Startup Lessons Learned

JULY 28, 2010

To acquire new money managers, the company makes traditional sales calls, which means they’ve interviewed many, many professionals and gotten a strong sense of their needs. .&# says Rachleff. At the same time, whenever a customer closes an account, kaChing contacts the person to find out why; most agree to a short phone interview. .&#

San Francisco 158

San Francisco Lean Continuous Deployment SEC 158

Steve Blank

OCTOBER 24, 2017

— Unremarked and unheralded, the balance of power between startup CEOs and their investors has radically changed: IPOs/M&A without a profit (or at times revenue) have become the norm. In the 20th century tech companies and their investors made money through an Initial Public Offering (IPO). Hire a CEO to Go Public.

Founder 274

Founder Technical Review CTO Hire IPO 274

Startup Lessons Learned

JULY 29, 2009

I hope to show why lean and agile techniques actually reduce the negative impacts of technical debt and increase our ability to take advantage of its positive effects. Yet other agile principles suggest the opposite, as in YAGNI and DoTheSimplestThingThatCouldPossiblyWork. Reconciling these principles requires a little humility.

Technical Review 168

Technical Review Software Review San Francisco Lean 168

Startup Lessons Learned

SEPTEMBER 15, 2008

If you are trying to find a product that sells, than each test would require a different product to be created (or at least a different sales page).in This adds to the complexity of decision making since you dont know its the ad, sales page, product, keywords and so on. No departments The Five Whys for Startups (for Harvard Business R.

San Francisco 166

San Francisco Lean Technical Review Continuous Deployment 166

Agile VC

MAY 22, 2014

How does that stack up against analogous US internet companies? There are no commissions on closed sales (other than Taobaoke) or placement fees on Taobao. In fact JD.com, which priced it’s IPO yesterday, is a direct seller (e.g. Today I’m going to analyze monetization across Alibaba’s various businesses.

China 159

China Revenue Flash Affiliate 159

Startup Lessons Learned

JUNE 8, 2009

For example, I quickly learned that when I twittered about the event, more often than not I would make a sale. I’ve often wanted to wire up a bell to sales data, so that when we make a sale, we literally hear the cash register ring. When the incidence rate is small, emails or text messages are a great mechanism.

San Francisco 84

San Francisco Lean Continuous Deployment DC 84

Agile VC

JUNE 5, 2011

So Groupon obviously filed their S-1 the other day to formally being the IPO process. It also puts another chink in the armor of the meme that monster internet companies can only be built in Silicon Valley (LivingSocial, Kayak, Gilt Groupe, CSN Stores, et al doing damage here too). AGILEVC My idle thoughts on tech startups.

North America 100

North America Chicago Boston Silicon Valley 100

Startup Lessons Learned

AUGUST 24, 2009

And thanks to the radical transparency enabled by the internet, the quality of these proposals is actually constantly rising, to the point that it’s almost impossible to judge the quality of the final product – because all the proposals look polished and professional, even the terrible ones. Is that a lot? Is that good?

San Francisco 113

San Francisco Lean Technical Review Distribution 113

ReadWriteStart

APRIL 26, 2012

There used to be the Four Horsemen of the IPO world, back in the '80s and '90s. When they exited the scene, the small IPO market followed suit. IPOs by year, 1980-2011, with pre-IPO last 12-month sales less than (small firms) or greater than (large firms) $50 million (2009 purchasing power). Number of U.S.

IPO 115

IPO Stock San Francisco Lean 115

Startup Lessons Learned

MARCH 4, 2009

Because this language may lead you to believe this concept is for enterprise sales only, I thought Id walk you through an example from the world of consumer electronics. It connects to the internet to automatically download the necessary codes. Combining agile development with customer developm. Expo SF (May.

San Francisco 68

San Francisco Lean Continuous Deployment DC 68

Startup Lessons Learned

APRIL 26, 2009

Although customers didnt flock to this offering at first, we had enough of a developer program active to start recruiting early adopters to start creating 3D objects for sale in our catalog. The net result was powerful: within six months of starting the company, we were able to get a basic version of our product into open beta. Expo SF (May.

Product Development 88

Product Development Developer San Francisco Product 88

Agile VC

AUGUST 9, 2012

The company’s lost nearly 80% of its value from the peak earlier this year, in the run up to Facebook’s IPO, and currently trades below $3/share… a fraction of it’s IPO price of $10. 71% gross margins are not exceptional for a software/internet company, but they’re not terrible either.

Stock 160

Stock LBO .Net Valuation 160

Startup Lessons Learned

OCTOBER 30, 2008

This can take the form of a traditional sales pipeline or a registration-activation-revenue chart. ► August (2) SXSW Case Study: SlideShare goes freemium ► July (4) Case Study: kaChing, Anatomy of a Pivot Some IPO speculation Founder personalities and the “first-class man&# th. Expo SF (May.

Lean 121

Lean San Francisco Continuous Deployment DC 121

Startup Lessons Learned

AUGUST 16, 2010

Meanwhile, individuals and smaller companies emailed by the hundreds to say that they wanted the features of custom channels, but the sales model—arranged like a media buy—didn’t make sense to them. -Eric] Big companies said they liked the idea, but SlideShare found it hard to close deals. Expo SF (May.

San Francisco 167

San Francisco Lean Analytics Continuous Deployment 167

Startup Lessons Learned

FEBRUARY 28, 2009

This builds on a lot of great thinking that has come before, like the agile movements insistence that only the creation of working code counts as progress for a software development team. We set sales targets from day one, $300 the first month. As the experiments progressed, day-in-day-out we werent making sales. Expo SF (May.

San Francisco 98

San Francisco Continuous Deployment Lean DC 98

Startup Lessons Learned

APRIL 9, 2009

Thats the essence of so many of the lean startup techniques Ive evangelized: customer development , the Ideas/Code/Data feedback loop , and the adaptation of agile development to the startup experience. Creating a company-wide feedback loop that incorporates both customer development and agile development is a challenge.

San Francisco 132

San Francisco Continuous Deployment Lean Agile 132

Startup Lessons Learned

OCTOBER 19, 2009

Then, the company spends no more than a few hundred dollars marketing the product through search engines and to the contacts in its sales database and LinkedIn. Then, the company spends no more than a few hundred dollars marketing the product through search engines and to the contacts in its sales database and LinkedIn. Expo SF (May.

San Francisco 137

San Francisco Product Lean Continuous Deployment 137

Startup Lessons Learned

MARCH 13, 2009

In particular, a marketing launch can help you do three things (courtesy, as is most of my marketing advice, of The Four Steps to the Epiphany ): Drive customers into your sales pipeline. Here was our experience at IMVU, which I have seen replicated at many other consumer internet startups. In most situations, this fear is misplaced.

San Francisco 168

San Francisco PR Lean Early Stage 168

Startup Lessons Learned

DECEMBER 7, 2008

In school I was being pounded day and night with anything that has to do with agile software development. When I entered the company, I realized that there were no process and I quickly applied what I know about agile software development. I am basically a one-man shop. No departments The Five Whys for Startups (for Harvard Business R.

Software Review 94

Software Review Technical Review Part-Time VPE San Francisco 94

Startup Lessons Learned

SEPTEMBER 8, 2009

Of course, the real thanks should go to a startup - Gogo Inflight Internet - that I was lucky enough to meet at a recent workshop. Similarly, government purchasing is a frustrating series of hoops, even compared to enterprise sales. (Its impossible to resist the urge to plug Virgin America as much as possible. Thanks guys!)

DC 90

DC Washington San Francisco SBIR 90

Startup Lessons Learned

OCTOBER 11, 2008

Sales depend on being right (whereas in UGC we can pretty much try anything, and promote the winners). ► August (2) SXSW Case Study: SlideShare goes freemium ► July (4) Case Study: kaChing, Anatomy of a Pivot Some IPO speculation Founder personalities and the “first-class man&# th. Expo SF (May.

San Francisco 68

San Francisco Lean Continuous Deployment DC 68

Startup Lessons Learned

DECEMBER 16, 2008

At that point, theres no opportunity for marketing or sales; the battle is already won or lost in the persons mind. ► August (2) SXSW Case Study: SlideShare goes freemium ► July (4) Case Study: kaChing, Anatomy of a Pivot Some IPO speculation Founder personalities and the “first-class man&# th. Expo SF (May.

Viral 140

Viral San Francisco Lean Continuous Deployment 140

Startup Lessons Learned

OCTOBER 23, 2009

We got instantaneous feedback on the validity of the idea and started our sales process concurrently. LOIs, while clearly not as good as signed sales contract, do have meaning and are valuable. We got instantaneous feedback on the validity of the idea and started our sales process concurrently. Expo SF (May.

San Francisco 144

San Francisco Customer Wiki Lean 144

Startup Lessons Learned

MARCH 22, 2010

The cost of creating new companies is falling rapidly, and access to markets, distribution, and information is within the reach of anyone with an Internet connection. These companies produced over $52 billion dollars in sales in 2005, and employed 450,000 workers that year. Expo SF (May.

San Francisco 121

San Francisco Indiana Lean Startup 121

Startup Lessons Learned

JANUARY 28, 2009

Labels: agile , product development , Test-driven development 11comments: William Pietri said. Back when it first came out, Fowlers book Refactoring was what got me into the Agile world, so it holds a special place in my heart. Great post, Eric. mooders - Performance is not the only metric deserving analysis of a refactoring effort.

San Francisco 79

San Francisco Lean Continuous Deployment DC 79

Agile VC

MAY 7, 2014

I believe this may be the most anticipated tech IPO of all time… some may argue Facebook was a bigger deal, but Alibaba’s offering has been “in process” for a long time and may very well be the largest IPO ever both in terms of size of offering and initial market cap of the company. Just How Big Is Alibaba?

China 187

China B2B Flash IPO 187

Steve Blank

MAY 9, 2017

I’ve watched the Valley go from Microwave Valley – to Defense Valley – to Silicon Valley to Internet Valley. the wave of semiconductor startups in the 1960’s/70’s, the emergence of Venture Capital as a professional industry, the personal computer revolution in 1980’s, the rise of the Internet in the 1990’s and finally.

Restful 243

Restful Silicon Valley Puerto Rico San Jose 243

Startup Lessons Learned

FEBRUARY 12, 2009

Without a basis for comparison, you first have to drive home the need, then you will have an easy time making the sale (after all, youre the person who they trust to bring it to their attention). Toughest part of the sale is to get agreement that you really can deliver benefits that they didnt previously know were possible.

San Francisco 89

San Francisco Continuous Deployment Ruby Lean 89

www.vccafe.com

MARCH 11, 2013

turn customer feedback into sales and relationships. Agile project management tool that enables real time collaboration. Agile project management. agile product management. agile product management and Scrum tool. Agile project management tool collaborative product life-cycle. Agile eLearning.

Software Review 53

Software Review Technical Review Startup 53

Startup Lessons Learned

SEPTEMBER 11, 2009

To imagine that this person does so only to get attention, or only to harass others, or only to harass you are to play into the hands of this geek autocracy on the Internet that just isn't viable anymore. However, you have opened yourself onto the internet with some really great points that are so wonderful to see written.

Community 158

Community Management Lean Software Review 158