Startup Professionals Musings

MAY 18, 2020

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. With the unlimited access to “how-to” videos and detailed instructions on the Internet, you shouldn’t need to hire experts for most things.

Hockey Stick 423

Hockey Stick Bootstrapping Sweat Equity Intellectual Property 423

Up and Running

MARCH 14, 2018

Your revenue or business model. Impress the investors with what you and your team have accomplished to date (sales, contracts, key hires, product launches, and so on). Show what you’re projecting in revenue (per product) over the next three to five years. Investors tend to care about this slide the most.

Hockey Stick 164

Hockey Stick Exit Strategy Technical Review Angel Investor 164

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 recommend hiring or appointing a growth hacker.”

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. Show that you have and can continue to hire the right people to run the scaled business without you being everywhere and making every decision. But what does that really mean? Attract and relish investor funding.

Hockey Stick 386

Hockey Stick Intellectual Property Startup Non-Compete 386

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?

Revenue 230

Revenue Balance Sheet Hockey Stick Burn Rate 230

Up and Running

JANUARY 2, 2013

Impress the investors with what you and your team have accomplished to date (sales, contracts, key hires, product launches, etc.). Your Revenue Model : Investors tend to care about this slide the most. Your Financial Projections : 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 Due Diligence 164

Startup Lessons Learned

JANUARY 15, 2010

Usually, they are delivering only a fraction of the revenue they promised. For a little while, the team can resort to the last defense of entrepreneurs in trouble: the promised hockey-stick. One thing that is often overlooked about the hockey-stick growth shape: its most distinctive characteristic is the long, flat part.

Hockey Stick 105

Hockey Stick San Francisco Entrepreneur Lean 105

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. Show that you have and can continue to hire the right people to run the scaled business without you being everywhere and making every decision. But what does that really mean? Attract and relish investor funding.

Hockey Stick 278

Hockey Stick Intellectual Property Startup Non-Compete 278

Startup Professionals Musings

APRIL 6, 2016

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. With the unlimited access to “how-to” videos and detailed instructions on the Internet, you shouldn’t need to hire experts for most things.

Bootstrapping 120

Bootstrapping Hockey Stick Sweat Equity Intellectual Property 120

Startup Professionals Musings

FEBRUARY 14, 2016

Simply stated, it means that your business has the potential to multiply revenue with minimal incremental cost. Show that you have and can continue to hire the right people to run the scaled business without you being everywhere and making every decision. But what does that really mean? Attract and relish investor funding.

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. Show that you have and can continue to hire the right people to run the scaled business without you being everywhere and making every decision. But what does that really mean? Attract and relish investor funding.

Hockey Stick 120

Hockey Stick Intellectual Property Non-Compete Business Model 120

Steve Blank

JANUARY 4, 2010

Now with customers and early revenue, it was out raising its first round of venture money. Not only did their sales curve look like a textbook case of a VC-friendly hockey stick, but their Lessons Learned funding presentation was an eye-opener.). For its first year IMVU had funded itself with money from friends and family.

Hockey Stick 276

Hockey Stick Venture Capital Startup Cofounder 276

Steve Blank

NOVEMBER 8, 2010

That year the two founders decided to get serious about being a company, and hired a CEO. This results in a much slower adoption curve – the classic hockey stick. New Market Revenue Curve. Soon, RIM was focusing on making products for people on the move, using wireless communication and digital data.

Hockey Stick 271

Hockey Stick Customer Development Silicon Valley Networking 271

K9 Ventures

MARCH 2, 2017

This is when the MBA-like tactics of maximizing growth and maximizing revenue come in. Most VCs love that stuff they want to see that hockey-stick growth (For the record, I do not. This is when the company starts to stop listening to customers. Scaling a company takes time. And there are some things that cannot be sped up.

Hockey Stick 48

Hockey Stick Cofounder Founder Early Stage 48

Steve Blank

SEPTEMBER 10, 2009

With that implicit assumption, startups hire a VP of Sales with a great rolodex and call on established mainstream companies while marketing creates a brand and buzz to create demand and drive it into the sales channel (web, direct salesforce, etc.) After twelve months Handspring’s revenue was $170 million. End result?

Customer Development 196

Customer Development Developer Customer Silicon Valley 196

YoungUpstarts

SEPTEMBER 23, 2019

In the accounting business, your revenue chart basically looks like a hockey stick,” says Ernie Mayhorn, owner of Capital Tax Solutions in Carson City, Nev., To even out the “hockey stick” revenue cycles, Ernie finds money-making opportunities for slow periods. Add new services to stay busy all year. “In

Hockey Stick 113

Hockey Stick Small Business Private Equity Denver 113

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. If you believe lawyers are simply document gatekeepers, you are missing the entire reason for hiring a lawyer — counsel.

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. If you believe lawyers are simply document gatekeepers, you are missing the entire reason for hiring a lawyer — counsel.

Delaware 45

Delaware Hockey Stick Preferred Stock Open Source 45

Up and Running

APRIL 28, 2015

Slide 5: Revenue model. Investors see “hockey stick” projections all the time and will mentally be cutting your projections in half. Investors will want to see your plans for hiring and employee-related expenses, R&D expenses, manufacturing costs, marketing expenses, and so on. Remember to try and be realistic.

Forecast 60

Forecast Hockey Stick Exit Strategy Intellectual Property 60

Up and Running

MARCH 11, 2015

Now you’re going to move into your revenue model. Okay, so now your revenue model, so this is—. He had two million people visiting his site, but no revenue, but yet he sold for $40 million. This is, are you a brick and mortar? You’re muted. We can save them until the end. You want to explain those inflection points.

Technical Review 60

Technical Review Software Review Due Diligence Exit Strategy 60