Startup Professionals Musings

SEPTEMBER 30, 2019

Serious entrepreneurs know that, but too many “wannabes” still fall for that elusive get-rich-quick scheme with no risk. As an active angel investor, I still hear entrepreneurs asserting large opportunities with minimal risk and no competition. When entrepreneurs become prisoners of hope, they look for others to solve their problem.

Entrepreneur 267

Entrepreneur Burn Rate Angel Investor Operations 267

Both Sides of the Table

DECEMBER 16, 2009

This is part of my new series on what makes an entrepreneur successful. I originally posted it on VentureHacks , one of my favorite websites for entrepreneurs. They spot opportunities that aren’t being met and the design products to meet these needs. I advocated LOUDLY at the board that we needed to cut our burn rate.

Entrepreneur 306

Entrepreneur Burn Rate Cofounder Sales 306

Mucker Lab

MAY 28, 2020

Some entrepreneurs think that (more) money will solve all their company’s problems. Like a teenager with a million-dollar allowance and an identity crisis, a startup with too much capital and no product-market fit will become capable of making larger mistakes. More and more investors have begun to shun high burn rates.

Startup 78

Startup Cofounder Burn Rate Technical Review 78

Feld Thoughts

NOVEMBER 18, 2013

Ari Newman is an entrepreneur, mentor, investor, and a friend. He works at Techstars where his responsibility is to ensure that the connections between alumni, mentors, and staff are as robust as they can be – helping entrepreneurs “ do more faster ” day in and day out. The year would have been a full year, not just 7-9 months.

Burn Rate 152

Burn Rate Equity Software Review Early Stage 152

crowdSPRING Blog

SEPTEMBER 19, 2014

The Paradoxical Traits of an Entrepreneur | by Jody Porowski – crowdspring.co/1piN6X6. Are startup burn rates out of control? The 3 Myths Most Entrepreneurs Tell Themselves About Marketing | by Dharmesh Shah – crowdspring.co/1uyrQ4U. | WordStream – crowdspring.co/1tOs1vg. XeV4JS. – [link].

Social Media 94

Social Media Small Business Design Media 94

Steve Blank

SEPTEMBER 7, 2009

Finally, I’ll write about how Eric Ries and the Lean Startup concept provided the equivalent model for product development activities inside the building and neatly integrates customer and agile development. Without the revenue to match its expenses, the company is in now danger of running out of money.

Customer Development 224

Customer Development Developer Customer Silicon Valley 224

The Next Web

DECEMBER 2, 2013

Luck, timing and social engineering are bigger components than most entrepreneurs care to imagine,” adds Werdelin. Ben Schippers is the co-founder of HappyFunCorp , a Web development company that has built sites for TeePublic , Of A Kind , Postography and Yeah TV! 3) Facebook. 4) WhatsApp. Linus Pauling.

Cost 168

Cost San Francisco New York City Ruby 168

Startup Professionals Musings

MARCH 30, 2015

Serious entrepreneurs know that, but too many “wannabes” still fall for that elusive get-rich-quick scheme with no risk. As an active Angel investor, I still hear entrepreneurs asserting large opportunities with minimal risk and no competition. When entrepreneurs become prisoners of hope, they look for others to solve their problem.

Entrepreneur 120

Entrepreneur Burn Rate Startup Angel Investor 120

Both Sides of the Table

OCTOBER 12, 2010

If you can’t figure all of this out then adding a non-founder sales person isn’t going to solve your problems – it’s just going to add to your burn rate. And he rapidly iterates that back into product development to rapidly respond to customer requests and has the messages straight into our sales campaigns.

Hiring 346

Hiring Sales Startup Early Stage 346

Startup Professionals Musings

OCTOBER 22, 2017

Serious entrepreneurs know that, but too many “wannabes” still fall for that elusive get-rich-quick scheme with no risk. As an active angel investor, I still hear entrepreneurs asserting large opportunities with minimal risk and no competition. When entrepreneurs become prisoners of hope, they look for others to solve their problem.

Burn Rate 170

Burn Rate Angel Investor Operations Demand 170

Startup Professionals Musings

JANUARY 17, 2014

Serious entrepreneurs know that, but too many “wannabes” still fall for that elusive dream of a get-rich-quick scheme with no risk. As an active Angel investor, I still hear entrepreneurs asserting large opportunities with minimal risk or no competition. There is no real business opportunity without risk. Operational. Find the balance.

Burn Rate 234

Burn Rate Angel Investor Entrepreneur Operations 234

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. LetsGiftIt.

Dilution 114

Dilution Revenue Finance Entrepreneur 114

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. This post describes such a model.

Customer Development 242

Customer Development Developer Customer Silicon Valley 242

The Equity Kicker

JANUARY 10, 2020

The logic goes that in the early days, you haven’t really got anything else: the product isn’t ready, the market can change, but the team is what you have. It’s got a big burn rate, it’s too big to pivot, and it goes bust. We have a studio team – developers, designers etc. And everyone’s lost a lot of money.

Partner 68

Partner Early Stage Portfolio Metrics 68

BeyondVC

DECEMBER 10, 2009

The other day I met with an entrepreneur I was advising as he prepared to raise his next round of funding. 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

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. How do we raise the big bucks?”

Lean 244

Lean Silicon Valley Startup RSS 244

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). Two Ways to Hold Entrepreneurs Accountable (for Ha.

San Francisco 117

San Francisco Lean Continuous Deployment DC 117

Startup Lessons Learned

MARCH 13, 2009

Figuring this out takes time, and few entrepreneurs have the patience to wait it out, because the business plan does such a good job of explaining what customers are going to think. And even worse, wed cranked up the burn rate in order to be ready to handle all those millions of mainstream customers we anticipated.

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. As far as I know, there are no products that are immune from the technology life cycle adoption curve.

San Francisco 150

San Francisco Lean Agile Continuous Deployment 150