Steve Blank

SEPTEMBER 14, 2009

On top of all this it was considered very bad form not to have at least four additional consecutive quarters of profits after an IPO.) The IPO Bubble – August 1995 – March 2000 In August 1995 Netscape went public, and the world of start ups turned upside down. Tech acquisitions went crazy at the same time the IPO market did.

Silicon Valley 223

Silicon Valley IPO Technical Review Venture Capital 223

NZ Entrepreneur

SEPTEMBER 29, 2021

It is not uncommon for startup directors to be more deeply involved in the operations of the business when the company is entering a new market, hiring critical team members or raising capital. Generating liquidity usually entails either selling the venture or an IPO. Your big decisions will be when and how to : raise capital.

Technical Review 88

Technical Review Software Review New Zealand Due Diligence 88

BeyondVC

APRIL 4, 2018

Look at the Dropbox IPO which priced above its initial value and came out white hot at the end of one of the worst weeks in stock market performance. There will also still be some amazing companies that raise their Series C, D and beyond funding rounds with scaling metrics.

Cloud 60

Cloud Agile Architecture Azure 60

David Teten

JANUARY 19, 2021

This structure allows for alignment on the front end, and real-time flexibility for performance metrics,” says Samira Salman , a family office investor and advisor. . Flexible VCs have created structures based on other company performance metrics than revenues, such as profits or founder salaries. Flexible VC 102: Variations.

Cofounder 78

Cofounder Technical Review Equity Dividend 78

The Equity Kicker

JUNE 17, 2015

Firstly this table comparing 1999 and 2014 on key bubble-related metrics. As you can see this time round the funding is both smaller in scale and more conservative, and we are operating in a much, much bigger market. But second there has been a big shift from IPOs to late stage private rounds.

IPO 60

IPO Early Stage Valuation Metrics 60

Gust

JANUARY 31, 2013

Modern theories of economics and finance teach us that in a world of perfect information, the market will decide what a fair price is for any company’s stock at any point in time based on its current financial condition, results of past operations, analysts’ forecasts of future performance, industry conditions and so on.

SEC 158

SEC Prospectus United States Technical Review 158

Mucker Lab

OCTOBER 12, 2016

Why should a public market downturn determine an investment in a startup that has seven to 10 years to go before it can even think about an IPO? But many of today’s billion dollar venture firms invest in four-person startups as well as pre-IPO startups with thousands of employees.

Harvest 60

Harvest Vertical IPO Early Stage 60

Both Sides of the Table

SEPTEMBER 10, 2021

We operate at scale and speed unprecedented in human history.” * I first wrote about the changes to the Venture Capital ecosystem 10 years ago and this still serves as a good primer of how we arrived at 2011, a decade on from the Web 1.0 dot-com bonanza. How little we all knew how ironic that term would become but has nonetheless endured.

Pre-Money Valuation 471

Pre-Money Valuation Valuation Venture Capital Early Stage 471

View from Seed

MARCH 3, 2015

Ellie Mirman was the first marketer hired by the CMO of HubSpot, the Boston-based marketing software startup that IPOed in 2014. NextView Ventures: Thinking back to before anyone knew HubSpot or the company was headed towards an IPO, where did you even start to market the company? Should you do that at all?

Marketing 120

Marketing Sales Cycle Startup CTO Hire 120

Agile VC

JUNE 5, 2011

So Groupon obviously filed their S-1 the other day to formally being the IPO process. The International segment appears to have similar profitability as the North America business though as it accounted for roughly the same proportion of adjusted operating income. AGILEVC My idle thoughts on tech startups. June 5, 2011.

North America 100

North America Chicago Boston Silicon Valley 100

A Smart Bear: Startups and Marketing for Geeks

JULY 23, 2013

Marketo filed for IPO with impressive 80% year-over-year growth in 2012, with almost $60m in revenue. But, a growing SaaS company will be landing new customers, and in increasing numbers, which means piling up more and more unprofitable operations. Except, they lost $35m. It’s not impressive when you spend $1.60 for every $1.00

Business Model 335

Business Model .Net Revenue IPO 335

YoungUpstarts

MARCH 14, 2012

IPO stands for Initial Public Offering, and is the first sale of a private stock to the public. Most recently, the mass media has been concerned with the Facebook IPO. Net Operating Profit After Tax, or NOPAT, is a performance measure that reveals a company’s after-tax profit. Maybe double-check that contract.

Non-disclosure Agreement 202

Non-disclosure Agreement NDA IPO Covenant 202

Feld Thoughts

DECEMBER 14, 2018

Examples would be “an acquisition” or “a financing” or “an IPO.” Then, I like to roll into metrics that create a floor on how the business will operate. I like to start with things that often are optional, but consume a lot of time and energy.

Acquisition 145

Acquisition IPO Metrics Finance 145

YoungUpstarts

APRIL 7, 2013

They’re using metrics that are often unworkable in the current business environment, causing growing businesses to look elsewhere for capital and increasingly towards alternative forms of financing. Case in point: It took Amazon six years to earn a dime, during which it consumed huge amounts of venture funding and issued an IPO.

Advisory Board 249

Advisory Board Entrepreneur Portland Oregon 249

Startup Lessons Learned

MAY 19, 2020

This was supposed to be Airbnb's biggest year by many measures, including its IPO, which was one of the most anticipated since the 2008 financial crisis. Instead, the global pandemic has turned 2020 into its most harrowing year. I was lucky enough to be one of the first people to speak to Brian in-depth since the pandemic began.

Management 122

Management Cofounder China IPO 122

Startup Lessons Learned

JUNE 8, 2009

That’s because many of our reports feed us vanity metrics: numbers that make us look good but don’t really help make decisions. Yet even among those who have access to good actionable metrics, I’ve noticed a phenomenon that prevents taking maximum advantage of data. Too much of this data is non- actionable.

San Francisco 84

San Francisco Lean Continuous Deployment DC 84

Startup Lessons Learned

SEPTEMBER 15, 2008

But by taking advantage of open source, agile software, and iterative development, lean startups can operate with much less waste. ► August (2) SXSW Case Study: SlideShare goes freemium ► July (4) Case Study: kaChing, Anatomy of a Pivot Some IPO speculation Founder personalities and the “first-class man&# th.

Lean 168

Lean San Francisco Startup Continuous Deployment 168

Steve Blank

OCTOBER 24, 2017

— Unremarked and unheralded, the balance of power between startup CEOs and their investors has radically changed: IPOs/M&A without a profit (or at times revenue) have become the norm. In the 20th century tech companies and their investors made money through an Initial Public Offering (IPO). The founders. The founders.

Founder 252

Founder Technical Review CTO Hire IPO 252

Startup Lessons Learned

NOVEMBER 6, 2008

► August (2) SXSW Case Study: SlideShare goes freemium ► July (4) Case Study: kaChing, Anatomy of a Pivot Some IPO speculation Founder personalities and the “first-class man&# th. The visionary’s lament The Superbowl ad test Lo, my 57692 subscribers, who are you? Startup Lessons Learned - the Conference (April 23.

Agile 76

Agile San Francisco Software Review Continuous Deployment 76

500hats.com

AUGUST 2, 2012

Mega VC has focused on the challenges of the post-SarbOx IPO market in the US, and has discovered opportunity in offering larger amounts of growth capital ($10-100M+) to private companies with reduced access to public markets. They are operators, through and through. Investing in Non-Investment: The “FULL SERVICE” VC.

Silicon Valley 74

Silicon Valley Early Stage Venture Capital Valuation 74

The Equity Kicker

OCTOBER 8, 2012

Growth is the main driver of value in our companies and it is what makes them exciting to IPO investors and acquirers. In practice most businesses are cash constrained and have to optimise the trade off between investing in growth and running out of cash – so they focus on growth AND operational efficiency. Sometimes not.

Silicon Valley 149

Silicon Valley IPO eCommerce Valuation 149

This is going to be BIG.

MAY 26, 2022

You’d like to believe the world is completely meritocratic—that you’ll put your heads down to work on your company, hit all your metrics, and just show up on the doorstep of a VC firm who will just be bowled over at the fantastic little company you’ve created. Unfortunately, this has real consequences for founders.

Founder 103

Founder .Net Term Sheet Aggregator 103

Startup Lessons Learned

FEBRUARY 20, 2009

Similar results apply in product management, design, testing, and even operations. When operating with continuous deployment, its almost impossible to have integration conflicts. In my experience, a few hours of coding is enough to produce a viable batch and is worth checking in and deploying. Small batches reduce overhead.

San Francisco 161

San Francisco Software Review Continuous Deployment Development Team Review 161

Startup Lessons Learned

NOVEMBER 17, 2008

Growth - when you have existing customers, the pressure is on to grow your key metrics day-in day-out. ► August (2) SXSW Case Study: SlideShare goes freemium ► July (4) Case Study: kaChing, Anatomy of a Pivot Some IPO speculation Founder personalities and the “first-class man&# th.

San Francisco 88

San Francisco Lean Continuous Deployment DC 88

The Equity Kicker

JULY 25, 2013

Whilst the company is still falling short of the heights it set for itself in last year’s IPO these results show that the business is in rude health. At 31% GAAP operating margins are remain strong (GAAP margins are after share based compensation). This slide from their investor presentation is perhaps the most telling.

Europe 79

Europe IPO Mobile Metrics 79

Startup Lessons Learned

JANUARY 19, 2009

This is another sub-optimization caused by incentivizing the wrong metric. For example, lets say you dont have an operations team, and so youre still getting paged late at night when servers crash. Is it time to make your first operations hire? This is a variant of the time-quality-money fallacy , and it is not necessarily true.

Lean 140

Lean Hiring San Francisco Continuous Deployment 140

Startup Lessons Learned

JULY 9, 2010

In management jobs related to operations – that is, the people tasked with actually making and distributing physical products – this kind of thinking is now considered ludicrous, thanks to a century of progress. Probably not; it’s much easier to blame the particular person who made the mistakes.

San Francisco 161

San Francisco Management Founder Lean 161

Startup Lessons Learned

OCTOBER 5, 2008

Indeed the first thing I thought when I read the first paragraphs that the product manager was operating in a white tower and that the developers felt disenfranchised. Startup Visa update ► February (5) Kiwi lean startup + Australia next Why diversity matters (the meritocracy business) Beware of Vanity Metrics (for Harvard Business Rev.

San Francisco 158

San Francisco Management Software Review Product 158

Startup Lessons Learned

NOVEMBER 4, 2008

► August (2) SXSW Case Study: SlideShare goes freemium ► July (4) Case Study: kaChing, Anatomy of a Pivot Some IPO speculation Founder personalities and the “first-class man&# th. The visionary’s lament The Superbowl ad test Lo, my 57692 subscribers, who are you? Startup Lessons Learned - the Conference (April 23.

Lean 102

Lean San Francisco Agile Continuous Deployment 102

BeyondVC

NOVEMBER 17, 2006

I am not sure if you saw the news , but Salary.com recently filed for an IPO to raise up to $50 million. During the years ended March 31, 2004, 2005 and 2006, we achieved positive operating cash flows of $0.3 During these periods, we have consistently incurred operating losses, including $0.8 million, $0.9 million and $1.8

IPO 60

IPO Investment Bankers Demand Revenue 60

Startup Lessons Learned

NOVEMBER 7, 2008

► August (2) SXSW Case Study: SlideShare goes freemium ► July (4) Case Study: kaChing, Anatomy of a Pivot Some IPO speculation Founder personalities and the “first-class man&# th. The visionary’s lament The Superbowl ad test Lo, my 57692 subscribers, who are you? Startup Lessons Learned - the Conference (April 23.

Demand 167

Demand San Francisco Lean Continuous Deployment 167

ReadWriteStart

JUNE 22, 2012

But those metrics don't tell the whole story. Furthermore, most accelerators have cropped up in the last couple of years, which makes exits a questionable metric, given that it takes four to six years for the average M&A exit, and eight to 10 years for the average IPO. So the ROI is not purely economic.

Startup 133

Startup Portfolio Metrics Bootstrapping 133

Startup Lessons Learned

DECEMBER 28, 2009

You can train your operations or customer service staff on how it works - all live in the production environment. Monitoring of real-world metrics. In order to make continuous deployment work, teams have to get good at automated monitoring and reacting to business and customer-centric metrics, not just technical metrics.

Continuous Deployment 122

Continuous Deployment San Francisco Lean Metrics 122

Startup Lessons Learned

APRIL 14, 2009

Every board meeting, the metrics of success change. Compared to the million-dollar startup, they are operating at micro-scale. Time-to-complete-a-sale is not a bad metric for validated learning at this stage. Thank you for your simple, insightful explanation of why that is the wrong metric to use. How does that stack up?

Customer 167

Customer San Francisco Lean Hockey Stick 167

Version One Ventures

JULY 20, 2015

immediately following its IPO). You can see in their chart below that marketplaces get some of the highest revenue multiples because of their operational leverage and high defensibility at scale. In this case, metrics don’t count – we’re evaluating the team, idea, and vision. So what about early-stage marketplaces?

Valuation 60

Valuation Early Stage IPO eCommerce 60

Cracking the Code

FEBRUARY 27, 2009

Great companies have been founded during downturns and Bessemer sees a lot of investment opportunity in the current market environment," said Ed Colloton, Chief Operating Officer of Bessemer Venture Partners. SaaS business metrics: why are they different? The 10 laws of SaaS unveiled at Bessemer CEO Summi. ► 01/27 - 02/03. (1).

Software Review 48

Software Review Partner United States Venture Capital 48

ReadWriteStart

APRIL 26, 2012

There used to be the Four Horsemen of the IPO world, back in the '80s and '90s. They all went away; they got rolled up in 1999 and 2000 into these too-big-to-fail banking operations," Davidson tells us. When they exited the scene, the small IPO market followed suit. Brown & Sons, Montgomery Securities. The question is why?

IPO 115

IPO Stock San Francisco Lean 115