VC Cafe

JANUARY 27, 2021

Now synonymous with video-conferencing, the company-name-turned-verb stock peaked in October 2020, a market interpretation of how the Zoom Boom has defined the daily lives of many millions throughout the COVID-19 outbreak. Next47 and American Insight Partners VC, demonstrates growing trust in its current and future business model.

Vertical 148

Vertical Video Technical Review Europe 148

ReadWriteStart

MARCH 8, 2021

You could invest in marketing and advertising. Marketing/advertising channels. Most of your new visibility will stem from your marketing and advertising efforts. Everything from the naming of your startup to your ongoing marketing efforts depends on your high-level strategy. What is this business’s course of growth?

Startup 127

Startup Retention Acquisition Agile 127

David Teten

APRIL 1, 2021

Similarly, customer introductions are invaluable in the early days, but become less valuable once a company has a fully-formed go to market function.”. A well-organized library of best practices for founders in your vertical, which you can share as appropriate. Organize events in your vertical. AskAnything.VC Fundraising.

Private Equity 78

Private Equity Venture Capital Portfolio Equity 78

David Cohen

AUGUST 22, 2012

It’s interesting that in 2009 there was a peak for our companies in use of the freemium model. After the market downturn, I think that investors in general got more picky about “real” revenue models. Since 2009, people have consistently been pronouncing the model dead. I hear the skeptics out there.

Vertical 110

Vertical Search Business Model Software Developers 110

Steve Blank

APRIL 23, 2018

When Sloan arrived at GM in 1920 he realized that the traditional centralized management structures organized by function (sales, manufacturing, distribution, and marketing) were a poor fit for managing GM’s diverse product lines. Modern Corporation Marketing. auto market. car market. General Motors had 20%.

Michigan 268

Michigan Cofounder Stock Forecast 268

A Smart Bear: Startups and Marketing for Geeks

JANUARY 13, 2015

Often your best estimate of any metric or market behavior or business model component is at best accurate within a power of ten, for example “expected conversion rate between 0.5% Question: How big does this company’s target market need to be? Bigger markets make things easier. So what can be shifted?

Business Model 120

Business Model Affiliate Startup Bootstrapping 120

Startup Professionals Musings

OCTOBER 23, 2021

Relevancy for an early-stage company is the discovery and understanding of the real addressable market for a product or service. This is not the total opportunity out there, and not the total target market, but the subset of customers who have and will spend the money you need to cure their pain.

Early Stage 379

Early Stage Vertical Sales Global 379

Hunter Walker

OCTOBER 31, 2020

Maybe it’s statistical analysis, growth marketing, or deck making. In exchange for doing this repeatedly, you get to learn the rest of the business. All of these areas require real understanding of core underlying technology, not just pattern matching against a business model applied to a vertical. Blockchain.

North Carolina 90

North Carolina Hiring Angel Investor Technical Review 90

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 122

Vertical Silicon Valley RSS Marketing 122

Agile VC

FEBRUARY 5, 2014

This is especially true for those with a media / ad based business model (e.g. We invest in internet enabled companies at NextView and our portfolio is roughly equally split between consumer and B2B businesses. Business facing companies typically provide software or an online service for which their customers pay a fee.

Revenue 234

Revenue Product B2B Marketing 234

Steve Blank

NOVEMBER 16, 2009

In it, I got asked a question I often hear: “What if we have a web-based business that doesn’t have revenue or paying customers? And without revenue how do we know if we achieved product/market fit to exit Customer Validation?” However the Customer Development Model and the Lean Startup work equally well for startups on the web.

Customer Development 219

Customer Development Web Developer Customer 219

YoungUpstarts

JUNE 5, 2012

“I think there’s still many opportunities in this vertical in South East Asia and it’s one that takes on multiple forms – local shopping, local eating, local jobs,” muses Yongfook. ” “The third is a secret, but it addresses a huge market with only one major incumbent.”

Singapore 200

Singapore Aggregator Technical Review Database 200

View from Seed

MARCH 15, 2018

Often, these startups tend to fall in areas like home , food , apparel , transportation — but fitting squarely within a specific vertical isn’t a requirement. . One ramification, then, is that many of these or businesses may seem odd, and certainly outside of the mold of current mainstream VC-backed companies.

Technology 120

Technology Artificial Inteligence Marketing Vertical 120

Hearpreneur

DECEMBER 8, 2019

Throughout that development process the marketing team kept pressing, leading the company to 50,000 influencers over the Summer, which made us the largest warm contact influencer network in the market. I knew all the time I’m not that type of person to give in ever, regardless of difficult situations in life and in business.

Entrepreneur 120

Entrepreneur Technical Review Vertical Las Vegas 120

YoungUpstarts

APRIL 22, 2016

You could probably make a case for any one of these, but here’s the thing: Although on the surface these companies appear to have completely different business models, they all share one very powerful component: a scalable online platform connecting people and ecosystems. Or Software as a Service for the enterprise, such as Salesforce?

Japan 100

Japan Global Asia API 100

Steve Blank

OCTOBER 31, 2014

Scalable startups are on a trajectory for a billion dollar market cap. Not all start ups want to go in that direction – some will opt instead to become a small business. has a large enough market that most U.S. Creating a vertically oriented regional ecosystem is a pretty amazing accomplishment for any country or industry.

Global 335

Global Australia Silicon Valley China 335

Austin Startup

SEPTEMBER 29, 2018

business model and team. I thought the total available market (TAM) was too small and the team wasn’t complete?—?I I usually don’t back a business unless there are founders that can build, sell, and service the new solution that is being brought to market. How did we do that at Bazaarvoice?

Bootstrapping 52

Bootstrapping IPO Business Model Software Review 52

Hunter Walker

AUGUST 7, 2023

The historical dynamic for software markets was one of ‘winner take all/most.’ Verticals where an incredible amount of investor capital was committed and even the ‘best/surviving’ companies ended up consuming a tremendous amount of dollars. What drove these mistakes?

Vertical 85

Vertical Business Model Demand Software 85

Version One Ventures

JULY 21, 2020

The startup market evolves, and so do we as VCs. No matter the vertical, geography, business model, macro or micro trends, entrepreneurs form the nucleus of a generational company. Technology changes. Over the past few months, we’ve reflected on our journey over the past decade, who we are and what we invest in.

Founder 213

Founder Vertical Differentiation Portfolio 213

Mucker Lab

OCTOBER 12, 2016

Vertical integration of different funding risks. I also believe that the ebb and flow of the venture investment cycle has been exacerbated by the recent vertical integration of early, growth, and even late stage venture funds. The average (or even above average) horse never wins. The road ahead for entrepreneurs.

Harvest 60

Harvest Vertical IPO Early Stage 60

Austin Startup

FEBRUARY 23, 2020

We also aim to educate the market that these are two different problems. This track brings together founders and funders and showcases exciting new companies, products, services, and business models across different verticals and industries. What is your top goal for Syndio for 2020?

Technical Review 62

Technical Review Seattle Elevator Pitch Equity 62

The Startup Magazine

JUNE 1, 2023

Be honest with yourself VCs are now going to be looking closer at margins, cost structures and true sales, and product market fit. As a founder, ask yourself – does your business actually warrant VC funding? And they probably never will be unless business model viability is reassessed across the board.

Early Stage 111

Early Stage Los Angeles Silicon Valley Cofounder 111

Steve Blank

APRIL 10, 2009

Reply Why Startups are Agile and Opportunistic -- Pivoting the Business Model , on April 14, 2010 at 6:32 am Said: [.] to see if they need to make a Pivot to find a better model. The search for a profitable and scalable business model might require a startup [.]

Silicon Valley 300

Silicon Valley RSS Startup Agile 300

Version One Ventures

SEPTEMBER 8, 2023

We believe that it’s good to be contrarian to the rest of the market and other investors, but not to be conflicted in a partnership where alignment should be more important. In a deep ocean of early stage investors, it’s important to signal to the market that you have specific areas of interest, even if you look to invest in everything.

Cofounder 182

Cofounder Portfolio Capital Gains Vertical 182

Startup Professionals Musings

JANUARY 6, 2019

Relevancy for an early-stage company is the discovery and understanding of the real addressable market for a product or service. This is not the total opportunity out there, and not the total target market, but the subset of customers who have and will spend the money you need to cure their pain.

Startup 242

Startup Early Stage Vertical Sales 242

Steve Blank

AUGUST 31, 2009

After 20 years of working in startups, I decided to take a step back and look at the product development model I had been following and see why it usually failed to provide useful guidance in activities outside the building – sales, marketing and business development. So what’s wrong the product development model?

Customer Development 238

Customer Development Developer Customer Silicon Valley 238

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 219

Cofounder Founder Silicon Valley Technical Cofounder 219

Hunter Walker

MAY 4, 2014

Not every company is raising money at the valuation you modeled. There are good opportunities on your plate which don’t exactly fit in the markets you thought you’d be focused. Second, we did an investment where we actually decided to own more than 10% because of the nature of the business model.

Software Review 100

Software Review Vertical Seed Stage Portfolio 100

Version One Ventures

OCTOBER 1, 2019

What was one of the highest flying start-ups with a private market valuation of $47B was brought down to Earth when trying to IPO. The major point that often gets forgotten is that no business model is the same. Great start-ups can be built in many categories and with many different business models.

Valuation 116

Valuation Vertical IPO Business Model 116

Steve Blank

SEPTEMBER 24, 2009

Pattern Recognition One of the great things about being an entrepreneur is that you are constantly running a pattern recognition algorithm against a continual collection of customer and market data. But the purpose of this post is what happens when a founder (or large company CEO) finds a better business model.

Customer 195

Customer Silicon Valley RSS California 195

VC Cafe

FEBRUARY 7, 2011

to nearly 5% of the total retail market, with a forecasted continuous increase. And while 5% of the total retail market seems like a relatively small piece of the pie, eCommerce influences about 80% of that pie in most segments. Today, eCommerce companies can scale up faster than almost any other consumer business model.

eCommerce 94

eCommerce Open Source SEM Technical Review 94

Version One Ventures

SEPTEMBER 24, 2014

We want to see traction – specifically, how quickly you can capture the initial market or vertical** that you are targeting, and how engaged these early users are. After you demonstrate your strong sense of product design and development, we want to know how you will build a real business beyond just features.

Vertical 167

Vertical Distribution Business Model Framework 167

Version One Ventures

SEPTEMBER 24, 2014

We want to see traction – specifically, how quickly you can capture the initial market or vertical** that you are targeting, and how engaged these early users are. After you demonstrate your strong sense of product design and development, we want to know how you will build a real business beyond just features.

Vertical 153

Vertical Distribution Business Model Framework 153

Cracking the Code

MARCH 24, 2015

The objective of the conference was to understand how APIs will power the next great web and mobile companies and share some best practises in understanding when to use APIs or not and how can API company best market to developers.

API 48

API Fractional CTO CTO Hire San Francisco 48

Steve Blank

DECEMBER 7, 2009

I was out and about in Silicon Valley doing what I would now call Customer Discovery trying to understand how marketing departments in large corporations worked. I remember presenting our ideas for Marketing Automation to one VP of Marketing in a large Silicon Valley company. He was now CEO of a new company in our market.

Silicon Valley 225

Silicon Valley Non-disclosure Agreement NDA Startup 225

Duct Tape Marketing

APRIL 14, 2022

Why Partnerships Are The Future Of Marketing written by John Jantsch read more at Duct Tape Marketing. Marketing Podcast with Robert Glazer. In this episode of the Duct Tape Marketing Podcast , I interview Bob Glazer. Bob is the Founder and Chairman of the Board of Acceleration Partners, a global partner marketing agency.

Marketing 89

Marketing Affiliate Channel Software Review 89

View from Seed

JANUARY 11, 2018

We dove deep into how this investment thesis extends to major verticals of consumer spending like entertainment , clothing , and home. Troops is similarly embedded into the workflow of sales and marketing teams — it’s the glue between daily internal conversations and customer interactions. Alignable ).

B2B 120

B2B B2C Vertical Portfolio 120