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. This S-Curve, with no correction, can quickly lead to disaster.

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. Organic growth (reinvesting profits only) will not allow you to build the “hockey stick” growth curve desired by premium buyers at exit, or financial analysts positioning you for public stock sale.

Hockey Stick 339

Hockey Stick Intellectual Property Non-Compete Business Model 339

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). Customer acquisition: Marketing and sales strategy. 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

APRIL 19, 2020

Simply stated, it means that your business has the potential to multiply revenue with minimal incremental cost. Organic growth (reinvesting profits only) will not allow you to build the “hockey stick” growth curve desired by premium buyers at exit, or financial analysts positioning you for public stock sale.

Hockey Stick 386

Hockey Stick Intellectual Property Startup Non-Compete 386

Steve Blank

NOVEMBER 13, 2012

After many sales calls, early prospects showed little rush to buy it! 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”.

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

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. 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.

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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

Up and Running

APRIL 24, 2014

So for me, what makes a sales forecast credible? 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. Sales and Marketing Writing a Business Plan'

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 mainstream customers who can really drive revenue care more about price. This S-Curve, with no correction, can quickly lead to disaster.

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. This S-Curve, with no correction, can quickly lead to disaster.

Hockey Stick 130

Hockey Stick Guerilla Acquisition Revenue 130

Startup Professionals Musings

SEPTEMBER 7, 2013

Simply stated, it means that your business has the potential to multiply revenue with minimal incremental cost. Organic growth (reinvesting profits only) will not allow you to build the “hockey stick” growth curve desired by premium buyers at exit, or financial analysts positioning you for public stock sale.

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 mainstream customers who can really drive revenue care more about price. This S-Curve, with no correction, can quickly lead to disaster.

Hockey Stick 120

Hockey Stick Guerilla Startup Acquisition 120

Gust

NOVEMBER 15, 2012

In my own portfolio I have companies that are generally perceived to be extremely successful with high profile customers and lots of sales…but they just happen to have a liquidation preference ladder of $25 million!

Seed Stage 131

Seed Stage Hockey Stick Cap Table Liquidation Preference 131

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

You need to get to a point in your funnel where you have enough people coming in that you can get to that conversion rate that will get you the sales that you need to drive your business forward. The other thing that they’re going to ask you is average revenue per account or per user or per customer. If we increase our-.

Metrics 84

Metrics Startup Churn Rate Forecast 84

Startup Professionals Musings

FEBRUARY 14, 2016

Simply stated, it means that your business has the potential to multiply revenue with minimal incremental cost. Organic growth (reinvesting profits only) will not allow you to build the “hockey stick” growth curve desired by premium buyers at exit, or financial analysts positioning you for public stock sale.

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. Organic growth (reinvesting profits only) will not allow you to build the “hockey stick” growth curve desired by premium buyers at exit, or financial analysts positioning you for public stock sale.

Hockey Stick 120

Hockey Stick Intellectual Property Non-Compete Business Model 120

Ben's Blog

JULY 20, 2011

When I ran Opsware, we had the non-linear quarter problem also known affectionately as the hockey stick. The hockey stick refers to the shape of the revenue graph over the course of a quarter. Our hockey stick was so bad that one quarter, we booked 90% of our new bookings on the last day of the quarter.

Hockey Stick 78

Hockey Stick Management Employee Retention 78

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.). They grow their business via profits or traditional bank financing.

Hockey Stick 276

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). The viral nature of social media no doubt aided this growth, as did improvements in the online shopping experience. And Beyond….

Technical Review 110

Technical Review India Mobile Hockey Stick 110

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. Their intent: initial sales would come from users who already understood what the product could do so adoption would occur rapidly. New Market Revenue Curve.

Hockey Stick 271

Hockey Stick Customer Development Silicon Valley Networking 271

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

ConversionXL

FEBRUARY 19, 2016

You get more traffic, more conversions, more money – in an endless hockey stick shaped cycle. It’s not hurting your revenue. But it shouldn’t be a roadblock for increasing revenue per visitor via running tests. Of course, it’s not so simple. Now, irrelevant traffic isn’t necessarily a bad thing.

SEO 48

SEO Technical Review Algorithm Jacksonville 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. Sales cycles matter though.

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. Sales cycles matter though.

Founder 48

Founder Sales Cycle Affiliate Retention 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

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—. Are you landing a big sale? If you say in year one I’m going to do one hundred thousand in sales or, a million in sales or whatever it might be. How much is going to sales? You’re muted.

Technical Review 60

Technical Review Software Review Due Diligence Exit Strategy 60

Up and Running

APRIL 28, 2015

Slide 5: Revenue model. If you already have sales or early adopters using your product, talk about that here. Slide 7: Marketing and sales strategy. How are you planning on getting customers’ attention and what will your sales process look like? Use this slide to outline your marketing and sales plan.

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.

Silicon Valley 35

Silicon Valley San Jose Hockey Stick Venture Capital 35

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. million; Total revenue: $97.5 Or absolutely awful? Transcribe the interview (rev.com).

Artificial Inteligence 114

Artificial Inteligence Technical Review Metrics SEO 114