Startup Professionals Musings

SEPTEMBER 11, 2021

Traction is evidence that your product or service has started that “hockey- stick” adoption rate which implies a large market, a valid business model, and sustainable growth. A graph that shows a hockey-stick “up and to the right” curve with at least three data points per key indicator is a great visual assist.

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Hockey Stick Early Stage Metrics Acquisition 304

Startup Professionals Musings

DECEMBER 17, 2022

Every entrepreneur thinks he can relax a bit after his business model is proven, funding is in place, and revenues are scaling as projected up that hockey-stick curve. Unfortunately, the mainstream customers who can really drive revenue care more about price. Prices begin to decline quickly.

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Hockey Stick Guerilla Acquisition Startup 265

Startup Professionals Musings

MAY 18, 2020

Here are the key principles I recommend as an advisor to many entrepreneurs: Start your business in your own home. Most new teams are geographically dispersed these days anyway, so paying rent for an office should be differed to later stages when revenue is plentiful. Favor profitability over revenue and user growth.

Hockey Stick 423

Hockey Stick Bootstrapping Sweat Equity Intellectual Property 423

Startup Professionals Musings

JANUARY 14, 2023

Simply stated, it means that your business has the potential to multiply revenue with minimal incremental cost. Smart entrepreneurs never outsource their core competency, and never rely on intellectual property they don’t own. But what does that really mean? Outsource what is non-strategic to optimize leverage.

Hockey Stick 339

Hockey Stick Intellectual Property Non-Compete Business Model 339

Up and Running

SEPTEMBER 8, 2014

Having delivered hundreds of pitches myself (and bombed a few), as well as coaching dozens of entrepreneurs on how to pitch, I’ve definitely seen some doozy pitches. Present a “hockey-stick” financial growth model without sharing your numbers behind your numbers (a.k.a. get to revenue, b.) your financial assumptions).

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Hockey Stick Technical Review Due Diligence Seattle 114

Up and Running

MARCH 14, 2018

I’ve seen too many entrepreneurs think, “Oh, I know my business inside and out—pitching will be a breeze!” I’ve seen many entrepreneurs crash and burn when delivering their investor pitch—and ramble on and on. Your revenue or business model. Show what you’re projecting in revenue (per product) over the next three to five years.

Hockey Stick 164

Hockey Stick Exit Strategy Technical Review Angel Investor 164

Startup Professionals Musings

NOVEMBER 27, 2015

Big-bang hard launches make sense for large enterprises like Apple or Microsoft, who are building on existing revenue streams and have the resources for lavish events, Superbowl ads and large inventory buildups. Small real revenue today is better than large later projections. Maximum agility for required pivots.

Hockey Stick 120

Hockey Stick Startup Stealth Agile 120

Steve Blank

NOVEMBER 13, 2012

By then, I had become a venture capitalist at Mitsui Sumitomo Insurance and found myself talking to a lot of entrepreneurs who were proclaiming their great technology yet were struggling with little revenue, and claiming they were “crossing the chasm”. Maysee now enjoys hockey stick revenue growth.

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Japan Customer Development Developer Customer 292

David Teten

JANUARY 19, 2021

More and more startups are pursuing Revenue-Based VCs , but “RBI” doesn’t fit everyone. Flexible VC 101: Equity Meets Revenue Share. By tying payments to actual revenues, founders and investors remain aligned around the company’s real-time performance, good or bad. Flexible VC: Revenue -based. Of the Inc.

Cofounder 78

Cofounder Technical Review Equity Dividend 78

Startup Lessons Learned

JANUARY 15, 2010

Lessons Learned by Eric Ries Friday, January 15, 2010 Two Ways to Hold Entrepreneurs Accountable (for Harvard Business Review) The next part in the series I am writing for Harvard Business Review is online. This time, Im discussing the challenge for corporate CFOs and VCs alike in holding entrepreneurs accountable. Read the rest here.

Hockey Stick 105

Hockey Stick San Francisco Entrepreneur Lean 105

Both Sides of the Table

JANUARY 11, 2014

“Growth hacking perpetuates this myth that you can magically achieve hockey-stick growth by using short-term “hacks.” “ I have always encouraged teams to think about growth as daily blocking-and-tackling rather than a dark art. I laughed as I did at much of his rant. He even used some terminology near and dear to my heart.

Technical Review 384

Technical Review Hockey Stick SEM Channel 384

Startup Professionals Musings

APRIL 19, 2020

Simply stated, it means that your business has the potential to multiply revenue with minimal incremental cost. Smart entrepreneurs never outsource their core competency, and never rely on intellectual property they don’t own. But what does that really mean? Outsource what is non-strategic to optimize leverage.

Hockey Stick 386

Hockey Stick Intellectual Property Startup Non-Compete 386

Small Business Force

SEPTEMBER 7, 2013

Virtually, every business plan that's ever been presented to the investor community, invariably, has that fabled "hockey stick growth" period where suddenly revenue jumps exponentially. Few entrepreneurs really take the time to fully grasp this. Hockey stick growth" is like going viral � good luck with that!

Hockey Stick 42

Hockey Stick Bandwidth Entrepreneur Venture Capital 42

Steve Blank

FEBRUARY 16, 2010

You would think that would be enough to get wrong, but entrepreneurs and investors compound this problem by assuming that all startups grow and scale by executing the Revenue Plan. All discussion focused on “missing the revenue plan.”. Revenue Plan Needs to Match Market Type. They don’t. What went wrong?

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Revenue Balance Sheet Hockey Stick Burn Rate 230

Up and Running

JANUARY 2, 2013

I’ve seen too many entrepreneurs think, “oh, I know my business inside and out – pitching will be a breeze!” I’ve also seen many entrepreneurs crash and burn when delivering their investor pitch – and ramble on and on. Your Revenue Model : Investors tend to care about this slide the most.

Hockey Stick 164

Hockey Stick Exit Strategy Technical Review Due Diligence 164

Startup Professionals Musings

FEBRUARY 26, 2013

Traction is evidence that your product or service has started that “hockey- stick” adoption rate which implies a large market, a valid business model, and sustainable growth. A graph that shows a hockey-stick “up and to the right” curve with at least three data points per key indicator is a great visual assist.

Hockey Stick 266

Hockey Stick Early Stage Metrics Acquisition 266

Startup Professionals Musings

SEPTEMBER 26, 2014

Every entrepreneur thinks he can relax a bit after his business model is proven, funding is in place, and revenues are scaling as projected up that hockey-stick curve. Unfortunately, the mainstream customers who can really drive revenue care more about price. business Dave Power entrepreneur s-curve startup'

Hockey Stick 263

Hockey Stick Guerilla Acquisition Revenue 263

Startup Professionals Musings

MARCH 3, 2018

Every entrepreneur thinks he can relax a bit after his business model is proven, funding is in place, and revenues are scaling as projected up that hockey-stick curve. Unfortunately, the mainstream customers who can really drive revenue care more about price. Prices begin to decline quickly.

Hockey Stick 130

Hockey Stick Guerilla Acquisition Revenue 130

Startup Lessons Learned

APRIL 14, 2009

Lessons Learned by Eric Ries Tuesday, April 14, 2009 Validated learning about customers Would you rather have $30,000 or $1 million in revenues for your startup? All things being equal, of course, you’d rather have more revenue rather than less. And yet revenue alone is not a sufficient goal. More on that in a moment.

Customer 167

Customer San Francisco Lean Hockey Stick 167

Startup Professionals Musings

SEPTEMBER 7, 2013

Simply stated, it means that your business has the potential to multiply revenue with minimal incremental cost. Smart entrepreneurs never outsource their core competency, and never rely on intellectual property they don’t own. entrepreneur startup investor scalability business' But what does that really mean? Marty Zwilling.

Hockey Stick 278

Hockey Stick Intellectual Property Startup Non-Compete 278

Startup Professionals Musings

APRIL 6, 2016

Here are the key principles I recommend as an advisor to many entrepreneurs: Start your business in your own home. Most new teams are geographically dispersed these days anyway, so paying rent for an office should be differed to later stages when revenue is plentiful. Favor profitability over revenue and user growth.

Bootstrapping 120

Bootstrapping Hockey Stick Sweat Equity Intellectual Property 120

Startup Professionals Musings

NOVEMBER 1, 2015

Every entrepreneur thinks he can relax a bit after his business model is proven, funding is in place, and revenues are scaling as projected up that hockey-stick curve. Unfortunately, the mainstream customers who can really drive revenue care more about price. Prices begin to decline quickly.

Hockey Stick 120

Hockey Stick Guerilla Startup Acquisition 120

Up and Running

JUNE 26, 2013

An anonymous tech entrepreneur—who at his height in the startup world “hit the top of TechCrunch” and landed a prestigious spot in a startup accelerator—has predicted the demise of his fledgling business, and is blogging the collapse as it happens. We listened to our investors. Still, I had this nagging feeling eating away at me.

Hockey Stick 72

Hockey Stick Entrepreneur Startup Bootstrapping 72

Startup Professionals Musings

FEBRUARY 14, 2016

Simply stated, it means that your business has the potential to multiply revenue with minimal incremental cost. Smart entrepreneurs never outsource their core competency, and never rely on intellectual property they don’t own. Investors will tell you that they love to put money into startups that are scalable, and ready to scale.

Hockey Stick 120

Hockey Stick Intellectual Property Non-Compete Business Model 120

Startup Professionals Musings

JANUARY 11, 2015

Simply stated, it means that your business has the potential to multiply revenue with minimal incremental cost. Smart entrepreneurs never outsource their core competency, and never rely on intellectual property they don’t own. business entrepreneur investable scalable startup' But what does that really mean? Marty Zwilling.

Hockey Stick 120

Hockey Stick Intellectual Property Non-Compete Business Model 120

Steve Blank

JANUARY 4, 2010

A lot of entrepreneurs think that their startup is the next big thing when in reality they’re just building a small business. Now with customers and early revenue, it was out raising its first round of venture money. The word entrepreneur covers a lot of ground. Make no little plans. They have no magic to stir men’s blood ….

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Hockey Stick Venture Capital Startup Cofounder 276

thebarefootvc

DECEMBER 16, 2011

Discovery, in contrast to search, took center stage as Pinterest displayed hockey stick growth (and raised VC money near a $200M valuation in late 2011). This will continue as more role models, mentors and capital are created from the resulting success stories, thereby creating more support for the next generation of entrepreneurs.

Technical Review 110

Technical Review India Mobile Hockey Stick 110

Agile VC

JANUARY 27, 2012

Revenue ramp of Groupon and Zynga –> Kleiner famously said Zynga was the fastest growing company they’d ever invested in , no mean feat for the original backers of Google, Amazon, Netscape, etc, and Groupon might be the fastest ever startup to reach $1B in revenue.

Hockey Stick 113

Hockey Stick Seed Stage Silicon Valley Syndicate 113

Hippoland

AUGUST 8, 2018

Unit economics are something I’ve found most entrepreneurs (and investors!) Forget about traction and hockey stick growth. Diving in a bit more into some thoughts here: 1b) Ad-based revenue streams generally have terrible unit economics. Many serial entrepreneurs tend to gravitate towards building B2B startups.

Founder 48

Founder Sales Cycle Affiliate Retention 48

Hippoland

AUGUST 8, 2018

Unit economics are something I’ve found most entrepreneurs (and investors!) Forget about traction and hockey stick growth. Diving in a bit more into some thoughts here: 1b) Ad-based revenue streams generally have terrible unit economics. Many serial entrepreneurs tend to gravitate towards building B2B startups.

Founder 48

Founder Sales Cycle Affiliate Retention 48

Steve Blank

SEPTEMBER 10, 2009

While that’s not true, it is a fact that entrepreneurs only have one word for “startup.” Most startups following the Product Development Model never achieve their revenue plan and burn through a ton of cash not knowing what hit them. After twelve months Handspring’s revenue was $170 million. They never understood Market Type.

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Customer Development Developer Customer Silicon Valley 196

David Teten

AUGUST 20, 2019

I’ve been a traditional equity VC for 8 years, and I’m now researching Revenue-Based Investing and other new approaches to VC. The question I’m asking myself: should a new VC fund use Revenue-Based Investing, traditional equity VC, or possibly both (likely from two separate pools of capital)? Greater transparency to limited partners.

Revenue 60

Revenue SBIC Cofounder Venture Capital 60

The Startup Lawyer

MARCH 11, 2010

Each time a new set of docs get released, I don’t cringe because it means I then have to remove the hockey stick from my revenue projections. I welcome these and future standardized seed funding docs because they provide entrepreneurs with the chance to take a look at financing terms. However, most (all?)

Delaware 49

Delaware Hockey Stick Preferred Stock Open Source 49

The Startup Lawyer

MARCH 11, 2010

Each time a new set of docs get released, I don’t cringe because it means I then have to remove the hockey stick from my revenue projections. I welcome these and future standardized seed funding docs because they provide entrepreneurs with the chance to take a look financing terms. Clients come better prepared now.

Delaware 45

Delaware Hockey Stick Preferred Stock Open Source 45

Up and Running

AUGUST 21, 2014

Caroline: It would also be great to know if the entrepreneurs in the room are tracking any of this right now, the metrics that Sabrina has already talked about. The other thing that they’re going to ask you is average revenue per account or per user or per customer. Peter, anybody have any questions as I go along? Okay, so great.

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Metrics Startup Churn Rate Forecast 84

Professor VC

AUGUST 26, 2011

I get asked this question a lot by entrepreneurs (and students). The objections range from "its hard", "nobody believes them" to "all hockey sticks look alike". Related to this, I got an email from an entrepreneur this week interested in meeting with me. I often do this in the revenue tab. ProfessorVC.

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Silicon Valley San Jose Hockey Stick Venture Capital 35

Up and Running

APRIL 28, 2015

Most entrepreneurs are very focused on their product when instead they need to be focused on their customers and the problems those customers face. Slide 5: Revenue model. Investors see “hockey stick” projections all the time and will mentally be cutting your projections in half. What do you charge and who pays the bills?

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Forecast Hockey Stick Exit Strategy Intellectual Property 60