Startup Professionals Musings

NOVEMBER 27, 2015

All investors want to see real evidence that the dogs will eat the dogfood before they give any credibility to your hockey-stick projection curves. Maximum agility for required pivots. It’s amazing to most entrepreneurs how fast their little startup can become a battleship, hard to turn in a storm.

Hockey Stick 120

Hockey Stick Startup Stealth Agile 120

Startup Lessons Learned

JANUARY 15, 2010

Lessons Learned by Eric Ries Friday, January 15, 2010 Two Ways to Hold Entrepreneurs Accountable (for Harvard Business Review) The next part in the series I am writing for Harvard Business Review is online. This time, Im discussing the challenge for corporate CFOs and VCs alike in holding entrepreneurs accountable. Read the rest here.

Hockey Stick 105

Hockey Stick San Francisco Entrepreneur Lean 105

Steve Blank

NOVEMBER 12, 2009

After these slides, these VC’s recognized that this company had dramatically reduced risk and built a startup that was agile, resilient and customer-centric. I am a young entrepreneur here, absolutely dying to hear the talk. You already have the hockey stick and exponential growth. The rest is just fluff.

Venture Capital 234

Venture Capital Silicon Valley RSS Hockey Stick 234

Startup Lessons Learned

APRIL 14, 2009

I have counseled innumerable entrepreneurs to change their focus to revenue, and many companies who refuse this advice get themselves into trouble by running out of iterations. This wasn’t very impressive, but we had two things going for us: A hockey stick shaped growth curve. Go on an agile diet quickly.

Customer 167

Customer San Francisco Lean Hockey Stick 167

Steve Blank

JANUARY 4, 2010

A lot of entrepreneurs think that their startup is the next big thing when in reality they’re just building a small business. Not only did their sales curve look like a textbook case of a VC-friendly hockey stick, but their Lessons Learned funding presentation was an eye-opener.). The word entrepreneur covers a lot of ground.

Hockey Stick 296

Hockey Stick Venture Capital Startup Cofounder 296

Startup Lessons Learned

OCTOBER 28, 2008

Most of the times I have seen pitches fail, it is not because they are poorly written, or that the entrepreneur lacks passion. Most important slide: hockey stick Micro-scale results Key questions: who is the customer, and how do you know? The Entrepreneur’s Guide to Customer Development ► June (3) What is a startup?

San Francisco 128

San Francisco Lean Continuous Deployment DC 128

Agile VC

JANUARY 27, 2012

Also, I’d argue these factors have made the “hockey stick” growth curves even steeper because when company’s “get hot” there are so many more eyeballs and networks to capture and convert. Im a former Silicon Valley entrepreneur turned East Coast VC.

Hockey Stick 113

Hockey Stick Seed Stage Silicon Valley Syndicate 113