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

Startup Professionals Musings

MAY 1, 2020

In my experience, the Silicon Valley startup model, focused on disrupting established industries, has treated the USA well and created some great global businesses. It has played almost no role in the emergence of current non-US bred startups, including Alibaba in China, Waze from Israel, Paytm in India, and many more.

Silicon Valley 312

Silicon Valley Indonesia Venture Capital Global 312

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

Both Sides of the Table

SEPTEMBER 15, 2022

At our mid-year offsite our partnership at Upfront Ventures was discussing what the future of venture capital and the startup ecosystem looked like. But it will be patiently deployed, waiting for a cohort of founders who aren’t artificially clinging to 2021 valuation metrics. discipline & focus.

Technical Review 416

Technical Review Pre-Money Valuation San Francisco Valuation 416

SoCal CTO

MARCH 20, 2007

Technology Advisor Technology Roles in Startups Pricing Customer Acquisition Sunk Costs and More -. ► February (2) CTO Founders / Cofounders Part-Time Startup CTO? . ► February (2) CTO Founders / Cofounders Part-Time Startup CTO? Product Manager Entrepreneur Mark Geller SEO for Startups Startup Version 1.0

Venture Capital 150

Venture Capital Technical Cofounder Southern California Los Angeles 150

Both Sides of the Table

FEBRUARY 20, 2019

If you haven’t raised any money or if you raised a small round from angels or friends & family I would suggest you avoid setting up a formal board unless the people who would join your board are deeply experienced at sitting on startup boards. What happens at the A-round of venture capital? But it’s quite rare.

Venture Capital 236

Venture Capital Startup Angel Investor Silicon Valley 236

David Teten

JANUARY 9, 2018

Similarly, firms like my alma mater ff Venture Capital and Andreessen Horowitz have executed this strategy in VC. We think there are a lot of opportunities to differentiate by using technology aggressively, e.g., Totem , an investor operating system built by some of my past colleagues at ff Venture Capital. .

Venture Capital 60

Venture Capital Private Equity Silicon Valley Differentiation 60

David Teten

JANUARY 9, 2018

Similarly, firms like my alma mater ff Venture Capital and Andreessen Horowitz have executed this strategy in VC. We think there are a lot of opportunities to differentiate by using technology aggressively, e.g., Totem , an investor operating system built by some of my past colleagues at ff Venture Capital. .

Venture Capital 60

Venture Capital Private Equity Silicon Valley Differentiation 60

Startup Professionals Musings

JUNE 2, 2021

Simple metrics and your personal knowledge of the industry can’t keep up with all the relevant competitive forces. That means that many companies are now forgoing the rush to go public (IPO), in favor of major equity investments from specialized venture capital funds, such as Japan’s SoftBank.

Software Review 355

Software Review Algorithm Global IPO 355

YoungUpstarts

NOVEMBER 12, 2020

Yet despite the overarching negative outlook, startups seem to be weathering the storm. Quartz mentions that startups seem to be dealing with the pressures of the pandemic far more effectively than larger businesses and conglomerates. Much of this success is due to the flexibility of startups and their ability to adapt.

Bankruptcy 165

Bankruptcy Startup Agile Technical Review 165

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. An investor had few hard metrics other than the actual financials, and little technology to make the process scaleable. But we’re doing it slowly.

Private Equity 60

Private Equity Venture Capital Equity Technical Review 60

VC Cafe

FEBRUARY 21, 2023

This is a question startup founders ask themselves multiple times a week. They encompass the effectiveness of marketing (the startup’s ability to reach and resonate with target customers) and stickiness (the product’s ability to deliver value to customers over time). How are we doing?

Retention 109

Retention Conversion Churn Rate B2C 109

Both Sides of the Table

SEPTEMBER 18, 2014

On the phone … Me: So, you raised venture capital? There were no metrics. Him: On metrics. If we priced it based on any metrics your company would likely be worth less than 7 figures at your A round. Startup Lessons' 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

Haystack

DECEMBER 29, 2018

It’s that time of year, time to look back and reflect on the most significant storylines in the tech, startup, and VC world. And, with that warning, I offer to you, the big stories in the startup and investing ecosystem of 2018, written in ascending order of importance and magnitude…. 6/ Venture Capital In Expansion Phase.

Technical Review 165

Technical Review Venture Capital Russia China 165

View from Seed

DECEMBER 4, 2019

At the time, I spent most of my time describing the metrics themselves and how VCs and their LPs evaluate performance based on these measurements. If you aren’t familiar with these metrics, I recommend reading the original post to get a sense of the numbers that I’ll be reviewing here. So, is this good or bad?

LP 256

LP IRR Distribution Portfolio 256

VC Cafe

JANUARY 14, 2022

2021 was a banner year for Israeli startups, breaking new records in fundraising, new unicorns, and exits. Israeli startups are on fire. According to the 2021 Tech Review report by IVC , Israeli tech startups attracted a record of $25.6 Exits of Israeli startups in 2021 reached $82.4 What comes next? Where are we now?

Technical Review 158

Technical Review Lock-up Period South Korea 158

SoCal CTO

JUNE 9, 2010

Continuing my series of posts that I’ve been collecting that live at the intersection of Startups and being a Startup CTO : Startup CTO Top 30 Posts for April 16 Great Startup Posts from March here are the top posts from May 2010. It is to out friend. Enjoyed this post? Disruptive. We get it! I Be specific. Tesla is not.

Fractional CTO 248

Fractional CTO Startup Venture Capital Cofounder 248

Duct Tape Marketing

NOVEMBER 14, 2013

Ego Metrics: What Measurements Matter? The problem is that some of these metrics aren’t meaningful. In fact, some of the most visible metrics are the most misleading. This is possibly the most visible metric in social media, but many of those followers are inactive or even inhuman robots. So what metrics really matter?

Metrics 71

Metrics Social Media Widget Chicago 71

Steve Blank

JANUARY 22, 2014

Part 2: Early-stage Regional Venture Funds. 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.

Early Stage 290

Early Stage Silicon Valley Oregon Technical Review 290

David Teten

APRIL 6, 2015

The industry standard metric for tracking the severity of disease is disability-adjusted life years ( DALYs ), i.e., the number of healthy life years lost due to the disease or risk. All venture capital and NIH funding data for CY 2010 – 2014 in USA. Source: NIH, CB Insights. Previously posted in PEHub.

Venture Capital 60

Venture Capital Technical Review Non-Compete Philadelphia 60

Austin Startup

APRIL 4, 2017

We’ve been malleable and flexible enough to deal with the natural ebbs and flows of startups without losing focus on helping people #experiencelocal. Vanity metrics aren’t useless. Tracking clarity metrics builds great businesses.” “In Don’t focus on them internally. It’s all they focused on,” Tabb says.

Metrics 48

Metrics Silicon Valley Angel Investor Technical Review 48

SoCal CTO

AUGUST 3, 2010

Some great content around the intersection of startups and being a Startup CTO in June this year. This continues my series of posts: Top 30 Startup Posts in June 2010 Top 29 Startup Posts May 2010 Startup CTO Top 30 Posts for April 16 Great Startup Posts from March The following are the top items based on social signals.

Software Review 217

Software Review Startup Venture Capital Technical Review 217

Both Sides of the Table

DECEMBER 27, 2011

I find it amusing when a journalist writes an article about a prominent startup (either privately held or preparing for an IPO) and decries that, “They’re not even profitable!” Exec Summary: Most companies (98+%) in the world (even tech startups) should be very profit focused. One of them is profitability.

Startup 418

Startup Revenue Technical Review Flash 418

Both Sides of the Table

NOVEMBER 27, 2011

There are very few people in Silicon Valley who have such a precise grasp on what defines success of early-stage startup companies than Eric Ries. I interviewed Eric for an hour for - This Week in Venture Capital. Importantly we also discussed: should startups raise small amounts of money or large? 11:50 Startup problems!

Silicon Valley 301

Silicon Valley Lean Social Media PR 301

Both Sides of the Table

JULY 17, 2018

" Revenue doesn't pay your bills, GM does  —  @msuster 2/ Founders obsess with revenue as a vanity metric.  —  @msuster 8/ Don't spend undue time advising other people's startups until your business is successful, scaling & stable.

Founder 242

Founder Dilution Software Review Later Stage 242

Steve Blank

NOVEMBER 16, 2009

What metrics do we use to see if we learned enough in Customer Discovery ? I gave my boilerplate answer, “I’m a product guy and I tend to invest and look at deals that have measurable revenue metrics. However the Customer Development Model and the Lean Startup work equally well for startups on the web.

Customer Development 226

Customer Development Web Developer Customer 226

Steve Blank

MAY 29, 2011

He set up Blackbox.vc, a seed accelerator for technology startups (and one of the tour stops for entrepreneurs from around the world.) They went to work gathering deep knowledege of what makes successful Internet startups. Max and his partners interviewed and analyzed over 650 early-stage Internet startups. better user growth.

Technical Cofounder 334

Technical Cofounder Early Stage Startup Silicon Valley 334

David Teten

MAY 20, 2016

My colleague Sebastian Soler, software engineer at ff Venture Capital, is leading the launch of a new Meetup with me. Totem is a tool that centralizes all the data about our companies’ management, metrics, investment history, co-investors and cap table tracking. I asked him to write a guest post: Hi!

Private Equity 113

Private Equity Equity Cap Table Venture Capital 113

Startup Professionals Musings

AUGUST 21, 2021

When you see startups like SpaceX and Pinterest grow from a low valuation to a billion dollars in just a few years, it’s easy to assume that if you just keep doing what you are doing, you can get there as well. Switch your focus from product development to sales. Increase communication, both internally and externally.

Merger 379

Merger Due Diligence SEC IPO 379

View from Seed

MARCH 24, 2021

At NextView Ventures we have written many pieces about venture capital — how to raise it, build your business, engage with investors, iterate your product, navigate expanding industries, etc. Free Template for Great Startup Pitch Decks, Direct from VCs. ’ like all startups have to, but also “why invest now?'”

Seed Stage 177

Seed Stage Hiring IPO Analytics 177

David Teten

DECEMBER 16, 2015

I review a lot of board decks with a beautifully hand-crafted page with metrics for the company. Good metrics are comparable across industries; comparative ; readily understandable; and help drive decisions. Comparative means that you can compare a metric across time periods, groups of users, or competitors. So how do you do it?

Metrics 60

Metrics Analytics Balance Sheet .Net 60

VC Cafe

SEPTEMBER 2, 2022

That’s on average the time venture capital investors spend on a pre-seed pitch deck, according to the latest Dropbox/Docsend funding research report. Once you passed the initial filtering criteria, investors are quickly looking for signals that will make your startup standout. 2 and a half minutes.

Technical Review 166

Technical Review Early Stage Cofounder Portfolio 166

Austin Startup

JULY 22, 2017

Back in December 2016 I had the idea to develop a startup pledge for diversity and inclusion here in Austin and since have informally been working with some folks to develop the idea. This is similar to something we did at Austin Ventures to encourage startups to make a donation to the Entrepreneurs Foundation of Central Texas.

Austin 54

Austin Angel Investor Startup Term Sheet 54

David Teten

JANUARY 19, 2021

More and more startups are pursuing Revenue-Based VCs , but “RBI” doesn’t fit everyone. 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. . We detail below the major categories of VC: VENTURE CAPITAL TYPOLOGY.

Cofounder 78

Cofounder Technical Review Equity Dividend 78

The Startup Magazine

FEBRUARY 11, 2022

On the other side of the spectrum, the idea of finding a unicorn has attracted many investors toward the much riskier venture capital and emerging technologies. The post Mark Hauser’s Hauser Private Equity Spearheads Major Deals in Industrial Sector appeared first on The Startup Magazine.

Private Equity 165

Private Equity Equity Technical Review Software Review 165

abovethecrowd.com

OCTOBER 1, 2013

Over 13 years ago, in March of 2000, I wrote a blog post titled “ The Most Powerful Internet Metric of All. ” The key thesis was this: if an Internet company could obsess about only one metric, it should be conversion. As such, it is time to pound the table again – conversion is by far the most powerful Internet metric of all.

Metrics 93

Metrics Conversion Internet Acquisition 93

Both Sides of the Table

JANUARY 25, 2015

Startups in a world of massive markets can be confusing. His point is that you should figure out the metrics that TRULY matter in your business and hold yourself accountable to these. Not vanity metrics. If venture capital is propping up your business performance – good luck when the spigot slows one day.

Product 150

Product B2B Warrant Technical Review 150