YoungUpstarts

APRIL 17, 2018

Hiring = Sales. A good recruitment process has many parallels with a sales funnel. As with sales, these core reasons need to be compelling to candidates, while being as unique to you (competitive differentiation) as possible. Not sales, product development, or fundraising.

Cofounder 164

Cofounder Elevator Pitch Hiring Dividend 164

YoungUpstarts

MAY 23, 2018

Finances are a huge part of startup success or failure, but while a lack of funds is a significant problem, it’s usually not the biggest problem. Many founders or startup teams gravitate toward sales or design. Guarding their own interests and being vigilant when it comes to finances is another area in which many startups stumble.

Due Diligence 133

Due Diligence Startup Finance Leadership 133

Startup Professionals Musings

MAY 30, 2022

By definition, second-stage ventures generally have 10 to 99 employees and/or $750,000 to $50 million in revenue, and see that as just the beginning. Very few startups are cash-rich enough to self-finance aggressive second-stage growth. Switch your attention from product development to sales.

Mezzanine 368

Mezzanine Private Equity Bandwidth Metrics 368

Steve Blank

APRIL 23, 2018

The entrepreneur who founded and grew the largest startup in the world to $10 billion in revenue and got fired is someone you have probably never heard of. Sloan kept the corporate staff small and focused on policymaking, corporate finance, and planning. billion in sales in today’s dollars).

Michigan 275

Michigan Cofounder Stock Forecast 275

Both Sides of the Table

MAY 27, 2013

In his tenure as CEO of DataSift we have never missed a monthly revenue figure. He has grown our US operations from 1 employee (him) to a global organization of 75 employees that will finish the year with 8-digit revenues (90+% recurring) and more than 350% year-over-year growth. In his spare time he raised nearly $30 million.

Advisory Board 365

Advisory Board CTO Hire Fractional CTO Los Angeles 365

ReadWriteStart

FEBRUARY 22, 2022

Research and development is the process of creating innovations using scientific methods and data analysis practices. Investment in research and development, in turn, means allocating and using finances to support this process with technology solutions, scientific and tech talents, equipment, etc. Become more competitive.

Offshore 140

Offshore Demand Germany Global 140

Steve Blank

AUGUST 31, 2009

After 20 years of working in startups, I decided to take a step back and look at the product development model I had been following and see why it usually failed to provide useful guidance in activities outside the building – sales, marketing and business development. So what’s wrong the product development model?

Customer Development 241

Customer Development Developer Customer Silicon Valley 241

Berkonomics

AUGUST 10, 2017

Since this number is budgeted and pre-authorized, managers tend to focus upon other things such as sales, marketing and product development issues. Ignoring cost of product for a moment to make a point, saving a month’s fixed overhead by making processes more efficient, could easily double profits for the year.

Silicon Valley 97

Silicon Valley Burn Rate Angel Investor Down Round 97

Startup Professionals Musings

SEPTEMBER 1, 2019

By definition, second-stage ventures generally have 10 to 99 employees and/or $750,000 to $50 million in revenue, and see that as just the beginning. Very few startups are cash-rich enough to self-finance aggressive second-stage growth. Switch your attention from product development to sales.

Mezzanine 244

Mezzanine Private Equity Startup Bandwidth 244

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.

Customer 167

Customer San Francisco Lean Hockey Stick 167

ReadWriteStart

JANUARY 27, 2011

And, oh by the way, we also really like the idea of the 1M/1M entrepreneurs building valuation and negotiating leverage through these business development efforts, instead of signing off large chunks of their company in form of equity early on. million in revenue. The business is already profitable with $2.9

Dilution 114

Dilution Revenue Finance Entrepreneur 114

This is going to be BIG.

AUGUST 22, 2012

Let’s start out with the basic functions of a tech company: 1) Engineering 2) Marketing 3) Sales 4) Business development 5) PR 6) Design 7) Product Management 8) HR 9) Operations 10) Finance Ok, that's just overwhelming. Let’s take sales and business development. Ready to start simplifying?

PR 144

PR Technical Review Seed Stage Design 144

Growthink Blog

SEPTEMBER 13, 2017

And a boost toward a faster timeline and better probability of a business sale at an exciting price. Company Scenario #2: A company with a solid revenue base - say more than $5 million in sales - but competes in an industry not one of great, current interest to buyers / investors. A boost toward better financial results.

Harvest 48

Harvest IP Software Review Forecast 48

Hearpreneur

SEPTEMBER 22, 2021

Tesla has always put a huge emphasis on product development and technological advancement. Shopify swiftly came in with solutions that allowed these firms to turn their point-of-sale terminals into e-commerce storefronts and begin online operations the same day. Thanks to Christina Giaquinto, Modular Closets ! 10- Mindbody.

Technical Review 124

Technical Review Entrepreneur Software Review SEO 124

Steve Blank

MARCH 4, 2014

Product management tools like Stage-Gate ® emerged to systematically manage Waterfall product development. The product management process assumes that product/market fit is known, and the products can get spec’d and then implemented in a linear fashion. StageGate Process. This is a big idea.

IRR 335

IRR Startup Business Model Agile 335

Startup Professionals Musings

SEPTEMBER 13, 2017

By definition, second-stage ventures generally have 10 to 99 employees and/or $750,000 to $50 million in revenue, and see that as just the beginning. Very few startups are cash-rich enough to self-finance aggressive second-stage growth. Switch your attention from product development to sales.

Mezzanine 141

Mezzanine Private Equity Startup Bandwidth 141

The Startup Magazine

SEPTEMBER 10, 2019

Compared to Accounting, Finance is ruthlessly forward looking. Even if you bleed cash, showing confidence in your product and communicating that you have a concrete, compelling plan for growth will increase the marketplace value of your business. It has never paid out dividends, and clocks around $200 billion in revenue.

Founder 118

Founder Valuation Dividend Startup 118

Startup Professionals Musings

NOVEMBER 3, 2013

By definition, second-stage ventures generally have 10 to 99 employees and/or $750,000 to $50 million in revenue, and see that as just the beginning. Very few startups are cash-rich enough to self-finance aggressive second-stage growth. Switch your attention from product development to sales.

Mezzanine 240

Mezzanine Private Equity Bandwidth Metrics 240

Berkonomics

MARCH 30, 2010

Since this number is budgeted and pre-authorized, managers tend to focus upon other things such as sales, marketing and product development issues. There is an art to efficient management of a process, whether that is the process of bringing a product to market from R&D to production or developing a new product’s launch program.

Silicon Valley 85

Silicon Valley Burn Rate Angel Investor Down Round 85

Up and Running

JUNE 14, 2017

Some believe in the all-in approach to product development: build an advanced app. The problem was that building out all the features in the premium version would take four to six months and many thousands of dollars in app development that I didn’t have. Priorities change.

Technical Review 96

Technical Review Distribution Redemption Demand 96

Hearpreneur

FEBRUARY 14, 2018

2- Business and Finance. I blog about home and gardening topics and make money from product recommendations to my audience, mostly through Amazon associates program. I don’t feel comfortable sharing exact revenue numbers but it’s now making me more than $1,000 per month. Thanks to Chloe Spilotro, Sparkle Couture by Chloe ! #2-

Entrepreneur 74

Entrepreneur Technical Review SEO New York City 74

ConversionXL

NOVEMBER 17, 2020

As a subscription business, we knew that small repeatable wins could compound to earn us millions of dollars in additional revenue. Price and plan-mix are complex areas to test because they impact several areas of your business and product, so any changes need to be made carefully. But back in 2016, we had no trial model at all.

Revenue 121

Revenue Conversion Programming eCommerce 121

Startup Professionals Musings

FEBRUARY 4, 2015

By definition, second-stage ventures generally have 10 to 99 employees and/or $750,000 to $50 million in revenue, and see that as just the beginning. Very few startups are cash-rich enough to self-finance aggressive second-stage growth. Switch your attention from product development to sales.

Mezzanine 120

Mezzanine Private Equity Startup Bandwidth 120

Duct Tape Marketing

NOVEMBER 9, 2022

Clare Price (03:49): Well, the way that we do it is we've developed six canvases that focus on six core areas of business growth. And that's brand development, brand power, customer acquisition, message clarity, market expansion, sales enablement, so marketing and sales working together and product marketing or product innovation.

Marketing 76

Marketing Differentiation Sacramento Small Business 76

OnlyOnce

MAY 13, 2021

If you’re leading HR, or Finance, or Marketing, or any key function inside a startup, what resources are available to you? Simply put, the first book left me with the nagging feeling that it wasn’t enough to only help CEOs excel, because starting and scaling a business is a collective effort. What should you be thinking about?

Startup 62

Startup Cofounder Venture Capital Leadership 62

www.lanceglasser.com

MAY 13, 2012

Finance and budgeting. Product development. Queuing theory and product development. Marketing and sales. The minimum viable product. The CFO is not responsible for making revenue every quarter, but if there is a big surprise, fire him. A Model for Return on Engineering Expenses. Stock buybacks.

CTO 40

CTO CTO Hire Technical Review Architecture 40

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.

Vertical 147

Vertical Silicon Valley Marketing Customer 147

Steve Blank

SEPTEMBER 10, 2009

In future posts I’ll describe how Eric Ries and the Lean Startup concept provided the equivalent model for product development activities inside the building and neatly integrates customer and agile development. After twelve months Handspring’s revenue was $170 million. They never understood Market Type. End result?

Customer Development 203

Customer Development Developer Customer Silicon Valley 203

Austin Startup

AUGUST 20, 2017

Of all your hires, if you have commissioned sales people, those will give you the most problems if they’re not all given an equal chance to make their quotas and achieve their personal earnings goals. Messy cap tables can come back to haunt you when you do a financing or sell the company. You’ve just got to listen. Not really.

Technical Review 48

Technical Review Software Review Cap Table Securities and Exchange Commission 48

YoungUpstarts

FEBRUARY 28, 2018

by Steve Owens, Founder and CTO of Finish Line Product Development Services. Product Mis-Timed – 13%. No Financing/Investor Interest – 8%. Rule #2: Revenue is your first priority. Rule #2: Revenue is your first priority. In this context, revenue can be an investment as well as sales.

Startup 133

Startup Revenue Product Development Distribution 133

ReadWriteStart

OCTOBER 14, 2010

At today's roundtable we had some intensive discussions around market sizing and its impact on financing. 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. process in detail.

Bootstrapping 114

Bootstrapping Marketing Angel Investor Silicon Valley 114

Growthink Blog

MAY 10, 2012

Mezzanine Financing Most companies that raise equity capital and are eventually acquired or go public receive multiple rounds of financing first. No right or wrong answer here, but if this is your vision then it's important to consider when negotiating deal terms on earlier stage financing rounds. Seed Funding 3.

Equity 88

Equity Mezzanine Later Stage Venture Capital 88

ConversionXL

AUGUST 30, 2018

It slows product development. According to that same NNG research: Ecommerce sites can expect to double their sales. It’s likely to be related to improving revenues, reducing costs, increasing the number of new customers, increasing the sales from existing customers, or increasing shareholder value. It costs money.

Design 111

Design Framework Product Development Technical Review 111

BeyondVC

DECEMBER 10, 2009

So first and foremost, I let him know that while it was nice to have a well thought out spreadsheet, that the most important thing was getting the product developed and the right team in place. The remainder would go into deferred revenue. Another area that is quite important is churn rate.

Churn Rate 112

Churn Rate Burn Rate Startup Metrics 112

Steve Blank

JUNE 8, 2009

Execution by Vertical Market As the class progressed, students asked how the activities/functions of a startup; (Sales, Marketing, Business Development, Product Development, etc.) For example, How does sales differ from one market to another? Sales – What Channel to reach the customer? Liquidity – How?

Vertical 123

Vertical Silicon Valley RSS Marketing 123

Software By Rob

APRIL 2, 2014

With SaaS businesses the majority of revenue will be through monthly, quarterly or annual billing recurring payment plans. A common problem sellers run in to is that when it comes to sell, the monthly subscribers cannot be transferred to a new owner – which is where the majority of business value lies and is an essential element of the sale.

Affiliate 67

Affiliate Valuation Reputation Sales 67

Startup Professionals Musings

MARCH 6, 2013

Every startup needs access to capital, whether for funding product development, for initial rollout efforts, acquiring inventory, or paying that first employee. Thus “creative” really means maximizing non-bank financing. They have to sell themselves, more than their product, to close on every alternative source of funding.

Finance 243

Finance Startup Equity Early Stage 243