A Smart Bear: Startups and Marketing for Geeks

JANUARY 13, 2015

Often your best estimate of any metric or market behavior or business model component is at best accurate within a power of ten, for example “expected conversion rate between 0.5% and 5%” or “cost to acquire a customer between $50 and $500″ or “average monthly revenue per customer between $20 and $200.”

Business Model 120

Business Model Affiliate Startup Bootstrapping 120

Both Sides of the Table

FEBRUARY 17, 2010

I was living in Europe in 2000 when the first WAP phones (Wireless Access Protocol) were introduced. They were going to bring the Internet to your mobile phones ushering in the era of “m-commerce.&# Gag. They therefore have large cost bases and have to pass on those costs to you. - These phones were so over hyped.

Flash 326

Flash Mobile Application Development Cloud 326

Both Sides of the Table

JUNE 22, 2011

I know that most people who are close to them tend to deny their existence, as we saw in the great housing bubble of 2002-2007 and the dot com bubble of 1997-2000. The fact that today’s Internet bubble does not represent all companies does not disprove its existence. Ah, but today’s Internet companies have real revenue!

Saudi Arabia 309

Saudi Arabia Valuation IPO Technical Review 309

Seeing Both Sides

AUGUST 16, 2012

TripAdvisor may be one of the most fascinating companies I know and so I was excited to dig into their business model as part of my series on scaling. TripAdvisor is more of a classic consumer Internet success story, but with even more powerful network effects and an amazing business model. Magical, really.

Part-Time VPE 54

Part-Time VPE Software Review Costa Rica Technical Review 54

A Smart Bear: Startups and Marketing for Geeks

JULY 7, 2016

PayPal failed in 2000 at its stated mission to invent a new form of currency (though it pivoted to something else), but Bitcoin seems to be succeeding in 2016. WebVan failed at grocery delivery in 2000, but InstaCart might succeed in 2016. As a result, there will be a race in this space, and we believe we can win that race.

San Francisco 170

San Francisco Startup Framework Azure 170

Both Sides of the Table

OCTOBER 19, 2009

I had previously raised VC in 1999, 2000, 2001 and 2005. I set up my laptop, connected to the Internet, opened the compulsory 15 page PowerPoint deck and waited for my adoring fans. Consumer approach to software for business users. Web service architecture that provides a content management platform for the Internet.

Venture Capital 274

Venture Capital Term Sheet San Diego Viral 274

Start Up Blog

AUGUST 10, 2023

The entire mating process and the business models which have underpinned it have changed more radically in the past 20 years than they did in the previous 2000 years. The AI Girl on Call The business model is just as you’d expect it to be: a classic freemium model. To get started is mostly free.

Mauritius 62

Mauritius Artificial Inteligence Indonesia Generative AI 62

Reid Hoffman

MARCH 19, 2019

And, as the industrial revolution showed us, there are some real costs to scale. What makes this tricky is that markets evolve, and an innovative technology or business model can transform a normal market into a Glengarry Glen Ross market. Amazon saw that the internet would change retail.

Cofounder 28

Cofounder Business Model IPO Non-Compete 28

Eric Friedman

JANUARY 4, 2017

Just see Internet of S**t for some hilarious tweets. I take a positive approach which is; how can this business model affect small startups entering this space, and what can we learn from building businesses this way? Can hardware costs come down to $0? The post Hardware as a SaaS business (HaaS?)

Non-Compete 74

Non-Compete Business Model Green Revenue 74

www.inc.com

SEPTEMBER 24, 2011

Internet and Online Business. Business Software. Jumpstart was one of Grahams first clients; it signed on shortly after he founded Arizona Bay, in 2000. Like a venture capitalist reviewing business plans, he now weighs the potential of every company Arizona Bay works with. Leadership. Strategy and Planning.

Arizona 40

Arizona Equity Iowa Venture Capital 40

Steve Blank

APRIL 15, 2011

This week they were testing one of the most confusing sections of a company’s business model – Customer Relationships - the activities used to “Get, Keep and Grow” customers in a physical or virtual (web or mobile) channel. Veritas , the team building a low cost, residential wind turbine. The Nine Teams Present.

Customer 247

Customer Cloud EC2 Channel 247

Duct Tape Marketing

NOVEMBER 9, 2017

Books don’t cost very much money. And at some point, people figured out that, “Hey, I can take written content that I publish in the real world, and put it online, and it eliminates all my cost and fulfillment. It eliminates my cost of distribution. This is a great business model. John Jantsch: Yeah.

Bandwidth 36

Bandwidth Cost Audience Video 36

www.usatoday.com

JULY 16, 2012

Americas new business model: Sharing. The dot-com boom of early 2000 saw a proliferation of similar anything-at-your-service start-ups. Struggling to manage costs, the start-up closed shop as quickly as it opened. The $40 to $50 she charges for a one-way ride helps shave her costs on gas. Game Hunters. Dan Vergano.

San Francisco 105

San Francisco Technical Review Zimbabwe New York City 105

thebarefootvc

JANUARY 15, 2020

acquisition of Plaid by Visa, in a highly competitive deal, shows how even the largest incumbents are feeling pressure to innovate and need to think outside of their current business models. Along those lines, I have been spending time thinking of the the continued digitization of the financial services sector.

Disintermediation 69

Disintermediation Aggregator China API 69

Steve Blank

OCTOBER 4, 2010

Using this idea to differentiate themselves as the hot new Silicon Valley VCs, some of his former business school students made this phrase their rallying cry. Soon every other VC was using the phrase to justify the reckless “get big fast” strategies of dot-com startups during the Internet Bubble. Fast Followers – a better idea.

Silicon Valley 317

Silicon Valley Differentiation United States Customer Development 317

Up and Running

MAY 16, 2016

percent in 2000 to 19.6 There are also societal and political factors at play including a growing acceptance among physicians of the practice of home care, as well as pressure to alleviate the demands placed on hospitals and an overall desire to find cost efficiencies in the health care system. “In percent by 2030.

North America 95

North America United States Technical Review America 95

Cracking the Code

NOVEMBER 13, 2008

Thoughts from a Venture Capitalist on Software, Software-as-a-Service (SaaS), Cloud Computing, Internet and more. It is also intriguing to see that the market bottom was reached only two years after the start of the decline for the 1929, 1973 and 2000 crises, so we might need another year before the market reaches it lowest point.

Software Review 48

Software Review Technical Review Valuation Portfolio 48

This is going to be BIG.

NOVEMBER 7, 2011

Is 2012 going to be 2000 all over again? The difference between many of these companies and what we saw back in 1999 is that there are real revenues and revenue growth at many of these companies--and their costs are largely in people, which can always be trimmed down. When the bubble burst in 2000, many of us felt it in our pockets.

Angel Investor 104

Angel Investor Valuation Startup Revenue 104

The Equity Kicker

FEBRUARY 24, 2014

I’ve tested pricing models and conversion rates. I’ve worked in digital businesses since 2000 as Product Manager, ECommerce Operations Director and most recently as Chief Operating Officer (3 companies). The VC model is changing. I’ve hired and built great teams. However they are the exception.

Partner 91

Partner Early Stage Business Model HTML 91

online.wsj.com

SEPTEMBER 23, 2012

The results were similar when he examined data for companies funded from 2000 to 2010, he says. Overall, nonventure-backed companies fail more often than venture-backed companies in the first four years of existence, typically because they dont have the capital to keep going if the business model doesnt work, Harvards Mr. Ghosh says.

Venture Capital 107

Venture Capital Software Review Rhode Island North Dakota 107

The Equity Kicker

JULY 8, 2019

From around 2000, and perhaps coinciding with the need to work harder to win deals as opportunities dried up after the internet bubble burst, individual partners at VC firms began adding ‘helping CEOs win’ to their job descriptions. . Business model. And what’s holding it back?

Portfolio 84

Portfolio LP Venture Capital Partner 84

SVPG

SEPTEMBER 30, 2016

Then there were challenges with fulfillment logistics, difficulty maintaining DVD quality, and trying to figure out how to do all this in a way that covered costs and generated some cash. Those were the technology-powered innovations that enabled the new, much more desirable business model. In 1993, Word 6.0

Product 60

Product Technical Review Software Review Engineer 60

www.chubbybrain.com

SEPTEMBER 28, 2011

The team over at Overto felt the lack of at least one full-time resource was the primary reason for their failure writing : We thought we’d able to run internet service after hours. created a vastly higher cost structure; I had 80 people mostly on base salaries under $100,000 and was bringing in revenue at the rate of $20 million annually.

Cofounder 89

Cofounder Startup Technical Cofounder CTO Hire 89

www.chubbybrain.com

SEPTEMBER 28, 2011

declined Microsoft’s offer (summer 2000) to be the first enterprise software company with a.NET product (a Microsoft employee came back from a follow-up meeting with Allen and said “He reminds me of a lot of CEOs of companies that we’ve worked with… that have gone bankrupt.”). We had the wrong business model.

Software Review 79

Software Review Startup Technical Review Vesting 79

Agile VC

APRIL 13, 2012

The kinds of places where you have to sign an NDA when you walk in the lobby… When I lived and worked in the bay area (2000-2005) virtually all the startups were down on the peninsula somewhere. So why are software & internet startups more urban today than 5-10 years ago? The pendulum swings to and fro. link] leehower.

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Silicon Valley San Francisco San Jose Startup 185

ReadWriteStart

APRIL 26, 2012

They all went away; they got rolled up in 1999 and 2000 into these too-big-to-fail banking operations," Davidson tells us. What's happened in the last decade, the cost of launching an Internet product - forget other technologies, we'll focus on Internet - has dropped from $5 million to $500,000 in 2005, to $50,000 today," he continues.

IPO 115

IPO Stock San Francisco Lean 115

David Teten

JUNE 7, 2011

Until recently, most Internet innovation has centered around improvements — big improvements, but incremental ones nonetheless — to existing business models and familiar social structures: Amazon is the ultimate retail destination, Zipcar the ubiquitous rental-car agency; Meetup is a sewing circle on steroids.

Darfur 122

Darfur Sudan Cofounder United Kingdom 122

Seeing Both Sides

AUGUST 3, 2012

Facebook and Google would be obvious choices for this, but so much has been written about each of them and they represent such special business models, I worried that it would be both hard for entrepreneurs to relate and hard for me to develop new insights. But the second year (2000) was simply astounding: nearly $90 million!

Distribution 49

Distribution Lean Massachusetts Cofounder 49

crowdSPRING Blog

MAY 1, 2013

Online marketing relies on strategies that leverage the Internet and mobile devices. In many cases, the goal of online marketing (especially for small businesses), is to directly increase sales by targeting potential customers using different online channels. Tradeshows continue to be a popular marketing channel for many businesses.

Small Business 107

Small Business Marketing Affiliate PPC 107

VC Cafe

JANUARY 16, 2011

. - Aerotel Medical Systems is a world leading manufacturer of modular, home and mobile telecare and telemedicine solutions designed to transfer essential data over the telephone, mobile phone and the Internet. Our solutions provide peace of mind, improve quality of life and save costs to users and service providers.

Mobile 103

Mobile Securities and Exchange Commission Flash IP 103

Up and Running

DECEMBER 9, 2014

Bates: Good morning and welcome to our CEO panel, “How to Fine-Tune Your Small Business Finances From Funding to Growth” which I think is the direction that we would all like to be going. I just wanted to break down those two pieces real quick the time side and the cost side. My name is John Bates. Bates: You know Josh—.

Small Business 95

Small Business Finance Forecast Metrics 95

Entrepreneurs-Journey.com by Yaro Starak

JUNE 19, 2010

I had a lot of fun learning what the internet could do for me. In fact, my first website I can’t show you, because I don’t think we have internet access, but I had a Geocities website in 1999 for a card game I used to play called Magic the Gathering. It was a little bit geeky, but I really enjoyed it. Where am I today?

Technical Review 76

Technical Review Software Review Prospectus Audience 76

Hearpreneur

JANUARY 7, 2017

The idea for my business came when I was stranded on the side of the road with my broken down vehicle. I knew it was an easy fix, so I really didn’t want to pay for a tow truck in addition to the cost of the repair. 20 – To Blend A Beautiful Business Model. He laughed and said I don’t do house calls.

Entrepreneur 91

Entrepreneur LLC Cofounder Green 91

maplebutter.com

JANUARY 8, 2013

Outsourcing is something a big company, with a known customer / problem (that has revenue & traction) does to save cost. I don’t have any formal business training and I actually think it’s served me well. Instead of spending 4 years at university, I spend 4 years starting 2 internet companies that failed. The way I do it.

Technical Review 44

Technical Review Startup Cofounder Software Review 44

BeyondVC

SEPTEMBER 28, 2005

This is a nice graphical representation of what is happening in this next wave of the Internet. As an add-on to this, I thought I would compare and contrast some differences, all quite obvious, with the first euphoric Internet wave. " Web 1999/2000. Business Models. Critical Mass. VC – $10-20mm.

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Web API Open Source Business Model 60