Steve Blank

FEBRUARY 16, 2010

You would think that would be enough to get wrong, but entrepreneurs and investors compound this problem by assuming that all startups grow and scale by executing the Revenue Plan. All discussion focused on “missing the revenue plan.”. Revenue Plan Needs to Match Market Type. They don’t. What went wrong?

Revenue 231

Revenue Balance Sheet Hockey Stick Burn Rate 231

Both Sides of the Table

JULY 13, 2013

You have been at five startups, you had an exit at your last company where you were the Chief Revenue Officer. And for every time I’ve felt hugely stressed that our burn rate was getting too high, and I didn’t know who else was going to fund the company, and I’m all in on this company, right?”

Cofounder 337

Cofounder Technical Cofounder San Diego Startup 337

Both Sides of the Table

DECEMBER 16, 2009

They had wasted a lot of money because they had raised a lot of money and therefore hired a large staff. I just knew that our sales sucked wind and we were burning through tons of cash. I advocated LOUDLY at the board that we needed to cut our burn rate. A new and experiened CEO was brought in and cleared house.

Entrepreneur 306

Entrepreneur Burn Rate Cofounder Sales 306

Both Sides of the Table

JUNE 17, 2017

If you hire 6 senior sales reps in January at $120,000 / year salary then you’ve taken on an extra $60,000 per month in costs yet these sales people might not close new business 6 months. If you don’t have a strong balance sheet and can’t hire more people that’s fine — but understand this may lead to slower growth.

Stock Options 227

Stock Options Startup Dilution Venture Capital 227

Steve Blank

NOVEMBER 18, 2010

For decades startups were managed by pretending the company would follow a predictable path (revenue plan, scale, etc.) The Revenue Plan – The Third Fatal Assumption. Notice that the traditional product introduction model leads to a product launch and the execution of a revenue plan. Albert Einstein. Ritualized Crises.

Burn Rate 248

Burn Rate Management Business Model Customer Development 248

View from Seed

OCTOBER 15, 2014

This is pulled from NextView’s board deck resource, which was compiled using a combination of real startup board decks and input from NextView’s founding partners: Rob Go , David Beisel , and Lee Hower. Team: Hires, fires, departures, responsibility changes, major promotions, and your org chart.

Seed Stage 331

Seed Stage Cap Table Metrics Burn Rate 331

Startup Professionals Musings

MARCH 28, 2016

Every team member, from engineer to CEO, lives or dies based on cash flow, so the more they can tune their activities to revenue and expenses, the more valuable they become. Finding creative ways to fund activities. Creating operational processes and procedures. Be a trustworthy advisor and mentor to others.

Entrepreneur 120

Entrepreneur Burn Rate Leadership Salary 120

Hearpreneur

JULY 7, 2019

I see companies transitioning to hiring more freelancers and remote workers. When they outsource they are hiring professionals for a certain number of hours per month and not 40 hours per week in addition to benefits, workers comp, etc. We want every hire to be for life, and the way we treat employees makes them want to stay.

Entrepreneur 93

Entrepreneur Distribution Employee Arizona 93

abovethecrowd.com

APRIL 20, 2016

All Unicorn participants — founders, company employees, venture investors and their limited partners (LPs) — are seeing their fortunes put at risk from the very nature of the Unicorn phenomenon itself. A high performing, high-growth SAAS company that may have been worth 10 or more times revenue was suddenly worth 4-7 times revenue.

IPO 40

IPO Term Sheet Silicon Valley Valuation 40

www.chubbybrain.com

SEPTEMBER 28, 2011

spent $20 million to get back to the same revenue that I had when I was CEO. created a vastly higher cost structure; I had 80 people mostly on base salaries under $100,000 and was bringing in revenue at the rate of $20 million annually. .”). Post-Mortem Title : My eHarmony for Hiring Failure. During this year they.

Software Review 79

Software Review Startup Technical Review Vesting 79

www.paulgraham.com

APRIL 28, 2010

There never has to be atime when you have no revenues. For example, a seed firmshould be able to give advice about how to approach VCs, which VCsobviously dont need to do; whereas VCs should be able to giveadvice about how to hire an "executive team," which is not an issuein the seed stage. Dont be misled by thisoptimism.

Technical Review 76

Technical Review Startup Software Review Angel Investor 76

Both Sides of the Table

AUGUST 9, 2011

Venture Capitalists typically have partners’ meetings on Mondays. So the industry formed around a day of the week when all partners could avoid having company board meetings or traveling. Companies with less than $2 million in revenue were asking for $50-60 million valuations and getting them. Why is that? tl;dr summary.

Stock 305

Stock Technical Review Marketing Greece 305