Steve Blank

FEBRUARY 25, 2014

However, accelerator Demo Days are a combination of graduation ceremony and pitch contest, with the uncomfortable feel of a swimsuit competition. Other than “I’ll know it when I see it”, there’s no formal way for an investor attending Demo Day to assess project maturity or quantify risks.

Incubator 316

Incubator Intellectual Property Startup Lean 316

David Teten

MAY 7, 2019

As a VC, I’m interested in working with companies with large-scale revenue potential, and that’s the company we envision. For more on what I’m seeking, see The 8 characteristics of the perfect startup team and Early Teams: The Impact of Team Demography on VC Financing and Going Public. Q: What is your political philosophy?

America 60

America Technical Review Advisory Board Due Diligence 60

YoungUpstarts

AUGUST 10, 2020

The industry is booming with the average revenue per user (ARPU) in the US expected to exceed $1,450 in 2020. For others, they are testing the process as they prepare to make the purchase in future when their finances allow it. More than a third of Amazon’s revenue can be attributed to upsells and cross-sells.

eCommerce 147

eCommerce SMS Email Video 147

David Teten

JULY 10, 2019

As a VC, I’m interested in working with companies with large-scale revenue potential, and that’s the company we envision. We build a basic deck together and ideally a simple demo. Q: Is this civic tech? A nonprofit? The company has a long-term vision far beyond working with advocacy organizations. We’re off to the races!

America 60

America Technical Review Advisory Board Due Diligence 60

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). And even with the significant cost of credit card debt, many entrepreneurs aggressively use existing cards to finance a startup.

Private Equity 118

Private Equity Valuation Cap Table Accredited Investor 118

Haystack

OCTOBER 23, 2018

A few years ago, during a YC cohort (before Demo Day), a few sources told me about a SaaS founder in the batch who was on a mission. I am not surprised that today, he is making a big announcement for the company’s new financing round — People.ai Oleg is a learning machine. You can and should read about what People.ai

Artificial Inteligence 71

Artificial Inteligence Finance Security Founder 71

View from Seed

SEPTEMBER 25, 2019

Investors want to know the critical thinking behind the inputs and value-drivers of the business, and how that results in the outputs on the critical metrics and finances. Product Snapshots: While some of the time there is an opportunity during a pitch meeting for a live demo, it’s not always the case.

Seed Stage 167

Seed Stage Retention Restful Valuation 167

Diego Basch

MARCH 14, 2013

I avoid the entertainment industry, and anything where the revenue stream is based on advertising. I prefer investing in health, transportation, education, and (under some very specific circumstances) finance. I recently attended a Demo Day for a well-known incubator.

San Francisco 55

San Francisco Startup Silicon Valley Seed Stage 55

www.forentrepreneurs.com

FEBRUARY 2, 2010

The company has just missed its quarterly revenue forecast. Lets take an example, and look at how they might do this: They will be able to tell you that revenue is composed of deals. To compute revenue, you multiply average deal size by number of deals. Bookings is the pre-cursor to Revenue. Obvious, isn’t it?

Metrics 55

Metrics Design Entrepreneur Startup 55

Rob Go

SEPTEMBER 7, 2011

Large Tech Meetups: Web Innovators Group : Quarterly Demo-Style meetup in Cambridge draws over 1000 members of the startup community each time. Not Boston focused, but definitely follow his reports of PE and VC financings and the state of the venture market. @danprimack. Wayfair - $350M + revenue, 300 employees.

Boston 56

Boston Technical Review Community CTO Hire 56

Duct Tape Marketing

DECEMBER 7, 2022

Any heavily regulated industry, you know, if you're working in finance and insurance and technology, you know, there's a big risk factor there. Then I want to talk to you about adding a new revenue stream to your business that will completely change how you work with clients. That's true in like the B2B space.

Marketing 76

Marketing Audience B2B Framework 76

Up and Running

JUNE 26, 2013

By the time demo day came around, we had cheques being written and were all over the press. Business Planning Finance business accelerator failure startup tech' The entrepreneur-cum-blogger opted to include Tumblr’s “Ask Me Anything” feature on his blog, which opens to doors to any reader who would like to know more.

Hockey Stick 72

Hockey Stick Entrepreneur Startup Bootstrapping 72

K9 Ventures

JUNE 5, 2015

In that presentation, I said that Seed is not the first round of financing any more and that K9’s investments were mostly “pre-seed”. As the check size increases, investors tend to look for more traction, established revenue models, proven unit-economics, and other metrics that were previously associated with later stage companies.

Seed Stage 48

Seed Stage Venture Capital Early Stage Valuation 48

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). And even with the significant cost of credit card debt, many entrepreneurs aggressively use existing cards to finance a startup.

Private Equity 106

Private Equity Valuation Cap Table Accredited Investor 106

Steve Blank

DECEMBER 7, 2010

Channel incentives – does your product or proposition extend or replace existing revenue for the channel? ——————– Class 6 Feb 8 th Testing Revenue Model. Class Lecture/Out of the Building Assignment: What’s a revenue model? What types of revenue streams are there?

Wiki 316

Wiki Lean Management Business Model 316

David Teten

FEBRUARY 9, 2015

The cover note should include: name, website, location, revenues (if any), detailed financing history (if any), and precise terms on which you are seeking to raise capital. We almost always require a demo, or at least a mockup. What are the expected revenues, expenses, and EBITDA three years out? Financial Overview.

Venture Capital 60

Venture Capital Pre-Money Valuation Prospectus Early Stage 60

Feld Thoughts

OCTOBER 19, 2011

Over a few weeks everyone connected, Matthew, Cashman, and Raj decided to merge efforts, and I agreed, along with Rich Miner at Google Ventures, to provide a seed financing. The team heeded the advice, stopped trying to ramp up headcount to work on extending the demo, deleted the product roadmap, and started again.

Email 130

Email Boston Channel Finance 130

VC Cafe

OCTOBER 19, 2010

The IPO is underwritten by Libertas Capital Corporate Finance. PeerTV says it is profitable ($200,000 profit in the last six months) on revenue of £3.12 PeerTV’s OTT service includes live channels VOD and free public content over the open Internet such as podcasts and streaming video.

IPO 68

IPO Internet Channel Operations 68

Agile VC

JANUARY 12, 2012

When a startup doesn’t match the stage where a particular investor focuses, founders may get a response along the lines of “This is interesting to us, but come back once you get from X phase to Y phase” That could be from seed stage to a larger Series A financing need, or to progress from pre-product to post-revenue.

Seed Stage 100

Seed Stage Silicon Valley Syndicate Syndication 100

Both Sides of the Table

MAY 13, 2018

Other signs of engagement are: they ask you to meet with portfolio companies (they want feedback on your product and you), they ask you to meet a colleague, they set up a call to go through a product demo / financial walk-through, they ask to speak with customers, etc. can I get 20 minutes to swing by” is a good way to engage.

Term Sheet 332

Term Sheet Due Diligence Campaign Sales 332

Professor VC

JULY 31, 2008

I actually enjoy the process of pulling together a selection of materials to create a complete course on Entrepreneurial Finance. The artists received very little of album sales, but kept concert and merchandise revenue. The artists received very little of album sales, but kept concert and merchandise revenue. NCH Australia.

San Jose 28

San Jose Software Review Angel Investor Silicon Valley 28

This is going to be BIG.

MARCH 10, 2011

There are incubators to help you out on the financing side, too. New York will feature five this summer alone--Techstars, DreamIt, Startl and the NYC Seed/EDC Media and Finance incubators. If those companies work on revenues, they may actually work themselves out.

Indiana 107

Indiana Incubator EC2 Ukraine 107

ConversionXL

AUGUST 4, 2020

Your new boss read that customer experience (CX) improvements can deliver billions in additional revenue. Doing so misses out on the incremental revenue you could be generating, and the big initiatives that do make it to implementation have a lot riding on them. Can I sit in on customer demo calls/pitches/discovery calls?

SQL 117

SQL Software Review Agile Metrics 117

ConversionXL

FEBRUARY 12, 2016

Therefore, we have this huge opportunity to influence how people feel – how they perceive our product’s value – as well as the opportunity to optimize the customer experience in such a way that the customer is delighted and we maximize our revenue. What’s the difference between price, quality, and value? Image Source.

Security 48

Security Cost Advertising Product 48

Up and Running

MAY 28, 2015

What’s the concept of all of this that you’re talking about and then in financing? I just thought it was a good question to set the context of lean planning and when somebody should use it, because so many of our webinar attendees are in the process of getting financing. This will be context specific. How important is that?

Lean 60

Lean Business Plan Video Software Review 60

The Startup Magazine

DECEMBER 4, 2017

For example, look closely at their revenue and stability. Learn more and request a free demo on our website. This might include: Can they afford your product/service? Qualifying leads by performing financial checks beforehand can save a lot of your company’s resources. Setting credit limits. Credit Risk Platform.

Metrics 61

Metrics Customer Database Bankruptcy 61

ConversionXL

OCTOBER 20, 2015

How Costco Drives Revenue With Free Samples. Many personal-finance and food bloggers actually encourage the practice. In the study, Corcentric tested their CTA copy, changing it from “Get a Demo” to “Free Demo.” As CityLab put it , “We gravitate towards the free choice, regardless of its intrinsic value.”. The results?

France 48

France Clickthrough Conversion SEO 48

Professor VC

JUNE 20, 2011

Financing, that is.I One truth of start-up financing is that it generally takes twice as long and twice as much money to accomplish your milestones. But of course, the model had us requiring only $10M equity to breakeven and to achieve $185M in revenues in 2008 (the magic Year 5 in all business plans). ProfessorVC.

San Jose 28

San Jose Angel Investor Term Sheet Venture Capital 28

Steve Blank

NOVEMBER 5, 2009

Unfortunately in early stage startups the drive for financing hijacks the corporate DNA and becomes the raison d’etre of the company. No amount of learning how to get a VC meeting or improving your VC demo skills will fix the lack of concrete customer data. You might as well bring your lucky rabbits foot to the VC meeting.

Customer Development 267

Customer Development Developer Customer Silicon Valley 267

Professor VC

AUGUST 26, 2011

To that last one, there is certainly some truth as the standard time vs. revenue chart in most business plans looks like this: Im not teaching Entrepreneurial Finance this semester for the first time since Fall 2007. Does a complicated sales build model make sense for a pre-revenue SaaS company? Are DEMO's days numbered?

Silicon Valley 35

Silicon Valley San Jose Hockey Stick Venture Capital 35

Steve Blank

FEBRUARY 26, 2020

There are two reasons to raise money: You have a killer idea that is only partially validated, that you think can get to $50M+ of revenue in 5 years with 80%+ gross margins (if margins are lower, you need a lot more revenue)and you need money to get to product-market fit, or. Not all startups need outside investment to grow.

Cofounder 431

Cofounder Seed Stage Valuation Metrics 431

techcrunch.com

NOVEMBER 2, 2010

Other are financed focused, while others will be initially focused on the team you have assembled. Containing the numerical story of the company so far including revenue if any (also net income, current monthly burn). Here you are setting up the trend pattern and then move right into the demo. Blank Slide: Product Demo.

Technical Review 100

Technical Review San Francisco Framework Term Sheet 100

ConversionXL

NOVEMBER 22, 2016

You can even be a heavily commerce-based organization, like Edelman, but how do you measure success on a website where you can’t buy anything, or even request a demo or collect leads? A leading home-finance company, for example, implemented an “executive dashboard” that eventually grew to encompass nearly 300 measures.

Conversion 48

Conversion Metrics Analytics Non-Compete 48

dondodge.typepad.com

JANUARY 15, 2011

Don Dodge on The Next Big Thing Thoughts on business and technology Home Archives Profile Subscribe About Me « Boston VCs gets first look at Y Combinator Demo Day | Main | Digg-nation is HUGE! They start out higher and get diluted down to these levels after multiple rounds of financing; CEO - 4% VPs - 1% each Director level -.5%

Equity 40

Equity Employee Dilution Valuation 40

Startup Lessons Learned

JANUARY 10, 2011

I hear similar things for pre-revenue startups that are on schedule, on time, and on budget - even though they are busy building something that nobody wants. (In Therefore, if you want to sell IMVU one day, you’ll need to abandon your business model, even though it’s generating a lot of revenue per customer.

Silicon Valley 167

Silicon Valley San Francisco Lean Investment Bankers 167

Seeing Both Sides

AUGUST 16, 2012

Last week, I wrote about Akamai , a company with strong network effects that successfully transitioned from a single product to build a platform that garners over a billion dollars in revenue and is now a core part of the Internet’s fabric. Expedia grew to account for roughly one third of the company’s revenues. Think about that.

Part-Time VPE 54

Part-Time VPE Software Review Costa Rica Technical Review 54

Professor VC

JULY 2, 2010

Are DEMO's days numbered? I take CFO roles in early stage companies and participate on the management team during the early financings and business model development phases. I also teach Entrepreneurial Finance at San Jose State. How Much Diligence is Due. ▼ 2010. (7). ► October. (2). ► September. (2).

San Jose 28

San Jose Silicon Valley Venture Capital Angel Investor 28