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. RBI normally requires founders to pay back their investors with a fixed percentage of revenue until they have finished providing the investor with a fixed return on capital, which they agree upon in advance.

Revenue 60

Revenue Technical Review Software Review Equity 60

Up and Running

JULY 2, 2014

Picking the right attorney in your startup is as important as picking the right business partner. You can’t underestimate the importance of selecting an attorney who “gets” your business model, your market opportunity, and most importantly, your fundraising and exit strategy. The deal we made with him was he’d get 33.3%

Technical Review 118

Technical Review Angel Investor Due Diligence Dilution 118

ConversionXL

SEPTEMBER 6, 2013

Steve Blank, a serial entrepreneur in Silicon Valley, developed a methodology for creating businesses that runs in parallel with the traditional product development process. The core idea behind customer development is that the assumptions you make about a target market are only guesses. Pivot the product entirely.

Customer Development 126

Customer Development Conversion Developer Customer 126

www.informationarbitrage.com

FEBRUARY 24, 2010

Main February 23, 2010 Advice for CTO Founders: Dont Let Business Kill the Business Founding a technology company is an amazing thing. Too often, however, I have found CTO / Founders paired with business people who not only don't add value, but frequently detract from the value of the business.

CTO Hire 40

CTO Hire Founder Cap Table Vesting 40

Austin Startup

AUGUST 20, 2017

Messy cap tables can come back to haunt you when you do a financing or sell the company. Kalanick, former investor BFF turned highly disappointed by founder behavior. Usually the founders duke it out among themselves as to titles and responsibilities and relative shareholdings. Even for ISO’s, have you heard of form 83(b)?

Technical Review 48

Technical Review Software Review Cap Table Securities and Exchange Commission 48

VC Cafe

FEBRUARY 27, 2024

A founder asked me what makes a $2M round “pre-seed”? especially if the startup already has a product and revenue? While the answers are somewhat semantic, the pre-seed funding round is making a comeback in 2024 startup financing. We’d like to see that the relevant functions are covered (who’s writing code?

Valuation 186

Valuation Software Review Generative AI Technical Review 186

ReadWriteStart

JANUARY 27, 2011

And, oh by the way, we also really like the idea of the 1M/1M entrepreneurs building valuation and negotiating leverage through these business development efforts, instead of signing off large chunks of their company in form of equity early on. The business is already profitable with $2.9 million in revenue.

Dilution 114

Dilution Revenue Finance Entrepreneur 114

Startup Lessons Learned

APRIL 14, 2009

What matters is proving the viability of the company’s business model, what investors call “traction.&# It should be even more important to the founders themselves, because it demonstrates that their business hypothesis is grounded in reality. And what of the product development team?

Customer 167

Customer San Francisco Lean Hockey Stick 167

Steve Blank

MAY 18, 2009

What makes an individual a great startup founder (versus an employee) has been something I had been thinking about since I retired. A Day in the Life of A Founder For those of you who’ve never started a company, let me assure you that it never happens like the pleasant articles you read in business magazines or in case studies.

Founder 297

Founder Silicon Valley RSS China 297

ReadWriteStart

JUNE 29, 2020

Wikipedia.com defines a “startup company (startup or startup) is an entrepreneurial venture which is typically a newly emerged, fast-growing business that aims to meet a marketplace need by developing a viable business model around an innovative product, service, process, or a platform.”.

Bootstrapping 85

Bootstrapping Global Startup Hungary 85

Up and Running

JULY 24, 2015

On Bplans, you’ll find templates, free eBooks, and articles on how to plan and start your business. Business Model Generation. This website offers a downloadable worksheet called a business model canvas that helps you think through your business idea. Founders Workbench. Product development.

Entrepreneur 60

Entrepreneur Small Business Administration SBA Pennsylvania 60

Growthink Blog

MAY 10, 2012

Mezzanine Financing Most companies that raise equity capital and are eventually acquired or go public receive multiple rounds of financing first. No right or wrong answer here, but if this is your vision then it's important to consider when negotiating deal terms on earlier stage financing rounds. Seed Funding 3.

Equity 88

Equity Mezzanine Later Stage Venture Capital 88

Steve Blank

JUNE 8, 2009

Execution by Vertical Market As the class progressed, students asked how the activities/functions of a startup; (Sales, Marketing, Business Development, Product Development, etc.) Is marketing different if you’re in the cleantech business versus medical devices? Innovation – Business Model?

Vertical 122

Vertical Silicon Valley RSS Marketing 122

Growthink Blog

NOVEMBER 2, 2016

And more excitedly, through the development of a new product with a market potential many times greater than the company’s current core offering. It was also meandering, energy was fruitlessly expended on ideas without reasonable probability of success, and was distracted throughout (pleasantly so!)

Conversion 48

Conversion Los Angeles Europe Acquisition 48

Steve Blank

NOVEMBER 5, 2009

Unfortunately in early stage startups the drive for financing hijacks the corporate DNA and becomes the raison d’etre of the company. Chasing funding versus chasing customers and a repeatable and scalable business model, is one reason startups fail. Is there a profitable business model? How many are there?

Customer Development 262

Customer Development Developer Customer Silicon Valley 262

SoCal CTO

DECEMBER 1, 2010

Equity-Only CTO and Equity-Only Developers - SoCal CTO , November 1, 2010 I had a recent email dialog with the founder of a company looking for a CTO for their startup. And I tried to evaluate the idea and figure out: What did the founder really need here? Was it a Startup Founder Developer Gap ? So what gives?

Technical Review 175

Technical Review Technology Product CTO Hire 175

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

JUNE 21, 2010

Many startups don’t innovate at all in the product dimension, but use other kinds of innovation: repurposing an existing technology for a new use, devising a new business model that unlocks value that was previously hidden, or even simply bringing a product or service to a new location or set of customers previously underserved.

San Francisco 168

San Francisco Startup Lean Continuous Deployment 168

conversionxl.com

SEPTEMBER 10, 2013

Steve Blank, a serial entrepreneur in Silicon Valley, developed a methodology for creating businesses that runs in parallel with the traditional product development process. The core idea behind customer development is that the assumptions you make about a target market are only guesses. Pivot the product entirely.

Customer Development 60

Customer Development Conversion Developer Customer 60

The Next Web

AUGUST 26, 2012

Remember that raising money in itself is not the purpose; it’s about creating an organization that can fully focus on finding retention and a working business model that can later on scale. As a founder, your job is to build an incredible team full of talented people, and give them the input, help, resources and advice where needed.

Bankruptcy 121

Bankruptcy Technical Review Intellectual Property Due Diligence 121

A Smart Bear: Startups and Marketing for Geeks

MARCH 11, 2014

Welcome back to Smart Bear Live … the show were Jason speaks with entrepreneurs looking to improve their businesses. Listen to this episode if you want to hear about a founder who has a product and users and paying customers … and is trying to figure out how to take his company to the next level and grow faster.

Technical Cofounder 220

Technical Cofounder Cofounder Software Review Management 220

View from Seed

FEBRUARY 27, 2019

Many founders have to turn to brute force to figure it out, even when they themselves don’t have practitioner product management experience. However, managing product development correctly is incredibly important in the earliest days and can make or break your company. How do you think about these top company priorities?

Hiring 120

Hiring Bandwidth Product Early Stage 120

maplebutter.com

JANUARY 8, 2013

what are the most crucial steps to be taken by a new tech startup when outsourcing major part of the tech to IT firms or outsourcing “product development” eg new social media website project? Near shoring development with your team (ex: your team is based in Canada / India) is cool, but not outsourcing.

Technical Review 44

Technical Review Startup Cofounder Software Review 44

Startup Lessons Learned

MAY 7, 2009

Initially, IMVU sought to quickly build a product that would prove out the soundness of their ideas and test the validity of their business model. The Entrepreneur’s Guide to Customer Development ► June (3) What is a startup? No departments The Five Whys for Startups (for Harvard Business R.

Continuous Deployment 131

Continuous Deployment San Francisco Software Review Lean 131

Growthink Blog

JANUARY 24, 2018

billion in revenues last year, mostly in the greek yogurt category, is well-deserving of our admiration for its products, its growth, and uniquely high level of ethnic diversity among its workforce. One Wisdom: In so many market spaces, speed of product development, deployment, and marketing is the key success factor.

Artificial Inteligence 48

Artificial Inteligence San Francisco Valuation Reputation 48

Startup Lessons Learned

JANUARY 28, 2009

Because, unless you are working in an extremely static environment, your product development team is learning and getting better all the time. Compounding is not a process that most people find intuitive, and thats as true in engineering as it is in finance, so it requires a lot of encouragement in the early days to stay the course.

San Francisco 79

San Francisco Lean Continuous Deployment DC 79

Steve Blank

MAY 9, 2017

The second thing that’s changed is that we’re now Compressing the Product Development Cycle. In the 20 th century startups I was part of, the time to build a first product release was measured in years as we turned out the founder’s vision of what customers wanted. Today startups build products differently.

Restful 222

Restful Silicon Valley Puerto Rico San Jose 222

Seeing Both Sides

JANUARY 13, 2015

People: founder-run and trying to recruit amazing technical talent (the product development team is a huge priority at this stage) and integrate a few senior managers to help prepare the company for scale - which leads to cultural clashes and communication challenges. Financing: The "hopes and dreams" financing stage is over.

Mezzanine 20

Mezzanine IPO Finance Business Model 20

www.quora.com

JANUARY 16, 2011

Find Questions, Topics and People Add Question Add Question Team Configuration 500 Startups Guerilla Marketing Organizations Entrepreneurship Startup Founders & Entrepreneurs Startups Startup Incubators and Seed Programs Seedcamp Y Combinator TechStars Lean Startups What is the perfect startup team? Lakshman Prasad • Nov 16, 2010.

Technical Review 51

Technical Review Startup CTO Hire Cofounder 51

steveblank.com

JULY 8, 2011

AgileZen – project management visually see and interact with your work Kanbanery – Simple online team or personal kanban board LeanKit Kanban – Great for visualizing work of product development Kanban Pad – “Nice and lean” and free online Kanban tool Banana Scrum – A tool simple as Scrum itself.

Software Review 110

Software Review Startup Silicon Valley Analytics 110

ConversionXL

APRIL 3, 2019

Go beyond standard sources of voice of customer data ; better options are: Interview founders (the original “customers”); Thank-you page surveys; Usertesting.com; Mine sales calls; Mine support tickets; Mine Facebook comments ; Mine online reviews. Founder interviews can find the story, the value proposition , and the big idea.

Artificial Inteligence 114

Artificial Inteligence Technical Review Metrics SEO 114

www.vccafe.com

MARCH 11, 2013

.” Hackernews list of “Tools of the Trade” for startups - includes over 150 SaaS tools used by startups, and over 150 comments with interesting insights from founders. Great for visualizing work of product development. easy business finance software. model legal documents. Startup Threads.

Software Review 53

Software Review Technical Review Startup 53