article thumbnail

Where Does Your Software Company Go From Here?

ReadWriteStart

In Japan, a large segment of companies has been in business for more than 100 years. There’s a reason 70% of all acquisitions fail : When leaders feel pressure to grow for growth’s sake, their focus on results (no matter the cost) isn’t sustainable in the long run. Prioritize Longevity Above Growth.

Software 171
article thumbnail

Why The Government is Isn’t a Bigger Version of a Startup

Steve Blank

It’s not that these companies are smarter than Defense Department employees, but they operate with different philosophies, different product development methodologies, and with different constraints. At times this means startups operate at speeds so fast they appear to be a blur to government agencies. Startups can do anything.

Insiders

Sign Up for our Newsletter

This site is protected by reCAPTCHA and the Google Privacy Policy and Terms of Service apply.

article thumbnail

Lessons Learned: The three drivers of growth for your business.

Startup Lessons Learned

is an elegant way to model any service-oriented business: Acquisition Activation Retention Referral Revenue We used a very similar scheme at IMVU, although we werent lucky enough to have started with this framework, and so had to derive a lot of it ourselves via trial and error. The AARRR model (hence pirates, get it?)

article thumbnail

Paul Graham on fundraising

Startup Lessons Learned

Its the same with acquisitions. If an investor knows you have other investors lined up, hell be a lot more eager to close-- and not just because hell worry about losing the deal, but because if other investors are interested, you must be worth investing in. The key to closing deals is never to stop pursuing alternatives.

article thumbnail

Lessons Learned: Achieving a failure

Startup Lessons Learned

Without conscious process design, product development teams turn lines of code written into momentum in a certain direction. This is why agility is such a prized quality in product development. As far as I know, there are no products that are immune from the technology life cycle adoption curve.

article thumbnail

Not crossing the chasm

Startup Lessons Learned

In a subscription business, maybe your attrition starts matching your acquisition, balancing like magic. Or your cost of customer acquisition just magically floats up to match your customer lifetime value. Thoughts on scientific product development Lo, my 5 subscribers, who are you? Nothing seems to matter.

article thumbnail

Lessons Learned: Validated learning about customers

Startup Lessons Learned

Their product definition fluctuates wildly – one month, it’s a dessert topping, the next it’s a floor wax. Their product development team is hard at work on a next-generation product platform, which is designed to offer a new suite of products – but this effort is months behind schedule.

Customer 167