Both Sides of the Table

NOVEMBER 22, 2010

lean startups or even the advent of AJAX. In designing GUI interfaces for people coming from the green-screen world we built applications that would be great for desktop publishing, not customer service reps. My philosophy emanated from my days of programming and later designing corporate software in the early 1990′s.

Design 325

Design AJAX Green Web Development 325

Both Sides of the Table

SEPTEMBER 28, 2014

You are particularly vulnerable if: You have revenue concentration (few customers each providing a large total of percentage of your revenue). You have a large number of startup customers (because when markets crash they have a funny way of going bankrupt quickly or cutting burn precipitously).

Burn Rate 383

Burn Rate Balance Sheet .Net Valuation 383

Both Sides of the Table

MAY 20, 2018

This is true of any buying process where a customer has to make a large investment decision on your software or when an investor must decide whether to give you $5 million. It conveyed urgency, it implored people to respect their own time as much as they respected customers’ time and it asked that people have the courage to face rejection.

LP 189

LP Software Review Europe Founder 189

Both Sides of the Table

JUNE 22, 2011

customers who paid for services often get burned. I’m looking for ones that understand that in order to build huge, meaningful companies they’ll need to likely build through these boom years and some lean ones. If you are interested the Vimeo is here. Um … many people also lose their jobs when bubbles burst.

Saudi Arabia 309

Saudi Arabia Valuation IPO Technical Review 309

Both Sides of the Table

SEPTEMBER 10, 2021

We can’t wait for customers to use the product for 12–18 months and do customer interviews or look at purchase cohorts. It’s just now that we’re Seed Investors. The biggest change for us in early-stage investing is that we now need to commit earlier.

Pre-Money Valuation 471

Pre-Money Valuation Valuation Venture Capital Early Stage 471

Both Sides of the Table

APRIL 17, 2013

I’m sure you’ve all heard saying derived from Voltaire, “don’t let perfect be the enemy of the good” which in a way is encapsulated in the lean startup movement and the ideology of shipping a “minimum viable product” (MVP) and then learning from your customer base.

Viral 371

Viral PR Lean Founder 371

Both Sides of the Table

MAY 13, 2018

If you have a mediocre meeting with a high-quality prospect and you don’t think they’re likely to lean in they drop to a B or C. If you have a friend of the VC who is a customer of your product or an existing investor in your company and they share news of your company in their social feeds it helps to remind the VC that they need to engage.

Term Sheet 332

Term Sheet Due Diligence Campaign Sales 332

Both Sides of the Table

NOVEMBER 29, 2010

I learned everything I know about startups in these lean years: 2001-2004. There is no “right or wrong&# as this will be a judgment call in each startup based on capital raised, stage of company, number of customers, complexity of your business, etc.

Warrant 333

Warrant Germany France Cost 333

Both Sides of the Table

MAY 21, 2018

And my specific response that I recommended was to say, “I can send you our standard data pack but honestly I have too many other firms asking for customized data and we simply can’t send each person custom reports. Of course if they did some initial work and were leaning in to make an investment then we’d spend time helping them.

Term Sheet 217

Term Sheet Later Stage Demand Email 217

Both Sides of the Table

OCTOBER 17, 2019

But like the company Kyriba, where we recently sold our position at above $1 billion, it took time until the revenue exceeded $100 million recurring and then the industry really competed to back this amazing company since it had scale, defensible technology and long-term, committed customers. Over the past 2.5 Why does that matter?

IP 223

IP Intellectual Property IRR Cofounder 223

Both Sides of the Table

NOVEMBER 5, 2012

You need to segment your audience and find a way to get your highest quality customers over to O&O (owned & operated) inventory where you can get higher CPMs, sell merchandise and capture more customer information. You can earn the right to ask for customer information and remarket to them. They have to.

Silicon Valley 374

Silicon Valley Los Angeles Distribution Java 374

Both Sides of the Table

JUNE 4, 2013

Compelling in the sense that you solve a real problem a target group of potential customers has with a product that is significantly better than the alternatives on that market. The idea of “going deep” with customers has always shaped how I think. LEAN STARTUP MOVEMENT. My take on his argument is this: 1.

Technical Review 401

Technical Review Startup Business Model Non-Compete 401

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. whether they invest or not.

Portfolio 261

Portfolio IP Later Stage Email 261

Both Sides of the Table

DECEMBER 25, 2015

“His focus on customer experience has become a near mandate within the news operation. ” Helpfully they listed an 800 number for iPhone customers. Apple had impeccable customer service. Well, thank you for the super helpful customer service and have a Merry Christmas, Apple. I called it. As in 3 days from now.

DC 150

DC Washington Mobile New York 150

Both Sides of the Table

APRIL 25, 2013

Sheryl Sandberg leans in? Talking about how to inspire moms to get their children engaged with iPads and physical activity sets customized for their kids and based in part on their digital lives. She learns how to ship product, how to deal with merchants, how to hire product managers. She had previously acquired UrbanSpoon.

Haiti 398

Haiti San Francisco Startup Turkey 398

Both Sides of the Table

APRIL 23, 2011

ESPN, Forbes, AOL were customers. The second phase will be who can get the right combination lean back, lean forward, interaction, enhanced data, and make it fun. Highland Capital did a systematic search for who could build a stand-alone contextual ad search company and met with six or seven companies including Mike.

Vertical 265

Vertical Curation Boston Burn Rate 265

Both Sides of the Table

FEBRUARY 17, 2011

Are you in the “lean&# phase? I’m a very big believer in the “Lean Startup&# principles as espoused by Steve Blank and Eric Ries. It is true that you should mostly concern yourself with your customers, building a great product and providing excellent service. So here’s my framework. They get the PR bump.

Pre-Money Valuation 303

Pre-Money Valuation Dilution Valuation PR 303

Both Sides of the Table

MAY 25, 2013

In my mind, the best VCs actually deliver outsized returns by “leaning on the scale” not by “deal sourcing.” Great VCs create the fabric of their success by backing the best entrepreneurs they have access to and then helping them to lean on the scales. I asked him what he’s learned as a VC.

LP 374

LP Later Stage IRR Term Sheet 374

Both Sides of the Table

APRIL 2, 2014

There’s a healthy balance between allowing a design team to dream up functional requirements, talk with customers, analyze competitors and for technical projects – research the latest cool-kid tools to play with. We’ve all been involved with projects that seem to drift and drift and make progress.

Software 344

Software Part-Time VPE Engineer Leadership 344

Both Sides of the Table

AUGUST 17, 2014

In this short clip below, Nanea emphasizes this important point – if you create a product customers love, it will ultimately be a good business decision as well. There is a tangible understand that comes from engineers talking with real customers that simply can’t be gleaned from intuition or staring at computer screens.

Technical Review 315

Technical Review Leadership Engineer RSS 315

Both Sides of the Table

JULY 24, 2016

It ought to lay out the key issues, provide 3 options per issue and state which one management is leaning toward. A board meeting shouldn’t be the place an investor questions why you’re focused on customers A and not customers B. The mistake most founders make is sending out last-minute board packs.

Metrics 196

Metrics Strategic Investors Later Stage Management 196

Both Sides of the Table

DECEMBER 19, 2009

I like to describe tenacity as “leaning forward.&# It’s those things that you push for – in which you never accept “no&# for an answer. I then covered Street Smarts , Ability to Pivot and Resiliency. Several people asked about the differences between tenacity and resiliency.

Entrepreneur 288

Entrepreneur Early Stage Leadership Salary 288

Both Sides of the Table

FEBRUARY 27, 2019

Board meeting gets scheduled Nobody thinks too much about it until a week or two before Management team has a last-minute scramble to pull materials together Management is super focused on its daily work of … winning customers, signing biz dev, shipping product … so this prep is a last minute “fire drill” and is seen as a slight distraction.

Stock Options 226

Stock Options Metrics Stock Valuation 226

Both Sides of the Table

OCTOBER 14, 2013

It was hard to imagine customer service reps who had learned every keystroke short-cut by heart on a green screen and weren’t eager to embrace the obvious future. I learned the hard way. When computers moved from “green screens” to Windows we – the educated, young, technophiles – easily grasped the concept.

Product 408

Product San Francisco Green Technical Review 408

Both Sides of the Table

MAY 7, 2018

The investor is a customer and they have money to spend but only for a limited number of companies. I figured I was wasting my time unless the LP was leaning in on my first meeting. If you read the “ Lemons Ripen Early ” post I did you’ll know that a large part of what a VC or investor is evaluating in the earliest stages is you.

LP 215

LP San Francisco Minneapolis Partner 215

Both Sides of the Table

JANUARY 13, 2011

And when you finish the demo you can bring in the other important components such as competition, team, customer acquisition strategy, etc. The conversation moves from consuming images on a screen in lean back mode, to active engagement. Who are your key customers? Talk about the customer problem and how you solve it.

Early Stage 299

Early Stage Venture Capital B2B Sales 299

Both Sides of the Table

OCTOBER 6, 2010

And VC’s are tough customers. If you have beta customers, new pricing plans, different positioning, more market insights, good press coverage – whatever – these are all signs that the ball is moving forward. If you have good experience then the VC will be leaning forward for the rest of the presentation.

Early Stage 360

Early Stage Startup Venture Capital Seed Stage 360

Both Sides of the Table

AUGUST 20, 2015

It forces the founder to spend time in front of customers. With perfect information and too much competition you pay up or they walk right down the street and get it from somebody else.” ” I believe firmly in capital efficiency in the early days. It forces innovation. It forces teams not to expand too quickly.

Churn Rate 150

Churn Rate Silicon Valley Brazil Valuation 150

Both Sides of the Table

MARCH 11, 2011

He wanted to build direct customer relationships to get product feedback but only 2% of customers would ever return their registration cards. So when he saw the browser it instantly dawned on him that this would be the greatest customer development tool ever. Think YouTube vs. the rest. Bill’s a huge believer in MVP.

Product 350

Product Tuvalu Dilution Incubator 350

Both Sides of the Table

JULY 6, 2015

The first of question is about qualifying your potential customers aka leads. One thing I observed was that many customers wanted an “on premise” version of our software and were willing to pay extra money for it. We said to customers, “We only sell SaaS and we think that’s the right solution for you.

Sales 150

Sales Silicon Valley Las Vegas Southern California 150

Both Sides of the Table

MARCH 30, 2016

Total customers grew 20% year/year. Like the market, Invoca has learned the importance of pragmatic growth over “growth at all costs” because when markets shift companies that run lean always have more options than those that only have a growth agenda. CMRR (contracted monthly recurring revenue) grow 100% y/y.

Balance Sheet 150

Balance Sheet Burn Rate Valuation Forecast 150

Both Sides of the Table

DECEMBER 22, 2011

Initially their only customers are people who can get by on the reduced functionality or perhaps don’t have the money to spend on the expensive product. Often major customers defect en masse to the new entrant as they realize that the huge price premium is not justified by the product differentials. It’s remarkable.

Non-Compete 386

Non-Compete Startup Internet Cost 386