Startup Professionals Musings

NOVEMBER 2, 2018

At the other extreme, I don’t condone greedy and unethical business practices to unjustly shake down customers and employees alike. As an investor myself, I look for a balanced story focused on the major elements that drive profitability, including the following: A 5-year financial forecast achieving a positive cash flow early.

Intellectual Property 48

Intellectual Property Initial Public Offering Merger Acquisition 48

Gust

AUGUST 5, 2012

Clearly define the customer, channel, and revenue model associated with this solution. Industry & market sizing. Start with the evolution of the overall industry, market segmentation, market dynamics, and customer landscape. Explain the business model. Marketing, sales, and partners.

Business Plan 182

Business Plan Sweat Equity Exit Strategy Intellectual Property 182

BeyondVC

NOVEMBER 17, 2006

I am not sure if you saw the news , but Salary.com recently filed for an IPO to raise up to $50 million. Our direct sales group markets and sells our solutions primarily using the telephone and web-based demonstrations. If the IPO markets open up again, it would give investors and entrepreneurs another option to create value.

IPO 60

IPO Investment Bankers Demand Revenue 60

Startup Lessons Learned

SEPTEMBER 30, 2008

Ive forecasted the issues you have spoken of without entertaining the thoughts of solutions like you have. For example, how are you going to explain that component drive architecture like.NET isn't going to work for cross platform open open source business models? This is more than just an "I think so."

CTO 168

CTO Fractional CTO CTO Hire Technical Review 168

Tim Keane

MARCH 9, 2011

How to prepare a sales forecast for a business plan » March 09, 2011. It’s axiomatic that in a perfectly priced market, a specific level of investor risk in any business should price identically across all companies.  Example one: Sustainable net operating income with some growth in a stable market. 

Finance 83

Finance Bootstrapping Startup Equity 83

Startup Professionals Musings

APRIL 22, 2010

Clearly define the customer, channel, and revenue model associated with this solution. Industry & market sizing. Start with the evolution of the overall industry, market segmentation, market dynamics, and customer landscape. Explain the business model. Marketing, sales, and partners.

Business Plan 186

Business Plan Exit Strategy Sweat Equity Intellectual Property 186

Startup Lessons Learned

JUNE 5, 2009

Certainly venture-backed startups don’t have this luxury – every business plan has a model in it. Just because entrepreneurs tend to forget about these models doesn’t mean their investors do. Companies that reliably fail to make their forecasted numbers are exceptionally prone to “management retooling.&#

San Francisco 102

San Francisco Lean Continuous Deployment Startup 102

Up and Running

APRIL 28, 2015

Your business model has to truly be similar to the company you are referencing. If you aren’t solving some problem in the world, you are going to have a long uphill climb with your business. The more you can make the problem as real as possible, the more your investors will understand your business and your goals.

Forecast 60

Forecast Hockey Stick Exit Strategy Intellectual Property 60

Up and Running

MAY 1, 2014

What are you actually selling and how are you solving a problem (or “need”) for your market? Target Market. If there are multiple market segments for your business, this is where you flesh out the details. Marketing and Sales Plan. How are you going to reach your target market? Target market.

Business Plan 163

Business Plan Forecast Balance Sheet Distribution 163

Ben's Blog

AUGUST 17, 2020

While multiples are indeed often an input for valuing mature, slower growing companies, in the private, high growth tech market, entry multiples tend to be a byproduct of the valuation process: What investors are really trying to understand are possible exit values. cash flows beyond that forecast period).

Valuation 36

Valuation Balance Sheet Cofounder Forecast 36

Occam's Razor

OCTOBER 14, 2014

See step four in the process for creating your Digital Marketing and Measurement Model.]. This recommendation also valuable for companies that have very unique business models, or face other unusual circumstances (geographic, size, amount of innovation, and many others). See Page 269. :). So how can you use your own data?

Analytics 133

Analytics Vertical Metrics Web 133

Seeing Both Sides

AUGUST 3, 2012

But once the company has honed in on a strong value proposition and found initial product-market fit, what is the best approach to scaling it? With over $1 billion in revenue, 2000 employees and a market capitalization of over $6 billion, Akamai has become a role model for scalable start-ups. After all, scaling is hard.

Distribution 49

Distribution Lean Massachusetts Cofounder 49

Startup Lessons Learned

JULY 9, 2009

No business model, either. Almost all of them got scooped up by pre-IPO Google this time. Almost all of them got scooped up by pre-IPO Google this time. That year, right before the IPO, those months mattered a great deal in terms of financial outcomes. So, the idea of starting without a business model is good ?

San Francisco 94

San Francisco Lean Continuous Deployment DC 94

Cracking the Code

SEPTEMBER 2, 2008

The Deutsche Bank report has a very interesting chart on the topic presenting the Free Cash Flow margins vs. the revenue growth four years post IPO for select software leaders: As you can see, with 20% Free Cash Flow margin and a 50% growth rate, Salesforce is well positioned in the pack! Well.thats probably why Salesforce market cap is 4.9x

Software Review 48

Software Review Software Technical Review Cloud 48

abovethecrowd.com

JULY 7, 2015

Efficiently communicating your strategy, business model, and competitive differentiation is required for many critical things you will do as a company. It may simply be an expense analysis, or a detailed pricing model, or a TAM (total available market) analysis. But, going deck-less can be a risky move, and here is why.

Warrant 40

Warrant Later Stage Forecast IPO 40

VC Cafe

JUNE 19, 2020

“As big businesses begin to measure their impact, they begin to show it is fundamental to their future business models.” This is also backed by other research findings, such as the International Finance Corporation (IFC) which noted that the impact investing market is “growing and maturing”. Sir Ronald Cohen.

Venture Capital 174

Venture Capital Global South Africa 174