Startup Professionals Musings

JULY 19, 2013

The right time to jump is a function of favorable career, personal, and market circumstances. Bootstrap if you can, otherwise climb the pyramid of family, friends, Angels, and VCs. If you take investor money, expect a push for hockey-stick growth and a liquidity event, like going public (IPO) or sale (M&A), to get the payback.

Founder 245

Founder Hockey Stick Cofounder Liquidity Event 245

Software By Rob

SEPTEMBER 17, 2013

VC companies need hockey stick growth. They need an inflection point where growth becomes exponential (or as close to it as possible) so that they can become the clear winner in their market. Let’s say you have a bootstrapped SaaS product and you get 20 new customers in January, 10 in February, and 15 in March.

Hockey Stick 69

Hockey Stick Bootstrapping Cofounder Acquisition 69

Startup Lessons Learned

APRIL 14, 2009

Because they have no presence in the market, they have to find distribution channels to bring in customers. Over time, they have found a formula for acquiring, qualifying, and selling customers in the market segments they have targeted. What’s the total available market? What’s the ROI on acquiring new customers?

Customer 167

Customer San Francisco Lean Hockey Stick 167

Software By Rob

SEPTEMBER 17, 2013

VC companies need hockey stick growth. They need an inflection point where growth becomes exponential (or as close to it as possible) so that they can become the clear winner in their market. Let’s say you have a bootstrapped SaaS product and you get 20 new customers in January, 10 in February, and 15 in March.

Hockey Stick 27

Hockey Stick Bootstrapping Cofounder Acquisition 27

Hippoland

AUGUST 8, 2018

Forget about traction and hockey stick growth. Marketing first. But if this is a generic hotel, then there are likely other affiliates who are doing paid marketing to try to get users to their sites / apps to convert users as well. Unit economics are something I’ve found most entrepreneurs (and investors!)

Founder 48

Founder Sales Cycle Affiliate Retention 48

Hippoland

AUGUST 8, 2018

Forget about traction and hockey stick growth. Marketing first. But if this is a generic hotel, then there are likely other affiliates who are doing paid marketing to try to get users to their sites / apps to convert users as well. Unit economics are something I’ve found most entrepreneurs (and investors!)

Founder 48

Founder Sales Cycle Affiliate Retention 48

The Startup Toolkit

DECEMBER 14, 2011

I’m also a much better marketer. Marketing comes in many forms, and if you aren’t doing direct sales, then you’re relying on marketing. Your traffic graph isn’t going to spike or hockey-stick, and that doesn’t matter one bit if you’re talking to the right people.

Hockey Stick 54

Hockey Stick Affiliate Analytics Bootstrapping 54

Professor VC

AUGUST 26, 2011

The objections range from "its hard", "nobody believes them" to "all hockey sticks look alike". Do you understand the business and market? Of course, this is all hypothesis at this point, but you want to make sure that your assumptions are consistent with market realities for other SAAS companies. Bootstrapping 101.

Silicon Valley 35

Silicon Valley Hockey Stick San Jose Venture Capital 35

David Teten

AUGUST 20, 2019

BJ Lackland observes, “Our customers are 10% VC-backed, 45% bootstrapped and 45% angel-backed.”. Underaddressed market. There’s less selling the big dream, pie in the sky, hockey stick forever. Can work for all levels of growth and all funding histories. More attractive to women and underrepresented founders.

Revenue 60

Revenue SBIC Cofounder Venture Capital 60