Startup Lessons Learned

SEPTEMBER 22, 2008

Master of 500 Hats: Startup Metrics for Pirates (SeedCamp 2008, London) This presentation should be required reading for anyone creating a startup with an online service component. He also has a discussion of how your choice of business model determines which of these metric areas you want to focus on.

San Francisco 167

San Francisco CPA SEM CTO Hire 167

Up and Running

JULY 26, 2016

Between January 2015 and January 2016, we grew our platform Slidebean from $1K to $20K in monthly recurring revenue. Getting the first tracks of revenue is one of the toughest processes of building a startup. This is when metrics come into play. See Also: The Top 10 Tools for Tracking Your Web Metrics.

Revenue 60

Revenue Acquisition Channel Campaign 60

ConversionXL

APRIL 3, 2018

Find agreement on a common definition. mobile is ~50% of revenue, shorter form works better. Flip your funnel – only 5% of revenue comes from optimisation but 92% of revenue from retention. Work hard to define meaningful product metrics – enabler of team success. Map entire customer journey.

Retention 106

Retention Artificial Inteligence Channel Email 106

Occam's Razor

MAY 19, 2014

But the problem is that single golden metrics hide valuable insights and, more often than not, drive bad behavior. Here's my proposal: If you are pushed to have a single golden metric, give it a partner. The BFF metric you find should not be one that is very far away. So, great metric. Honestly, who can blame them.

Metrics 159

Metrics Analytics SEC Acquisition 159

ConversionXL

SEPTEMBER 13, 2018

Google Analytics switched its default metric from “sessions” to “users” in 2018, mirroring Mixpanel’s emphasis on users over pageviews. Google Analytics is definitely better at measuring traffic,” noted Dan McGaw, the founder and CMO of Effin Amazing. Throughout user reviews for both products, definitions of “easy” and “hard” varied.

Analytics 119

Analytics Technical Review Acquisition Retention 119

www.forentrepreneurs.com

FEBRUARY 2, 2010

Blog About Log in Register Designing startup metrics to drive successful behavior Great companies are almost always run by great management teams. Good metrics should also be actionable, and drive successful behavior. In a follow up post, I will use this technique to walk through the design of a set of metrics for a SaaS company.

Metrics 55

Metrics Design Entrepreneur Startup 55

Cracking the Code

JULY 6, 2007

SaaS business metrics: why are they different? I was surprised today when I went through the NetSuite IPO filling (S1) to see that it looked very much like any Enterprise software document - not a single mention of churn or % of recurring revenues. Different models require different performance metrics. Friday, July 06, 2007.

Software Review 66

Software Review Metrics Valuation Technical Review 66

Duct Tape Marketing

MAY 18, 2023

14:58] What are some of the metrics that show you’re doing things right? [17:02] Let's talk about metrics, again, going back to when I started, I remember 83, 80 4% open rates, , those days don't exist for anybody today. John Jantsch (16:48): A viral referral tool. 11:10] What are some ways for monetizing newsletters? [14:58]

ChatGPT 90

ChatGPT Advertising Email Viral 90

Startup Lessons Learned

DECEMBER 14, 2009

In a previous post , I covered the three main drivers of growth: Paid, Sticky, and Viral. Some companies definitely should. Others definitely shouldn’t. Let’s look at a viral growth company, like Facebook. If you are building a large, viral, ad-support consumer internet property, you just want to go big!

Customer 156

Customer San Francisco Viral Lean 156

The Next Web

DECEMBER 12, 2013

Everything from the layout of our office, design principles, team structures, and interview process definitively reflects who we are.”. In the early days of e-commerce, sales were typically the most important metric for success. Myth #2: You can bolt on community, once the commerce engine is going.

Mobile 136

Mobile Silicon Valley Viral Technical Review 136

ConversionXL

SEPTEMBER 10, 2019

I use a more restrictive definition: A growth team is a product tech team that’s focused on acquisition instead of core product features. Two of the teams focused on the two main sources of revenue, one team on inbound leads, and the last team on site conversion rates. Suddenly, our revenue from these campaigns dropped by 50%.

Conversion 133

Conversion Technical Review Channel Engineer 133

reidhoffman.org

NOVEMBER 12, 2013

we had no revenue. As a result, we knew that our pitch would need to steer into investors’ biggest concern: the lack of revenue. We are the leader in the professional domain with viral growth. Instead, our strategy was to steer immediately into the revenue question because that was the top concern of investors in 2004.

Entrepreneur 111

Entrepreneur Revenue Viral Networking 111

ConversionXL

MARCH 31, 2021

For this article, let’s consider just two metrics—an engagement metric—social shares and an SEO metric—keyword rank. Shares are often considered a ‘vanity metric’ in the sense they don’t always directly help a business generate more revenue. We care about bottom-lines, not vanity metrics.

SEO 163

SEO Metrics Social Media Audience 163

ConversionXL

FEBRUARY 12, 2019

Cohort analysis can be done for revenue, churn, viral word of mouth, support costs, or any other metric you care about. Cohort metrics can help drive more repeat customers. This metric reveals the longer-term relationship. Three characteristics help identify the most valuable cohorts: Average order value (AOV).

Retention 126

Retention Analytics Campaign eCommerce 126

ConversionXL

MAY 29, 2019

For the SaaS 250, the strongest correlation (0.87) between subscribers and any other key metric (videos, views, channel age) was with the quantity of videos published. billion in annual revenue that trades on the NASDAQ—had published only four videos in nearly 12 years. Briggs narrows the long list down to one key metric: watch time.

Channel 106

Channel Video Audience Software Review 106

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? All things being equal, of course, you’d rather have more revenue rather than less. And yet revenue alone is not a sufficient goal.

Customer 167

Customer San Francisco Lean Hockey Stick 167

Up and Running

JULY 10, 2017

It’s critical to understand the metrics in terms of dollars per additional user, as you’ll have to spend this amount to serve thousands of your non-paying customers. You’re not going to go viral Dropbox style, so having a freemium model doesn’t really work. If it’s got so many pitfalls, why so many companies keep using it?

Startup 110

Startup Non-Compete Viral Software Review 110

Cracking the Code

FEBRUARY 23, 2011

It would have been easy to explain the difference by changes in the 2010/2011 revenue growth projections but unfortunately that is not the case. revenues while large caps are trading at 6.4x. Note: high CAC ratio means high productiviy (see blog post for definition). SaaS business metrics: why are they different?

Software Review 101

Software Review Technical Review Valuation Europe 101

Occam's Razor

MARCH 25, 2014

In a world of infinite choice, the ability to pick critical few metrics to focus on is, well…, critical. In this post I want to share that one-page list of the best metrics for digital content, marketing and business success with you. If you get the think , you can definitely go out and create your own list of the critical few.

Metrics 155

Metrics Marketing Analytics Channel 155

Occam's Razor

APRIL 8, 2013

To win in business you need to follow this process: Metrics > Hypothesis > Experiment > Act. We are far too enamored with data collection and reporting the standard metrics we love because others love them because someone else said they were nice so many years ago. That metric is tied to a KPI.

Metrics 156

Metrics Analytics Lean Churn Rate 156

Up and Running

MAY 23, 2016

In fact, SaaS industry revenue is projected to grow from $49 billion in 2015 to $67 billion in 2018, a compound annual growth rate of approximately eight percent. At this stage, simply list your primary revenue streams and your key expenses. At this stage, simply list your primary revenue streams and your key expenses.

Software Review 74

Software Review Software Delaware Forecast 74

Occam's Razor

OCTOBER 10, 2011

We have IT-minded people engaging in massive data puking (one report with 30 metrics anyone?) I want to propose a framework you can use to measure success using metrics that matter for one simple reason: They actually measure if you are participating in the channel in an optimal fashion. That is why I love this metric.

Social Media 165

Social Media Metrics Conversion Media 165

Reid Hoffman

MARCH 23, 2021

The metrics from the dashboard are the key inputs for collective decisions. You can always instrument your business and gather metrics, but that doesn’t mean the data you gather will be useful. Just track metrics that help you improve the product. The problem was that Groupon’s revenue growth was a false positive.

Venture Capital 46

Venture Capital Metrics Investment Bankers Framework 46

Cracking the Code

DECEMBER 1, 2009

Note: high CAC ratio means high productiviy (see blog post for definition). SaaS business metrics: why are they different? Popular Media: the key to viral marketing. Started on Jan. 1st 2008 with a base value of 100.00 Public SaaS 13 Multiples. S&M productivity (CAC ratio) for the SaaS 13 Index. SaaS 13 Index Valuation.

Software Review 48

Software Review Technical Review Cloud Europe 48

ConversionXL

FEBRUARY 9, 2016

” April, 2012 – Andrew Chen writes Growth Hacker is the new VP Marketing , which goes viral (2.4K In the article, Andrew describes growth hackers as a cross between marketers and coders. . “Growth hackers have a passion for tracking and moving a metric. ” Creativity.

Retention 48

Retention Metrics Acquisition Conversion 48

Cracking the Code

MARCH 10, 2008

I found this approach interesting, but it seems to me that gross margin is a more relevant benchmark than revenues, given that the GM of saas companies varies by type of application and size of the company (for example NetSuite went from about 50% GM three years ago to close to 70% today).

Sales 79

Sales Software Review Marketing Technical Review 79

ConversionXL

MARCH 16, 2016

NPS is a valuable customer experience tool, and companies everywhere are using it to improve their experience and boost revenue. Net Promoter Score is a customer loyalty metric developed by (and a trademark of) Fred Reichheld, Bain & Company, and Satmetrix. But overall, I like to think of it as a metric to improve internally.

.Net 48

.Net Metrics Retention Aggregator 48

Cracking the Code

OCTOBER 9, 2009

This strong recovery has highlighted the resiliency of the recurring revenue model in a downturn as well as the stength of the shift to soaftware-as-a-service and cloud computing. In other words, how much of the decline in revenue growth is due to signing up fewer customer vs lower revenues from each new customer. Software 2.0:

Software Review 48

Software Review Technical Review Cloud Europe 48

The Next Web

MAY 5, 2013

Growth hackers utilize analytical thinking, product engineering and creativity to significantly increase their company’s core metric(s). Growth hackers also don’t have to use viral loops: would you say that the Groupon guys didn’t use growth hacking to grow to 180 million users? .” Hacker” is more of a double entendre.

Marketing 165

Marketing Viral SEO Analytics 165

A Smart Bear: Startups and Marketing for Geeks

APRIL 9, 2013

It turns out that the cost of customer acquisition for consumers was too high compared to the revenue being generated. “In Most consumer apps get around the high acquisition costs with some sort of virality, but backup isn’t viral. ” If you’re not familiar with Lean Canvas, you definitely need to take a look.

Lean 284

Lean Analytics Metrics Viral 284

Cracking the Code

MARCH 12, 2010

Given the predictability of SaaS GAAP revenues on a quarterly basis, the fact that the 08/09 projections were unchanged is not a surprise. Given that the revenues are not growing very fast, this means that most of the companies have reduced their sales force and focused on productivity improvement. Started on Jan. My Investments.

Software Review 63

Software Review Technical Review Cloud Forecast 63

conversionxl.com

FEBRUARY 4, 2014

Ask Peep about analytics, and he’ll tell you, “Metrics are there to provide actionable insight. You need to look at a metric, ask “so what?” – and have an answer.”. Sidetrack: What Are The Elements of a Viral Pre-Launch Page? This took awhile to read but it was definitely worth it. Why go through all the trouble?

Analytics 98

Analytics Software Review Conversion Video 98

YoungUpstarts

SEPTEMBER 13, 2018

Sometimes it can require months — or even longer — of relationship-building to acquire major clients with large-scale revenue possibilities. Content doesn’t have to “go viral” to benefit your business. Without a clear definition of desired outcomes, how can you know if your business’ efforts are meeting your customers’ needs?

Social Media 113

Social Media Sales Cycle Audience Media 113

Cracking the Code

NOVEMBER 10, 2009

By definition, your sales prospects are online - Savvy online marketing is a core competence (sometimes the only one) of every successful Cloud business (more.) Cloud accounting is all about matching revenue and costs to consumption…well, except for professional services! SaaS business metrics: why are they different?

Software Review 48

Software Review Cloud Technical Review Sales Cycle 48

Cracking the Code

OCTOBER 10, 2008

Be prepared to cross the desert - SaaS requires R&D and sales expense up front for a multi-year stream of revenue, so it demands enough investment capital to fund 4+ years of runway. Effectively measuring and understanding your CAC and CLTV metrics are key to future success. Great list! I particularly agree on points #2 and #4.

Software Review 48

Software Review North America Europe Metrics 48

The Next Web

SEPTEMBER 29, 2013

You’re learning what the metrics that matter are, what your funnel looks like, and what actions you want your prospects to take. Clearly investors should promote the idea that startups need to have clear metrics for terminating the discovery mode. You need to nail your metrics to graduate discovery mode. What does that mean?

Metrics 136

Metrics Cofounder Cram Down Liquidity Event 136

mashable.com

MAY 24, 2011

Mobile commerce revenues may still pale in comparison to their ecommerce brothers, but we’re already seeing signs of mobile commerce’s potential. I don’t want to thump my own chest, but I was definitely ahead of the curve in seeing this issue. ); // Welcome to Mashable! Sign in with Facebook or Twitter to get started!

Mobile 90

Mobile Web Social Media Software Review 90