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. Bootstrapping does require a full confidence in your own passion to make decisions and change the world with no investors to lean on or blame. Marty Zwilling.

Hockey Stick 423

Hockey Stick Bootstrapping Sweat Equity Intellectual Property 423

Startup Professionals Musings

MAY 4, 2016

He nails the current key startup parameters, including the following: Crafting a lean business plan as your road map. You don’t have to be a heavily funded later stage startup to get access to “big data,” customer analytics, and metrics dashboards. Angel groups, accelerators, and incubators are pervasive.

Intellectual Property 120

Intellectual Property Startup Angel Groups Social Media 120

View from Seed

MARCH 19, 2015

He’s dubbed the approach “ pretotyping ,” and it shares many of the same principles as both its similar-sounding (if later-stage) cousin, prototyping, as well as the more well-known lean startup movement. Is this approach different? Are the two approaches complementary?

Product 120

Product Technical Review Marketing Lean 120

Startup Lessons Learned

FEBRUARY 20, 2009

I owe it originally to lean manufacturing books like Lean Thinking and Toyota Production System. The batch size is the unit at which work-products move between stages in a development process. The sooner you pass your work on to a later stage, the sooner you can find out how they will receive it. Expo SF (May.

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San Francisco Software Review Continuous Deployment Development Team Review 161

Austin Startup

MAY 11, 2017

Arena Growth Partners | Venture Capital and Private Equity | Austin, Texas - Venture to Lead™ Aspect Ventures We bridge the gap between your seed and later stage venture so together, we can turn great ideas into great companies.

Private Equity 48

Private Equity Venture Capital Technical Review Seed Stage 48

Steve Blank

JUNE 11, 2009

Yet for every founder there are 10-20 other employees who take the near-equivalent risks in joining an early-stage company. If you’re not a founder (by choice, timing or temperament,) you may be an early employee or a later stage startup employee. Founders know they want to start something.

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Cofounder Founder Silicon Valley Technical Cofounder 219

Steve Blank

MAY 9, 2017

Fourth, in the last decade, corporate investors and hedge funds have jumped into later stage investing with a passion. Their need to get into high-profile deals has driven late-stage valuations into unicorn territory. I’m glad to have been part of the team inventing the Lean Startup methodology.

Restful 222

Restful Silicon Valley Puerto Rico San Jose 222

The Next Web

SEPTEMBER 13, 2013

The rest of Asia is still developing with far more angel and early-stage investors than mid-to-later stage folks. Singapore is by far the most developed behind those big three markets with government schemes attracting over a dozen early stage firms to set up shop here (e.g.

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Asia Silicon Valley India Term Sheet 132

Startup Lessons Learned

DECEMBER 6, 2008

In order to prevent people from bunching up in the later stages of the work pipeline, those leaders need to be focused on automation and continuous improvement. Between cycles, put some pressure on those later teams to do more with fewer people. The Lean Startup Intensive is tomorrow at Web 2.0. Expo SF (May.

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San Francisco SCRUM Lean Continuous Deployment 74

Both Sides of the Table

MAY 21, 2018

He was in a later-stage financing round and was talking with many investors. Of course if they did some initial work and were leaning in to make an investment then we’d spend time helping them. I was recently with an entrepreneur and talking with him about his fund raising process. But they had to show they were committed.

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Term Sheet Later Stage Demand Email 217

David Teten

DECEMBER 3, 2019

Data companies focused on early-stage startups include Aingel , fundsUP , Preseries , PredictLeads , and Sploda. Later stage investors are using for sourcing private company marketplace services focused on more established companies, listed below under “Step 11: Exit”. They read reviews of the products of target investments.

Technical Review 78

Technical Review Software Review Analytics Private Equity 78

Startup Lessons Learned

JUNE 12, 2009

Lessons Learned by Eric Ries Friday, June 12, 2009 Lean Startup Workshop scholarship program I havent had much time to write lately, and so havent been able to share much about the Lean Startup Workshop series I have been producing with OReilly in their Master Class division. The Lean Startup Intensive is tomorrow at Web 2.0.

Lean 60

Lean Programming San Francisco Continuous Deployment 60

The Next Web

JULY 29, 2013

We decided to go for Berlin also because we want to shape Berlin’s startup culture, always with the goals to expand to the US at a later stage. It also helped us to start lean and simple, and grow our product into something bigger. It’s a lot more vibrant, but Berlin is catching up. It’s a difficult and long process.

San Francisco 125

San Francisco Cofounder Germany Europe 125

Steve Blank

JUNE 11, 2013

These sources are a lot more forgiving of iterations and pivots than later-stage venture-capital funds. In a Lean Startup , the goal is to preserve your cash until you find a repeatable and scalable business model. A seed round can come from friends, family, Kickstarter, angels – and most importantly, early customers.

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Venture Capital IRR Liquidity Event Business Model 333

Steve Blank

JUNE 15, 2010

Certain VC’s like the new class of Super-Angels and small VC funds specialize in the early stage of a startup where you are searching for a business model. And some larger funds that specialize in later stage deals may have a partner or two who likes to invest at this stage. Lean Startups ? Who Do They Hang With?

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Founder Vesting Later Stage Early Stage 231

YoungUpstarts

JANUARY 22, 2017

Later-stage companies are in operating mode. Approaching the market while leaning forward, and with eyes wide open, increases a company’s ability to attract the right talent. Ultimately, their playbook is their own defined by their own abilities and read of the opportunity in front of them.

Private Equity 113

Private Equity Later Stage IPO Early Stage 113

Both Sides of the Table

JUNE 13, 2018

And as you become a later stage company in fund raising you’ll likely have several follow up decks to discuss things like: Unit economics LTV / CAC analyses Cohort analyses Retention rates (SaaS) or repurchase rates (eCommerce) etc. Don’t send these?—?go go back and present them.

Portfolio 261

Portfolio IP Later Stage Email 261

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. Bootstrapping does require a full confidence in your own passion to make decisions and change the world with no investors to lean on or blame.

Bootstrapping 120

Bootstrapping Hockey Stick Sweat Equity Intellectual Property 120

Both Sides of the Table

MAY 13, 2018

If you have a mediocre meeting with a high-quality prospect and you don’t think they’re likely to lean in they drop to a B or C. One of the most important aims of a fund-raising process is to keep similar firms at the same stage of your process. Sometimes engagement at the later stages seems to go dry. To be clear?—?your

Term Sheet 332

Term Sheet Due Diligence Campaign Sales 332

Both Sides of the Table

MAY 25, 2013

But the larger funds usually have lower returns because they are often investing bigger dollars at later stages with less risk and therefore lower returns. As you can see in this Cambridge Associates data, early-stage investing beat later stage investing in returns in 70% of the past 30 years. Yeah, true.

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LP Later Stage IRR Term Sheet 374

ReadWriteStart

AUGUST 26, 2022

I think every company’s portfolio is different, so they’re all different sizes, different stages, different geographies, different cash positions, and different market leadership positions. . I will say the one thing we tell all our portfolio companies is to get fit and lean in. I like the get fit and lean in.

Partner 132

Partner Cofounder Retention Acquisition 132

Steve Blank

JUNE 11, 2013

These sources are a lot more forgiving of iterations and pivots than later-stage venture-capital funds. In a Lean Startup , the goal is to preserve your cash until you find a repeatable and scalable business model. A seed round can come from friends, family, Kickstarter, angels – and most importantly, early customers.

Venture Capital 225

Venture Capital IRR Liquidity Event Business Model 225

Hunter Walker

SEPTEMBER 22, 2014

If you’re one of these funds, it’s probably the right strategy in the nearterm, although I think greatest risk is that you’re ‘winning’ these deals but end up applying your later-stage POV to these early stage companies. 2) Larger Funds Buying Up Early to Outbid Other Funds Later. rounds).

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Later Stage Valuation Semantic Institutional Investors 95

This is going to be BIG.

JUNE 30, 2010

We have a good sense of what later stage VCs are going to look for and can help think about how much you need to raise to get additional interest down the line. If the feedback is great, I'm going to lean forward with some more interest. Sometimes, we even have good product feedback.

Technical Review 106

Technical Review Due Diligence Venture Capital Later Stage 106

Brandanew

AUGUST 4, 2015

b) Branding experts will ensure that a re-branding at a later stage is avoided. It is harder when you are a lean Startup trying to get everything in place faster and in a more efficient manner. In my first posts, I talked about the need of working with marketing and branding experts. Theme 3: Life In A Startup.

Social Media 100

Social Media Marketing Later Stage Media 100

Austin Startup

JUNE 26, 2019

As a boot-strapped founder aka our biggest investor, one of the things I leaned into uncovering was the unknown. Lean into it. Every quarter we set goals that broke down into weekly KPIs to evaluate to make sure we were moving forward. What did our customers think? Step on the scale.

Silicon Valley 54

Silicon Valley Startup B2C Sweat Equity 54

View from Seed

MARCH 8, 2016

They might believe that branding is a fluffy idea or a later-stage need, and right now, they need to move faster, launch, learn, grow, and survive. Can you still operate in some kind of lean or scrappy way and launch a brand that resonates with the market? You can absolutely launch lean and scrappy.

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Seed Stage Conversion Startup PR 120

Both Sides of the Table

JULY 24, 2016

If you’re slightly later stage it might be 5–6 hours. It ought to lay out the key issues, provide 3 options per issue and state which one management is leaning toward. I would think a 2–3 hour meeting with 2–3 topics ought to do.

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Metrics Strategic Investors Later Stage Management 196

Feld Thoughts

JUNE 6, 2012

This is true at early stages but also true at later stages. We describe Foundry Group ‘s behavior as “syndication agnostic.” ” When we make an investment, we are completely agnostic as to whether or not we have a co-investor.

Syndicate 136

Syndicate Syndication Cofounder Angel Investor 136

David Teten

SEPTEMBER 6, 2015

Conventional R&D can only address so many areas and it’s not exactly lean or fast. Bodas notes, “Some corporations are very technology and engineering centric so the technology risk that may come with investing in an earlier stage startup is more broadly understood within the corporation. It’s the same as approaching any VC.

Venture Capital 60

Venture Capital Balance Sheet Technical Review Portfolio 60

View from Seed

MARCH 10, 2015

If there’s any lesson there, it’s that you want to lean into what’s working early and keep going in that direction. NVV: Even though BR was a later-stage startup at that point, you mentioned being that proverbial “startup within a startup.”

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Mobile San Francisco Curation Seed Stage 120

The Entrepreneurial Mind

JUNE 14, 2010

They do play a role, but only a limited one with later stage businesses that have good cash flow. Remember that the Great Depression saw the start-up of many businesses that later thrived and became industry giants, including Disney, Hewlett-Packard, Publix Super Markets, and Kentucky Fried Chicken, just to name a few.

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Kentucky Washington Nashville Bootstrapping 56

Rob Go

OCTOBER 2, 2012

We were in many ways, the lean-start of venture capital funds. Capital is harder to come by, and later stage valuations are rationalizing. My favorite pieces of decoration in our office are two little paintings that was given to me by Seth Minkin as part of a little online project organized by my friend Dave Balter.

New York 61

New York Boston Valuation Later Stage 61

Steve Blank

OCTOBER 1, 2009

The company was lucky to survive his later stage leadership, and would be gone today had Bill Ford not brought in the ex-Boeing fellow who turned it around and runs it today. Henry Ford would not listen to anyone else — a common problem among the successful — and about ruined his company by sticking around too long.

Silicon Valley 156

Silicon Valley United States RSS Customer Development 156

Steve Blank

SEPTEMBER 2, 2015

Steve, you’ve been doing in the Lean LaunchPad course is how do we take that and expand upon it, not just in business but … in policy, in medicine, in public health, because the application of skills in those fields is just as important as it is in a business. . … He always talked about how much fun it is to build something.

Entrepreneur 120

Entrepreneur New York Cofounder Equity 120

ConversionXL

JUNE 2, 2022

The median figures for each strategy should give you an idea of which program to lean towards. The most significant financial returns will happen in the later stages, after you’ve identified and engaged target accounts. Typical deal sizes for Programmatic ABM are $50K to $250K. But there are other factors to consider.

Customer 98

Customer Marketing Channel Acquisition 98

Both Sides of the Table

JUNE 29, 2011

Some have done earlier-stage deals and done well. Others have chased earlier-stage but lack the skills or relationships to do this effectively. Some have moved into later stage investments in an effort to “put logos on their websites.&# They should start “lean.&#

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Venture Capital Software LP Early Stage 296