Startup Professionals Musings

OCTOBER 2, 2023

Angel investors and venture capitalists are looking for startups with real products and a proven business model, ready to scale. Yet I still get too many business plans that clearly are looking for money to do research and development (R&D) on a new and unproven technology. Business commercialization.

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Angel Investor Early Stage Incubator Government 256

Steve Blank

SEPTEMBER 5, 2023

In the early stages of a startup your hypotheses about all the parts of your business model are your profound beliefs. Here’s how I learned why they were critical to successful customer development. Here’s how I learned why they were critical to successful customer development. Who are the payers?

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Business Model Product Development Early Stage Customer Development 339

Startup Professionals Musings

APRIL 13, 2015

Angel investors and venture capitalists are looking for startups with real products and a proven business model, ready to scale. Yet I still get too many business plans that clearly are looking for money to do research and development (R&D) on a new and unproven technology. Business commercialization.

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Product Development Developer Product Angel Investor 120

Startup Professionals Musings

JANUARY 12, 2018

The “valley of death” is a common term in the startup world, referring to the difficulty of covering the negative cash flow in the early stages of a startup, before their new product or service is bringing in revenue from real customers. Apply for contests and business grants. Solicit funds from friends and family.

Intellectual Property 134

Intellectual Property Technical Review Startup Incubator 134

Steve Blank

MARCH 3, 2015

Berkeley were heavily funded to develop Cold War weapon systems. Starting in the 1950’s, Stanford’s engineering department became “outward facing” and developed a culture of spinouts and active faculty support and participation in the first wave of Silicon Valley startups. Even those who asked for them never read them. Berkeley-wide.

Business Plan 120

Business Plan Silicon Valley Saudi Arabia Lean 120

David Teten

APRIL 1, 2021

Nick Kim , Crosscut’s Head of Platform, in his presentation at the 4th Annual VC Platform Summit, shared their Platform development methodology, which he viewed as an exercise in product development. For example, recruiting writ large is useful at all stages of development. Customer Development. AskAnything.VC

Private Equity 78

Private Equity Venture Capital Portfolio Equity 78

Cracking the Code

OCTOBER 1, 2020

Snyk was founded with the mission to help developers make their code secure, providing a platform to automatically assess and remediate open source vulnerabilities. The company’s success has been largely driven by its developer-led freemium model, going from Series A funding to a valuation of $2.6B in just 30 months.

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Steve Blank

MARCH 16, 2016

But startups require money upfront for product development and later to scale. Some quick VC math : If a VC invests in ten early stage startups, on average, five will fail, three will return capital, and one or two will be “winners” and make most of the money for the VC fund. ——-. The Good News. FDA approvals?

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Liquidity Event Founder Liquidation Preference Private Equity 120

Women Entrepreneurs Can

NOVEMBER 19, 2022

A Venture Capital Firm is a firm that invests in startups and early-stage companies. Early-Stage Investments vs. Mid-Stage Investments. Investing in a startup company carries a high degree of risk, particularly at the early stage. They can also help you develop your product and sales channels.

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Venture Capital Early Stage Liquidity Event SEC 52

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.

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Customer Development Developer Customer Silicon Valley 252

Women Entrepreneurs Can

MARCH 18, 2023

VCs typically invest in startups at the seed or early growth stage. They may help with product development, market research, or even setting up a management team. They Provide Business Expertise Venture capitalists provide business expertise to startups by guiding them from ideas to profitable companies.

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Artificial Inteligence Startup Early Stage Syndicate 52

Steve Blank

AUGUST 27, 2012

It was great to watch him embrace the spirit and practice of customer development. I got to spend time inside his company while I was using their software to analyze early-stage ventures. We’re building the wrong product!” ” “A pivot is a substantive change to one or more of components to your business model.

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Founder Cofounder Advisory Board Burn Rate 320

ReadWriteStart

FEBRUARY 13, 2020

Increased venture funding has been helping to develop a robust tech ecosystem with major hubs in Vancouver, Ottawa, Montreal, and Toronto. Public venture funding has become a valuable avenue for growth for early-stage businesses in the sector, helping to put Canada’s tech industry on the map for professionals both locally and abroad.

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Canada Government Venture Capital Early Stage 127

Startup Lessons Learned

APRIL 14, 2009

In an early-stage startup especially, revenue is not an important goal in and of itself. This may sound crazy, coming as it does from an advocate of c harging customers for your product from day one. Let’s start with a simple question: why do early-stage startups want revenue? But all things are never equal.

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Customer San Francisco Lean Hockey Stick 167

View from Seed

FEBRUARY 27, 2019

Most startups don’t have the luxury of hiring an experienced PM early in their journey. Many founders have to turn to brute force to figure it out, even when they themselves don’t have practitioner product management experience. they can range from customer acquisition, product engagement/stickiness, or business model.

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Duct Tape Marketing

APRIL 6, 2022

You know, could you look at my business plan? See if the business model works, all these questions. So if you're running a small business, usually what you're doing, if it's a consulting business or any type of business, you are doing something similar to what other people have done in the past.

San Francisco 97

San Francisco Technical Review Incubator Silicon Valley 97

David Teten

AUGUST 19, 2019

I’ve been a traditional equity VC for 8 years, and I’m now researching new business models in venture capital. In addition, I’ve noted a few multi-product lending firms, e.g., Kapitus and United Capital Source , which provide RBI as one of many structural options to companies seeking capital. . Alternative Capital. “

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Revenue Technical Review Software Review Equity 60

VC Cafe

DECEMBER 28, 2010

The G/SCORE measures the key milestones a company has achieved in business building along seven factors: overall concept, market opportunity, competitive risk, product development, business development, team, and business model. The technology was developed in collaboration with Bar-Ilan University.

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Austin Startup

AUGUST 20, 2017

Early stage startups have to survive one day at a time and are often presented with limited choices of the moment that enable them to continue. At early stages you probably don’t have an assembly line and can’t clearly define any particular job. Your Product Plan must fit into context of your overall business mission.

Technical Review 48

Technical Review Software Review Cap Table Securities and Exchange Commission 48

Steve Blank

DECEMBER 8, 2015

Do we believe “startup-driven” innovation (innovation that comes from relationships with external, early-stage companies) should be part of the corporate innovation portfolio? Wants to promote intrapreneurship to extend its business model and retain creative employees like Google, Amazon, and Facebook do.

Silicon Valley 120

Silicon Valley Acquisition Boston Early Stage 120

Steve Blank

MAY 7, 2009

I hate business plan competitions – when they encourage students to write a “winning plan&# rather than teaching them how to get out of the building and use locally available resources to start a company. MootCorp in particular has an impressive track record of putting early stage tech companies on the right path towards funding.

Business Plan 152

Business Plan Silicon Valley RSS Venture Capital 152

Steve Blank

JANUARY 21, 2010

Yet at their early stages, they are not small versions of larger established companies. The good news is this team found a business model, product/market fit and a repeatable sales model. The table below helps elucidate some of the characteristics of entrepreneurial executives by stage of the company.

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Agile Development Team Review Leadership Merger 120

Hippoland

FEBRUARY 12, 2018

2) What is the business model and the potential unit economics? Certain investors tend to gravitate towards certain business models. But, I think business-model-gravitation should be a big factor in whom you decide to pitch. This one is pretty investor-specific. I’ve also done some rabbit deals.

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Seed Stage Business Model B2B Email 48

Hippoland

FEBRUARY 12, 2018

2) What is the business model and the potential unit economics? Certain investors tend to gravitate towards certain business models. But, I think business-model-gravitation should be a big factor in whom you decide to pitch. This one is pretty investor-specific. I’ve also done some rabbit deals.

Seed Stage 48

Seed Stage Business Model B2B Email 48

Steve Blank

JUNE 25, 2009

They couldn’t keep up with the fast product development times that were enabled by using standard microprocessors. So their management teams were insisting that they OEM (buy from someone else) these products. The answer depends on your answer to two questions: which step in the Customer Development process are you on?

Technology 142

Technology Silicon Valley Fractional VPE Part-Time VPE 142

Startup Professionals Musings

JULY 26, 2014

Every startup needs access to capital, whether for funding product development, for initial rollout efforts, acquiring inventory, or paying that first employee. Most entrepreneurs think first of bank loans as the primary source of money, only to find out that banks are really the least likely benefactors for startups.

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Entrepreneur Finance Equity Early Stage 254

The Startup Magazine

JULY 16, 2018

Earlier this year at the FUND Conference in Austin, Texas, over 100 startups presented their early-stage companies in front of hundreds of investors and industry leaders. This experience prompted us to prioritize building the Yip Yap Kids app with a “bring your own device” subscription based business model.

Startup 108

Startup Texas Angel Investor Mobile 108

Up and Running

MAY 23, 2016

The one-page pitch format is also more suitable for SaaS businesses that are constantly testing new ideas. Your pitch is going to cover your strategy (what you’re going to do), your tactics (how you’re going to do it), your business model (how you will make money), and your schedule (who is doing what and when).

Software Review 74

Software Review Software Delaware Forecast 74

Up and Running

SEPTEMBER 20, 2016

enabling you to expand on an already working business model), and if you’re in the extremely early stages of building your company, you still need to develop your product. Product development. Raising money is all about enabling scalability (i.e. One Entrepreneurial Mom Shows You How It’s Done.

Early Stage 60

Early Stage Startup Forecast Channel 60

Startup Lessons Learned

MARCH 13, 2009

Lessons Learned by Eric Ries Friday, March 13, 2009 Dont launch Heres a common question I get from startups, especially in the early stages: when should we launch? This is the usual reason given for a marketing launch, but for most early stage startups, its a failure. Do some Customer Development instead.

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San Francisco PR Lean Early Stage 168

Startup Professionals Musings

MARCH 6, 2013

Every startup needs access to capital, whether for funding product development, for initial rollout efforts, acquiring inventory, or paying that first employee. Most entrepreneurs think first of bank loans as the primary source of money, only to find out that banks are really the least likely benefactors for startups.

Finance 243

Finance Startup Equity Early Stage 243

Startup Lessons Learned

OCTOBER 23, 2013

LSC: Tell us about the customer development you did for your book: Alistair: We''ve been thrilled at how Lean Analytics seemed to resonate with founders. As operators of an accelerator—and founders in our own right—Ben and I had constantly struggled with what the “right” numbers are for a business. Many companies like certainty.

Analytics 167

Analytics Lean Widget Metrics 167

Steve Blank

MAY 18, 2009

Next, you have to deal with the daily crisis of product development and acquiring early customers. And here’s where life gets really interesting, as the reality of product development and customer input collide, the facts change so rapidly that the original well-thought-out business plan becomes irrelevant.

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Founder Silicon Valley RSS China 308

Up and Running

FEBRUARY 10, 2021

Beyond understanding your business strategy, investors will also want to understand your financial forecasts. They want to know how your business will function from a financial standpoint — what is typically called your “ business model.” Of course, feel free to customize your plan to fit your business needs.

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Business Plan Forecast Balance Sheet Exit Strategy 138

Startup Lessons Learned

JUNE 5, 2009

One way to conceive of our goal in an early-stage venture is to incrementally “fill in the blanks&# for the business model that we think will one day power our startup. For example, say that your business model calls for a 4% conversion rate – as ours did initially at IMVU.

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San Francisco Lean Continuous Deployment Startup 102

Startup Lessons Learned

JUNE 26, 2015

On Tuesday, we interviewed Amanda Krantz of Dohje, an early-stage startup, to talk about experimenting with product development. Thursday brought stories from three startups—PayrollHero, Munchery, and Tough Mudder—about how they’ve experimented with their business models to get to where they are today.

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Lean Early Stage Distribution Metrics 60

Startup Lessons Learned

FEBRUARY 7, 2013

AppFog creating "high-hurdle" experiments to surface authentic early adopters with real pain. The Embrace infant warmer was developed - by getting out of the country -- and how Rob Emrich learned and scaled his non-profit, Road of Life. LitMotors approach to using Lean Startup to create a new vehicle category. It's a big tent.

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Lean Entrepreneur Agile San Francisco 167