Steve Blank

APRIL 23, 2014

Most large companies manage three types of innovation: process innovation (making existing products incrementally better), continuous innovation (building on the strength of the company’s current business model but creating new elements) and disruptive innovation (creating products or services that did not exist before.).

Acquisition 332

Acquisition Intellectual Property Silicon Valley Startup 332

Startup Professionals Musings

SEPTEMBER 30, 2013

If you have a product description, that’s necessary, but not sufficient. A CEO who has “been there and done that” is traction, especially if teamed with a financial lead (CFO) and a product lead (CTO). Ship a minimum product now. For a true scientist, the product is never good enough, so it’s never done.

Intellectual Property 281

Intellectual Property Entrepreneur Sweat Equity CTO Hire 281

Both Sides of the Table

SEPTEMBER 22, 2012

After all, growth equals high valuations and loads of venture capital! Instant growth = huge valuation from follow-on investors = big VC mark-up on our quarterly reports = LP interest. And I’ve talked openly about why many services businesses should not feel product envy and chase the commensurate growth rates.

Silicon Valley 390

Silicon Valley Venture Capital Startup Technical Review 390

Startup Professionals Musings

AUGUST 24, 2016

Value factors include your related product breadth and depth, relationships with thought leaders, key vendors, and large potential customers. Building the product may be the easy part of your startup challenge. The CTO of many technical startups was the original founder. Experience and connections in your business area.

Equity 120

Equity Cofounder Technical Cofounder Intellectual Property 120

Startup Professionals Musings

AUGUST 31, 2012

If you have a product description, that’s necessary, but not sufficient. A CEO who has “been there and done that” is traction, especially if teamed with a financial lead (CFO) and a product lead (CTO). Ship a minimum product now. For a true scientist, the product is never good enough, so it’s never done.

Intellectual Property 260

Intellectual Property Sweat Equity CTO Hire Fractional CTO 260

SoCal CTO

JUNE 9, 2010

Continuing my series of posts that I’ve been collecting that live at the intersection of Startups and being a Startup CTO : Startup CTO Top 30 Posts for April 16 Great Startup Posts from March here are the top posts from May 2010. Valuation is an important aspect of VC deal terms, and a major determinant of your ultimate outcome.

Fractional CTO 248

Fractional CTO Startup Venture Capital Cofounder 248

Startup Professionals Musings

JUNE 17, 2011

If you have a product description, that’s necessary, but not sufficient. A CEO who has “been there and done that” is traction, especially if teamed with a financial lead (CFO) and a product lead (CTO). Ship a minimum product now. For a true scientist, the product is never good enough, so it’s never done.

Intellectual Property 253

Intellectual Property Sweat Equity CTO Hire Fractional CTO 253

Agile VC

APRIL 17, 2011

Kayak was started here in my backyard of Boston… co-founder & CTO Paul English and the product/engineering team is based here in Concord MA. 5) High Productivity: Kayak had 148 employees at the end of 2010. Post-money valuation probably no higher than $12M (2). Pre-money valuation was approx.

Pre-Money Valuation 113

Pre-Money Valuation Liquidation Preference Dividend Common Stock 113

Startup Professionals Musings

MAY 22, 2010

If you have a product description, that’s necessary, but not sufficient. A CEO who has “been there and done that” is traction, especially if teamed with a financial lead (CIO) and a product lead (CTO). Ship a minimum product now. For a true scientist, the product is never good enough, so it’s never done.

Intellectual Property 222

Intellectual Property Sweat Equity CTO Hire Fractional CTO 222

www.entrepreneur.com

SEPTEMBER 22, 2011

Entrepreneur Homepage Startups Starting a Business Home How-To Guides Startup Basics Business Ideas Business Planning Startup Financing Success Stories Home-Based Business Starting a Business Play Video How to Take a New Product from Just an Idea to a Business (Video). Sweat equity is just one component of early-stage valuation.

Sweat Equity 55

Sweat Equity Equity Fractional CTO CTO 55

Steve Blank

FEBRUARY 10, 2016

Your product and company vision needs to match your appetite for funding. He stressed that your product and company vision needs to match your appetite for funding: One thing that we learned very early on was, have a plan for fund-raising. … And know that just because a venture failed doesn’t mean that you’re a failure.

Silicon Valley 120

Silicon Valley Ohio Columbus Entrepreneur 120

Gust

OCTOBER 20, 2011

In 2011, the valuation of pre-revenue, start-up companies is typically in the range of $1.5–$2.5 Scorecard Valuation Methodology. This method compares the target company to typical angel-funded startup ventures and adjusts the average valuation of recently funded companies in the region to establish a pre-money valuation of the target.

Valuation 146

Valuation Pre-Money Valuation Intellectual Property Technical Review 146

Both Sides of the Table

MARCH 22, 2011

I focused on relationships, connections, human bond, idea generation, testing products and also I generally tried to be available for others. “Maybe,&# says Naval, “Certainly valuations are creepy up quickly in all stages of deals. I had scheduled dinners every night with small groups of people. I stayed out late.

Technical Cofounder 294

Technical Cofounder Austin Hosting Cofounder 294

Up and Running

SEPTEMBER 5, 2017

I care because by funding a product, you are giving voice to the idea that yes, it probably is necessary—and if we continue to ignore the contributions of women to the entrepreneurial space, we’re essentially concluding that their ideas hold less value. An incompatibility of product with venture capitalist.

Venture Capital 82

Venture Capital Lean Cofounder Technical Review 82

www.avc.com

SEPTEMBER 22, 2011

This is NOT your 409a valuation (we call that "fair value"). This "best value" can be the valuation on the last round of financing. The third bracket are employees who are in the key functions like engineering, product, marketing, etc. Let's say your VP Product is making $175k per year.

Equity 64

Equity Employee CTO Hire Fractional CTO 64

Startup Lessons Learned

SEPTEMBER 22, 2008

You get increasing growth by optimizing the viral loop , and you get revenue as a side-effect, assuming you have even the most anemic monetization scheme baked into your product. Paid - if your product monetizes customers better than your competitors, you have the opportunity to use your lifetime value advantage to drive growth.

San Francisco 167

San Francisco CPA SEM CTO Hire 167

The Startup Toolkit

AUGUST 29, 2012

You don’t need to collect the full set (tech, industry, product, customer, etc). If the founding team is non-technical and you can’t figure out whether you are being screwed by your developers or whether your potential new CTO is amazing, a tech advisor can help by joining you in interviews and reviewing commits.

Technical Review 38

Technical Review CTO Hire Cap Table Software Review 38

Scalable Startup

AUGUST 26, 2014

As further market proof of the power of Drupal in the enterprise, Acquia has received about $100 million in funding in the past 3 months, which puts its valuation at over $1 billion. Google has optimized this open source to freemium model in almost all of its products. Because they are open source.

Founder 42

Founder Los Angeles PHP Open Source 42

www.inc.com

SEPTEMBER 24, 2011

Back in 1997, Randy Parker was staring at a blank whiteboard, wondering where hed find the money to hire the employees and consultants he needed to build his new product. "We We had a rough time early on," says Parker, president and chief technology officer of Roving Software Inc. , Consult your lawyer for details.

Fractional CTO 40

Fractional CTO Equity Iowa Technical Cofounder 40

Both Sides of the Table

NOVEMBER 4, 2009

If you’re thinking about joining as the director of marketing, product management manager, senior architect, international business development lead, etc. Let’s assume that the company raised it at a normal VC valuation, which means it gave up 33% of the company and thus $5 million / 33% = $15 million post-money valuation.

Stock Options 418

Stock Options Stock Liquidation Preference Option Pool 418

Both Sides of the Table

MAY 24, 2021

Case in point, Procore just went public and is trading at an $11 billion valuation. sold to Disney for $670 million and since our first investment was at < $10 million valuation we did quite well. And the third founder, Colin Kelley , remains an important contributor & CTO of the company. Instagram selling to Facebook.

Venture Capital 363

Venture Capital LP Valuation Later Stage 363

SoCal CTO

OCTOBER 5, 2010

Great content again in September that meets at the intersection of startups, technology, product and being a Startup CTO. Why Product Managers Wear Sneakers - Steve Blank , September 2, 2010 I gave a talk last night to the Silicon Valley Product Management Association. Except they won’t be called Product Managers.

Technology 191

Technology Product San Francisco CTO Hire 191

Steve Blank

OCTOBER 24, 2017

Twenty-five years ago, to go public you had to sell stuff – not just acquire users or have freemium products. People had to actually pay you for your product. This required a repeatable and scalable sales process, which required a professional sales staff and a product stable enough that customers wouldn’t return it.

Founder 252

Founder Technical Review CTO Hire IPO 252

SoCal CTO

MAY 19, 2010

By way of background for the question, there’s a great post by Bob Aholt, a Pasadena Angel: An Angel Investor’s Thoughts on Valuation. Bob is heavily focused on ROI (and team/product). The largest number of exit transactions today are in the under $30-million valuation range. But it seems like Bob would be a candidate.

Hockey Stick 205

Hockey Stick NPV IRR Valuation 205

SoCal CTO

MAY 31, 2008

and how much is enough to build solid traction to drive the right valuation to go for large money? how much product development is enough to get in the market and start getting feedback and what should I focus on in the early stages of the product? how much 'traction' is enough for investors? Who should I get involved?

Los Angeles 150

Los Angeles Early Stage Valuation Product Development 150

The Next Web

OCTOBER 7, 2013

In a CTO Salary and Equity trends report by Safire Partners, it finds non-founder equity compensation to settle out below 2 percent. As an aside for founders, there is an interesting approach on how to arrive at equity offers outlined by Fred Wilson that may be worth checking out once there is a sense of valuation.

Engineer 129

Engineer Dilution Option Pool Vesting 129

The Next Web

SEPTEMBER 24, 2013

Livingston returned for his fourth and fifth intern spells with RIM, occupying a “really amazing” position within the consumer product management team. This was at a time when consumer was completely dismissed by RIM — enterprise was the main focus — so I got to work with all of the individual product managers on all of their products.

Entrepreneur 167

Entrepreneur CTO Hire Startup Mobile 167

Duct Tape Marketing

DECEMBER 14, 2017

He started Stackify to solve the biggest challenge he had as the CTO of VinSolutions, so Matt, thanks for joining me. Some new partners coming in, and at the end of it, it was really myself and another gentleman named Mike who was the CEO and I was basically the CTO and I was in charge of the product. Matt Watson: Yeah.

Kansas City 39

Kansas City CTO Hire Las Vegas Software Developers 39

The Next Web

DECEMBER 3, 2013

Accelerators are often exciting, collaborative and deeply rewarding incubators that help you to grow your startup, develop a product or idea, and find follow-on investors. Show that your product already has traction. Be realistic with your valuation. If you’re asked to give a valuation for your startup, be honest.

Startup 153

Startup Cofounder Valuation Dilution 153

thinkspace.com

SEPTEMBER 7, 2012

David Crow writes in his article “ Founders versus Early Employees “, “Remember the goal is to incent early employees to have an emotional ownership of the product and company they are building. After all, I essentially created the product. already some initial funding does the company already have a valuation?

Equity 62

Equity Employee Founder CTO Hire 62

This is going to be BIG.

MAY 21, 2010

For example: Raising money just a mere weeks before you launch the product. Having a technically complex product without a CTO. Having a completed enterprise product without a single sale. But the difference between a launched product and one that isn’t launched? The risk taken off the table there is minimal.

Hockey Stick 97

Hockey Stick Valuation Venture Capital Dilution 97

SoCal CTO

JANUARY 5, 2011

Some really great stuff in 2010 that aims to help startups around product, technology, business models, etc. 500 Hats , February 1, 2010 When to Use Facebook Connect – Twitter Oauth – Google Friend Connect for Authentication? First Principles.

Silicon Valley 378

Silicon Valley Startup Term Sheet Venture Capital 378

BeyondVC

APRIL 3, 2006

One of the discussion groups that I led with Simon Levene (heads up Corp Dev in Europe for Yahoo and Yair Goldfinger (founder and CTO of ICQ and Dotomi) was titled "Are Internet VCs Dead." Google’s expertise seems to be buying engineers, many times before a product is even launched.

Technical Cofounder 60

Technical Cofounder CTO Hire Fractional CTO 60

www.quora.com

JANUARY 16, 2011

It is interesting to see the emphasis that both Twitter and Quora have put on product design, not just engineering. It is also true that open source and the commoditization of many technologies has put much more emphasis on experience. But in the world following Jonathan Ive, designers are finally getting their due.

Technical Review 51

Technical Review Startup CTO Hire Cofounder 51