Startup Professionals Musings

FEBRUARY 19, 2012

Assuming your startup takes off, you will probably find that the fun is gone by the time you reach 50 employees, or a few million in revenue. So here are the most common exit strategies and considerations these days for planning purposes: Merger & Acquisition (M&A). Shareholders are demanding, and liability concerns are high.

Exit Strategy 241

Exit Strategy Initial Public Offering IPO Startup 241

Startup Professionals Musings

JUNE 26, 2020

To be clear, I define a product specification as the technical definition of your product, to be used for development and testing purposes, with a quick business summary for context. All startups, including non-profits, need revenue to thrive, such as such as from subscriptions, retail, online, licensing, or services.

Business Plan 423

Business Plan Product Intellectual Property Elevator Pitch 423

Startup Professionals Musings

JANUARY 5, 2011

Assuming your startup takes off, you will probably find that the fun is gone by the time you reach 50 employees, or a few million in revenue. So here are the most common exit strategies and considerations these days for planning purposes: Merger & Acquisition (M&A). Shareholders are demanding, and liability concerns are high.

Exit Strategy 231

Exit Strategy Initial Public Offering Startup IPO 231

Startup Professionals Musings

MAY 25, 2020

Even still, in the context of all three points, I recommend that you evaluate the most common exit alternatives and considerations, and integrate the right one into your startup strategy and plan: M&A - merger or acquisition by another company. IPO – public company initial public stock offering. You can kick-off your next startup.

Exit Strategy 376

Exit Strategy Startup Private Equity Equity 376

Startup Professionals Musings

OCTOBER 13, 2010

Of course, growth and development are really a continuum. At this stage, your startup better be selling a commercial offering, have price and cost validated, with significant customer sales and a real revenue stream. This normally means more then 30 employees, and more then $1 million in revenue. Growth stage. Exit stage.

Investment Bankers 231

Investment Bankers Venture Capital Startup Initial Public Offering 231

Steve Blank

MARCH 18, 2011

VC’s worked with entrepreneurs to build profitable and scalable businesses, with increasing revenue and consistent profitability – quarter after quarter. With Netscape’s IPO , there was suddenly a public market for companies with limited revenue and no profit. 1970 – 1995: The Golden Age. Thus began the 5-year dot-com bubble.

Internet 335

Internet IPO Silicon Valley Agile 335

Gust

NOVEMBER 22, 2011

Of course, growth and development are really a continuum. At this stage, your startup better be selling a commercial offering, have price and cost validated, with significant customer sales and a real revenue stream. This normally means more then 30 employees, and more then $1 million in revenue. Growth stage. Exit stage.

Venture Capital 171

Venture Capital Investment Bankers Angel Investor Initial Public Offering 171

The Equity Kicker

MARCH 16, 2012

Mergers and acquisitions have a notoriously high failure rate and as a result investors knocked a couple of percent off Cisco’s share price yesterday following the announcement of their $5bn acquisition of NDS Group.

Acquisition 104

Acquisition Merger Social Network Revenue 104

Steve Blank

JULY 15, 2010

Until 1995 startups going public typically had a track record of revenue and profits. Suddenly there was a public market for companies with limited revenue and no profit. The size of the red bars (IPO’s) versus blue (mergers and acquisitions) illustrates that while venture-backed startups did get acquired, the IPO market was booming.

Venture Capital 303

Venture Capital IPO Liquidity Event Entrepreneur 303

Startup Professionals Musings

SEPTEMBER 12, 2014

Even still, in the context of all three points, I recommend that you evaluate the most common exit alternatives and considerations, and integrate the right one into your startup strategy and plan: M&A - merger or acquisition by another company. IPO – public company initial public stock offering. You can kick-off your next startup.

Exit Strategy 289

Exit Strategy Entrepreneur IPO Startup 289

Gust

OCTOBER 12, 2011

Thus, it’s in everyone’s best interest to see the startup raise more capital rather than declaring default and demanding repayment. In practice, if the notes mature and a startup has no cash and minimal hard assets, investors are left with little more than theoretical claims against an insolvent business entity (usually a corporation ).

Finance 107

Finance Term Sheet Pre-Money Valuation Early Stage 107

Steve Blank

AUGUST 27, 2009

This series of posts is a brief explanation of how we’ve evolved from Product Development to Customer Development to the Lean Startup. The Product Development Diagram Emerging early in the twentieth century, this product-centric model described a process that evolved in manufacturing industries.

Silicon Valley 269

Silicon Valley Product Startup Product Development 269

Startup Professionals Musings

APRIL 27, 2016

Even still, in the context of all three points, I recommend that you evaluate the most common exit alternatives and considerations, and integrate the right one into your startup strategy and plan: M&A - merger or acquisition by another company. IPO – public company initial public stock offering. You can kick-off your next startup.

Equity 120

Equity Exit Strategy Private Equity Startup 120

abovethecrowd.com

FEBRUARY 27, 2019

In 1817, David Ricardo published On the Principles of Political Economy and Taxation where he expanded upon Smith’s work in developing the theory of Comparative Advantage. In November of this year, the company announced that it had achieved “substantially” more than $1B in revenue in the third quarter.

Internet 88

Internet Matching Vertical Hosting 88

The Startup Lawyer

MARCH 11, 2010

Each time a new set of docs get released, I don’t cringe because it means I then have to remove the hockey stick from my revenue projections. There will always be demand for good counsel. Law firms are no more immune to open sourcing than any developer, engineer, or pixel pusher. Those that manage this feat will survive.

Delaware 49

Delaware Hockey Stick Preferred Stock Open Source 49

The Startup Lawyer

MARCH 11, 2010

Each time a new set of docs get released, I don’t cringe because it means I then have to remove the hockey stick from my revenue projections. There will always be demand for good counsel. Law firms are no more immune to open sourcing than any developer, engineer, or pixel pusher. Those that manage this feat will survive.

Delaware 45

Delaware Hockey Stick Preferred Stock Open Source 45

Both Sides of the Table

DECEMBER 5, 2010

billion in annual subscription revenues not including advertising or eCommerce). Yes, social networks of 2010 have much better usability, have better developed 3rd-party platforms and many more people are connected. Twitter seems to have become a bit allergic to third-party developers (or maybe vice-versa).

Social Network 318

Social Network Networking Internet Technical Review 318

Hearpreneur

DECEMBER 27, 2015

I am looking forward to the possibility of selling several proposals I have developed that could generate tremendous advertising revenues for newspapers, broadcasting companies, magazines, internet media companies and the internet divisions of multimedia companies. Thanks to Frank DeGeorge, YouStake. #5 5 – Proposals.

Fresno 48

Fresno Entrepreneur Merger LLC 48

Steve Blank

DECEMBER 8, 2015

Startups are developing IP relevant to the disruption. For example, Google’s acquisition of Nest (which had customers, revenue and a distribution channel) allowed it to enter the connected home market immediately. (We’ll cover “ corporate moonshots ” in a subsequent post.). W hat would be the charter for our Innovation Outpost?

Silicon Valley 120

Silicon Valley Acquisition Boston Early Stage 120

Entrepreneurs-Journey.com by Yaro Starak

MARCH 10, 2011

But when you are running a website with over 1,000 different products that change frequently (in size, quantity, branding, name, description, etc), as well as one that demands consistent improvement in process and technology, it is almost impossible to provide an ideal user experience without full time help by your side. This was a huge risk.

Technical Review 71

Technical Review PPC Due Diligence Exit Strategy 71

techcrunch.com

OCTOBER 23, 2010

I don’t know any developers. These are the geniuses clogging up Craigslist’s “Computer Gigs&# with ads saying stuff like “Need iPhone Developer: Compensation: 30% of profits (when we get them)&# or “Ruby on Rails ROCKSTAR needed: $20/hr&# [link] Nils Noack Definitely a good read! I need money for the servers.

Technical Review 84

Technical Review Cofounder Technical Cofounder Software Review 84

Ben's Blog

MAY 24, 2021

Small” IPOs — companies with less than $50m in annual revenue at the time of IPO – have declined from more than 50% of all IPOs in the 1980-2000 timeframe to about 25% of IPOs from 2001-2016; Companies are staying private much longer — the median time to IPO from founding hovered around 6.5 Time Period IPO Pop* 1980-1989 6.1%

SEC 36

SEC Accredited Investor IPO Technical Review 36

Entrepreneurs-Journey.com by Yaro Starak

JANUARY 21, 2011

Right out of Graduate School, I started my career with one of the big four accounting firms in their M&A (Mergers and Acquisitions) practice. I was trading real heavy hours for heavy dollars, and led a very mobile, demanding and by choice, a pressure packed lifestyle. In “normal” market conditions, 20% is the norm.

Internet 80

Internet Technical Review Stock Due Diligence 80