Steve Blank

JUNE 15, 2011

Today, the signs of the new bubble are the Linked-In initial public offering (IPO), Facebook’s stratospheric valuation and the rapid rise of early-stage startup valuation. In the case of this bubble, it was social networks, consumer and mobile applications, and the cloud. The Linked-in IPO valued the company at $8.9

Silicon Valley 330

Silicon Valley Stealth Valuation Mississippi 330

Both Sides of the Table

AUGUST 14, 2009

They have an expectation that the IPO will be in 3 years and they were in at the ground floor. Social Network s / Search / Blogs – Obvious, huh? I’m surprised at the number of people who aren’t good at tracking down relationships in social networks. It creeps people out.

Silicon Valley 291

Silicon Valley Ireland Technical Review Valuation 291

mashable.com

OCTOBER 16, 2010

Gregory Wehmeyer True, Ben, once upon a time, Angel Investors provided the launching pad for Venture Capital Firms to propel any startup on two legs toward a successful IPO. We are coaching VCs and Angel Investors everyday who call us wanting to understand our Early Stage LPO versus late stage IPO approach to business.

Angel Investor 84

Angel Investor Venture Capital Social Media Technical Review 84

YoungUpstarts

NOVEMBER 13, 2012

by Christopher Wallace, Vice President of Sales and Marketing for Amsterdam Printing. Google reportedly turned down buyout offers from Microsoft shortly before the 2004 IPO. Google’s value has grown from $23 billion at the time of the IPO to over $200 billion today. Unique social networking product.

IPO 162

IPO Exit Strategy San Francisco Startup 162

Austin Startup

APRIL 27, 2019

HomeAway is another one of our five tech IPOs in the last five years. Cotter bucks the flavor-of-the-day entrepreneurial stereotype: the college dropout popularized by both our own Michael Dell and recently Mark Zuckerberg and the great movie The Social Network. As of today, RetailMeNot is worth $1.33 It is worth $3.4

B2C 51

B2C Austin Cofounder IPO 51

Both Sides of the Table

OCTOBER 1, 2009

IPOs and M&A have returned – and with them the investment bankers have staged a rebound. There have been a number of high profile tech IPO s in the recent months including companies such as OpenTable and more recently LogMeIn. – IPO-able in any normal market. Notice that I didn’t say “social networking.”

IPO 255

IPO Investment Bankers Venture Capital Marketing 255

crowdSPRING Blog

JANUARY 5, 2012

Some Thoughts On The IPO Market For Web Companies (by @fredwilson) – [link]. Social network addiction around the world (Israelis are the most addicted) – [link]. The Fire) Sales Have Surpassed 1 Million Per Week – [link]. The Seven Habits of Spectacularly Unsuccessful Executives – [link].

Social Media 92

Social Media Small Business Design Media 92

Startup Professionals Musings

AUGUST 13, 2012

Many people seem to use the social network advertising model for revenue, but forget it assumes at least 100M users and $50M investment. Marketing, sales, and partners. Describe your market penetration strategy, sales channels, pricing, and strategic partnerships. There are two problems with this assertion.

Business Plan 283

Business Plan Sweat Equity Exit Strategy Intellectual Property 283

Gust

DECEMBER 16, 2011

Of IPO dreams once held so dear. And it was all fully justified, because the inevitable IPO would repay those investments many times over, and quite soon indeed. Today, we do still see, very rarely, a superstar company launched towards the IPO heavens. Listen my children and you shall hear. Hardly a founder now alive.

IPO 87

IPO .Net Social Network Mobile 87

Hearpreneur

JUNE 18, 2016

For me, Twitter is still the #1 social network because it is (or can be) *truly social*. Or really, the fact that it isn’t the trendiest social network any longer. It’s still the best social network to chat about current events, with people you don’t know already.

Entrepreneur 48

Entrepreneur Social Network Channel Social Media 48

Startup Professionals Musings

MAY 13, 2011

Many people seem to use the social network advertising model for revenue, but forget it assumes at least 100M users and $50M investment. Marketing, sales, and partners. Describe your market penetration strategy, sales channels, pricing, and strategic partnerships. There are two problems with this assertion.

Business Plan 290

Business Plan Sweat Equity Exit Strategy Intellectual Property 290

Agile VC

JUNE 5, 2011

So Groupon obviously filed their S-1 the other day to formally being the IPO process. How They Do It: Build email list of consumers interested in local deals (mainly via paid search & social network ads), sell coupon programs to merchants via telesales. AGILEVC My idle thoughts on tech startups. June 5, 2011.

North America 100

North America Chicago Boston Silicon Valley 100

Steve Blank

APRIL 13, 2013

China has essentially closed its internal search, media and social network software market to foreign companies who wouldn’t play with the government rules on the Great Firewall. The table below from web2asia.com shows the number of users of online social networks as of 2009. 70% of exits in China are via IPO (in the U.S.

Silicon Valley 271

Silicon Valley China Venture Capital Merger 271

Both Sides of the Table

FEBRUARY 21, 2010

I believe that many social networks confused this idea. They had previously all worked together at a very successful company in the “telecoms meets Internet&# space, CallWave, which IPO’d 5 years ago or so. The problem is that the average value of products that sell on affiliate networks is sub $100.

Advertising 284

Advertising Las Vegas Affiliate RSS 284

Gust

AUGUST 5, 2012

Many people seem to use the social network advertising model for revenue, but forget it assumes at least 100M users and $50M investment. Marketing, sales, and partners. Describe your market penetration strategy, sales channels, pricing, and strategic partnerships. There are two problems with this assertion.

Business Plan 182

Business Plan Sweat Equity Exit Strategy Intellectual Property 182

Steve Blank

APRIL 13, 2013

China has essentially closed its internal search, media and social network software market to foreign companies who wouldn’t play with the government rules on the Great Firewall. The table below from web2asia.com shows the number of users of online social networks as of 2009. 70% of exits in China are via IPO (in the U.S.

Silicon Valley 163

Silicon Valley China Venture Capital Merger 163

Startup Professionals Musings

APRIL 22, 2010

Many people seem to use the social network advertising model for revenue, but forget it requires at least 100M users and $50M investment. Marketing, sales, and partners. Describe your market penetration strategy, sales channels, pricing, and strategic partnerships. IPO as an exit strategy is not recommended these days.

Business Plan 186

Business Plan Exit Strategy Sweat Equity Intellectual Property 186

Both Sides of the Table

MARCH 17, 2010

LA was a leader in lead generation (LowerMyBills), comparison shopping (PriceGrabber, Shopzilla), social networking (MySpace … I know, I know – Facebook won – but it was still a big business). You can hire a talented head of marketing, business development, technology and sales.

Silicon Valley 290

Silicon Valley Technology Los Angeles Southern California 290

abovethecrowd.com

APRIL 17, 2013

The percentage rake is the amount that the marketplace charges as a percentage of GMS (gross merchandise sales), which typically represents net revenues for the marketplace. One company with an astonishingly high rake is recently IPOed Shutterstock, a photo-purchasing marketplace where the content owner receives only 30% of gross receipts.

Europe 101

Europe Social Network Technical Review IPO 101

Both Sides of the Table

MAY 23, 2012

The movie, “The Social Network” might have had more of an impact on creating future entrepreneurs than any other event of the past 5 years. IPO markets had burned an entire cycle of retail stock investors and many institutional investors to boot. Bottom of the sales funnel. Thank you, Aaron Sorkin! The Exit Problem.

Venture Capital 347

Venture Capital Technical Review LP Mobile 347

adamac.blogspot.com

MARCH 9, 2010

Adam MacBeth Tuesday, April 07, 2009 10 Startup Red Flags Ive worked on a number of startups: from seed-stage through IPO, as a founder, employee, advisor, and consultant, as well as evaluating a bunch from the outside, so Ive seen my share of screw-ups. Adamac Attack! Unfortunately this usually backfires.

Technical Review 41

Technical Review CTO Hire Fractional CTO Startup 41

Both Sides of the Table

JANUARY 31, 2011

My SVP of Sales & Marketing quit 30 minutes before an important board meeting. before the really profitable years of social networking and when many in the industry were despondent. The days of quick flips, quick IPOs and astronomic returns had come to a close. Your highs are super high. I was baffled.

Entrepreneur 384

Entrepreneur Startup Salary Egypt 384

Reid Hoffman

DECEMBER 15, 2020

(It didn’t help that since meals are often a part of recruiting and sales, I was eating out three meals per day.). I’m going to turn around and come to your house, and we are going to talk this through.”. This kind of thing happens at 99% of startups, and can happen even after your company is “successful.”

Cofounder 69

Cofounder Restful Silicon Valley Term Sheet 69

David Teten

JANUARY 10, 2012

The first panel will focus on public markets and will discuss the use and effectiveness of social media tools and data mining technologies in harnessing the wisdom of crowds to generate investment ideas. Howard Lindzon is Co-Founder and CEO of StockTwits, a social network for traders and investors to share real-time ideas and information.

Technical Review 128

Technical Review Technology North Carolina Switzerland 128

crowdSPRING Blog

MAY 25, 2012

The Inside Story Of What Happened On The Facebook IPO – [link]. Facebook IPO, and How to Build a Social Network for $389 – [link]. Q1 saw the most tech IPOs in four years, but funding amounts are down – [link]. Facebook IPO Post Mortem – Killer – but not for the reasons you think !

Social Media 93

Social Media Small Business Design Media 93

Both Sides of the Table

JANUARY 22, 2011

My SVP of Sales & Marketing quit 30 minutes before an important board meeting. before the really profitable years of social networking and when many in the industry were despondent. The days of quick flips, quick IPOs and astronomic returns had come to a close. Your highs are super high. I was baffled.

Entrepreneur 176

Entrepreneur Startup Salary Egypt 176

Professor VC

FEBRUARY 18, 2011

I was curious about the sale price (not announced in any of the acquisition articles), but was disclosed in Linked-Ins S1 filing at cash proceeds of $2,394,000. I asked him how the deal came out for investors since the sale price was significantly lower than the valuation on the round they were raising when we met. ► January. (1).

Acquisition 31

Acquisition San Jose Angel Investor IPO 31

venturebeat.com

JULY 12, 2012

Social media. Social networking. Social games. From $1.5B to half a trillion dollars: PayPal celebrates a 10th anniversary. Editor’s picks. Featured stories. Cloud services. Cloud storage. Enterprise. Acquisition. Venture capital. Developers. Entrepreneur. Entrepreneurs. Infographics. Management. Streaming media.

Detroit 69

Detroit Incubator Technical Review Venture Capital 69

reidhoffman.org

NOVEMBER 12, 2013

Friendster’s valuation set the tone for the entire social networking space. What’s more, the sales and marketing costs of acquiring listings are expensive. Professional networking, not social networking. This slide addressed the question: “Isn’t social much more valuable than professional?”

Entrepreneur 111

Entrepreneur Revenue Viral Networking 111

Startup Lessons Learned

MARCH 13, 2009

In particular, a marketing launch can help you do three things (courtesy, as is most of my marketing advice, of The Four Steps to the Epiphany ): Drive customers into your sales pipeline. In the right situation, its a very useful tactic, too. Thats because a marketing launch is a one-time event, and rarely translates into renewable audiences.

San Francisco 168

San Francisco PR Lean Early Stage 168

ConversionXL

NOVEMBER 12, 2020

Back in 2012, for example, Google+ was the latest up-and-coming social network, expecting to reach 400+ million active users. However the 5x rule is based on mass-produced products, and business models that focused on pushy sales tactics.” Slack didn’t exist, and Zoom was just a year old. It gets even more interesting.

Marketing 113

Marketing Retention Email Video 113

Startup Lessons Learned

DECEMBER 7, 2008

My responsibility at the time I joined the company was to develop a product that is to be deployed on a social network (hint hint, FB). ► 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.

Software Review 94

Software Review Technical Review Part-Time VPE San Francisco 94

VC Cafe

JULY 9, 2010

SupersonicAds – a dominant leader in virtual currency monetization for online games, virtual worlds and social networks. Co-founded by Yiftah Frechter, Yoav Arnstein and Ran Cohen, all former execs of recently IPO-ed Eyeblaster. Below are the headlines for the week of July 8 2010: Startups of the week. Miscellaneous.

Media 109

Media Stealth Venture Capital 109

Scalable Startup

FEBRUARY 1, 2013

Then from a bottoms-up standpoint what you said is exactly right, I think, which is that the new generation of employees grew up on smartphones and tablets and touch and everything, social networking and Twitter and everything else. And they don’t buy sales-force automation software, they rent on Salesforce.com.

Software Review 22

Software Review Startup Venture Capital Stock 22

Startup Lessons Learned

DECEMBER 16, 2008

Facebook , LinkedIn , and other successful social networks have elevated this technique to a high art. At that point, theres no opportunity for marketing or sales; the battle is already won or lost in the persons mind. Direct notifications can help ameliorate that problem. Organic notifications.

Viral 140

Viral San Francisco Lean Continuous Deployment 140

Both Sides of the Table

DECEMBER 9, 2010

Another big innovator in helping manage cloud implementations is Okta , founded by Todd McKinnon, the former VP of Engineering at Salesforce.com (who knows a thing or two about cloud services) and Freddy Kerrest who was senior in biz dev & sales at Salesforce and was there from 2002-07. Other Layers.

Cloud 343

Cloud Technical Review Database Semantic 343

SoCal CTO

AUGUST 3, 2010

Welcome to the Lost Decade (for Entrepreneurs, IPO’s and VC’s) - Steve Blank , July 15, 2010 If you take funding from a venture capital firm or angel investor and want to build a large, enduring company (rather than sell it to the highest bidder), this isn’t the decade to do it. Here’s an example in a direct sales channel. Here’s why.

Software Review 217

Software Review Startup Venture Capital Technical Review 217