The Equity Kicker

SEPTEMBER 24, 2014

Two developments have changed the face of startup investing in the UK in recent years. The first development is increased capital efficiency. Forward Partners and Crowdcube are both attacking elements of these problems. We recently published a case study of how that played out for our portfolio company Snaptrip.

Early Stage 119

Early Stage Development Team Review Technical Review Software Review 119

David Teten

SEPTEMBER 6, 2018

Just as with any company, the most important issue is the team; see “ How to Negotiate a Partner Role at a Venture Capital or Private Equity Firm “ . 9) Accelerate portfolio company value. Another critical design consideration is your tech stack. 10) Time, market, and exit investment.

Technical Review 60

Technical Review Private Equity Management Cap Table 60

David Teten

SEPTEMBER 6, 2018

Just as with any company, the most important issue is the team; see “ How to Negotiate a Partner Role at a Venture Capital or Private Equity Firm “ . 9) Accelerate portfolio company value. Another critical design consideration is your tech stack. 10) Time, market, and exit investment.

Technical Review 60

Technical Review Private Equity Management Cap Table 60

David Teten

SEPTEMBER 23, 2017

PEVCTech is partnering with Blue Future Partners to run the first large-scale survey of VCs’ technology stack. Johann Kratzer of Blue Future Partners , a fund of funds, observed, “The majority of the hundreds of funds we’ve diligenced rely predominantly on their relationships to source deals. Greylock Partners.

Private Equity 60

Private Equity Venture Capital Equity Technical Review 60

David Teten

SEPTEMBER 6, 2015

She had so much insight to share that we broke the interview into two parts, 1) Corporate Venture Capital and more broadly, 2) How the Fortune 500 Can Buy, Invest and Partner with the Innovation Economy (coming soon). . I recently had a chance to interview Mari Joller , an expert on corporate innovation, on this topic.

Venture Capital 60

Venture Capital Balance Sheet Technical Review Portfolio 60

Steve Blank

JUNE 26, 2015

Companies pursuing innovation can Buy, Build, Partner or use Open Innovation. To move innovation faster, we now have 21 st century tools — Business Model Canvas , Customer Development , Agile Engineering – all adding up to a Lean Startup. Fast forward to today. Result: 10x the number of initiatives in 1/5 the time.

Lean 120

Lean Management Business Model Incubator 120

Steve Blank

SEPTEMBER 14, 2009

Over the same 30 years, Venture Capital firms have honed their skills and strategies to match Wall Streets needs to achieve liquidity for their portfolio companies. Each VC firm/partner has a different spin on what to weigh more.) I find the same still going on with a few firms and partners.&# What Do VC’s Do?

Silicon Valley 235

Silicon Valley IPO Technical Review Venture Capital 235

Both Sides of the Table

NOVEMBER 3, 2009

portfolios. That died with waterfall software development. I’m not even talking about your 12-page Powerpoint presentation that you need to raise venture capital or to talk with potential biz dev partners. Unfortunately this was reinforced by the many conferences that rushed to espouse the benefits of Web 2.0

Business Plan 334

Business Plan AJAX Venture Capital Technical Review 334

Version One Ventures

APRIL 20, 2021

Filebase is very much an API-as-a-marketplace – similar to our portfolio companies Shippo and Patch. Decentralized storage networks are among the most distributed and secure networks in the world, but they can also require custom development and complex integration. It’s not simple. P.S.: Filebase is hiring !

API 100

API Portfolio Distribution Networking 100

Rob Go

SEPTEMBER 9, 2013

Lean Startup Circle Boston – Meetup dedicated to the lean startup and customer development methodology. Custommade – Marketplace for Customer Products (NextView Portfolio Company). GrabCAD – 3D Community and Collaboration (NextView Portfolio Company). Plastiq – Payments (NextView Portfolio Company).

Boston 71

Boston Technical Review Community Cofounder 71

View from Seed

DECEMBER 8, 2015

My partner David has also written about this a bunch. In short, I find that authenticity helps a founder more quickly find product/market fit, recruit and inspire teams, and resonate more deeply with customers. I’ll dig into this a bit further… Founder/Market Fit. For many software products, this can happen relatively quickly.

Product 120

Product Startup Early Stage Seed Capital 120

SoCal CTO

JUNE 9, 2010

When I do a quick mental query of headcount across our entire portfolio of ~30 companies, I think at least 50% and maybe as much as 60% of the entire headcount of our portfolio is in either product or engineering. They’re deep into Customer Development ,” he said. This is a great configuration for a starting team.

Fractional CTO 248

Fractional CTO Startup Venture Capital Cofounder 248

Steve Blank

APRIL 12, 2013

A few foreign VC firms like IDG Capital Partners entered China in the early 1990s. The Renminbi funds have fewer restrictions on what industries the fund can invest in, less regulatory oversight and access to listing a portfolio company in China. Filed under: China , Customer Development , Technology , Venture Capital.

Venture Capital 276

Venture Capital China Offshore SBIR 276

Steve Blank

APRIL 12, 2013

A few foreign VC firms like IDG Capital Partners entered China in the early 1990s. The Renminbi funds have fewer restrictions on what industries the fund can invest in, less regulatory oversight and access to listing a portfolio company in China. Filed under: China , Customer Development , Technology , Venture Capital.

Venture Capital 168

Venture Capital China Offshore SBIR 168

Steve Blank

JULY 15, 2010

VC’s invested their limited partners’ “risk capital” in a portfolio of startups in exchange for illiquid stock. Some of the old-line venture firms have changed their strategy, but some are still locked into last decade’s model while the partners are living off of their management fees and go through cargo cult like rituals.

Venture Capital 303

Venture Capital IPO Liquidity Event Entrepreneur 303

Seeing Both Sides

JULY 11, 2013

Before this occurs, the sales process is a craft or an art - custom-made by the founder or evangelist sales VP. You dive deep into a customer development process, working closely with a few customers who feed you requirements and are willing to trial an imperfect product that is evolving quickly.

Sales 50

Sales Technical Review Software Review B2B 50

www.kernelmag.com

MARCH 8, 2012

Recently, my friend Harjeet Taggar, partner at US seed fund YCombinator, tweeted that, increasingly, the problems faced by start-ups they fund are being addressed by other start-ups. They tend to have a multitude of side projects, Github portfolios and hacking workshops on the go at once. But it’s not only cheaper.

Cofounder 43

Cofounder Technical Cofounder Founder Coder 43

View from Seed

JANUARY 28, 2016

On Wednesday, my partner David wrote about how we’ve been using our office space (and network and other resources) to support pre-seed companies. My partner David wrote yesterday in greater detail about some of our learnings from co-habitating with pre-seed companies. You can find that here.

Cofounder 120

Cofounder Finance Founder Syndicate 120

Steve Blank

MARCH 22, 2009

And you’d like me to do my talk on Customer Development and startups?” “No, we’re the other CIA.” Their VC firm, In-Q-Tel , has been in business for 10 years, and like most VC firms they have an annual event where they show off their new portfolio companies to their limited partners and other VC partners.

Silicon Valley 267

Silicon Valley Thailand RSS Venture Capital 267

Steve Blank

JULY 16, 2009

Meanwhile my partner was in heaven working with his newly hired group of game designers directing and producing our first games. No, not really, but my partner owns the studio and tells me it’s spectacular and everyone will love it. Go spend some time outside the building talking to potential distribution partners.

Silicon Valley 222

Silicon Valley RSS Video San Diego 222

Steve Blank

APRIL 11, 2013

The ultimate goal of Innofund is to get the startups far enough along in technology and market validation so other sources of financial capital (banks, VC’s, corporate partners) will invest. Filed under: China , Customer Development , Technology , Venture Capital. China Customer Development Technology Venture Capital'

Programming 284

Programming Technical Review SBIR China 284

David Teten

OCTOBER 1, 2015

portfolio operator VCs, e.g., Andreessen Horowitz, ff Venture Capital, First Round Capital, Google Ventures. Customer development would be reduced to a single person exercise that could be repeated in parallel dozens of times over, ultimately yielding 30+ companies a year. mentor VCs, e.g., most VCs. Our model at Casual Corp.

Software Developers 60

Software Developers Software Development Software Review Technical Cofounder 60

Steve Blank

APRIL 11, 2013

The ultimate goal of Innofund is to get the startups far enough along in technology and market validation so other sources of financial capital (banks, VC’s, corporate partners) will invest. Filed under: China , Customer Development , Technology , Venture Capital. China Customer Development Technology Venture Capital'

Programming 176

Programming Technical Review SBIR China 176

Steve Blank

JULY 2, 2009

If you were a “with it” VC you needed to have a “Content&# or “Multimedia&# company in your portfolio to impress your limited partners – educational software companies, game companies, or anything that could be described as content and/or Multimedia. Not all VCs are equal.

Silicon Valley 120

Silicon Valley Technical Review RSS Software Review 120

Steve Blank

NOVEMBER 25, 2013

Teams use the Lean Startup toolkit: the Business Model Canvas + Customer Development process + Agile Engineering. These three tools allow startups to focus on the parts of an early stage venture that matter the most: the product, product/market fit, customer acquisition, revenue and cost model, channels and partners.

Oakland 329

Oakland Incubator Lean Metrics 329

Rob Go

JANUARY 28, 2016

On Wednesday, my partner David wrote about how we’ve been using our office space (and network and other resources) to support pre-seed companies. My partner David wrote yesterday in greater detail about some of our learnings from co-habitating with pre-seed companies. You can find that here.

Cofounder 28

Cofounder Finance Founder Syndicate 28

Version One Ventures

MAY 22, 2018

If you find yourself in the fortunate position of being oversubscribed, you’ll likely look to build the best investor base and find the right partners for your journey. Are you looking for help and expertise in hiring, product strategy, customer development, fundraising, coaching, therapy, etc.? What is important to you?

Cap Table 60

Cap Table Cofounder Syndicate Syndication 60

Startup Lessons Learned

DECEMBER 4, 2013

All conference attendees are also invited to two workshops on December 11: one, sponsored by Modus Create , teaches you five Lean Startup planning exercises you can immediately use to add mobile to your enterprise app portfolio; the other, sponsored by Rackspace , focuses on using cloud infrastructure to experiment and innovate rapidly.

Lean 167

Lean San Francisco Conversion Startup 167

A Smart Bear: Startups and Marketing for Geeks

MARCH 11, 2014

They have many, many man-years of development and customer development in them. Why not get a partner? Because saying something like, “My task manager is better than Asana,” or “It’s better than Remember the Milk,” or it’s better than. Edwin: There are a million others.

Technical Cofounder 220

Technical Cofounder Cofounder Software Review Management 220

Up and Running

JULY 14, 2015

After that company failed, I went on and interviewed a bunch of investors that I had met and also some other CEO’s who had failed companies prior to their successes now and asked them, “Why did these companies fail in your portfolio?” You need to go out and do some customer development. Taste the product.

Incubator 60

Incubator Email Startup Oregon 60

www.vccafe.com

MARCH 11, 2013

Steve Blank on Lean Customer Development. Mark Suster GRP Partners Advice. Philippe Botteri, Bessemer Venture Partners. Their Partners all come from industry, where each has held senior level executive positions delivering industry-leading products. Lodestone Innovation Partners (IP) Ltd are spin-out specialists.

Software Review 53

Software Review Technical Review Startup 53