Steve Blank

FEBRUARY 26, 2020

What most founders don’t realize is: Every stage of a startup requires a different set of metrics and milestones and founder skills. Knowing these will help a founder position her pitch to get investors’ attention. Founders need to keep their eye on the prize — not just the next funding round. Business Model.

Cofounder 429

Cofounder Seed Stage Valuation Metrics 429

View from Seed

APRIL 23, 2015

However … An unfortunate side effect of this particular POTAJ is that, in many startup pitches, entrepreneurs focus so much on product or tech that they leave out one crucial, deal-making-or-breaking detail: distribution. ” Founders must address distribution in their pitches both overtly and succinctly.

Founder 120

Founder Distribution Viral Seed Stage 120

Steve Blank

NOVEMBER 16, 2009

Eric Ries in Times Square For any model to be useful it has to predict what happens in the real world – including the web. I realized the Customer Development model needs to be clearer in what exactly a startup is supposed to do, regardless of the business model. “What is the “Business Model” of your startup?&#

Customer Development 223

Customer Development Web Developer Customer 223

Startup Lessons Learned

SEPTEMBER 22, 2008

Lessons Learned by Eric Ries Monday, September 22, 2008 The three drivers of growth for your business model. The AARRR model (hence pirates, get it?) He also has a discussion of how your choice of business model determines which of these metric areas you want to focus on. Choose one.

San Francisco 167

San Francisco CPA SEM CTO Hire 167

Startup Professionals Musings

JANUARY 5, 2018

The reality is that successful businesses these days require an equally elegant business model, with the right marketing, delivery channel, price, and target customers, to get real traction. The founder had simply not done the work to validate a price and the perfect customer segment.

Product 137

Product Advisory Board Business Model Cofounder 137

Rob Go

JULY 11, 2013

As a seed fund, we tend to layer in “ capital efficient beginnings ” to the mix given our investing model and belief about the best way to build internet and software businesses. We tend to favor companies that have a “distribution advantage”. So what are some examples of distribution advantages?

Distribution 66

Distribution Vertical Viral B2B 66

ConversionXL

FEBRUARY 3, 2022

GrowthHackers founder and former Head of Growth at Dropbox, Sean Ellis , coined the term: “A growth hacker is a person whose true north is growth. In his course on Growth Mindset (part of CXL’s Growth Marketing Minidegree ), WeTheFuture.org founder John McBride describes three key components of a successful growth marketer: 1.

Retention 113

Retention Marketing Acquisition Channel 113

Both Sides of the Table

OCTOBER 19, 2009

Another called Parker Harris, the co-founder and CTO. There was no viral social networking products back then like Twitter where people could easily discover your content. Consumer approach to software for business users. Distributed version control model – first in the industry like ours and we are filing patents.

Venture Capital 274

Venture Capital Term Sheet San Diego Viral 274

Steve Blank

FEBRUARY 22, 2010

Startups that are searching for a business model need to keep score differently than large companies that are executing a known business model. Yet most entrepreneurs and their VC’s make startups use financial models and spreadsheets that actually hinder their success. Managing the Business. Here’s why.

Balance Sheet 300

Balance Sheet Startup Burn Rate Metrics 300

Startup Professionals Musings

DECEMBER 3, 2012

Pivots come in many different flavors, each designed to test the viability of a different hypothesis about the product, business model, and engine of growth. Many founders envision their solution as a platform for future products, but don’t have a single killer application just yet. Business architecture pivot.

Silicon Valley 273

Silicon Valley Architecture Startup Channel 273

Startup Professionals Musings

MAY 1, 2013

Driven by the recent recession, smart entrepreneurs of all ages are jumping into the fray with new ideas, new recovery strategies, and discarding outmoded business models. But the insights I see from her book and elsewhere are equally applicable to startup founders of all ages, and businesses of all ages.

Startup 247

Startup Viral Revenue Distribution 247

VC Cafe

SEPTEMBER 8, 2022

When I first wrote about ‘creative automation’ Dall-E wasn’t open for beta users, and while the tech of generative text to image AI existed, it wasn’t widely distributed. As an investor, I could see big opportunities in using this kind of tech to create new business models and populate the metaverse.

Colorado 103

Colorado Viral Early Stage Open Source 103

Startup Professionals Musings

APRIL 4, 2012

Driven by the recent recession, smart entrepreneurs of all ages are jumping into the fray with new ideas, new recovery strategies, and discarding outmoded business models. But the insights I see from her book and elsewhere are equally applicable to startup founders of all ages, and businesses of all ages.

Entrepreneur 234

Entrepreneur Viral Revenue Distribution 234

Startup Professionals Musings

SEPTEMBER 16, 2011

Pivots come in many different flavors, each designed to test the viability of a different hypothesis about the product, business model, and engine of growth. Many founders envision their solution as a platform for future products, but don’t have a single killer application just yet. Business architecture pivot.

Lean 255

Lean Entrepreneur Silicon Valley Architecture 255

Reid Hoffman

MARCH 19, 2019

Finally, and importantly, society is better off because Amazon makes the system for distributing books (and other products) vastly more productive, freeing up resources for other value-creating investments. Microsoft and Apple believed that microprocessors would allow consumers to have their own computers.

Cofounder 28

Cofounder Business Model IPO Non-Compete 28

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. LSC: Tell us about the customer development you did for your book: Alistair: We''ve been thrilled at how Lean Analytics seemed to resonate with founders. Alistair: There are plenty.

Analytics 167

Analytics Lean Widget Metrics 167

SoCal CTO

OCTOBER 8, 2009

Normally, when I am talking to the founder of any startup trying to figure out what they need to do, one of the things I always try to do is understand their business at its core. This kind of a simple model also helps: Define the early proof points for the company. Great stuff.

Metrics 225

Metrics Startup Retention Acquisition 225

David Teten

DECEMBER 3, 2019

Tim Friedman, Founder, PE Stack , said, “If I could offer one piece of advice to today’s managers, it would be to take the time to understand the demands of the modern institutional LP. Russell Rothstein, Founder and CEO, IT Central Station , a product review site, said, “We see VCs on our site very often. 3) Raise capital.

Technical Review 78

Technical Review Software Review Analytics Private Equity 78

Steve Blank

MARCH 18, 2011

The goal was to get your firm public as soon as possible using whatever it took including hype, spin, expand, and grab market share – because the sooner you got your billion dollar market cap, the sooner the VC firm could sell their shares and distribute their profits. For a specific startup this list is probably a few hundred names.

Internet 334

Internet IPO Silicon Valley Agile 334

Up and Running

MAY 23, 2016

The one-page pitch format is also more suitable for SaaS businesses that are constantly testing new ideas. Your pitch is going to cover your strategy (what you’re going to do), your tactics (how you’re going to do it), your business model (how you will make money), and your schedule (who is doing what and when).

Software Review 74

Software Review Software Delaware Forecast 74

A Smart Bear: Startups and Marketing for Geeks

JULY 7, 2016

When investors interrogate founders, these interrogatives arise, but with a twist: Adding the word “why” in front of each. But also you de-risk by aligning the solution to the founder’s existing abilities, for example in using whatever language/framework the founders are already adept in. When → Why now?

San Francisco 170

San Francisco Startup Framework Azure 170

Startup Lessons Learned

MARCH 21, 2013

The book has been a year in the making, and authors Ben Yoskovitz and Alistair Croll —themselves successful founders with several exits under their belts—spent much of that time speaking with founders, investors, and analysts to understand a really basic, but seldom-asked, question: What's normal?

Analytics 167

Analytics Lean Metrics Churn Rate 167

Startup Professionals Musings

OCTOBER 2, 2010

Driven by the recent recession, smart entrepreneurs of all ages are jumping into the fray with new ideas, new recovery strategies, and discarding outmoded business models. But the insights I see from her book and elsewhere are equally applicable to startup founders of all ages, and businesses of all ages.

Startup 127

Startup Viral Revenue Distribution 127

Startup Lessons Learned

APRIL 14, 2009

What matters is proving the viability of the company’s business model, what investors call “traction.&# It should be even more important to the founders themselves, because it demonstrates that their business hypothesis is grounded in reality. They are busy too, but they are not creating value for the company.

Customer 167

Customer San Francisco Lean Hockey Stick 167

ReadWriteStart

JUNE 29, 2020

There has never been a viral outbreak of such magnitude before. Additionally, “a startup is usually a company designed to effectively develop and validate a scalable business model. Unfortunately, these numbers seem to be increasing rapidly without an end in sight. Implement the “lean startup” philosophy.

Bootstrapping 85

Bootstrapping Global Startup Hungary 85

Rob Go

MARCH 2, 2017

The lingo itself has evolved, and some of it has been borrowed from founders that we know or have worked with. The second criteria is “Competition Crushing Business Models.” The third thing we often talk about is “Distribution Advantage.” The first criteria is “Jaw Dropping Value”.

Portfolio 28

Portfolio Distribution Business Model Viral 28

ConversionXL

SEPTEMBER 10, 2019

I had just enough data to optimize the main funnel, found a bunch of wins, then hit a hard wall and needed to rebuild the entire distribution strategy from scratch to keep growing. Otherwise, consider using those marketing dollars to scale up your core distribution channel first. But the exceptions are rare and tend to be founders.

Conversion 133

Conversion Technical Review Channel Engineer 133

Both Sides of the Table

FEBRUARY 3, 2011

The first did a “purchase credits&# model like iStockphoto where you then burn down the credits you bought. They realized for them this was dumb because people didn’t want to use up their credits so viral adoption wasn’t happening quickly enough. They switched to a flat rate model and sharing went up immediately.

Viral 303

Viral Investment Bankers Video Business Model 303

Gust

NOVEMBER 25, 2012

Pivots come in many different flavors, each designed to test the viability of a different hypothesis about the product, business model, and engine of growth. Many founders envision their solution as a platform for future products, but don’t have a single killer application just yet. Business architecture pivot.

Silicon Valley 187

Silicon Valley Architecture Startup Channel 187

Both Sides of the Table

JULY 10, 2011

Or in utility speak, they are transmission and we are last-mile distribution. Twitter’s significance stems from the fact that it is a real time, open, asymmetric, social, viral referral network that is often location aware and provides both explicit and implicit interests and preferences. Twitter is inherently viral.

Viral 307

Viral Las Vegas Tunisia Syndicate 307