Up and Running

OCTOBER 30, 2017

This article is part of our “ Business Startup Guide ”—a curated list of our articles that will get you up and running in no time! People often ask us for a list of steps they can use to start their own business. From business type to business model to physical location, there are so many variables! Pablo Picasso.

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Venture Capital Business Plan Limited Liability Company Finance 166

www.startuplessonslearned.com

MAY 4, 2012

The following is an excerpt from HBS Professor Noam Wasserman’s new book, The Founders Dilemmas: Anticipating and Avoiding the Pitfalls That Can Sink a Startup. Noam is one of a rare breed of business academics: he studies entrepreneurship using a rigorous empirical approach. But such a best-case approach is hazardous.

Equity 72

Equity Founder Technical Cofounder Cofounder 72

Duct Tape Marketing

MAY 2, 2013

Lots of people talk about business models these days, but what does it really mean? When it comes to starting or planning for business success your model is essentially your decision about how you intend to add value – which is another way of saying – how you intend to make money. Clarity.fm

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Business Model Aggregator eCommerce Distribution 77

Steve Blank

SEPTEMBER 14, 2009

It may just be that the message of building companies that have predictable revenue and profit models hasn’t percolated through the VC business model. Unfortunately, regardless of a VC’s age, their business models are suffering and IPOs seem to be a thing of the past for at least a while longer. Warning sign?

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Silicon Valley IPO Technical Review Venture Capital 235

ReadWriteStart

MAY 29, 2012

RWW: How do you know whether crowdfunding is a better approach for your startup than seeking traditional forms of financing? It’s important to know upfront who you can call on for support, because you’re going to need to lean on your backers, partners, and friends and family. She’s already raised $800K.

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Up and Running

AUGUST 28, 2019

Write that stuff down in a special book. Agree upon how much of this business each of your leaders owns, and write that down on slips of paper called “stock certificates”. Also, creating a quick lean financial forecast will help ensure your business idea is viable and financially sound. Create a corporate record book.

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Delaware Stock Nevada Technical Review 83

Startup Lessons Learned

SEPTEMBER 6, 2018

With Lean Impact , Ann Mei Chang takes us on her journey of trying to bring innovation and social good together. While Eric went on co-found another company and write The Lean Startup , I went on to Google. Thus, Lean Impac t was born. But, not surprisingly for a revolutionary product, we got as much wrong as we got right.

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YoungUpstarts

NOVEMBER 8, 2018

When money changed hands, it was in person – I had no way to take commission or charge for the booking service through the original platform. Here’s how we did it – and how you can grow your own business, too. We price competitively, and we keep our operations as lean as possible. In 2013, everything changed.

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Steve Blank

MAY 3, 2011

The Stanford Lean LaunchPad class was an experiment in a new model of teaching startup entrepreneurship. After a week of hectic customer discovery , the team further refined their new business model. to find out what books they’d recommend for prospective students. Where is the best place for your business?

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South Dakota Business Model Lean United States 232

Startup Lessons Learned

APRIL 14, 2009

What matters is proving the viability of the company’s business model, what investors call “traction.&# Of course this is not at all true of many profitable small businesses, but they are not what I mean by startups.) but few step back and really examine the underlying assumptions of startup finance.

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Customer San Francisco Lean Hockey Stick 167

Startup Lessons Learned

MAY 31, 2019

He’ll be speaking at this year’s Lean Startup Conference , and also has a new book (for which I very happily wrote a short foreword) coming out next month: Secrets of Sand Hill Road: Venture Capital and How to Get It. Your new book, Secrets of Sandhill Road , is literally subtitled Venture Capital and How to Get It ?

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genylabs.typepad.com

SEPTEMBER 24, 2011

I wont bother going into details on start-up financing terms ( see this post for an overview of typical VC terms) except to say if you dont know and understand: the firms cap table and valuation. While Ive made at least my share of mistakes taking equity in lieu of pay, I continue to see this as a key part of my business model.

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Equity Technical Review San Jose Stock 40

Up and Running

JULY 24, 2015

On Bplans, you’ll find templates, free eBooks, and articles on how to plan and start your business. Business Model Generation. This website offers a downloadable worksheet called a business model canvas that helps you think through your business idea. Paychex is a search engine for business loans.

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The Entrepreneurial Mind

JUNE 14, 2010

Today I return to writing a new book I am co-authoring with my buddy George Solomon, who teaches at George Washington University. Our book is about raising money in light of the new economic realities we now face. I received a very timely e-mail this morning from a Belmont alum, who is trying to start a business here in Nashville.

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Kentucky Washington Nashville Bootstrapping 56

Altgate

SEPTEMBER 16, 2010

In the early days it’s more book keeping than accounting. As your business grows, you will likely need more and more time from your accountant and at some point you’ll hire a full time person to handle the day-to-day, likely combined with roles as office manager or finance (not to be confused with accounting).

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Software Review Offshore Startup Boston 65

Up and Running

APRIL 11, 2016

While traditional business models provide a more regular income, in the real estate world, it might be three months before you get paid—and it could even be longer. Of course, you could always go down the route of taking formal courses on the topic, or reading the right books (see the resources section at the end of this article).

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Steve Blank

JUNE 8, 2009

Innovation – Business Model? Waterfall, Agile, Lean? Seed and Follow-on Financing – How do your finance it? Others you need to know when you execute the plan. Here is the list of basic startupactivities/functions our class discussion generated: Opportunity – How big? Where do the ideas come from? Technology?

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Vertical Silicon Valley RSS Marketing 125

Steve Blank

NOVEMBER 5, 2009

Unfortunately in early stage startups the drive for financing hijacks the corporate DNA and becomes the raison d’etre of the company. Chasing funding versus chasing customers and a repeatable and scalable business model, is one reason startups fail. Is there a profitable business model? How many are there?

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Customer Development Developer Customer Silicon Valley 267

Babbling VC

JUNE 5, 2012

Just as the human body adapts to exercises and needs newer and different exercises to maintain a lean figure, so too does a founder, manager or company. . That's where the self-help books and that whole industry come in. . Keep yourself or your business "young".try The least bit of comfort can lead to "fat".

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SoCal CTO

DECEMBER 1, 2010

The Ultimate Combination of Startup Business Development Methods - ArcticStartup , November 16, 2010 I've been a huge fan of Steven Blank's Customer Development methodology for a long time. I've also read his book The Four Steps to the Epiphany, where he outlines this in great detail. Finance, IT, Legal). same as the old boss.

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Technical Review Technology Product CTO Hire 175

rob.by

MARCH 8, 2012

It means they have to deal with finances and customers and investors and other things that aren’t what they love to do, which is building software. I also find that things like Rails books that make application building look easy don’t help. Examples in books for any language have always been easy. Finance (1).

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Hearpreneur

JANUARY 29, 2017

I’m a big believer of lean startup. What most find with hunting and fishing guides are hundreds of websites with flat, uninteresting listings and outdated business models. I read this quote in the book The Millionaire Fastlane by MJ DeMarco. It fits perfectly to the battle of starting a business.

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Entrepreneur LLC Cofounder Montana 48

SoCal CTO

JULY 13, 2010

At the time, they had just come out with their new book " Rework " had downloaded a copy to my Kindle, but hadn't had a chance to read it yet. How-to learn about angel/vc term sheets - Gabriel Weinberg , June 28, 2010 I think every startup entrepreneur (and angel investor) should have a good understanding of financing term sheets.

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Cofounder Technical Cofounder Term Sheet Startup 175

Startup Lessons Learned

JANUARY 10, 2011

When we walked him through our business model and results, he explained that our options would be limited, because the main M&A community was feeling burned by companies like ours. Therefore, if you want to sell IMVU one day, you’ll need to abandon your business model, even though it’s generating a lot of revenue per customer.

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Silicon Valley San Francisco Lean Investment Bankers 167

The Next Web

JANUARY 27, 2013

I couldn’t write a single line of code, and I didn’t have any clue how to start a business. Luckily for me, I found some books that enlightened my path. For me, these books were great guides. Any investor who knew anything about books, didn’t invest. They probably thought it was the wrong time too. Screw the haters.

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Netherlands Technical Review Software Review Cofounder 159

Seeing Both Sides

AUGUST 16, 2012

TripAdvisor may be one of the most fascinating companies I know and so I was excited to dig into their business model as part of my series on scaling. TripAdvisor is more of a classic consumer Internet success story, but with even more powerful network effects and an amazing business model. Really hard. Magical, really.

Part-Time VPE 54

Part-Time VPE Software Review Costa Rica Technical Review 54

Steve Blank

JULY 13, 2009

Which at this stage of the company was marketing and financing. Our “Hollywood meets Silicon Valley” story played great in Silicon Valley, they ate it up in Hollywood, and the business press tripped over themselves to talk to us. The story had universal appeal, and we spun the tale and keep the buzz going. We all know how that ends up.

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Silicon Valley Product RSS California 122

Steve Blank

SEPTEMBER 19, 2017

His groups whole-heartedly adopted and adapted Lean. 14 different innovation teams were going through a 3-month I-Corps/Lean LaunchPad program to validate product/market fit. My CEO has been reading all the Lean Innovation books and wants to fix this and is ready to bring in a big consulting firm to redo all our business processes.”.

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Finance Lean Metrics Programming 253

The Startup Magazine

FEBRUARY 24, 2019

SaaS business models differ from all others in that they get revenues over an extended period of time. Effectively implementing the model requires an analysis of the customer lifecycle taking into consideration various metrics. Finances – Each step requires financial input (cost) and can generate revenue.

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SQL Metrics Business Model Revenue 86

Duct Tape Marketing

DECEMBER 17, 2012

Even those that preach social strategy are generally talking about finding ways to use social tactics to support existing business strategies and models. My belief is that the real opportunity is to build a fully social business model, one that addresses the total picture of social behavior.

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Business Model Social Media Community Media 64

Steve Blank

MAY 18, 2009

You literally have to take your vision of the opportunity and against all rational odds assemble financing, and a team to help you execute. You literally have to take your vision of the opportunity and against all rational odds assemble financing, and a team to help you execute. And that’s just to get started.

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Up and Running

MAY 15, 2019

In this guide to starting a brewery, we’re going to talk with brewers who’ve been-there-done-that, and we’ll get insights from experts in supporting industries such as insurance and finance, as well as discuss regulatory issues. Watch your finances. There’s no one model—or one business plan—for breweries.

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Oregon Jordan Software Review Distribution 24

Up and Running

OCTOBER 21, 2014

Every time I think about the topic of ‘starting a business’, I recall a book I read years ago: “Feel the Fear and Do It Anyway”. To my mind, it’s fear of the unknown that holds most of us back and not the thought of whether we’re competent enough or intelligent enough or whatever else we feel is needed to run a business.

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Elevator Pitch Software Review SBA Business Plan 166

A Smart Bear: Startups and Marketing for Geeks

MARCH 11, 2014

If I collect all that together and call that all small business, which is a little unfair because of course they are different in how you’d get after them and so on, but for now, if I collect all that and say small business and organizations, is that what you want to target? Edwin: Oh sorry, so the business model.

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Technical Cofounder Cofounder Software Review Management 220

Steve Blank

SEPTEMBER 9, 2015

I’ve spent this year working with corporations and government agencies that are adopting and adapting Lean Methodologies. Two McKinsey consultants, Terry Deal and Arthur Kennedy wrote a book called Corporate Cultures: The Rites and Rituals of Corporate Life. It requires careful, calculated and coordinated process with HR and Finance.

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Startup Silicon Valley Incubator Matching 120

www.chubbybrain.com

SEPTEMBER 28, 2011

For four years we have offered the synchronization service for no charge, predicated on the hypothesis that a business model would emerge to support the free service. We had the wrong business model. Dave Jones made a virtue of having no business model for APB. Finances were just one part of the story.

Software Review 79

Software Review Startup Technical Review Vesting 79

maplebutter.com

JANUARY 8, 2013

How to stay lean and iterate quickly while you’re building a two sided marketplace, especially when “network effect” and “critical mass” are the two main focuses? Read great books / especially business biographies. If you believe in it – then finance whatever you can yourself.

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Technical Review Startup Cofounder Software Review 44