Steve Blank

SEPTEMBER 7, 2009

Finally, I’ll write about how Eric Ries and the Lean Startup concept provided the equivalent model for product development activities inside the building and neatly integrates customer and agile development. Three to six months after first customer ship, if Sales starts missing its numbers, the board gets concerned.

Customer Development 224

Customer Development Developer Customer Silicon Valley 224

Startup Professionals Musings

JUNE 9, 2012

Projecting the financials should be the last step of your business plan preparation, since it assumes you already know the opportunity size, customer buying habits, pricing, costs, and competition. Unless your volumes are in the millions or higher, the difference between manufacturing cost and customer price better be 50% or greater.

Forecast 238

Forecast Burn Rate .Net Business Model 238

Startup Professionals Musings

FEBRUARY 5, 2021

If you don’t have a destination, don’t waste your money trying to get there, and don’t expect anyone to support you along the way Projecting financials is a natural extension of the homework every entrepreneur needs to do on customer opportunity size, product costs, pricing, competition and customer value. Marty Zwilling.

Forecast 369

Forecast Burn Rate Startup Widget 369

Steve Blank

NOVEMBER 2, 2009

For those of you who have been following the discussion, a Lean Startup is Eric Ries ’s description of the intersection of Customer Development , Agile Development and if available, open platforms and open source. And most startup code and features end up on the floor as customers never really wanted them.

Lean 244

Lean Silicon Valley Startup RSS 244

Both Sides of the Table

SEPTEMBER 29, 2009

Three reasons: There is a relative valuation between the price a VC pays and their expectations of what it will exit for in an IPO or trade sale. Also, it’s harder to pay a $30 million pre-money value on an unproved company when you see public companies with $100 million in sales trading for less than $20 million.

Burn Rate 263

Burn Rate Valuation Pre-Money Valuation Private Equity 263

Startup Professionals Musings

MARCH 22, 2011

Projecting the financials should be the last step of your business plan preparation, since it assumes you already know the opportunity size, customer buying habits, pricing, costs, and competition. Unless your volumes are in the millions or higher, the difference between manufacturing cost and customer price better be 50% or greater.

Forecast 230

Forecast Burn Rate Startup .Net 230

Both Sides of the Table

NOVEMBER 3, 2009

In all of these new product and cost-focused new trends, a big problem has emerged that all of these movements have not addressed. It should talk about how many customers you think you will acquire and how much you’ll charge for your product. I care about the thought that you’ve given to the customer problem.

Business Plan 334

Business Plan AJAX Venture Capital Technical Review 334

Up and Running

FEBRUARY 20, 2015

If you’re running a subscription business , you’ll want to track churn rate, monthly recurring revenue, lifetime value, and so on. However, there are a number of metrics that every business owner should know, including cash flow, accounts payable, accounts receivable, direct costs, operating margin, net profit, and cash burn rate.

Metrics 60

Metrics Burn Rate .Net Churn Rate 60

Up and Running

APRIL 22, 2020

Maintaining your business through the coronavirus crisis has likely led you to cut costs, revise your sales projections, and potentially seek out a loan to help you stay afloat. Many startups are small, local businesses with hopes of eventually rapidly scaling—but they’re still establishing a track record. Risky industry.

SBA 139

SBA Forecast Software Review Business Plan 139

Up and Running

OCTOBER 7, 2019

A data-driven approach can help you make accurate and timely business decisions to meet market demands and improve cost-efficiency. Activation rate: measures how many visitors are engaging with your website or app. Customer churn rate: shows the percentage of customers lost in a given period (e.g.,

Founder 71

Founder Retention Metrics Technical Review 71

YoungUpstarts

AUGUST 19, 2016

Then come the marketing, sales, and accounting considerations. While you absolutely need to keep an eye on earnings and burn rate, human capital is ultimately the fuel that makes the machine run. For some startups, the right approach might be to hire people at a lower cost and have them wear a lot of hats.

Startup 100

Startup Burn Rate Cofounder Salary 100

Startup Professionals Musings

JUNE 18, 2012

I come from a high-tech software background, and only a few years ago, it would cost at least a million dollars ($1M) for a team of professionals to produce any commercial software product. Now, with open source software components, and low-cost development tools, the same job can be done by one good hacker for a few thousand dollars.

Cost 255

Cost Burn Rate SEM Startup 255

Both Sides of the Table

DECEMBER 16, 2009

.&# They know instinctually how customers buy and how to excite them. Because they’re street smart, most great entrepreneurs tend to prefer getting out and talking with real customers rather than sitting in a cubicle all day doing beautiful PowerPoint slides. They have a sixth sense for the competitors’ weaknesses.

Entrepreneur 306

Entrepreneur Burn Rate Cofounder Sales 306

Startup Professionals Musings

MARCH 25, 2010

Projecting the financials should be the last step of your business plan preparation, since it assumes you already know the opportunity size, customer buying habits, pricing, costs, and competition. Unless your volumes are in the millions or higher, the difference between manufacturing cost and customer price better be 50% or greater.

Forecast 151

Forecast Startup Burn Rate .Net 151

Feld Thoughts

NOVEMBER 18, 2013

Convertible debt financings have become an increasingly attractive approach for seed rounds because it delays the valuation discussion, costs less from a legal standpoint, and is an easier financial instrument to “keep raising more small amounts of money” on. Three months in, the burn is now at $70k/month.

Burn Rate 152

Burn Rate Equity Software Review Early Stage 152

Both Sides of the Table

MAY 2, 2015

I love the enthusiasm, the boundless energy and the sense of possibility that comes from having an idea that hasn’t yet been beat up in the marketplace of competing ideas, customer contracts, VC skepticism, jaded journalists or fickle consumers who are on the The New, New Thing. But alas I must scale with businesses and make money.

Operations 150

Operations Metrics Early Stage Non-Compete 150

Startup Professionals Musings

DECEMBER 11, 2017

From my perspective, projecting financial returns is part of the homework every business person needs to do in sizing customer opportunity, product costs, pricing, competition and customer value, before expending their own resources in a highly risky venture. Quantify overhead and growth costs.

Burn Rate 144

Burn Rate Forecast Angel Investor Revenue 144

YoungUpstarts

SEPTEMBER 30, 2014

But as we grew and piled on customers, reports about those once-a-month bugs became weekly, then daily, until suddenly we were getting hundreds of reports a day. You cut corners to meet a deadline, hacked in some feature to keep a customer smiling, or purchased the cheapest but less reliable equipment because that was all you could afford.

Burn Rate 248

Burn Rate Startup Cloud Management 248

crowdSPRING Blog

DECEMBER 12, 2014

It’s Absurd That Health Care Costs Are So Confusing – crowdspring.co/1yDomRJ. Don’t Get Burned by Your Burn Rate – crowdspring.co/159KKrk. Online Sales for Girl Scout Cookies Are Approved – crowdspring.co/1pIc88R. How to Add a Custom Logo to Your WordPress Site – crowdspring.co/1y5dSqL. 1qdyijB.

Social Media 100

Social Media Small Business Design Media 100

Gust

JUNE 10, 2012

I come from a high-tech software background, and only a few years ago, it would cost at least a million dollars ($1M) for a team of professionals to produce any commercial software product. Now, with open source software components, and low-cost development tools, the same job can be done by one good hacker for a few thousand dollars.

Cost 139

Cost Burn Rate SEM Startup 139

Berkonomics

APRIL 16, 2020

Rent and other fixed costs continue, even when revenues have dried up – a fatal combination. FINANCIAL: Do you have twelve to eighteen months of cash to cover your “burn rate” now and as you recover? Plan for reductions in fixed overhead, salaries, and other costs now. So, here are three urgent questions for you.

SBA 87

SBA Burn Rate Salary Stock 87

Startup Professionals Musings

JULY 27, 2014

It wasn’t so many years ago that starting a new e-commerce business on the Internet was a complex custom development project, usually costing a million dollars or more. Almost anyone can start a company today on a shoestring budget, following these cost-cutting recommendations: Establish a solid legal structure for your business.

Entrepreneur 260

Entrepreneur Burn Rate Social Media LLC 260

Both Sides of the Table

JUNE 17, 2017

The most obvious way to explain this is with sales people. If you hire 6 senior sales reps in January at $120,000 / year salary then you’ve taken on an extra $60,000 per month in costs yet these sales people might not close new business 6 months. They don’t want high burn rates but they will never fund slow growth.

Stock Options 227

Stock Options Startup Dilution Venture Capital 227

YoungUpstarts

JUNE 17, 2019

Attracting new customers to grow any online business can be tough. Startups are regarded for their embrace of industry disruption, all the while constantly trying to limit their burn rate and conserving their capital for future growth. Again, this cuts down on costs and saves time. Why it works. corporations.

Marketing 147

Marketing Startup Burn Rate Advertising 147

Steve Blank

FEBRUARY 22, 2010

As a founder you are testing a series of hypotheses about all the pieces of the business model: Who are the customers/users? An early indication that you’ve found the right business model is when you believe the cost of getting customers will be less than the revenues the customers will generate. Who are our partners?

Balance Sheet 298

Balance Sheet Startup Burn Rate Metrics 298

Up and Running

MARCH 26, 2020

Acknowledging a continued decline in sales and the need to lower expenses is obvious. Here are five suggestions to immediately improve your cash flow: Monitor your accounts receivable carefully: Accounts Receivable is the list of customers that owe you money. Credit card customers may dispute charges. Sales dropped suddenly.

Management 152

Management Forecast SBA Burn Rate 152

Startup Professionals Musings

AUGUST 27, 2012

Explain in analogies your mother could understand, and quantify the “cost-of-pain” in dollars or time. Here is how and why it works, including a customer-centric quantification of the benefits. Define the characteristics of the overall industry, market forces, market dynamics, and customer landscape. Business model.

Elevator Pitch 247

Elevator Pitch Exit Strategy Burn Rate Merger 247

Up and Running

AUGUST 21, 2014

It’s hard to understand how many people will you actually attract, what is it going to cost, what’s your conversion rate, how long will people stay. Every single page you have on your website needs to have a purpose and needs to have a functionality for that customer or that visitor.

Metrics 84

Metrics Startup Churn Rate Forecast 84

Up and Running

SEPTEMBER 17, 2014

Lifetime Customer Value. While everything having to do with your income and expenses is important for any entrepreneur to understand and monitor, the most important number to know by heart at any given time is your LTV: Lifetime Customer Value. How much do you earn per customer? . – James Simpson , GoldFire Studios.

Metrics 146

Metrics Burn Rate Entrepreneur Forecast 146

Steve Blank

SEPTEMBER 17, 2009

This post describes a solution – the Customer Development Model. In future posts I’ll describe how Eric Ries and the Lean Startup concept provide the equivalent model for product development activities inside the building and neatly integrates customer and agile development. A few successful ones do all these things.

Customer Development 242

Customer Development Developer Customer Silicon Valley 242

Startup Professionals Musings

JANUARY 4, 2015

If you don’t have a destination, don’t waste your money trying to get there, and don’t expect anyone to support you along the way Projecting financials is a natural extension of the homework every entrepreneur needs to do on customer opportunity size, product costs, pricing, competition and customer value.

Forecast 120

Forecast Entrepreneur Burn Rate Widget 120

Startup Professionals Musings

FEBRUARY 15, 2011

I come from a high-tech software background, and only a few years ago, it would cost at least a million dollars ($1M) for a team of professionals to produce any commercial software product. Now, with open source software components, and low-cost development tools, the same job can be done by one good hacker for a few thousand dollars.

Entrepreneur 235

Entrepreneur Burn Rate SEM Social Network 235

Startup Professionals Musings

AUGUST 7, 2015

When pitching to investors, entrepreneurs always seem to start with a customer pitch, then add a slide or two about the business. In every case, the relevant pitch needs to start by highlighting a real customer problem, then outlining a new solution, with all the features and disruptive technology.

Product 120

Product Intellectual Property Liquidity Event Burn Rate 120

Startup Professionals Musings

JUNE 10, 2011

Explain in analogies your mother could understand, and quantify the “cost-of-pain” in dollars or time. Here is how and why it works, including a customer-centric quantification of the benefits. Define the characteristics of the overall industry, market forces, market dynamics, and customer landscape. Business model.

Elevator Pitch 234

Elevator Pitch Exit Strategy Burn Rate Merger 234

Both Sides of the Table

MARCH 30, 2016

forward sales with some as high as 12x sales. Collectively we chose growth and the market was rewarding high growth rates over any other factor so we felt that we ought to bring in an experienced CEO who had taken companies public, who had led large, international sales organizations and who was poised to take Invoca to the next level.

Balance Sheet 150

Balance Sheet Burn Rate Valuation Forecast 150

Startup Professionals Musings

AUGUST 14, 2015

Maybe more important, you need domain knowledge, relationships and lots of potential customers. Every startup needs a simple elevator pitch, quantifying the value of its journey, that can be communicated in less than a minute to new team members, potential investors and customers. Define success as it relates to this startup.

Elevator Pitch 120

Elevator Pitch Burn Rate Startup Metrics 120

Up and Running

FEBRUARY 13, 2013

You’ve got a good cash balance, no debt, happy customers, healthy growth, and a happy team? Gross margin: sales less cost of sales. And not just for the whole business, but for each of the main lines of sales. Cost of sales means direct cost. That’s your burn rate.

Burn Rate 74

Burn Rate Sales Cost Product 74