Steve Blank

JANUARY 17, 2023

Three types of organizations – Incubators, Accelerators and Venture Studios – have emerged to reduce the risk of early-stage startup failure by helping teams find product/market fit and raise initial capital. Venture studios create startups by incubating their own ideas or ideas from their partners.

Technical Cofounder 346

Technical Cofounder Intellectual Property Technical Review Incubator 346

Both Sides of the Table

DECEMBER 11, 2022

Something happened in the past 7 years in the startup and venture capital world that I hadn’t experienced since the late 90’s — we all began praying to the God of Valuation. How might our next phase of the journey seem brighter, even with more uncertain days for startups and capital markets? What happened?

Valuation 466

Valuation San Francisco Ratchet Liquidation Preference 466

Startup Professionals Musings

DECEMBER 6, 2019

The “valley of death” is a common term in the startup world, referring to the difficulty of covering the negative cash flow in the early stages of a startup, before their new product or service is bringing in revenue from real customers. Only one-third make it past their tenth anniversary. It always reduces risk to plan your business first.

Finance 320

Finance Intellectual Property Technical Review Incubator 320

David Teten

AUGUST 20, 2019

A new wave of Revenue-Based Investors are emerging who are using creative investing structures with some of the upside of traditional VC, but some of the downside protection of debt. I’ve been a traditional equity VC for 8 years, and I’m now researching new business models in venture capital. ” .

Revenue 60

Revenue Cofounder Founder Venture Capital 60

Startup Professionals Musings

APRIL 4, 2022

The “valley of death” is a common term in the startup world, referring to the difficulty of covering the negative cash flow in the early stages of a startup, before their new product or service is bringing in revenue from real customers. It always reduces risk to plan your business first. Commit to a major customer.

Intellectual Property 261

Intellectual Property Technical Review Incubator Bootstrapping 261

David Teten

AUGUST 19, 2019

So you’re interested in raising capital from a Revenue-Based Investor VC. A new wave of Revenue-Based Investors (“RBI”) are emerging. I’ve been a traditional equity VC for 8 years, and I’m now researching new business models in venture capital. Bigfoot Capital. Capital need of up to $1.5M

Revenue 60

Revenue Technical Review Software Review Equity 60

Startup Professionals Musings

JUNE 2, 2021

Manual tracking and occasional surveys won’t keep you competitive in today’s high volume and rapidly changing market. You need a platform that is comfortable with the global scope of today’s market, with it’s wide range of social and economic cultures, trends, and needs. Find funders who seek long-term returns.

Software Review 355

Software Review Algorithm Global IPO 355

Feld Thoughts

AUGUST 25, 2015

In January, Jerry Neumann wrote a long and detailed analysis of his view of the VC industry in the 1980’s titled Heat Death: Venture Capital in the 1980’s. Instead, the driver was the 1983 bull market. Put a willing and forgiving exit market following any investment period and you get spectacular returns.

Venture Capital 70

Venture Capital SBIC Technical Review Silicon Valley 70

SoCal CTO

MARCH 20, 2007

Early Stage Marketing and Branding – Farida Fotouh. Marketing, Startups and Networking in Los Angeles. Kevin Federline Search Engine Realistic Entrprenuer's Guide to Venture Capital Time Rich, Time Poor and Apple F2F Still Matters 8 Ways the Internet has Changed Software Marketing.

Venture Capital 150

Venture Capital Technical Cofounder Southern California Los Angeles 150

VC Cafe

MAY 29, 2022

Building on my post on ‘ Advice for startups in a downturn (May 2022 edition) ‘, this week I continued to follow with interest the impact of the current correction on startups and venture capital, particularly in early stage. How much of the slowdown in venture capital is real vs. ‘doom and gloom’ headlines. .

Venture Capital 184

Venture Capital Early Stage Valuation Startup 184

David Teten

SEPTEMBER 23, 2017

Private equity and venture capital investors are copying our sisters in the hedge fund and mutual fund world: we’re trying to automate more of our job. 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.

Private Equity 60

Private Equity Venture Capital Equity Technical Review 60

Steve Blank

SEPTEMBER 5, 2018

Reading the NY Times article “ Jeffrey Katzenberg Raises $1 Billion for Short-Form Video Venture, ” I realized it was time for a new startup heuristic: the amount of customer discovery and product-market fit you need to find is inversely proportional to the amount and availability of risk capital. ” Fire, Ready, Aim.

Lean 335

Lean Burn Rate Startup IPO 335

David Teten

AUGUST 19, 2019

A new wave of Revenue-Based Investors are emerging who are using creative investing structures with some of the upside of traditional VC, but some of the downside protection of debt. I’ve been a traditional equity VC for 8 years, and I’m now researching new business models in venture capital. So what is Revenue Based Investing?

Revenue 60

Revenue Term Sheet Founder Technical Review 60

The Startup Magazine

AUGUST 11, 2023

It is necessary to cover the early stages of product development, thorough market research, and other processes during the initial step. Seed capital is a component of the initial investments made in young businesses. Thus the initial investment round is frequently raised since the capital permits firms to live and thrive.

Seed Stage 126

Seed Stage Technical Review Early Stage Due Diligence 126

VC Cafe

FEBRUARY 21, 2023

It’s not just the competition against the incumbents and the large tech platforms that founders has to worry about, but most importantly is the company’s performance and product market fit. The benchmarks are based on the US market. In consumer subscription on the other hand, one of the big challenges is retention.

Retention 109

Retention Conversion Churn Rate B2C 109

Steve Blank

FEBRUARY 11, 2010

The Customer Development process is the way startups quickly iterate and test each element of their business model , reducing customer and market risk. In Discovery startups take all their hypotheses about the business model: product, market, customers, channel, etc. It’s A Marketing Problem. We Have a Marketing Problem. “So

Burn Rate 248

Burn Rate Silicon Valley Marketing Boston 248

Startup Professionals Musings

APRIL 24, 2011

I just read the Q1 2011 report from CB Insights , which shows venture capital is back. Your friends and family are really the only answer until you have a significant revenue stream. Back to VCs, Silicon Valley venture capital firms are still the most active. Overall, investors put $7.5 That represents a $1.5

Venture Capital 233

Venture Capital Revenue Elevator Pitch Silicon Valley 233

Both Sides of the Table

JUNE 29, 2014

It’s not hard to find people willing to write the narrative that “venture capital is not an asset class” or “venture capital has performed terribly.” Having worked through the data with Glenn I am even more optimistic about venture capital than I was even a year ago.

Venture Capital 362

Venture Capital IPO LP Jordan 362

ReadWriteStart

DECEMBER 15, 2022

Client work serves as an additional source of revenue to form new startups. This outside work provides a valuable source of revenue able to be used to fund operations. Over time, this revenue reduces the dependency on outside venture capital sources. The Advantages of the Digital Agency Model for a Startup Studio.

Incubator 188

Incubator Startup Software Developers Software Development 188

David Teten

APRIL 6, 2015

It also shows market white space for the smart entrepreneur. There are multiple reasons for that, but a major one is that both VC and research funding is concentrated in areas where there appears to be short-term revenues, as opposed to areas that will save more lives and quite likely generate both long-term revenues and savings for society.

Venture Capital 60

Venture Capital Technical Review Non-Compete Philadelphia 60

Startup Professionals Musings

FEBRUARY 19, 2013

The “valley of death” is a common term in the startup world, referring to the difficulty of covering the negative cash flow in the early stages of a startup, before their new product or service is bringing in revenue from real customers. It always reduces risk to plan your business first. Commit to a major customer.

Intellectual Property 309

Intellectual Property Technical Review Venture Capital Startup 309

Startup Professionals Musings

JUNE 30, 2019

The “valley of death” is a common term in the startup world, referring to the difficulty of covering the negative cash flow in the early stages of a startup, before their new product or service is bringing in revenue from real customers. It always reduces risk to plan your business first. Commit to a major customer.

Intellectual Property 219

Intellectual Property Technical Review Startup Incubator 219

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. Of the Inc. 5000 companies, only 6.5% raised from angels.

Cofounder 78

Cofounder Technical Review Equity Dividend 78

The Startup Magazine

MARCH 30, 2022

Of course this is why a lot of investors choose to hedge their bets and avoid having to make the tricky decisions regarding which startups to back themselves by putting their money into angel investment or venture capital (VC) funds. A degree of diversification can go a long way to protecting you from startup failures.

Technical Review 136

Technical Review Due Diligence Angel Investor Startup 136

Both Sides of the Table

SEPTEMBER 22, 2012

Growth will slow, partly due to internal limits and partly because the company is starting to bump up against the limits of the markets it serves.” He talks about making things that people want & going after a big enough market. After all, growth equals high valuations and loads of venture capital! Not Google.

Silicon Valley 390

Silicon Valley Venture Capital Startup Technical Review 390

Steve Blank

JANUARY 22, 2014

Success depends on finding startups that have identified acute customer pains in large markets where conditions are ripe for a new entrant. as a distribution channel have vastly reduced the amount of capital a startup needs at the early stage when the risk is greatest. Part 3: Engineering a Regional Tech Cluster. ——-.

Early Stage 286

Early Stage Silicon Valley Oregon Technical Review 286

Both Sides of the Table

SEPTEMBER 18, 2014

On the phone … Me: So, you raised venture capital? Revenue multiple? It’s simply what a market is willing to pay based on a future belief that your company will grow and non-linear rates and be worth much more in the future. We raised a seed round. About $1 million. Me: At what price? Me: With a cap?

Venture Capital 417

Venture Capital Liquidation Preference Valuation Term Sheet 417

Startup Professionals Musings

JULY 14, 2014

The “valley of death” is a common term in the startup world, referring to the difficulty of covering the negative cash flow in the early stages of a startup, before their new product or service is bringing in revenue from real customers. It always reduces risk to plan your business first. Commit to a major customer.

Entrepreneur 283

Entrepreneur Intellectual Property Technical Review Incubator 283

Both Sides of the Table

NOVEMBER 3, 2009

This is part of my ongoing series of posts and I need to file this one under both Raising Venture Capital and Startup Advice. The last couple of years has also seen the huge initial success of Ycombinator, the Lean Startup and many other product driven approaches to going to market. Let’s take your revenue line.

Business Plan 334

Business Plan AJAX Venture Capital Technical Review 334

Both Sides of the Table

JULY 23, 2014

There has been much discussion in the past few years of the changing structure of the venture capital industry. The rise of alternative sources of capital (crowd funding and the like). The VC market has right-sized (returned back to mid 90′s levels & less competition). On the surface the narratives have been.

Technical Review 398

Technical Review Venture Capital Valuation Pre-Money Valuation 398

Startup Professionals Musings

JANUARY 12, 2018

The “valley of death” is a common term in the startup world, referring to the difficulty of covering the negative cash flow in the early stages of a startup, before their new product or service is bringing in revenue from real customers. Only one-third make it past their tenth anniversary. It always reduces risk to plan your business first.

Intellectual Property 134

Intellectual Property Technical Review Startup Incubator 134

Both Sides of the Table

DECEMBER 27, 2011

You have to understand whether they’re likely to yield revenue growth in the near term OR whether you have access to cheap enough capital to fund your losses until your investments pay off. If you have a market lead then raising capital and making investments now will help you as others enter the market.

Startup 418

Startup Revenue Technical Review Flash 418

Startup Professionals Musings

AUGUST 14, 2020

Many entrepreneurs are so enamored with their product vision that they believe their own hype, and are convinced that the market for their solution is so huge that no one will ask them for independent market research data. Conduct your own customized market research. Modern libraries are still worth a visit.

Business Plan 393

Business Plan Marketing SBA Venture Capital 393

Both Sides of the Table

MAY 23, 2012

Many observers of the venture capital industry have questioned whether its best days are behind it. Looking ahead at the next decade I am excited by what I believe will be viewed as one of the best and most rational investment periods for venture capital due to seven discrete factors: 1.

Venture Capital 347

Venture Capital Technical Review LP Mobile 347

YoungUpstarts

JULY 16, 2019

Vancouver has a situated tech market with a direct line to Silicon Valley. Tech companies need advertising, marketing, public relations, and technical sales professionals. target Vancouver for marketing/tech industry job searches. This generated $16 billion in annual revenues in 2015. million in venture capital to move.

Canada 167

Canada Hiring Artificial Inteligence Software Developers 167

Startup Professionals Musings

SEPTEMBER 25, 2023

Many first-time entrepreneurs find themselves unable to bootstrap their startups, and also unable to find early funding at the venture capital level or even with angel investors. Tie re-payments to revenue growth in the startup. Their only recourse is that first tier of investors, fondly called Friends, Family and Fools.

Sweat Equity 274

Sweat Equity Elevator Pitch Startup Equity 274

Startup Professionals Musings

OCTOBER 16, 2023

Yet every business requires revenue and volumes, as certainly as it requires a product to sell. Project based on your market size how many widgets you will sell in every channel. Doubling revenue each year is a good target. Project your cash burn rate to keep at least 18 months between venture capital or angel investments.

Forecast 290

Forecast Burn Rate Widget Business Plan 290