David Teten

AUGUST 19, 2019

I’ve been a traditional equity VC for 8 years, and I’m now researching new business models in venture capital. RBI normally requires founders to pay back their investors with a fixed percentage of revenue until they have finished providing the investor with a fixed return on capital, which they agree upon in advance.

Revenue 60

Revenue Technical Review Software Review Equity 60

Steve Blank

JUNE 11, 2009

However, you will be dealing with almost daily change, (new customer feedback/insights from a Customer Development process and technical roadblocks ,) as the company searches for a repeatable and scalable business model. By now the company may have found and settled on a repeatable business model.

Cofounder 223

Cofounder Founder Silicon Valley Technical Cofounder 223

Steve Blank

JUNE 8, 2009

In the last three posts, we drew the relationship of market risk and invention risk with vertical markets and pointed out verticals where customer development would be useful. In contrast to simply executing your business plan, the Customer Development process is built on low-cost and continuous learning and iterating.

Vertical 123

Vertical Silicon Valley RSS Marketing 123

Version One Ventures

JULY 21, 2020

No matter the vertical, geography, business model, macro or micro trends, entrepreneurs form the nucleus of a generational company. We develop our own conviction and are not afraid to lead or invest when others do not. But ultimately, as our interests change, the one constant has been the founder. We like the non-obvious.

Founder 213

Founder Vertical Differentiation Portfolio 213

Steve Blank

JANUARY 6, 2011

Second, to share how my how my thinking about entrepreneurship as a distinct practice and how Customer Development as one of its central components has evolved over the last decade. And with the 30-year statute of limitations now passed, stories about who I worked for (and the names of agencies.).

Silicon Valley 201

Silicon Valley California Vertical Customer Development 201

View from Seed

MARCH 29, 2018

We wanted to learn more about the nuanced industry market forces before applying the same hands-on investing model we do with tech startups in other verticals. We don’t seed companies that are developing drugs or medical devices that will require FDA approval. They can be surprisingly capital efficient.

Vertical 120

Vertical Stealth Portfolio Seed Capital 120

Steve Blank

DECEMBER 7, 2009

Customer Development We were starting Epiphany, my last company. Our business model changed as we realized that to become a large company, we needed to automate more than just a few marketers. Our competitor was executing on hypotheses we had developed 9 months ago, and their strategy remained static.

Silicon Valley 232

Silicon Valley Non-disclosure Agreement NDA Startup 232

Version One Ventures

NOVEMBER 6, 2013

This makes it laboriously difficult to identify rising stars and make comparisons within a specific vertical. We are often asked what industries we invest in, but it is more important to have theses on business models that serve as strong filters. Vertical SaaS. are making it easier to develop hardware products.

Vertical 153

Vertical B2B B2C Venture Capital 153

The Next Web

OCTOBER 2, 2013

For mobile app developers, the impressive figures are enticing. In this aspect, China’s huge market seems ripe for the taking — and which firms are better-placed to do so than homegrown startups, especially app developers looking to conquer the mobile market? That’s why the free business model is so popular in China.

China 122

China Developer Intellectual Property Mobile 122

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.

Customer Development 246

Customer Development Developer Customer Silicon Valley 246

Steve Blank

NOVEMBER 5, 2009

Chasing funding versus chasing customers and a repeatable and scalable business model, is one reason startups fail. Chasing funding versus chasing customers and a repeatable and scalable business model, is one reason startups fail. Is there a profitable business model? How many are there? Can it scale?”

Customer Development 264

Customer Development Developer Customer Silicon Valley 264

Steve Blank

JUNE 25, 2009

They couldn’t keep up with the fast product development times that were enabled by using standard microprocessors. The answer depends on your answer to two questions: which step in the Customer Development process are you on? Customer Development and Selling Strategy If you’ve just started your company you are in customer discovery.

Technology 139

Technology Silicon Valley Fractional VPE Part-Time VPE 139

Steve Blank

APRIL 30, 2009

Initially your job is to understand each of the parts of your business model before you hire someone to do it. Hopefully you and your co-founders are experts in one or two parts (agile development, SEO/SEM, etc.) But the rest; sales, marketing, bus dev is actually customer development that the founder needs to understand.

Sales 120

Sales Silicon Valley RSS Las Vegas 120

Steve Blank

JUNE 5, 2009

You make several first order approximations about your business model, distribution channels, demand creation, and customer acceptance. Customer Development This strategy of starting on faith, and quickly turning them into facts is the core of the Customer Development process. Employ customer development.

Silicon Valley 219

Silicon Valley RSS Vertical California 219

Cracking the Code

DECEMBER 2, 2006

The time they spend with customers is usually limited to transactional core products sales, generating lower margins – The resource allocation is not always matching the opportunity (geography, customer segment, vertical.) – The rules of engagement for technical resources (solution or product specialists) are not clear.

Software Review 48

Software Review Technical Review Europe Software 48

Steve Blank

NOVEMBER 30, 2009

Customer Development is all about gathering a list of what features customers want by talking to them, surveying them, or running “focus groups.” Customer Development is about Testing the Founder’s Hypothesis Any idiot can get outside the building and ask customers what they want, compile a feature list and hand it to engineering.

Customer Development 280

Customer Development Developer Customer Silicon Valley 280

www.informationarbitrage.com

FEBRUARY 24, 2010

This is not only sad but incredibly frustrating, because it is so easy to see how a great technology can be developed and commercialized if only - if only the CTO hadn't been impulsive and insecure and brought on a business partner too early in the game. I am a business person, not a technologist.

CTO Hire 40

CTO Hire Founder Cap Table Vesting 40

Hearpreneur

FEBRUARY 19, 2023

No-code and low-code platforms are making it easier to develop an app, build a platform, or build digital businesses that were once saved for people with in-depth technical knowledge or deep enough pockets to hire them. From improving customer experience to developing new business models, the possibilities are endless.

Artificial Inteligence 108

Artificial Inteligence Technical Review Entrepreneur Global 108

David Teten

DECEMBER 3, 2019

Private equity and venture capital investors are copying our sisters in the hedge fund world: we’re trying to automate more of our job. . At Flow Capital, we use HubSpot’s sequences and workflows functions to automate a bulk of our emails and internal tasks. 3) Raise capital. Fincura specializes in serving lenders.

Technical Review 78

Technical Review Software Review Analytics Private Equity 78

Steve Blank

NOVEMBER 19, 2009

Filed under: Ardent , Family/Career , Technology « Times Square Strategy Session – Web Startups and Customer Development Customer Development: Past, Present, Future » 17 Responses Mark Essel , on November 19, 2009 at 6:55 am Said: Haha, closure is well worth the effort when an entertaining tale can be shared!

Silicon Valley 191

Silicon Valley San Diego RSS California 191

Steve Blank

JUNE 22, 2009

For the first 25 years HP’s business model was static. Of course HP did ship new products and innovate, but their center of innovation was sustaining innovation , around the core of their existing business. And venture capital and entrepreneurship has made life even tougher for the modern corporation.

Silicon Valley 169

Silicon Valley RSS California Agile 169

Steve Blank

AUGUST 20, 2009

Some of the conversations went like this: Startup 1 Entrepreneur -“I’m competing against Company x and have been following the Customer Development process and I’ve talked to lots of customers.” Rule 2 : In an existing market Customer Development means understanding whether your hypothesis of why customers will buy match reality.

Silicon Valley 188

Silicon Valley Startup RSS Customer Development 188

Steve Blank

MAY 26, 2009

Verticals Are Different I began to realize that entrepreneurs (and their professors) act like every vertical market and industry has the same set of rules. So the first heuristic is: do not assume the startup rules are the same for all vertical markets. Just for discussion, the markets I chose were: Web 2.0,

Vertical 151

Vertical Silicon Valley Intellectual Property RSS 151

Steve Blank

JULY 2, 2009

To an entrepreneur, being asked to join a venture firm with an Entrepreneur-in-Residence title means you have been tapped on the shoulder by the VC gods. The CDROM content business in the early 1990’s was one of the many of the long line of venture capital fads. Make game, market, sell, profit?

Silicon Valley 120

Silicon Valley Technical Review RSS Software Review 120

abovethecrowd.com

APRIL 17, 2013

eBay recently launched an aggressive campaign attacking Amazon’s rate table on a vertical-by-vertical basis ( those percentages can be found here ). This is one of my favorite marketplace business model “tweaks.” However, Amazon owns a digital media business built around Kindle.

Europe 101

Europe Social Network Technical Review IPO 101

Reid Hoffman

SEPTEMBER 8, 2020

Needless to say, this isn’t a business model that works in the pandemic world. Frequently, however, you need to pivot your business model and find new ways to make money. Business model evolution is the rule, not the exception. Not all pivots are created equal. Some pivots are just easier to pull off.

Startup 36

Startup Silicon Valley Business Model Mobile 36

Steve Blank

MAY 7, 2009

I finally understood how valuable these contests can be for students in cities or countries without a venture capital or entrepreneurial infrastructure. At a university business plan competition, for the first time they can swim in the sea of expertise that we/I take for granted in the middle of Silicon Valley. to compete.

Business Plan 143

Business Plan Silicon Valley RSS Venture Capital 143

Seeing Both Sides

AUGUST 16, 2012

TripAdvisor may be one of the most fascinating companies I know and so I was excited to dig into their business model as part of my series on scaling. This is a company that took $4 million of invested capital to build a company now worth over $4 billion. “TripAdvisor is to travel reviews what Kleenex is to tissues.”. .

Part-Time VPE 54

Part-Time VPE Software Review Costa Rica Technical Review 54

Steve Blank

JULY 13, 2009

Our “Hollywood meets Silicon Valley” story played great in Silicon Valley, they ate it up in Hollywood, and the business press tripped over themselves to talk to us. Companies in the entertainment business around the world knew who we were, and were interested in meeting us, if only to see what the hype was about.

Silicon Valley 122

Silicon Valley Product RSS California 122

Steve Blank

MAY 18, 2009

Next, you have to deal with the daily crisis of product development and acquiring early customers. And here’s where life gets really interesting, as the reality of product development and customer input collide, the facts change so rapidly that the original well-thought-out business plan becomes irrelevant. I like my odds.

Founder 302

Founder Silicon Valley RSS China 302

www.chubbybrain.com

SEPTEMBER 28, 2011

If you are an entrepreneur seeking funding, try our free Funding Recommendation Engine to identify a list of angels, venture capital and state grant programs that best match your business. At the end, I asked myself what are the most critical resources I need to be successful and the answer was partners and developers.

Software Review 79

Software Review Startup Technical Review Vesting 79

VC Cafe

DECEMBER 7, 2010

billion in venture capital funding in Q3 2010, representing a 14% decline in total funding amount compared to the previous quarter. eCommerce is the smallest vertical in the US tech venture investments, with only $39 million invested in Q3, in eight companies. Overall, 343 US companies raised $1.8

Venture Capital 79

Venture Capital Vertical Massachusetts eCommerce 79

Hunter Walker

APRIL 18, 2013

Prediction: they’ll struggle because video discovery just isn’t a venture scale business. Additionally, most large developers hit our radar at some point via their API usage. Here’s why: Verticalized content needs context not just collections. But don’t take venture capital.

Video 98

Video Curation Startup Metadata 98

thebarefootvc

MARCH 5, 2017

As someone who has been interested in the AI space for over 20 years, I am more excited than ever before about how advances in hardware and software, if developed responsibly and with awareness of broader societal impacts of the technology, will enable us to live better lives.

Artificial Inteligence 84

Artificial Inteligence Algorithm Valuation Aggregator 84

Steve Blank

OCTOBER 22, 2009

Getting Out of the Building Wasn’t Entertainment – Discovery and Validation Now that I was the master of the “facts” about customer needs in these specialized vertical markets , and with my team of vertical marketers , I thought I had achieved absolution and redemption. But there was one fatal flaw.

Silicon Valley 178

Silicon Valley RSS Vertical California 178

Steve Blank

NOVEMBER 21, 2015

In the Installation Period , a great surge of technology development (Perez calls this Irruption) is followed by an explosion of investment (called the Frenzy.) For example, US Steel had integrated vertically and was involved in the mining of the iron ore all the way to the production of various steel products, e.g., nails.

Silicon Valley 120

Silicon Valley Venture Capital United States Technical Review 120

Steve Blank

JULY 23, 2009

Hundreds of thousands of people worked on developing strategic weapons, bombers, our ICBM and SLBM missile programs, and the Apollo moon program. Startups were not just smaller versions of a large company, they were about invention, innovation and iteration - of business model, product, customers and on and on.

Silicon Valley 121

Silicon Valley RSS California Chad 121