David Teten

JANUARY 19, 2021

This structure allows for alignment on the front end, and real-time flexibility for performance metrics,” says Samira Salman , a family office investor and advisor. . Flexible VCs have created structures based on other company performance metrics than revenues, such as profits or founder salaries. Flexible VC 102: Variations.

Cofounder 78

Cofounder Technical Review Equity Dividend 78

Startup Lessons Learned

MAY 4, 2021

It was one of the year's most successful IPOs so far, and has been heralded as a "landmark moment" for cryptocurrency's entrance into mainstream investing. Just before the IPO, I had a far-reaching conversation with co-founder and CEO Brian Armstrong as he approached this major milestone for the company he co-founded back in 2012.

IPO 113

IPO Cofounder Technical Review Government 113

Cracking the Code

JULY 6, 2007

SaaS business metrics: why are they different? I was surprised today when I went through the NetSuite IPO filling (S1) to see that it looked very much like any Enterprise software document - not a single mention of churn or % of recurring revenues. Different models require different performance metrics. Friday, July 06, 2007.

Software Review 66

Software Review Metrics Valuation Technical Review 66

View from Seed

MARCH 3, 2015

Ellie Mirman was the first marketer hired by the CMO of HubSpot, the Boston-based marketing software startup that IPOed in 2014. NextView Ventures: Thinking back to before anyone knew HubSpot or the company was headed towards an IPO, where did you even start to market the company?

Marketing 120

Marketing Sales Cycle Startup CTO Hire 120

ReadWriteStart

JULY 18, 2011

Kedrosky: "In the 90's I was an analyst through all this [tech investment and IPO] madness. The conversation at investment banks was 'why don't we have one of those?'. You want to build your own IPO and exit. key metrics or a dashboard showing how you've made progress in whatever the key metrics for your business are.

Investment Bankers 153

Investment Bankers Technical Review Cofounder Due Diligence 153

Austin Startup

MARCH 2, 2019

I was having conversations with an entrepreneur and then a group of high school students this week about the ridiculous myth of entrepreneurs being risk-takers that “just jump off the cliff and build their wings to fly on the fall down”. For the fifteenth selection of The Entrepreneur’s Essentials, I’m going with recency bias yet again.

Advisory Board 51

Advisory Board Cofounder Greece Bootstrapping 51

Feld Thoughts

JULY 9, 2019

When I was in Boston a while ago (it was very cold, so it must have been January), I had a wide-ranging conversation with Eric Paley. One of our conversational threads was about how to value companies.

Revenue 179

Revenue Valuation .Net IPO 179

VC Cafe

AUGUST 3, 2023

Many exited or IPO’d (and subsequently lost much of their value in the recent downturn), but new success stories have also emerged. One of the first companies (outside of Disney) to get access to the Snap Camera SDK, Zoog has some of the best conversion metrics I’ve seen for a B2C consumer app.

B2C 148

B2C Generative AI Artificial Inteligence 148

crowdSPRING Blog

JANUARY 18, 2013

Thanks To Facebook, Strongest Year For IPOs Since 2000 With $21.5 The 6 Marketing Metrics Your CEO Actually Cares About [Cheat Sheet] | Hubspot Blog - [link]. Lots of great insight in this Hacker News Conversation about MVPs and getting started - [link]. Why You Should Give Yourself Permission to Screw Up - [link].

Social Media 94

Social Media Small Business Design Media 94

Startup Lessons Learned

MARCH 25, 2010

Heres an excerpt: The Startups Rules of Speed - The Conversation - Harvard Business Review Every startup that achieves success eventually faces a critical moment — whether to speed up or slow down. Read the rest of The Startups Rules of Speed - The Conversation - Harvard Business Review. This is the speed-up-or-slow-down moment.

Software Review 141

Software Review San Francisco Lean Continuous Deployment 141

Austin Startup

SEPTEMBER 29, 2018

And even if somehow you avoid it until your IPO, remember that an IPO is a fundraising event itself. But it was the dot-com craze and all of the metrics (eyeballs, pageviews, etc.) And there were other offers along the path to IPO that we also turned down. that counted back then were squish at best.

Bootstrapping 52

Bootstrapping IPO Business Model Software Review 52

Startup Lessons Learned

FEBRUARY 8, 2010

Lessons Learned by Eric Ries Monday, February 8, 2010 Beware of Vanity Metrics (for Harvard Business Review) The next article in my series on entrepreneurship for Harvard Business Review is live today. Once again, we revisit the topic of Actionable metrics and their nemesis: Vanity metrics. Remember "metrics are people, too."

Metrics 121

Metrics San Francisco Lean Continuous Deployment 121

Startup Lessons Learned

JUNE 2, 2010

The Five Whys for Start-Ups - The Conversation - Harvard Business Review Root cause analysis and preventive maintenance are concepts we expect to see in a factory setting. Two Ways to Hold Entrepreneurs Accountable Beware of Vanity Metrics For Startups, How Much Process Is Too Much? Read the rest of The Five Whys for Start-Ups.

Technical Review 132

Technical Review San Francisco Lean Continuous Deployment 132

Both Sides of the Table

SEPTEMBER 10, 2021

In 2001 companies IPO’d very quickly if they were working, by 2011 IPOs had slowed down to the point that in 2013 Aileen Lee of Cowboy Ventures astutely called billion-dollar outcomes “unicorns.” How little we all knew how ironic that term would become but has nonetheless endured.

Pre-Money Valuation 471

Pre-Money Valuation Valuation Venture Capital Early Stage 471

Hunter Walker

JANUARY 17, 2014

One way to suss this out – ask the co-workers about the metrics or key performance indicators they owned. Here’s one way to find out: after your first conversation, give a homework assignment relevant to your company and the job. Use LinkedIn and your network to find people who worked with him or her. Who did they report to?

IPO 86

IPO Cofounder Hiring Reputation 86

Austin Startup

MAY 29, 2019

I believe the single best report released from Bazaarvoice to describe this network effect with hard data is The Conversation Index, Vol. I wrote about this in detail in my first annual shareholders letter after Bazaarvoice became a public company. 8, which was released earlier this week.

Networking 48

Networking Fractional CTO CTO Hire B2C 48

Startup Lessons Learned

JANUARY 7, 2010

Id be honored to have you join the conversation. The Conversation - Harvard Business Review For most of us, the phrase management science conjures up a decidedly non-entrepreneurial image, and for good reason. Read the rest at The Conversation - Harvard Business Review. Id be honored to have you join the conversation.

San Francisco 119

San Francisco Management Continuous Deployment Lean 119

Both Sides of the Table

SEPTEMBER 18, 2014

There were no metrics. Him: On metrics. If we priced it based on any metrics your company would likely be worth less than 7 figures at your A round. These are all real conversations. What if when you have that conversation you don’t agree? Maybe an IPO – who knows? Your A round? Objectively.

Venture Capital 417

Venture Capital Liquidation Preference Valuation Term Sheet 417

Reid Hoffman

DECEMBER 10, 2020

With Airbnb’s IPO, I thought the time was right to take a look back at the past decade (Greylock led Airbnb’s Series A in November 2010) and reflect on what I learned from the journey. After that conversation, I called around to learn more about Brian, Joe and Nate, and I got really strong references. HOW GREYLOCK INVESTED IN AIRBNB.

Hosting 69

Hosting Hockey Stick IPO Silicon Valley 69

Startup Lessons Learned

JANUARY 15, 2010

Two Ways to Hold Entrepreneurs Accountable - The Conversation - Harvard Business Review Way back when the money was doled out, the team made a compelling pitch about the large market that was going to adopt their new innovative product or service. They are on-schedule and on-budget, but their gross metrics are way off.

Hockey Stick 105

Hockey Stick San Francisco Entrepreneur Lean 105

Startup Lessons Learned

NOVEMBER 7, 2008

Most of the time, the experiments you run will have a zero percent conversion rate - meaning no customers were harmed during the making of this experiment. I would aim to get no more than 1o0 clicks per day - over the course of a week or two, youll get pretty good conversion data. Measure conversion rates.

Demand 167

Demand San Francisco Lean Continuous Deployment 167

Agile VC

MAY 26, 2011

Google is still a private company (their IPO was Aug 2004). Not long after the product launch we began the initial conversations with VCs for a Series A round. And obviously all the liq prefs went away in the IPO when pref stock converted to common. is the leading consumer internet company with Terry Semel as CEO.

Term Sheet 178

Term Sheet Silicon Valley Technical Review Social Network 178

Feld Thoughts

DECEMBER 14, 2018

Examples would be “an acquisition” or “a financing” or “an IPO.” Then, I like to roll into metrics that create a floor on how the business will operate. I like the struggle around this – it almost always generates fascinating conversations that are highly personal.

Acquisition 145

Acquisition IPO Metrics Finance 145

Startup Lessons Learned

APRIL 7, 2010

At least, not in the traditional sense of trying to squeeze every tenth of a point out of a conversion metric or landing page. Even if it shows improvement in some micro metric, does that invalidate the overall design? That was evident in the metrics and in the in-person usability tests. No one feature is to blame.

San Francisco 154

San Francisco Lean Metrics Design 154

Startup Lessons Learned

MAY 19, 2020

This was supposed to be Airbnb's biggest year by many measures, including its IPO, which was one of the most anticipated since the 2008 financial crisis. If you’d like to hear my conversation with Brian, you can subscribe to Out of the Crisis on Apple , Google , Breaker , or wherever else you get your podcasts.

Management 122

Management Cofounder China IPO 122

Austin Startup

MAY 19, 2018

This one comes from personal experience, months into conversations and after reference checks (which went well) one particular VC decided he didn’t have commitment to the space. Don’t boomerang founders If you have specific metrics you look for in early stage companies. I fall into the latter category. That’s awesome.

Founder 75

Founder Early Stage Software Review Deal Flow 75

Austin Startup

SEPTEMBER 4, 2017

WEEKLY CONVERSION RATE Full Fridge was seeing both growth and progress. While far from perfect, this idea created and operated by 4 people was hitting the metrics we had set. Most conversations inevitably came down to the worry that “It is extremely difficult to figure out how to make a meal delivery business work.”

Technical Review 48

Technical Review Startup America Due Diligence 48

Startup Lessons Learned

MARCH 17, 2009

Im excited that well get more than the usual few minutes of Q&A, so come with a healthy appetite for conversation. If you or your company is interested in sponsoring someone with a scholarship to travel to the expo and contribute to the conversation, please leave a comment or let me know. You heard me right.

Lean 76

Lean San Francisco Web Continuous Deployment 76

Startup Lessons Learned

MARCH 29, 2010

The way forward requires getting everyone together in a room, and having a conversation about where were headed. My aspiration with the Lean Startup methodology has always been to provide such a framework, so that we have more intelligent conversations about what works and what doesnt for startups. Thats what this conference is for.

San Francisco 120

San Francisco Lean Continuous Deployment DC 120

Startup Lessons Learned

JUNE 5, 2009

In a startup context, numbers like gross revenue are actually vanity metrics, not actionable metrics. For example, say that your business model calls for a 4% conversion rate – as ours did initially at IMVU. After a few months of early beta at IMVU, we discovered that our actual conversion rate was about 0.4%.

San Francisco 102

San Francisco Lean Continuous Deployment Startup 102

Startup Lessons Learned

SEPTEMBER 15, 2008

Focus on the output metrics of that part of the product, and you make the problem a lot more clear. To promote this metrics discipline, we would present the full funnel to our board (and advisers) at the end of every development cycle. Max Levchin of Slide and Paypal has noted that 10% of Slides headcount is devoted to metrics only.

San Francisco 166

San Francisco Lean Technical Review Continuous Deployment 166

ConversionXL

JUNE 2, 2022

How do you sustain growth that precedes the highest IPO in history for a software company? Results from Snowflake’s ABM efforts post-IPO. Granular tracking of the right metrics helped sales reps prioritize prospects soon after receiving their watch. How Qlik used AI-enhanced lead scoring to average 2–3X conversions.

Marketing 105

Marketing Campaign Artificial Inteligence Sales Cycle 105

Both Sides of the Table

SEPTEMBER 28, 2013

A cautious person wouldn’t try to pry people out of Twitter right before their IPO to” join my cause!!” Good press and industry mojo wasn’t enough to overcome the financial metrics of the business and the offers came in at more like $10 million. This is a real conversation I have ALL the time even still.

Startup 417

Startup Dilution San Diego Stock Options 417

This is going to be BIG.

MAY 26, 2022

Which means that most of the people who actually do have the most interesting and useful experience to add to the public conversation aren’t doing so. You can’t write the bestselling book on how to IPO your company if that’s not a thing you’ve done before—or can you? At best it’s boasting and at worst, it’s blowing smoke.

Founder 104

Founder .Net Term Sheet Aggregator 104

Startup Lessons Learned

JULY 5, 2010

It is written in a conversational tone, doesnt take itself too seriously, and avoids extraneous fluff. It is written in a conversational tone, doesnt take itself too seriously, and avoids extraneous fluff. I think theyve succeeded. The Entrepreneur’s Guide is an easy read. I think theyve succeeded.

Customer Development 166

Customer Development Developer San Francisco Customer 166

Steve Blank

OCTOBER 21, 2012

She suggested that how cofounders fight was a key metric in predicting the success of a founding team. But a few weeks ago after I sat on a panel about cofounders at Startup2Startup there was a small group dinner conversation to dig deeper on the topic. So I asked her to write a guest post. What are your working styles?

Cofounder 331

Cofounder IPO Early Stage Green 331

Occam's Razor

OCTOBER 14, 2014

Outcomes of the conversations with your Finance team and Sr. Leaders (company is leaving China, our IPO is next week, 1,800 new stores are being opened in 180 days, our new IRR is 8%). Conversion rate is one of those metrics that I strongly encourage you only create benchmarks for from your own data. Don't do it.

Analytics 133

Analytics Vertical Metrics Web 133