Startup Professionals Musings

DECEMBER 17, 2022

Every entrepreneur thinks he can relax a bit after his business model is proven, funding is in place, and revenues are scaling as projected up that hockey-stick curve. Unfortunately, the mainstream customers who can really drive revenue care more about price. This S-Curve, with no correction, can quickly lead to disaster.

Hockey Stick 265

Hockey Stick Guerilla Acquisition Startup 265

Up and Running

SEPTEMBER 8, 2014

Present a “hockey-stick” financial growth model without sharing your numbers behind your numbers (a.k.a. If I had a nickel for every pitch I saw where the financial projections grow in the shape of a hockey stick, I could have funded my last startup! Are you pitching “hockey-stick” financial growth?

Hockey Stick 114

Hockey Stick Technical Review Due Diligence Seattle 114

Startup Professionals Musings

NOVEMBER 27, 2015

Big-bang hard launches make sense for large enterprises like Apple or Microsoft, who are building on existing revenue streams and have the resources for lavish events, Superbowl ads and large inventory buildups. Small real revenue today is better than large later projections. Time to train and prepare staff to deal with customers.

Hockey Stick 120

Hockey Stick Startup Stealth Agile 120

David Teten

JANUARY 19, 2021

More and more startups are pursuing Revenue-Based VCs , but “RBI” doesn’t fit everyone. Flexible VC 101: Equity Meets Revenue Share. By tying payments to actual revenues, founders and investors remain aligned around the company’s real-time performance, good or bad. Flexible VC: Revenue -based. Of the Inc.

Cofounder 78

Cofounder Technical Review Equity Dividend 78

Steve Blank

FEBRUARY 16, 2010

You would think that would be enough to get wrong, but entrepreneurs and investors compound this problem by assuming that all startups grow and scale by executing the Revenue Plan. All discussion focused on “missing the revenue plan.”. Revenue Plan Needs to Match Market Type. They don’t. What went wrong?

Revenue 230

Revenue Balance Sheet Hockey Stick Burn Rate 230

Startup Lessons Learned

JANUARY 15, 2010

They are long-term bets on the development of a new line of business, a new technology platform, or the creation of a new market. Usually, they are delivering only a fraction of the revenue they promised. For a little while, the team can resort to the last defense of entrepreneurs in trouble: the promised hockey-stick.

Hockey Stick 105

Hockey Stick San Francisco Entrepreneur Lean 105

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

Startup Professionals Musings

SEPTEMBER 26, 2014

Every entrepreneur thinks he can relax a bit after his business model is proven, funding is in place, and revenues are scaling as projected up that hockey-stick curve. Unfortunately, the mainstream customers who can really drive revenue care more about price. This S-Curve, with no correction, can quickly lead to disaster.

Hockey Stick 263

Hockey Stick Guerilla Acquisition Revenue 263

Startup Professionals Musings

MARCH 3, 2018

Every entrepreneur thinks he can relax a bit after his business model is proven, funding is in place, and revenues are scaling as projected up that hockey-stick curve. Unfortunately, the mainstream customers who can really drive revenue care more about price. This S-Curve, with no correction, can quickly lead to disaster.

Hockey Stick 130

Hockey Stick Guerilla Acquisition Revenue 130

Startup Professionals Musings

NOVEMBER 1, 2015

Every entrepreneur thinks he can relax a bit after his business model is proven, funding is in place, and revenues are scaling as projected up that hockey-stick curve. Unfortunately, the mainstream customers who can really drive revenue care more about price. This S-Curve, with no correction, can quickly lead to disaster.

Hockey Stick 120

Hockey Stick Guerilla Startup Acquisition 120

Steve Blank

SEPTEMBER 10, 2009

In future posts I’ll describe how Eric Ries and the Lean Startup concept provided the equivalent model for product development activities inside the building and neatly integrates customer and agile development. They never understood Market Type. Why does Market Type matter?

Customer Development 196

Customer Development Developer Customer Silicon Valley 196

Berkonomics

MARCH 21, 2019

If you are a going business with a track record of revenues, then the importance of accurate current financial statements cannot be overstated. If there is no record of revenues, see the “The Berkus Method” available with any search query for valuing the business before revenues. Careful about “hockey stick” forecasts.

Hockey Stick 63

Hockey Stick Liquidity Event Valuation Balance Sheet 63

thebarefootvc

DECEMBER 16, 2011

The mobile phone has transformed billions of lives by providing previously unavailable connectivity, information and economic development (studies have linked a 10% increase in mobile penetration to a 1.2% Villagers in rural areas are now connected to health services via SMS updates and “dial a doctor” services.

Technical Review 110

Technical Review India Mobile Hockey Stick 110

Steve Blank

JANUARY 4, 2010

Now with customers and early revenue, it was out raising its first round of venture money. Not only did their sales curve look like a textbook case of a VC-friendly hockey stick, but their Lessons Learned funding presentation was an eye-opener.). Customer and Agile development to find the business model.

Hockey Stick 276

Hockey Stick Venture Capital Startup Cofounder 276

Up and Running

AUGUST 21, 2014

The other thing that they’re going to ask you is average revenue per account or per user or per customer. You need to understand how much money is brought in by each individual account or user when looking at the overall revenue. It’s what’s going to make you most attractive to an investor. If we increase our-.

Metrics 84

Metrics Startup Churn Rate Forecast 84

Steve Blank

NOVEMBER 8, 2010

In today’s language of Customer Development , RIM positioned the Blackberry as a segment of an existing market – pager users who needed two-way communication. Recording video on magnetic tape was developed in the mid 1950’s by Ampex, and had evolved into a consumer-friendly cassette by the late 1960’s. New Market Revenue Curve.

Hockey Stick 271

Hockey Stick Customer Development Silicon Valley Networking 271

K9 Ventures

MAY 31, 2012

More importantly users are not customers , and seed stage companies often have to spend fair amount of their effort on what I like to call Revenue Development. A Series A investor will look at these numbers and will hope that things will continue to trend in the right direction and in the best case scenario will start to hockey stick.

Hockey Stick 112

Hockey Stick Seed Stage Framework Early Stage 112

K9 Ventures

MAY 31, 2012

More importantly users are not customers , and seed stage companies often have to spend fair amount of their effort on what I like to call Revenue Development. A Series A investor will look at these numbers and will hope that things will continue to trend in the right direction and in the best case scenario will start to hockey stick.

Hockey Stick 101

Hockey Stick Seed Stage Framework Early Stage 101

Growthink Blog

FEBRUARY 8, 2010

in 2009 was greater than the revenues of Microsoft, Cisco, Google, and Apple. Over $135 billion MORE was spent on healthcare in 2009 ($2.5 trillion) than in 2008. Let's put that number in perspective - the increase in healthcare spending in the U.S. HIT is comprised of BIG sectors: -- Practice Management Systems (PMS) - a $2.9

Hockey Stick 72

Hockey Stick Private Equity Washington Government 72

Hippoland

AUGUST 8, 2018

Forget about traction and hockey stick growth. Diving in a bit more into some thoughts here: 1b) Ad-based revenue streams generally have terrible unit economics. Diving in a bit more into some thoughts here: 1b) Ad-based revenue streams generally have terrible unit economics. don’t think about at all.

Founder 48

Founder Sales Cycle Affiliate Retention 48

Hippoland

AUGUST 8, 2018

Forget about traction and hockey stick growth. Diving in a bit more into some thoughts here: 1b) Ad-based revenue streams generally have terrible unit economics. Diving in a bit more into some thoughts here: 1b) Ad-based revenue streams generally have terrible unit economics. don’t think about at all.

Founder 48

Founder Sales Cycle Affiliate Retention 48

K9 Ventures

MARCH 2, 2017

That is the point when founders start to develop a false confidence. This is when the MBA-like tactics of maximizing growth and maximizing revenue come in. Most VCs love that stuff they want to see that hockey-stick growth (For the record, I do not. The press finally want to write about you now. Recruiting becomes easier.

Hockey Stick 48

Hockey Stick Cofounder Founder Early Stage 48

Up and Running

MARCH 11, 2015

” Our featured speaker was Caroline Cummings, the VP of Business Development at Palo Alto Software. Now you’re going to move into your revenue model. Okay, so now your revenue model, so this is—. He had two million people visiting his site, but no revenue, but yet he sold for $40 million. You’re muted.

Technical Review 60

Technical Review Software Review Due Diligence Exit Strategy 60

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. Law firms are no more immune to open sourcing than any developer, engineer, or pixel pusher. It’s difficult to do this unless you do this frequently.

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. Law firms are no more immune to open sourcing than any developer, engineer, or pixel pusher. It’s difficult to do this unless you do this frequently.

Delaware 45

Delaware Hockey Stick Preferred Stock Open Source 45

Professor VC

AUGUST 26, 2011

The objections range from "its hard", "nobody believes them" to "all hockey sticks look alike". 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.

Silicon Valley 35

Silicon Valley San Jose Hockey Stick Venture Capital 35

ConversionXL

APRIL 3, 2019

million; Total revenue: $97.5 Impact of Implementation without testing: Baseline run rate: $100 million per year; Test lift: 10%; Test duration: 12 months; Negative impact: $10 million; Total revenue: $90 million. Chad Sanderson: “Aligning Experimentation Across Product Development and Marketing”. It costs money to learn.

Artificial Inteligence 114

Artificial Inteligence Technical Review Metrics SEO 114