Startup Lessons Learned

APRIL 25, 2019

I’m an entrepreneur and the author of The Lean Startup. Since writing The Lean Startup, I’ve traveled around the world, helping companies of every size adopt the Lean Startup approach. In just five years, the Lean Startup movement has grown and transformed in ways I never could have imagined.

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Audio Lean Cofounder IPO 108

Both Sides of the Table

APRIL 27, 2014

You have to decide where to lean in on follow-on rounds. Co-founder discontent. Reference checking is to confirm or disprove a strong, positive intuition you already have about founders that could lead to an investment or a pass. What would this founder do if he got an offer to be acquihired quickly by Facebook?

Cofounder 374

Cofounder Syndicate Syndication Early Stage 374

Startup Lessons Learned

OCTOBER 28, 2008

Ill exclude those non- lean startups who basically exist for the purpose of raising bigger and bigger sums of money. Most important slide: valuation Promising results Key questions: can you monetize that traffic? (or How does a lean start-up find the all-star team worthy of pitching? Youre not one of those are you?)

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San Francisco Lean Continuous Deployment DC 128

crowdSPRING Blog

NOVEMBER 30, 2012

The Founders Lie About Comfort Zones – [link]. Investors Need to Lose Their Egos and Founders Need to Gain Some Confidence – [link]. The problem with a Lean Startup: the Minimum Viable Product | Paul Kortman – [link]. 10 adjustments to make when working for a Big Co. Dave McClure – [link].

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Social Media Small Business Central African Republic Design 100

Austin Startup

DECEMBER 29, 2018

Since I first wrote about the Golden Age in 2014, valuations for tech companies have only increased?—?rather The teams are made up of founders who are dramatically younger. The teams are made up of founders who are dramatically younger. The good thing about young founders is that they don’t know what’s not possible, Wood said.

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Cofounder Austin Technical Review Advisory Board 48

ReadWriteStart

AUGUST 26, 2022

So, think of the typical two founders with a pitch book in a garage. Instead, that’s the sort of pre-series-A investment where companies or founders have visions of where they think there are underserved market needs, and they’re coming up with something super excited to try to solve that. . We’re a crossover fund.

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Partner Cofounder Retention Acquisition 132

View from Seed

JANUARY 28, 2016

As a founder, you and your team are building value every day, but there are certain step-function moments where the value creation significantly increases. This is the best time to fundraise because that’s when you are able to command a meaningfully higher valuation for your next round to minimize your own dilution.

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Cofounder Finance Founder Syndicate 120

Hunter Walker

APRIL 27, 2014

We brief our major investors quarterly and decided to model our LP meeting after what “big funds” do, albeit with a few Homebrew flourishes :) Logistically this meant an afternoon session with presentations/Q&A then a dinner with founders/advisors. Not just on valuation but also amount raised. We love our founders.

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LP Cofounder Term Sheet Valuation 97

ReadWriteStart

MAY 30, 2022

While investors can seem like a solution to countless problems you encounter as a founder, don’t be too hasty to start eating from their hands. Your employees and cofounders deserve their stakes since they’ve helped you scale to an exit. If you’re in a rush to sell, will your investors allow you to accept less than your valuation? .

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Bootstrapping Startup Equity Silicon Valley 147

Up and Running

APRIL 11, 2016

Introducing Lean Planning: How to Plan Less and Grow Faster. When asked how he figured out who his target market was, he responded, “I looked at the volume of sales in my city, from the property valuation administrator, and then looked for the ‘sweet spot.’ Free Business Plan Template. The Different Types of Business Plans.

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Reputation Cofounder Naming Business Plan 60

David Teten

DECEMBER 3, 2019

To learn more about this space, I suggest join an online community I co-founded, PEVCTech. . Tim Friedman, Founder, PE Stack , said, “If I could offer one piece of advice to today’s managers, it would be to take the time to understand the demands of the modern institutional LP. The 11 Steps of Investing in Private Companies.

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Technical Review Software Review Analytics Private Equity 78

Steve Blank

FEBRUARY 26, 2020

What most founders don’t realize is: Every stage of a startup requires a different set of metrics and milestones and founder skills. Knowing these will help a founder position her pitch to get investors’ attention. Founders need to keep their eye on the prize — not just the next funding round. Business Model.

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Cofounder Seed Stage Valuation Metrics 431

Hearpreneur

JANUARY 29, 2017

I’m a big believer of lean startup. This is my favorite business quote because it removes all external factors and focuses on the most important one for launching a business — the founder. The company’s success is a determinant of the founder. Thanks to Dan Eyman, Meld Valuation ! #24 – Sara Blakely.

Entrepreneur 48

Entrepreneur LLC Cofounder Montana 48

Seeing Both Sides

MARCH 2, 2011

I had the pleasure of teaching a new case at HBS yesterday on foursquare that I co-authored with Professors Tom Eisenmann and Mikolaj Piskorski as part of Tom's new course "Launching Technology Ventures". A product-obsessed management team suddenly had to transition to become an operational scale management team.

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API Valuation Lean Burn Rate 44

Seeing Both Sides

AUGUST 3, 2012

The Lean Start-Up movement, as exemplified in Eric Ries' book The Lean Start-Up, has appropriately focused a great deal of attention on the hard decisions and techniques required to create a company from nothing. Even more tragically, the company's founder, Danny Lewin, was killed on one of the 9/11 airplanes. Founding Akamai.

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Distribution Lean Massachusetts Cofounder 49

Eric Friedman

AUGUST 18, 2021

Dan is the co-founder of Standard Treasury, a Y Combinator backed company. He is also co-founder and Managing Partner of Deciens Capital, an early stage investment fund. How do you get to that point if you have that kind of a view of the world, of founders, and of this space? On Sushi and VC. Everything we do.

Silicon Valley 88

Silicon Valley Venture Capital Cofounder Africa 88

crowdSPRING Blog

APRIL 26, 2013

Empower Your Small Business: trust & loyalty, marketing insight, lean business – [link]. 3 Biggest Mistakes When Choosing a Cofounder – [link]. If there’s one video 1st time founders should watch to understand VC financing it’s this one – [link]. ” – [link]. ” – [link].

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Social Media Small Business Design Media 90

Rob Go

JANUARY 28, 2016

As a founder, you and your team are building value every day, but there are certain step-function moments where the value creation significantly increases. This is the best time to fundraise because that’s when you are able to command a meaningfully higher valuation for your next round to minimize your own dilution.

Cofounder 28

Cofounder Finance Founder Syndicate 28

Duct Tape Marketing

JUNE 4, 2019

He is the founder and chairman of ActionCOACH , and the co-author of a book we’re going to talk about today, Pulling Profits Out of a Hat: Adding Zeroes to Your Company Isn’t Magic. Probably the best example is that… Do you remember the movie, what was it called, The Founder, The Ray Kroc movie? Thanks, Brad.

Cofounder 62

Cofounder Australia Retention Sales 62

betashop.com

OCTOBER 8, 2012

When we pivoted from fabulis to Fab, we pivoted towards building a business around the unique tastemaker talents of one of our founders, Bradford Shellhammer. Have amazing co-founders who are better at what they do than you could ever be. Founders need to personally own something big themselves. It’s that important.

Technical Review 108

Technical Review Technology Software Review Valuation 108

www.readwriteweb.com

OCTOBER 18, 2010

Bokér/1 Next David Sarna with Hendon, Stamford Hill & Co. Without a crisp analysis of these numbers, investors cannot assess the market opportunity and their potential for making returns. presented Bokér/1 - perhaps the most compelling of todays presenters.

Marketing 52

Marketing Bootstrapping Incubator Angel Investor 52

www.readwriteweb.com

OCTOBER 18, 2010

Bokér/1 Next David Sarna with Hendon, Stamford Hill & Co. Without a crisp analysis of these numbers, investors cannot assess the market opportunity and their potential for making returns. presented Bokér/1 - perhaps the most compelling of todays presenters.

Marketing 52

Marketing Bootstrapping Incubator Angel Investor 52

Up and Running

MAY 15, 2019

Word of mouth is no substitute for market research , says Ben Price, co-founder of Hard Knocks Brewing, a small brewpub in its second year of operation. Co-founders Jamie Floyd and Nikos Ridge leased their startup system from a family running a German restaurant out of a former brewpub.

Oregon 24

Oregon Jordan Software Review Distribution 24

Both Sides of the Table

JUNE 23, 2015

Like many entrepreneurs, the founders of Crosscut quit their well-paid jobs in the belief that LA’s moment was about to arrive and they spent years on low (sometimes no) salaries to prove it. This week Michael Dubin’s startup Dollar Shave Club announced a $75 million funding round at a rumored $650 million valuation.

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Los Angeles Silicon Valley Cofounder Early Stage 150

grasshopperherder.com

SEPTEMBER 24, 2011

« Thanks but No Thanks – Things to Avoid When Recruiting Co-founders Why is Cyber Squatter a Bad Word? Some have been as co-founder, most have been as a consultant with the possibility of becoming an paid employee, “as soon as we close our funding round.” Valuations. All names redacted.).

Sweat Equity 41

Sweat Equity Equity Cofounder Non-Compete 41

betashop.com

OCTOBER 8, 2012

Find one person, make them your sherpa, and lean on them. . Co-locate as best possible but be willing to travel to remote offices to make multiple offices work. Position your desk in a way in which you are staring at your co-founders and they are staring at you. Don’t choose your investors based on valuation.

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Post-Money Valuation Valuation Dilution Advisory Board 92

Hunter Walker

APRIL 4, 2015

With Homebrew we’re focused on being ‘partners of conviction’ to founders during the first few years of their companies. As VC Matt Turck notes , there’s been an increase in startups whose initial round of institutional funding looks more like an A Round than a Seed Round.

Cofounder 48

Cofounder Lead Investor Valuation Framework 48

Cracking the Code

OCTOBER 13, 2020

- This article was co-authored with my colleagues Varun Purandare and Candice du Fretay and published initially on Tech.eu. This summer saw two record transactions within a month, as UiPath became the first European Cloud decacorn in July and Visma, a Norwegian company, became the world’s largest ever software buyout with a $12B+ valuation.

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Europe Cloud Silicon Valley 71

SoCal CTO

JANUARY 5, 2011

November 23, 2010 Entrepreneurs, Using Outsourcing to Obtain Capital Efficiency Needs to be Thought Through to be Effective - Robert Ochtel , June 7, 2010 Teen Entrepreneur, Brian Wong, Youngest Founder to Receive Angel Funding - teenentrepreneurblog.com , October 28, 2010 Build Your Own Silicon Valley?

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Silicon Valley Startup Term Sheet Venture Capital 378

Both Sides of the Table

AUGUST 30, 2010

VC funding is definitely back from the constipation that was 2009 replete with frothy valuations chasing dreams of the next Facebook, Groupon or Zynga. If we do have a double-dip recession or a “lost decade&# the investors who have put money to work in capital efficient companies at reasonable (not frothy) valuations will fare the best.

Entrepreneur 298

Entrepreneur Technical Review Balance Sheet Government 298

The Next Web

AUGUST 14, 2013

This is a guest post by Wade Foster , co-founder and CEO of Zapier, which originally appeared on his blog. But since I’m relatively fresh off of the experience I get asked by first-time founders how they should go about raising money for their startup. Usually those aren’t first-time founders though. It certainly did me.

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Founder Incubator Cofounder Accredited Investor 142

Steve Blank

MAY 9, 2017

The founders were simply wrong about their assumptions about customer needs. It turns out the term “visionary founder” was usually a synonym for someone who was hallucinating. Founders Need to Run the Company Longer. So, almost like clockwork 20 th century startups fired the innovators/founders when they scaled.

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Restful Silicon Valley Puerto Rico San Jose 230

Startup Lessons Learned

JUNE 19, 2019

Andy Rachleff co-founded the venture capital firm Benchmark Capital in 1995. Andy and I will be having a fireside chat at this year’s Lean Startup Conference in October. The venture capitalists said, "Okay, let the angels invest at a $5 million valuation and take all of that market risk. We'll invest at a $50 million valuation.

Silicon Valley 159

Silicon Valley Lean Venture Capital Pre-Money Valuation 159

steveblank.com

JULY 8, 2011

AgileZen – project management visually see and interact with your work Kanbanery – Simple online team or personal kanban board LeanKit Kanban – Great for visualizing work of product development Kanban Pad – “Nice and lean” and free online Kanban tool Banana Scrum – A tool simple as Scrum itself.

Software Review 110

Software Review Startup Silicon Valley Analytics 110

www.quora.com

JANUARY 16, 2011

Find Questions, Topics and People Add Question Add Question Team Configuration 500 Startups Guerilla Marketing Organizations Entrepreneurship Startup Founders & Entrepreneurs Startups Startup Incubators and Seed Programs Seedcamp Y Combinator TechStars Lean Startups What is the perfect startup team?

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Technical Review Startup CTO Hire Cofounder 51

www.vccafe.com

MARCH 11, 2013

.” Hackernews list of “Tools of the Trade” for startups - includes over 150 SaaS tools used by startups, and over 150 comments with interesting insights from founders. Lean Methodology Sources. Steve Blank on Lean Customer Development. Part 3- Lean Cust. Steve Blank’s Lean Startup Resources.

Software Review 53

Software Review Technical Review Startup 53

pandodaily.com

NOVEMBER 29, 2012

“Founders don’t think their problems are due to trends. And in fact, overall trends are a second-order effect for founders.” “The real winners here are going to be the seed funds and early stage VCs that can write a $1 million to $2 million check,” says AngelList co-founder Naval Ravikant.

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Technical Review Silicon Valley Incubator Syria 93