Startup Professionals Musings

SEPTEMBER 1, 2019

Early-stage entrepreneurs rightly keep their focus on creating an innovative product or service. After celebrating success at that level, they often find themselves ill-prepared to move to the next stage, for scaling their business into a high-performing enterprise. Hire more help than helpers.

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Mezzanine Private Equity Startup Bandwidth 244

This is going to be BIG.

AUGUST 22, 2012

Who should you hire? In a way, you can think of BD as “sales when you don’t know what the product is yet.” It’s basically working with potential outside partners to reach your business goals--which could be revenue, distribution, financing, product development, awareness, etc. How are you ever going to get it done?

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PR Technical Review Seed Stage Design 144

Austin Startup

JANUARY 25, 2020

This was my time at a Wall Street firm that had hired me after I applied for their Junior Stockbroker position, a little while after I graduated from college. I remember enjoying reading his book “ Delivering Happiness ,” the story behind how he led Zappos and drove it to a billion dollars in revenue before Amazon bought it.

Delaware 62

Delaware SEC New York City New York 62

Hippoland

OCTOBER 9, 2016

If you’re still in the early stages of your entrepreneur-education/journey, you may even think you need to protect your idea and not share it with anyone. revenue / traction / setting up infrastructure / etc) This can set you apart, because the vast majority of businesses I see at the seed stage are just ideas with no action.

Seed Stage 48

Seed Stage CTO Hire Email Later Stage 48

OnlyOnce

MARCH 14, 2011

We all knew if the feature or function that the client was asking for was within the realm of the possible. • We were very, very focused on creating customers and revenue —We were a startup. If we drove revenue above costs, we got to take home a salary. They come in awfully handy in funding new initiatives.

Software Review 67

Software Review Development Team Review Later Stage Technical Review 67

Austin Startup

AUGUST 20, 2017

Early stage startups have to survive one day at a time and are often presented with limited choices of the moment that enable them to continue. Hiring is a chapter unto itself, but it deserves to lead off any discussion of context. Compensation decisions obviously affect hiring and retention.

Technical Review 48

Technical Review Software Review Cap Table Securities and Exchange Commission 48

Hearpreneur

FEBRUARY 14, 2018

TalentMoxie blends strength based career coaching, human resources, and partners with companies that want to hire talented people. I don’t feel comfortable sharing exact revenue numbers but it’s now making me more than $1,000 per month. TalentMoxie.com is a online platform for all people who are looking to make meaningful career moves.

Entrepreneur 74

Entrepreneur Technical Review SEO New York City 74

Startup Professionals Musings

SEPTEMBER 13, 2017

Early-stage entrepreneurs rightly keep their focus on creating an innovative product or service. After celebrating success at that level, they often find themselves ill-prepared to move to the next stage, for scaling their business into a high-performing enterprise. Hire more help than helpers.

Mezzanine 141

Mezzanine Private Equity Startup Bandwidth 141

Startup Professionals Musings

NOVEMBER 3, 2013

Early-stage entrepreneurs rightly keep their focus on creating an innovative product or service. After celebrating success at that level, they often find themselves ill-prepared to move to the next stage, for scaling their business into a high-performing enterprise. Hire more help than helpers.

Mezzanine 240

Mezzanine Private Equity Bandwidth Metrics 240

Steve Blank

MAY 28, 2009

Market Risk vs. Invention Risk - Click to Enlarge For companies building web-based products, product development may be difficult, but with enough time and iteration engineering will eventually converge on a solution and ship a functional product - i t’s engineering, not invention. Am I in a company with “invention risk?

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Vertical Silicon Valley Marketing Customer 147

Startup Lessons Learned

NOVEMBER 17, 2008

Another advantage of the early stages is that most dont have to juggle too many competing priorities. If you dont have customers, a product, investors, or a board of directors, you can pretty much stay focused on just one thing at a time. And if you neglect maintenance, you may not have a business left at all.

San Francisco 88

San Francisco Lean Continuous Deployment DC 88

The Equity Kicker

NOVEMBER 28, 2016

Different investors place different weights on the three elements but as a rule earlier stage investors place more emphasis on the team and later stage investors place more emphasis on the market. Some very early stage investors go as far as to say that for them team is everything.

Seed Stage 60

Seed Stage Later Stage Early Stage Partner 60

Startup Professionals Musings

FEBRUARY 4, 2015

Early-stage entrepreneurs rightly keep their focus on creating an innovative product or service. After celebrating success at that level, they often find themselves ill-prepared to move to the next stage, for scaling their business into a high-performing enterprise. Hire more help than helpers.

Mezzanine 120

Mezzanine Private Equity Startup Bandwidth 120

Startup Lessons Learned

JANUARY 2, 2009

We were even more embarrassed by the pathetically small number of customers we had, and the pathetically low amount of revenue we had earned so far. We’d always cringe as we admitted that, no, we really only had a few thousand customers and a few thousand dollars in monthly revenue. Retention cohort analysis. I am chugging along.

San Francisco 60

San Francisco Tampa Continuous Deployment Lean 60

infochachkie.com

SEPTEMBER 24, 2011

For instance, if a consultant proposes to help you with public relations, pay them a commission equivalent to the greater of a flat fee per story placed or a percentage of revenue generated from the PR coverage. Such positions include: PR, Sales, Product Development, Lead Generation, Strategic Planning, Fund Raising, etc.

Equity 40

Equity Silicon Valley Cofounder Technical Review 40

Steve Blank

AUGUST 27, 2009

Thirty years later we now realize that its one the causes of early startup failure. Thirty years later we now realize that its one the causes of early startup failure. This series of posts is a brief explanation of how we’ve evolved from Product Development to Customer Development to the Lean Startup.

Silicon Valley 263

Silicon Valley Product Startup Product Development 263

Startup Lessons Learned

JUNE 5, 2009

And so the spreadsheet is built with conservative assumptions, including a final revenue target. No matter how low we make the revenue projections for this new product, it’s extremely unlikely that they are achievable. In a startup context, numbers like gross revenue are actually vanity metrics, not actionable metrics.

San Francisco 102

San Francisco Lean Continuous Deployment Startup 102

Business Plan Blog

OCTOBER 4, 2013

This is true for early stage funding as well as venture capital funding. Don’t hire people with skills and qualifications similar to yours. Hire based on functionality and avoid having too many C’s. Hiring the right people at the right time is key. Hiring the right people at the right time is key.

Part-Time VPE 79

Part-Time VPE Fractional VPE Cofounder CTO Hire 79

Steve Blank

FEBRUARY 23, 2009

Yet the processes that early-stage companies were using were identical to that of large corporations. In hindsight it appeared clear that startups that survive the first few tough years do not follow the traditional product-centric launch model espoused by product managers or the venture capital community.

Silicon Valley 128

Silicon Valley RSS Venture Capital California 128

View from Seed

FEBRUARY 27, 2019

Most startups don’t have the luxury of hiring an experienced PM early in their journey. Many founders have to turn to brute force to figure it out, even when they themselves don’t have practitioner product management experience. they can range from customer acquisition, product engagement/stickiness, or business model.

Hiring 120

Hiring Bandwidth Product Early Stage 120

Steve Blank

NOVEMBER 2, 2009

The key contributors to an out-of-control burn rate is 1) hiring a sales force too early, 2) turning on the demand creation activities too early, 3) developing something other than the minimum feature set for first customer ship. And I can even imagine cases where it might burn more cash than a traditional startup.

Lean 250

Lean Silicon Valley Startup RSS 250

Small Business Force

OCTOBER 8, 2017

Whether you’re an early stage company or you’ve been around for ten years, growth is something every entrepreneur or small business owner is continually chasing. With this vehicle, you’re selling the same product mix into the same markets with the objective of more revenue from new customers in current markets.

Revenue 25

Revenue Early Stage Small Business Partner 25

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. If you don’t yet have a team yet, list the roles you need to hire for. If you don’t yet have a team yet, list the roles you need to hire for. The business model.

Software Review 74

Software Review Software Delaware Forecast 74

David Teten

OCTOBER 1, 2015

I’ve talked with a number of software development shops who are eager to get into the business of cofounding companies, i.e., getting product revenue and equity instead of just consulting revenue. Second, the company must eventually own the product development and maintenance functions in-house.

Software Developers 60

Software Developers Software Development Software Review Technical Cofounder 60

www.readwriteweb.com

OCTOBER 18, 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. Raymond has built a nice business through efficient distribution deals and will do about $250,000 in revenue this year.

Marketing 52

Marketing Bootstrapping Incubator Angel Investor 52

www.readwriteweb.com

OCTOBER 18, 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. Raymond has built a nice business through efficient distribution deals and will do about $250,000 in revenue this year.

Marketing 52

Marketing Bootstrapping Incubator Angel Investor 52

BeyondVC

JANUARY 2, 2006

All too often we are enamored with how cool or sexy a technology is, invest lots of dollars to create that killer product, and sometimes forget that it is all about the people. In terms of bonuses, I am not a huge fan of cash bonuses for companies losing money, especially in the early stages of development.

Management 60

Management Equity Forecast Salary 60

maplebutter.com

JANUARY 8, 2013

You are here: Home » Hiring » Crazy! Written By Dan Martell on February 2nd, 2012 | Category: Hiring LeanStartup Marketing Metrics Startup Life | 6 Comments. Or should I launch products and a startup for each of them, focusing on only 1 product at a time? Ability to hire top talent (A+ talent).

Technical Review 44

Technical Review Startup Cofounder Software Review 44

Up and Running

SEPTEMBER 20, 2016

enabling you to expand on an already working business model), and if you’re in the extremely early stages of building your company, you still need to develop your product. Product development. When it comes to product development and marketing in the early stages of your tech startup, funding is optional.

Early Stage 60

Early Stage Startup Forecast Channel 60

Startup Lessons Learned

JULY 9, 2009

We were focused on revenue, but we didnt understand that revenue is not important for its own sake in an early stage company. Maybe, but the thought never even entered our minds. You can even see the humiliating evidence of my smug incompetence in this absurd article from 1999.)

San Francisco 94

San Francisco Lean Continuous Deployment DC 94

Startup Lessons Learned

MARCH 21, 2013

Matrix Partners' David Skok agrees with the 5% churn threshold, but only for early stage companies, and says that you have to see a clear path to getting churn below 2% if you want to scale significantly. “In In the early days of a SaaS business, churn really doesn’t matter that much.

Analytics 167

Analytics Lean Metrics Churn Rate 167

techcrunch.com

OCTOBER 23, 2010

So for this first post, here’s the best advice I can give you: join an awesome founding team and get your product out the door ASAP. One of the things I do as a founder of a later stage startup is to meet with early stage entrepreneurs to help them get their companies going. I don’t know any developers.

Technical Review 84

Technical Review Cofounder Technical Cofounder Software Review 84

www.quora.com

JANUARY 16, 2011

Sure, it garners the "winning " reply above, but in reality I find the answers below by Cody Riddar that directs the asker to go hire an inexpensive prototype development team much more helpful than the "leading answer" that gives the "Quora rockstar engineer" point of view. In my opinion, yes.

Developer 42

Developer Technical Review Cofounder Technical Cofounder 42

Steve Blank

MAY 4, 2009

Every marketing communication hire couldn’t wait to produce the next great ad or PR program. Every product marketer thought they should help define the product feature set, etc. But without sales there is no revenue, and without revenue there is no company. No one was confused after that. Who’s on the Sharp End?

Silicon Valley 127

Silicon Valley RSS Non-Compete California 127

Seeing Both Sides

JANUARY 13, 2015

My boss and mentor from Open Market, Gary Eichhorn , made the entire management team read it in the 1990s to hammer home its important lessons as we stumbled through the chasm on our way to scaling from zero to nearly $100 million in revenue in a few years. At each stage, there are different problems. Anyone up for a rewrite?

Mezzanine 20

Mezzanine IPO Finance Business Model 20

mashable.com

JUNE 11, 2013

Whether your product is working or not, looking back its easy to see that you only really needed to build a small fraction of the stuff you built. Hiring Poorly. Make sure that new hires understand your rate of innovation. Your early partners, co-founders, investors and hires are crucial to get right.

Cofounder 111

Cofounder Technical Review Startup Software Review 111

www.quora.com

JANUARY 16, 2011

I have come to believe during my time as an operator, entrepreneur and investor that the balance of these skills is so important to the long-term health of a business that if balance is not achieved early then the impact later can be profound - sometimes terminal. Developers who understand and can execute on a business model.

Technical Review 51

Technical Review Startup CTO Hire Cofounder 51