Startup Professionals Musings

FEBRUARY 5, 2021

Yet every business requires revenue and volumes, as certainly as it requires a product to sell. There is no black magic involved in predicting the future, if you use these four simple steps, with my basic rules of thumb to keep you on the right track: Determine your margin on sales. Forecast sales-volume expectations.

Forecast 369

Forecast Burn Rate Startup Widget 369

Both Sides of the Table

NOVEMBER 3, 2009

Let’s take your revenue line. It should talk about how many customers you think you will acquire and how much you’ll charge for your product. Do you really want to spent $100k building a product to discover through Customer Development that the market is too small? I care about your assumptions going in.

Business Plan 334

Business Plan AJAX Venture Capital Technical Review 334

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

FEBRUARY 17, 2021

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. With a little help from a friend, you can handle expenses, revenue, and payroll, with QuickBooks or a similar package. Social media facilitates marketing and sales.

Cost 405

Cost Entrepreneur Burn Rate Social Media 405

Up and Running

OCTOBER 7, 2019

Think of them like this: If you have a critical sales milestone your company needs to meet by the end of the year, KPIs should deliver incremental evidence that you’re either headed in the right direction, or you’re not. . Activation rate: measures how many visitors are engaging with your website or app.

Founder 71

Founder Retention Metrics Technical Review 71

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.

SBA 139

SBA Forecast Software Review Business Plan 139

Steve Blank

FEBRUARY 16, 2010

In my last post I described what happened when a company prematurely scales sales and marketing before adequately testing its hypotheses in Customer Discovery. All discussion focused on “missing the revenue plan.”. They told the CEO (who was the technical founder) that the sales team should focus on “other markets.”

Revenue 230

Revenue Balance Sheet Hockey Stick Burn Rate 230

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

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

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. Calculate cash-burn rate and investment timing.

Burn Rate 144

Burn Rate Forecast Angel Investor Revenue 144

Steve Blank

NOVEMBER 18, 2010

For decades startups were managed by pretending the company would follow a predictable path (revenue plan, scale, etc.) In an existing company with existing customers you 1) understand the customers problem and 2) since you do, you can specify the entire feature set on day one. The Revenue Plan – The Third Fatal Assumption.

Burn Rate 247

Burn Rate Management Business Model Customer Development 247

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

K9 Ventures

MAY 28, 2015

At K9 we invest in companies which have a clear/direct revenue model and typically don’t invest in companies that follow the Ubiquity first Revenue Later (URL) revenue model made famous by Eric Schmidt in 2007. I call this Revenue Development and have written about it before. Why did the customers buy your product?

Revenue 48

Revenue Startup Burn Rate Cofounder 48

Up and Running

SEPTEMBER 9, 2020

This means that your cash spending is less than the amount of cash you received from your customers, new loans or investment in your business, or sales of assets that you owned. There are a lot of initial expenses with new businesses and it can take time to attract customers and build a viable business.

Burn Rate 83

Burn Rate Forecast Cash Position Employee 83

Startup Professionals Musings

AUGUST 27, 2012

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. Investors like $1B markets with double-digit growth rates. Explain how you will make money and who pays you (real customer).

Elevator Pitch 247

Elevator Pitch Exit Strategy Burn Rate Merger 247

Steve Blank

FEBRUARY 22, 2010

I had been confused for years why I had to update an income statement each board meeting that said zero for 18 months before we had any revenue. As a founder you are testing a series of hypotheses about all the pieces of the business model: Who are the customers/users? If you are following Customer Development , the answer is easy.

Balance Sheet 298

Balance Sheet Startup Burn Rate Metrics 298

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? Are you salespeople making few if any sales because your prospective customers are distracted by their own problems?

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. With a little help from a friend, you can handle expenses, revenue, and payroll, with QuickBooks or a similar package. Social media facilitates marketing and sales.

Entrepreneur 260

Entrepreneur Burn Rate Social Media LLC 260

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

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. Investors like $1B markets with double-digit growth rates. Explain how you will make money and who pays you (real customer).

Elevator Pitch 234

Elevator Pitch Exit Strategy Burn Rate Merger 234

Startup Professionals Musings

JANUARY 4, 2015

Yet every business requires revenue and volumes, as certainly as it requires a product to sell. There is no black magic involved in predicting the future, if you use these four simple steps, with my basic rules of thumb to keep you on the right track: Determine your margin on sales. Forecast sales-volume expectations.

Forecast 120

Forecast Entrepreneur Burn Rate Widget 120

ReadWriteStart

JANUARY 27, 2011

This partnership speaks to a core philosophy of the program where we encourage entrepreneurs to get as much customer validation as possible before raising too much money, use other people's channels if you can get to them, don't burn too much cash, and all that good fiscal conservative stuff. million in revenue. Brainscape.

Dilution 114

Dilution Revenue Finance Entrepreneur 114

Startup Professionals Musings

MAY 19, 2010

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. Investors like $1B markets with double-digit growth rates. Explain how you will make money and who pays you (real customer).

Elevator Pitch 235

Elevator Pitch Exit Strategy Burn Rate Merger 235

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

Startup Professionals Musings

JUNE 18, 2012

Founders now routinely use their home to operate their startup until they are well into the revenue phase. That’s a burn rate of at least $10K per month that can be eliminated if you are handy with computers and Quickbooks. Sales and marketing costs. Facilities and staff. Technology costs. Wages and benefits.

Cost 255

Cost Burn Rate SEM Startup 255

Gust

AUGUST 19, 2012

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. Investors like $1B markets with double-digit growth rates. Explain how you will make money and who pays you (real customer).

Elevator Pitch 146

Elevator Pitch Exit Strategy Burn Rate Merger 146

Startup Professionals Musings

FEBRUARY 15, 2011

Founders now routinely use their home to operate their startup until they are well into the revenue phase. That’s a burn rate of at least $10K per month that can be eliminated if you are handy with computers and Quickbooks. Sales and marketing costs. Facilities and staff. Technology costs. Wages and benefits.

Entrepreneur 235

Entrepreneur Burn Rate SEM Social Network 235

Bryce Dot VC

FEBRUARY 6, 2017

And not just a token “ramen” level of profitability: The startup is profitable, with January revenue of 10x its burn rate and sales expected to be in the millions for the quarter. Reliance on revenue keeps them close to their customers.

Cap Table 40

Cap Table Burn Rate Dilution Bootstrapping 40

Gust

JUNE 10, 2012

Founders now routinely use their home to operate their startup until they are well into the revenue phase. That’s a burn rate of at least $10K per month that can be eliminated if you are handy with computers and Quickbooks. Sales and marketing costs. Facilities and staff. Technology costs. Wages and benefits.

Cost 139

Cost Burn Rate SEM Startup 139

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 I can even imagine cases where it might burn more cash than a traditional startup. Lets see why.

Lean 244

Lean Silicon Valley Startup RSS 244

BeyondVC

DECEMBER 10, 2009

While the revenue model may change as well, I like to at least understand going into the investment that the entrepreneur's head is in the right place and that the economics work right from the start. The remainder would go into deferred revenue. Another area that is quite important is churn rate.

Churn Rate 112

Churn Rate Burn Rate Startup Metrics 112

Startup Professionals Musings

FEBRUARY 13, 2010

Founders now routinely use their home to operate their startup until they are well into the revenue phase. That’s a burn rate of at least $10K per month that can be eliminated if you are handy with computers and Quickbooks. Sales and marketing costs. Facilities and staff. Technology costs. Wages and benefits.

Burn Rate 125

Burn Rate SEM Social Network Angel Investor 125

Startup Professionals Musings

JULY 15, 2013

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 Business Plan Burn Rate .Net 238

Professor VC

JULY 31, 2008

Last year, I tried out a custom textbook through one of the major publishers, which seemed like a great way to go. of the sale price, respectively, according to the National Association of College Stores. The artists received very little of album sales, but kept concert and merchandise revenue. September 6, 2010 7:42 AM.

San Jose 28

San Jose Software Review Angel Investor Silicon Valley 28

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

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

Hearpreneur

JULY 7, 2019

Entrepreneurs have the ability to redefine the conversation while creating a customer-centric way of moving the world and our lives forward. The biggest challenge that entrepreneurs of the future face is finding and identifying a product that their potential customers can be delighted by and genuinely want and need. Thanks to Ira.M.

Entrepreneur 88

Entrepreneur Distribution Employee Arizona 88