David Teten

JANUARY 19, 2021

More and more startups are pursuing Revenue-Based VCs , but “RBI” doesn’t fit everyone. Flexible VC 101: Equity Meets Revenue Share. By tying payments to actual revenues, founders and investors remain aligned around the company’s real-time performance, good or bad. Of the Inc. 5000 companies, only 6.5% raised from angels.

Cofounder 78

Cofounder Technical Review Equity Dividend 78

Haystack

FEBRUARY 1, 2019

For Spotify’s core business, which charges consumer subscriptions for the ability to have unlimited mobile access to an enormous music library, music as the audio source converts high engagement minutes into recurring revenue via subscriptions.

Acquisition 134

Acquisition Media Audio Technical Review 134

Steve Blank

MARCH 16, 2016

Founders can now access the largest pool of risk capital that ever existed –in the form of Private Equity (Angel Investors, family offices , Venture Capitalists (VC’s) and Hedge Funds.). At its core Venture Capital is nothing more than a small portion of the Private Equity financial asset class. FDA approvals?

Liquidity Event 120

Liquidity Event Founder Liquidation Preference Venture Capital 120

YoungUpstarts

JULY 31, 2019

Of course, a certain amount of initial capital without financial performance is absolutely necessary to get a business off the ground, especially in regulated industries. Founders need seed capital to get their operations up and running, and to begin generating revenue. This also applies in acquisition conversations.

Cofounder 127

Cofounder Burn Rate Technical Cofounder Seed Capital 127

Both Sides of the Table

APRIL 26, 2016

Perhaps the most misused terms I see these days from entrepreneurs involve CAC (customer acquisition costs) and LTV (life time value) and a lack of understanding these critical components is driving many companies to premature failure. CAC is often measured incorrectly and doesn’t often doesn’t capture the true costs of acquisition.

Metrics 150

Metrics Cost Acquisition Startup 150

Both Sides of the Table

DECEMBER 27, 2011

You have to understand whether they’re likely to yield revenue growth in the near term OR whether you have access to cheap enough capital to fund your losses until your investments pay off. million in revenue three years later is, “So effing what?” Simplifying: Revenue -. ” Harsh, but reality.

Startup 418

Startup Revenue Technical Review Flash 418

ReadWriteStart

OCTOBER 2, 2021

And even though an LLC is legally required to report its revenues, profits, and losses, it does not have to pay corporate income taxes on profits. However, most institutional investors (venture capital groups, for instance) don’t mind this structure, and they, in fact, prefer to invest in corporations due to protections from issuing stocks.

Technical Review 158

Technical Review LLC IPO Stock 158

Both Sides of the Table

MAY 28, 2018

There are many things a VC is looking for in reviewing your business plan but beyond things the like the quality of revenue, margins, OPEX and CAPEX there’s a really simple rule I call, “Cash In, Cash Out, Milestones Achieved.” This part of a series to help you raise venture capital ?—?the This is a red flag for VCs.

Burn Rate 247

Burn Rate Valuation Pre-Money Valuation Dilution 247

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

APRIL 17, 2023

For example, if you have a proven product, real revenue, a big potential market, and are ready to scale up the business, every investor will be interested. On the other hand, if you are a new entrepreneur, still in the idea stage, professional investors will only tell you to come back later when you have traction (customers and revenue).

Angel Investor 313

Angel Investor Intellectual Property Investment Bankers Private Equity 313

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

Both Sides of the Table

SEPTEMBER 28, 2014

So if your costs are $500,000 per month and you have $350,000 per month in revenue then your net burn (500-350) is equal to $150,000. We want money to make some acquisitions (investors would prefer to fund M&A if they know specific deals – not to encourage bad behavior. We want a strong balance sheet (um, ok.

Burn Rate 383

Burn Rate Balance Sheet .Net Valuation 383

This is going to be BIG.

AUGUST 21, 2014

Maybe they''re locked up in golden handcuffs post-acquisition of their startup. What may wind up happening is that they can help get that first developer in, potentially mentor them a bit and join your company when you get enough revenue or funding to be a little more de-risked. Venture Capital & Technology'

Founder 120

Founder Software Developers Software Development Venture Capital 120

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

This is going to be BIG.

DECEMBER 9, 2014

5) You''ve figured out how to get a sales funnel going, the flywheel is turning, you''ve got positive ROI on incremental salespeople or customer acquisition dollars and now you want to put gas on the fire. 9) You''re doing something physical in the real world that just requires a certain amount of capital overhead.

Venture Capital 131

Venture Capital Equity Salary Acquisition 131

Haystack

NOVEMBER 12, 2018

By all accounts, the Utah-HQ’d company did everything the right way, was an overnight success 16 years in the making, and only raised venture capital as a growth company after years of bootstrapping. Of course, SAP or others could’ve made a run at Qualtrics earlier, and who knows – maybe folks had tried and failed.

Acquisition 105

Acquisition Utah IPO Venture Capital 105

ReadWriteStart

JUNE 1, 2020

The primary source of your funds should be your paying customers, i.e., your business should generate enough revenues and profits to fund the growth and expansion. These usually play a role in the very early stage of your business, primarily pre-revenue. Reasons for funding. ? Incubators and Accelerators. Government programs.

Startup 150

Startup Entrepreneur Elevator Pitch Seed Stage 150

The Startup Magazine

SEPTEMBER 23, 2021

The $130 million Series D investment round was co-led by New York-based global private equity and venture capital firm Insight Partners and Hanaco Venture Capital. Hanaco Venture Capital is a fund located in New York and Tel Aviv that invests in developing and late-stage startups from across the world.

Private Equity 142

Private Equity Developer Venture Capital Merger 142

Both Sides of the Table

JUNE 28, 2018

While this reaction to such a valuation is understandable, to anybody who has seen the meteoric rise in consumer demand and actual revenue the valuation is much less surprising and may turn out to be quite conservative. I think it’s quite possible that Bird could be the fastest growing company to reach a billion dollars in run rate revenue.

San Francisco 256

San Francisco Valuation Technical Review Los Angeles 256

Startup Professionals Musings

JULY 22, 2020

For example, if you have a proven product, real revenue, a big potential market, and are ready to scale up the business, every investor will be interested. On the other hand, if you are a new entrepreneur, still in the idea stage, professional investors will only tell you to come back later when you have traction (customers and revenue).

Angel Investor 370

Angel Investor Intellectual Property Investment Bankers Private Equity 370

ReadWriteStart

OCTOBER 2, 2021

And even though an LLC is legally required to report its revenues, profits, and losses, it does not have to pay corporate income taxes on profits. However, most institutional investors (venture capital groups, for instance) don’t mind this structure, and they, in fact, prefer to invest in corporations due to protections from issuing stocks.

Technical Review 78

Technical Review LLC IPO Stock 78

Haystack

NOVEMBER 3, 2019

Fitbit was started in a previous startup era, raised about $65M in venture capital, went public in 2015, and reached heights of over a $4B market cap. in revenues (with 100M devices sold, about 25% still in use). 1/ High End And Low End Disruption – Fitbit ended up owning nearly one quarter of the wearables market.

Acquisition 100

Acquisition Venture Capital Aggregator Mobile 100

The Startup Magazine

AUGUST 3, 2021

To assist his consulting firm clients with attracting investors willing to fund an unknown business, Luke Lazarus uses an IPO or acquisition model to ensure the highest possible value for his client’s organization.

United States 167

United States Entrepreneur Angel Investor Social Media 167

Up and Running

MARCH 14, 2018

Your revenue or business model. Customer acquisition: Marketing and sales strategy. Your financials should easily allow you to calculate your customer acquisition costs. Show what you’re projecting in revenue (per product) over the next three to five years. Investors tend to care about this slide the most.

Hockey Stick 164

Hockey Stick Exit Strategy Technical Review Angel Investor 164

Feld Thoughts

NOVEMBER 2, 2016

This quarter they interviewed me as part of it on Quarterly VC Update: Brad Feld on the State of Venture Capital Investing. For growth companies (usually Series D or later), there are pretty clear market comparables based on growth rate, revenue, gross margin %, and type of company. Each quarter Cooley does a VC market update.

Venture Capital 70

Venture Capital Private Equity Early Stage Valuation 70

View from Seed

SEPTEMBER 4, 2018

As the venture capital industry has evolved, more and more seed investors are passing on traditionally “seed stage” startups because there isn’t enough traction. Belief #1: The best time to invest is early. And by early, we mean pre-traction. Of the last 15 investments we’ve made, 8 have been pre-product or pre-seed style rounds.

North America 120

North America Seed Stage Early Stage Lead Investor 120

ReadWriteStart

SEPTEMBER 10, 2010

They already have several customers including some telcos, and are at about $350,000 in revenues. Gio expects to get to about $500,000 by the end of this year and asked me for advice on venture funding. Because customer financing equals revenue, not equity. Yes, venture capital is very good for scaling businesses rapidly.

Cloud 115

Cloud Silicon Valley Incubator Finance 115

SoCal CTO

MARCH 5, 2007

However, Elgg could power 100,000 networks and it would make no difference - there is no revenue stream as we give everything away under a GPL license. Common revenue streams are consulting, training, support, customization, upgraded versions for corporate applications, etc. I understand his frustration.

Open Source 150

Open Source Business Model Technical Cofounder Southern California 150

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

This is going to be BIG.

JULY 26, 2010

They’re more than doubling revenue every quarter and will soon be on track for a million dollar run rate. The only concern was that they didn’t know what their cost of customer acquisition was, nor did they which channels would be most effective, or how much they could acquire out of each channel.

Acquisition 128

Acquisition Hockey Stick Customer SEM 128

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?” They’re putting money into web services/business – most without early revenue. End of theory.&#

Customer Development 219

Customer Development Web Developer Customer 219

Startup Professionals Musings

AUGUST 17, 2014

Here are some basic “rules of thumb” that every Angel or venture capital equity investor uses, to help you anticipate their reactions. Aggressive revenue projections and growth rate. Revenue in the fifth year should be at least $20 million, with a growth rate average of 100% per year. Gross margins greater than 50%.

Liquidity Event 249

Liquidity Event Equity Venture Capital Merger 249

Cracking the Code

FEBRUARY 23, 2011

Thoughts from a Venture Capitalist on Software, Software-as-a-Service (SaaS), Cloud Computing, Internet and more. It would have been easy to explain the difference by changes in the 2010/2011 revenue growth projections but unfortunately that is not the case. revenues while large caps are trading at 6.4x. Venture Capital. (3).

Software Review 101

Software Review Technical Review Valuation Europe 101