David Teten

AUGUST 19, 2019

So you’re interested in raising capital from a Revenue-Based Investor VC. A new wave of Revenue-Based Investors (“RBI”) are emerging. I’ve been a traditional equity VC for 8 years, and I’m now researching new business models in venture capital. Rational burn profile, up to 50% of revenue at close, scaling down.

Revenue 60

Revenue Technical Review Software Review Equity 60

Steve Blank

SEPTEMBER 24, 2009

Pattern Recognition One of the great things about being an entrepreneur is that you are constantly running a pattern recognition algorithm against a continual collection of customer and market data. But the purpose of this post is what happens when a founder (or large company CEO) finds a better business model.

Customer 201

Customer Silicon Valley RSS California 201

Steve Blank

MARCH 12, 2014

We realized that past K-12 Entrepreneurial classes taught students “the lemonade stand” version of how to start a company: 1) come up with an idea, 2) execute the idea, 3) do the accounting (revenue, costs, etc.). Customer Discovery in the Real World. Hawken students practicing Customer Discovery in a mall.

Lean 334

Lean Customer Development Startup Silicon Valley 334

Steve Blank

FEBRUARY 11, 2010

The Customer Development process is the way startups quickly iterate and test each element of their business model , reducing customer and market risk. The first step of Customer Development is called Customer Discovery. outside the building and test them in front of customers.

Burn Rate 249

Burn Rate Silicon Valley Marketing Boston 249

YoungUpstarts

AUGUST 30, 2011

Blackbox , founded by entrepreneurs Bjoern Lasse Herrmann and Max Marmer, in June released its first Startup Genome Report — a 67-page in depth analysis on what makes Silicon Valley startups successful based on profiling over 650 startups. 93% of startups that scale prematurely never break the $100k revenue per month threshold.

Silicon Valley 189

Silicon Valley Software Review Startup Cofounder 189

YoungUpstarts

OCTOBER 10, 2012

by Bill Lee, author of “ The Hidden Wealth of Customers: Realizing the Untapped Value of Your Most Important Asset “. If so, the business world is full of specialists who are all too eager to help. No one can truly understand your customers or genuinely share their interests unless she is a customer herself. That’s right.

Customer 154

Customer Fractional CTO Canada Technical Review 154

Steve Blank

APRIL 23, 2018

A version of this article appeared in the Harvard Business Review. The entrepreneur who founded and grew the largest startup in the world to $10 billion in revenue and got fired is someone you have probably never heard of. Within each brand there were several models at different price points.

Michigan 275

Michigan Cofounder Stock Forecast 275

ConversionXL

FEBRUARY 3, 2022

Growth hacking is a practice that aims to acquire as many customers as possible while spending as little money as possible. The faster this process can be repeated, the more likely they’ll find scalable, repeatable ways to grow the business.”. Rather than run marketing campaigns to pull customers away from its rival, it experimented.

Retention 113

Retention Marketing Acquisition Channel 113

Steve Blank

SEPTEMBER 14, 2009

Five Quarters of Profitability During the 1980’s and through the mid 1990’s startups going public had to do something that most companies today never heard of – they had to show a track record of increasing revenue and consistent profitability. They taught you about customers, markets and profits.

Silicon Valley 223

Silicon Valley IPO Technical Review Venture Capital 223

The Startup Magazine

JUNE 1, 2023

By Daniel Sokolovksy, Co-Founder and CEO, WARP and Troy Lester, Co-Founder and CRO, WARP The dissolution of Silicon Valley Bank (SVB) was more than just a bank collapse, it was a reality check for both startups and the VCs that fund them. We’re hitting record revenue months, weeks, and margins. That includes us.

Early Stage 111

Early Stage Los Angeles Silicon Valley Cofounder 111

Steve Blank

OCTOBER 31, 2014

There’s nothing wrong with a business that supports you and perhaps an extended family. But if you want to build a scalable startup you need to be asking how you can you get enough customers/users/payers to build a business that can grow revenues past several $100M/year. With 317 million people the U.S. It doesn’t.

Global 335

Global Australia Silicon Valley China 335

ReadWriteStart

MAY 5, 2011

In addition, I asked him to do a competitive analysis on the pricing models of the various mobile app platforms and come back to me with both sets of market data, namely, customer research and competitive analysis. We can derive GeoInvenio's business model and pricing model based on that.

Costa Rica 115

Costa Rica Incubator Silicon Valley India 115

Steve Blank

NOVEMBER 21, 2016

Teams are continuing their relentless interviewing of customers, or beneficiaries as we call them in this class. The students “get out of the building” and test their hypotheses in front of potential beneficiaries using the Customer Development methodology, all while building and updating their Minimal Viable Products.

Silicon Valley 120

Silicon Valley Washington United Kingdom Lean 120

Steve Blank

NOVEMBER 21, 2016

Teams are continuing their relentless interviewing of customers, or beneficiaries as we call them in this class. The students “get out of the building” and test their hypotheses in front of potential beneficiaries using the Customer Development methodology, all while building and updating their Minimal Viable Products.

Silicon Valley 120

Silicon Valley Washington United Kingdom Lean 120

Startup Professionals Musings

APRIL 24, 2011

Your friends and family are really the only answer until you have a significant revenue stream. Back to VCs, Silicon Valley venture capital firms are still the most active. Here are some key action items that will give you some priority: Create an investment-grade business plan. Line up a winning team.

Venture Capital 233

Venture Capital Revenue Elevator Pitch Silicon Valley 233

Austin Startup

MARCH 15, 2017

By the time Silicon Valley white privilege culture, tech magazines that promote only white faces, Ethereum/Bitcoin fanboys, sellout black tech wannabees and globalists promoting their blockchain consortium get a hold of this article, it’s already too late and the game already ended a while ago.

Technical Review 54

Technical Review Silicon Valley Software Review XML 54

Austin Startup

OCTOBER 15, 2017

What seems to be the best way to create customers and revenue may result in a business model that is out of vogue with the investment world and shortchanges you on enterprise valuation. If you deliver exactly the same results at the same net cost to the customer via a SaaS product, you may get a tech multiple 10X higher.

Technical Review 48

Technical Review Software Review Nevada Silicon Valley 48

ReadWriteStart

JUNE 16, 2011

Freshdesk First, Girish Mathrubootham from Chennai, India, pitched Freshdesk , a SaaS company that provides small and medium businesses with on-demand customer support software that offers multi-channel social support. Freshdesk introduces itself as a kind of Salesforce.com for customer support so to speak.

India 123

India Bootstrapping Non-Compete Entrepreneur 123

Steve Blank

AUGUST 15, 2016

But to do it, you need to actually have a sustainable business model. Starting a business is too risky. This is a perfect example of why it’s important to talk to customers. Somewhere along the line, however, Michael and his co-founder stopped listening to customers. Our revenue model was wrong.

Cofounder 143

Cofounder Entrepreneur Africa Sales Cycle 143

The Startup Magazine

AUGUST 6, 2021

The pre-pandemic economy was characterized by a mysterious, decades-long decline in business formation. Although the media has been full of inspiring stories about start-ups in Silicon Valley, the reality is that the rate at which Americans have been starting companies has been in decline for a long time.

Limited Liability Company 163

Limited Liability Company Silicon Valley Business Model Stock Options 163

Steve Blank

AUGUST 15, 2016

But to do it, you need to actually have a sustainable business model. Starting a business is too risky. This is a perfect example of why it’s important to talk to customers. Somewhere along the line, however, Michael and his co-founder stopped listening to customers. Our revenue model was wrong.

Cofounder 120

Cofounder Entrepreneur Africa Sales Cycle 120

Steve Blank

NOVEMBER 18, 2016

It struck me as I watched the teams try to find how their technology would solve real customer problems, is that machine learning is following a similar pattern of previous technical infrastructure innovations. Each of our teams in this class followed the canonical Lean model: Articulate your hypotheses using the business model canvas.

Artificial Inteligence 320

Artificial Inteligence Lean Exit Strategy Startup 320

ReadWriteStart

SEPTEMBER 23, 2010

First up was Brad Barrett presenting GrillGrate , a grill accessory with which Brad has built a year-to-date revenue of $400,000. Next, Umakant Soni discussed Vimagino.com , a software for Web-based Q&A support to engage customers better on sites that are trying to draw people in and convert them into customers. GrillGrate.

India 114

India Silicon Valley Incubator Bootstrapping 114

Reid Hoffman

JULY 23, 2020

This strategic value-oriented approach is one of the things that gives Silicon Valley its crazy reputation among traditional investors, who live and die by financial metrics. Those traditional investors ask, “What’s your business model?” Going public allowed us to better tell our story to our users and customers.

IPO 36

IPO Exit Strategy Acquisition Technical Review 36

ReadWriteStart

DECEMBER 2, 2010

Well, 1M/1M is focused on helping businesses generate $1M in annual revenue, whatever be the nature of the business. We see a lot of businesses that can be characterized as social enterprises, ranging from education to rural development businesses. Also, the business model for the business is unclear.

India 116

India Green Silicon Valley Massachusetts 116

ReadWriteStart

MARCH 24, 2011

Monetization models, while not yet validated, can come from charging the customer base that is already acquainted with the service, as well as selling the white label solutions to colleges. Chris is primarily trying to assess his customer acquisition strategy, which requires that people see the game being played.

Illinois 114

Illinois Entrepreneur Silicon Valley Chicago 114

Startup Professionals Musings

DECEMBER 8, 2017

Unless you are a serial entrepreneur with a string of successes behind you, you need a business plan to convince investors that you can build a business out of the dream that has been driving your passion to change the world. Provide details on the business model and cash flow. Marketing, sales, and customer experience.

Elevator Pitch 163

Elevator Pitch Angel Investor Silicon Valley Revenue 163

ReadWriteStart

SEPTEMBER 10, 2010

This company provides a crowdsourced customer service solution to enterprises. Gio pitched it to me as a crowdsourced BPO, but I think he will have more success if he simply focuses on customer service as his core value proposition. They already have several customers including some telcos, and are at about $350,000 in revenues.

Cloud 115

Cloud Silicon Valley Incubator Finance 115

Steve Blank

APRIL 30, 2009

Customers went into the store either looking for the SuperMac product by name (if our demand creation activities had been effective) or went in unsure of which brand of board to buy. Initially your job is to understand each of the parts of your business model before you hire someone to do it.

Sales 120

Sales Silicon Valley RSS Las Vegas 120

Steve Blank

JANUARY 22, 2013

In cohort one, 25 teams chosen from a field of 100+, worked fulltime for eight weeks to take their ideas from a “cocktail napkin” business idea to a viable, scalable business model. Amazingly by the end of the program’s eighth week, 8 of the 25 teams had customer revenue.

Colombia 322

Colombia Lean Silicon Valley Coder 322

ReadWriteStart

APRIL 1, 2011

As for business model, Jigar wants to sell services like refilling cards. Our discussion today was around prioritization of the next few critical steps around customer acquisition and validation. 3gSimplified is a very early concept that has just launched, and the market feedback will be rolling in over the next few months.

India 119

India Guerilla Entrepreneur New Zealand 119

Steve Blank

JANUARY 25, 2010

In this post we’re going to offer a new definition of why startups exist : a startup is an organization formed to search for a repeatable and scalable business model. A Business Model. Ok, but what is a business model ? A business model describes how your company creates, delivers and captures value.

Agile 335

Agile Startup Silicon Valley Business Model 335

ReadWriteStart

SEPTEMBER 16, 2010

This is an open opportunity for an entrepreneur to build a custom solution. Today, the telecom industry charges customers based on fixed price business models for data services. SurgeForth has since graduated to paying customers, and is making good progress. Cion has 18 customers and is considering funding.

Cloud 117

Cloud Fractional CTO Entrepreneur Bandwidth 117

Steve Blank

JANUARY 22, 2013

In cohort one, 25 teams chosen from a field of 100+, worked fulltime for eight weeks to take their ideas from a “cocktail napkin” business idea to a viable, scalable business model. Amazingly by the end of the program’s eighth week, 8 of the 25 teams had customer revenue.

Colombia 278

Colombia Lean Silicon Valley Coder 278

ReadWriteStart

OCTOBER 13, 2011

for the app and has 30,000 customers. He asked me if he should offer the app for free to get more customers. It is much better to grow organically with revenue. Please remember, free is not a business model. She is a Silicon Valley entrepreneur and strategy consultant. I said, no. Cortese Design Bags.

Business Model 122

Business Model New Hampshire Dallas Entrepreneur 122

ReadWriteStart

APRIL 14, 2011

At the roundtable, five entrepreneurs pitched their businesses to me, and I interacted with them in our usual format, with active participation from the audience. First up, Girish Mathrubootham from Chennai, India, presented Freshdesk , a SaaS solution for multi-channel customer support including knowledge base and social CRM support.

India 126

India Technical Review Entrepreneur Silicon Valley 126

Steve Blank

MARCH 18, 2011

The signals are loud and clear : seed and late stage valuations are getting frothy and wacky, and hiring talent in Silicon Valley is the toughest it has been since the dot.com bubble. They taught you about customers, markets and profits. The old rules of sustainable revenue and consistent profitability went out the window.

Internet 334

Internet IPO Silicon Valley Agile 334