Steve Blank

APRIL 30, 2009

SuperMac sold our graphic boards for the Macintosh through multiple distribution channels: direct sales to major accounts, national chains, independent rep firms, etc. But the computer retail channel was a large part of our sales. Or blame my MarCom department who approved it. Worry about the sales results. What did we learn?

Sales 120

Sales Silicon Valley RSS Las Vegas 120

Startup Lessons Learned

AUGUST 24, 2009

One is explaining the world as it used to work: the importance of gatekeepers, the scarcity implied by limited distribution, and the resulting quality bar that the industry is so proud of. Mostly it is the time and expense required to create the means of distribution for that industry. It’s just taking some longer than others.

San Francisco 113

San Francisco Lean Technical Review Distribution 113

Steve Blank

AUGUST 5, 2010

Consumer Internet investing seems to have split off from traditional Venture Capital, and is creating a new category of VC’s: Lean VC’s. Electron-based Venture Capital. When I first came to Silicon Valley the world of Venture Capital looked pretty simple. Here’s why.

Lean 263

Lean Internet Silicon Valley Venture Capital 263

Steve Blank

MAY 22, 2009

Ignore This Post The same caveat applies as in the first post; If you’re selling via the web, and trade shows seem hopelessly anachronistic, ignore this post. Everyone should have a chance to walk the floor looking for deals, technology, distribution, customers, etc. I’ll talk about web marketing in some later posts.

Silicon Valley 136

Silicon Valley RSS California Customer Development 136

www.forentrepreneurs.com

FEBRUARY 2, 2010

Business model viability, in the majority of startups, will come down to balancing two variables: Cost to Acquire Customers (CAC) The ability to monetize those customers, or LTV (which stands for Lifetime Value of a Customer) Successful web businesses have long understood these metrics as they have such an easy way to measure them.

Acquisition 103

Acquisition Cost Customer Entrepreneur 103

Up and Running

DECEMBER 11, 2013

For example, we’ve several times invested based on what we call convertible notes, which is intended as a temporary loan to be converted to equity (ownership) based on a future valuation to be established by transactions with venture capital. But the importance of valuation is also always there. Market Size.

Valuation 136

Valuation Oregon Burn Rate Angel Groups 136

Both Sides of the Table

MAY 4, 2010

Palm (acquired by HP ) – In our interview we talked about how transformational mobile computing is and why it’s different than web computing (e.g. Venture Partners, Grotech Ventures, Revolution LLC (Steve Case). Investors: Google Ventures. Tags: This Week in Venture Capital. AppDynamics.

IPO 236

IPO .Net Venture Capital Strategic Investors 236

Steve Blank

MAY 29, 2019

In addition to Stanford I also teach at Columbia, and at these research universities – Stanford, Columbia, Berkeley, and others – they all now have an internal incubator, they have maker spaces, they have their own venture funds, they connect to the community, they connect to venture capital. It’s a big idea.

Incubator 332

Incubator Lean Programming Government 332

www.readwriteweb.com

MARCH 7, 2011

Dave argues that instead of providing connections you should let founders do 95% of the work and offer support with operational areas of expertise like design, data and distribution. Think of individuals like McClure, Paul Graham and George Zachary as market analysts. startupcto

Technical Review 50

Technical Review Due Diligence Startup Angel Investor 50

David Teten

DECEMBER 12, 2017

In his white paper How Private Equity and Venture Capital Investors Are Eating Their Own Dogfood , PEVCTECH.com founder David Teten explored how private equity and venture capital investors are trying to automate more of their job. Boldstart uses both Zapier and Catalytic for this purpose.

Early Stage 60

Early Stage Technical Review Software Review Venture Capital 60

Up and Running

MAY 23, 2016

In the tactics section, list your sales channels and describe how you will be selling your products. Eric Ries, a Silicon Valley entrepreneur and author of The Lean Startup, popularized this strategy for web applications. I used a freelance web designer and I only created the core functions to create, send, and manage invoices.

Software Review 74

Software Review Software Delaware Forecast 74

Steve Blank

AUGUST 20, 2009

Do you know have they distribute their product? Rule 1: In an existing market Customer Development means not only understanding potential customers, but your competitors in detail – their product features, their sales channels, their demand creation strategy, their business model, etc. Me – “Have you used Company x’s product?

Silicon Valley 206

Silicon Valley Startup RSS Customer Development 206

BeyondVC

JANUARY 12, 2009

  Ever since, he has been using the phone to take pictures nonstop, send emails and SMS messages, stay connected to Facebook, and surf the web looking for the latest news or directions.   More importantly, will there be any grand slam venture capital opportunities in wireless? 

Mobile 60

Mobile SMS Venture Capital Web 60

Steve Blank

NOVEMBER 2, 2009

In times when venture capital is hard to get, investors extract high costs for failure (down-rounds, cram downs , new management teams, shut down the company.) have product/market fit,) then you invest the dollars to create end user demand and drive those customers into your sales channel.

Lean 260

Lean Silicon Valley Startup RSS 260

The Next Web

DECEMBER 30, 2012

Learn how to raise capital from angel investors and venture capitalists (and how to decide who you should target). Social media marketing for startups : How to use social to launch, position your messaging and get distribution. Become a Web Developer from Scratch! Learn to Develop an iPhone or iPad App in 4 Weeks.

Artificial Inteligence 156

Artificial Inteligence Founder Private Equity Ruby 156

Both Sides of the Table

MARCH 11, 2011

To say he has had an impact on the web would be an understatement. GoTo.com went on to ink huge distribution deals with Microsoft, AOL & Yahoo! The Wedding Channel. Last night I had the great privilege to interview Bill Gross , one of the Internet’s true pioneers. Summary notes, as always, provide below. Shopping.com.

Product 350

Product Tuvalu Dilution Incubator 350

Austin Startup

AUGUST 7, 2017

Instead of arguing why Dallas might be better than Houston we should be talking about how we can work together to get our share of venture capital dollars more in line with our population size and startup activity by unlocking additional capital sources that have been previously inaccessible to tech.

Texas 97

Texas San Antonio Houston Dallas 97

www.readwriteweb.com

OCTOBER 18, 2010

methodologies - in other words, dont invest in travel and in-person sales, but try to close as many deals as possible by phone and the Web. (On Raymond has built a nice business through efficient distribution deals and will do about $250,000 in revenue this year. process in detail. Raymond is wondering why he cannot attract financing.

Marketing 52

Marketing Bootstrapping Incubator Angel Investor 52

www.readwriteweb.com

OCTOBER 18, 2010

methodologies - in other words, dont invest in travel and in-person sales, but try to close as many deals as possible by phone and the Web. (On Raymond has built a nice business through efficient distribution deals and will do about $250,000 in revenue this year. process in detail. Raymond is wondering why he cannot attract financing.

Marketing 52

Marketing Bootstrapping Incubator Angel Investor 52

www.chubbybrain.com

SEPTEMBER 28, 2011

The negativity either impacted investment funding (venture capital fell off a cliff in 2009) or the customers they were targeted as was the case for Untitled Partners who were building a platform for fractional art ownership. Posted in Analysis , Venture Capital. 3 – Not the right team. Read, learn, avoid death.

Cofounder 89

Cofounder Startup Technical Cofounder CTO Hire 89

Up and Running

NOVEMBER 4, 2015

BlueHost : Simple and affordable hosting that’s ideal for anything from WordPress to full-fledged web apps. With Google Surveys, you can target users from around the web and get instant feedback on your business idea. pr.co : Outsource creating a press room for your web site. Bluehost is an easy place to get online on a budget.

Curation 60

Curation Finder Startup Social Media 60

Lightspeed Venture Partners

JUNE 11, 2012

In 2009 I wrote a guest post at Industry Gamers about why social gaming is so attractive to investors , where I talked about the three key elements oin gaming: Development, Distribution and Discovery. But I think the framework of Development, Distribution and Discovery is still a useful lens to view the industry. This is hard to do.

IP 114

IP Distribution Viral Mobile 114

Steve Blank

FEBRUARY 26, 2020

These elements of the business model– revenue (pricing, pricing strategy), distribution channel, How to Get/Keep/Grow customers, Key Activities, Resources and Costs – are other, critical parts your start up needs to understand and have in place. The rest that makes up a company is called its business model.

Cofounder 431

Cofounder Seed Stage Valuation Metrics 431

techcrunch.com

OCTOBER 23, 2010

The timing is perfect, there is more than a little overlap with Vivek Wadhwa’s guest post on venture capital earlier today. I too am looking for someone to work with that knows the manufacturing and distribution end of a solid product. It really needs some rounded corners for that web 2.0 Johnny Good post.

Technical Review 84

Technical Review Cofounder Technical Cofounder Software Review 84

Transformify

FEBRUARY 19, 2020

Presently, the web lets you work remotely, from any side of the world you feel the most feasible and profitable. Managing remote teams requires a different skillset and defined communication channels and some managers are still not ready for the change. Organizations as large as WordPress run 100% distributed teams.

San Francisco 78

San Francisco Startup Silicon Valley New York 78

www.readwriteweb.com

FEBRUARY 19, 2010

Is a web apps look and feel critical to its overall success or failure? "As A web applications overall look and feel plays a very critical role mainly through two main factors: early adopters love beautifully-designed applications and that gets them talking. What web design trends have surfaced and dominated in 2009?

Web 42

Web Design Startup Flash 42

ReadWriteStart

OCTOBER 6, 2011

The 1M/1M program aims to help a million entrepreneurs globally reach $1 million in revenue (and beyond), thereby building the foundation of a robust, distributed and sustainable economic value creation that would add up to $1 trillion dollars in global GDP. And finally, we have defined 1M/1M as a framework for capitalism 2.0,

Silicon Valley 118

Silicon Valley India San Francisco Entrepreneur 118

www.vccafe.com

MARCH 11, 2013

Venture Capital Cafe > Startup Resources (Updated Mar 2013). Amazon Web Services. Web Tools: Hereâ??s We have an iOS SDK as well, for web-web, mobile-mobile, web-mobile video chat and video messaging. Twilio : Need to call/txt get a phone number from your web/mobile application? Domains.Co.

Software Review 53

Software Review Technical Review Startup 53