Steve Blank

MAY 29, 2011

Max entered Stanford in the fall of 2010 as a freshman, took as many of the engineering entrepreneurship classes as he could and independent study with me. (He Max and his partners interviewed and analyzed over 650 early-stage Internet startups. They tend to lose the battle early on by getting ahead of themselves.

Technical Cofounder 333

Technical Cofounder Early Stage Startup Silicon Valley 333

David Teten

SEPTEMBER 23, 2017

My colleagues Sebastian Soler , Steven Greenberg and I recently launched a new online community, PEVCTech.com , exclusively for PE/VC investors; engineers who work at PE/VC funds; and other technologists who specialize in working on this problem. Many tools designed for B2B marketing in general are also relevant to investors.

Private Equity 60

Private Equity Venture Capital Equity Technical Review 60

View from Seed

JANUARY 21, 2022

As a kid, I was enamored with anything possessing an engine that could go fast (Fast and Furious is my favorite movie series). This passion manifested itself in real life when I went to school at Northeastern to study Mechanical Engineering. As an engineer, my brain solves problems by breaking them into digestible pieces.

B2B 120

B2B Germany Stock Engineer 120

Rob Go

SEPTEMBER 4, 2018

It occurred to me that although we mentioned our new thematic approach when we raised our last fund in 2017, we haven’t really shared a broader manifesto about how we are approaching the early stage market. It’s been an interesting several years in the early stage venture eco-system, and the sands have shifted considerably.

North America 36

North America Seed Stage Early Stage Lead Investor 36

SoCal CTO

NOVEMBER 10, 2009

It was also beneficial because I got some good experience with both B2B and B2C business models. In addition, I do a few consulting projects on the side, in the areas of product strategy, search engine optimization, and intellectual property. After BITSource was successfully acquired, I moved to L.A. How did you do that?

Management 150

Management Product Entrepreneur Silicon Valley 150

A Crowded Space

OCTOBER 2, 2018

While a big incumbent is stuck working on their existing core business and platform, early stage startups can focus on new platforms or niche parts of the market to build up initial traction. ” While many people are off focused on drones and crypto, I remain bullish on mobile opportunities, especially for B2B use cases.

Vertical 60

Vertical B2B Early Stage Mobile 60

YoungUpstarts

JANUARY 5, 2012

Chinosorn, a prolific “hobby collector”, and Leung, an engineer, became friends at the University of Illinois and both worked on several startups prior to starting MentorMob. Which means you’ll be learning continually, as well. Learning From Others. MentorMob is bootstrapped and has 12 employees.

Illinois 165

Illinois Aggregator Chicago Widget 165

Mucker Lab

APRIL 6, 2023

It's very hard for PLG to be the only or main motion with infrastructure products because it's not something one engineer will just test and buy. What should an early-stage startup founder focus on if they want to implement PLG? So for early-stage founders, those are the two scenarios where PLG might be a great fit.

Product 78

Product CTO Hire Startup Fractional CTO 78

YoungUpstarts

AUGUST 4, 2015

In our experience, having offices in both locations is ideal for a B2B tech company because the complementary strengths of the two locales open the door for fast and sustained growth. The San Francisco Bay Area is home to one of the world’s leading B2B technology markets. Let’s start with San Francisco.

B2B 100

B2B San Francisco Semantic 100

Duct Tape Marketing

FEBRUARY 27, 2020

And I think that in the early days it was sort of novel that people had content, and obviously like you said, the search engines didn’t have as much content to chew through so they would surface your content. Lance Cummins: Yeah. So it really depends on your audience, right? Like you kind of alluded to that a minute ago.

Audio 57

Audio Boston Video HTML 57

Both Sides of the Table

AUGUST 29, 2012

We sat down for an hour to talk about why what GaiKai built was able to overcome its much better funded rival and to dispel the myth that great engineering teams don’t exist in Southern California. GaiKai had 50 such engineers, which was a large part of its success. I agree with him. Everyone follow him @scottedwalker.

Southern California 279

Southern California Detroit Los Angeles California 279

David Teten

DECEMBER 3, 2019

Many tools designed for B2B marketing in general are also relevant to investors. I previously posted a detailed presentation with sales technology tools useful for B2B sales. Data companies focused on early-stage startups include Aingel , fundsUP , Preseries , PredictLeads , and Sploda.

Technical Review 78

Technical Review Software Review Analytics Private Equity 78

VC Cafe

SEPTEMBER 26, 2022

It doesn’t matter if your company is B2B or B2C, as Y Combinator puts it, you need to build stuff people want, and obsess about making it as user friendly, friction free and smooth as possible. Kawasaki’s Law of Pre-Money Valuation: for every full-time engineer, add $500,000; for every full-time M.B.A., Our goals, their goals.

Founder 187

Founder Startup Valuation Pre-Money Valuation 187

Rob Go

DECEMBER 10, 2012

B2B and especially SMB SaaS: We see B2B and especially SMB software to be a large and attractive category. Healthcare IT is another historically difficult category for early stage investors that I think might present more opportunities now than in the past. Bonus: Convergence of physical and digital.

B2B 62

B2B Internet Vertical Early Stage 62

VC Cafe

JANUARY 22, 2021

AWS Marketplace Startup Program – the ‘app store’ for B2B startups who are interested to sell their product to AWS customers. AWS Builder Space (Israel) – A non-equity program for early stage startups who are looking to accelerate their speed to market. Support Programs.

Technical Review 174

Technical Review Startup Venture Capital Incubator 174

www.forentrepreneurs.com

FEBRUARY 2, 2010

Some of the early B2B pioneers in this space were companies like JBoss ( story here ), SolarWinds, ConstantContact, HubSpot, etc. With certain complex products, this will need an on-site installation by a sales engineer, which sends costs through the roof. that directly tackled the problem of acquiring customers.

Acquisition 103

Acquisition Cost Customer Entrepreneur 103

The Next Web

AUGUST 19, 2013

Mikita Mikado is a software engineer and entrepreneur from Belarus, now based in San Francisco. I’m a geek and software engineer from the former ­Soviet state of Belarus. It just so happened that I became the CEO of a B2B tech startup. Direct sales are common with B2B startups. Step 2: Choose your sales channels.

Belarus 137

Belarus Viral Channel Startup 137

Reid Hoffman

AUGUST 17, 2021

Greylock investor Sridhar Ramaswamy , who co-founded search engine startup Neeva , says it’s more important for startups to think about creating a product that is useful and resonates with people before worrying about whether a large incumbent is doing it. Costco, it turns out, is the ultimate subscription engine. How did HBO innovate?”

Cofounder 69

Cofounder Differentiation Search Advertising 69

Reid Hoffman

AUGUST 17, 2021

Greylock investor Sridhar Ramaswamy , who co-founded search engine startup Neeva , says it’s more important for startups to think about creating a product that is useful and resonates with people before worrying about whether a large incumbent is doing it. Costco, it turns out, is the ultimate subscription engine. How did HBO innovate?”

Cofounder 69

Cofounder Differentiation Search Advertising 69

The Next Web

JULY 8, 2013

from early stage investors (not VC’s yet) and our investors want to put in more money before going to our next big round. So far we have raised $2.3M

Advisory Board 128

Advisory Board API Cofounder PPC 128

ConversionXL

FEBRUARY 3, 2016

If you think B2B is exempt from this, you’re wrong. Nearly 85% of respondents believe that habituated buying decisions are just as relevant to B2B marketing as B2C marketing. It might be an early stage habit or a less frequently triggered habit, for example. So, there’s two options.

Conversion 48

Conversion Technical Review Software Review B2B 48

Austin Startup

JUNE 26, 2019

I recruited a top-flight engineer and serial entrepreneur to build our MVP, on equity?—?and And, there were unexpected delays and conflicts from some incredible innovation partners committed to childcare and early childhood education (ECE). (Yes, in a huge $77b market. and every other team member the same way. Get you some of that!

Silicon Valley 54

Silicon Valley Startup B2C Sweat Equity 54

Hippoland

AUGUST 20, 2017

Existing software engineers and tech entrepreneurs needed to retool both their skills as well as their way thinking about how software should be set up and software business models. B2B companies are also consolidating. For more of my ramblings on early stage company formation, subscribe to my newsletter.

Business Model 48

Business Model Software Silicon Valley Mobile 48

Rob Go

JULY 11, 2013

I was asked recently how NextView evaluates such early stage companies for investment. Here are a couple examples from our portfolio: Vertical Communities: One of the exciting attributes of GrabCAD in the early days was its rapidly growing, engaged community of mechanical engineers.

Distribution 66

Distribution Vertical Viral B2B 66

paulgraham.com

NOVEMBER 4, 2013

A good metaphor would be the cranks that car engines had before they got electric starters. Once the engine was going, it would keep going, but there was a separate and laborious process to get it going. 4 ] The question to ask about an early stage startup is not "is this company taking over the world?"

Founder 111

Founder Software Engineer Albuquerque 111

Both Sides of the Table

JANUARY 31, 2010

We were immediately thrust into a globally competitive market for B2B collaboration tools. But this was early 2000 and our US competitors had already closed rounds North of $45 million. We raised a seed round of capital in 1999 and our first venture capital round was the first week of March 2000 (e.g. I thought that, too.

Entrepreneur 308

Entrepreneur Silicon Valley San Diego Non-Compete 308

David Teten

MARCH 18, 2021

A typical VC thesis: “we invest in tech startups in Europe at an early stage” However, our experience shows that in many cases: . “Tech” means B2B Saas/Fintech or Consumer apps. But you must be doing real engineering of some kind. B2B vs B2C) within the business model preference. .

Technical Review 78

Technical Review Cofounder Venture Capital Deal Flow 78

Steve Blank

JULY 27, 2015

Venk Shukla has worked in numerous early-stage companies as an executive, investor, board member, or advisor. Venk also started a CIO Forum, which connects 25 CIOs from companies such as Costco, WalMart, Clorox, GE Capital, HCA Health Care and others with the most innovative B2B companies in the Valley. Coming to America. “I

Channel 120

Channel India Technical Cofounder Silicon Valley 120

ConversionXL

JULY 8, 2016

Results from Evergage’s study, which surveyed both B2C and B2B companies, were similar… Image Source. But, as companies are the first to admit, they’re still in the early stages of figuring out how to do personalization right (despite the fact that the concept has been around for years)… Image Source.

B2C 70

B2C Search Internet Mobile 70

Cracking the Code

OCTOBER 10, 2008

While the CAC ratio helps SaaS businesses at scale to manage their Sales and Marketing spend, the SLC is a helpful framework for early stage businesses before you have meaningful data. This is a clear example where business-to-business (B2B) marketers need to learn from their business-to-consumer (B2C) counterparts.

Software Review 48

Software Review North America Europe Metrics 48

mashable.com

NOVEMBER 3, 2010

Here’s an overview: Mitch Kapor: Kapor is founding partner of Kapor Capital , a firm that invests in seed and early stage startups. Brad Feld: Feld is co-founder and managing director of Foundry Group, a Boulder, Colorado venture capital firm that focuses on early stage investments ranging from $250,000 to $500,000.

Angel Investor 80

Angel Investor Startup San Francisco Social Media 80

Cracking the Code

SEPTEMBER 20, 2016

As it takes around 10 years for a SaaS company to reach maturity, the explosion we are seeing at the early stage has not yet translated into a significant number of exits. From a funding standpoint, European SaaS companies have raised on average 30-40% less capital than their US counterpart at a comparable stage.

Europe 48

Europe Artificial Inteligence Vertical 48

SoCal CTO

AUGUST 3, 2010

Many of our job postings for Engineering positions describe the company as a place “where the word ‘millions’ is used frequently and in many contexts&#. So, I’ve had about 4 years on the “inside” of a fast-growing, venture-backed B2B SaaS startup. I got a taste of that within my first weeks on the job.

Software Review 217

Software Review Startup Venture Capital Technical Review 217

VC Cafe

MARCH 27, 2022

There more than 35,000 engineers working on building it, and a strong level of passion/engagement in the communities being built around this ‘New Internet’ But with that, there are also challenges, which are less discussed. Metaverse – it has both B2B and B2C applications. Source: Visual Capitalist.

Cofounder 179

Cofounder Venture Capital Equity 179

mashable.com

OCTOBER 5, 2012

Naming can be one of the most difficult challenges in the early stages of a startup. Generally speaking, a name is more valuable to a B2C (marketing-driven) company than a B2B (sales-driven) counterpart, so allocate your efforts accordingly. But whatever the case, there are simply no excuses for having a bad name.

Naming 84

Naming Startup Social Media RSS 84

www.vccafe.com

MARCH 11, 2013

VC Cafe covers early stage Israeli and European tech & mobile startups. Startups for startups – the top B2B tools used by Startups – Includes the list of top 50 startup vendors in 2012 by Vendorstack , a reviews and Q&A platform on enterprise vendors for startups and mid-market companies. Seed Startups.

Software Review 53

Software Review Technical Review Startup 53