Startup Professionals Musings

DECEMBER 7, 2022

Too many entrepreneurs don’t know what to do at this point, largely accounting for a disappointing 50 percent of startups that fail in the first five years, according to InvoiceTracker. Continually add new marketing and distribution partners. Many entrepreneurs forget that the growth phase may be your tightest squeeze on cash.

Startup 335

Startup Social Media Metrics Viral 335

Both Sides of the Table

AUGUST 8, 2009

Your friends and advisers tell you that this means you need revenue because in this economy VC’s will only fund businesses with revenue. So if it’s not necessarily revenue that’s preventing an investment, then WTF is traction? They tell you they’re going to ship product and they do.

Technical Review 309

Technical Review Term Sheet Venture Capital Revenue 309

Steve Blank

MAY 6, 2015

Waterfall Development. While it sounds simple , the Build Measure Learn approach to product development is a radical improvement over the traditional Waterfall model used throughout the 20 th century to build and ship products. It often took companies three tries to get products right. Testing Hypotheses.

Lean 120

Lean Agile Business Model Customer Development 120

Hearpreneur

DECEMBER 24, 2017

In the last few days of 2017, we took some time to ask a few entrepreneurs and business what their biggest business accomplishments were. #1- We’re very new to the industry, and while we’re passionate about the product, there have been obstacles every step of the way – production, shipping, distribution, etc.

Las Vegas 86

Las Vegas Entrepreneur Software Review Community 86

YoungUpstarts

NOVEMBER 20, 2019

I’ve been fortunate enough to be on both sides of the table, as an entrepreneur and a VC, and I’ve observed that most investors look for the same things I do when deciding whether to invest in a company. You may be able to generate revenue, but VCs want exponential growth. Like you, they’re looking for opportunity.

Technical Review 140

Technical Review Due Diligence Early Stage Differentiation 140

Steve Blank

AUGUST 31, 2009

After 20 years of working in startups, I decided to take a step back and look at the product development model I had been following and see why it usually failed to provide useful guidance in activities outside the building – sales, marketing and business development. So what’s wrong the product development model?

Customer Development 238

Customer Development Developer Customer Silicon Valley 238

Startup Professionals Musings

SEPTEMBER 4, 2010

Whether your new software is ‘in the cloud,’ an online download, or distributed on a CD through various direct and indirect distribution channels, the process of localization is still a time consuming, manually intensive, and expensive effort. In addition this person should report, dotted line, to product development or engineering.

Software 200

Software Distribution Europe Database 200

Steve Blank

APRIL 23, 2018

The entrepreneur who founded and grew the largest startup in the world to $10 billion in revenue and got fired is someone you have probably never heard of. Who was the entrepreneur who founded what would become General Motors 16 years earlier, in 1904? A version of this article appeared in the Harvard Business Review.

Michigan 268

Michigan Cofounder Stock Forecast 268

Up and Running

JUNE 14, 2017

Almost on a weekly basis, I meet new aspiring entrepreneurs looking to execute on their ideas. Some believe in the all-in approach to product development: build an advanced app. Then, about two weeks before launch, I distributed a survey to those 256 partners. It wasn’t a scalable solution, but it was a start.

Technical Review 96

Technical Review Distribution Redemption Demand 96

Startup Professionals Musings

MARCH 9, 2020

Too many entrepreneurs don’t know what to do at this point, largely accounting for that disappointing 50 percent of startups that fail in the first five years, according to Gallup. Continually add new marketing and distribution partners. Many entrepreneurs forget that the growth phase may be your tightest squeeze on cash.

Social Media 329

Social Media Metrics Viral Channel 329

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. 1x hacker in charge of product/development. 1x hipster working with both product and growth.

Revenue 60

Revenue Acquisition Channel Campaign 60

Steve Blank

NOVEMBER 2, 2009

For those of you who have been following the discussion, a Lean Startup is Eric Ries ’s description of the intersection of Customer Development , Agile Development and if available, open platforms and open source. The Customer Development process (and the Lean Startup) is one way to do that. Lets see why.

Lean 244

Lean Silicon Valley Startup RSS 244

Business Plan Blog

OCTOBER 4, 2013

While some investors will be willing to help you build your team, they will not be willing to invest in your startup if you are not willing to distribute responsibility and bring on diversified expertise. Typically, these hires fall into 2 buckets: product development and sales. Early Stage.

Part-Time VPE 79

Part-Time VPE Fractional VPE Cofounder CTO Hire 79

Austin Startup

FEBRUARY 7, 2019

They will initially generate crowdsourcing revenues by matchmaking science, technology, engineering and math (STEM) researchers with government, academia and industry employers who pay to access the scientists seeking employment. We will also seek first-mover STEM recruiting customers in order to generate revenues.

Intellectual Property 48

Intellectual Property Technical Review Malta Startup 48

Growthink Blog

SEPTEMBER 13, 2017

The dream of every entrepreneur is to build a company successful enough so as to one day be able to attract a buyer to and for it. Company Scenario #2: A company with a solid revenue base - say more than $5 million in sales - but competes in an industry not one of great, current interest to buyers / investors.

Harvest 48

Harvest IP Software Review Forecast 48

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 Lessons Learned

SEPTEMBER 15, 2008

So far, I have found "lean startup" works better with the entrepreneurs Ive talked to than "agile startup" or even "extreme startup.") The application of agile development methodologies which dramatically reduce waste and unlock creativity in product development. What are the characteristics of a lean startup?

Lean 168

Lean San Francisco Startup Continuous Deployment 168

Startup Lessons Learned

SEPTEMBER 22, 2008

is an elegant way to model any service-oriented business: Acquisition Activation Retention Referral Revenue We used a very similar scheme at IMVU, although we werent lucky enough to have started with this framework, and so had to derive a lot of it ourselves via trial and error. Two Ways to Hold Entrepreneurs Accountable (for Ha.

San Francisco 167

San Francisco CPA SEM CTO Hire 167

Steve Blank

NOVEMBER 21, 2015

In the first 50 years of commerce in the then-new United States, most businesses were general merchants , buying and selling all types of products as exporters, wholesaler, importers, etc. and concentrated on a single part of the supply chain – importing, distribution, wholesale, retail.

Silicon Valley 120

Silicon Valley Venture Capital United States Technical Review 120

Startup Lessons Learned

AUGUST 24, 2009

One is explaining the world as it used to work: the importance of gatekeepers, the scarcity implied by limited distribution, and the resulting quality bar that the industry is so proud of. Mostly it is the time and expense required to create the means of distribution for that industry. It’s just taking some longer than others.

San Francisco 113

San Francisco Lean Technical Review Distribution 113

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. Noah has been a key figure in the making of LivePlan, our own SaaS product. At this stage, simply list your primary revenue streams and your key expenses.

Software Review 74

Software Review Software Delaware Forecast 74

Startup Professionals Musings

JULY 29, 2016

Too many entrepreneurs don’t know what to do at this point, largely accounting for that disappointing 50 percent of startups that fail in the first five years, according to Gallup. Continually add new marketing and distribution partners. Many entrepreneurs forget that the growth phase may be your tightest squeeze on cash.

Social Media 120

Social Media Metrics Viral Channel 120

YoungUpstarts

JUNE 24, 2014

Angel Investors, VCs and entrepreneurs agree that the success rate for startup companies is dismal. Just get it done” is fine when entrepreneurs are starting out, but not when the work is distributed to a bigger team. Scalable technology is often the only way that startups will be able to reach profitability and grow revenue.

Startup 252

Startup Angel Investor Early Stage LLC 252

Startup Lessons Learned

APRIL 7, 2010

In fact, the curse of product development is that sometimes small things make a huge difference and sometimes huge things make no difference. Our job as entrepreneurs is to invent the future, and any optimization technique – including split-testing, many design techniques, or even usability testing – can lead us astray.

San Francisco 154

San Francisco Lean Metrics Design 154

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 260

Silicon Valley Product Startup Product Development 260

Startup Professionals Musings

OCTOBER 12, 2010

That’s because a company’s value is a composite of all of the quantitative and qualitative factors that comprise a company: revenues, expenses, risks, growth prospects, quality of the management team, competitive advantages, strength of the intellectual property, and so forth. In business, one important measure is the value of the company.

Intellectual Property 223

Intellectual Property .Net Valuation Distribution 223

Startup Lessons Learned

FEBRUARY 10, 2009

Our tests suite takes nine minutes to run (distributed across 30-40 machines). In a lot of cases, thats just a fancy name for revenue or profit, but not always. This development philosophy created a culture around rapid prototyping of features, followed by testing them against large numbers of actual customers. But it worked.

Continuous Deployment 123

Continuous Deployment San Francisco Software Review Lean 123

Startup Lessons Learned

SEPTEMBER 13, 2008

And one day a remarkable thing happened: we started making more than five dollars a day in revenue. The Entrepreneur’s Guide to Customer Development ► June (3) What is a startup? Two Ways to Hold Entrepreneurs Accountable (for Ha. Thoughts on scientific product development Lo, my 5 subscribers, who are you?

SEM 164

SEM San Francisco Lean Continuous Deployment 164

Startup Lessons Learned

AUGUST 1, 2009

Most executives, especially in startups, dont have the courage to hold their teams to a high standard for new products or features. Not even if its generating revenue. The only efforts a new product team should be expending are those that lead to validated learning about customers. Will start to pay attention. Great post Eric.

San Francisco 166

San Francisco Lean Continuous Deployment DC 166

ReadWriteStart

JUNE 29, 2020

It means relying on your own savings and revenue to operate and expand.”. A solopreneur is essentially an entrepreneur who does not hire any staff. Many experts in this field have developed tried and trusted methods and mechanisms to succeed at an entrepreneurial venture. Partner with a professional business services company.

Bootstrapping 85

Bootstrapping Global Startup Hungary 85

Startup Lessons Learned

OCTOBER 23, 2013

In the Udemy course, Alistair and Ben expand these basics into a description of how to create empathy, stickiness, virality, revenue, and scale. Stickiness, Ben and Alistair say, is where people move on too quickly--they don’t make sure they really have a product that has the right features and functionality to meet their customers’ needs.

Analytics 167

Analytics Lean Widget Metrics 167

Growthink Blog

SEPTEMBER 10, 2012

Popularized by donation - based platforms like Kickstarter , Indiegogo , and Rockethub , crowdfunding allows entrepreneurs to efficiently raise capital in small amounts from one's social and professional networks. So, where should the creative and committed small business owner go for funding when the banks say no? Crowdfunding.

SEC 78

SEC Equity Finance Product Development 78

Startup Lessons Learned

SEPTEMBER 28, 2008

In fact, in the early days, when IMVU would experience unexpected surges of revenue or traffic, it was inevitable that every person in the company was convinced that their project was responsible. The Entrepreneur’s Guide to Customer Development ► June (3) What is a startup? April 23, 2010 in San Francisco.

Lean 68

Lean San Francisco Continuous Deployment Startup 68

www.quora.com

JANUARY 16, 2011

Find Questions, Topics and People Add Question Add Question Team Configuration 500 Startups Guerilla Marketing Organizations Entrepreneurship Startup Founders & Entrepreneurs Startups Startup Incubators and Seed Programs Seedcamp Y Combinator TechStars Lean Startups What is the perfect startup team? They are many more examples.

Technical Review 51

Technical Review Startup CTO Hire Cofounder 51

Startup Lessons Learned

SEPTEMBER 29, 2008

Either way, you would have been better off focusing your split-test on high level metrics that measure how much customers like your product as a whole. The Entrepreneur’s Guide to Customer Development ► June (3) What is a startup? Two Ways to Hold Entrepreneurs Accountable (for Ha. Bring your questions.

San Francisco 68

San Francisco Lean Continuous Deployment DC 68

ReadWriteStart

OCTOBER 14, 2010

These are areas that may be gaps in the portfolio of large companies, and are perfect for M&A deals in three to five years after building enough validation and $10-$20 million in revenue. By definition, the capital investment needs to be relatively low such that the investors and the entrepreneurs all make a healthy return on investment.

Bootstrapping 114

Bootstrapping Marketing Angel Investor Silicon Valley 114

Seeing Both Sides

AUGUST 3, 2012

Facebook and Google would be obvious choices for this, but so much has been written about each of them and they represent such special business models, I worried that it would be both hard for entrepreneurs to relate and hard for me to develop new insights. The first year of revenue (1999) was $4 million – a remarkable achievement.

Distribution 49

Distribution Lean Massachusetts Cofounder 49