Startup Professionals Musings

SEPTEMBER 30, 2019

My conclusion either way is that they have no market, or haven’t looked. Visionary entrepreneurs tend to identify and map strategic new opportunities, rather than grow existing current ones, based on market insights emerging technology. Embrace the risk of proactive marketing. Look at marketing as an investment, not an expense.

Entrepreneur 267

Entrepreneur Burn Rate Angel Investor Operations 267

Both Sides of the Table

OCTOBER 12, 2010

A while back I wrote a bunch of posts on Sales & Marketing and have been meaning to get back to that theme for a while. Even if you don’t have “direct&# sales I would tell you that “everything is a sale&# including fund raising, hiring, getting press and doing business development.

Hiring 346

Hiring Sales Startup Early Stage 346

Both Sides of the Table

DECEMBER 16, 2009

.&# They know instinctually how customers buy and how to excite them. They spot opportunities that aren’t being met and the design products to meet these needs. You can practically hear the “voice of the customer&# when they’re presenting their concept. He was at a startup that was in a super hot sector.

Entrepreneur 306

Entrepreneur Burn Rate Cofounder Sales 306

YoungUpstarts

JUNE 17, 2019

Attracting new customers to grow any online business can be tough. But for small businesses, like startups, carrying out an effective marketing strategy is critical to their very survival. It is a sobering truth that nine out of ten startups will fail , and marketing success can often be the key element for any startup’s viability.

Marketing 147

Marketing Startup Burn Rate Advertising 147

VC Adventure

MARCH 17, 2022

With the markets down significantly, financings (at least at the later stages) slowing down, and inflation and interest rates on the rise, perhaps now is a good time to talk about your burn rate. Hopefully, you took advantage of the robust financing markets of the past few years to put some money on your balance sheet.

Balance Sheet 121

Balance Sheet Burn Rate Valuation Metrics 121

The Next Web

DECEMBER 2, 2013

“You can’t just build a product today, you need to build a venture. Therefore, if you want to bring an MVP ( Minimum Viable Product ) to market, Werdelin approximates that you’ll need $50,000 to $250,000 , depending on the skill sets of the developers and designers you hire. million to develop.”. 4) WhatsApp.

Cost 168

Cost San Francisco New York City Ruby 168

Steve Blank

SEPTEMBER 17, 2009

This post describes a solution – the Customer Development Model. In future posts I’ll describe how Eric Ries and the Lean Startup concept provide the equivalent model for product development activities inside the building and neatly integrates customer and agile development.

Customer Development 246

Customer Development Developer Customer Silicon Valley 246

Startup Professionals Musings

OCTOBER 22, 2017

My conclusion either way is that they have no market, or haven’t looked. Visionary entrepreneurs tend to identify and map strategic new opportunities, rather than grow existing current ones, based on market insights emerging technology. Embrace the risk of proactive marketing. Look at marketing as an investment, not an expense.

Burn Rate 170

Burn Rate Angel Investor Operations Demand 170

Steve Blank

NOVEMBER 18, 2010

In an existing company with existing customers you 1) understand the customers problem and 2) since you do, you can specify the entire feature set on day one. In fact, for decades if you drew this diagram on day one of a startup VC’s would nod sagely and everyone would get to work heading to first customer ship.

Burn Rate 248

Burn Rate Management Business Model Customer Development 248

Startup Professionals Musings

JANUARY 17, 2014

My conclusion either way is that there is no market, or they haven’t looked. Visionary entrepreneurs tend to identify and map strategic new opportunities, rather than grow existing current ones, based on market insights emerging technology. Embrace the risk of proactive marketing. Operational.

Burn Rate 234

Burn Rate Angel Investor Entrepreneur Operations 234

Steve Blank

AUGUST 27, 2012

He turned his PhD thesis into a killer product, got it funded and now was CEO of a company of 30. 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. We’re building the wrong product!”

Founder 317

Founder Cofounder Advisory Board Burn Rate 317

Startup Professionals Musings

MARCH 30, 2015

My conclusion either way is that they have no market, or haven’t looked. Visionary entrepreneurs tend to identify and map strategic new opportunities, rather than grow existing current ones, based on market insights emerging technology. Embrace the risk of proactive marketing. Look at marketing as an investment, not an expense.

Entrepreneur 120

Entrepreneur Burn Rate Startup Angel Investor 120

The Equity Kicker

JULY 16, 2015

Companies with lots of cash sometimes add people more quickly, but that drives the burn rate up, often without a compensating increase in the chance of success. In the first couple of months the focus should be on making sure the idea is valid, requiring the following activities: Development of the company vision and strategy.

eCommerce 60

eCommerce Burn Rate Early Stage Hiring 60

The Equity Kicker

JANUARY 10, 2020

Every good VC looks for the same three things: a great team, a great product, and a large and attractive market. Other VCs will say that of the three key criteria – team, product and market – at the early stage, team is by far the most important. It’s got a big burn rate, it’s too big to pivot, and it goes bust.

Partner 68

Partner Early Stage Portfolio Metrics 68

BeyondVC

DECEMBER 10, 2009

So first and foremost, I let him know that while it was nice to have a well thought out spreadsheet, that the most important thing was getting the product developed and the right team in place.

Churn Rate 112

Churn Rate Burn Rate Startup Metrics 112

ReadWriteStart

JANUARY 27, 2011

This partnership speaks to a core philosophy of the program where we encourage entrepreneurs to get as much customer validation as possible before raising too much money, use other people's channels if you can get to them, don't burn too much cash, and all that good fiscal conservative stuff. Brainscape. Note, I said, validated.

Dilution 114

Dilution Revenue Finance Entrepreneur 114

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. And most startup code and features end up on the floor as customers never really wanted them.

Lean 250

Lean Silicon Valley Startup RSS 250

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). Were talking PayPal -sized variations.

San Francisco 117

San Francisco Lean Continuous Deployment DC 117

Startup Lessons Learned

MARCH 13, 2009

Announce a new product, start its PR campaign, and engage in buzz marketing activities. Marketing launch) Make a new product available to customers in the general public. Product launch) In todays world, there is no reason you have to do these two things at the same time. If not, do not launch there.

San Francisco 168

San Francisco PR Lean Early Stage 168

Startup Lessons Learned

JANUARY 30, 2009

Here are a few: We know what customers want. By hiring experts, conducting lots of focus groups, and executing to a detailed plan, the company became deluded that it knew what customers wanted. Everyone had fun; the product worked. But that was two full years before any customers were allowed to use it.

San Francisco 150

San Francisco Lean Agile Continuous Deployment 150