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. This post looks at the implementation details of HTML 5 video. Great stuff.

Acquisition 150

Acquisition Cofounder Technical Cofounder Cost 150

Both Sides of the Table

AUGUST 27, 2012

” He gives a nice little 6-minute video interview on Bloomberg reinforcing these ideas. No wonder there’s a growth in video game companies and photo apps. As I point out in my video. Most large companies (tech or otherwise) have two functions that make it hard to drive the most successful early-stage innovation.

Silicon Valley 299

Silicon Valley Technical Review Early Stage Cofounder 299

ReadWriteStart

JUNE 1, 2020

The primary source of your funds should be your paying customers, i.e., your business should generate enough revenues and profits to fund the growth and expansion. Any custom manufactured IoT device would require software development as well as hardware customization. Early-stage. Growth and expansion stages.

Startup 150

Startup Entrepreneur Elevator Pitch Seed Stage 150

Software By Rob

DECEMBER 20, 2016

The emails I’m highlighting here are easy to set up and pack a punch – ideal for early-stage products. Convert more trials into paying customers with trial extension emails. Ideally, you (/your app) realize on day 15 that Bob is failing in his trial, e.g. by comparing their usage of the app to successful customers.

Early Stage 27

Early Stage Email Fractional CTO Churn Rate 27

Software By Rob

DECEMBER 20, 2016

The emails I’m highlighting here are easy to set up and pack a punch – ideal for early-stage products. Convert more trials into paying customers with trial extension emails. Ideally, you (/your app) realize on day 15 that Bob is failing in his trial, e.g. by comparing their usage of the app to successful customers.

Early Stage 27

Early Stage Email Fractional CTO Churn Rate 27

Steve Blank

JULY 7, 2009

The relevant part starts about 4:30 into the video (wait for it to download.) 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. Reply Leave a Reply Click here to cancel reply. Order Here.

Customer Development 124

Customer Development Developer Silicon Valley Customer 124

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

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

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. Think of these as the big upfront questions: Who are the customers? Video (and Audio) - if you have video, are you hosting it or can we use YouTube, Vimeo? Tell me about the business.

Developer 396

Developer Founder Viral Oauth 396

YoungUpstarts

APRIL 16, 2018

Apps popularly started out as a means for communication (call, SMS), which then evolved to a platform for content consumption in the early stages of data (news, MMS and YouTube), and finally to what we now define as demand services (food delivery, transport and e-commerce). Satisfying the Demand for Safer Experiences. What’s next?

SMS 143

SMS Japan Asia China 143

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. Think of these as the big upfront questions: Who are the customers? Video (and Audio) - if you have video, are you hosting it or can we use YouTube, Vimeo? Tell me about the business.

Developer 384

Developer Founder Viral Oauth 384

Both Sides of the Table

APRIL 8, 2010

Very few of them are started, in my experience, by sales people and very few early stage companies really understand sales. They work through ROI calculations with customers. a) they don’t tend to make great heads of sales departments and b) they aren’t the people you want early in your company.

Early Stage 350

Early Stage Startup Sales Campaign 350

Both Sides of the Table

NOVEMBER 27, 2011

There are very few people in Silicon Valley who have such a precise grasp on what defines success of early-stage startup companies than Eric Ries. 57: 00 How do you rectify company mission and customer demand. And there are very few people who so consistently exceed my expectations when I hear them speak. 48:30 Vanity metrics.

Silicon Valley 301

Silicon Valley Lean Social Media PR 301

Startup Professionals Musings

DECEMBER 6, 2014

Early in the relationship, every investor instinctively looks for some key indicators of the ability to get results, like the following: Communicates well in every business medium. Some entrepreneurs love to talk and produce videos, but hate to write anything down. Message delivery must be customized for each investor.

Angel Investor 268

Angel Investor Intellectual Property Entrepreneur Early Stage 268

Both Sides of the Table

NOVEMBER 14, 2017

There is nothing more pure than building a product, putting it out in the world and seeing paying customers using your product and in some cases loving it. As an early-stage VC I love this phase. How long does it take me to pay back my original customer acquisition costs? How profitable is my product or service?

Operations 286

Operations New York City Technical Review Startup 286

Steve Blank

MAY 28, 2009

Customer/Market Risk Versus Invention Risk One day I was having lunch with a VC sharing what I learned from my students. Our firm has a portfolio of companies across a broad range of markets and the way we look at it is pretty simple – the deals fall into two types: those with customer/market risk and those with invention risk.”

Vertical 144

Vertical Silicon Valley Marketing Customer 144

ConversionXL

JANUARY 18, 2022

Muun found a market need but failed to compete with bigger names that provided customers with authoritative content and resources. One neglected its positioning by failing to target the biggest pain point, and the other failed to build a brand that its customers could trust above the other major players. Image Source.

Marketing 110

Marketing Product Audience Equity 110

Both Sides of the Table

APRIL 13, 2011

If you have time check out the video (or download on iTunes – Episode 27 - and listen at the gym or on your commute!). And especially if you are dealing with early stage firms where partners might have different areas of specialization but they might have a lot of connective tissue across things.

Technical Review 288

Technical Review Venture Capital Silicon Valley Software Review 288

Startup Lessons Learned

APRIL 14, 2009

Lessons Learned by Eric Ries Tuesday, April 14, 2009 Validated learning about customers Would you rather have $30,000 or $1 million in revenues for your startup? In an early-stage startup especially, revenue is not an important goal in and of itself. The problem stems from selling each customer a custom one-time product.

Customer 167

Customer San Francisco Lean Hockey Stick 167

The Next Web

DECEMBER 4, 2013

Locate your core customers, and prioritize your efforts to reach them where they are. Building your brand presence on specialized outlets holds immense value for your business – especially in early stages. Its product announcement and teaser video have been shared heavily in anticipation of the product’s release.

Social Media 158

Social Media Media Viral Startup 158

Both Sides of the Table

SEPTEMBER 10, 2021

We back very early stage companies and work alongside executive teams as their build their teams, launch their products, announce their companies and raise their first downstream capital rounds. The biggest change for us in early-stage investing is that we now need to commit earlier. each with partners as the lead.

Pre-Money Valuation 471

Pre-Money Valuation Valuation Venture Capital Early Stage 471

ConversionXL

MARCH 17, 2021

And while this was a good start, a significant position of these companies were early-stage startups. Many customers think about the solution or service as a fancy add-on, but not as a part of operational processes. The next step in our research was talking to customers of our company Fullfunnel.io

B2B 150

B2B Sales Cycle Belgium IP 150

View from Seed

JULY 13, 2022

RH: Who are your customers? CN: Subscription businesses, b uy now pay laters, a ny business that transacts on a recurring basis with the customers. RH: What’s your favorite thing about being an early-stage founder? RH: What’s your favorite thing about being an early-stage founder? And your least?

Early Stage 156

Early Stage Cofounder San Francisco Philadelphia 156

ConversionXL

FEBRUARY 3, 2022

A marketing growth strategy goes deeper into customer relationships to uncover opportunities that engage, activate, and retain. This philosophy comes from The Lean Startup methodology , which relies on testing hypotheses to better understand your customers’ pain points and goals. Your customers want different things.

Marketing 115

Marketing Framework Metrics Channel 115

Both Sides of the Table

JULY 12, 2011

He and I once took different sides of an debate about whether “VC signaling&# in early-stage deals is a serious problem or not. I think you’ll really enjoy this video , but as always I have summary notes for those with less time. I’ve also found him to not be dogmatic either. West Coast”).

Technical Review 281

Technical Review Artificial Inteligence Cofounder API 281

Both Sides of the Table

SEPTEMBER 26, 2015

I want to fail because I backed an extraordinary entrepreneur with a super-ambitious project and we were just wrong about market timing, customer adoption, competition, regulation or similar. And they have started cranking out super interesting videos. ” I revealed it but you have to watch the video.

Venture Capital 150

Venture Capital Detroit Early Stage Partner 150

Both Sides of the Table

SEPTEMBER 25, 2010

I talked about this in my social proof post where I gave some suggestions about how to get the early guys off of the fence. Most early-stage entrepreneurs who have worked with me (either as an angel or as a seed VC) know that I don’t rely at all on the social proof of other investors. When I’m in, I’m in.

Finance 286

Finance Term Sheet Technical Review Warrant 286

Both Sides of the Table

DECEMBER 17, 2009

But then your customes start using your products, your competitors come out with new offerings and your business partners decide to launch a similar product rather than working with you. We all know Flip Video cameras by Pure Digital. Did you know that their original product wasn’t a video camera? Geni.com beget Yammer.

Entrepreneur 291

Entrepreneur Term Sheet Early Stage Affiliate 291

YoungUpstarts

JULY 31, 2019

Ten years ago, Ward Cunningham published a Youtube video that introduced the concept of “technical debt” to the world. by Anish Sebastian and Juan Pablo Segura, co-founders of Babyscripts. Many would argue that even the most theoretically scalable products in healthcare, i.e

Cofounder 118

Cofounder Burn Rate Technical Cofounder Seed Capital 118

Startup Professionals Musings

AUGUST 25, 2023

These are necessary to attract customers, investors, and give you a line of defense with competitors. Test your plan to get feedback from real customers. Use social media or reward target customers to volunteer for a feedback session. I can’t emphasize enough how important a name can be.

Intellectual Property 245

Intellectual Property Social Media Angel Investor Metrics 245

Startup Lessons Learned

SEPTEMBER 14, 2008

Lessons Learned by Eric Ries Sunday, September 14, 2008 How to listen to customers, and not just the loud people Frequency is more important than talking to the "right" customers, especially early on. Youll know when the person youre talking to is not a potential customer - they just wont understand what youre saying.

San Francisco 131

San Francisco Customer Lean Continuous Deployment 131

Steve Blank

MARCH 3, 2015

Over my career as a serial entrepreneur I observed that since the late 1990s, no early-stage Silicon Valley investor had used business plans to screen investments. Traction and evidence from customers were what investors were looking for – even in “slow” sectors like healthcare and energy. And there it was. Berkeley-wide.

Business Plan 120

Business Plan Silicon Valley Saudi Arabia Lean 120

Both Sides of the Table

JULY 25, 2010

Rincon is part of the new breed of Seed Stage VCs and with the leadership of Jim Andelman has charted out the most authentic early-stage investment strategy in Southern California. Any SoCal entrepreneur raising early-stage money should put Rincon on their short list. So what are you waiting for?

Silicon Valley 293

Silicon Valley Technical Review Southern California Angel Investor 293

SoCal CTO

MARCH 18, 2010

Vince: On the consulting side we are working with a unique social network, a new television network and some original video content businesses. Here’s a series I did for CBS last year - [link] An some some videos along the same lines - [link] Tony: Some great content in there. Example here: [link].

Los Angeles 225

Los Angeles Revenue Southern California Social Network 225

Up and Running

DECEMBER 11, 2019

If you’re not sure if you really need to write a business plan, watch our video and read about some of the reasons why having a business plan is important. . Spend X time doing market research (or getting customer feedback). Set micro-goals. Maybe you make a to-do list, maybe you write them out on post-it notes.

Business Plan 95

Business Plan Lean Software Review Early Stage 95

Both Sides of the Table

JULY 27, 2014

What you’ll see if you watch the video is an unscripted and unfiltered look into how Scott Kupor & I see some of the changes and challenges of the venture industry. Here is the video of the presentation that I gave that preceded our debate. Each of the two videos is about 10 minutes long. tl;dr version.

Valuation 309

Valuation Pre-Money Valuation Later Stage Non-Compete 309

YoungUpstarts

MAY 11, 2016

While the nuts and bolts of their business may still live on their primary website, content like blogs, video, photos, and other social media are almost always hosted somewhere else. Complementary domains give businesses the ability to maintain more control over their brands and create a better experience for their customers.

SEM 100

SEM Los Angeles Software Review Naming 100