Startup Professionals Musings

AUGUST 13, 2016

For example, if you have a proven product, real revenue, a big potential market, and are ready to scale up the business, every investor will be interested. On the other hand, if you are a new entrepreneur, still in the idea stage, professional investors will only tell you to come back later when you have traction (customers and revenue).

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Matching Angel Investor Intellectual Property Investment Bankers 120

Tim Keane

MARCH 9, 2011

But, what constitutes success for the parties involved – investors, entrepreneurs, employees, and customers – can vary dramatically. Can you bootstrap your way to positive cash flow? Can you bootstrap your way to positive cash flow?   If the answer is relatively soon, then bootstrapping is a very serious consideration. 

Finance 83

Finance Bootstrapping Startup Equity 83

YoungUpstarts

AUGUST 10, 2020

The industry is booming with the average revenue per user (ARPU) in the US expected to exceed $1,450 in 2020. You may have an intuitive website with flawless navigation but if the checkout process isn’t appealing to prospective customers, you’ll leave a lot of money on the table. by Will Schneider, founder of insightQuote.

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eCommerce SMS Email Video 147

David Teten

JANUARY 21, 2021

This essay is part of a series on alternative VC: I: Revenue-Based Investing: a new option for founders who care about control. II: Who are the major Revenue-Based Investing VCs? III: Why are Revenue-Based VCs investing in so many women and underrepresented founders? IV: Should your new VC fund use Revenue-Based Investing?

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Equity Revenue Cofounder Colorado 78

Berkonomics

AUGUST 3, 2023

Bootstrapping: This term describes your ability to start a business with little investment and grow it using internally generated funds. Private equity investments are available from firms created for this later stage opportunity, but typically are available only for businesses that have achieved revenues well above $50 million.

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Private Equity Valuation Cap Table Accredited Investor 118

Startup Professionals Musings

APRIL 25, 2016

Team not a good match for the challenge. Revenue and profit projections are not credible. Attractive businesses to investors may show revenues that double every year but don’t exceed the gross national product of your country. Outside investors bet more on the team than the solution.

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Intellectual Property Accredited Investor Angel Investor Reputation 120

Up and Running

AUGUST 27, 2020

My co-founder Andrew and I built Canny , a SaaS tool to help businesses collect and manage customer feedback and build their product roadmap, from the ground up. Canny is 100% bootstrapped —we haven’t taken any outside funding. We’re profitable, and we just cracked $800K in annual recurring revenue earlier this year.

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Founder Cofounder Bootstrapping Startup 120

OnlyOnce

JULY 9, 2013

Chapter 2: Defining and Testing the Story…Start Out By Admitting You’re Wrong, A Lean Business Plan Template, Problem, Solution, Key Metrics, Unique Value Proposition and Unfair Advantages, Channels, Customer Segments, Cost Structure and Revenue Streams. Chapter 3: Telling the Story to Your Investors…The Business Plan is Dead.

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Startup Advisory Board Elevator Pitch Forecast 95

Startup Professionals Musings

MAY 13, 2016

The first step is to set your criteria, including a match for your sector type and stage, and then proactively seek out and contact the best candidates: Review profiles on professional social media sites. Identify customer executives who need your solution. Searching LinkedIn, for example, is a must for contemporary entrepreneurs.

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Stealth Startup Angel Investor Bootstrapping 120

Steve Blank

NOVEMBER 5, 2009

Chasing funding versus chasing customers and a repeatable and scalable business model, is one reason startups fail. Chasing funding versus chasing customers and a repeatable and scalable business model, is one reason startups fail. Are there customers for what you are building? How many are there? Can it scale?”

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Customer Development Developer Customer Silicon Valley 267

Duct Tape Marketing

JUNE 27, 2017

As a bootstrap company without investors we always have to use cash flow as our development and maintenance funds. It’s a hard thing to do because what makes word press so powerful is just being able to use any plug-in, any theme, mix and match, put it together your own way. It was always at the customer level.

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Community SEO Technical Review Audience 38

A Smart Bear: Startups and Marketing for Geeks

FEBRUARY 28, 2011

Of course you expect these moments to happen at the beginning of startup life — when you’re least confident, have the worst product, and the least knowledge about your customers and the market. It’s still there three years in, despite real revenue, profitability, customers arriving everyday, and a great team.

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Bootstrapping Sales Texas Salary 312

Berkonomics

JUNE 8, 2017

Email readers, continue here…] Bootstrapping: This term describes your ability to start a business with little investment and grow it using internally-generated funds. It might be useful to list some of the ways in which you can raise money for growth with and without outside investors. It’s an option, even though an expensive one.

Private Equity 106

Private Equity Valuation Cap Table Accredited Investor 106

ConversionXL

NOVEMBER 6, 2019

Then we ship it to customers way before it’s ready. For this article, we asked 14 SaaS CEOs a simple question: “How much did you spend on your MVP before you had your first dollar of revenue?”. We didn’t spend any real cash prior to getting our first paying customer,” recounts Arsenault. “I’ll Image source).

Sweat Equity 78

Sweat Equity Software Review Vesting Cofounder 78

Software By Rob

MARCH 26, 2015

The interesting part is that my own path moving from consulting to products followed the same steps, as you can see in my product revenue chart from the past decade: Each revenue jump is when I made the move to the next step of the Stairstep Approach. With that in mind, how do you give yourself the best chance of avoiding failure?

Bootstrapping 41

Bootstrapping Technical Review SEO Revenue 41

Software By Rob

MARCH 26, 2015

The interesting part is that my own path moving from consulting to products followed the same steps, as you can see in my product revenue chart from the past decade: Each revenue jump is when I made the move to the next step of the Stair Step Approach. With that in mind, how do you give yourself the best chance of avoiding failure?

Bootstrapping 36

Bootstrapping Technical Review SEO Revenue 36

ConversionXL

NOVEMBER 6, 2019

Then we ship it to customers way before it’s ready. For this article, we asked 14 SaaS CEOs a simple question: “How much did you spend on your MVP before you had your first dollar of revenue?”. We didn’t spend any real cash prior to getting our first paying customer,” recounts Arsenault. “I’ll Image source).

Sweat Equity 50

Sweat Equity Software Review Vesting Cofounder 50

Reid Hoffman

MARCH 19, 2019

But in today’s world, speed-to-scale entrepreneurship is what we need to improve society, transform industries, and create massive value for customers, employees, and investors. Customers value and benefit from the convenience, price, and selection of Amazon, which is why the company is, by a wide margin, America’s largest bookseller.

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Cofounder Business Model IPO Non-Compete 28

Software By Rob

MARCH 26, 2015

The interesting part is that my own path moving from consulting to products followed the same steps, as you can see in my product revenue chart from the past decade: Each revenue jump is when I made the move to the next step of the Stairstep Approach. With that in mind, how do you give yourself the best chance of avoiding failure?

Bootstrapping 27

Bootstrapping Technical Review SEO Revenue 27

Up and Running

MAY 28, 2015

There’s a lot of questions about what do you actually need in terms of information, if you’re going to do your forecasting, and how does one put together a revenue forecast if you’ve never started a business or your business is brand new. It is a very difficult proposition. That’s not necessarily a document.

Lean 60

Lean Business Plan Video Software Review 60

A Smart Bear: Startups and Marketing for Geeks

MARCH 11, 2014

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. Jason: So how many of those 20,000 people are paying customers? Edwin: Okay, I have different types of customers.

Technical Cofounder 220

Technical Cofounder Cofounder Software Review Management 220

Berkonomics

JANUARY 20, 2010

Email readers continue here.]. Bootstrapping: This term describes your ability to start a business with little investment and grow it using internally-generated funds. Before we explore the next insight, it might be useful to list some of the ways in which you can raise money for growth with and without outside investors.

Private Equity 69

Private Equity Valuation Cap Table Accredited Investor 69

A Smart Bear: Startups and Marketing for Geeks

NOVEMBER 21, 2011

Because then you’d miss out on: Whether it’s better experience to build a complete, tiny startup or to do more in-depth customer development for a meatier problem. But we managed to grow a few customers, so that’s good, in spite of the name. You are coordinating customers by email. Jason: There you go.

Widget 204

Widget Cofounder Technical Review Software Review 204

Software By Rob

SEPTEMBER 30, 2010

Where they don’t belong is with a bootstrapped founder trying to figure out how many customers she can expect to reach next month on her shoestring marketing budget. It then crunches those numbers together with an expected conversion rate and expected price to give you an idea of expected monthly revenue. D’oh.

Marketing 64

Marketing Software Review Matching Bootstrapping 64

Hearpreneur

JUNE 14, 2017

We’ve continued bootstrapping since then — today we are a $2.5 a dating app that matches people according to their lifestyle. We wanted our customers to have the opportunity to learn exactly how our products are made and with what ingredients. Thanks to Nick Gray, Museum Hack ! #22 22 – It Just Came to Me.

Entrepreneur 128

Entrepreneur South Africa PR Thailand 128

Spencer Fry

FEBRUARY 28, 2013

Clearly define how our product benefits the customer (our unique value proposition): If the visitor to your service doesn't understand exactly what the value is to them and why they should use you then they'll hit the back button. In one sentence, you should clearly define your unique value proposition for the type of customer you want.

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Startup Ruby XML Email 78

ConversionXL

JUNE 13, 2016

Because A/B testing considers only a part of the entire customer base (your sample), there are always uncertainties as to actual effects. The goal of the test, however, is to carry-over the effect measured by the test onto the entire customer base. Shopping Cart Values / Revenue Per Visitor.

Distribution 48

Distribution Conversion Non-Compete Revenue 48

css-tricks.com

JANUARY 2, 2013

At the outset of a project is a perfect opportunity to build/choose/customize a CMS that works for you. Even if it doesnt match your own style perfectly, consistency is the most important thing. How is the customer support at your hosting provider? Need a guide? Try the book Content Strategy for Mobile by Karen McGrane.

Web 96

Web Software Review Technical Review Caching 96

A Smart Bear: Startups and Marketing for Geeks

NOVEMBER 29, 2010

is still around at least, but wisely pivoted into matching celebrities (like Mandy Moore) with major brands (like NBC). Bootstrapped companies have no such luxury. All technology depends on "platforms" — operating systems, browsers, libraries, even pre-existing customer prejudices. They "survived.".

Marketing 229

Marketing Ruby SEO Widget 229

YoungUpstarts

JANUARY 26, 2016

When you consider that 88% of people leave their jobs for a position with a matching or lower salary you come to understand that the reasons for changing companies is rarely financial. Despite being a bootstrapped company with little revenue, we over-invested in a central New York City office at a rate of 15% rent to revenue.

Software Review 100

Software Review New York City Salary Employee 100

Up and Running

SEPTEMBER 23, 2015

I was inspired by the technology that existed in dating apps,” says Jillian, speaking of apps like Tinder that use matching and geolocation. The revenue Jillian had on reserve from selling her indoor play gym business funded MomCo for the first six months, but after that point, she knew it was time to begin raising additional funds.

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Southern California Angel Investor Social Media Cofounder 60

Startup Lessons Learned

JUNE 15, 2020

They threw a pizza party that first night, they've now raised millions of dollars and have thrown hundreds of thousands more, not just in support of frontline workers, but in support of restaurants who, as everyone knows, are struggling in these times with a dramatic decline in revenue, in customers.

San Francisco 68

San Francisco Founder Community Software Review 68

A Smart Bear: Startups and Marketing for Geeks

JUNE 20, 2011

I recently helped a friend broker the sale of his small, bootstrapped company. They’ve heard rules of thumb like “A growing software company is worth 5 times their trailing 12-months revenue.&# Even narrowing the field as much as feasible, revenue multiples varied between 1.2x Profit multiples varied even more.

Sales 260

Sales Channel Cofounder Valuation 260

Start Up Blog

APRIL 29, 2013

We need to have a close look at the worlds two biggest social media networks of Twitter and Facebook – they run open API’s for each other to assist their customers and suppliers switch and share between each other. Our mobile is our new cinema and the content needs to match the context today.

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Uruguay Technical Review Vertical Las Vegas 123

sivers.org

JUNE 25, 2010

Also important: Only go for providers who have great reviews from many past customers. Im a UX and front end designer bootstrapping my own products with pure sweat equity at night but always looking for someone else to partner with(engineer/programmer)to bring these ideas life. Decline bids from providers without many great reviews.

CTO Hire 84

CTO Hire Hiring Software Review Technical Review 84