Up and Running

APRIL 24, 2014

Specifically, if you’re an app or an website for example, your drivers are going to have to do with search engine optimization, keywords, paper click, conversion rates. I’m going to look for some sense of reality in those conversation rates.

Forecast 85

Forecast Hockey Stick Sales Business Plan 85

ConversionXL

FEBRUARY 19, 2016

You’d think conversion optimization and SEO should play together nicely, right? In theory, conversion optimization aims to improve the user experience, which, conveniently, is what Google wants to do as well with their top search results. How do you balance traffic acquisition with conversion optimization?

SEO 48

SEO Technical Review Algorithm Jacksonville 48

Reid Hoffman

DECEMBER 10, 2020

After that conversation, I called around to learn more about Brian, Joe and Nate, and I got really strong references. For a long time, when you looked at the graph, it was almost like a classic exponential “hockey stick” curve, where it’s flat for a long time, then hits the bend and takes off. That’s when I agreed to meet them.

Hosting 69

Hosting Hockey Stick IPO Silicon Valley 69

ReadWriteStart

NOVEMBER 11, 2010

The "Hockey Stick" is a Great Story, Don't Get Me Wrong. The "hockey stick" is a pretty familiar visualization for startups. It is meant to tell the story of rapid, exponential growth. We know the story. We know the image.

Hockey Stick 120

Hockey Stick Startup Audience Conversion 120

Startup Lessons Learned

APRIL 14, 2009

This wasn’t very impressive, but we had two things going for us: A hockey stick shaped growth curve. People often forget the most important part of the hockey stick: the long flat part. Whats the right set of materials, conversations, etc. We were limping along at a few hundred dollars a month in revenue. "A

Customer 167

Customer San Francisco Lean Hockey Stick 167

This is going to be BIG.

FEBRUARY 15, 2011

Yet, we know very well that the most thoughtfully constructed cashflow models and hockey stick traffic predictions never come out the way we thought they would, so what's the point of making them at all? Over the last week, I've sat down with a handful of entreprenuers and given the same advice--to construct the fantasy model.

Hockey Stick 111

Hockey Stick PR Framework Engineer 111

Startup Lessons Learned

OCTOBER 28, 2008

Most important slide: hockey stick Micro-scale results Key questions: who is the customer, and how do you know? If you find yourself getting asked non-key questions, try to use your answers to steer the conversation back to the key questions. or drive traffic to that profitable destination?) what is the potential market size?

San Francisco 128

San Francisco Lean Continuous Deployment DC 128

Bryce Dot VC

APRIL 13, 2016

Too often the hockey stick graph became proxy for the health of the business. The bright spot in my conversations with these recently fallen Unicorns suggest there may be a new wave of founders who value organic over anabolic growth. With many, the experience is still raw but the high level take aways are eerily consistent.

Hockey Stick 40

Hockey Stick Startup Valuation IPO 40

Hippoland

AUGUST 8, 2018

Forget about traction and hockey stick growth. Although you can make more money by running per-click or per-action ads on a per conversion basis, it’s also a lot harder to bring about these actions. Unit economics are something I’ve found most entrepreneurs (and investors!) don’t think about at all.

Founder 48

Founder Sales Cycle Affiliate Retention 48

Hippoland

AUGUST 8, 2018

Forget about traction and hockey stick growth. Although you can make more money by running per-click or per-action ads on a per conversion basis, it’s also a lot harder to bring about these actions. Unit economics are something I’ve found most entrepreneurs (and investors!) don’t think about at all.

Founder 48

Founder Sales Cycle Affiliate Retention 48

This is going to be BIG.

JANUARY 21, 2010

Since we often invest before the big “hockey stick” traction that bigger VCs wait for, a lot of times the company is still trying to tweak exactly what service or application will take off in a given market. At First Round , I often hear the term “product-market” fit. Would they appear out of sync, disjointed, etc?

Product 68

Product Hockey Stick Entrepreneur Syndicate 68

Steve Blank

SEPTEMBER 10, 2009

A startup in a New Market (enabling customers to do something they never could before,) might be unprofitable for 5 or more years, (hopefully with the traditional hockey stick revenue curve,) while one in an Existing Market might be generating cash in 12-18 months. Even more serious, startups can have radically different cash needs.

Customer Development 220

Customer Development Developer Customer Silicon Valley 220

Up and Running

AUGUST 21, 2014

It’s hard to understand how many people will you actually attract, what is it going to cost, what’s your conversion rate, how long will people stay. When you look at SaaS metrics, keeping your CAC low and increasing your ARPU is going to be the fastest way to the hockey stick that SaaS companies are trying to achieve.

Metrics 84

Metrics Startup Churn Rate Forecast 84

Up and Running

APRIL 28, 2015

A great pitch deck gets potential investors excited about your idea and engages them in a conversation about your business, hopefully leading to an investment. Investors see “hockey stick” projections all the time and will mentally be cutting your projections in half. Remember to try and be realistic.

Forecast 60

Forecast Hockey Stick Exit Strategy Intellectual Property 60

Professor VC

AUGUST 26, 2011

The objections range from "its hard", "nobody believes them" to "all hockey sticks look alike". Analyzing each step of who comes to the website organic, paid, conversions etc [SB] Having a bottoms-up model is helpful. I often feel like a Dad (which I am to two wonderful teenage daughters) when I respond, "Yes, because I say so".Everyone

Silicon Valley 35

Silicon Valley San Jose Hockey Stick Venture Capital 35

Duct Tape Marketing

APRIL 26, 2023

I never learned to roast a chicken and I never had kids and my career trajectory has been very windy as opposed to a straight hockey stick that it's supposed to be. Like I've never, you know, learned to, I, I don't drive a car. John Jantsch (05:51): So it's largely autobiographical. Laura Belgray (05:59): I am.

Hockey Stick 64

Hockey Stick Software Review Email Cofounder 64

Up and Running

MARCH 11, 2015

Content marketing, and under content marketing we’re tracking uniques, time on site, bounce rates, open rates, click-through rates, conversion rates, these are the things that if we don’t know what these things are, we could end up in trouble. It was interesting to me, so we had this whole conversation about the type of people.

Technical Review 60

Technical Review Software Review Due Diligence Exit Strategy 60

ConversionXL

APRIL 3, 2019

Add to that 400 old and new faces, plenty of conversations, live music, and more than a few beers. When setting up interviews , call them “chats,” not interviews—and treat them like chats; anticipate where the conversation could go and listen, listen, listen. Brian Cugelman: “Consumer Psychology, Dopamine, and Conversion Design”.

Artificial Inteligence 114

Artificial Inteligence Technical Review Metrics SEO 114