View from Seed

SEPTEMBER 30, 2020

Welcome to the first installment of the NextView Ventures Early Stage Startup Guides. Every stage of building a company comes with a certain set of challenges, and we have written a lot of content around the earliest set of challenges. we’ll cover the following topics: Challenges of Product Development.

Early Stage 308

Early Stage Product Startup Hiring 308

Startup Professionals Musings

SEPTEMBER 13, 2022

The “valley of death” is a common term in the startup world, referring to the difficulty of covering the negative cash flow in the early stages of a startup, before their new product or service is bringing in revenue from real customers. Commit to a major customer. Solicit funds from friends and family.

Intellectual Property 341

Intellectual Property Technical Review Startup Incubator 341

Startup Professionals Musings

JULY 1, 2017

The “valley of death” is a common term in the startup world, referring to the difficulty of covering the negative cash flow in the early stages of a startup, before their new product or service is bringing in revenue from real customers. Commit to a major customer. Set expectations accordingly.

Product Development 177

Product Development Cost Developer Product 177

SoCal CTO

DECEMBER 19, 2012

I was talking with an early-stage founder who has a product vision and wants to get it built. He wanted to get input from me on what he's doing, and he wants to begin to ask developers what it would take to build his product. what format would you and the developer want that in? Founder : Ummm. what do you mean?

Developer 354

Developer Technical Review Fractional CTO Software Review 354

Startup Professionals Musings

APRIL 4, 2022

The “valley of death” is a common term in the startup world, referring to the difficulty of covering the negative cash flow in the early stages of a startup, before their new product or service is bringing in revenue from real customers. Commit to a major customer. Set expectations accordingly.

Intellectual Property 261

Intellectual Property Technical Review Incubator Bootstrapping 261

Austin Startup

NOVEMBER 29, 2017

My primary mission was to learn from the impressive entrepreneurial ecosystem in Austin and draw lessons for developing the entrepreneurship education program for Beetroot Academy. This 4-part story, however, explores the Austin ecosystem based on the 4Cs framework —  culture , capital , customers, and competencies.

Early Stage 54

Early Stage Austin Silicon Valley San Antonio 54

SoCal CTO

APRIL 2, 2012

Hiring seems to be the preferred use of seed funds (by investors and founders), whereas I'd prefer a focus on customer acquisition. These companies are very early-stage and definitely have not shown product/market fit. And in most cases they are not ready to hire developers either. Great post Gabriel!

CTO Hire 205

CTO Hire Technical Cofounder Fractional CTO Los Angeles 205

Startup Professionals Musings

OCTOBER 14, 2022

For early-stage startups, the goodwill component can easily exceed the size of all the financial elements together, or can just as easily mark a company with good financials as not investable. Leadership brand development. In the investment community, these leadership elements are often called “goodwill.”

Technical Review 323

Technical Review Due Diligence Valuation Leadership 323

Startup Professionals Musings

JANUARY 30, 2022

In fact, it’s all about the “focus” required to get early stage technology products across the deadly chasm from early adopters to mainstream customers. Missions and products that are too broad confuse your team, your customers, and potential investors. Product development chasm. Customer support chasm.

Technical Review 375

Technical Review Startup Dilution Early Stage 375

Startup Professionals Musings

DECEMBER 6, 2019

The “valley of death” is a common term in the startup world, referring to the difficulty of covering the negative cash flow in the early stages of a startup, before their new product or service is bringing in revenue from real customers. Commit to a major customer. Solicit funds from friends and family.

Finance 320

Finance Intellectual Property Technical Review Incubator 320

Startup Professionals Musings

OCTOBER 16, 2022

In addition to being the startup entrepreneur, there are other key roles where Boomers can be a force in driving successful startups, in concert with leaders from Gen-X and Gen-Y: Early-stage angel investors. Manage customer service. Software and hardware development architects and designers.

Advisory Board 368

Advisory Board Dividend Angel Investor Cofounder 368

The Startup Magazine

AUGUST 11, 2023

I will tell you brief details about seed stage funding, and deal sourcing on this page, so read the conclusion until the end. The following is a condensed explanation of seed funding: Seed money is a form of early-stage financing that new businesses receive from investors in exchange for a share of ownership in the company.

Seed Stage 132

Seed Stage Technical Review Early Stage Due Diligence 132

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. The second development is SEIS and EIS. I wrote the post below for Crowdcube , one of the UK’s leading equity crowdfuding sites. It went up on their blog yesterday. _.

Early Stage 119

Early Stage Development Team Review Technical Review Software Review 119

Steve Blank

OCTOBER 23, 2023

Some commercial company roles: Business Development or “BD” roles : Case Officers are well suited for business development (BD) roles as its akin to first half of the CIA recruitment cycle. At a large company, sales usually means someone else has done the broad shaping for a potential customer. Here’s what I learned.

Government 212

Government Advisory Board Salary Sales Cycle 212

Steve Blank

NOVEMBER 16, 2009

I was in New York last week with my class at Columbia University and several events made me realize that the Customer Development model needs to better describe its fit with web-based businesses. In it, I got asked a question I often hear: “What if we have a web-based business that doesn’t have revenue or paying customers?

Customer Development 219

Customer Development Web Developer Customer 219

Steve Blank

SEPTEMBER 7, 2009

Finally, I’ll write about how Eric Ries and the Lean Startup concept provided the equivalent model for product development activities inside the building and neatly integrates customer and agile development. Three to six months after first customer ship, if Sales starts missing its numbers, the board gets concerned.

Customer Development 224

Customer Development Developer Customer Silicon Valley 224

SoCal CTO

AUGUST 4, 2011

Almost every day I'm talking to early stage startup founders (see Free Startup CTO Consulting Sessions ) about what they plan to do. Many of these founders have talked with several developers or development firms about their plans. Think of these as the big upfront questions: Who are the customers? Are there specs?

Developer 396

Developer Founder Viral Oauth 396

SoCal CTO

AUGUST 4, 2011

Almost every day I'm talking to early stage startup founders (see Free Startup CTO Consulting Sessions ) about what they plan to do. Many of these founders have talked with several developers or development firms about their plans. Think of these as the big upfront questions: Who are the customers? Are there specs?

Developer 384

Developer Founder Viral Oauth 384

Both Sides of the Table

SEPTEMBER 15, 2022

Median valuations for early-stage valuations tripled from around $20m pre-money valuations to $60m with plenty of deals being prices above $100m. We could talk with customers, meet the entire management team, review financial plans, review customer purchasing cohorts, evaluate the competition, etc.

Technical Review 416

Technical Review Pre-Money Valuation San Francisco Valuation 416

SoCal CTO

OCTOBER 6, 2011

I’m going to take that thought out into the field and validate it with my customers." I’ve spoken to dozens of customers, I have a validated customer persona, built an MVP to test key behavioral hypotheses, and the data doesn’t back what you’re saying." Customer Validation 101. " OR… "You’re wrong.

Customer 227

Customer Fractional CTO Viral Lean 227

Startup Professionals Musings

APRIL 23, 2017

In fact, it’s all about the “focus” required to get early stage technology products across the deadly chasm from early adopters to mainstream customers. Missions and products that are too broad confuse your team, your customers, and potential investors. Product development chasm. Customer support chasm.

Customer 191

Customer Entrepreneur Technical Review Dilution 191

The Startup Magazine

AUGUST 21, 2023

There are a few situations where cutting corners, even in the early stages, can cause big headaches (and significant real money costs) in the future. This means that founders and third party developers and suppliers (including freelancers) need to have assigned the IPR to the business in writing.

Technical Review 117

Technical Review Intellectual Property Due Diligence Early Stage 117

Austin Startup

NOVEMBER 29, 2017

My primary mission was to learn from the impressive entrepreneurial ecosystem in Austin and draw lessons for developing the entrepreneurship education program for Beetroot Academy. This 4-part story, however, explores the Austin ecosystem based on the 4Cs framework —  culture , capital, customers , and competencies.

Early Stage 48

Early Stage Austin Silicon Valley Texas 48

ReadWriteStart

MARCH 3, 2021

Growing a business is always challenging, but it’s often the hardest in the earliest stages of development. Still, you need to find some way to pull your company out of this early-stage quicksand. First, we need to address the core challenges of developing effective early-stage growth strategies for new businesses.

Early Stage 125

Early Stage PPC Retention Churn Rate 125

NZ Entrepreneur

FEBRUARY 27, 2020

Learn about business development with this free e-guide from tech business strategist Flavio Hangarter. While capital to large tech companies is increasing, smaller rounds for early-stage companies is drying up. Capital funding for early-stage companies is drying up and becoming harder to find.

Developer 68

Developer Early Stage Later Stage Acquisition 68

Startup Professionals Musings

DECEMBER 30, 2020

You alone will never find enough hours in a day to keep with all the challenges of sales, support, and scaling the business, in addition to developing and delivering your solution. Your leadership skills do not develop without effort. Planning for the future must be a regular activity, not just an early-stage or once-a-year event.

Intellectual Property 432

Intellectual Property Entrepreneur Technical Review Angel Investor 432

Up and Running

OCTOBER 13, 2021

The world grows more impersonal by the day, and people crave being more than just another number in the customer queue. During the last few years, marketers have turned toward more personalized experiences to win customers over. How to use personalization to improve customer experience. What is personalized marketing?

Customer 118

Customer Marketing Artificial Inteligence Technical Review 118

Steve Blank

JULY 7, 2009

I think customer feedback comes in a very unstructured manner, hence it is difficult to apply an algorithm on it. to make sense of the unstructured feedback received from customers. luck… and as one of Steve Blank’s posts today mentioned, you can’t test hypotheses from within your building. Order Here.

Customer Development 124

Customer Development Developer Silicon Valley Customer 124

Startup Professionals Musings

JUNE 30, 2019

The “valley of death” is a common term in the startup world, referring to the difficulty of covering the negative cash flow in the early stages of a startup, before their new product or service is bringing in revenue from real customers. Commit to a major customer. Set expectations accordingly.

Intellectual Property 219

Intellectual Property Technical Review Startup Incubator 219

Startup Professionals Musings

OCTOBER 15, 2022

Message delivery must be customized for each investor. It takes more than one person to build a business, so the lone entrepreneur, without support from any visible team, advisors, partners, or potential customers, will not attract investors. Effective communication requires real listening, as well as talking.

Intellectual Property 278

Intellectual Property Angel Investor Early Stage Venture Capital 278

Startup Professionals Musings

JANUARY 15, 2020

For early-stage startups, the goodwill component can easily exceed the size of all the financial elements together, or can just as easily mark a company with good financials as not investable. Leadership brand development. In the investment community, these leadership elements are often called “goodwill.”

Valuation 311

Valuation Technical Review Due Diligence Leadership 311

YoungUpstarts

DECEMBER 7, 2017

Two conditions that do matter to your startup’s out-year viability are the cost and length of its product development cycle. Startup founders counting the days until break-even or actively seeking outside capital must focus on streamlining their development cycles. Adequate documentation for Customs clearance. Stay Lean and Low.

Cost 100

Cost Developer Small Business Administration Marketing 100

The Startup Magazine

JANUARY 26, 2022

Designing new hardware products that have a positive impact on customers is no small feat. There are several elements that go into hardware product design that taps an unaddressed customer need, has the customer WOW factor, and succeeds long term in the market. Certification research for new parts.

Design 140

Design Development Team Review Product Technical Review 140

Startup Professionals Musings

JANUARY 18, 2020

In addition to being the startup entrepreneur, there are other key roles where Boomers can be a force in driving successful startups, in concert with leaders from Gen-X and Gen-Y: Early-stage angel investors. Manage customer service. Software and hardware development architects and designers.

Advisory Board 312

Advisory Board Startup Dividend Angel Investor 312

NZ Entrepreneur

JUNE 19, 2023

Douché, herself an experienced business founder and startup mentor before joining Callaghan Innovation, shed light on the educational challenges faced by early stage entrepreneurs.

New Zealand 98

New Zealand Technical Cofounder Early Stage Entrepreneur 98

YoungUpstarts

MAY 21, 2020

Like most entrepreneurs, you’ve probably mapped out the business plan, dreamed up the layout and you’re already snapping up domains and emailing developers with your plan. However, there is a wealth of information and knowledge that should be gained ahead of developing the MVP, which is known as product discovery. How is it done?

Product 264

Product Cofounder Audience Product Development 264

SoCal CTO

OCTOBER 7, 2009

This is a private group of CTOs who are responsible for software development within their companies. They are generally the senior most person responsible for custom software development, database design, database administration, web development, etc. Yes, there are some events around particular technologies.

Southern California 150

Southern California Software Developers Software Development California 150