Startup Lessons Learned

OCTOBER 23, 2013

In the Udemy course, Alistair and Ben expand these basics into a description of how to create empathy, stickiness, virality, revenue, and scale. It''s a good measurement because it captures both satisfaction and virality. We often tell founders that a business plan is nonsense. It''s that the business model is complex.

Analytics 167

Analytics Lean Widget Metrics 167

Gust

NOVEMBER 3, 2013

The discipline of writing down a plan is the best way to make sure you actually understand how to transform your idea into a business. Business model doesn’t make money. Intellectual property is also often the largest element of early-stage company valuations for professional investors. Inexperienced team.

Intellectual Property 183

Intellectual Property Startup Viral Early Stage 183

SoCal CTO

OCTOBER 8, 2009

This is a great presentation and one that I'm going to point out to startup / early stage company CEOs. Normally, when I am talking to the founder of any startup trying to figure out what they need to do, one of the things I always try to do is understand their business at its core. Great stuff.

Metrics 225

Metrics Startup Retention Acquisition 225

VC Cafe

NOVEMBER 2, 2019

One question that keeps coming up when speaking with early stage entrepreneurs when it comes to funding, is what metrics the company needs to hit to raise seed/series A/B etc: What’s a good conversion rate? Benchmarks are typically specific to stage/business model/geo. What should our MRR growth be?

B2C 141

B2C Technical Review Startup Retention 141

Startup Lessons Learned

APRIL 14, 2009

In an early-stage startup especially, revenue is not an important goal in and of itself. Let’s start with a simple question: why do early-stage startups want revenue? What matters is proving the viability of the company’s business model, what investors call “traction.&#

Customer 167

Customer San Francisco Lean Hockey Stick 167

Hippoland

OCTOBER 16, 2016

In this post, I’m going to very *simplistically* dive into some high level categories and talk about how early stage investors consider each. Do you have virality built into the product? If your startup is in this category, you’ll need to craft a story around: Hypergrowth How this hyper growth is happening organically?

Startup 48

Startup Vertical Early Stage Bootstrapping 48

Genuine VC

APRIL 30, 2008

After the crash at the end of the last decade, web startups clamped down to focus on their core value proposition and were forced out of necessity for survival to hone their revenue models. Now the new plan for distribution is facilitation through low-cost viral strategies via Facebook and other social media.

Distribution 103

Distribution Widget Viral Social Media 103

Genuine VC

APRIL 30, 2008

After the crash at the end of the last decade, web startups clamped down to focus on their core value proposition and were forced out of necessity for survival to hone their revenue models. Now the new plan for distribution is facilitation through low-cost viral strategies via Facebook and other social media.

Distribution 100

Distribution Widget Viral Social Media 100

Board Effect

AUGUST 30, 2019

One comment on social media from a client citing their lack of trust in a company can go viral within minutes and create a public outrage even if the comments are untrue. The CEO and the CFO can be instrumental in helping to bridge the gap between the CEO and the board in the early stages of the relationship.

Agile 45

Agile Government Technology Software 45

Steve Blank

APRIL 20, 2021

Note that if you’re familiar with the business model canvas, Steps 1-4 below are equivalent to a visual map of the choices a founder makes as they develop a business model canvas. It bears repeating: an early-stage startup must focus on making one customer group excited by a mission-aligned product.

Product 436

Product Viral Channel San Francisco 436

Rob Go

MARCH 2, 2017

The second criteria is “Competition Crushing Business Models.” This idea here is that in order to capture the immense value you create by creating jaw dropping value, you need to have a business model that has strong increasing returns to scale. The third thing we often talk about is “Distribution Advantage.”

Portfolio 28

Portfolio Distribution Business Model Viral 28

reidhoffman.org

NOVEMBER 12, 2013

But with so many investors still licking their wounds from the dot-com bust, many focused on proven business models, such as advertising or e-commerce. We are the leader in the professional domain with viral growth. Great businesses can be built off this network, starting with matching talent and opportunity.

Entrepreneur 111

Entrepreneur Revenue Viral Networking 111

The Next Web

AUGUST 19, 2013

Being an engineer, I built myself a kind of algorithm that helps determine an early-­stage startup’s sales channels, and that’s what I’m sharing with you today. There is logic behind your thinking of how to determine which CAC is right for your business model. Well, then you’ve got to go viral.

Belarus 137

Belarus Viral Channel Startup 137

www.forentrepreneurs.com

FEBRUARY 2, 2010

I've been driving the implementation of systems to track these types of metrics at our company (fast growing, recently public), and also have spent some time on the phone with one of your early stage founders (Ellen) discussing the metrics we track and how we think about them at our company. All rights reserved.

Metrics 55

Metrics Design Entrepreneur Startup 55

Reid Hoffman

JANUARY 26, 2021

Even relatively early stage boards should be thinking about diversity, because they face particular challenges on this issue. And even if you can’t achieve board diversity during the early stages, you should be planning how to achieve it with your independent board members. This is why it applies to this company.

Startup 36

Startup Equity Early Stage Green 36

David Teten

DECEMBER 3, 2019

Data companies focused on early-stage startups include Aingel , fundsUP , Preseries , PredictLeads , and Sploda. Lean Case provides standard business models & metrics, so you can apply a standard approach to business planning, modeling, and profitability tracking. 9) Accelerate portfolio company value.

Technical Review 78

Technical Review Software Review Analytics Private Equity 78

Ben's Blog

MAY 15, 2020

Finally, we’ll zoom out and assess the big picture: how various categories of company may be impacted long-term, how this crisis compares to 2008 (and what that means for early-stage founders), and the industries and business models that are now prime for growth.

Founder 36

Founder Conversion Technical Review Cash Position 36

Both Sides of the Table

MAY 23, 2012

The mobile world brings enormous business opportunities and changes to business models that were unthinkable when VCs made investments ten years ago that produced the last decade of results. Look at the rapid adoption of Groupon, LivingSocial or Instagram as proof of how rapidly businesses can grow through viral means.

Venture Capital 347

Venture Capital Technical Review LP Mobile 347

Occam's Razor

APRIL 8, 2013

It means you're relevant to the business, and if your trip around the cycle is successful, you'll have helped the organization get closer to its goals. Another way to find the metric you want to change is to look at your business model. If it's the number of invites sent, it's virality.

Metrics 156

Metrics Analytics Lean Churn Rate 156

Reid Hoffman

SEPTEMBER 8, 2020

Needless to say, this isn’t a business model that works in the pandemic world. Frequently, however, you need to pivot your business model and find new ways to make money. Business model evolution is the rule, not the exception. Not all pivots are created equal. Some pivots are just easier to pull off.

Startup 36

Startup Silicon Valley Business Model Mobile 36

Hippoland

FEBRUARY 12, 2018

2) What is the business model and the potential unit economics? Certain investors tend to gravitate towards certain business models. I know nothing about viral marketing. I’ll pass on those companies, because I don’t understand these types of businesses well enough to get involved.

Seed Stage 48

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. I know nothing about viral marketing. I’ll pass on those companies, because I don’t understand these types of businesses well enough to get involved.

Seed Stage 48

Seed Stage Business Model B2B Email 48

Steve Blank

FEBRUARY 26, 2020

Keep in mind that there is no “one way” to raise money Different investors will almost certainly have different models, and different regions may have different math. For startups the early stage funding landscape looks like this: Step 1: The Pre-seed round – you raise $100-$750K. Business Model.

Cofounder 431

Cofounder Seed Stage Valuation Metrics 431

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. You have to know your business model.

San Francisco 168

San Francisco PR Lean Early Stage 168

Reid Hoffman

JANUARY 19, 2021

Signing an office lease might not seem like a board-level decision, but with early-stage startups, that lease might very well be a financial liability that significantly exceeds the company’s total cash in the bank. We should focus on this as an advertising business.” Reid, the game is engagement and advertising.

Startup 36

Startup Cofounder Advertising Hiring 36

Occam's Razor

MAY 2, 2017

We are a better humanity thanks to the work of journalists, I hope the industry finds a sustainable business model. I have a massive bias against the current click-bait, let’s go viral , “hot story of the moment” traffic. You’ll see my pet peeves about what media entities don’t measure in this cluster of recommendations….

Metrics 141

Metrics Acquisition eCommerce Analytics 141

Startup Lessons Learned

JULY 15, 2020

You're selling a consumable product, which is a great business model. A common test would be a viral entry or a viral attachment assay. On the one hand, I do think that there's a role for basically high risk tolerance faster, like early stage investment mentality and research and academia.

Technical Review 68

Technical Review Software Review Finance Technology 68

A Smart Bear: Startups and Marketing for Geeks

OCTOBER 24, 2011

So that means stuff like thinking about what a business model might be, it does mean customer development. Do you feel like the more users you have it helps accelerate, is there some kind of, maybe not necessarily viral, but that people just tell their friends at all. They have 27 business units. One of them is Mint.

Cofounder 208

Cofounder Technical Review Software Review Differentiation 208

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

Startup Lessons Learned

MARCH 21, 2013

If you're working on the Sticky Engine of Growth , you're focused on very different metrics from those that you care about in the Viral Engine of Growth. In the early days of a SaaS business, churn really doesn’t matter that much. Remember, though, that if you’re surprising your subscribers in a bad way (i.e.

Analytics 167

Analytics Lean Metrics Churn Rate 167

mashable.com

SEPTEMBER 14, 2011

Clearly Define Your Business Model While this may sound like a trivial task, young startups often have an exciting and innovative product, but no real plan for monetizing it. It’s critical to establish this component of your business before thinking seriously about growth. in place before you expand.

France 77

France Marketing Social Media Startup 77

VC Cafe

SEPTEMBER 8, 2022

To developers and technically minded people, it’s this cool thing, but to illustrators it’s very upsetting because it feels like you’ve eliminated the need to hire the illustrator” “I Went Viral in the Bad Way”, The Atlantic. And artists are expressing their frustration on Twitter: Fixing famous paintings with AI (?)

Colorado 104

Colorado Viral Early Stage Open Source 104

Reid Hoffman

OCTOBER 17, 2018

In fact, to achieve your aggressive growth goals in the face of uncertainty and change, you need to follow a new set of rules that fly in the face of what is taught in business schools and are completely counterintuitive to accepted “best practices” of either early stage startups or classic corporate management. Annual plans.

Finder 28

Finder Rhode Island Cofounder Engineer 28

Rob Go

JULY 11, 2013

I was asked recently how NextView evaluates such early stage companies for investment. As a seed fund, we tend to layer in “ capital efficient beginnings ” to the mix given our investing model and belief about the best way to build internet and software businesses. This tends to be pretty hit-or-miss, I find.

Distribution 66

Distribution Vertical Viral B2B 66

Cracking the Code

OCTOBER 10, 2008

You validated our business model and added huge value to our efforts. However, as we know from the cable industry, subscription businesses can be very profitable over time. Ramping up too quickly will burn precious cash reserve and could sink the business. Michael Kassing. Let me just say "Thanks". to acquire the client.

Software Review 48

Software Review North America Europe Metrics 48

mashable.com

NOVEMBER 3, 2010

Here’s an overview: Mitch Kapor: Kapor is founding partner of Kapor Capital , a firm that invests in seed and early stage startups. Brad Feld: Feld is co-founder and managing director of Foundry Group, a Boulder, Colorado venture capital firm that focuses on early stage investments ranging from $250,000 to $500,000.

Angel Investor 80

Angel Investor Startup San Francisco Social Media 80

Both Sides of the Table

JULY 10, 2011

We’re co-leading the $6 million investment with Roger Ehrenberg at IA Ventures in NY and one of the most respected early-stage investors in the country in “big data&# companies. Viral – One of the most important value drivers of any social network is the degree to which it makes content go viral. is hot right now.

Viral 307

Viral Las Vegas Tunisia Syndicate 307