Steve Blank

OCTOBER 24, 2017

— Unremarked and unheralded, the balance of power between startup CEOs and their investors has radically changed: IPOs/M&A without a profit (or at times revenue) have become the norm. In the 20th century tech companies and their investors made money through an Initial Public Offering (IPO). Hire a CEO to Go Public.

Founder 263

Founder Technical Review CTO Hire IPO 263

View from Seed

JUNE 13, 2019

I know some of the investors in Chewy prior to the PetSmart acquisition, but I am not a shareholder nor do I intend to purchase shares in the IPO. Embedded Growth From Existing Customers. One of the key features of Chewy’s business is the recurring nature of customer purchases. For example, Chewy’s 2015 cohort (e.g.

Leadership 214

Leadership .Net Revenue Acquisition 214

Ben's Blog

AUGUST 31, 2020

IN THIS EDITION Fintech products ease more Americans into the stock market In defense of the IPO, and how to improve it What’s inside your (mobile) bank? These products encourage all individuals to participate in and have a point of view on investing, rather than operating under the assumption that it’s strictly for the wealthy.

IPO 36

IPO Stock Software Review API 36

Startup Professionals Musings

SEPTEMBER 12, 2014

The resulting entity will gain complementary skills, economies of scale, new customer sets, and hopefully a larger growth opportunity. IPO – public company initial public stock offering. The buyer has the challenge of scaling the business, and managing all the operational growth requirements. You can kick-off your next startup.

Exit Strategy 289

Exit Strategy Entrepreneur IPO Startup 289

YoungUpstarts

OCTOBER 23, 2017

The combination of services and infrastructure traditionally housed under one roof – underwriting, research, sales & trading, supported by large back office operations, and monitored by compliance systems – will remain at the sector’s core. At least for investment banks the answer is not so clear cut. Underwriting.

Technical Review 154

Technical Review Artificial Inteligence Software Review IPO 154

Agile VC

JUNE 13, 2019

I know some of the investors in Chewy prior to the PetSmart acquisition, but I am not a shareholder nor do I intend to purchase shares in the IPO. Embedded Growth From Existing Customers. One of the key features of Chewy’s business is the recurring nature of customer purchases. For example, Chewy’s 2015 cohort (e.g.

Leadership 100

Leadership .Net Revenue Acquisition 100

YoungUpstarts

JANUARY 10, 2018

Few buyers will get excited about a company currently operating at a loss. You’ll find exceptions to this rule, like Snapchat, which was operating at a loss at its IPO, when it experienced high initial trading prices due to its huge popularity and untapped monetization capabilities. Profile Your Customer Base.

Valuation 145

Valuation Technical Review Exit Strategy Metrics 145

The Startup Magazine

FEBRUARY 8, 2022

By providing a contactless mobile payment interface, millions of unbanked customers can accept payments using NFC technology. McLaren Technology Acquisition Corp, the SPAC focused on fintech recently closed a $ 201 million IPO at NASDAQ. Sajan was responsible for the company’s growth and acquisitions.

Artificial Inteligence 167

Artificial Inteligence Technical Review Global Technology 167

Hunter Walker

DECEMBER 11, 2023

He’s founder and CEO of Greenhouse , a ‘hiring operating system’ for companies which spans recruiting and onboarding tools for enterprises and SMEs. It might ‘exit’ again at a later point (anything from a sale to an IPO), but it’s no long dependent on VC funding.

Private Equity 78

Private Equity Equity DC Leveraged Buyout 78

Agile VC

NOVEMBER 9, 2015

Square filed its S-1 several weeks ago and is now in the middle of its IPO road show process. A bunch of articles came out saying that Square had “priced” their IPO below last round and this was something terrible ranging from the bursting of a tech bubble to the coming of the apocalypse. Gross Margins / Net Revenue.

IPO 165

IPO .Net Revenue Acquisition 165

VC Adventure

AUGUST 31, 2017

So no surprise that when River Cities Capital released an overview of SaaS operating and valuation benchmarks, I hung on every juicy detail. They took the 92 public SaaS companies and analyzed their key operating metrics. At IPO only 7 of 39 companies that have gone publics since 2013 had positive EBITDA. on average.

IPO 113

IPO Vertical Balance Sheet Valuation 113

Steve Blank

APRIL 23, 2014

VCs like acquisitions as much as IPOs because the acquiring companies often can rationalize paying large multiples over the current valuation of the startup. A business model is all the parts of a strategy necessary to deliver a product to a customer and make money from it. Predicting Success or Failure of an Acquisition.

Acquisition 333

Acquisition Intellectual Property Silicon Valley Startup 333

Both Sides of the Table

DECEMBER 27, 2011

I find it amusing when a journalist writes an article about a prominent startup (either privately held or preparing for an IPO) and decries that, “They’re not even profitable!” If you had huge customer growth but just didn’t focus on revenue that’s a different story. Operating Costs.

Startup 418

Startup Revenue Technical Review Flash 418

Growthink Blog

DECEMBER 27, 2017

Customer Analysis Goal of customer analysis section: Convey the needs of your customers and show how your company’s products/services satisfy those needs. Define your customers precisely. How many customers fit the definition? Where are these customers located? Identify the needs of these customers.

Venture Capital 129

Venture Capital Business Plan Technical Review Private Placement 129

Startup Lessons Learned

MAY 4, 2021

A few weeks ago, Coinbase , which facilitates buying, storing and purchasing cryptocurrency and also operates a cryptocurrency exchange, went public. It was one of the year's most successful IPOs so far, and has been heralded as a "landmark moment" for cryptocurrency's entrance into mainstream investing. And I remember I just.

IPO 113

IPO Cofounder Technical Review Government 113

VC Cafe

JANUARY 15, 2024

With the IPO window closed, growth funding severely dwindled and multiples down as a result of the public market, unicorns face tough choices in 2024. With limited options for liquidity (M&A or IPO) and significantly less growth capital, unicorns face an uncertain future. trillion, according to CB Insights.

IPO 88

IPO Valuation Private Equity 88

View from Seed

MARCH 24, 2021

Put differently, it’s amazing how crappy or bare bones products or services are when they start to show meaningful adoption and wildly happy customers.” Advice on How to Make Your First Analytics Hire “Analytics is about designing, reporting, and leveraging operating metrics to aid strategic and functional decision-making.

Seed Stage 177

Seed Stage Hiring IPO Analytics 177

Steve Blank

MAY 9, 2017

For life sciences it was the Genentech IPO in 1980 that proved to investors that life science startups could make them a ton of money. In the 20 th century startups I was part of, the time to build a first product release was measured in years as we turned out the founder’s vision of what customers wanted. The founders.

Restful 235

Restful Silicon Valley Puerto Rico San Jose 235

Steve Blank

SEPTEMBER 14, 2009

On top of all this it was considered very bad form not to have at least four additional consecutive quarters of profits after an IPO.) In this time, building a successful business meant building a company that had paying customers quarter after quarter. They taught you about customers, markets and profits.

Silicon Valley 230

Silicon Valley IPO Technical Review Venture Capital 230

Startup Lessons Learned

NOVEMBER 8, 2008

Lessons Learned by Eric Ries Saturday, November 8, 2008 What is customer development? But too often when its time to think about customers, marketing, positioning, or PR, we delegate it to "marketroids" or "suits." Many of us are not accustomed to thinking about markets or customers in a disciplined way.

Customer Development 168

Customer Development Developer San Francisco Customer 168

BeyondVC

MARCH 21, 2017

As we move to a cloud-only world with instant-on capabilities and low friction in onboarding customers, why does professional services revenue keep increasing year over year for these enterprise cloud businesses. While the growth for each company is quite amazing, two thoughts jumped out at me. Same goes for why on-prem.

IPO 88

IPO Cloud Azure Revenue 88

Startup Professionals Musings

APRIL 27, 2016

The resulting entity will gain complementary skills, economies of scale, new customer sets, and hopefully a larger growth opportunity. IPO – public company initial public stock offering. The buyer has the challenge of scaling the business, and managing all the operational growth requirements. You can kick-off your next startup.

Equity 120

Equity Exit Strategy Private Equity Startup 120

Startup Professionals Musings

NOVEMBER 6, 2020

It seems that most of you entrepreneurs I meet in my role as business advisor are convinced that starting a new business requires equity investors, exponential growth, and a plan to go public via IPO. If your passion is customers, you definitely will be happier as a lifestyle entrepreneur. Use flexibility to match your lifestyle.

Small Business 311

Small Business Small Business Administration SBA Equity 311

Startup Professionals Musings

JULY 16, 2023

Most retail and commercial banks offer investment services to their customers, but these services have nothing to do with investing in your business. So unless your business is well established, and ready to sell or go public (Initial Public Offering - IPO), you should steer clear of investment banks.

Early Stage 182

Early Stage Silicon Valley Private Equity Initial Public Offering 182

Both Sides of the Table

JUNE 22, 2011

And this is happening in mezzanine (pre-IPO) deals as well. And post IPO deals, although these tend to correct more quickly. If everybody is over-paying for early-to-mid stage deals you’d imagine that these all need to feed into a frenzied M&A and IPO market that will garner big returns for these risks investors are taking.

Saudi Arabia 309

Saudi Arabia Valuation IPO Technical Review 309

Startup Professionals Musings

OCTOBER 26, 2020

Most retail and commercial banks offer investment services to their customers, but these services have nothing to do with investing in your business. So unless your business is well established, and ready to sell or go public (Initial Public Offering - IPO), you should steer clear of investment banks.

Silicon Valley 362

Silicon Valley Private Equity Initial Public Offering Term Sheet 362

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? This may sound crazy, coming as it does from an advocate of c harging customers for your product from day one. They are gaining valuable customer data.

Customer 167

Customer San Francisco Lean Hockey Stick 167

Berkonomics

JANUARY 12, 2023

Management undertakes a simple exercise of calculating the increased profitability of shutting down all R&D, sales and subordinate operations, and universally notes with shock the high net profit that results – from shutting down all operations except customer service to recurring customers (as in software support operations.).

Revenue 118

Revenue Cloud IPO .Net 118

Startup Lessons Learned

MAY 31, 2019

Scott Kupor is the managing partner at Andreessen Horowitz, where he’s responsible for all operational aspects of running the firm. It’s meant to support and grow a business until an “exit” in the form of an IPO, a merger or acquisition, or in less than ideal scenarios, a company shutdown. What about in the public markets?

Lean 108

Lean Venture Capital Conversion IPO 108

The Startup Magazine

DECEMBER 19, 2021

Source Meridian’s ability to help its healthcare client’s pivot to the remote digital model at the outset of the global health crisis allowed for the rapid innovation needed by providers to rise above the occasion and supersede demand by providing US customers with geographical convenience paired with an innovative edge.

Colombia 167

Colombia United States IPO Demand 167

Agile VC

MARCH 8, 2012

Tech IPOs Are Back – So Now What? Three of the five “blockbuster” tech IPOs I predicted have happened (LinkedIn, Groupon, Zynga) and the biggest of all (Facebook) has filed and will likely go public within the next 90 days. I see several dynamics at work in today’s IPO markets. March 8, 2012.

IPO 100

IPO Silicon Valley Revenue Seed Stage 100

BeyondVC

APRIL 4, 2018

Look at the Dropbox IPO which priced above its initial value and came out white hot at the end of one of the worst weeks in stock market performance. Every digital transformation starts and ends with the customer,” Salesforce CEO Marc Beniof f said in a statement.

Cloud 60

Cloud Agile Architecture Azure 60

Both Sides of the Table

JULY 26, 2015

While all of this is going on you are trying to get customers to use your product, enterprises to sign contracts that don’t leave you with unlimited liabilities and landlords to take you in with limited deposits or guarantees. And it will make you a significantly better negotiator and operator. We live in a Hobbesian world.

Oauth 150

Oauth Software Review Technical Review IPO 150

Agile VC

FEBRUARY 2, 2012

Facebook S-1: The Most Anticipated IPO in a Decade. Here’s my first look at Facebook viewed through the lens of their IPO filing. who derive a meaningful chunk of their revenue from operating ad networks. To put that in perspective, Facebook’s overall operations (which are highly profitable) generated about $1.5

IPO 100

IPO South Korea Venezuela Revenue 100

Hearpreneur

DECEMBER 18, 2020

2- A business I built IPO’ed. A business that I built just IPO’ed (yesterday actually and I am still smiling). I would say this is what I am most proud of but I am also proud of the traction that my new business has built in its first full year of operation. All in all, 2020 was a great year at Hill Law Firm.

Connecticut 146

Connecticut Entrepreneur Technical Review Florida 146

NZ Entrepreneur

SEPTEMBER 29, 2021

experiments to build a product, find customers, test business models and hire amazing people. It is not uncommon for startup directors to be more deeply involved in the operations of the business when the company is entering a new market, hiring critical team members or raising capital. Underpinning this growth is good governance.

Technical Review 88

Technical Review Software Review New Zealand Due Diligence 88

Agile VC

APRIL 17, 2011

GameFly filed in 2010 and remains in registration, though 2011 has seen a positive start for VC-backed IPOs with 14 in Q1 2011. Now that Google’s acquisition of ITA is closed, following lenghty FTC review, it would appear Kayak is poised to proceed with their IPO in the coming months. =. 2010 Operating Income: $16 million.

Pre-Money Valuation 113

Pre-Money Valuation Liquidation Preference Dividend Common Stock 113