Startup Lessons Learned

APRIL 14, 2009

Lessons Learned by Eric Ries Tuesday, April 14, 2009 Validated learning about customers Would you rather have $30,000 or $1 million in revenues for your startup? All things being equal, of course, you’d rather have more revenue rather than less. And yet revenue alone is not a sufficient goal.

Customer 167

Customer San Francisco Lean Hockey Stick 167

Startup Professionals Musings

FEBRUARY 26, 2013

Traction is evidence that your product or service has started that “hockey- stick” adoption rate which implies a large market, a valid business model, and sustainable growth. A graph that shows a hockey-stick “up and to the right” curve with at least three data points per key indicator is a great visual assist.

Hockey Stick 266

Hockey Stick Early Stage Metrics Acquisition 266

ConversionXL

APRIL 3, 2019

Joanna Wiebe: “Writing Mirrors: How to Use the Voice of the Customer to Write High-Converting Copy”. Carrie Bolton: “Get Real with Your Customers and Your Executives—How to Really Improve the Customer Experience. The customer experience is the customer’s perception of their interaction with your business.

Artificial Inteligence 114

Artificial Inteligence Technical Review Metrics SEO 114

Startup Professionals Musings

SEPTEMBER 7, 2013

Simply stated, it means that your business has the potential to multiply revenue with minimal incremental cost. I see too many business plans that are really product plans for customers, touting free services and long feature lists. Focus on marketing and indirect channels to get the message out quickly. Automate to the max.

Hockey Stick 278

Hockey Stick Intellectual Property Startup Non-Compete 278

Startup Professionals Musings

APRIL 6, 2016

It’s equally easy to go online and incorporate your new entity, register some intellectual property and have some fun with social media for marketing and interacting with customers. Most new teams are geographically dispersed these days anyway, so paying rent for an office should be differed to later stages when revenue is plentiful.

Bootstrapping 120

Bootstrapping Hockey Stick Sweat Equity Intellectual Property 120

This is going to be BIG.

JULY 26, 2010

They’re more than doubling revenue every quarter and will soon be on track for a million dollar run rate. The only concern was that they didn’t know what their cost of customer acquisition was, nor did they which channels would be most effective, or how much they could acquire out of each channel.

Acquisition 128

Acquisition Hockey Stick Customer SEM 128

Startup Professionals Musings

FEBRUARY 14, 2016

Simply stated, it means that your business has the potential to multiply revenue with minimal incremental cost. I see too many business plans that are really product plans for customers, touting free services and long feature lists. Focus on marketing and indirect channels to get the message out quickly. Automate to the max.

Hockey Stick 120

Hockey Stick Intellectual Property Non-Compete Business Model 120

Startup Professionals Musings

JANUARY 11, 2015

Simply stated, it means that your business has the potential to multiply revenue with minimal incremental cost. I see too many business plans that are really product plans for customers, touting free services and long feature lists. Focus on marketing and indirect channels to get the message out quickly. Automate to the max.

Hockey Stick 120

Hockey Stick Intellectual Property Non-Compete Business Model 120

ConversionXL

FEBRUARY 19, 2016

You get more traffic, more conversions, more money – in an endless hockey stick shaped cycle. You can usually tell this is the case when your SEO traffic converts well below other acquisition channels. It’s not hurting your revenue. Of course, it’s not so simple. Image Source. Where’s The Conflict, Then?

SEO 48

SEO Technical Review Algorithm Jacksonville 48

Steve Blank

SEPTEMBER 10, 2009

In future posts I’ll describe how Eric Ries and the Lean Startup concept provided the equivalent model for product development activities inside the building and neatly integrates customer and agile development. Not All Startups Are Alike There’s an urban legend that Eskimos-Aleuts have more words to describe snow than other cultures.

Customer Development 196

Customer Development Developer Customer Silicon Valley 196

Steve Blank

NOVEMBER 8, 2010

But RIM decided to hide all of that from their customers. While phrases like “mobile email and packet switching” didn’t mean a thing to RIM’s first customers, the “interactive pager” positioning proved important in attracting early adopters. The TiVo CEO hated the idea that customers might think of TiVo as a better VCR.

Hockey Stick 271

Hockey Stick Customer Development Silicon Valley Networking 271

Hippoland

AUGUST 8, 2018

One thing I’ve noticed is that almost every repeat, previously-successful-founder focuses on the same thing for their respective startups: customer acquisition. Forget about traction and hockey stick growth. Very simply, your cost to acquire a customer needs to be lower than the value of that customer (lifetime value).

Founder 48

Founder Sales Cycle Affiliate Retention 48

Hippoland

AUGUST 8, 2018

One thing I’ve noticed is that almost every repeat, previously-successful-founder focuses on the same thing for their respective startups: customer acquisition. Forget about traction and hockey stick growth. Very simply, your cost to acquire a customer needs to be lower than the value of that customer (lifetime value).

Founder 48

Founder Sales Cycle Affiliate Retention 48

Up and Running

APRIL 28, 2015

This is a quick one sentence overview of your business and the value that you provide to your customers. Use this slide to expand on who your ideal customer is and how many of them there are. Describe how customers use your product and how it addresses the problems that you outlined on slide two. Slide 5: Revenue model.

Forecast 60

Forecast Hockey Stick Exit Strategy Intellectual Property 60