Mucker Lab

MAY 28, 2020

These lost startups land higher valuations, have larger teams, outsource more product development and spend more money on customer acquisition than their peers. Before you indulge in marketing, sales and blinged-out offices, find product-market fit. Hire the wrong people. Be trigger shy about hiring.

Startup 78

Startup Cofounder Burn Rate Technical Review 78

Feld Thoughts

NOVEMBER 18, 2013

They close on the $750k, hire a buddy or two, buy some Macs, and get to work. ASC starts building product, but as they get into the thick of it, the team realizes executing on their vision is going to be extremely hard. Eventually early product demos start happening but they’re rough and the product looks very alpha.

Burn Rate 152

Burn Rate Equity Software Review Early Stage 152

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. Blame it On Marketing In the next 3-6 months, a new VP of Sales is hired. innovation.

Customer Development 224

Customer Development Developer Customer Silicon Valley 224

crowdSPRING Blog

SEPTEMBER 19, 2014

Are startup burn rates out of control? This Invaluable Lesson Will Keep You From Making Catastrophic Hiring Mistakes - crowdspring.co/XeV4JS. Hiring startup engineers? Six Things Physical Product Development Taught Me About Experience Design | UX Magazine – crowdspring.co/X7NCjD. 1m69Rmd.

Social Media 94

Social Media Small Business Design Media 94

Both Sides of the Table

DECEMBER 16, 2009

They realized that they were selling a bunch of cool products but none that had enough economic value. They had wasted a lot of money because they had raised a lot of money and therefore hired a large staff. I advocated LOUDLY at the board that we needed to cut our burn rate. We were SMOKING cash.

Entrepreneur 306

Entrepreneur Burn Rate Cofounder Sales 306

The Next Web

DECEMBER 2, 2013

Therefore, if you want to bring an MVP ( Minimum Viable Product ) to market, Werdelin approximates that you’ll need $50,000 to $250,000 , depending on the skill sets of the developers and designers you hire. Werdelin equates building a successful product to building a nightclub. 4) WhatsApp. million plus overhead.

Cost 168

Cost San Francisco New York City Ruby 168

View from Seed

OCTOBER 15, 2014

Examples of housekeeping include the following list, though not every item will appear every time: Finance: Cash out date, burn rate, 409A valuation, cap table, common/preferred stock dashboard. Team: Hires, fires, departures, responsibility changes, major promotions, and your org chart.

Seed Stage 331

Seed Stage Cap Table Metrics Burn Rate 331

Steve Blank

NOVEMBER 18, 2010

Now the company is in crisis mode because the rest of the organization (product development, marketing, etc.) Why it’s not a crisis is that the Customer Development process says, “do not staff and hire like you are executing. The alternative to firing and crises is the Business Model/Customer Development process.

Burn Rate 247

Burn Rate Management Business Model Customer Development 247

The Equity Kicker

JULY 16, 2015

Companies with lots of cash sometimes add people more quickly, but that drives the burn rate up, often without a compensating increase in the chance of success. In the first couple of months the focus should be on making sure the idea is valid, requiring the following activities: Development of the company vision and strategy.

eCommerce 60

eCommerce Burn Rate Early Stage Hiring 60

Steve Blank

NOVEMBER 2, 2009

The key contributors to an out-of-control burn rate is 1) hiring a sales force too early, 2) turning on the demand creation activities too early, 3) developing something other than the minimum feature set for first customer ship. The Customer Development process (and the Lean Startup) is one way to do that.

Lean 244

Lean Silicon Valley Startup RSS 244

Startup Lessons Learned

MARCH 27, 2009

The full formula works like this: runway = cash on hand / burn rate # iterations = runway / speed of each iteration Very few successful companies ended up in the same exact business that the founders thought theyd be in (see Founders at Work for dozens of examples). Were talking PayPal -sized variations. Work in small batches.

San Francisco 117

San Francisco Lean Continuous Deployment DC 117

Startup Lessons Learned

MARCH 13, 2009

The product didnt convert well enough, the mainstream customers we were driving werent ready for the concept, and the event fed expectations about how successful the product was going to be that turned out to be hyper-inflated. Why do startups synchronize marketing launch and product launch?

San Francisco 168

San Francisco Lean PR Early Stage 168

Startup Lessons Learned

JANUARY 30, 2009

Hire the absolute best and the brightest, true experts in their fields, who in turn can hire the smartest people possible to staff their departments. By hiring experts, conducting lots of focus groups, and executing to a detailed plan, the company became deluded that it knew what customers wanted. We can skip the chasm.

San Francisco 150

San Francisco Lean Agile Continuous Deployment 150