View from Seed

OCTOBER 24, 2019

As a first time founder, having a few million dollars in the bank after a successful seed raise may seem like a huge amount of capital, and it’s easy to lose discipline around your burn rate.

Dilution 149

Dilution B2B Burn Rate Early Stage 149

Steve Blank

FEBRUARY 13, 2024

The new product is burning a ton of cash Ignore/not understand adjacent niche markets that would have “pulled” the product out of their hands, if they had developed niche-specific demos and outreach Eventually pivot to the niche markets that are excited about the product The niche markets make great beachhead markets, but are too small to match the (..)

Search 256

Search Marketing Forecast Burn Rate 256

Startup Professionals Musings

FEBRUARY 17, 2021

It wasn’t so many years ago that starting a new e-commerce business on the Internet was a complex custom development project, usually costing a million dollars or more. These steps alone can reduce your monthly burn rate by at least $10K. A programmer can build a new smartphone app for a few thousand dollars.

Cost 405

Cost Entrepreneur Burn Rate Social Media 405

Feld Thoughts

NOVEMBER 18, 2013

One of them used to be a lead developer at [insert hot consumer tech company here]. Early customer development talks are going great which keeps the team really excited. Three months in, the burn is now at $70k/month. Soundbites from potential customers are encouraging. There is $350k left in the bank.

Burn Rate 152

Burn Rate Equity Software Review Early Stage 152

Both Sides of the Table

NOVEMBER 3, 2009

That died with waterfall software development. Do you really want to spent $100k building a product to discover through Customer Development that the market is too small? Too aggressive about the rate of customer adoption? You might then slow down your burn rate or raise more money.

Business Plan 334

Business Plan AJAX Venture Capital Technical Review 334

Steve Blank

NOVEMBER 18, 2010

Now the company is in crisis mode because the rest of the organization (product development, marketing, etc.) Business Model Design and Customer Development Stack. The alternative to the traditional product introduction process is the Business Model Design and Customer Development Stack. No one gets fired.

Burn Rate 247

Burn Rate Management Business Model Customer Development 247

Steve Blank

AUGUST 27, 2012

It was great to watch him embrace the spirit and practice of customer development. He was constantly in front of customers, listening, selling, installing and learning. Other weeks Yuri would be buffeted by the realities of his burn rate, declining bank account and depressing comments from customers. .”

Founder 316

Founder Cofounder Advisory Board Burn Rate 316

Steve Blank

FEBRUARY 22, 2010

If you are following Customer Development , the answer is easy. Board meetings are about measuring progress measured against the hypotheses in Customer Discovery and Validation. Paying Customers (How many customers made $ purchases that month). Customer Acquisition. Retained 90+/Total Actives %. Financials.

Balance Sheet 298

Balance Sheet Startup Burn Rate Metrics 298

Startup Professionals Musings

JULY 27, 2014

It wasn’t so many years ago that starting a new e-commerce business on the Internet was a complex custom development project, usually costing a million dollars or more. These steps alone can reduce your monthly burn rate by at least $10K. A programmer can build a new smartphone app for a few thousand dollars.

Entrepreneur 260

Entrepreneur Burn Rate Social Media LLC 260

Steve Blank

FEBRUARY 16, 2010

raised their voices in a annoyed investor tone) that the headcount and its attendant burn rate combined with the lack of revenue meant the company would run out of money much sooner than anyone planned. Filed under: Customer Development , Market Types. Tags: Customer Development Market Types.

Revenue 230

Revenue Balance Sheet Hockey Stick Burn Rate 230

VC Cafe

JULY 26, 2020

In fact, they were screaming at them to dramatically reduce their burn rates. Ditch the business plan and when assumptions are proven wrong, pivot Customer Development: Build a product your customers want (vs. Agile Development: launch an MVP early and iterate quickly.

Lean 214

Lean Seed Capital Startup Burn Rate 214

Steve Blank

JUNE 1, 2011

As customer and agile development reinvent the Startup, it’s time to ask why startup board governance has not kept up with the pace of innovation. The only numbers in those documents that are important in the first year of a startup’s life are burn rate and cash balance. There are none so blind as those who will not see.

Silicon Valley 290

Silicon Valley Business Model Venture Capital Balance Sheet 290

Steve Blank

JUNE 1, 2011

As customer and agile development reinvent the Startup, it’s time to ask why startup board governance has not kept up with the pace of innovation. The only numbers in those documents that are important in the first year of a startup’s life are burn rate and cash balance. There are none so blind as those who will not see.

Silicon Valley 258

Silicon Valley Business Model Venture Capital Balance Sheet 258

Steve Blank

NOVEMBER 2, 2009

For those of you who have been following the discussion, a Lean Startup is Eric Ries ’s description of the intersection of Customer Development , Agile Development and if available, open platforms and open source. The Customer Development process (and the Lean Startup) is one way to do that.

Lean 244

Lean Silicon Valley Startup RSS 244

ReadWriteStart

JUNE 13, 2011

As customer and agile development reinvent the startup, it's time to ask why startup board governance has not kept up with the pace of innovation. The process, which Blank detailed in his book, "The Four Steps to the Epiphany," uses customer feedback to refine and improve a product before scaling a business. Here's how.

Silicon Valley 117

Silicon Valley Balance Sheet Metrics Early Stage 117

The Startup Toolkit

JUNE 27, 2012

Similarly, I think that working nights & weekends is an awesome way to start doing customer development and answering the big questions about your business. That’s because, historically, the default mistake was to do the opposite & over-commit too soon.

Burn Rate 35

Burn Rate PR Campaign Hiring 35

Steve Blank

MAY 15, 2009

They develop traditions and privileges in other ways. Paul Henderson , on May 15, 2009 at 10:37 pm Said: A boot-strapping startup I once worked with was actually doing some real customer development and making real money from real customers for their early, ugly product. A VERY nice office.

Silicon Valley 205

Silicon Valley RSS Lean Agile 205

Steve Blank

APRIL 20, 2009

Berkeley Haas Business School was courageous enough to give me a forum teach the Customer Development Methodology. But in fact, most startups need to keep their burn rate low more [.] The Man Who Shot Liberty Valance I always had been curious about how Silicon Valley, a place I had lived and worked in, came to be.

Silicon Valley 270

Silicon Valley RSS San Francisco Technical Review 270

Startup Lessons Learned

MARCH 27, 2009

The full formula works like this: runway = cash on hand / burn rate # iterations = runway / speed of each iteration Very few successful companies ended up in the same exact business that the founders thought theyd be in (see Founders at Work for dozens of examples). Combining agile development with customer developm.

San Francisco 117

San Francisco Lean Continuous Deployment DC 117

Startup Lessons Learned

MARCH 13, 2009

Do some Customer Development instead. The product didnt convert well enough, the mainstream customers we were driving werent ready for the concept, and the event fed expectations about how successful the product was going to be that turned out to be hyper-inflated. Combining agile development with customer developm.

San Francisco 168

San Francisco PR Lean Early Stage 168

Startup Lessons Learned

JANUARY 30, 2009

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. Worse was the large staff in departments appropriate to a mainstream-scale product, especially in customer service and QA.

San Francisco 150

San Francisco Lean Agile Continuous Deployment 150