View from Seed

MARCH 29, 2016

This desperate need for employees often leads to an equally desperate, ad-hoc approach to recruiting without any relevant recruiting metrics being tracked. The resume-to-interview metric is simply a measurement of how many resumes startups review for each person interviewed. Applicant source quality: Resumes-to-interviews.

Metrics 120

Metrics Founder CTO Hire Technical Review 120

Both Sides of the Table

APRIL 4, 2011

Having a set of metrics that you watch & that you feel are the key drivers of your success helps keep clarity. And the more public you can make your goals for these key metrics the better. Because it can be hard to define or agree company objectives at an early stage I believe most people avoid them. Revenue Metrics.

Metrics 346

Metrics Startup Acquisition SEM 346

Startup Professionals Musings

OCTOBER 14, 2022

For early-stage startups, the goodwill component can easily exceed the size of all the financial elements together, or can just as easily mark a company with good financials as not investable. In the investment community, these leadership elements are often called “goodwill.”

Technical Review 323

Technical Review Due Diligence Valuation Leadership 323

YoungUpstarts

SEPTEMBER 7, 2014

Because of these nuances, startups selling to enterprise customers must be even more diligent in tracking the right growth metrics. Here are a few metrics your startup should be watching: 1. Monitoring this metric allows you to refine sales commissions to ensure your sales incentives are aligned with the value of new business.

Metrics 200

Metrics Churn Rate Startup Acquisition 200

The Equity Kicker

MAY 3, 2018

Let me start by saying that I’m a massive believer in the power of metrics. However, it’s also true that metrics are not a panacea, with difficulties typically arising when a focus on metrics eclipses the big picture. Over focus on metrics at the expense of meaning, culture and innovation.

Metrics 87

Metrics CPA Early Stage Retention 87

Startup Professionals Musings

JANUARY 15, 2020

For early-stage startups, the goodwill component can easily exceed the size of all the financial elements together, or can just as easily mark a company with good financials as not investable. In the investment community, these leadership elements are often called “goodwill.”

Valuation 311

Valuation Technical Review Due Diligence Leadership 311

Austin Startup

APRIL 4, 2017

I really enjoyed a recent post I read on First Round Review about vanity metrics, which touches on what I love about my startup vs. others with more funding, more engineers and more mentions on TechCrunch. Vanity metrics aren’t useless. Tracking clarity metrics builds great businesses.” “In Don’t focus on them internally.

Metrics 48

Metrics Silicon Valley Angel Investor Technical Review 48

VC Cafe

NOVEMBER 2, 2019

One question that keeps coming up when speaking with early stage entrepreneurs when it comes to funding, is what metrics the company needs to hit to raise seed/series A/B etc: What’s a good conversion rate? Investors look beyond top line metrics to assess other important factors. What should our MRR growth be?

B2C 141

B2C Technical Review Startup Retention 141

View from Seed

OCTOBER 24, 2019

Hopefully, by bringing on strong partners early, you will get great advice and support to minimize your overall dilution down the road. They find weak pre-seed investors or angels who are almost predatory in their early stage pricing and add no value. Experienced founders: B2B. Experienced founders: Consumer.

Dilution 149

Dilution B2B Burn Rate Early Stage 149

NZ Entrepreneur

MAY 31, 2021

The Angel Association of New Zealand ( AANZ ) is co-hosting with New Zealand Growth Capital Partners ( NZGCP ) a series of workshops on early-stage investment. Jason Graham from Movac provided an early-stage venture capital fund perspective, detailing 35 investments made across 5 funds and 22 years.

Portfolio 81

Portfolio New Zealand Management Technical Review 81

VC Adventure

MAY 5, 2022

I’m observing that IRR is a metric that is becoming an increasing focus in venture, replacing fund return multiple as the key metric of success. I understand the draw of IRR, and – as a fund draws to a close – there’s no question it’s an important metric. Just take it with a grain of salt.

IRR 116

IRR Metrics Valuation LP 116

YoungUpstarts

JUNE 4, 2019

Most early stage startups tend to do well in this area because entrepreneurs generally launch their startups believing they have a great product idea. What does this mean for their early stage investors? Weak revenue architecture poses the greatest near-term risk of failure for most early stage startups.

Framework 118

Framework Architecture Cleveland Early Stage 118

VC Cafe

SEPTEMBER 2, 2022

This may vary from fund to fund, but in general here is the top level criteria VCs would use to check initial fit: Stage – is the startup raising a round which is within the range of the fund (pre seed, seed, series A, early stage, growth, etc.). What most improved your primary metric? Weeks to launch?

Technical Review 166

Technical Review Early Stage Cofounder Portfolio 166

YoungUpstarts

MAY 24, 2019

Most early stage startups tend to do well in this area because entrepreneurs generally launch their startups believing they have a great product idea. What does this mean for their early stage investors? Weak revenue architecture poses the greatest near-term risk of failure for most early stage startups.

Framework 104

Framework Architecture Cleveland Early Stage 104

David Teten

DECEMBER 16, 2015

I review a lot of board decks with a beautifully hand-crafted page with metrics for the company. Good metrics are comparable across industries; comparative ; readily understandable; and help drive decisions. Comparative means that you can compare a metric across time periods, groups of users, or competitors. So how do you do it?

Metrics 60

Metrics Analytics Balance Sheet .Net 60

SoCal CTO

MAY 21, 2012

Many of the factors are not obvious and include building mystery to drive margin, why boring B2B companies often win but are challenging in other ways, how bootstrapping wins, integrating metrics from the start and many other similar lessons. What parts Agile addresses and the big problems with Agile for early-stage startups?

Fractional CTO 175

Fractional CTO CTO Hire Startup Social Network 175

VC Cafe

JANUARY 14, 2022

Plenty of fresh powder in the market across stages. R&D expenditure as a percentage of GDP – Israel ranks 2nd globally in this metric, following closely after South Korea. Global mindset – Israel’s local market is negligible, so founders have to think globally (typically that means US first) from day one.

Technical Review 158

Technical Review Lock-up Period South Korea 158

YoungUpstarts

NOVEMBER 20, 2019

Among these opportunities, the chance to pitch an investor and secure funding is perhaps the greatest of all — at least in the early stages of your startup career — as it can ultimately determine the long-term fate of your company. Have a reasonable attitude about your early-stage valuation, and don’t get too hung up on it.

Technical Review 118

Technical Review Due Diligence Early Stage Differentiation 118

YoungUpstarts

MAY 30, 2019

Keeping this philosophy top of mind during the product management phase is crucial for early stage CTOs, especially when working through backlogs and other barriers that can undermine the user experience. Early stage CTOs often overlook predictability, but it’s a valuable asset in thwarting brewing internal conflicts.

Management 129

Management Product SCRUM Early Stage 129

Reid Hoffman

AUGUST 6, 2020

The term “early-stage” covers a lot of territory in venture investing, from incubating a brand-new idea, to investing in a Series A. WHAT METRICS SHOULD A FOUNDER SHOW TO RAISE A SERIES A FROM A VC FIRM LIKE GREYLOCK? Reid and I have both done Series A investments in companies that have no metrics to speak of.

Technical Review 69

Technical Review Seed Stage Software Review Early Stage 69

YoungUpstarts

JUNE 1, 2019

And given the paucity of business metrics at this point in a startup’s lifecycle, spreadsheet analysis is of little help. At this stage, the team is seeking market and customer validation metrics. But when it comes to that crucial second phase – go-to-market – entrepreneurs find themselves devoid of help and support.

Cleveland 127

Cleveland Marketing Framework Early Stage 127

Startup Professionals Musings

SEPTEMBER 11, 2021

Almost every early-stage startup who has approached investors for funding has heard the innocuous sounding rejection “I love your idea, but come back when you have more traction.” Percentages may be difficult at this early stage, but you need to get creative about slicing and dicing the market, sector, demographic, and sub-categories.

Hockey Stick 304

Hockey Stick Early Stage Metrics Acquisition 304

SoCal CTO

AUGUST 4, 2011

Almost every day I'm talking to early stage startup founders (see Free Startup CTO Consulting Sessions ) about what they plan to do. What are your key Startup Metrics ? Analytics/Metrics - what are the key startup metrics that you will need to track? Who are the other stakeholders involved? Other types of users?

Developer 396

Developer Founder Viral Oauth 396

SoCal CTO

AUGUST 4, 2011

Almost every day I'm talking to early stage startup founders (see Free Startup CTO Consulting Sessions ) about what they plan to do. What are your key Startup Metrics ? Analytics/Metrics - what are the key startup metrics that you will need to track? Who are the other stakeholders involved? Other types of users?

Developer 384

Developer Founder Viral Oauth 384

ConversionXL

FEBRUARY 3, 2022

A common framework for defining your growth model is Dave McClure’s Pirate Metrics for startups : the AARRR framework. The framework helps you evaluate how you can affect growth at each stage of the customer journey. For each stage of the funnel, consider the distinct metrics that ladder up to your business’s KPIs.

Marketing 115

Marketing Framework Metrics Channel 115

Both Sides of the Table

NOVEMBER 27, 2011

There are very few people in Silicon Valley who have such a precise grasp on what defines success of early-stage startup companies than Eric Ries. 48:30 Vanity metrics. 52:00 Actionable metrics. And there are very few people who so consistently exceed my expectations when I hear them speak. 46:18 iOS Vs. Android.

Lean 301

Lean Silicon Valley Social Media PR 301

Both Sides of the Table

JANUARY 16, 2014

For all the things he’s likely known for, he probably hasn’t yet built a strong relationship as an early stage venture investor (he invests often in later-stage deals where he is very respected). He called me 15 months later excited to show me his metrics and wanted to talk about his A round. Fair enough.

Silicon Valley 333

Silicon Valley Early Stage Later Stage Technical Review 333

SoCal CTO

DECEMBER 19, 2012

I was talking with an early-stage founder who has a product vision and wants to get it built. For example, if you are trying to determine viral coefficient (see Startup Metrics ), then the focus should be around those aspects of the MVP. He is not a technical person, but is somewhat web savvy.

Developer 354

Developer Technical Review Fractional CTO Software Review 354

Steve Blank

MAY 29, 2011

Max and his partners interviewed and analyzed over 650 early-stage Internet startups. Today they released the first Startup Genome Report — a 67 page in-depth analysis on what makes early-stage Internet startups successful. Startup Genome Report. Some of their key findings : 1. better user growth. Congratulations.

Technical Cofounder 333

Technical Cofounder Early Stage Startup Silicon Valley 333

Berkonomics

MARCH 7, 2024

Email readers, continue here…] Many early-stage founders and CEOs believe they can delegate design and creation of metrics, flash reports, analytical reports and more from their bookkeepers. And at some early stages, a bookkeeper can prepare such information. Why bother with this ?

Early Stage 62

Early Stage Flash Analytics Metrics 62

Hearpreneur

OCTOBER 25, 2023

And that can make or break your customer retention, especially in the early stages. 21- Pay attention to important metrics Photo Credit: Todd Saunders It's always a good idea to pay attention to important metrics like cart abandonment rates or the lifetime value of a customer. Thanks to Cyble Rizwan, Social Sharings ! #21-

eCommerce 129

eCommerce Omaha Entrepreneur SEO 129

Eric Friedman

MAY 2, 2019

I have been working with early stage founders on sharing their narrative and story with others. One thing that stands out more than anything else is the ability to share their story arc in the context of a metric that they own. A few examples will help bring this to life. . Back in 2013 Wunderlist (acq.

Metrics 68

Metrics Early Stage Internet Engineer 68

SoCal CTO

OCTOBER 8, 2009

A post by Fred Wilson pointed me to Dave McClure's Startup Metrics presentation. This is a great presentation and one that I'm going to point out to startup / early stage company CEOs. Define what you need from a metrics and reporting standpoint. You only build what you need to prove that model.

Metrics 225

Metrics Startup Retention Acquisition 225

YoungUpstarts

OCTOBER 25, 2018

Today, Mark Attanasio gets to flex his full range of expertise and interests as co-founder and Managing Partner of Hillcrest Merchant Partners, a Toronto-based merchant bank focused on early stage and mid market growth companies. Study them through their websites and the business media to ensure a good match.

Partner 104

Partner Technical Review Management Due Diligence 104

SoCal CTO

JANUARY 26, 2010

I’ve been having discussions with several people recently about the role of the CTO (Chief Technology Officer) in very early stage companies. However, I’ve now begun questioning how and what an early-stage / startup CTO should be. It makes this early stage challenging. Where and how will we host the systems?

CTO 225

CTO Fractional CTO CTO Hire Technical Review 225

Both Sides of the Table

MAY 2, 2015

What I love about my job is getting to see teams of super-early-stage companies develop ideas that while raw have potential to make an impact on the market. The full financial details and metrics were in the deck. Establishing Metrics & Monitoring Success (or Failures). It literally can put you out of business.

Operations 150

Operations Metrics Early Stage Non-Compete 150

David Teten

MAY 20, 2016

Totem is a tool that centralizes all the data about our companies’ management, metrics, investment history, co-investors and cap table tracking. Prior to joining ffVC, I co-founded an early stage fashion messaging startup, and joined a TechStars NYC 2011 company as first engineering employee.

Private Equity 113

Private Equity Equity Cap Table Venture Capital 113