Steve Blank

JUNE 11, 2009

Posted on June 11, 2009 by steveblank When my students ask me about whether they should be a founder or cofounder of a startup I ask them to take a walk around the block and ask themselves: Are you comfortable with: Chaos – startups are disorganized Uncertainty – startups never go per plan Are you: Resilient – at times you will fail – badly.

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Cofounder Founder Silicon Valley Technical Cofounder 219

Both Sides of the Table

JANUARY 6, 2014

When you first start your company and raise initial venture capital your board probably consists of 1-3 founders and 1-2 VCs. Most experienced VCs won’t push you to give up founder control at this stage of the business nor should they. Founder’s perspective. You’ll get empathy. Experience.

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Technical Review Early Stage Software Review Los Angeles 325

ReadWriteStart

DECEMBER 15, 2022

This is especially the case if expecting the agency’s client work to provide the bulk of its revenue during the early stages of operations. The experience of the agency’s initial founders likely dictates early business domains to target. Great procedures go beyond technology and development methodologies.

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Incubator Startup Software Developers Software Development 188

ConversionXL

MARCH 17, 2021

Last September (2020), six months after the 1st lockdown, my co-founder Vladimir Blagojevic and I decided to run market research to figure out what challenges B2B companies face and how they solve them. And while this was a good start, a significant position of these companies were early-stage startups. Let’s dive in.

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B2B Sales Cycle Belgium IP 150

YoungUpstarts

DECEMBER 7, 2017

Startup founders counting the days until break-even or actively seeking outside capital must focus on streamlining their development cycles. These five strategies are proven to work for early-stage companies in a variety of industries — including, perhaps, yours. They quite literally can’t afford to wait.

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Cost Developer Small Business Administration Marketing 100

Steve Blank

MAY 11, 2021

billion in early funding. Dozens of outreach programs across the military now offer quick revenue to early-stage companies. Anduril founder Palmer Luckey has sardonically noted that the only defense companies to reach unicorn status in the past 30 years have all been founded by billionaires able to endure long gaps in funding.

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Artificial Inteligence Marketing Startup Silicon Valley 326

Version One Ventures

SEPTEMBER 8, 2023

Even when founders don’t get the desired response, they still appreciate our quick turnaround and even forward along referrals. In fact, a recommendation from a founder we passed on is one of our best performing portfolio companies! Invest in mission-driven founders. within 24 to 48 hours (90% of the time).

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Cofounder Portfolio Capital Gains Vertical 182

Version One Ventures

SEPTEMBER 19, 2012

So most early-stage VCs have started to evaluate investment opportunities with an imaginary benchmark in mind: can this company become a $100 million opportunity? As the consumer Internet space becomes more and more crowded, every startup founder needs to be thinking about these two ways to scale a business.

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Churn Rate Viral Acquisition Cofounder 168

Mucker Lab

OCTOBER 12, 2016

Following the inevitable ups and downs of the VC investment cycle, and what founders can do when it all turns cold. Vertical integration of different funding risks. Financially, they have to reserve capital to support large portfolio companies that account for big portions of the portfolio and thus make less early stage investment.

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Harvest Vertical IPO Early Stage 60

David Teten

JANUARY 9, 2018

Many VCs focus on specific verticals, usually based on the sector in which a VC initially made her reputation. That said, one limitation in early-stage investing particularly is that 2022’s growth sectors probably don’t fit neatly into a vertical we can define today. This model certainly makes sense.

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Venture Capital Private Equity Silicon Valley Differentiation 60

David Teten

JANUARY 9, 2018

Many VCs focus on specific verticals, usually based on the sector in which a VC initially made her reputation. That said, one limitation in early-stage investing particularly is that 2022’s growth sectors probably don’t fit neatly into a vertical we can define today. This model certainly makes sense.

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Venture Capital Private Equity Silicon Valley Differentiation 60

ConversionXL

JANUARY 28, 2021

David Raab Founder at CDP Institute. While early-stage companies may not see an immediate need for using a CDP, setting the groundwork before reaching accelerated growth can save time and frustration down the line. Use cases for CDP’s. Avoid Data Silos. Provide an Omnichannel Customer Experience.

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Technical Review Software Review Analytics Technical Cofounder 86

David Teten

SEPTEMBER 23, 2017

In venture capital in particular, early-stage companies are often operating in frontier industries, where the rules are unpredictable and conventional analytic frameworks may be misleading. Signal is a fundraising tool for founders run by NFX Guild, which identifies the most relevant VCs for you. . Pitchbot.vc

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Private Equity Venture Capital Equity Technical Review 60

A Crowded Space

AUGUST 12, 2011

By this, I really just mean what I look for in entrepreneurs and companies at early stages. The key is finding that company before they’ve become huge – it tends to happen fast if you’ve really nailed the NPS bit. · Charming founders – I used to think this was superficial. That’s the name of the game.

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Early Stage Vertical Social Media Acquisition 60

Austin Startup

JUNE 22, 2020

Far too often, founders spend inordinate time talking to angels and VCs trying to convince them of their vision, commitment and results. The phrase, “missionaries, not mercenaries,” applies just as equally to early-stage investors as employees. How could a company only six months old have $600k in revenue this month?

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Vertical Early Stage Forecast Revenue 64

Eric Friedman

MARCH 25, 2019

Consumer tech works best when it’s completely horizontal or deeply vertical. Multi-vertical out of the gate usually fails. Once you nail the first vertical, you can expand to others. To put it another way, doing less better is a much better way to focus. The balance can be difficult to reach.

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Vertical Early Stage Demand Conversion 92

View from Seed

AUGUST 13, 2014

So to successfully raise a seed round of capital, founders should possess at least a basic understanding of the different types of angel investors they’ll encounter. It can also help founders better approach angels in the first place. The Domain Angel. The Previous-Colleague Angel. The Financial Angel.

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David Teten

AUGUST 19, 2019

RBI normally requires founders to pay back their investors with a fixed percentage of revenue until they have finished providing the investor with a fixed return on capital, which they agree upon in advance. For background, see Revenue-Based Investing: A New Option for Founders who Care About Control. Decathlon Capital.

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Revenue Technical Review Software Review Equity 60

ConversionXL

JANUARY 18, 2022

This is particularly true for complex verticals such as B2B SaaS products, where product marketing’s ability to pinpoint users with the most need and educate them on product features and benefits proves useful. To become and remain competitive, you need both brand marketing and product marketing at each stage of your company’s development.

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Marketing Product Audience Equity 110

VC Cafe

AUGUST 29, 2022

As an investor in early stage startups in gaming and metaverse/web3 at Remagine Ventures , I naturally consume a lot of content on this topic, and this post also helps me digest and separate signal from noise. Mark Zuckerberg, Meta’s founder and CEO. You can read other highlights of the interview on Techcrunch.

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IP Strategic Investors Vertical Early Stage 187

VC Cafe

DECEMBER 1, 2022

However, in reality the Metaverse is still in its early stages of development, and yet, we already can see positive examples of its impact. As the underlying technology for the Metaverse continues to evolve, we will see more and more use cases brought to life across verticals. Into the Metaverse event in London.

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Generative AI Vertical Early Stage PR 88

Haystack

JANUARY 12, 2020

As valuations have gone up early, the cost of ownership has also risen, and in an early-stage fund where the loss ratio is likely to be much higher, high ownership has been increasingly important to these funds. 4/ Social Forces – As seed stage funds grow and mature, the GPs grow and mature too.

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Seed Stage Cram Down Early Stage Cofounder 106

ReadWriteStart

JANUARY 6, 2011

This curriculum is based on the various questions entrepreneurs have asked me over these 64 sessions, spanning financing, positioning, customer acquisition, marketing, sales, channel, and various other early stage, startup-related issues. As usual, then, I worked with three entrepreneurs working on specific businesses. Mava Consulting.

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Vertical Web San Francisco Entrepreneur 115

Haystack

JULY 8, 2018

After reflecting on it for a day, I began to understand why — even though this topic has been written about many times, “technology” as a sector and industry now has gone from vertical to horizontal, entirely pervasive across industries, across sectors, across geographies and cultures.

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Early Stage Dilution Private Equity Valuation 95

Version One Ventures

SEPTEMBER 8, 2015

As an investor (who was also once a first-time entrepreneur), I have noticed several key areas where founders either overestimate or underestimate the value to their company. 5 things founders often underestimate. Founders should stay involved in every hiring decision for as long as possible. 4 things founders overestimate.

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Founder Due Diligence Vertical Early Stage 60

Version One Ventures

OCTOBER 17, 2018

We invest in the early stages of company creation , leading or participating in pre-seed and seed-rounds with cheque sizes between $500K and $750K. And we also look at companies that are creating the best product for a specific vertical – including bio/healthcare and other emerging tech. About Fund III.

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Silicon Valley North America San Francisco LP 127

Feld Thoughts

JANUARY 20, 2017

Mentors embrace the Techstars “Give First” philosophy by offering founders their time, advice, and connections. As Techstars continues to selectively expand into new geographies and industry verticals, our mentors are important as ever. Guiding founders through the ups and downs of entrepreneurship creates a deep sense of contribution.

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Syndicate Syndication Seed Stage Vertical 70

Steve Blank

FEBRUARY 23, 2009

The same issues arose time and again: big company management styles versus entrepreneurs wanting to shoot from the hip, founders versus professional managers, engineering versus marketing, marketing versus sales, missed schedule issues, sales missing the plan, running out of money, raising new money.

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Silicon Valley RSS Venture Capital California 125

Steve Blank

SEPTEMBER 7, 2009

Moreover, since the first CEO was likely to have been one of the founders, the trauma of CEO removal begins. I think Customer Development (iterative model) helps by putting a strong thought in the mind (at a very early stage) that you could be wrong unless the customer agrees; this helps the mind to be more receptive.

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Customer Development Developer Customer Silicon Valley 224

Steve Blank

OCTOBER 5, 2009

Some of the other founders had sold minicomputers to scientists and engineers, but no one knew or understood the unique class of applications and customers of supercomputers. A few days later Gordon became a founder. We were going to be guessing. I invited him to meet the team.

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North Carolina Silicon Valley Fractional VPE Part-Time VPE 125

Version One Ventures

SEPTEMBER 8, 2014

Being swamped with funding is a problem that most early stage companies would love to have. As Paul Graham said , “startups take off because the founders make them take off. In the early days, you’re going to go through a lot of manual, laborious steps to get things moving. Pitfall #4: Culture of “we’ve done it”.

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Guerilla Seed Money Vertical Early Stage 158

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.

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Austin Texas Cofounder Los Angeles 110

Austin Startup

JUNE 27, 2017

Many investments in startups start with local venture firms in the early stages and then attract non-local venture firms for later stage and larger deal size opportunities. Entrepreneurs with early stage companies typically look for local funding before going out of region to pursue other funding sources.

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Venture Capital Austin Texas Private Equity 54

View from Seed

JUNE 23, 2022

Founder: Dennis Chim. Long-term: Influencers across the world with 10K+ followers and across all major verticals (e.g. Get to know the founders. RH: Founders, please introduce yourselves. . RH: What’s your favorite thing about being an early-stage founder? Company: Influencer Direct. And your least?

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DC Cambodia eCommerce Social Media 156

Hunter Walker

MAY 10, 2015

Our early stage fund Homebrew debuted just two years ago in early 2013 but already I’ve witnessed a dramatic change in how BigVC thinks of seed. It plays out like this -> $500m fund leads a bunch of seed rounds, putting $2m into $2-$3m rounds for early stage startups. Uh oh, potential conflict.

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Portfolio Early Stage Cofounder Vertical 48

Hunter Walker

DECEMBER 30, 2015

HW: In 2006 you created Wallstrip, an online video company focused on the finance vertical. It takes a very special founder to build a media business long term. HW: Social Leverage is your early stage VC fund and even prior to SL, you were an angel investor. Wallstrip was purchased the next year by CBS.

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San Diego Arizona Media Founder 48

Austin Startup

SEPTEMBER 19, 2017

For startup founders, it’s never too early to start thinking about putting together a target market advisory board. This is useful for a number of reasons, the most obvious of which is to help you navigate the right channels in your vertical and open doors to potential customers. Never discount the power of a warm intro.

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Advisory Board Sweat Equity Marketing Vertical 48