Startup Professionals Musings

JANUARY 13, 2014

This rather crude expression weighs heavily on the mind of all good startup founders, no matter how confident they appear. The real milestone, proving the business model, is that first product sold for full price to a total stranger, leaving him happy. Your revenue model has to make sense.

Business Model 248

Business Model Sales Customer Distribution 248

Steve Blank

MARCH 16, 2016

To most founders a startup is not a job, but a calling. Founders can now access the largest pool of risk capital that ever existed –in the form of Private Equity (Angel Investors, family offices , Venture Capitalists (VC’s) and Hedge Funds.). (BTW, What does this mean for startup founders? Here’s the thing most founders miss.

Liquidity Event 120

Liquidity Event Founder Liquidation Preference Venture Capital 120

Startup Professionals Musings

JANUARY 22, 2021

How do you convince investors that your business model will really work, before you have a revenue stream that exceeds your expenses? Even if you are bootstrapping your business, and you are the only investor, you should be asking yourself the same question. Plan for a real revenue model.

Business Model 414

Business Model Angel Investor Bootstrapping Revenue 414

The Startup Magazine

FEBRUARY 21, 2024

Arif Bhalwani is the co-founder and CEO of Third Eye Capital (TEC) in Toronto, Canada. The goal is to transform dormant or underutilized assets into active capital that supports your business. It is also the time to take a hard look at your business model. Are there new revenue streams you can tap into?

Technical Review 134

Technical Review Due Diligence Bankruptcy Intellectual Property 134

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. If you’re following Tesla, you might be interested to know that Sloan wasn’t the founder of GM.

Michigan 275

Michigan Cofounder Stock Forecast 275

Gust

JANUARY 5, 2014

This rather crude expression weighs heavily on the mind of all good startup founders, no matter how confident they appear. The real milestone, proving the business model, is that first product sold for full price to a total stranger, leaving him happy. Your revenue model has to make sense.

Business Model 171

Business Model Sales Customer Distribution 171

YoungUpstarts

JUNE 4, 2019

At Wildcat, we recommend benchmarking your startup against the four core architectural pillars of the Traction Gap Framework: product , revenue , team and systems. Revenue Architecture. A comprehensive revenue architecture should be designed to enable a startup to generate and monetize awareness, engagement and usage.

Framework 127

Framework Architecture Cleveland Early Stage 127

YoungUpstarts

DECEMBER 21, 2020

No surprise during an economic crisis, over 81% of business owners are prioritizing cash flow management and are identifying ways to cut back spending and increase sales, namely by moving services online. Diversifying revenue streams (35%). The survey found the top activities are: Increasing marketing efforts (41%).

Small Business 147

Small Business Cofounder United States Technical Review 147

YoungUpstarts

MARCH 4, 2014

If there’s a sure sign that shows how interest in online flash sales have waned, it’s how many daily deal sites have either deadpooled or pivoted away from that particular business model. In the News business model daily deals flash sales luxury travel Singapore TheLuxeNomad'

Flash 164

Flash Business Model Sales Singapore 164

Startup Professionals Musings

SEPTEMBER 4, 2011

This rather crude expression weighs heavily on the mind of all good startup founders, no matter how confident they appear. The real milestone, proving the business model, is that first product sold for full price to a total stranger, leaving him happy. Your revenue model has to make sense.

Business Model 244

Business Model Sales Customer Distribution 244

YoungUpstarts

MAY 24, 2019

At Wildcat, we recommend benchmarking your startup against the four core architectural pillars of the Traction Gap Framework: product , revenue , team and systems. Revenue Architecture. A comprehensive revenue architecture should be designed to enable a startup to generate and monetize awareness, engagement and usage.

Framework 113

Framework Architecture Cleveland Early Stage 113

YoungUpstarts

AUGUST 10, 2017

by Mark Gilbert, founder and CEO of MBS Accounting Technology & Advisory. Roughly 27 percent of startups can’t get the funding they need to take their business to the next level, according to the National Association of Small Businesses. Founders overlook how their salary looks to investors. >Investors

Software Review 124

Software Review Technical Review Due Diligence Startup 124

David Teten

JANUARY 19, 2021

More and more startups are pursuing Revenue-Based VCs , but “RBI” doesn’t fit everyone. From RBI, Flexible VCs borrow the ability to reap meaningful returns without demanding founders build for an exit. Flexible VC 101: Equity Meets Revenue Share. Where else can fast-growing companies get funding?

Cofounder 78

Cofounder Technical Review Equity Dividend 78

View from Seed

SEPTEMBER 18, 2019

Depending on the composition of the founding team, you might or might not have near-term holes in certain functions at the exec level – e.g. you’ll most likely need to bring on a CTO/VP of Engineering shortly after the seed round if you don’t have a technical co-founder.

Part-Time VPE 195

Part-Time VPE Seed Stage CTO Hire Forecast 195

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”).

Revenue 72

Revenue Developer Java Customer Development 72

ConversionXL

FEBRUARY 3, 2022

GrowthHackers founder and former Head of Growth at Dropbox, Sean Ellis , coined the term: “A growth hacker is a person whose true north is growth. The faster this process can be repeated, the more likely they’ll find scalable, repeatable ways to grow the business.”. The skills and mindsets of world-class growth hackers.

Retention 113

Retention Marketing Acquisition Channel 113

Steve Blank

OCTOBER 24, 2016

If you think the job of a CEO is to increase sales, then Ballmer did a spectacular job. He tripled Microsoft’s sales to $78 billion and profits more than doubled from $9 billion to $22 billion. If the Microsoft board was managing for quarter to quarter or even year to year revenue growth, Ballmer was as good as it gets as a CEO.

Azure 120

Azure Business Model Cloud Artificial Inteligence 120

Steve Blank

OCTOBER 24, 2016

If you think the job of a CEO is to increase sales, then Ballmer did a spectacular job. He tripled Microsoft’s sales to $78 billion and profits more than doubled from $9 billion to $22 billion. If the Microsoft board was managing for quarter to quarter or even year to year revenue growth, Ballmer was as good as it gets as a CEO.

Azure 120

Azure Business Model Cloud Artificial Inteligence 120

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. In Discovery startups take all their hypotheses about the business model: product, market, customers, channel, etc. What does this have to do with missing your sales plan?

Burn Rate 249

Burn Rate Silicon Valley Marketing Boston 249

Startup Professionals Musings

MAY 30, 2021

Yet there are big challenges to hyperlocal, at least for consumer-focused hyperlocal startups, according to Sean Barkulis, Founder of UPlanMe, whose initial consumer-focused business model was an early casualty, writing in Street Fight : Every site requires real curated local content to engage users. Look for new ways to sell.

Finder 361

Finder Startup Curation Seattle 361

Startup Professionals Musings

MAY 29, 2012

For survival, the objective of every business should be to bring in revenues which exceed their costs. Yet I continue to see business plans, or even talk to founders, and can’t find the specifics of the business model anywhere. Here is a summary of a half-dozen of the most common models: Facebook model.

Business Model 238

Business Model eCommerce Business Plan Revenue 238

Steve Blank

MARCH 17, 2020

But next the question is, ‘What happens to my business?”. The questions every startup or small business CEO needs to ask now are: What’s my Burn Rate and Runway? What does your new business model look like? Next, take a look at your actual revenue each month – not forecast, but real revenue coming in each month.

Burn Rate 436

Burn Rate Startup Valuation Sales Cycle 436

Startup Professionals Musings

APRIL 20, 2015

How do you convince investors that your business model will really work, before you have a revenue stream that exceeds your expenses? Even if you are bootstrapping your business, and you are the only investor, you should be asking yourself the same question. Plan for a real revenue model.

Business Model 120

Business Model Angel Investor Startup Bootstrapping 120

Startup Professionals Musings

NOVEMBER 21, 2016

They expect to hear about founders and team member’s prior experience in building a startup, and knowledge in the relevant solution domain. They know it’s especially hard to provide a financial return with a free business model. Sales projections are less than one percent market penetration.

Intellectual Property 120

Intellectual Property Valuation Technical Review Equity 120

ConversionXL

JUNE 2, 2022

DocuSign combines both to fuel its sales funnel. ABM is a company-wide strategic approach to finding and converting specific accounts that add long-term value to your business, both financially and through industry standing and pulling power. Alignment can make all the difference to a business. The result?

Lead Generation 94

Lead Generation Marketing Sales Cycle Campaign 94

Startup Professionals Musings

MAY 27, 2016

Investors look for entrepreneurs who talk about building a sustainable business, rather than highlighting the breakthrough elegance of the technology or the need for social change. Even social entrepreneurs need milestones, quantifiable results, and revenue to sustain their value. Plan includes a business model with good margins.

Technical Review 134

Technical Review Intellectual Property Due Diligence Angel Investor 134

ReadWriteStart

OCTOBER 2, 2023

It’s disheartening, but sadly, this is one experience that many startup founders face. I understand the struggles that come with being a startup founder. HubSpot : HubSpot provides a comprehensive user experience with marketing, sales, and customer service tools. Do you find yourself and your project in a similar position?

Design 105

Design Product Churn Rate Architecture 105

VC Cafe

JANUARY 27, 2021

We are taking the screen sharing experience to the next level, so that collaboration doesn’t get in the way of doing great work,” writes CEO and founder Tom Medema. Others are enabling sales calls (Demodesk), asynchronous communication (Loom), workplace training (Hone), and less-distracting communication (Focusmate).

Vertical 148

Vertical Video Technical Review Europe 148

NZ Entrepreneur

SEPTEMBER 29, 2021

Startup founders are our ambitious problem solvers. Addressing real world problems, they thrive in uncertainty, generating new jobs and new revenue streams in new markets. experiments to build a product, find customers, test business models and hire amazing people. Underpinning this growth is good governance.

Technical Review 88

Technical Review Software Review New Zealand Due Diligence 88

Steve Blank

APRIL 8, 2010

He and his co-founder were both PhD’s in applied math who believe they can make some serious inroads on next generation search. Why a business plan is different than a business model. Instead of writing a full-fledged business plan, they had focused on building and testing a business model.

Business Model 329

Business Model Business Plan Customer Cap Table 329

Steve Blank

NOVEMBER 16, 2009

In it, I got asked a question I often hear: “What if we have a web-based business that doesn’t have revenue or paying customers? And without revenue how do we know if we achieved product/market fit to exit Customer Validation?” However the Customer Development Model and the Lean Startup work equally well for startups on the web.

Customer Development 223

Customer Development Web Developer Customer 223

Startup Professionals Musings

NOVEMBER 23, 2012

This rather crude expression weighs heavily on the mind of all good startup founders, no matter how confident they appear. The real milestone, proving the business model, is that first product sold for full price to a total stranger, leaving him happy. Your revenue model has to make sense.

Sales 240

Sales Customer Business Model Distribution 240

ReadWriteStart

JUNE 1, 2020

Funding might be a need in some cases — but it’s not an absolute necessity. ? The business should be self-sustainable. The primary source of your funds should be your paying customers, i.e., your business should generate enough revenues and profits to fund the growth and expansion. Royalty based investment.

Startup 150

Startup Entrepreneur Elevator Pitch Seed Stage 150

Seeing Both Sides

JULY 11, 2013

I''ve been thinking a lot lately about scaling sales. . Before this occurs, the sales process is a craft or an art - custom-made by the founder or evangelist sales VP. How do I build a repeatable, scalable sales process that is like an industrial machine - not a crafts project? 1) Enterprise Sales.

Sales 50

Sales Technical Review Software Review B2B 50

Duct Tape Marketing

APRIL 18, 2024

With her expertise, she’s boosted hundreds of agencies to millions in revenue, attracting premium clients willing to pay 50-600% fees. As a former business exit advisor, she crafts exit strategies, adding up to five figures to clients’ net profit monthly so they can focus on growth. It's time to transform your approach.

Framework 64

Framework Sales Cycle Sales Hiring 64

Up and Running

SEPTEMBER 19, 2017

That’s because obtaining a pre-money valuation for a concept level technology company in excess of $1 million is difficult, particularly for a startup founder without a proven track record. By contrast, obtaining a pre-money valuation of $5 million for a business with a new viable product and even very minimal sales is somewhat reasonable.

Private Equity 94

Private Equity Pre-Money Valuation Equity Startup 94

YoungUpstarts

JUNE 1, 2019

In two of these three phases – the first and third – volumes of helpful information and numerous organizations are readily available to help guide and support founders of startups. These are the consultants and books that offer founders the tools and insights needed to “cross the chasm” ( as Geoffrey Moore put it ) and begin to scale.

Cleveland 150

Cleveland Framework Marketing Early Stage 150