Up and Running

FEBRUARY 12, 2022

Learn why the traditional way of writing a five-year business plan is often a waste of time and how to use a Lean Plan instead for smarter, easier strategic planning to establish your long-term vision. But, that doesn’t mean that you shouldn’t plan for the long term. What is a long-term plan?

Business Plan 83

Business Plan Lean Forecast Exit Strategy 83

Steve Blank

MAY 9, 2017

The second thing that’s changed is that we’re now Compressing the Product Development Cycle. In the 20 th century startups I was part of, the time to build a first product release was measured in years as we turned out the founder’s vision of what customers wanted. Not kind of wrong but going out of business wrong.

Restful 222

Restful Silicon Valley Puerto Rico San Jose 222

Startup Professionals Musings

APRIL 7, 2023

That means they normally only invest in startups with a working product that has already been sold to at least one customer for full price (beta tests, giveaways and best friends don’t count). They are willing to cover marketing, inventory and scaling, but not product development. Make your focus and priorities clear.

Elevator Pitch 228

Elevator Pitch Salary Angel Investor Viral 228

Steve Blank

NOVEMBER 5, 2009

Chasing funding versus chasing customers and a repeatable and scalable business model, is one reason startups fail. Entrepreneurs put together their funding presentation by extracting the key ideas from their business plan, putting them on PowerPoint/Keynote and pitching the company – until they get funded or exhausted.

Customer Development 262

Customer Development Developer Customer Silicon Valley 262

Steve Blank

MARCH 4, 2014

The Enterprise: Business Model Execution We know that a startup is a temporary organization designed to search for a repeatable and scalable business model. The corollary for an enterprise is: A company is a permanent organization designed to execute a repeatable and scalable business model.

IRR 335

IRR Startup Business Model Agile 335

Startup Professionals Musings

JULY 12, 2020

That means they normally only invest in startups with a working product that has already been sold to at least one customer for full price (beta tests, giveaways and best friends don’t count). They are willing to cover marketing, inventory and scaling, but not product development. Make your focus and priorities clear.

Elevator Pitch 336

Elevator Pitch Salary Angel Investor Viral 336

Steve Blank

MAY 14, 2012

Any dispassionate observer would recognize that on Day One, a start-up has no customers, and unless the founder is a true domain expert, he or she can only guess about the customer, problem, and business model. Executives look at that date and the calendar, working backward to ignite fireworks on the day the product is launched.

Balance Sheet 335

Balance Sheet Business Model Customer Development Metrics 335

Steve Blank

NOVEMBER 18, 2010

For decades startups were managed by pretending the company would follow a predictable path (revenue plan, scale, etc.) The Revenue Plan – The Third Fatal Assumption. Notice that the traditional product introduction model leads to a product launch and the execution of a revenue plan.

Burn Rate 247

Burn Rate Management Business Model Customer Development 247

Steve Blank

MARCH 11, 2015

I suggested the best place to start the conversation is with the 21 st century definition of a startup: A startup is a temporary organization designed to search for a repeatable and scalable business model. Startups have finite time and resources to find product/market fit before they run out of money.

Widget 120

Widget Lean Business Model Metrics 120

Startup Professionals Musings

MAY 4, 2014

Develop your business plan. Write down the key elements of your business plan very early, and keep it current as things evolve. Product development process. Billing and revenue collection. It all has to be written down and maintained.

Startup 268

Startup Institutional Investors Angel Investor Bootstrapping 268

Up and Running

MAY 23, 2016

In fact, SaaS industry revenue is projected to grow from $49 billion in 2015 to $67 billion in 2018, a compound annual growth rate of approximately eight percent. Step 1: Start with a lean plan. Instead of sitting down to write a 40-page business plan, start with a one-page pitch. The business model.

Software Review 74

Software Review Software Delaware Forecast 74

Startup Professionals Musings

JANUARY 31, 2013

Develop your business plan. Write down the key elements of your business plan very early, and keep it current as things evolve. Product development process. Billing and revenue collection. It all has to be written down and maintained.

Institutional Investors 230

Institutional Investors Angel Investor Bootstrapping Database 230

Startup Professionals Musings

MAY 31, 2014

That means they normally only invest in startups with a working product that has already been sold to at least one customer for full price (beta tests, giveaways and best friends don’t count). They are willing to cover marketing, inventory and scaling, but not product development. Make your focus and priorities clear.

Elevator Pitch 285

Elevator Pitch Salary Angel Investor Viral 285

Startup Professionals Musings

AUGUST 5, 2018

That means they normally only invest in startups with a working product that has already been sold to at least one customer for full price (beta tests, giveaways and best friends don’t count). They are willing to cover marketing, inventory and scaling, but not product development. Make your focus and priorities clear.

Elevator Pitch 139

Elevator Pitch Salary Angel Investor Viral 139

Startup Professionals Musings

SEPTEMBER 7, 2011

Develop your business plan. Write down the key elements of your business plan very early, and keep it current as things evolve. Product development process. Billing and revenue collection. It all has to be written down and maintained.

Startup 255

Startup Institutional Investors Angel Investor Bootstrapping 255

Startup Lessons Learned

DECEMBER 14, 2009

Lessons Learned by Eric Ries Monday, December 14, 2009 Business ecology and the four customer currencies Lately, I’ve been rethinking the concept of “business model&# for startups, in favor of something I call “business ecology.&# Constructing a working business model is a form of ecosystem design.

Customer 156

Customer San Francisco Viral Lean 156

Startup Professionals Musings

JANUARY 12, 2013

See how many you have personally experienced already, or are currently mentioned in your business plan: Crowd-sourcing equity. Minimum Viable Product (MVP). It suggests the minimum features to allow the product to be deployed and get feedback, and no more. Osmosis marketing. Gamification. Startup pivot.

Entrepreneur 274

Entrepreneur Accredited Investor Silicon Valley Angel Investor 274

Startup Professionals Musings

AUGUST 1, 2010

Develop your business plan. Write down the key elements of your business plan very early, and keep it current as things evolve. Product development process. Billing and revenue collection. It all has to be written down and maintained.

Startup 239

Startup Institutional Investors Angel Investor Bootstrapping 239

Startup Professionals Musings

JULY 30, 2016

That means they normally only invest in startups with a working product that has already been sold to at least one customer for full price (beta tests, giveaways and best friends don’t count). They are willing to cover marketing, inventory and scaling, but not product development. Make your focus and priorities clear.

Elevator Pitch 120

Elevator Pitch Salary Angel Investor Viral 120

Startup Lessons Learned

JUNE 5, 2009

And so the spreadsheet is built with conservative assumptions, including a final revenue target. No matter how low we make the revenue projections for this new product, it’s extremely unlikely that they are achievable. That’s because the model is based on assumptions about customers that are totally unproven.

San Francisco 102

San Francisco Lean Continuous Deployment Startup 102

Startup Lessons Learned

OCTOBER 23, 2013

In the Udemy course, Alistair and Ben expand these basics into a description of how to create empathy, stickiness, virality, revenue, and scale. Stickiness, Ben and Alistair say, is where people move on too quickly--they don’t make sure they really have a product that has the right features and functionality to meet their customers’ needs.

Analytics 167

Analytics Lean Widget Metrics 167

Steve Blank

JANUARY 10, 2011

The VP of an operating division had run into trouble in product development; the product was late and getting later. The revenue plan had the new product baked into the numbers and it was clear that this division General Manager was going to crater his forecast (happens all the time, nothing new here.)

Forecast 264

Forecast Agile Revenue Founder 264

Austin Startup

AUGUST 20, 2017

Your original business plan will probably go out the window when you land your first customer. Your business works as intended if you can attract customers that fit into the context of your operation. Do they perceive enough value to pay prices that create for you a profit margin that matches your business model?

Technical Review 48

Technical Review Software Review Cap Table Securities and Exchange Commission 48

Up and Running

JANUARY 17, 2014

The ideas behind lean startups can be drilled down to a few straightforward ideas: Deploy resources stringently, incrementally proving out the assumptions that drive your business model. Revise your product or service as quickly as possible. Revising and re-launching the product. Deploying resources stringently.

Lean 107

Lean Startup Philadelphia Business Model 107

www.tangosource.com

MARCH 8, 2012

re providing business skills for the startup, back it up with action. Take steps towards product market fit, such as getting signed Letters of Intent (LOIs) which show that your product will have revenue on day 1. You could also create a business model canvas , and collect real world data for each section of the canvas.

Cofounder 48

Cofounder Founder SEO LLC 48

Software By Rob

AUGUST 18, 2010

The only thing that seemed to be consistent about my growth was that my revenue was relatively flat while my user base kept growing. So in a desperate attempt to get things moving in the right direction, I experimented for a week by killing my free plan. This turned out to be a good move since it doubled their revenue that month.

Software Review 78

Software Review Software Revenue Cofounder 78

Steve Blank

JUNE 8, 2009

Customer Development by Vertical - Click to Enlarge (As a reminder, the Customer Development process says your business plan is just a series of untested hypothesis (unless you’re a domain expert.) You take your product vision and get out of your building to turn your hypothesis into facts. Technology?

Vertical 122

Vertical Silicon Valley RSS Marketing 122

Up and Running

JULY 24, 2015

Business planning. To start your business, you’ll need a sound business plan. But here at Bplans, we make an effort to provide entrepreneurs with the resources they need to start and run successful businesses. Business Model Generation. Product development. Business news sites.

Entrepreneur 60

Entrepreneur Small Business Administration SBA Pennsylvania 60

Growthink Blog

JANUARY 24, 2018

And WeWork’s 150,000+ members agree that in modern business way more often than not it makes great business sense to do so. #9. And with Warby’s 2017 “direct to consumer” eyeglass sales revenues of $250 million+, I am not alone. driving 600% revenue growth and helping the company raise more than $24 million in growth capital.

Artificial Inteligence 48

Artificial Inteligence San Francisco Valuation Reputation 48

Growthink Blog

NOVEMBER 2, 2016

And more excitedly, through the development of a new product with a market potential many times greater than the company’s current core offering. This was obviously a very high ROI outcome from a simple dinner, but there was another outcome that was arguably even more valuable.

Conversion 48

Conversion Los Angeles Europe Acquisition 48

Software By Rob

AUGUST 5, 2010

The knowledge that you need 10,000 hours to master a subject, that certain trends become viral after the 412th person adopts it, or that you should make your product remarkable, is not going to help you launch. Nor will it save you a single minute during product development, or sell one more copy of your application.

Founder 78

Founder Startup Software Review Software 78

Growthink Blog

MAY 10, 2012

Put everything else on your "wish list" to buy with revenues from sales or additional financing. With this funding, the company often perfects its business plan and starts building its management team in order to position itself for its next round of funding. Series B is the round that follows series A in early stage financing.

Equity 88

Equity Mezzanine Later Stage Venture Capital 88

SoCal CTO

DECEMBER 1, 2010

No Business Plan Survives First Contact With A Customer – The 5.2 few years ago I also started following Alexander Osterwalder in his blog about his Business Model Generation -mantra. The Proof Is In The Revenue. Your First Iteration of an Idea Will Be Wrong. billion dollar mistake. same as the old boss.

Technical Review 175

Technical Review Technology Product CTO Hire 175

maplebutter.com

JANUARY 8, 2013

Or should I launch products and a startup for each of them, focusing on only 1 product at a time? I would focus on one product and set a goal to generate $1M in yearly revenue from it. Do that – nothing else but one product / company / focus and get to $1M in sales with atleast $15% net profit. do something else.

Technical Review 44

Technical Review Startup Cofounder Software Review 44

Tim Keane

SEPTEMBER 18, 2006

And in businesses that are not on a "harvest path," this system, (combined with a constantly updated market map) should work well for a long time, potentially providing a lot of positive cash flow for the company and its owners. Can they take our product to a new group of customers? What can we do to their revenue?

Harvest 60

Harvest LBO Investment Bankers Wisconsin 60

Tim Keane

APRIL 24, 2006

Last night, Bob Zieserl, Venture Capitalist, and general partner at Stratus Ventures, was the keynote speaker at the Marquette University Business Plan Competition. A clear point of view on how the business will achieve significant increases in value.) The product development cycle was excellent.

Wisconsin 60

Wisconsin Angel Investor Bootstrapping Venture Capital 60

Tim Keane

JUNE 13, 2006

(Of course, it goes without saying that no one would bottom-up an expense budget then fill in revenue to make it “come out,” right?). Then, on the expense side, I’d like to begin to understand how the growth in the business will drive costs as complexity increases. Resources for startups. Angel Capital Association website.

Wisconsin 60

Wisconsin Entrepreneur Startup Angel Investor 60