Software By Rob

AUGUST 5, 2010

You’re a startup founder, whether actual or aspiring. Business books are a founder’s learning tool. The problem is that the premise of all of them – whether true or false – is irrelevant to you as a startup founder. Join nearly 6,000 startup entrepreneurs by subscribing to my RSS feed.

Founder 78

Founder Startup Software Review Software 78

Startup Lessons Learned

SEPTEMBER 22, 2008

Lessons Learned by Eric Ries Monday, September 22, 2008 The three drivers of growth for your business model. The AARRR model (hence pirates, get it?) He also has a discussion of how your choice of business model determines which of these metric areas you want to focus on. Choose one.

San Francisco 167

San Francisco CPA SEM CTO Hire 167

David Teten

AUGUST 19, 2019

I’ve been a traditional equity VC for 8 years, and I’m now researching new business models in venture capital. RBI normally requires founders to pay back their investors with a fixed percentage of revenue until they have finished providing the investor with a fixed return on capital, which they agree upon in advance.

Revenue 60

Revenue Technical Review Software Review Equity 60

Steve Blank

JULY 29, 2013

There’s been a lot written about the individual characteristics of what makes a great founder , but a lot less about what makes a great founding team and how that’s different from a great founding CEO. In doing so we’ve failed to help founders understand what it takes to build a great founding team. Founders – the idea.

Cofounder 335

Cofounder Advisory Board Customer Development Leadership 335

SoCal CTO

DECEMBER 1, 2010

Equity-Only CTO and Equity-Only Developers - SoCal CTO , November 1, 2010 I had a recent email dialog with the founder of a company looking for a CTO for their startup. And I tried to evaluate the idea and figure out: What did the founder really need here? Was it a Startup Founder Developer Gap ? You got it.

Technical Review 175

Technical Review Technology Product CTO Hire 175

Up and Running

JULY 2, 2014

Picking the right attorney in your startup is as important as picking the right business partner. You can’t underestimate the importance of selecting an attorney who “gets” your business model, your market opportunity, and most importantly, your fundraising and exit strategy. The deal we made with him was he’d get 33.3%

Technical Review 118

Technical Review Angel Investor Due Diligence Dilution 118

Steve Blank

JANUARY 21, 2010

The startup founder who gets fired just as his/her company is growing into large company could be a cliché – if it wasn’t so true – and painful. I’ve been the founder who got fired, I’ve been on the board as my friends got fired and I’ve been the board member who fired the founders.

Agile 120

Agile Development Team Review Leadership Merger 120

Hippoland

AUGUST 8, 2018

At Hustle Fund, we back both first time founders as well as repeat founders. One thing I’ve noticed is that almost every repeat, previously-successful-founder focuses on the same thing for their respective startups: customer acquisition. Product second. Marketing first.

Founder 48

Founder Sales Cycle Affiliate Retention 48

Hippoland

AUGUST 8, 2018

At Hustle Fund, we back both first time founders as well as repeat founders. One thing I’ve noticed is that almost every repeat, previously-successful-founder focuses on the same thing for their respective startups: customer acquisition. Product second. Marketing first.

Founder 48

Founder Sales Cycle Affiliate Retention 48

Steve Blank

MARCH 11, 2015

And when we do make bets, they’re small bets on incremental products or acquisitions that simply add to the bottom line.”. Bob looked wistful, “Our founders built a company known for taking risks and moving fast. Startups have finite time and resources to find product/market fit before they run out of money.

Widget 120

Widget Lean Business Model Metrics 120

View from Seed

FEBRUARY 27, 2019

Many founders have to turn to brute force to figure it out, even when they themselves don’t have practitioner product management experience. However, managing product development correctly is incredibly important in the earliest days and can make or break your company. How do you think about these top company priorities?

Hiring 120

Hiring Bandwidth Product Early Stage 120

Startup Lessons Learned

APRIL 14, 2009

What matters is proving the viability of the company’s business model, what investors call “traction.&# It should be even more important to the founders themselves, because it demonstrates that their business hypothesis is grounded in reality. And what of the product development team?

Customer 167

Customer San Francisco Lean Hockey Stick 167

Startup Lessons Learned

DECEMBER 14, 2009

Lessons Learned by Eric Ries Monday, December 14, 2009 Business ecology and the four customer currencies Lately, I’ve been rethinking the concept of “business model&# for startups, in favor of something I call “business ecology.&# Constructing a working business model is a form of ecosystem design.

Customer 156

Customer San Francisco Viral Lean 156

A Smart Bear: Startups and Marketing for Geeks

APRIL 16, 2013

Seems like every third startup nowadays is using the “Freemium” business model: The lowest service tier is free, and the business is designed to get those users hooked and then upgrade to a paid plan. to democratic product development (voting on which features customers would like to see next?).

Marketing 318

Marketing Viral Campaign Business Model 318

A Smart Bear: Startups and Marketing for Geeks

MAY 1, 2012

This is a choice that every startup founder must make , so I’d like to dig in deeper. To clarify the discussion, let’s use a simpler model: Companies A and B both sell products with recurring monthly revenue, and both brought in $10,000 in revenue last month. You spend less on marketing/advertising/acquisition.

Customer 320

Customer Revenue Acquisition Cofounder 320

Up and Running

SEPTEMBER 20, 2016

When I was seeking a co-founder for my startup, each time I’d dive deep into a discussion about commitment with potential partners, they’d bring up venture capitalists and fundraising. An early question among potential co-founders during these discussions was always “have you raised money yet?” Product development.

Early Stage 60

Early Stage Startup Forecast Channel 60

Startup Lessons Learned

OCTOBER 23, 2013

LSC: Tell us about the customer development you did for your book: Alistair: We''ve been thrilled at how Lean Analytics seemed to resonate with founders. As operators of an accelerator—and founders in our own right—Ben and I had constantly struggled with what the “right” numbers are for a business.

Analytics 167

Analytics Lean Widget Metrics 167

ConversionXL

APRIL 3, 2019

Go beyond standard sources of voice of customer data ; better options are: Interview founders (the original “customers”); Thank-you page surveys; Usertesting.com; Mine sales calls; Mine support tickets; Mine Facebook comments ; Mine online reviews. Founder interviews can find the story, the value proposition , and the big idea.

Artificial Inteligence 114

Artificial Inteligence Technical Review Metrics SEO 114

ReadWriteStart

JUNE 20, 2012

Customer discovery turns founders’ initial hypotheses about their market and customers into facts. Unlike “mainstream” business or consumer-product customers who want to buy a finished, completed, tested product, earlyvangelists are willing to make a leap of faith and buy an early product from a startup.

Customer 119

Customer Advisory Board Engineer Cofounder 119

Startup Lessons Learned

MARCH 21, 2013

The book has been a year in the making, and authors Ben Yoskovitz and Alistair Croll —themselves successful founders with several exits under their belts—spent much of that time speaking with founders, investors, and analysts to understand a really basic, but seldom-asked, question: What's normal? to 3% a month.

Analytics 167

Analytics Lean Metrics Churn Rate 167

A Smart Bear: Startups and Marketing for Geeks

MARCH 11, 2014

Welcome back to Smart Bear Live … the show were Jason speaks with entrepreneurs looking to improve their businesses. Listen to this episode if you want to hear about a founder who has a product and users and paying customers … and is trying to figure out how to take his company to the next level and grow faster.

Technical Cofounder 220

Technical Cofounder Cofounder Software Review Management 220

Growthink Blog

NOVEMBER 2, 2016

And more excitedly, through the development of a new product with a market potential many times greater than the company’s current core offering. It was also meandering, energy was fruitlessly expended on ideas without reasonable probability of success, and was distracted throughout (pleasantly so!)

Conversion 48

Conversion Los Angeles Europe Acquisition 48

steveblank.com

JULY 8, 2011

AgileZen – project management visually see and interact with your work Kanbanery – Simple online team or personal kanban board LeanKit Kanban – Great for visualizing work of product development Kanban Pad – “Nice and lean” and free online Kanban tool Banana Scrum – A tool simple as Scrum itself.

Software Review 110

Software Review Startup Silicon Valley Analytics 110

ReadWriteStart

JANUARY 27, 2011

And a few words about Persistent Systems, an outsourced software product development (OPD) company that is navigating its next phase of evolution are also warranted. Persistent is breaking out of the mold of labor arbitrage, and looking at new and exciting business models. Brainscape. Note, I said, validated.

Dilution 114

Dilution Revenue Finance Entrepreneur 114

betashop.com

OCTOBER 8, 2012

I firmly believe that in this age where the product development life-cycle is so short and user feedback comes so quickly, you will know within a year whether you are focusing on a worthwhile one thing. But, you can iterate and iterate on features, but you cannot iterate your way to a business model. It’s that important.

Technical Review 108

Technical Review Technology Software Review Valuation 108

YoungUpstarts

AUGUST 15, 2017

One of my clients discovered that his most demanding customers were consistently the ones who ended up recruiting many new customers and helping with product development. Or the differences could be minute and provide you the opportunity to develop these “on-the-cusp” members into full-fledged superusers.

Community 124

Community LLC Customer Developer 124

maplebutter.com

JANUARY 8, 2013

what are the most crucial steps to be taken by a new tech startup when outsourcing major part of the tech to IT firms or outsourcing “product development” eg new social media website project? Near shoring development with your team (ex: your team is based in Canada / India) is cool, but not outsourcing.

Technical Review 44

Technical Review Startup Cofounder Software Review 44

Software By Rob

AUGUST 18, 2010

Before: After: And thenI ran into a Mixergy interview where 37signals founder, Jason Fried, talks about their free plan (6:00 into the interview): “… The majority of the revenues for our products come from people who sign up for the paid versions upfront. I saw that 37signals had hidden theirs. 5 Ben K on 08.18.10

Software Review 78

Software Review Software Revenue Cofounder 78

infochachkie.com

SEPTEMBER 24, 2011

There is an inherent conflict in a consultant’s business model and the needs of a startup. Such positions include: PR, Sales, Product Development, Lead Generation, Strategic Planning, Fund Raising, etc. Yet, it does nothing to help you execute your business model. John is a CPA and holds an M.B.A.

Equity 40

Equity Silicon Valley Cofounder PR 40

Duct Tape Marketing

NOVEMBER 1, 2017

Fascinating, something that obviously applies to the mammoth Netflix and Amazons of the world, but I think that this is an approach that actually might apply to just about any business going today and how to get them think completely differently about everything that they do in marketing. Check it out. So, this is the best way to do that.

Cost 37

Cost Marketing Audience Media 37

Startup Lessons Learned

JUNE 21, 2010

Even for companies that essentially have only one product, the value the company creates is located not in the product itself but with the people and their organization who built it. To see proof of this, simply observe the results of the large majorities of corporate acquisitions of startups.

San Francisco 168

San Francisco Startup Lean Continuous Deployment 168

techcrunch.com

OCTOBER 23, 2010

So for this first post, here’s the best advice I can give you: join an awesome founding team and get your product out the door ASAP. One of the things I do as a founder of a later stage startup is to meet with early stage entrepreneurs to help them get their companies going. Then, forget everything else, VCs included, and just build.

Technical Review 84

Technical Review Cofounder Technical Cofounder Software Review 84

www.vccafe.com

MARCH 11, 2013

.” Hackernews list of “Tools of the Trade” for startups - includes over 150 SaaS tools used by startups, and over 150 comments with interesting insights from founders. great web customer acquisition tutorials. Great for visualizing work of product development. TechStars Model Seed Funding Documents â??

Software Review 53

Software Review Technical Review Startup 53

Seeing Both Sides

JANUARY 13, 2015

People: founder-run and trying to recruit amazing technical talent (the product development team is a huge priority at this stage) and integrate a few senior managers to help prepare the company for scale - which leads to cultural clashes and communication challenges. Time to enlist some 3rd party developers!

Mezzanine 20

Mezzanine IPO Finance Business Model 20