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. Customer Lifetime Value (LTV): The potential revenue that you’ll be receiving from a given user. in other countries).

Revenue 60

Revenue Acquisition Channel Campaign 60

Duct Tape Marketing

JANUARY 25, 2023

Growing Your Audience (And Your Revenue) With A Book written by John Jantsch read more at Duct Tape Marketing Marketing Podcast with Matt Briel In this episode of the Duct Tape Marketing Podcast , I interview Matt Briel. Questions I ask Matt Briel: [1:29] Could you tell us about the origin story of Lulu and how did it come to be? [2:25]

Audience 88

Audience Revenue Distribution Differentiation 88

Transformify

APRIL 21, 2017

I spoke with Toptal Co-founder and CEO Taso Du Val to find out more about how Toptal got started and his predictions for the future of the talent economy. We have arguably the largest distributed workforce in the world. And we’ll be expanding into more business verticals soon. How did you come up with the idea for Toptal?

Technical Review 40

Technical Review Silicon Valley Software Review Cofounder 40

This is going to be BIG.

MAY 5, 2023

For me, I have at least two years of active board and observer commitments to roll off of and far more time before all the founders I’ve backed hit (or miss, I suppose) their ultimate goal of returning lots of money to their investors. No more founder pitch meetings. It has been a career that fits my personality well.

Later Stage 218

Later Stage Venture Capital Term Sheet Limited Partner 218

Steve Blank

NOVEMBER 16, 2009

In it, I got asked a question I often hear: “What if we have a web-based business that doesn’t have revenue or paying customers? And without revenue how do we know if we achieved product/market fit to exit Customer Validation?” They’re putting money into web services/business – most without early revenue. End of theory.&#

Customer Development 223

Customer Development Web Developer Customer 223

Steve Blank

JUNE 8, 2009

In the last three posts, we drew the relationship of market risk and invention risk with vertical markets and pointed out verticals where customer development would be useful. would look in each of the verticals. Business and Revenue Model – How do we organize to make money? Marketing – How do you create end user demand?

Vertical 123

Vertical Silicon Valley RSS Marketing 123

Steve Blank

AUGUST 31, 2009

customers aren’t buying it, the cost of distribution is too high, etc.) Was the sales revenue model based on actually testing the hypotheses outside the building? No newly hired sales and marketing exec is going to tell a founder, “Hey my prior experience and assumptions may not actually be relevant to this new startup.”

Customer Development 241

Customer Development Developer Customer Silicon Valley 241

Steve Blank

OCTOBER 31, 2014

But if you want to build a scalable startup you need to be asking how you can you get enough customers/users/payers to build a business that can grow revenues past several $100M/year. Creating a vertically oriented regional ecosystem is a pretty amazing accomplishment for any country or industry. With 317 million people the U.S.

Global 335

Global Australia Silicon Valley China 335

Austin Startup

FEBRUARY 16, 2020

Maria Tanjala and Irina Albita , the co-founders of FilmChain. The Forrest Four-Cast: February 16, 2020 Maria Tanjala , co-founder of FilmChain , is passionate about tech solutions that bring transparency and automation to creative industries. It tracks rights, and offers performance predictions and analytics. film and tech?—?and

Cofounder 88

Cofounder Vertical Austin Revenue 88

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. What is the right revenue model?

San Francisco 113

San Francisco Lean Technical Review Distribution 113

Austin Startup

DECEMBER 20, 2020

the Connectors, Angels, Venture Capitalists, Founders, Professors, Hackers, Press… and the Legends. Find the Connectors , the Angels , the Venture Capitalists , the Founders , the Professors , the Hackers , and the Legends you need to meet and get some hints about the best ways to meet them. Here is your COVID-friendly cheat sheet.

Austin 110

Austin Texas Cofounder Los Angeles 110

Both Sides of the Table

JUNE 18, 2010

Reportedly, Softbank and Zynga have discussed jointly distributing games through Softbank’s mobile-phone service in Japan and other countries. Founded in April/May 2010 by Diego Berdakin (Ex-Slingshot Labs) and Josh Berman (Ex-Slingshot Labs, MySpace Co-founder) in Santa Monica, CA. first vertical to launch by 2010 Holiday Season.

Venture Capital 225

Venture Capital Non-Compete Vertical Europe 225

Steve Blank

APRIL 30, 2009

SuperMac sold our graphic boards for the Macintosh through multiple distribution channels: direct sales to major accounts, national chains, independent rep firms, etc. Hopefully you and your co-founders are experts in one or two parts (agile development, SEO/SEM, etc.) But the computer retail channel was a large part of our sales.

Sales 120

Sales Silicon Valley RSS Las Vegas 120

The Next Web

DECEMBER 3, 2013

Mat Ellis is the CEO and founder of Cloudability. Defrag and Gluecon founder Eric Norlin believes there are three defining characteristics of this integration shift. Enterprises that have gotten past this reflexive response are struggling with how to integrate all of this new, distributed stuff with their existing stuff.

Cloud 128

Cloud API Vertical Cofounder 128

The Next Web

OCTOBER 2, 2013

Interestingly enough, CooTek’s co-founder and CEO, Michael Wong , who was formerly from Microsoft’s R&D unit, took an unconventional route by launching in the Western market first. Distribution and cashflow pose challenges in China. Lee notes that this makes payment a lot more complicated than it is in Western markets.

China 122

China Developer Intellectual Property Mobile 122

justinmares.com

OCTOBER 8, 2012

Through my work on Traction Book (and interviews with over 25 entrepreneurs) I’ve noticed a few things successful founders have in common. It follows that failure occurs when a company cannot grow fast enough to support itself on revenues, or does not have promising enough growth on which they can raise money. Bookmark the permalink.

Vertical 44

Vertical Lean Channel PR 44

ConversionXL

FEBRUARY 3, 2022

No changes were made to the customer journey, and it had nothing to do with revenue lift. It isn’t about finding quick hacks to boost short-term revenue. Growth marketing doesn’t prescribe quick-fix hacks that any company can apply to “10x their revenue.” For example, say you’re trying to improve top-line revenue.

Framework 102

Framework Marketing Acquisition Retention 102

ReadWriteStart

DECEMBER 8, 2011

Some vertical ad networks have gone after this opportunity, Glam Media being one of the most successful of the lot. There are some excellent comments, especially observations made by Vikrant Mathur, founder of iFood.tv. Today's discussion was about how to generate additional distribution and acquire traffic.

Greece 116

Greece Entrepreneur India Silicon Valley 116

ConversionXL

OCTOBER 25, 2018

Building a cache of user data in a CRM that’s strong enough to inform demand gen campaigns—what content to produce, where to distribute it—can take years, according to Brandt Bogdanovich of MST Solutions. Create and distribute content to those segments. How many customers and much revenue could this channel bring if successful?

Demand 132

Demand Vertical Campaign Channel 132

Rob Go

JANUARY 21, 2016

The challenge is that a lot of founders think that they are doing a judo move and offering a product or service that is disruptively better, but they don’t quite hit the mark. Convenience tends to be an area where incumbents struggle, especially when convenience is tied to new forms of distribution. Why Convenience is Better.

Disintermediation 28

Disintermediation Distribution Demand Flash 28

abovethecrowd.com

FEBRUARY 27, 2019

Unfortunately, either information asymmetry or physical distances and the resulting distribution costs can both cut against the economic advantages that would otherwise arise for all. In many cases, a deeper focus on a particular category or vertical allows these marketplaces to distinguish themselves from broader marketplaces like eBay.

Internet 88

Internet Matching Vertical Hosting 88

Austin Startup

FEBRUARY 25, 2020

As Jerry Chu , CEO and one of the Lofty AI Founders, explains, “our results speak for themselves. We’re actually a distributed team, so we’re in both SF and LA. But my personal favorite part about San Francisco is the energy of the startup founders and the investor network. If you had bought one of our A.I.’s

Technical Review 65

Technical Review San Francisco Artificial Inteligence Cofounder 65

Steve Blank

AUGUST 27, 2009

Yet we used the product development model not only to manage product development, but as a road map for finding customers and to time our marketing launch and sales revenue plan. After that there’s a discussion of how the product will reach the customer and the potential distribution channel.

Silicon Valley 263

Silicon Valley Product Startup Product Development 263

Steve Blank

NOVEMBER 2, 2009

Sales people cost money, and when they’re not bringing in revenue, their wandering in the woods is time consuming, cash-draining and demoralizing. The Customer Development process says preserve your cash by not hiring anyone in sales and marketing until the founders turn hypotheses into facts and you have found product/market fit.

Lean 250

Lean Silicon Valley Startup RSS 250

Steve Blank

OCTOBER 1, 2009

Top management was trying to coordinate all of the operating details (sales, manufacturing, distribution and marketing,) across all the divisions and the company almost went bankrupt that year when poor planning led to excess inventory (with unsold cars piling up at dealers and the company running out of cash.) What happened to him?

Silicon Valley 161

Silicon Valley United States RSS Customer Development 161

David Teten

DECEMBER 3, 2019

Tim Friedman, Founder, PE Stack , said, “If I could offer one piece of advice to today’s managers, it would be to take the time to understand the demands of the modern institutional LP. Russell Rothstein, Founder and CEO, IT Central Station , a product review site, said, “We see VCs on our site very often. 3) Raise capital.

Technical Review 78

Technical Review Software Review Analytics Private Equity 78

Ben's Blog

APRIL 28, 2010

In this post, I describe why we prefer to fund companies whose founder will run the company as its CEO. As we looked at the history of great technology companies, we discovered that founders ran an overwhelming majority of them for a very long time, including: Acer—Stan Shih. Thomas Watson, Sr. The innovation business. Moral authority.

Technical Review 78

Technical Review Cofounder Technical Cofounder Software Review 78

Cracking the Code

MARCH 28, 2022

While the average forward revenue multiple has declined slightly since its February 2020 peak (19x), it’s still higher today than last year at 17x vs 15.8x To date, we’ve invested $7B+ in more than 300 companies globally and have worked with many exceptional cloud founders - from Australia to India, the US, Europe and Israel.

Global 62

Global Europe Software Review 62

Austin Startup

AUGUST 7, 2017

Some businesses can service all four cities with a single distribution hub in one of the cities, making it a unique market for launching new businesses. More connections means more business, more investors, more revenue, and more growth. We truly are an accelerator of the Austin startup ecosystem. You can start by selling in the U.S.

Texas 97

Texas San Antonio Houston Dallas 97

The Next Web

DECEMBER 8, 2013

William Hsu is the co-founder and managing partner of MuckerLab. Today, Airbnb, oDesk and multiple second-hand fashion marketplace startups show that there are tons of untapped verticals where horizontal product platform cannot serve properly or where consumer simply prefer a more tailored brand. Leverage influencers for liquidity.

B2C 136

B2C B2B Demand Vertical 136

Hearpreneur

AUGUST 19, 2015

I am founder on an unconventional online gallery, The Art and Craft Gallery. So we opened the goFlow platform from surfing-only to 10 new verticals: Paddle-boarding, Diving, Fishing, Skateboarding, Cycling, Golfing, Snow sports, Boating, Kitesurfing and more to come. Thanks to Alexi Venneri, Digital Air Strike ! #6)

Entrepreneur 48

Entrepreneur Australia Technical Review Community 48

Cracking the Code

OCTOBER 13, 2020

The average revenue multiple is now 17x+, close to 10 times higher than during the 2008 crisis! For example, I can’t forget the call I had with Stan, Founder and CEO of Doctolib, when he announced that he was shifting the company’s focus to telemedicine to help the French and German healthcare systems during the lockdown.

Europe 71

Europe Cloud Silicon Valley 71

ConversionXL

DECEMBER 3, 2018

Content, including articles, guides, and case studies, can still generate prospects and customers consistently—you just need to approach distribution from a different angle. Zuora’s founder Tien Tzuo is now regarded as a visionary, a man who predicted the shift to subscriptions before anyone else.

B2B 133

B2B Marketing SEO Search 133

Start Up Blog

APRIL 29, 2013

An era defined and dominated by the few who could afford the factories, the media and the distribution systems. Sir Martin Sorrel , the founder of WPP (the worlds largest media organization), recently said he went to Tech Punta in Montevideo instead of the CES in Las Vegas. The top down era of one size fits all. And now it is over.

Uruguay 123

Uruguay Technical Review Vertical Las Vegas 123

VC Cafe

JULY 6, 2010

To learn more about the product and the founder’s ambitious vision, I interviewed Erez Pilosof, founder and CEO of Libox who also founded and ran Walla! It’s all based on growth and on opening the capabilities of the Libox distribution platform to the community. How are you planning ramp up the revenue?

Media 84

Media Management API HTML 84

VC Cafe

APRIL 15, 2024

Initially, many publishers were slow to recognize the internet’s impact on their business model as distribution and the classifieds and ad worlds split – or what Ben Thompson calls the “ Great Unbundling ”. The creation of content, but especially the sharing of content became a zero cost game. What do you think?

Generative AI 142

Generative AI Media Artificial Inteligence Vertical 142

Both Sides of the Table

FEBRUARY 12, 2017

billion and revenues likely exceeding $250 million (Wikipedia lists 2015 revenue at $167 million). That is why I invited the Founder & CEO, Jonah Peretti , to come talk at the 2017 Upfront Summit and make the case himself. The 30-minute interview of Jonah Peretti is here but my summary in the notes below.

Media 210

Media Los Angeles Russia Viral 210