View from Seed

APRIL 14, 2020

But in a FOMO world, more investors are willing to take a chance on a founder that they don’t know, but seems to match some of the heuristics of other high quality founders. Business Models and Sectors. VCs are always founder focused no matter the market environment. In a FOLD world, this is going to continue.

Early Stage 374

Early Stage Software Review Technical Review Due Diligence 374

Steve Blank

OCTOBER 24, 2014

It has three parts: a business model canvas to frame hypotheses, customer development to get out of the building to test those hypotheses and agile engineering to build minimum viable products. If you’re familiar with the Lean Startup you know that the Business Model Canvas is the tool to frame all the hypotheses of your startup.

Business Model 335

Business Model Design Customer Development Lean 335

Startup Professionals Musings

MAY 10, 2020

According to most definitions, an entrepreneur is one who envisions a new and different business, meaning one that is not a copy of an existing business model. Even fewer are able to grow the startup into a viable business. At this point investors should be interested in buying a chunk of the business.

Matching 317

Matching Seed Stage Angel Investor Business Model 317

Startup Professionals Musings

MAY 17, 2020

Even non-profits need a profitable business model to offset staff and operating costs. Assume passion level defines business opportunity. There is no substitute for market research to confirm that your passion matches a real need in the market. Not every great idea is a viable business.

Intellectual Property 436

Intellectual Property Angel Investor Viral Distribution 436

VC Cafe

MARCH 1, 2024

Eliminating middlemen in healthcare – from using AI to automate repetitive human jobs to exploring new and better business models for providing care. AI to make IRL matches – What if you could chat with a bot that learns about you on a deeper level and uses this information to make a curated set of matches?

Artificial Inteligence 176

Artificial Inteligence Technical Review Software Review Generative AI 176

Startup Professionals Musings

OCTOBER 30, 2020

Minimize one-time sales in your business model. You need a stable customer base with an automatically renewing revenue stream, such as the subscription model. But for those of you who are a real match for the entrepreneur lifestyle, that’s what makes it fun. Your solution must have value for every customer.

Merger 386

Merger Acquisition Software Review Social Media 386

Startup Professionals Musings

MAY 11, 2020

Investor due diligence on a startup is not a mysterious black art, but is nothing more than a final integrity check on all aspects of your business model, team, product, customers, and plan. Outside of work is where you can best evaluate the chemistry match, and decide whether you can enjoy and learn from the relationship.

Technical Review 310

Technical Review Due Diligence Term Sheet Offshore 310

Steve Blank

SEPTEMBER 16, 2014

Surprisingly if you’ve filled out the business model canvas you already know who you need. She started by sketching her business model canvas on a napkin, but somehow the conversation quickly shifted to what was really on her mind. ——-. I told Radhika this is a perennial question for startups.

Cofounder 335

Cofounder Founder Intellectual Property Business Model 335

Steve Blank

FEBRUARY 23, 2013

First, he says, the focus of an established firm is to execute an existing business model — to make sure it operates efficiently and satisfies customers. In contrast, the main job of a start-up is to search for a workable business model, to find the right match between customer needs and what the company can profitably offer.

Business Model 332

Business Model Technical Review Business Plan Search 332

Steve Blank

APRIL 23, 2014

Most large companies manage three types of innovation: process innovation (making existing products incrementally better), continuous innovation (building on the strength of the company’s current business model but creating new elements) and disruptive innovation (creating products or services that did not exist before.).

Acquisition 332

Acquisition Intellectual Property Silicon Valley Startup 332

Startup Professionals Musings

AUGUST 2, 2019

Constantly validate your solution fit, schedule, and business model with feedback from key customer advocates. Prioritize roles by value-creation potential on the go-forward strategy, match the best talent to priority roles, and operationalize the talent match process to ensure that it is regularly revisited.

Technical Review 226

Technical Review Leadership Portfolio Matching 226

The Startup Magazine

MARCH 18, 2020

He can guide a client’s choice of portfolio and help them match their money to their retirement goals. Jason Vanclef is a good example of business executives with a deep interest in the welfare of their clients. How would you describe your business model? At Vanclef Financial Group, we profit from our clients’ success.

Business Model 90

Business Model Affiliate Stock Portfolio 90

Steve Blank

SEPTEMBER 3, 2014

Dave was building a mobile app for matching college students who needed to move within a local area with potential local movers. As the farm fields flew by on the interstate I listened as Dave described how he translated his vision into a series of hypotheses and mapped them onto a business model canvas. Customer Discovery.

Cofounder 336

Cofounder Founder Technical Cofounder Coder 336

Steve Blank

OCTOBER 15, 2020

We built up a system to produce a certain type of military power at a time when that whole business model is being disrupted and undermined — much as Blockbuster Video’s business model was undermined by Netflix and Apple. Disruptive Technology. Changing Acquisition.

Technical Review 361

Technical Review Artificial Inteligence Technology United States 361

Startup Professionals Musings

SEPTEMBER 29, 2023

According to most definitions, anyone who starts a business is an entrepreneur , but most people don’t realize there are many startup types out there, and picking the wrong one can be just as disastrous as being stuck in a cubicle at work, or doing things with no interest and no skills. Marty Zwilling

Intellectual Property 243

Intellectual Property Matching Business Model Cofounder 243

Steve Blank

FEBRUARY 16, 2012

Alexander Osterwalder and I spent last week in Salt Lake City, Utah as judges at the 2 nd Annual International Business Model Competition , hosted by Professor Nathan Furr , and his team at the BYU Center for Entrepreneurship. But for startups, business plans fail to match the chaotic reality they encounter in the real world.

Business Model 263

Business Model Customer Development Utah Business Plan 263

Startup Professionals Musings

DECEMBER 27, 2019

In my view, every startup in today’s world would do well to adopt a management system with the same key objectives: Start with a customer-obsessed business model. Their pricing algorithm crawls the Web daily, and adjusts prices to always match the lowest price found anywhere, offline or online.

Global 308

Global Marketing Technical Review Algorithm 308

Startup Professionals Musings

OCTOBER 8, 2023

A better approach is to first understand who these people are, why and how they invest, and then focus on the ones who are the best match for your particular startup stage, location and industry. Here are eight key insights that will help you find a productive match: Angels want equity ownership, not causes.

Venture Capital 265

Venture Capital Accredited Investor Syndicate Syndication 265

VC Cafe

JUNE 26, 2023

where rather than sift through noise to find an answer, users will generate a specific result to match their needs. Challenges galore Like any tech advancement at scale, to succeed in this endeavour requires deep pockets: cloud resources and costly GPUs, expensive AI engineers and a working business model, all of which Google already has.

Generative AI 174

Generative AI Search ChatGPT Technical Review 174

Steve Blank

JANUARY 22, 2014

Few entrepreneurs find this scalable and repeatable business model because it’s not easy. Startups still need capital to scale once they find good product-market fit and a repeatable-scalable business model.). This experience has provided me a whole new set of pattern matching filters as an investor.

Early Stage 286

Early Stage Silicon Valley Oregon Technical Review 286

Steve Blank

FEBRUARY 23, 2013

First, he says, the focus of an established firm is to execute an existing business model — to make sure it operates efficiently and satisfies customers. In contrast, the main job of a start-up is to search for a workable business model, to find the right match between customer needs and what the company can profitably offer.

Business Model 224

Business Model Business Plan Technical Review Search 224

The Startup Magazine

SEPTEMBER 16, 2021

Any would-be fast-food restaurant would have to tread carefully if they were to try to match McDonalds’s business model. While that example is more extreme, the same principle applies to any business. Poorly executing a good business idea is one of the saddest ways for a startup to fail.

Startup 138

Startup Demand Business Model Founder 138

View from Seed

FEBRUARY 24, 2021

By removing physical boundaries, the care delivery modality provides an obvious advantage to more efficiently match geographically unbalanced provider supply with patient demand. . Affordability . Patient-facing cost is a key driver of healthcare accessibility. Scalable Go-To-Market .

Vertical 156

Vertical Software Review Portfolio Demand 156

Steve Blank

JANUARY 30, 2013

Entrenched Innovation Model Issues : Qualcomm’s existing innovation model – wireless products were created in the R&D lab and then handed over to existing business units for commercialization – was wildly successful in the existing wireless and mobile space. Venture Fest was not integral to their success. Lessons Learned.

Programming 265

Programming Technical Review Incubator Intellectual Property 265

A Smart Bear: Startups and Marketing for Geeks

MAY 10, 2010

In fact, 3 of the 10 selected companies from the past two years has followed this business model. To see this done right, consider Threadless , a bootstrapped marketplace matching people seeking unique T-shirts with people who invent them. What are other advantages or pitfalls of marketplace-style businesses?

Business Model 310

Business Model Finder SEO Bootstrapping 310

SoCal CTO

MARCH 30, 2010

Everything is Matching The real promise comes about as we get better tools for navigating all of this. I want to find people who can help me with ideas around the business model for my startup idea. There are many, very interesting and very complex matching problems that need to get solved. Business deals.

Social Media 179

Social Media Matching Media Cofounder 179

Startup Professionals Musings

APRIL 21, 2012

In this model, like cheap printers with expensive ink cartridges, the base unit is often sold below cost, with the anticipation of ongoing revenue from expensive supplies. This is another model that requires deep pockets to start, so is normally not an option for startups. Marty Zwilling.

Business Model 282

Business Model Revenue Portfolio Differentiation 282

YoungUpstarts

JUNE 18, 2020

It would be tough to match the ingenuity and creativity and technological prowess that millennials are known for. A proven business model with room to grow and innovate is perfect for the millennial entrepreneur, who can bring their own spin to something that already has proven success.

Entrepreneur 207

Entrepreneur Technical Review United States Mobile 207

YoungUpstarts

FEBRUARY 13, 2018

Searching and Matching. Ask all of your acquaintances and friends to sign up on the site, and, if you have a subscription based business model, then offer discounts for the first 700 members that sign up on your site. Create a Business Model. Communication Platform for Users. Monetization. Admin Functionality.

Marketing 100

Marketing Web Development Campaign Audience 100

Steve Blank

APRIL 4, 2011

This week they were testing who the customer, user, payer for the product will be (and discovering if they have a multi-sided business model , one with both buyers and sellers.) Or were they 2) an information exchange, providing matching services for cloud computing buyers and sellers, providing matching services.

Customer 234

Customer Business Model Nebraska Cloud 234

Startup Professionals Musings

MAY 11, 2015

According to most definitions, anyone who starts a business is an entrepreneur , but most people don’t realize there are many startup types out there, and picking the wrong one can be just as disastrous as being stuck in a cubicle at work, or doing things with no interest and no skills.

Matching 120

Matching Intellectual Property Startup Business Model 120

Steve Blank

FEBRUARY 13, 2024

In addition, they’ve created an entirely new $85+ billion subscription business model; the App Store, iTunes, Apple Care, Apple Pay, Apple Cash, Apple Arcade, Apple Music, Apple TV. It’s hard to remember, but the first version of these products launched with serious limitations that follow-on versions remedied.

Search 256

Search Marketing Forecast Burn Rate 256

Steve Blank

MAY 17, 2010

At best I think business plan competitions are a waste of time. Business Plan Versus Business Models. Where did the idea that startups write business plans come from? A simple way to think about it is that in a startup no business plan survives first contact with customers. What did you build/do?

Business Plan 312

Business Plan Business Model Customer Development Deal Flow 312

Steve Blank

MAY 6, 2015

It’s a really big idea because what you build needs to match the hypothesis you want to test. Luckily Alexander Osterwalder’s business model canvas presents a visual overview of the nine components of a business on one page. activities necessary to implement the business model. Generating Hypotheses.

Lean 120

Lean Agile Business Model Customer Development 120

Startup Professionals Musings

DECEMBER 14, 2013

Debate and adjust your offering to better match what customers want. Align your business model to how your customers want to buy. This is your rollout of the new product offerings, business model updates, and process changes to map to the new understanding of the customer buying process.

Revenue 263

Revenue Startup Technical Review Business Model 263

Startup Professionals Musings

JANUARY 16, 2021

According to most definitions, anyone who starts a business is an entrepreneur , but most people don’t realize there are many startup types out there, and picking the wrong one can be just as disastrous as being stuck in a cubicle at work, or doing things with no interest and no skills. Marty Zwilling.

Intellectual Property 328

Intellectual Property Matching Business Model Cofounder 328

Startup Professionals Musings

OCTOBER 17, 2022

Now the model is to seed many good teams with a smaller amount, and find out which ones can execute. Super angels have greater scope to match talent with a startup. It’s the right way to get money without giving up too much equity or control of your business. Marty Zwilling.

Angel Investor 342

Angel Investor Venture Capital Silicon Valley Portfolio 342