Startup Professionals Musings

JULY 14, 2014

The problem is that professional investors (Angels and Venture Capital) want a proven business model before they invest, ready to scale, rather than the more risky research and development efforts. In general, banks won’t give you a loan until the business is cash-flow positive, no matter what the future potential.

Entrepreneur 283

Entrepreneur Intellectual Property Technical Review Incubator 283

Startup Professionals Musings

JULY 1, 2017

The problem is that professional investors (angels and venture capitalists) want a proven business model before they invest, ready to scale, rather than the more risky research and development efforts. In general, banks won’t give you a loan until the business is cash-flow positive, no matter what the future potential.

Product Development 177

Product Development Cost Developer Product 177

Startup Professionals Musings

FEBRUARY 19, 2013

The problem is that professional investors (Angels and Venture Capital) want a proven business model before they invest, ready to scale, rather than the more risky research and development efforts. In general, banks won’t give you a loan until the business is cash-flow positive, no matter what the future potential.

Intellectual Property 309

Intellectual Property Technical Review Venture Capital Startup 309

Startup Professionals Musings

JANUARY 12, 2018

According to a recent Motly Fool report, the challenge is very real, since around half of all businesses fail in the first five years. The problem is that professional investors (angels and venture capital) want a proven business model before they invest, ready to scale, rather than early projections and product development.

Intellectual Property 134

Intellectual Property Technical Review Startup Incubator 134

YoungUpstarts

APRIL 7, 2016

The rub is that a startup likely has the ideas to take it straight to the top, but it’s also likely that the company lacks the business skills to make it truly successful. With services ranging from branding to technology to marketing, labs also guide the company to a successful investment and ultimately a strong exit.

Seed Stage 100

Seed Stage Silicon Valley Incubator Asia 100

ReadWriteStart

JUNE 1, 2020

The next reason is to establish a competitive advantage over your competition and quickly acquire a substantial market share. Let’s take an example – In the case of an internet or app business, the user traction and market penetration is a must. Incubators and Accelerators. Establish a competitive advantage.

Startup 150

Startup Entrepreneur Elevator Pitch Seed Stage 150

Steve Blank

OCTOBER 7, 2011

I spent the month of September lecturing, and interacting with (literally) thousands of entrepreneurs in two emerging startup markets, Finland and Russia. Ironically one of the things that’s holding back the Finnish cluster is Tekes , the government organization for financing research, development and innovation in Finland.

Finland 325

Finland Venture Capital Government Russia 325

Startup Professionals Musings

JULY 8, 2015

The problem is that professional investors (angels and venture capital) want a proven business model before they invest, ready to scale, rather than the more risky research and development efforts. Join a startup incubator.

Entrepreneur 120

Entrepreneur Intellectual Property Technical Review Incubator 120

Steve Blank

MARCH 31, 2014

Think about this; 7 years ago Nokia owned 50% of the handset market. Fast-forward to today—Apple is the most profitable Smartphone company in the world and in Spain Android commands a market share of more than 90%. Its worldwide market share of Smartphones has dwindled to 5%. Apple owned 0%.

Private Equity 326

Private Equity Metrics China Intellectual Property 326

Steve Blank

JUNE 26, 2015

In the last five years “ Lean Startup ” methodologies have enabled entrepreneurs to efficiently build a startup by searching for product/market fit rather than blindly trying to execute. However in practice most companies treated the Three Horizons like they are simply incremental execution of the same business model.

Lean 120

Lean Management Business Model Incubator 120

Steve Blank

MARCH 8, 2011

It was designed to bring together many of the new approaches to building a successful startup – customer development, agile development, business model generation and pivots. Startups are in fact only temporary organizations, organized to search –not execute–for a scalable and repeatable business model.

Lean 300

Lean Business Model Customer Development Guinea 300

Startup Professionals Musings

OCTOBER 5, 2015

I challenge any entrepreneur, for example, to define the difference between "seed-stage" and "early-stage" financing. A new VC seed market has been emerging, especially over the past five years: It usually appears in the form of a prototypical seed round of $1 million to $1.5 Startup incubator seed funding.

Seed Stage 120

Seed Stage Finance Early Stage Startup 120

Steve Blank

FEBRUARY 25, 2014

Corporations running internal incubators face many of the same selection issues as startup investors, plus they must grapple with the issues of integrating new ideas into existing P&L-driven functions or business units. a language corporate innovation groups can use to communicate to business units and finance.

Incubator 312

Incubator Intellectual Property Startup Lean 312

ReadWriteStart

JUNE 16, 2011

For the uninitiated, Zoho introduced a CRM system that was one-tenth the price of Salesforce.com and penetrated the lower end of the market using an Indian cost structure. Zendesk is heavily financed by Benchmark and Charles River and has 10,000 customers. You can read more about Freshdesk on the 1M/1M Incubation Radar today.

India 123

India Bootstrapping Non-Compete Entrepreneur 123

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. Strategy Maps.

IRR 335

IRR Startup Business Model Agile 335

ReadWriteStart

SEPTEMBER 10, 2010

Whether it is in the emerging markets or in the U.S., And EVEN if you ARE an experienced entrepreneur, all but just a few VCs still want to see customer validation, business model validation and traction, before they will invest. I call it drip-financing. In 1M/1M, our preferred financing strategy is customers.

Cloud 115

Cloud Silicon Valley Incubator Finance 115

ReadWriteStart

JULY 28, 2011

This week, I've had several meetings with venture funds, incubators, corporate accelerators and other significant players in the startup eco-system. The same applies to Malaysia, where our partner, the MAD Incubator, is in search of 10 good deals to put through the 1M/1M program. Healthcare e-Market.

Incubator 128

Incubator Silicon Valley Malaysia Entrepreneur 128

Up and Running

JANUARY 24, 2019

Before you can start a company, you need a business idea. Unless you have invented something revolutionary, stick with a business model that involves something you are passionate about and do it better than anyone else. Your business plan can be a Lean Plan , meaning that it doesn’t need to be lengthy.

Lean 93

Lean Balance Sheet Bankruptcy Business Model 93

ReadWriteStart

SEPTEMBER 23, 2010

To do a solid holiday season he will need to balance the inventory and marketing budgets, and getting stuck in a complex situation with inventory being stuffed in the retail channels with bad terms will be a kiss of death. I will work with him on his inventory financing strategy. JCLABoutique.com. PowerStores.in. Photo by brokenarts.

India 114

India Silicon Valley Incubator Bootstrapping 114

The Startup Magazine

NOVEMBER 8, 2018

Corporate accelerators are one of the best ways for startups to access capital, advice, and markets. Digital Transformation for Business Excellence : Solutions that provide a level change in business performance through digital transformation. We encourage all startups to consider applying to this rewarding startup accelerator.

North Carolina 107

North Carolina Startup Technical Review Programming 107

ReadWriteStart

OCTOBER 13, 2011

I spent the month of September lecturing, and interacting with (literally) thousands of entrepreneurs in two emerging startup markets, Finland and Russia. Ironically one of the things that's holding back the Finnish cluster is Tekes , the government organization for financing research, development and innovation in Finland.

Finland 158

Finland Venture Capital Government Russia 158

ReadWriteStart

MARCH 24, 2011

The discussion today was around Social Media financing and go-to-market strategy. Additional work in figuring out the precise go-to-market consumer, academic institution, or enterprise - each is a different business), and consequent business model and pricing model will help enhance the company's valuation.

Illinois 114

Illinois Entrepreneur Silicon Valley Chicago 114

ReadWriteStart

SEPTEMBER 16, 2010

Today, the telecom industry charges customers based on fixed price business models for data services. Sequoia has financed them. In addition, we are offering entrepreneurs access to investors and customers through our recently launched our 1M/1M Incubation Radar series. You can register for the next roundtable here.

Cloud 117

Cloud Fractional CTO Entrepreneur Bandwidth 117

Steve Blank

DECEMBER 30, 2014

. ———– The National Institutes of Health recognizes that Life Science/Health Care commercialization has two components: the science/technology, and the business model. The Lean Launchpad® for Life Sciences (the I-Corps @ NIH ) uses the Lean Startup Model to discover and validate the business model.

San Diego 262

San Diego North Carolina Chicago Lean 262

ReadWriteStart

JANUARY 27, 2011

For a more elaborate explanation of the deal, please read my blog post 1M/1M: Alternative Financing For Startups Using A Sales Channel Partner. Also, an Incubation Radar profile on CrowdEngineering explains more about this very, very cool company doing crowdsourced customer support. The business is already profitable with $2.9

Dilution 114

Dilution Revenue Finance Entrepreneur 114

Steve Blank

SEPTEMBER 14, 2017

They were trying to keep up with providing the core services necessary to run the current business and at the same time deal with a flood of well-meaning but uncoordinated ideas about new features, technologies and innovations coming at them from all directions. There were no requirements for the innovator. I-Corps was adopted by all U.S.

Incubator 313

Incubator Curation Engineer Government 313

Steve Blank

AUGUST 20, 2013

Class III devices are generally the highest risk devices and must be approved by the FDA before they are marketed. Class III medical devices that are high risk or novel devices for which no “predicate device” exist require clinical trials of the medical device a PMA (Pre-Market Approval). Business Model Issues.

Startup 296

Startup Venture Capital Lean IPO 296

Startup Lessons Learned

DECEMBER 14, 2017

LESSON #1: Equip your business with a portfolio map and a 21st century org chart. With industries from banking to transportation being transformed and, in some instances, undermined by new business models and technology, executives are smart to wonder, “Are we next?” LESSON #2: Forget innovation.

Lean 245

Lean Startup CTO Hire Cofounder 245

Steve Blank

OCTOBER 24, 2017

A version of this article is in the Harvard Business Review. Uber , Zenefits , Tanium , Lending Club CEOs of companies with billion dollar market caps have been in the news – and not in a good way. — all great things when you are executing and scaling a known business model. And while new markets were created (i.e.

Founder 252

Founder Technical Review CTO Hire IPO 252

Professor VC

APRIL 7, 2011

My partner in Menlo Incubator , Gary Kremen , and I had a recent debate on which one of us hates convertible debt more. This will also serve as a good pointer for all the entrepreneurs who ask why I am not interested in their company led convertible note financing round. In cases where it is truly a bridge financing (i.e.

San Jose 36

San Jose Technical Review Angel Investor Valuation 36

ReadWriteStart

MAY 26, 2011

make so little use of the affiliate business model for monetization purposes? Please use the comments below to give your thoughts and analyses on why you think Twitter is not using the affiliate business model to monetize its immense traffic. That's like selling your prized assets for nothing in a flea market.

Affiliate 117

Affiliate India Nevada Silicon Valley 117

YoungUpstarts

MARCH 24, 2015

The dirty little secret of university finance is that undergraduate tuition fees subsidize faculty research. The business model is ready for a fall. Innovation is permitted, oftentimes in an RSSI or incubator structure (see 2 above), using volunteer faculty and students in a pilot of limited duration and scope.

Illinois 100

Illinois Incubator Cofounder Engineer 100

Up and Running

APRIL 24, 2018

Every business needs to adapt to emerging market trends, and your health startup is no exception to this rule. In fact, startups have to stay one step ahead of the changing market conditions. You and your team must know how to think about problems from new angles and adapt to changing market and customer demands.

SBIR 73

SBIR Startup Artificial Inteligence Intellectual Property 73

ReadWriteStart

MAY 4, 2011

Manoj has deep domain knowledge in the CCS market segment and has designed a solution that addresses the missing real-time data dashboard functionality of the industry. He is exploring outside financing, but my concern is that unless the growth rate accelerates, this particular business may not fit the venture model.

India 116

India Entrepreneur Silicon Valley Massachusetts 116

Steve Blank

SEPTEMBER 1, 2011

Unlike small business entrepreneurs, their interest is not in earning a living but rather in creating equity in a company that eventually will become publicly traded or acquired, generating a multi-million-dollar payoff. Their job is to search for a repeatable and scalable business model. They hire the best and the brightest.

Government 335

Government Silicon Valley Startup Venture Capital 335

Both Sides of the Table

MAY 23, 2012

There are obvious reasons the industry has had less-than-desirable returns, including: massive over-funding of the sector, huge increases in inexperienced venture capitalists that took a decade to peter out, and the massive correction in the value of the public stock markets that closed many exit opportunities for half a decade.

Venture Capital 347

Venture Capital Technical Review LP Mobile 347

ReadWriteStart

SEPTEMBER 3, 2010

The daily deal and group buying market has really heated up, with numerous sites offering variations on the basic value proposition. As a result, the expectation is that you have to figure out a way to get to some level of momentum on your own (by bootstrapping) or with small doses of angel money - "drip financing" so to speak.

Channel 115

Channel India Bootstrapping Silicon Valley 115