A Smart Bear: Startups and Marketing for Geeks

SEPTEMBER 10, 2013

” Here’s the logic: We (Rackspace) have extremely efficient mechanisms for acquiring customers. When you add up all our costs in Sales and Marketing (SaaS metric: CAC), the result is very small compared to the total revenue we’ll earn from than customer over the next few years (SaaS metric: LTV).

Metrics 238

Metrics Revenue Flash Later Stage 238

Reid Hoffman

MARCH 9, 2021

The classic example of this is Amazon’s customer Q&A feature. Advocates for the feature then ran a simple experiment by emailing a number of customers, asking them if they were interested in asking and answering questions to and from other customers, and directing them to a mockup website. Sometimes, it’s not obvious.

Leadership 42

Leadership Technical Review Cofounder Later Stage 42

ReadWriteStart

AUGUST 26, 2022

The startup didn’t work out, but I found ways to be around it, whether it was on the sales side in Goldman for a few years. So first, we were much more sort of with a high growth rate, and we did not even care about how we got the revenue when we got it. And now we are much more careful about revenue quality revenues.

Partner 132

Partner Cofounder Retention Acquisition 132

David Teten

JANUARY 21, 2021

This essay is part of a series on alternative VC: I: Revenue-Based Investing: a new option for founders who care about control. II: Who are the major Revenue-Based Investing VCs? III: Why are Revenue-Based VCs investing in so many women and underrepresented founders? IV: Should your new VC fund use Revenue-Based Investing?

Equity 78

Equity Revenue Cofounder Colorado 78

Berkonomics

AUGUST 3, 2023

Some businesses require very little capital and the founder can self-finance the enterprise and retain 100% of its ownership and control from ignition through liquidity event (startup through sale). For those of you who fit that description, nice work. There is a lot to say about retaining control.

Private Equity 118

Private Equity Valuation Cap Table Accredited Investor 118

David Teten

SEPTEMBER 5, 2014

I’ve written on the expert network industry a fair amount in the past: see How to Earn More Consulting Revenue from Expert Networks and How Executives Can Work with Private Equity and Venture Capital Portfolio Companies. We’re not mainly for B2B companies or later stage companies or anything like that.

New York 114

New York Technical Review Networking Advisory Board 114

View from Seed

MARCH 19, 2015

He’s dubbed the approach “ pretotyping ,” and it shares many of the same principles as both its similar-sounding (if later-stage) cousin, prototyping, as well as the more well-known lean startup movement. You make your case with objective data: CTR, customer acquisition cost, etc.

Product 120

Product Technical Review Marketing Lean 120

Both Sides of the Table

JUNE 13, 2018

If your teaser deck was 8–12 pages it would likely include: team market problem why your solution solves this problem progress to date (funding, team, customers, revenue if significant) TAM (market sizing / why this will be valuable) Your “meeting deck” should just be an expansion of what was in your teaser deck. Don’t send these?—?go

Portfolio 261

Portfolio IP Later Stage Email 261

Startup Professionals Musings

MARCH 18, 2016

First priority is real revenue, customers and contracts. If you have a proven business model with some sales, it’s credible to apply a multiplier of five to 10 times this number for the first element of valuation. Thus, $100,000 of gross revenue in the last 12 months might be extrapolated to $500,000 to $1 million in valuation.

Intellectual Property 120

Intellectual Property Valuation Pre-Money Valuation Startup 120

Steve Blank

JUNE 15, 2010

What startup stage do they typically invest in? Do they “get&# Customer Development ? What Startup Stage Do they Invest In? And some larger funds that specialize in later stage deals may have a partner or two who likes to invest at this stage. Do They Get Customer Development? Lean Startups ?

Founder 232

Founder Vesting Later Stage Early Stage 232

Startup Professionals Musings

FEBRUARY 5, 2012

If your startup is at the wrong stage for the investor you are approaching, fishing for money is a waste of time for both of you. For instance, if your company is only a few weeks old and you have zero customers and your product offering is still in design, don’t expect someone to hand over $10 million to fund your efforts. Exit stage.

Investment Bankers 241

Investment Bankers Venture Capital Startup Initial Public Offering 241

Both Sides of the Table

MAY 13, 2018

The most important advice I could give you before you set out in fund raising mode is to understand that fund-raising a sales & marketing process and needs to be managed. Somehow many first-time founders equate “sales” with something that is beneath them. In sales there are also three rules: Qualify, qualify, qualify.

Term Sheet 332

Term Sheet Due Diligence Campaign Sales 332

Steve Blank

JUNE 15, 2011

Long before others, they saw that these applications could have hundreds of millions of users with “off the chart&# revenue and profits. The awareness phase is where other later-stage investors start to notice the momentum, bringing additional money in and pushing prices higher. million in 2010 sales).

Silicon Valley 330

Silicon Valley Stealth Valuation Mississippi 330

This is going to be BIG.

MAY 9, 2022

5) Is the post-money on your last round north of $30mm and you’ve yet to show meaningful and repeatable revenue traction that comes with positive contribution margins? It’s never a good thing to be selling a product for a loss on every sale before you even pay your overhead, or selling something that’s a vitamin, and not medicine.

Stock 97

Stock Marketing Valuation Later Stage 97

Startup Professionals Musings

JANUARY 12, 2013

Sites like KickStarter have for years offered rewards and pre-sales for crowd investments, but real equity won’t be legalized until sometime this year for people other than accredited investors. This is a term indicating the use of “crowd appeal” to get money from interested people on the Internet for a share of your company. Super-angels.

Entrepreneur 274

Entrepreneur Accredited Investor Silicon Valley Angel Investor 274

Startup Professionals Musings

OCTOBER 13, 2010

If your startup is at the wrong stage for the investor you are approaching, the courting is a waste of time for both of you. For instance, if your company is only a few weeks old and you have zero customers and your product offering is still in design, don’t expect someone to hand over $10 million to fund your efforts. Growth stage.

Investment Bankers 231

Investment Bankers Venture Capital Startup Initial Public Offering 231

Gust

NOVEMBER 22, 2011

If your startup is at the wrong stage for the investor you are approaching, fishing for money is a waste of time for both of you. For instance, if your company is only a few weeks old and you have zero customers and your product offering is still in design, don’t expect someone to hand over $10 million to fund your efforts. Exit stage.

Venture Capital 171

Venture Capital Investment Bankers Angel Investor Initial Public Offering 171

Both Sides of the Table

JULY 17, 2018

" Revenue doesn't pay your bills, GM does  —  @msuster 2/ Founders obsess with revenue as a vanity metric. Some even grow "bad" revenue just to show growth. Payback periods on customer acquisition way more important to you in the near-term. Ultimately it matters a great deal.

Founder 242

Founder Dilution Software Review Later Stage 242

This is going to be BIG.

FEBRUARY 21, 2021

Anything from intense customer love despite barely even having a product, pre-sales, a deal for access to data that creates a moat that no one else has—the list goes on. Is it possible this gets to $100mm in annual revenue? What counts as a rabbit? It’s the “hook” that gets a team noticed in a partner meeting.

Venture Capital 190

Venture Capital Cofounder Deal Flow Later Stage 190

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. Typically, this caliber of bankers wouldn’t talk to you unless your company had five profitable quarters of increasing revenue.

Founder 274

Founder Technical Review CTO Hire IPO 274

www.mint.com

MARCH 9, 2010

Go there now » Sign up or log in to mint.com Updates Drop Your Debt to Win 2 comments How To The Top 5 Customer Complaint Letters — And What You Can Learn From Them 5 comments Investing In Graphics: What Is a Stock? These days revenue is the best source of capital. Are you going after the same customers? That’s cool.

Software Review 68

Software Review Startup Post-Money Valuation Technical Review 68

Growthink Blog

MAY 10, 2012

You see, equity capital is raised in stages or rounds. The five main stages include the following: 1. Early Stage Investment (Series A & B) 4. Later Stage Investment (Series C, D, and so on) 5. Put everything else on your "wish list" to buy with revenues from sales or additional financing.

Equity 88

Equity Mezzanine Later Stage Venture Capital 88

Growthink Blog

JUNE 9, 2011

The event gives emerging companies the opportunity to pitch and network with investors, executives, customers and the media. And, rather, they should try to achieve some success and then cash out via a sale to a larger company. Last week marked the 6th year for the conference "Launch: Silicon Valley." Reasons they gave included: 1.

Silicon Valley 107

Silicon Valley Later Stage Early Stage Cloud 107

Berkonomics

JUNE 8, 2017

Some businesses require very little capital and the founder can self-finance the enterprise and retain 100% of its ownership and control from ignition through liquidity event (startup through sale). For you who fit that description, nice work. There is a lot to say about retaining control. It’s an option, even though an expensive one.

Private Equity 106

Private Equity Valuation Cap Table Accredited Investor 106

David Teten

DECEMBER 3, 2019

This provides us more time to develop meaningful relationships with prospects and customers. I previously posted a detailed presentation with sales technology tools useful for B2B sales. Data companies focused on early-stage startups include Aingel , fundsUP , Preseries , PredictLeads , and Sploda. 3) Raise capital.

Technical Review 78

Technical Review Software Review Analytics Private Equity 78

Both Sides of the Table

MAY 24, 2021

It has historically been the case that VCs would rather fund the promise of 100x in a company with almost no revenue than the reality of a company growing at 50% but doing $20+ million in sales. Our goal is to produce a $10 billion+ winner and remain the market leader in this SaaS category of AI in Sales & Marketing.

Venture Capital 363

Venture Capital LP Valuation Later Stage 363

Genuine VC

FEBRUARY 3, 2011

For later-stage, it’s a high-priced financing round, tipping scales on widespread adoption, rapid hiring, or credible information on successive revenue-growth quarters. On the early side, it's repeat founders coming together again or early runaway traction in an early beta that generates buzz.

Startup 148

Startup Portfolio Later Stage Hiring 148

Hippoland

MAY 16, 2018

Here’s what’s happening in the equity world (from my perspective): 1) Token sales in the crypto-world do affect “equity” raises. (I A number of companies that would have done a token sale a few months ago are now doing equity rounds instead. Part of this is driven by how the SEC is thinking about regulations in this space.

Seed Stage 48

Seed Stage Valuation Convertible Security Equity 48

Hippoland

MAY 16, 2018

Here’s what’s happening in the equity world (from my perspective): 1) Token sales in the crypto-world do affect “equity” raises. (I A number of companies that would have done a token sale a few months ago are now doing equity rounds instead. Part of this is driven by how the SEC is thinking about regulations in this space.

Seed Stage 48

Seed Stage Valuation Convertible Security Equity 48

Steve Blank

OCTOBER 1, 2009

Top management was trying to coordinate all of the operating details (sales, manufacturing, distribution and marketing,) across all the divisions and the company almost went bankrupt that year when poor planning led to excess inventory (with unsold cars piling up at dealers and the company running out of cash.)

Silicon Valley 179

Silicon Valley United States RSS Customer Development 179

Small Business Force

FEBRUARY 21, 2014

In early stage companies (and even some later stage or mature ones), there is no one area where most entrepreneurs and small business owners are lacking in just basic fundamentals, than in dealing with their company's finances and financial management. Follow the "gospel of cash flow" and it starts with revenue generation.

Finance 37

Finance Management Forecast Entrepreneur 37

Steve Blank

JUNE 11, 2013

. • Repeatable: Startups may get orders that come from board members’ customer relationships or heroic, single-shot efforts of the CEO. These are great, but they are not repeatable by a sales organization. Does our product or service solve a customer problem (product-market fit)? How do we attract, keep and grow customers?

Venture Capital 334

Venture Capital IRR Liquidity Event Business Model 334

Berkonomics

JANUARY 20, 2010

Some businesses require very little capital and the founder is able to self-finance the enterprise and retain 100% of its ownership and control from ignition through liquidity event (startup through sale). For you who fit that description, nice work. There is a lot to say about retaining control.

Private Equity 69

Private Equity Valuation Cap Table Accredited Investor 69

Up and Running

AUGUST 19, 2014

I like how the Angel Capital Association describes the difference between angels and venture capitalists: “Angels generally invest their own money in start-ups and very early stage companies, while VCs mostly provide capital they have raised from others to later-stage businesses for growth.”. 51 percent). Tweet This Tip.

Angel Investor 161

Angel Investor Technical Review Due Diligence Startup 161

Steve Blank

JUNE 11, 2013

. • Repeatable: Startups may get orders that come from board members’ customer relationships or heroic, single-shot efforts of the CEO. These are great, but they are not repeatable by a sales organization. Does our product or service solve a customer problem (product-market fit)? How do we attract, keep and grow customers?

Venture Capital 226

Venture Capital IRR Liquidity Event Business Model 226

Both Sides of the Table

DECEMBER 3, 2013

I’m super proud to announce that DataSift has just completed a $42 million financing round coming at the end of a year where its revenue grew several hundred percent year-over-year. Considering our revenue is SaaS revenue this achievement is even more remarkable. I’m an early-stage investor. Not so DataSift.

Iran 358

Iran API San Francisco Nigeria 358

Reid Hoffman

JUNE 11, 2020

When a company no longer has active co-founders, the professional managers running it will focus on business metrics — EBITDA, revenue, CAC, LTV — business-oriented MBA stuff. This is so important that I wrote an essay on how to hire a CEO as a later-stage co-founder. Ryan was and is an amazing product leader for LinkedIn.

Cofounder 36

Cofounder Leadership Metrics Later Stage 36