Steve Blank

APRIL 20, 2021

It bears repeating: an early-stage startup must focus on making one customer group excited by a mission-aligned product. There are two viable growth engines for tech companies: Viral, or “inherently viral” growth: Customers either intentionally or unintentionally recruit new customers by using your product.

Product 436

Product Viral Channel San Francisco 436

Both Sides of the Table

APRIL 4, 2011

Because it can be hard to define or agree company objectives at an early stage I believe most people avoid them. Measuring viral adoption is obviously important. How many people would we need to hire? If you change your company objectives or measurements later that’s fine. How many adds came through organic SEO?

Metrics 346

Metrics Startup Acquisition SEM 346

reidhoffman.org

NOVEMBER 12, 2013

We are the leader in the professional domain with viral growth. For early stage companies, it’s important to show that you’re on path, that you have prospects, and that you can get to your vision. Here, we argue that we have a viral product that creates a network that possesses network effects.

Entrepreneur 111

Entrepreneur Revenue Viral Networking 111

David Teten

DECEMBER 3, 2019

Data companies focused on early-stage startups include Aingel , fundsUP , Preseries , PredictLeads , and Sploda. The Pocket Negotiator is very early-stage attempt to aid in the negotiating process itself. ff Venture Capital hired two full-time engineers to build out Totem. Fincura specializes in serving lenders.

Technical Review 78

Technical Review Software Review Analytics Private Equity 78

Reid Hoffman

JANUARY 19, 2021

With his usual awesome first principles focus, my friend Reed Hastings has articulated that the fundamental responsibility of the board is to hire, fire, and compensate the CEO. For example, I frequently tell people that hiring a CEO is an activity that usually has–at best–a.500 You rarely can find that quality in a hired gun.

Startup 36

Startup Cofounder Advertising Hiring 36

mashable.com

SEPTEMBER 12, 2011

No doubt early-stage companies can be started on a shoestring by low-paid entrepreneurs, but when financing a scalable, sustainable product, a free application server won’t make much of a difference. For example, my company decided early on to hire a UI designer, which has helped tremendously with our product development.

Startup 79

Startup Social Media RSS Social Network 79

Rob Go

JANUARY 12, 2015

As an early stage investor, should you pay up for team or traction? When you are thinking about joining an early stage company, how should you be evaluating the risk of the overall company? How should you be weighing the presence of a great founding team vs. early signs of traction?

B2B 28

B2B Early Stage Distribution Software Review 28

This is going to be BIG.

AUGUST 8, 2011

Surely--but then I realize how difficult it is to be an early stage VC in NYC. I find it hilarious when someone says " his big claim to fame was organizing a bunch of local high-tech events " because if you're an entrepreneur and you need to hire a developer, marketer, etc., What did I do?

Venture Capital 110

Venture Capital PR Hiring Networking 110

View from Seed

MAY 27, 2015

But we noticed that while the information in these podcasts is interesting, many are often far removed from the actual day-to-day challenges of very early stage founders that are just trying to go from nothing to something. We find that these are great, and I personally listen to many of them.

Cofounder 120

Cofounder Non-Compete Early Stage Silicon Valley 120

VC Cafe

SEPTEMBER 8, 2022

To developers and technically minded people, it’s this cool thing, but to illustrators it’s very upsetting because it feels like you’ve eliminated the need to hire the illustrator” “I Went Viral in the Bad Way”, The Atlantic. And artists are expressing their frustration on Twitter: Fixing famous paintings with AI (?)

Colorado 104

Colorado Viral Early Stage Open Source 104

crowdSPRING Blog

NOVEMBER 2, 2012

A startup’s first hires: What to look for | Fortune - [link]. Lessons from a top Angel Investor: Fabrice Grinda talks about his 100 early-stage investments – [link]. 7 Social Media Mistakes that Can Keep Your Content from Going Viral - [link]. Is The Only Purpose of Customer Service To Change Feelings?

Social Media 93

Social Media Small Business Design Media 93

View from Seed

JANUARY 13, 2015

When you are thinking about joining an early stage company, how should you be evaluating the risk of the overall company? How should you be weighing the presence of a great founding team versus early signs of traction? This post is mostly from the early stage investor’s perspective, but what does this mean for founders?

Seed Stage 120

Seed Stage B2B Distribution Early Stage 120

www.forentrepreneurs.com

FEBRUARY 2, 2010

As I ask questions to understand the thinking, what usually comes out is something vague along the lines of web marketing, and/or viral growth with no numbers attached. A quick look around all the B2C startups shows that, although viral growth is often hoped for, in reality it is extremely rare.

Acquisition 103

Acquisition Cost Customer Entrepreneur 103

Steve Blank

FEBRUARY 26, 2020

For startups the early stage funding landscape looks like this: Step 1: The Pre-seed round – you raise $100-$750K. You’ve built detailed analytics tracking into your product and you should be seeing organic and viral growth; and can provide Daily/Weekly/Monthly Active Users, 30d/90d/120d retention. 2M in 18 months.

Cofounder 431

Cofounder Seed Stage Valuation Metrics 431

mashable.com

SEPTEMBER 14, 2011

You’ll also likely be hiring local staff for your new office. Since these early individuals will be critical to the success of your business, being present and managing them firsthand will effectively establish a precedent, not to mention, align them with the overall culture and vision of your company.

France 77

France Marketing Social Media Startup 77

Startup Lessons Learned

APRIL 14, 2009

In an early-stage startup especially, revenue is not an important goal in and of itself. Let’s start with a simple question: why do early-stage startups want revenue? For more on how this plays into the process of scaling up, see the Customer Creation stage of the customer development model.)

Customer 167

Customer San Francisco Lean Hockey Stick 167

The Next Web

JANUARY 26, 2014

If a big corporation is pushing a new product, you might expect them to take out TV ads, online ads, maybe hire a PR agency and set up big distribution partnerships. Rely on cheaper forms of marketing : Blogging, email, viral tactics etc. PayPal famously offered a $20 2-way reward in their early stages of growth.

Thailand 167

Thailand Social Network PPC Singapore 167

Reid Hoffman

OCTOBER 17, 2018

In fact, to achieve your aggressive growth goals in the face of uncertainty and change, you need to follow a new set of rules that fly in the face of what is taught in business schools and are completely counterintuitive to accepted “best practices” of either early stage startups or classic corporate management. Rule #2: Hire Ms.

Finder 28

Finder Rhode Island Cofounder Engineer 28

Startup Lessons Learned

MARCH 13, 2009

Lessons Learned by Eric Ries Friday, March 13, 2009 Dont launch Heres a common question I get from startups, especially in the early stages: when should we launch? This is the usual reason given for a marketing launch, but for most early stage startups, its a failure. If the viral coefficient is 0.9,

San Francisco 168

San Francisco PR Lean Early Stage 168

Reid Hoffman

MARCH 23, 2021

If they’re the kind of infinite learner who uses their past experiences to make their decision-making better, they have a huge advantage when it comes to everything from hiring to strategy to sales, making them an even better bet the second time around. Many times, a global view of data is sufficient, like the virality curve at PayPal.

Venture Capital 46

Venture Capital Metrics Investment Bankers Framework 46

Up and Running

JULY 26, 2016

I strongly believe that the first few hires of a startup should belong to the growth department, whether they’re marketers, community managers, or salespeople (selling your product is the best way to learn how to improve it). 1x hacker in charge of product/development. 1x hipster working with both product and growth.

Revenue 60

Revenue Acquisition Channel Campaign 60

Startup Lessons Learned

MARCH 21, 2013

If you're working on the Sticky Engine of Growth , you're focused on very different metrics from those that you care about in the Viral Engine of Growth. In the early days of a SaaS business, churn really doesn’t matter that much. Similarly, a two-sided marketplace cares about different things from a traditional e-commerce product.

Analytics 167

Analytics Lean Metrics Churn Rate 167

Up and Running

MAY 23, 2016

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. While it’s useful to be able to have a sales forecast and expense budget early on, it’s not something you need until you’ve validated your idea. The business model.

Software Review 74

Software Review Software Delaware Forecast 74

Board Effect

AUGUST 30, 2019

One comment on social media from a client citing their lack of trust in a company can go viral within minutes and create a public outrage even if the comments are untrue. There are a host of benefits in hiring a CIO and learning what they do to help protect the company and how they can help the company take advantage of opportunities.

Agile 45

Agile Government Technology Software 45

mashable.com

OCTOBER 11, 2011

Not to mention, early-stage startups usually only employ a few people focused on product and development. Look for people writing about hiring, about real estate about small business in general. More details → Jobs by Simply Hired. viral video. Erica- These are excellent tips. October 10, 2011 14:12:16.

PR 103

PR Startup Social Media Technical Review 103

Duct Tape Marketing

DECEMBER 28, 2023

And it's the same thing for individuals because at that early stage of a business, when you don't yet have a product, even sometimes when you don't yet have customers, you don't yet have traction and sales, how are you going to judge it? These are the kind of decisions we wanted to help people with at that early stage.

Framework 69

Framework Cofounder Early Stage IPO 69

Reid Hoffman

JANUARY 26, 2021

Finally, the independent board member slot can be a way to “hire” an essential skillset into the company that wouldn’t otherwise be possible. Even relatively early stage boards should be thinking about diversity, because they face particular challenges on this issue. As with any hire, culture fit is essential.

Startup 36

Startup Equity Early Stage Green 36

Startup Lessons Learned

JULY 15, 2020

If you make a mistake, you can make the test better or you can start a new company in the process of developing the product, and the people you hired, and the people that you trained, all those people have new skills. A common test would be a viral entry or a viral attachment assay. That's how they can hire people.

Technical Review 68

Technical Review Software Review Finance Technology 68

Rob Go

JULY 11, 2013

I was asked recently how NextView evaluates such early stage companies for investment. Some products have what look like great viral loops, but aren’t very successful. The reality is that pretty much all investors looks for the same core things. It’s some combination of great teams , attractive markets , and promising products.

Distribution 66

Distribution Vertical Viral B2B 66

Hunter Walker

APRIL 27, 2014

We founded Homebrew to be the type of fund we would have wanted to raise money from – early stage partner of conviction, leading financing rounds with great co-investors, leaning in to actually help when you need it. We think there can be value to remaining hungry and capital efficient early on. 3) Company Overviews.

LP 97

LP Cofounder Term Sheet Valuation 97

A Smart Bear: Startups and Marketing for Geeks

OCTOBER 24, 2011

Do you feel like the more users you have it helps accelerate, is there some kind of, maybe not necessarily viral, but that people just tell their friends at all. One of the things we find, because we certainly threw out what can we do to make this more viral or to work more in a social way so that we can try to get more people on the system?

Cofounder 208

Cofounder Technical Review Software Review Differentiation 208

Rob Go

MAY 27, 2015

But we noticed that while the information in these podcasts is interesting, many are often far removed from the actual day-to-day challenges of very early stage founders that are just trying to go from nothing to something. We find that these are great, and I personally listen to many of them.

Cofounder 28

Cofounder Non-Compete Early Stage Silicon Valley 28

Rob Go

MAY 27, 2015

But we noticed that while the information in these podcasts is interesting, many are often far removed from the actual day-to-day challenges of very early stage founders that are just trying to go from nothing to something. We find that these are great, and I personally listen to many of them.

Cofounder 28

Cofounder Non-Compete Early Stage Silicon Valley 28

Both Sides of the Table

MAY 7, 2016

From Aspiration to Hero For companies that do have that moment of success where everything seems to come together: funding, hiring, customers, PR, product releases and so forth — you have a “hero” moment where you feel invincible. Maybe it’s the system, maybe it’s me — but either way what could I do differently to change outcomes?

Churn Rate 150

Churn Rate Vesting Dilution Europe 150

Cracking the Code

DECEMBER 11, 2015

Mastering your pitch to a VC, prospective customers, new hires or partners is part art and part science. Docusign, Peopledoc): typical outbound sales model targeting mid market+ companies and relying on being able to hire consistently sales people making their quota. content development) to generate inbound interest.

San Francisco 48

San Francisco Churn Rate Silicon Valley Engineer 48

Duct Tape Marketing

JANUARY 19, 2023

And it's the same thing for individuals because at that early stage of a business, when you don't yet have a product, even sometimes when you don't yet have, um, customers, you don't yet have traction in sales, how are you gonna judge it? These are the kind of decisions we wanted to help people with at that early stage.

Audio 86

Audio Cofounder Framework Early Stage 86

www.forentrepreneurs.com

FEBRUARY 2, 2010

Of course, if you find a rep with a high dial to demo ratio and high close rate, study them, spread the best practices across the team, and hire more people with the same profile. VC Venture capital Viral growth Plugin by wpburn.com wordpress themes Copyright © David Skok 2009, 2010. Very much enjoyed the read David!

Metrics 55

Metrics Design Entrepreneur Startup 55