Startup Professionals Musings

MAY 24, 2012

Starting a business is a lot like starting a marriage. Product development is stuck at that 90% mark, a key person leaves, and customers are talking but not buying. I challenge any startup to show me they have avoided all of these: One of the founders isn’t delivering. Sales aren’t meeting projections.

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Startup Professionals Musings

MARCH 6, 2011

Starting a business is a lot like starting a marriage. Product development is stuck at that 90% mark, a key person leaves, and customers are talking but not buying. I challenge any startup to show me they have avoided all of these: One of the founders isn’t delivering. Sales aren’t meeting projections.

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Startup Software Developers Software Development Business Model 245

Duct Tape Marketing

APRIL 6, 2022

Steve is the CEO of Founders Space, one of the world’s leading startup accelerators with over 50 partners in 22 countries. Founders Space was ranked the #1 incubator for overseas startups by Forbes and Entrepreneur Magazines. 15:05] Do you think that the no headquarters model is going to impact startups going forward? [17:14]

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San Francisco Technical Review Incubator Silicon Valley 96

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.

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Customer Development Conversion Developer Customer 126

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.

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Revenue Technical Review Software Review Equity 60

Cracking the Code

OCTOBER 1, 2020

Earlier this year, I was on a panel with Guy Podjarny, Snyk’s founder, at SaaStock Remote to discuss how the team’s community-driven freemium approach led to the company’s stellar growth. Here’s a short summary of the discussion: Guy, you launched Snyk in 2015, and a large part of your success was driven by your freemium model.

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Steve Blank

MAY 14, 2012

Any dispassionate observer would recognize that on Day One, a start-up has no customers, and unless the founder is a true domain expert, he or she can only guess about the customer, problem, and business model. Founders, presuming they know their customers, assume they know all the features customers need.

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Balance Sheet Business Model Customer Development Metrics 335

Startup Professionals Musings

MARCH 11, 2010

Starting a business is a lot like starting a marriage. Product development is stuck at that 90% mark, a key person leaves, and customers are talking but not buying. I challenge any startup to show me they have avoided all of these: One of the founders isn’t delivering. Sales aren’t meeting projections.

Software Developers 122

Software Developers Software Development Business Model Design 122

Steve Blank

SEPTEMBER 24, 2009

The Founder’s New Insight Smart founders are never satisfied with simply executing their current business model, they are constantly observing, orienting and deciding whether their current business model can be made better. It’s a natural part of learning about your customers and business model.)

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Customer Silicon Valley RSS California 218

YoungUpstarts

NOVEMBER 9, 2018

by Miron Lulic, founder and CEO of SuperMoney. Offering free access to credit at the point of sale (POS) is a powerful business-generating tool for companies of all sizes. Point-of-sale loans are increasingly popular because of lower rates and developments in expedited underwriting methods. Boost your sales.

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Finance Sales Programming Cost 157

Steve Blank

JUNE 25, 2009

Twenty eight years ago I was the bright, young, eager product marketing manager called out to the field to support sales by explaining the technical details of Convergent Technologies products to potential customers. So their management teams were insisting that they OEM (buy from someone else) these products.

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Technology Silicon Valley Fractional VPE Part-Time VPE 146

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. For a startup, having great sales DNA is a wonderful asset.

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Customer San Francisco Lean Hockey Stick 167

Austin Startup

AUGUST 20, 2017

Of all your hires, if you have commissioned sales people, those will give you the most problems if they’re not all given an equal chance to make their quotas and achieve their personal earnings goals. Kalanick, former investor BFF turned highly disappointed by founder behavior. Even for ISO’s, have you heard of form 83(b)?

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K9 Ventures

AUGUST 13, 2010

So the departments either didn’t have the capacity to pay or it would be an endless sales-cycle, where we would spend lots of time on the sales, but it still wouldn’t close. In the end the revenue simply wasn’t enough to make a sustainable business and so we had to switch gears once more (in today’s parlance that would be a “Pivot”).

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Revenue Developer Java Customer Development 72

YoungUpstarts

DECEMBER 18, 2014

Doing so requires creating a hybrid business model, one that prioritizes the need for innovation while keeping in play the best aspects of operational excellence — for example, its focus on relentless, constant improvement. Unfortunately, Toyota diluted that system in its drive for global expansion and global sales leadership.

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Hippoland

AUGUST 8, 2018

At Hustle Fund, we back both first time founders as well as repeat founders. One thing I’ve noticed is that almost every repeat, previously-successful-founder focuses on the same thing for their respective startups: customer acquisition. Product second. Sales cycles matter though. Marketing first.

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Hippoland

AUGUST 8, 2018

At Hustle Fund, we back both first time founders as well as repeat founders. One thing I’ve noticed is that almost every repeat, previously-successful-founder focuses on the same thing for their respective startups: customer acquisition. Product second. Sales cycles matter though. Marketing first.

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Founder Sales Cycle Affiliate Retention 48

Steve Blank

MARCH 11, 2015

And when we do make bets, they’re small bets on incremental products or acquisitions that simply add to the bottom line.”. Bob looked wistful, “Our founders built a company known for taking risks and moving fast. More agile competitors are starting to eat into our business. Often failure is the norm not the exception.

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Widget Lean Business Model Metrics 120

Startup Professionals Musings

JANUARY 12, 2013

Sites like KickStarter have for years offered rewards and pre-sales for crowd investments, but real equity won’t be legalized until sometime this year for people other than accredited investors. Minimum Viable Product (MVP). It suggests the minimum features to allow the product to be deployed and get feedback, and no more.

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Entrepreneur Accredited Investor Silicon Valley Angel Investor 274

Steve Blank

JANUARY 10, 2011

In a startup founders and the board need to do exact the opposite of a large company – failures need to be shared, discussed and dissected to extract “lessons learned” so a new direction can be set. The VP of an operating division had run into trouble in product development; the product was late and getting later.

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Forecast Agile Founder Revenue 271

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 256

The Startup Magazine

JULY 16, 2018

When we began this journey we anticipated that it would take more than one product to satisfy the market age range of 3 to 10 years old. We call this device Pipsqueak and you’ll find it for sale on our website. That is where all of our focus now lies in terms of product development and fundraising.

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Startup Texas Angel Investor Mobile 80

Startup Lessons Learned

JULY 29, 2009

Startups especially can benefit by using technical debt to experiment, invest in process, and increase their product development leverage. The biggest source of waste in new product development is building something that nobody wants. Leverage product development with open source and third parties.

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Technical Review Software Review San Francisco Lean 168

A Smart Bear: Startups and Marketing for Geeks

MAY 1, 2012

This is a choice that every startup founder must make , so I’d like to dig in deeper. To clarify the discussion, let’s use a simpler model: Companies A and B both sell products with recurring monthly revenue, and both brought in $10,000 in revenue last month. maximizing per-unit profitability). I disagree.

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Growthink Blog

NOVEMBER 2, 2016

The company’s sales manager shared some remarkable research that showed that while the “conventional wisdom” was that the company’s market space was in free fall and under severe “legacy” pressure, in actual reality the market was experiencing solid, and in some areas, unprecedented growth.

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YoungUpstarts

AUGUST 15, 2017

When managed well, your superusers can take a lot of pressure off your sales and marketing teams, while also building a rabid ‘fan’ culture that gives you confidence in making future investments. But first, you have to nurture your existing superusers while also developing new ones. Build a path to superuser status.

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Community LLC Customer Developer 124

infochachkie.com

SEPTEMBER 24, 2011

There is an inherent conflict in a consultant’s business model and the needs of a startup. If a consultant claims they can enhance your marketing efforts, pay them based on their direct impact on your incremental sales. Startups cannot afford such scapegoat luxuries. Pyramid Power. The larger the firm, the larger the pyramid.

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Equity Silicon Valley Cofounder PR 40

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.

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Entrepreneur Small Business Administration SBA Pennsylvania 60

Startup Professionals Musings

DECEMBER 14, 2015

Image via Flickr by Side Wages Some entrepreneurs forget that they need an innovative business model along with an innovative solution to have a successful startup. Inventors alone, or business gurus alone, generally fail. It really takes a complementary pair of founders to improve the odds.

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Technical Review Startup Angel Investor Social Media 120

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.) For example, How does sales differ from one market to another? Innovation – Business Model? Technology?

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Vertical Silicon Valley RSS Marketing 126

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).

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Software Review Software Delaware Forecast 74

Growthink Blog

MAY 10, 2012

If it's not your plan to get venture capital down the road, then you'll probably stop in Stage 2-receiving enough funding to boost your marketing, sales, and infrastructure to grow organically from there to the point where you are satisfied or ready to sell. Series B is the round that follows series A in early stage financing.

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Equity Mezzanine Later Stage Venture Capital 88

Duct Tape Marketing

NOVEMBER 1, 2017

Fascinating, something that obviously applies to the mammoth Netflix and Amazons of the world, but I think that this is an approach that actually might apply to just about any business going today and how to get them think completely differently about everything that they do in marketing. Check it out. So, this is the best way to do that.

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Cost Marketing Audience Media 36

Software By Rob

AUGUST 5, 2010

You’re a startup founder, whether actual or aspiring. Business books are a founder’s learning tool. The problem is that the premise of all of them – whether true or false – is irrelevant to you as a startup founder. Join nearly 6,000 startup entrepreneurs by subscribing to my RSS feed.

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Founder Startup Software Review Software 78

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. You can listen to the recording of today's roundtable here.

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Steve Blank

NOVEMBER 5, 2009

Chasing funding versus chasing customers and a repeatable and scalable business model, is one reason startups fail. Is there a profitable business model? The Traditional VC Pitch Entrepreneurs who pursue the traditional product development model don’t have customer data to answer these questions.

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Seeing Both Sides

AUGUST 3, 2012

To help shine some light on this topic, I’ve decided to do a series of blog posts of case studies of companies founded in the last 10-15 years that have made the transition from finding initial product-market fit to building a large, scalable, platform company. Scaling Akamai – Part 1: A Little Fat. Akamai Going Forward.

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