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 market is changing so fast these days that any upward climb can level off quickly, as the core business growth begins to stall.

Hockey Stick 265

Hockey Stick Guerilla Acquisition Startup 265

Startup Professionals Musings

JANUARY 14, 2023

Simply stated, it means that your business has the potential to multiply revenue with minimal incremental cost. Ready to scale is when you have a proven product and a proven business model, about to expand to new geographies and markets. Focus on marketing and indirect channels to get the message out quickly.

Hockey Stick 339

Hockey Stick Intellectual Property Non-Compete Business Model 339

Up and Running

MARCH 14, 2018

Your target market. Don’t say that everyone in the world is potentially your target market , even if it could be true one day. Be realistic about who you’re building your product for and break out your market into TAM, SAM, and SOM. Your revenue or business model. Customer acquisition: Marketing and sales strategy.

Hockey Stick 164

Hockey Stick Exit Strategy Technical Review Angel Investor 164

Startup Professionals Musings

APRIL 19, 2020

Simply stated, it means that your business has the potential to multiply revenue with minimal incremental cost. Ready to scale is when you have a proven product and a proven business model, about to expand to new geographies and markets. Focus on marketing and indirect channels to get the message out quickly.

Hockey Stick 386

Hockey Stick Intellectual Property Startup Non-Compete 386

Steve Blank

NOVEMBER 13, 2012

Leveraging my marketing skills, I successfully made what Steve calls an “onslaught launch”, generating a lot of press coverage and apparent early success. After many sales calls, early prospects showed little rush to buy it! Maysee now enjoys hockey stick revenue growth. But customers didn’t agree.

Japan 292

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

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 Target Market : Don’t say that everyone in the world is potentially your market, even it it could be true one day. Your Revenue Model : Investors tend to care about this slide the most.

Hockey Stick 164

Hockey Stick Exit Strategy Technical Review Due Diligence 164

Steve Blank

FEBRUARY 16, 2010

In my last post I described what happened when a company prematurely scales sales and marketing before adequately testing its hypotheses in Customer Discovery. All discussion focused on “missing the revenue plan.”. They told the CEO (who was the technical founder) that the sales team should focus on “other markets.”

Revenue 230

Revenue Balance Sheet Hockey Stick Burn Rate 230

Up and Running

APRIL 24, 2014

So for me, what makes a sales forecast credible? It starts with product market fit. I want to see a sales forecast with drivers. And I’m also going to look outside of the sales projection for credibility in the projected marketing spend. Well then, that helps makes a sales forecast credible.

Forecast 85

Forecast Hockey Stick Sales Business Plan 85

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 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 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 market is changing so fast these days that any upward climb can level off quickly, as the core business growth begins to stall.

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 market is changing so fast these days that any upward climb can level off quickly, as the core business growth begins to stall.

Hockey Stick 130

Hockey Stick Guerilla Acquisition Revenue 130

ConversionXL

APRIL 3, 2019

Go beyond standard sources of voice of customer data ; better options are: Interview founders (the original “customers”); Thank-you page surveys; Usertesting.com; Mine sales calls; Mine support tickets; Mine Facebook comments ; Mine online reviews. digital analytics, market research). Product and marketing teams should be involved.

Artificial Inteligence 114

Artificial Inteligence Technical Review Metrics SEO 114

Gust

NOVEMBER 15, 2012

Parts of the answer are that (a) there are enormous regulatory requirements relating to secondary markets, and (b) there are no analysts tracking private company stocks.

Seed Stage 131

Seed Stage Hockey Stick Cap Table Liquidation Preference 131

Startup Professionals Musings

SEPTEMBER 7, 2013

Simply stated, it means that your business has the potential to multiply revenue with minimal incremental cost. Ready to scale is when you have a proven product and a proven business model, about to expand to new geographies and markets. Focus on marketing and indirect channels to get the message out quickly.

Hockey Stick 278

Hockey Stick Intellectual Property Startup Non-Compete 278

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 market is changing so fast these days that any upward climb can level off quickly, as the core business growth begins to stall.

Hockey Stick 120

Hockey Stick Guerilla Startup Acquisition 120

Startup Professionals Musings

FEBRUARY 14, 2016

Simply stated, it means that your business has the potential to multiply revenue with minimal incremental cost. Ready to scale is when you have a proven product and a proven business model, about to expand to new geographies and markets. Focus on marketing and indirect channels to get the message out quickly.

Hockey Stick 120

Hockey Stick Intellectual Property Non-Compete Business Model 120

SoCal CTO

MAY 19, 2010

For example, TCA’s evaluation criteria first bullet is: A market opportunity sufficiently large to create a business that can grow to at least $50 million in annual revenues. Remember my day job, I'm past Chairman of the Tech Coast Angels and I see a lot of pitches with revenue forecasts. These are so detached from reality.

Hockey Stick 205

Hockey Stick NPV IRR Valuation 205

Up and Running

AUGUST 21, 2014

Tracking metrics and making sure you know what’s going on with your business is crucial; it enables you to determine if your assumptions about your business are correct, if your financial and marketing strategies are working, and ultimately allows you to make the best decisions possible for your business.

Metrics 84

Metrics Startup Churn Rate Forecast 84

Startup Professionals Musings

JANUARY 11, 2015

Simply stated, it means that your business has the potential to multiply revenue with minimal incremental cost. Ready to scale is when you have a proven product and a proven business model, about to expand to new geographies and markets. Focus on marketing and indirect channels to get the message out quickly.

Hockey Stick 120

Hockey Stick Intellectual Property Non-Compete Business Model 120

thebarefootvc

DECEMBER 16, 2011

Mobile Marketing Comes of Age: Retailers finally began to see the promise of location based applications and consumers changed their shopping behavior using their mobile devices. 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).

Technical Review 110

Technical Review India Mobile Hockey Stick 110

Steve Blank

SEPTEMBER 10, 2009

The product development model treats all startups like they are in an Existing Market – an established market with known customers. Most startups following the Product Development Model never achieve their revenue plan and burn through a ton of cash not knowing what hit them. They never understood Market Type.

Customer Development 196

Customer Development Developer Customer Silicon Valley 196

Steve Blank

NOVEMBER 8, 2010

By 1992 Research in Motion (RIM) had been in business for eight years, had 16 employees, sales of about $500,000 a year, and three or four business lines. Resegmenting an Existing Market. Their intent: initial sales would come from users who already understood what the product could do so adoption would occur rapidly.

Hockey Stick 271

Hockey Stick Customer Development Silicon Valley Networking 271

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.). Size of the target market. Not just big but huge.

Hockey Stick 276

Hockey Stick Venture Capital Startup Cofounder 276

ConversionXL

FEBRUARY 19, 2016

You get more traffic, more conversions, more money – in an endless hockey stick shaped cycle. There are issues that I’ve heard marketers bring up where there can be a conflict between CRO and SEO. It’s not hurting your revenue. Of course, it’s not so simple. Google Doesn’t Want to Penalize Better UX.

SEO 48

SEO Technical Review Algorithm Jacksonville 48

This is going to be BIG.

JULY 26, 2010

They’re more than doubling revenue every quarter and will soon be on track for a million dollar run rate. It’s a very different animal than an enterprise sales strategy. We experience good and bad sales tactics as customers, and that might make us better or worse salespeople.

Acquisition 128

Acquisition Hockey Stick Customer SEM 128

Hippoland

AUGUST 8, 2018

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. Diving in a bit more into some thoughts here: 1b) Ad-based revenue streams generally have terrible unit economics. Marketing first. This is obvious.

Founder 48

Founder Sales Cycle Affiliate Retention 48

Hippoland

AUGUST 8, 2018

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. Diving in a bit more into some thoughts here: 1b) Ad-based revenue streams generally have terrible unit economics. Marketing first. This is obvious.

Founder 48

Founder Sales Cycle Affiliate Retention 48

Up and Running

MARCH 11, 2015

Another assumption is that you’ve actually conducted due diligence on your own business, and these are the areas of your team, financials, your competition, your IP, market trends, because the best pitches I’ve ever delivered were when investors were raising their hands and asking me questions about, “How is your IP protected?”

Technical Review 60

Technical Review Software Review Due Diligence Exit Strategy 60

Up and Running

APRIL 28, 2015

You can talk about the current solutions in the market, but don’t spend too much time on the competitive landscape on this slide—you’ll have a chance to do that on a later slide. Slide 3: Target market and opportunity. What is the total market size and how do you position your company within the market?

Forecast 60

Forecast Hockey Stick Exit Strategy Intellectual Property 60

Professor VC

AUGUST 26, 2011

The objections range from "its hard", "nobody believes them" to "all hockey sticks look alike". To that last one, there is certainly some truth as the standard time vs. revenue chart in most business plans looks like this: Im not teaching Entrepreneurial Finance this semester for the first time since Fall 2007. How do you think?

Silicon Valley 35

Silicon Valley San Jose Hockey Stick Venture Capital 35