Startup Professionals Musings

AUGUST 31, 2012

Don’t expect them to believe your $100M revenue projection, if you are still waiting for the first revenue dollar. For a business, you must define the absolute minimum features you need to satisfy the customer problem, and test it in the market. Get a real customer and real revenue. Only real results count.

Intellectual Property 260

Intellectual Property Sweat Equity CTO Hire Fractional CTO 260

Startup Professionals Musings

DECEMBER 1, 2017

Every business needs to develop a revenue model even before a product. The alternatives range from giving the product away for free (revenue from ads), to pricing based on costs, to charging what the market will bear (premium pricing). Revenue is a percentage of every transaction. Freemium model – people pay for upgrade.

Revenue 166

Revenue Affiliate Advertising Retention 166

Startup Professionals Musings

JUNE 17, 2011

Don’t expect them to believe your $100M revenue projection, if you are still waiting for the first revenue dollar. For a business, you must define the absolute minimum features you need to satisfy the customer problem, and test it in the market. Get a real customer and real revenue. Only real results count.

Intellectual Property 253

Intellectual Property Sweat Equity CTO Hire Fractional CTO 253

Startup Professionals Musings

JUNE 5, 2021

In startup business plans, a bubble is too many entrepreneurs and too many investors chasing the latest “next big thing,” like Google search engine, Facebook social network, or Amazon e-commerce site. High valuation, low profit. Social media darling Twitter is an example of these bubbles.

Demand 362

Demand Government Venture Capital Valuation 362

Both Sides of the Table

JULY 29, 2010

We received so much positive feedback from our This Week in Venture Capital show walking through valuation calculations & term sheets that we decided to do a Q&A show this week to address topics that entrepreneurs want to learn about. The best thing to get is a “right sized&# valuation. A: It’s not best.

Venture Capital 282

Venture Capital Term Sheet Valuation Stock Options 282

Both Sides of the Table

OCTOBER 1, 2009

In the first post in this three part series I described why I believe the VC market froze between September 2008 – April 2009. When the market run started in March people were relieved that “the world wasn’t ending” so they started spending again. Unemployment coupled with a stock market drop will stop this spending cold IMHO.

Technical Review 269

Technical Review Stock Hawaii Early Stage 269

Agile VC

MAY 26, 2011

The market size for online advertising, e-commerce, and web premium services are 1/10th to 1/3rd the size they are today. To give you a sense, for 2002 the entire US online ad market was $6B and had shrunk year over year (it was $25B+ for 2010). It was a pretty good valuation for the time. It was a $4.7M link] leehower.

Term Sheet 178

Term Sheet Silicon Valley Technical Review Social Network 178

Startup Professionals Musings

MAY 22, 2010

Don’t expect them to believe your $100M revenue projection, if you are still waiting for the first revenue dollar. For a business, you must define the absolute minimum features you need to satisfy the customer problem, and test it in the market. Get a real customer and real revenue. Only real results count.

Intellectual Property 222

Intellectual Property Sweat Equity CTO Hire Fractional CTO 222

YoungUpstarts

JUNE 26, 2020

Some people blame it on Justin Timberlake (playing Sean Parker) in the movie The Social Network, who famously said that one million wasn’t cool, one billion was. To do that you have to show how your market is big enough (a multi-billion dollar market) to support that kind of valuation.

Finance 205

Finance Silicon Valley Valuation Startup 205

VC Cafe

MAY 29, 2022

Snap’s stock plunged 40% last week after Evan Spigel announced the company will miss revenue targets, which raises questions about other ‘advertising powered’ social networks. Carta’s State of Private Markets Q1 2022. The key messages: “This is not a time to panic.

Venture Capital 183

Venture Capital Early Stage Valuation Startup 183

Startup Professionals Musings

NOVEMBER 4, 2011

Reserve the company name on social networks to protect it. It should answer every question an investor or associate might ask, including current valuation, funding needed, and exit strategy. All the conviction and market research in the world are no substitute for real customers paying real money. Free trials don’t count.

Intellectual Property 249

Intellectual Property Angel Investor Technical Review Elevator Pitch 249

Startup Professionals Musings

APRIL 24, 2011

Your friends and family are really the only answer until you have a significant revenue stream. Use friends, family, and angels, if possible, to get a product, revenue, and customers first before the VC connection. To make this work, you will need an initial valuation of at least $5M.

Venture Capital 233

Venture Capital Revenue Elevator Pitch Silicon Valley 233

Both Sides of the Table

DECEMBER 5, 2010

I recently spoke at Caltech at the Caltech / MIT Enterprise Forum on “the future of social networking,&# the 30-minute video is here and the PowerPoint presentation is here on DocStoc ). What are the big trends that will drive the next phase of social networks? And so it goes with social networking.

Social Network 318

Social Network Networking Internet Technical Review 318

Startup Professionals Musings

SEPTEMBER 23, 2010

Reserve the company name on social networks to protect it. It should answer every question an investor or associate might ask, including current valuation, funding needed, and exit strategy. All the conviction and market research in the world are no substitute for real customers paying real money. Free trials don’t count.

Angel Investor 224

Angel Investor Intellectual Property Technical Review Elevator Pitch 224

ReadWriteStart

MARCH 24, 2011

First up, Priyanshu Harshavat, from Evanston, Illinois, presented Socioclean , a service for cleaning up your reputation on social networks. The discussion today was around Social Media financing and go-to-market strategy. This pretty much rules out SEO, PPC, affiliate marketing, etc. I like these two strategies.

Illinois 114

Illinois Entrepreneur Silicon Valley Chicago 114

Steve Blank

JUNE 15, 2011

A tech bubble is the rapid inflation in the valuation of public and private technology companies that exceeds their fundamental value by a large margin. 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.

Silicon Valley 330

Silicon Valley Stealth Valuation Mississippi 330

Both Sides of the Table

APRIL 14, 2012

…” I’ll write soon on my views of why I believe Instagram took off as a social network and what I think comes next. Instagram happens to be one of the few social networks I regularly use along with Twitter. Did raising money at a $500 million valuation help secure the $1 billion deal?

Valuation 316

Valuation Balance Sheet Dilution Term Sheet 316

Both Sides of the Table

NOVEMBER 28, 2013

In the market we’ve seen the massive uptick of SaaS valuations in the public markets and commensurate attention on private market fundings and valuations. Meanwhile while social networking was white hot 3 years ago it is now persona non grata unless your user numbers are insane.

Valuation 288

Valuation eCommerce Revenue Social Network 288

The Startup Magazine

MAY 7, 2024

It encourages users to form social networks around shared values and offers tools for petitions, pledges, surveys to foster digital activism. In conclusion, if you are a content creator committed to your art and looking for steady revenues from a supportive community of patrons, Patreon offers an exciting platform build for you.

Campaign 139

Campaign Seed Capital Social Network Global 139

thebarefootvc

DECEMBER 16, 2011

Powered by cell phones and social networking platforms, we saw revolutions taking place, businesses being transformed and our daily lives made more convenient (if we could tear ourselves away from our Facebook and Twitter updates). Charity Water is a great case study for this.

Technical Review 110

Technical Review India Mobile Hockey Stick 110

Steve Blank

MARCH 18, 2011

The signals are loud and clear : seed and late stage valuations are getting frothy and wacky, and hiring talent in Silicon Valley is the toughest it has been since the dot.com bubble. VC’s worked with entrepreneurs to build profitable and scalable businesses, with increasing revenue and consistent profitability – quarter after quarter.

Internet 335

Internet IPO Silicon Valley Agile 335

VC Cafe

JULY 27, 2021

Anecdotally, we at Remagine Ventures are investors in EchoAR , a CDN and CMS for 3D content which has seen the number of developers on its platform grow from 300 in March 2020 to over 10,000 in April 2021, with almost zero marketing effort. of the mobile gaming market. Alon Grinshpoon, EchoAR. Spectales 3, image credit: Snap.

Cofounder 183

Cofounder Mobile Revenue Cloud 183

David Teten

SEPTEMBER 23, 2017

The extreme example of this are algorithmic investors in the public markets, who design algorithms which trade on the designer’s behalf, as opposed to making trading decisions directly. High-frequency trading, algorithmic by its nature, is estimated to account for at least 50% of US equity markets trading volume. . 1) Market fund.

Private Equity 60

Private Equity Venture Capital Equity Technical Review 60

Startup Professionals Musings

AUGUST 13, 2012

Clearly define the customer, channel, and revenue model associated with this solution. Industry & market sizing. Start with the evolution of the overall industry, market segmentation, market dynamics, and customer landscape. In this section, you need to be passionate about revenue, profit, and volume growth.

Business Plan 283

Business Plan Sweat Equity Exit Strategy Intellectual Property 283

Steve Blank

JUNE 17, 2011

The major adoption wave for the Internet technology platform will hit in the next 8 years; 3) the economics of building Internet businesses has changed; 4) the markets are much bigger. They know nothing about real estate, financial markets or tech stocks, but they don’t want to miss the &# investment opportunity of a lifetime&#.

Investment Bankers 316

Investment Bankers Stock Valuation Venture Capital 316

Startup Professionals Musings

MAY 13, 2011

Clearly define the customer, channel, and revenue model associated with this solution. Industry & market sizing. Start with the evolution of the overall industry, market segmentation, market dynamics, and customer landscape. In this section, you need to be passionate about revenue, profit, and volume growth.

Business Plan 290

Business Plan Sweat Equity Exit Strategy Intellectual Property 290

Startup Professionals Musings

MARCH 20, 2013

In startup business plans, a bubble is too many entrepreneurs and too many investors chasing the latest “next big thing,” like Google search engine, Facebook social network, or Amazon e-commerce site. High valuation, low profit. Social media darling Twitter is the most fragile of these bubbles.

Demand 224

Demand Green Finance Government 224

Startup Professionals Musings

DECEMBER 24, 2012

Reserve the company name on social networks to protect it. It should answer every question an investor or associate might ask, including current valuation, funding needed, and exit strategy. All the conviction and market research in the world are no substitute for real customers paying real money. Free trials don’t count.

Angel Investor 260

Angel Investor Intellectual Property Elevator Pitch Angel Groups 260

Startup Professionals Musings

MARCH 25, 2011

In startup business plans, a bubble is too many entrepreneurs and too many investors chasing the latest “next big thing,” like Google search engine, Facebook social network, or Amazon e-commerce site. High valuation, low profit. Social media darling Twitter is the most fragile of these bubbles.

Startup 225

Startup Demand Green Government 225

Gust

AUGUST 5, 2012

Clearly define the customer, channel, and revenue model associated with this solution. Industry & market sizing. Start with the evolution of the overall industry, market segmentation, market dynamics, and customer landscape. In this section, you need to be passionate about revenue, profit, and volume growth.

Business Plan 182

Business Plan Sweat Equity Exit Strategy Intellectual Property 182

The Next Web

DECEMBER 8, 2013

Anthony Del Monte is the CEO and founder of Squeaky Wheel Media , a Web design and development agency based in NYC, as well as the co-founder of IHadCancer.com , one of the first social-networking sites for cancer survivors, fighters and supporters. Revenue: As a small agency, you are always in search of revenue.

Cofounder 140

Cofounder Valuation Revenue Social Network 140

crowdSPRING Blog

MAY 22, 2012

This is less true for Salesforce – it continues to be a market darling while continuously losing huge sums of money. They can’t – certainly not based on Facebook’s current revenue opportunities. First , there’s a huge disconnect between Facebook’s user growth and potential revenue per user.

South Korea 88

South Korea IPO Russia Stock 88

www.forentrepreneurs.com

FEBRUARY 2, 2010

Blog About Log in Register Startup Killer: the Cost of Customer Acquisition In the many thousands of articles advising entrepreneurs on what they have to focus on to build successful startups, much has been written about three key factors: team, product and market, with particular focus on the importance of product/market fit.

Acquisition 103

Acquisition Cost Customer Entrepreneur 103

Startup Professionals Musings

APRIL 22, 2010

Clearly define the customer, channel, and revenue model associated with this solution. Industry & market sizing. Start with the evolution of the overall industry, market segmentation, market dynamics, and customer landscape. In this section, you need to be passionate about revenue, profit, and volume growth.

Business Plan 186

Business Plan Exit Strategy Sweat Equity Intellectual Property 186

Gust

DECEMBER 16, 2012

Reserve the company name on social networks to protect it. It should answer every question an investor or associate might ask, including current valuation, funding needed, and exit strategy. All the conviction and market research in the world are no substitute for real customers paying real money. Free trials don’t count.

Angel Investor 179

Angel Investor Intellectual Property Elevator Pitch Angel Groups 179

Both Sides of the Table

MAY 23, 2012

There are obvious reasons the industry has had less-than-desirable returns, including: massive over-funding of the sector, huge increases in inexperienced venture capitalists that took a decade to peter out, and the massive correction in the value of the public stock markets that closed many exit opportunities for half a decade.

Venture Capital 347

Venture Capital Technical Review LP Mobile 347

David Teten

DECEMBER 3, 2019

In liquid markets, most of the calories expended on technology and analytics are focused on trade selection, or “ origination ”. I use another live Google doc to maintain my database of companies I’m marketing to other VCs. 2) Market . Many tools designed for B2B marketing in general are also relevant to investors.

Technical Review 78

Technical Review Software Review Analytics Private Equity 78