David Teten

DECEMBER 16, 2015

I review a lot of board decks with a beautifully hand-crafted page with metrics for the company. Good metrics are comparable across industries; comparative ; readily understandable; and help drive decisions. Comparative means that you can compare a metric across time periods, groups of users, or competitors. So how do you do it?

Metrics 60

Metrics Analytics Balance Sheet .Net 60

Both Sides of the Table

FEBRUARY 20, 2019

Others may not have the experience you want and they fill up a seat that makes retaining founder control more difficult if you ultimately raise large rounds of venture capital in the future. What happens at the A-round of venture capital? If your metric move immediate up-and-to-the-right? But it’s quite rare.

Venture Capital 236

Venture Capital Startup Angel Investor Silicon Valley 236

The Startup Magazine

FEBRUARY 11, 2022

On the other side of the spectrum, the idea of finding a unicorn has attracted many investors toward the much riskier venture capital and emerging technologies. Private equity investments offer access to growth in more scaled businesses.

Private Equity 153

Private Equity Equity Technical Review Software Review 153

SoCal CTO

MARCH 11, 2013

If you do build the MVP and show it to them, they will ask you about your metrics. They really want metrics, not a product. The real question you should be asking is "When I've built this product and show you the following metrics, would you invest?" What The Heck Does “Traction” Really Mean To A VC?

Algorithm 264

Algorithm Metrics Viral Venture Capital 264

VC Cafe

SEPTEMBER 2, 2022

That’s on average the time venture capital investors spend on a pre-seed pitch deck, according to the latest Dropbox/Docsend funding research report. What most improved your primary metric? 2 and a half minutes. The time spent on reviewing decks went down compared to 2021. Weeks to launch? what have you learned from them?

Technical Review 166

Technical Review Early Stage Cofounder Portfolio 166

Both Sides of the Table

SEPTEMBER 10, 2021

how on Earth could the venture capital market stand still? One of the most common questions I’m asked by people intrigued by but also scared by venture capital and technology markets is some variant of, “Aren’t technology markets way overvalued? What Does this Mean for a Venture Capital Firm?

Pre-Money Valuation 471

Pre-Money Valuation Valuation Venture Capital Early Stage 471

YoungUpstarts

JULY 31, 2019

In these scenarios, most founders will have trouble tapping the institutional Venture Capital market and will have to do a bridge round or multiple bridge rounds. . This also applies in acquisition conversations. Exacerbating the problem are the subjective standards by which many young companies are evaluated.

Cofounder 127

Cofounder Burn Rate Technical Cofounder Seed Capital 127

Austin Startup

MARCH 20, 2017

The field uses the broader term “gender” rather than “female” because, as the Stanford Social Innovation Review states, “Using ‘gender’ brings both men and women into the conversation. Despite all of this collective data and momentum, we have seen little, if any, progress in the private equity and venture capital space.

Private Equity 54

Private Equity Venture Capital United States Equity 54

SoCal CTO

MARCH 1, 2010

Startup Killer: the Cost of Customer Acquisition | For Entrepreneurs , February 2, 2010 Looks at the critical equation around customer acquisition cost vs. customer lifetime value similar to what I discussed in Startup Metrics but in more depth. Great stuff. Jason looks at the issues around "sunk cost." Good stuff from Jason.

Acquisition 150

Acquisition Cofounder Technical Cofounder Cost 150

ReadWriteStart

APRIL 8, 2023

In my experience, I follow different resources, for instance, the Andreessen Horowitz blog , one of the top venture capital funds reporting trends in their newsletters, and INC.5000 Aside from venture capitalists, following Twitter personas or subscribing to newsletters is another way to utilize industry information.

eCommerce 185

eCommerce Technical Review Software Review Analytics 185

www.forentrepreneurs.com

FEBRUARY 2, 2010

Blog About Log in Register Designing startup metrics to drive successful behavior Great companies are almost always run by great management teams. Good metrics should also be actionable, and drive successful behavior. In a follow up post, I will use this technique to walk through the design of a set of metrics for a SaaS company.

Metrics 55

Metrics Design Entrepreneur Startup 55

Austin Startup

JULY 22, 2017

This is similar to something we did at Austin Ventures to encourage startups to make a donation to the Entrepreneurs Foundation of Central Texas.

Austin 54

Austin Angel Investor Startup Term Sheet 54

Steve Blank

NOVEMBER 16, 2009

What metrics do we use to see if we learned enough in Customer Discovery ? I gave my boilerplate answer, “I’m a product guy and I tend to invest and look at deals that have measurable revenue metrics. Dave McClure has some great metrics…” It was an honest but vaguely unsatisfying answer.

Customer Development 228

Customer Development Web Developer Customer 228

David Teten

JANUARY 23, 2021

The next best move is to build your core team, e.g., recruit an Advisory Board, Venture Partners, and EIRs. For ideas, see How Executives Can Work from Home with Private Equity and Venture Capital Funds. See How Emerging Venture Capital Fund Managers Should Think About Their LP Fundraising Strategies.

Private Equity 78

Private Equity Venture Capital Technical Review Software Review 78

Up and Running

JUNE 19, 2013

The New York Times profiles two successful tech start-ups— GoodData , which at its start raised more than $50 million in venture capital funding, and RJ Metrics, which held out with self-financing for as long as possible—that went after the same market at the same time, and contrasts their approaches to finance.

Venture Capital 70

Venture Capital Finance Lean New York 70

Austin Startup

AUGUST 10, 2017

We were roommates at the time and launched two different companies out of a kind-of dumpy apartment: We both went on to raise millions in venture capital and build meaningful businesses in interesting spaces. We invest in protocols that meet our quantitative and qualitative metrics. But we never lost the finance bug.

Technical Review 48

Technical Review Cofounder Technical Cofounder Austin 48

Steve Blank

NOVEMBER 8, 2013

In this case the basis of competition on the X/Y axes are metrics defined by the users in the existing market. ” conversation with investors. (If Filed under: Customer Development , Teaching , Venture Capital. Customer Development Teaching Venture Capital'

Venture Capital 335

Venture Capital Customer Development Business Model Lean 335

Steve Blank

JULY 1, 2014

Investors sitting through Incubator or Accelerator demo days have three metrics to judge fledgling startups – 1) great looking product demos, 2) compelling PowerPoint slides, and 3) a world-class team. Lessons Learned: Investment Readiness ties capital-raising to the capital-efficient Lean Startup methodology.

Sacramento 312

Sacramento Framework Customer Development Lean 312

View from Seed

SEPTEMBER 14, 2021

This post is inspired by some of the earliest conversations I have had with the team here at NextView and since the beginning of my VC journey. Warning – this assumes some basic knowledge of VC performance metrics. Was this a lost decade for venture capital? For a primer, I would recommend refreshing yourself here.

Valuation 319

Valuation Pre-Money Valuation Distribution Early Stage 319

This is going to be BIG.

AUGUST 31, 2011

This conversation seems to take place at nearly every growing company in just about every board meeting. You have trackable metrics for sales, site conversions, traffic, etc., When you actually track these metrics, you can zero in on how to improve overall conversion, and reverse engineer problems.

CTO Hire 120

CTO Hire Hiring Bandwidth Metrics 120

Steve Blank

APRIL 2, 2009

Metrics – Mine is Bigger Than Yours The first thing SuperMac needed to do was to change how our potential color desktop publishing customers viewed our products versus our competitors’ products. As hokey as it is, when confronted with uncertainty or unknowns, human beings like to be reassured by comparative metrics.

Silicon Valley 127

Silicon Valley Technical Review RSS Software Review 127

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

OnlyOnce

JUNE 30, 2022

I can always picture the person narrating the book, or hear their voice saying the words, I can periodically see their personality showing through the words on the page, and books bring out so much more detail than I’d ever get from a conversation.

Silicon Valley 62

Silicon Valley Agile Venture Capital Framework 62

View from Seed

SEPTEMBER 14, 2021

This post is inspired by some of the earliest conversations I have had with the team here at NextView and since the beginning of my VC journey. Warning – this assumes some basic knowledge of VC performance metrics. Was this a lost decade for venture capital? For a primer, I would recommend refreshing yourself here.

Valuation 295

Valuation Pre-Money Valuation Distribution Early Stage 295

Haystack

JULY 4, 2019

I don’t think it matters what the obligation is — but rather — it’s an opportunity for the founders to supply their most passionate early supporters with information and ammunition to infuse into our conversations with downstream investors, potential candidates, and potential angels and BD prospects.

Early Stage 167

Early Stage Deal Flow Finance Metrics 167

SoCal CTO

MARCH 22, 2007

Im constantly frustrated by conversations that take place in discussion groups that cant cross the border into the blog world. Kevin Federline Search Engine Realistic Entrprenuer's Guide to Venture Capital Time Rich, Time Poor and Apple F2F Still Matters 8 Ways the Internet has Changed Software Marketing.

Technical Cofounder 150

Technical Cofounder Southern California Los Angeles CTO Hire 150

Both Sides of the Table

JUNE 5, 2011

I have conversations with entrepreneurs and other VCs on a daily basis about fund raising, the prices of deals, how much companies should raise, etc. Another firm we saw tried to raise $15 million at a $60 million pre-money with similar metrics. I thought I’d post on one of the topics before hand. Here’s the problem.

Pre-Money Valuation 336

Pre-Money Valuation Valuation Silicon Valley Stock 336

This is going to be BIG.

JUNE 22, 2020

One of the most difficult conversations I have with founders is when they haven’t quite given me enough of a story for me to make a proper evaluation. If you’re going to try to pitch metrics and momentum as the main feature of your pitch—make sure they’re as great relative to other startups as you think they are.

Early Stage 140

Early Stage Venture Capital Founder Sales 140

abovethecrowd.com

OCTOBER 1, 2013

Over 13 years ago, in March of 2000, I wrote a blog post titled “ The Most Powerful Internet Metric of All. ” The key thesis was this: if an Internet company could obsess about only one metric, it should be conversion. As such, it is time to pound the table again – conversion is by far the most powerful Internet metric of all.

Metrics 93

Metrics Conversion Internet Acquisition 93

This is going to be BIG.

FEBRUARY 17, 2020

They think that if they just had enough money to market something, it would take off, yet whenever they pitch the app in front of a crowd of 100 people, the conversion and virality rate isn’t proven out at all. 7) Does such a model get you to a long term size that makes sense for venture capital investors (north of $100mm in revenues)?

Startup 117

Startup Viral Venture Capital .Net 117

Austin Startup

AUGUST 2, 2018

Heidi Zak, cofounder of ThirdLove, a company designed to make buying bras quick, easy, and affordable (the second biggest problem facing women behind jeans), walked into a meeting with a venture capital firm with a similar problem. She had amazing metrics, skyrocketing growth, and fantastic margin structure.

Cofounder 48

Cofounder Venture Capital Founder Metrics 48

Both Sides of the Table

JANUARY 10, 2021

I mostly talk about startups, technology & venture capital. The metrics are you scoreboard and your self-talk and your coping strategies (gum not ice cream, pickles not potato chips, 6pm dinner not 8:30pm dinner) are your mental toughness, accountability and hacks for improving performance. I did this for years.

Venture Capital 538

Venture Capital America Portfolio Metrics 538

Feld Thoughts

JANUARY 19, 2017

Over the past few days, I’ve had a similar conversation about reporting tempo with three different people (2 CFOs and 1 CEO). This was an artifact of the last 30 years of venture capital, where VCs often would use the board meeting as the way to primarily engage with the company.

Balance Sheet 70

Balance Sheet Metrics SEC Distribution 70

Cracking the Code

JULY 10, 2009

United apologized, plans to use the video internally to help " change its culture ," and, according to a spokeswoman for the carrier: "We are in conversation with one another to make what happened right." Venture Capital. (3). SaaS business metrics: why are they different? Explore Venture Capital.

Software Review 63

Software Review Technical Review RSS Europe 63

Feld Thoughts

APRIL 17, 2015

I just let them take the conversation where they wanted. The questions were great, but some of what they were hearing about venture capital was scary as s**t. A handful of them had jobs in venture capital firms and we talked about how to be effective as a freshly minted associated. ” Um. Too bad for us.

Venture Capital 70

Venture Capital Silicon Valley New York IPO 70

View from Seed

SEPTEMBER 14, 2021

This post is inspired by some of the earliest conversations I have had with the team here at NextView and since the beginning of my VC journey. Warning – this assumes some basic knowledge of VC performance metrics. Was this a lost decade for venture capital? For a primer, I would recommend refreshing yourself here.

Valuation 156

Valuation Pre-Money Valuation Distribution Early Stage 156

This is going to be BIG.

MAY 28, 2010

Maybe you’re a newly hired entry-level marketer who wants to learn the soup to nuts of everything you need to master to one day become the top VP of Marketing or CMO of a huge venture backed startup. How do I improve my conversion funnels? Tags: First Round Capital Venture Capital & Technology nextNY.

Marketing 106

Marketing Affiliate Venture Capital Cofounder 106