Up and Running

SEPTEMBER 6, 2016

To create this first year in business checklist, I turned to our in-house experts here at Palo Alto Software: Sabrina Parsons, CEO; Noah Parsons, COO; Josh Cochrane, Vice President of Product Development; and Josh Fegles, Academic and Government Channel Sales Director, and founder of gluten-free cookie company Jude’s Foods. Business planning.

Forecast 60

Forecast Software Review Lean Finance 60

View from Seed

FEBRUARY 27, 2019

Given the common challenges encountered by founders as they navigate through this hiring decision, I thought I’d outline some of my thoughts below that can hopefully serve as a simple framework when it comes to making the first Analytics hire at your startup. Many founders confuse the two as they both involve lots of numbers.

Analytics 149

Analytics Hiring SQL Forecast 149

Up and Running

SEPTEMBER 17, 2014

That’s why we asked nine members from Young Entrepreneur Council (YEC) what metrics all founders should be aware of — always. No Specific Metric. For me, there is not one metric that is more important than another — you should be up to speed with every aspect. – Matthew Moisan , Moisan Legal, P.C.

Metrics 146

Metrics Burn Rate Entrepreneur Forecast 146

Duct Tape Marketing

FEBRUARY 10, 2022

Jason is a Co-founder of Thriveal, a firm that helps entrepreneurial CPA firms connect, learn and grow. Does that muddy up the forecasting, the models, or the accounting? [12:31] He's a co-founder of Thriveal firm that helps entrepreneurial CPA firms connect, learn and grow. Marketing Podcast with Jason Blumer.

CPA 74

CPA Technical Review Revenue Forecast 74

Up and Running

JULY 6, 2016

I get involved in detail when the group is looking at startups in software, web, mobile apps, or financial forecasting. When a business plan involves expertise in software, the web, apps, and technologies related to financial forecasting, I’m curious, and I’ll look for an appendix with interesting details.

Technical Review 72

Technical Review Software Review Business Plan Development Team Review 72

Up and Running

JULY 31, 2015

This week Peter and Jonathan talk to Tim Berry, founder of Palo Alto Software, about lean business planning, strategy, tactics, specifics (milestones), and the forecast. Strategy, Tactics, Specifics, and the Forecast – (11:45). We have Tim Berry, founder of Palo Alto Software with us. – (:25). Peter: Sure.

Lean 60

Lean Business Plan Forecast Software Review 60

Up and Running

OCTOBER 1, 2019

Marketing is an expense, so finding someone who can attach real success metrics to their campaigns will help you stay focused on what’s going to work best for your target market. . A key piece of that type of decision is understanding your cash flow , and putting together reasonable forecasts.

Hiring 77

Hiring Technical Review Small Business Forecast 77

Steve Blank

NOVEMBER 16, 2009

What metrics do we use to see if we learned enough in Customer Discovery ? I gave my boilerplate answer, “I’m a product guy and I tend to invest and look at deals that have measurable revenue metrics. Dave McClure has some great metrics…” It was an honest but vaguely unsatisfying answer.

Customer Development 223

Customer Development Web Developer Customer 223

www.forentrepreneurs.com

FEBRUARY 2, 2010

Blog About Log in Register Designing startup metrics to drive successful behavior Great companies are almost always run by great management teams. Good metrics should also be actionable, and drive successful behavior. In a follow up post, I will use this technique to walk through the design of a set of metrics for a SaaS company.

Metrics 55

Metrics Design Entrepreneur Startup 55

YoungUpstarts

AUGUST 11, 2020

by Nemanja Zunic, founder and CEO of IdeaBuddy. Also, the Execution chapter will cover your marketing and sales plan, marketing operations, milestones and metrics. . Start with a segment that is most valuable for your business financial stability that includes: Sales forecast. “A goal without a plan is just a wish!”

Business Plan 264

Business Plan Balance Sheet Lean Forecast 264

Up and Running

AUGUST 21, 2014

In this webinar, we take time to discuss the different metrics that startups—and established businesses—should be tracking. What a lot of companies or startups don’t realize is when you put up forecast together, it’s difficult if you’re a startup. In terms of pre-purchase, traffic and content metrics.

Metrics 84

Metrics Startup Churn Rate Forecast 84

ReadWriteStart

JULY 18, 2011

Clavier began his presentation at the beginning of a company's lifecycle, asking how many co-founders a startup ought to have. If you like this kind of advice, check out my coverage of a talk by Paul Palmieri, Co-Founder and CEO of mobile advertising service Millennial Media, titled " Investing in Your Influencers. ".

Investment Bankers 153

Investment Bankers Technical Review Cofounder Due Diligence 153

Steve Blank

MARCH 17, 2020

Next, take a look at your actual revenue each month – not forecast, but real revenue coming in each month. If so, whatever revenue forecast and sales cycle estimates you had are no longer valid. What are the new financial metrics? If you’re an early stage company, that number may be zero. How do you know? Lessons Learned.

Burn Rate 436

Burn Rate Startup Valuation Sales Cycle 436

Up and Running

MAY 28, 2015

We recently had Tim Berry, Palo Alto Software founder and business planning expert, present our Bplans audience with his latest advice on lean business planning. That’s the sales forecast, the spending forecast and the cash flow. They’re going to look first at the sales forecast. It is not a document.

Lean 60

Lean Business Plan Video Software Review 60

Both Sides of the Table

MAY 19, 2018

Investors love to be able to see what you told them in forecasts in prior years and then compare with how you actually performed. In this way investors can make some assessments of how well they should believe your future forecasts that you are showing them a year later.

Cap Table 336

Cap Table Due Diligence Forecast Churn Rate 336

Steve Blank

MAY 14, 2012

Any dispassionate observer would recognize that on Day One, a start-up has no customers, and unless the founder is a true domain expert, he or she can only guess about the customer, problem, and business model. Founders, presuming they know their customers, assume they know all the features customers need.

Balance Sheet 335

Balance Sheet Business Model Customer Development Metrics 335

Up and Running

MAY 20, 2014

In an industry that lauds performance metrics to constantly track progress, there’s something fluffy about a professional degree that is not a prerequisite for anything. There is a tendency in the start-up community to be skeptical towards MBAs. Unlike medical school or law school, you don’t need an MBA to go into business.

Entrepreneur 88

Entrepreneur Advisory Board Silicon Valley New York 88

Up and Running

OCTOBER 27, 2016

Here, we illustrate the steps you need to take to actually launch your new software, from ideation and development all the way through tracking key metrics once you’ve started up successfully. The 5 Metrics You Need to Track for Your Subscription (SaaS) Business to Succeed. Boost Your SaaS Business Revenue With These 12 Strategies.

Curation 60

Curation Forecast Metrics Business Model 60

Hunter Walker

JANUARY 17, 2019

If Your Portfolio Model Assumes Outperformance Across Multiple Metrics, I Don’t Believe It: Every VC fundraise has an Excel sheet that forecasts the performance of the fund. This cat has nothing to do with this post. I just didn’t want to use a stock photo of a laptop.

Portfolio 104

Portfolio Forecast Dilution LP 104

Agile VC

MAY 26, 2011

Many assume it was a cakewalk, based on the success LinkedIn has enjoyed over time and the current stature of our founder/CEO Reid Hoffman (now Chairman). Yes… he was a very successful PayPal exec and previously co-founder & VP Product of SocialNet. But keep in mind at this point Reid’s a first-time CEO. Thanks Lee.

Term Sheet 178

Term Sheet Silicon Valley Technical Review Social Network 178

Up and Running

MAY 23, 2016

“If you can fix a problem for someone and do it better, quicker, and/or cheaper than your competitor, you’re off to a good start.” – Gabriel Kuperman, founder and CEO of CuePin. We created UpKeep to fill this void—a cloud-based solution that was affordable for any size business.” – Ryan Chan, founder of UpKeep.

Software Review 74

Software Review Software Delaware Forecast 74

David Teten

SEPTEMBER 23, 2017

An investor had few hard metrics other than the actual financials, and little technology to make the process scaleable. Over the past few decades, better metrics became available, and investors could take a more analytical, data-driven approach. ” Historically, investing was a manual, artisan process. Pitchbot.vc

Private Equity 60

Private Equity Venture Capital Equity Technical Review 60

OnlyOnce

JUNE 9, 2022

” So I was intrigued when I saw a new way of doing all-hands meetings published by my friend Daniel Odio (DROdio) on his founder community called FounderCulture. Sometimes other founders write these. I call it “plagiarizing with pride.” You can see the original post here. We struggled with that for a while at Bolster.

Cofounder 62

Cofounder Hosting Forecast Early Stage 62

The Next Web

FEBRUARY 7, 2014

Ilya Pozin is the founder of Open Me and Ciplex. The problem is that scientific management puts a heavy focus on forecasting, which is great as long as you have the stability to make accurate forecasts. It’s time to use a different set of metrics and accounting systems to measure progress in new or unstable industries.

Forecast 136

Forecast Startup Metrics Agile 136

Up and Running

JULY 26, 2016

This is what our hiring landscape looked like over the past year: Pre-2015, we hired three founders: 1x hustler in charge of strategic growth hacking. See Also: A Complete Guide to Forecasting Sales for Your Monthly Subscription (SaaS) Business. This is when metrics come into play. 1x hacker in charge of product/development.

Revenue 60

Revenue Acquisition Channel Campaign 60

VC Cafe

NOVEMBER 2, 2019

Forecasting is sometimes done by dragging the mouse based on many assumptions, because it’s hard to predict the future. 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?

B2C 141

B2C Technical Review Startup Retention 141

Berkonomics

JULY 1, 2021

Here’s one that most small company founders and CEO’s miss until it may be too late. That may seem extreme to many a founder or CEO, but it serves a purpose. That person is not a bookkeeper, counting the past, but an expert at forecasting and control. How about co-strategist?

Balance Sheet 62

Balance Sheet Cofounder Cash Position Burn Rate 62

The Next Web

FEBRUARY 27, 2014

a discounted cash flow analysis of forecasted cash flows from your business. Forecasted earnings growth is typically the #1 driver of your valuation (e.g., Forecasted earnings growth is typically the #1 driver of your valuation (e.g., revenue, cash flow or net income multiples from recent M&A transactions in your industry.

Valuation 167

Valuation Forecast Seed Stage .Net 167

Steve Blank

JANUARY 10, 2011

In a startup founders and the board need to do exact the opposite of a large company – failures need to be shared, discussed and dissected to extract “lessons learned” so a new direction can be set. As a founder I quickly learned how open I could be with my board. Founders lead by example in sharing Lessons Learned.

Forecast 265

Forecast Agile Revenue Founder 265

Up and Running

NOVEMBER 10, 2015

Our LivePlan customers are entrepreneurs, our founder and staff have run and sold companies, the Bplans readers are aspiring entrepreneurs (or actual entrepreneurs), and as I sell my own handmade jewelry, I like to think I have a very small claim to the title. At Palo Alto Software, I am surrounded by entrepreneurs.

Curation 60

Curation Lean Software Review Finder 60

Startup Professionals Musings

OCTOBER 12, 2010

It’s human nature to prioritize the metrics that get measured, so the simple act of keeping track is often enough to have a significant positive impact. I suggest you try to figure out the 3-5 key metrics that are used to judge the health of companies in your industry, and keep track of these somewhere in your scorecard.

Intellectual Property 223

Intellectual Property .Net Valuation Distribution 223

Feld Thoughts

AUGUST 12, 2011

When we were last with Dick and Jane on Finance Fridays, our fearless entrepreneurs were figuring out how to split up their founders equity and account for an investment from Jane. Build a financial model that forecasts the P&L. QuickBooks allows you to forecast expenses. as a C-Corp in Delaware. historical data).

Balance Sheet 136

Balance Sheet Forecast Cap Table Early Stage 136

Startup Lessons Learned

JUNE 5, 2009

Companies that reliably fail to make their forecasted numbers are exceptionally prone to “management retooling.&# In a startup context, numbers like gross revenue are actually vanity metrics, not actionable metrics. I think the problem with this approach is not the presence of the spreadsheet, but how it’s used.

San Francisco 102

San Francisco Lean Continuous Deployment Startup 102

A Crowded Space

JUNE 2, 2016

Tomasz Tunguz publishes data daily about VC metrics and public market comps. The metrics around SaaS and marketplace businesses are increasingly well understood. ” If the investor falls in love with the vision for the company – then they can proceed to evaluate the traction and metrics of the business.

Forecast 60

Forecast Metrics Revenue Venture Capital 60

Duct Tape Marketing

DECEMBER 3, 2015

Once you have a solid definition of your sales process, it becomes easier to proactive move prospects toward a buying decision, monitor and forecast how much new business is in your pipeline, and measure and improve your results. Inbound marketing strategies are changing the way we do business.

Lead Generation 28

Lead Generation Software Review Distribution LLC 28

Startup Lessons Learned

SEPTEMBER 30, 2008

So what does CTO mean, besides just "technical founder who really cant manage anyone?" Ive forecasted the issues you have spoken of without entertaining the thoughts of solutions like you have. Thats an important job, for sure, and Ive been called upon to do it from time to time. I always assumed I wouldnt manage anybody.

CTO 168

CTO Fractional CTO CTO Hire Technical Review 168

YoungUpstarts

MAY 26, 2014

It’s their comfort zone: numbers, metrics, analytics, logistics, strategies, and a well-defined and easy-to-see ROI. In the age of Google, true smartness means the ability to see and recognize patterns—and constitutes the difference between forecasting a likely future and simply following the conventional wisdom.

Analytics 160

Analytics Forecast Cofounder Agile 160