Steve Blank

SEPTEMBER 3, 2014

The emphasis on the rapid development and iteration of MVP’s is to speed up how fast you can learn ; from customers, partners, network scale, adoption, etc. Speed keeps cash burn rate down while allowing you to converge on a repeatable and scalable business model. In a startup building MVP’s is what turns theory into practice.

Cofounder 336

Cofounder Founder Technical Cofounder Coder 336

View from Seed

OCTOBER 24, 2019

Or, if you can’t skip a round, when should you try to work extra hard to minimize dilution and when should you be prepared to take more dilution for the right partner/situation? Also, the benefit of raising a pre-seed from great partners probably outweighs the cost. Founders with limited experience.

Dilution 149

Dilution B2B Burn Rate Early Stage 149

Startup Professionals Musings

APRIL 10, 2016

From my perspective as an investor, I recommend that every founder needs to know the answers to these questions, be open and honest in answering them thoughtfully, and without making excuses: What is the current runway and burn rate? Calculate employee stock option values and vesting times, as well as salary.

Sweat Equity 120

Sweat Equity Burn Rate Technical Review Intellectual Property 120

Startup Professionals Musings

JUNE 27, 2022

Too often they are also hesitant, inexperienced, and fearful of hiring people or finding a mentor to be the partner they need. You know you should have been tracking the burn rate, or inventory requirements, or late receivables, but have found yourself totally distracted by a flock of emergency daily issues.

Burn Rate 329

Burn Rate Differentiation Salary Entrepreneur 329

YoungUpstarts

MAY 19, 2016

Use burn rate as an example. If you don’t understand how much money your company is burning through each month, how can you expect to intelligently talk about your fiscal health? To become part of the surviving half, use these methods to ensure your startup’s structure stands strong. Read your books from cover to cover.

Technical Review 109

Technical Review Burn Rate IP Intellectual Property 109

Startup Professionals Musings

APRIL 8, 2015

From my perspective as an investor, I recommend that every founder needs to know the answers to these questions, be open and honest in answering them thoughtfully, and without making excuses: What is the current runway and burn rate? Calculate employee stock option values and vesting times, as well as salary.

Technical Review 120

Technical Review Due Diligence Sweat Equity Burn Rate 120

Steve Blank

FEBRUARY 26, 2013

90 days later, I found out our games are terrible, no one is buying them, our best engineers started leaving, and with 120 people and a huge burn rate, we’re running out of money and about to crash. My wife was a great partner here. This can’t be happening to me. Stage 2: Deny any of it was your fault.

Redemption 330

Redemption Cofounder Silicon Valley Burn Rate 330

Startup Professionals Musings

JULY 9, 2014

The partner most obsessed with the startup lifestyle tests the water by going to work in an early-stage startup, similar to one they might hope to start someday. What is the startup cash burn rate per month? How much money has been invested so far? Are more investment rounds required (runway)?

Technical Review 250

Technical Review Stock Options Due Diligence Silicon Valley 250

Startup Professionals Musings

NOVEMBER 7, 2014

Most of these scenarios involve attracting outside investors, strategic partners, or key team members: You are the team and you don’t need outside funding. They can iterate and evolve their business idea with a low burn rate and minimal dependencies.

Business Plan 274

Business Plan Technical Review Angel Investor Due Diligence 274

Mucker Lab

MAY 28, 2020

This post originally appeared in TechCrunch back in 2015, written by our co-founder and managing partner Erik Rannala. More and more investors have begun to shun high burn rates. We believe the message applies as much today as it did in 2015 when it was published. --. To be clear, I’m not suggesting that you stockpile capital.

Startup 78

Startup Cofounder Burn Rate Technical Review 78

Berkonomics

AUGUST 10, 2017

Fixed overhead for salaries, rent, equipment leases and more make up the majority of the “burn rate” (monthly expenses) for most companies. And we were able to secure that investment along with a partner from that firm joining our board.

Silicon Valley 97

Silicon Valley Burn Rate Angel Investor Down Round 97

Steve Blank

FEBRUARY 26, 2013

90 days later, I found out our games are terrible, no one is buying them, our best engineers started leaving, and with 120 people and a huge burn rate, we’re running out of money and about to crash. My wife was a great partner here. This can’t be happening to me. Stage 2: Deny any of it was your fault.

Redemption 222

Redemption Cofounder Silicon Valley Burn Rate 222

Startup Professionals Musings

OCTOBER 18, 2015

The partner most obsessed with the startup lifestyle tests the water by going to work in an early-stage startup, similar to one they might hope to start someday. What is the startup cash burn rate per month? How much money has been invested so far? Are more investment rounds required (runway)?

Technical Review 120

Technical Review Entrepreneur Stock Options Due Diligence 120

The Next Web

MARCH 8, 2014

But at the end of the day, I’ve learned that being a partner at a successful early-stage VC firm is not quite as different from being a founder as you might think. You might have three to five partners, three to four associates and principals, and some support staff, plus an office to pay for that has to be somewhat presentable.

Partner 138

Partner Burn Rate Early Stage IPO 138

Startup Professionals Musings

SEPTEMBER 21, 2019

Too often they are also hesitant, inexperienced, and fearful of hiring people or finding a mentor to be the partner they need. You know you should have been tracking the burn rate, or inventory requirements, or late receivables, but have found yourself totally distracted by a flock of emergency daily issues.

Burn Rate 249

Burn Rate Entrepreneur Differentiation Salary 249

The Equity Kicker

JANUARY 10, 2020

See below for a good description of what we like to see in deals at Forward Partners and what makes us different from other VCs. An interview with Nic Brisbourne, Forward Partners. It’s got a big burn rate, it’s too big to pivot, and it goes bust. And everyone’s lost a lot of money.

Partner 68

Partner Early Stage Portfolio Metrics 68

Both Sides of the Table

NOVEMBER 3, 2009

I’m not even talking about your 12-page Powerpoint presentation that you need to raise venture capital or to talk with potential biz dev partners. Too aggressive about the rate of customer adoption? You might then slow down your burn rate or raise more money. That died with waterfall software development.

Business Plan 334

Business Plan AJAX Venture Capital Technical Review 334

David Teten

NOVEMBER 26, 2019

Sean Colrock, Director of Client Partnerships at Wiss & Company , suggests at a minimum you track: cash on hand; fume date; and burn rate. Disclosure: Graphite Financial is a spinoff of ff Venture Capital , where I was formerly a Partner. Entrepreneur Jeff Magnusson provides a sample agile budgeting workbook.

Agile 60

Agile Management Forecast Silicon Valley 60

Both Sides of the Table

JULY 13, 2013

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?” ” Well, I really wanted to be a general partner but there weren’t a lot of general partner openings.

Cofounder 337

Cofounder Technical Cofounder Startup San Diego 337

View from Seed

FEBRUARY 12, 2020

I notice some founders (from YC in particular) have been trained to say something like: “we are just starting the process, but things are moving faster than we expect and we are already scheduling follow-up conversations and partner meetings.”. Some founders lay out a specific time frame for when they hope to get the round closed.

Term Sheet 364

Term Sheet Burn Rate Founder Partner 364

Tim Keane

DECEMBER 14, 2009

  He is a partner in a pretty much exclusively software seed stage fund, Y Combinator that you can read more about.    A low burn rate is a pearl of great price.    It provides lots of options that high burn rates take away.    A low burn rate is a pearl of great price. 

Burn Rate 60

Burn Rate Angel Groups Seed Stage Startup 60

Up and Running

APRIL 27, 2020

Current businesses are finding ways to pivot their business models, revisiting their budgets, and developing new forecasts to minimize their burn rate and maximize their available cash runway. But it doesn’t have to be all bad. .

Software Review 113

Software Review Lean Forecast Business Plan 113

Both Sides of the Table

OCTOBER 12, 2010

How can you send some young MBA “biz dev type&# out into battle to sign up partners when you’ve never met with your potential business development collaborators and heard what their goals are and how you can meet them? I only found out through customer meetings. Also, this goes equally for business development.

Hiring 346

Hiring Sales Startup Early Stage 346

Hunter Walker

FEBRUARY 20, 2022

Note, the junior investment professionals working for the senior Partner can be good conduits — don’t ignore them — just a newer, junior General Partner is less likely to make a contrarian first investment at many firms (exceptions exist of course). Just Survive. Stop worrying about venture fundraising and just get into survival mode.

Marketing 119

Marketing Burn Rate Angel Investor Early Stage 119

Startup Professionals Musings

DECEMBER 31, 2013

Too often they are also hesitant, inexperienced, and fearful of hiring people or a mentor to be the partner they need. You know you should have been tracking the burn rate, or inventory requirements, or late receivables, but have found yourself totally distracted by a flock of emergency daily issues.

Burn Rate 275

Burn Rate Entrepreneur Differentiation Salary 275

Startup Professionals Musings

OCTOBER 4, 2017

Too often they are also hesitant, inexperienced, and fearful of hiring people or finding a mentor to be the partner they need. You know you should have been tracking the burn rate, or inventory requirements, or late receivables, but have found yourself totally distracted by a flock of emergency daily issues.

Burn Rate 139

Burn Rate Differentiation Salary Entrepreneur 139

Both Sides of the Table

FEBRUARY 18, 2016

Our last thoughts on the VC funding markets heading into 2016 was published here and I followed up with a little more context on the resetting of the venture industry , some thoughts on how startups are valued and how to think about burn rates at startups. We figured this “wisdom of the crowds” would yield some insights.

Burn Rate 150

Burn Rate LP Curation Valuation 150

Both Sides of the Table

MAY 2, 2015

They can show the projections on what this does to burn rate. At DataSift we have grown the business substantively for 13 straight quarters and despite recent press I can confirm that the core business is still growing very quickly – just with more powerful partners than we had in the past. They can help you with pricing.

Operations 150

Operations Metrics Early Stage Non-Compete 150

Berkonomics

MARCH 30, 2010

Fixed overhead for salaries, rent, equipment leases and more make up the majority of the “burn rate” (monthly expenses) for most companies. And we were able to secure that investment along with a partner from that firm joining our board.

Silicon Valley 85

Silicon Valley Burn Rate Angel Investor Down Round 85

Startup Professionals Musings

DECEMBER 15, 2014

Focusing on the burn rate and prioritizing every possible expense will keep overhead down, help you stay lean, and achieve a higher profit earlier. The best partners are ones who share costs and risks. You will squeeze harder on your own dollars than investor dollars. Sometimes survival requires staying under the radar.

Bootstrapping 276

Bootstrapping Entrepreneur Startup Burn Rate 276

Both Sides of the Table

DECEMBER 16, 2009

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. Listen, I know that if you like what we do then you’ll want a healthy supplier / partner. We were SMOKING cash. I can’t ship those as promised.

Entrepreneur 306

Entrepreneur Burn Rate Cofounder Sales 306

Both Sides of the Table

FEBRUARY 25, 2019

What should the cash burn rate of the company be and how long of a cash runway should the company maintain? Every year I invited my largest investors to NYC to have an LPAC meeting (Limited Partner Advisory Committee?—?kind What are the kinds of difficult tasks that need to be solved by boards? I practice what I preach.

LP 269

LP Startup Burn Rate Stock Options 269

The Next Web

DECEMBER 2, 2013

Henrik Werdelin , the Managing Partner of Prehype , a venture development firm based in New York City that has helped build companies like Tradable , Barkbox , FancyHands , Basno and Path , says recreating Twitter isn’t necessarily difficult, but the layered features will take time to get right. 1) Twitter. 4) WhatsApp.

Cost 168

Cost San Francisco New York City Ruby 168

Both Sides of the Table

APRIL 23, 2017

You have cash in the bank, a monthly burn rate and a “cash out” date that few in the company truly comprehend. Also, make sure you know several partners at the VC firms who have invested in you because in tough times it helps to have very broad support. When you run a startup you’re always on borrowed time.

Burn Rate 238

Burn Rate Term Sheet CTO Hire Fractional CTO 238

Startup Professionals Musings

MARCH 6, 2012

One family partner works for a startup, and the other sticks with a large enterprise company like Intel, HP, Apple, IBM, or Fujitsu. The large enterprise provides one stable income, an excellent set of benefits for the family, and that partner can get off work at 5pm to pick up the kids. What's the monthly burn rate?

Silicon Valley 246

Silicon Valley Burn Rate Startup Stock Options 246

Both Sides of the Table

FEBRUARY 6, 2017

This past year was also the year that startup boards also got more disciplined about containing burn rates and pushing for companies to be run more pragmatically. So if funding from VCs slowed, valuations dropped and burn rates were slashed, WTF happened to winter again? or Walmart buying Jet for $3 billion.

Venture Capital 150

Venture Capital Saudi Arabia Kuwait Burn Rate 150

Steve Blank

NOVEMBER 18, 2010

A new VP of Sales (then VP of Marketing, then CEO) looks at their predecessors’ strategy, and if they are smart, they do something different (they implement a different pricing model, pick a new sales channel, target different customers and/or partners, reformulate the product features, etc.). No one gets fired.

Burn Rate 247

Burn Rate Management Business Model Customer Development 247