Startup Professionals Musings

FEBRUARY 14, 2022

I see more and more entrepreneurs who seem to have everything going for them – vision, motivation, passion, even a good business plan, product, and money, and yet they can’t close customers. Nail the business model. Leverage your customer conversations to predict and validate your business model.

Angel Investor 359

Angel Investor Technical Review Incubator Business Model 359

Startup Professionals Musings

DECEMBER 14, 2013

Entrepreneurs always work hard to create an innovative product or service, but often count on standard seller marketing for sales. Kristin Zhivago, in her book “ Roadmap to Revenue ,” makes the point that the selling system is broken, since sellers no longer sell the way customers are buying. Don’t start from how you want to sell.

Revenue 263

Revenue Startup Technical Review Business Model 263

Startup Professionals Musings

JULY 1, 2017

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. It always reduces risk to plan your business first. Commit to a major customer.

Product Development 177

Product Development Cost Developer Product 177

Steve Blank

APRIL 12, 2010

He took a deep breath, looked around the boardroom table and then proceeded to outline a radical reconfiguration of the product line (repackaging the products rather than reengineering them) and a change in sales strategy, focusing on a different customer segment. The Search for the Business Model.

Business Model 332

Business Model Agile Customer Development Startup 332

ReadWriteStart

JUNE 8, 2021

After launching a new startup, you’ll be interested in growing the business as quickly as possible, thus generating more revenue, securing more stability, and improving your reputation as well. What Makes Employees Productive in a New Startup? So what is it that makes employees productive in a new startup?

Employee 127

Employee Product Startup Software Review 127

Steve Blank

JANUARY 17, 2023

Three types of organizations – Incubators, Accelerators and Venture Studios – have emerged to reduce the risk of early-stage startup failure by helping teams find product/market fit and raise initial capital. He had a track record of taking small teams and growing them into successful product lines.

Technical Cofounder 346

Technical Cofounder Intellectual Property Technical Review Incubator 346

ReadWriteStart

OCTOBER 2, 2023

They poured their hearts and souls into creating an innovative product fueled by the desire to make a difference in the lives of their target audience. Startup X reached out to a product design services provider, and with their help, they were able to turn their fortunes around. The good news is that there’s hope!

Design 105

Design Product Churn Rate Architecture 105

Startup Professionals Musings

APRIL 4, 2022

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. It always reduces risk to plan your business first. Commit to a major customer.

Intellectual Property 261

Intellectual Property Technical Review Incubator Bootstrapping 261

Startup Professionals Musings

JUNE 21, 2020

Some analysts argue that revenue drives growth, while others say user growth drives revenue. Google reached $1B in revenue within five years of incorporation, and now has a market capitalization of over $1 trillion. A business only achieved critical mass by becoming cash-flow positive. Both have worked.

Revenue 434

Revenue Valuation Viral Retention 434

Startup Professionals Musings

FEBRUARY 26, 2023

Every new business quickly realizes that revenue coming in every period on a committed basis is the Holy Grail to survival and growth. Based on traditional research, getting new customers is five to ten times harder than getting additional revenue from existing customers. Front-of-the-line model. Network model.

Business Model 294

Business Model Startup Cloud Curation 294

VC Cafe

MARCH 1, 2024

Eliminating middlemen in healthcare – from using AI to automate repetitive human jobs to exploring new and better business models for providing care. Iterating with intelligent editors – products that enable users to take an existing output and refine it (ex.

Artificial Inteligence 176

Artificial Inteligence Technical Review Software Review Generative AI 176

Startup Professionals Musings

JANUARY 16, 2022

Design a product or service that you can sell. Sure, you may need to give the product away for free to get traction, but assume you will have to sell something someday to get profitable and stay alive. MySpace, for example, boomed after launch for five years without a revenue model. So let’s take a look.

Revenue 297

Revenue Widget Angel Investor Early Stage 297

Startup Professionals Musings

DECEMBER 6, 2019

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. It always reduces risk to plan your business first. Commit to a major customer.

Finance 320

Finance Intellectual Property Technical Review Incubator 320

Startup Professionals Musings

FEBRUARY 8, 2023

Most business professionals I know have been conditioned to think of inflation as highly negative, driving up their costs, and reducing customer buying. I see it as an opportunity to find new ways to attract customers , make long-needed changes to improve productivity, and lower your own costs of doing business.

Technical Review 239

Technical Review Revenue Social Media Cost 239

Startup Professionals Musings

NOVEMBER 2, 2022

Plan to deliver a family of products, rather than a one-trick pony. Even a great initial product, with no follow-on, won’t keep you ahead of competitors very long. A smarter risk is to build a plan, with associated greater resources, that will put you in position to expand your product line and keep one step ahead of competitors.

Forecast 304

Forecast Stock Options Technical Review Metrics 304

David Teten

AUGUST 19, 2019

So you’re interested in raising capital from a Revenue-Based Investor VC. A new wave of Revenue-Based Investors (“RBI”) are emerging. I’ve been a traditional equity VC for 8 years, and I’m now researching new business models in venture capital. We have a special program if you are pre-seed and need product development.

Revenue 60

Revenue Technical Review Software Review Equity 60

David Teten

AUGUST 20, 2019

A new wave of Revenue-Based Investors are emerging who are using creative investing structures with some of the upside of traditional VC, but some of the downside protection of debt. I’ve been a traditional equity VC for 8 years, and I’m now researching new business models in venture capital. ” .

Revenue 60

Revenue Cofounder Founder Venture Capital 60

Startup Professionals Musings

MAY 23, 2022

New entrepreneurs tend to focus only on getting the product right, and assume that the right culture and ethics will come later simply by hiring good people. Building an ethical business is more than just compliance and meeting legal requirements, and it has big paybacks. We’ve never broken the law so we must be ethical.

Software Review 291

Software Review Offshore Entrepreneur Leadership 291

VC Cafe

FEBRUARY 21, 2023

It’s not just the competition against the incumbents and the large tech platforms that founders has to worry about, but most importantly is the company’s performance and product market fit. Understanding the benchmarks on conversion, retention, and churn for your business is therefore critical.

Retention 109

Retention Conversion Churn Rate B2C 109

Startup Professionals Musings

MARCH 3, 2023

Most technical entrepreneurs I know demand the discipline of a product specification or plan, and then assume that their great product will drive a great business. Serious investors, on the other hand, look for a professional business plan or summary first, and hardly ever look at the product plan.

Business Plan 280

Business Plan Product Architecture Business Model 280

Start Up Blog

FEBRUARY 26, 2023

1) A new technology + (2) A new business model If we only have one, the incumbents can usually adapt. They can plug the new tech into the existing business model. Or, they can revert the old technology into a new business model. Each time they sold the new tech in the old business model.

ChatGPT 90

ChatGPT Technical Review Generative AI Azure 90

The Next Web

DECEMBER 30, 2012

How do you monetize a unique business model based on users rather than selling an actual product? We have a very simple business model. We create the best experience for creating personalized books, cards and calendars then our customers pay us for these products. Diversifying revenue streams at Wave.

Business Model 133

Business Model Technical Review Advertising B2C 133

YoungUpstarts

JANUARY 30, 2015

Google is focused on expanding its already broad reach into the advertising market by increasing the span and coverage of its digital and mobile platforms, and the company’s 4Q14 results highlight how the company’s efforts to buttress its core services is paying off: Google’s revenue and gross profit climbed 15.3% billion and generated $4.1

Advertising 100

Advertising Revenue Mobile Intellectual Property 100

Steve Blank

APRIL 23, 2014

Most large companies manage three types of innovation: process innovation (making existing products incrementally better), continuous innovation (building on the strength of the company’s current business model but creating new elements) and disruptive innovation (creating products or services that did not exist before.).

Acquisition 332

Acquisition Intellectual Property Silicon Valley Startup 332

Startup Professionals Musings

MAY 15, 2019

Steve Blank via Flickr by jdlasica I see more and more entrepreneurs who seem to have everything going for them – vision, motivation, passion, even a good business plan, product, and money, and yet they can’t close customers. Nail the business model. Process myth: Why building a product leads to failure.

Startup 245

Startup Angel Investor Technical Review Incubator 245

Agile VC

FEBRUARY 5, 2014

This is a logical thing to do… when we started LinkedIn, my mentor Reid Hoffman instilled a mantra of Growth –> Usage –> Revenue which still holds for many consumer companies. This is especially true for those with a media / ad based business model (e.g. But B2B startups need to take a different tack.

Revenue 234

Revenue Product B2B Marketing 234

Startup Professionals Musings

MAY 8, 2016

Most technical entrepreneurs I know demand the discipline of a product specification or plan, and then assume that their great product will drive a great business. Serious investors, on the other hand, look for a professional business plan or summary first, and hardly ever look at the product plan.

Business Plan 120

Business Plan Product Architecture Startup 120

Steve Blank

SEPTEMBER 5, 2018

Reading the NY Times article “ Jeffrey Katzenberg Raises $1 Billion for Short-Form Video Venture, ” I realized it was time for a new startup heuristic: the amount of customer discovery and product-market fit you need to find is inversely proportional to the amount and availability of risk capital. ” Fire, Ready, Aim.

Lean 335

Lean Burn Rate Startup IPO 335

Startup Professionals Musings

DECEMBER 18, 2022

“I don’t have a business plan, but the technology is disruptive.” Investors are buying part of the business, not the product or service. They only want a quick overview of the product, not detailed features and patent secrets. Excuse the typos and cleanup -- I’ve been too busy to finalize.”

Business Plan 273

Business Plan Technical Review Angel Investor Social Media 273

Startup Professionals Musings

AUGUST 4, 2013

Many entrepreneurs work hard on the proof of concept (technical), but skip any proof of the business model (revenue flow). In other words, once they are convinced that the product works, they assume their price, sales channel, and marketing will bring in the customers. So how do you go about proving the business model?

Business Model 235

Business Model Product Advisory Board Angel Investor 235

ReadWriteStart

SEPTEMBER 9, 2022

It’s not an easy decision, but several factors need to be considered before deciding whether or not to build your own online B2B Marketplace or use an existing online marketplace — such as Alibaba, Alibaba,comGlobal , eBay, and SeeBiz — or sell your products or services on Shopify or Amazon. How to Sell Products Online.

B2B 131

B2B Developer Technical Review Business Model 131

Steve Blank

JUNE 26, 2014

We’re changing the order in which we teach the business model canvas and customer development to better-fit therapeutics, diagnostics and medical devices. The Lean LaunchPad class uses the three “ Lean Startup ” principles: Alexander Osterwalders “ business model canvas ” to frame hypotheses.

Intellectual Property 281

Intellectual Property Lean IP Open Source 281

The Startup Magazine

OCTOBER 4, 2023

Insights from market research enable you to spot both strengths and weaknesses in your planned business model – helping you steer clear of pitfalls while maximizing opportunities. Developing a Business Plan The findings from your market research should form the backbone of your comprehensive business plan.

Balance Sheet 113

Balance Sheet Technical Review Business Model Business Plan 113

Startup Professionals Musings

FEBRUARY 8, 2020

Plan to deliver a family of products, rather than a one-trick pony. Even a great initial product, with no follow-on, won’t keep you ahead of competitors very long. A smarter risk is to build a plan, with associated greater resources, that will put you in position to expand your product line and keep one step ahead of competitors.

Management 322

Management Entrepreneur Forecast Stock Options 322

The Startup Magazine

AUGUST 11, 2023

It is necessary to cover the early stages of product development, thorough market research, and other processes during the initial step. Seed capital is a component of the initial investments made in young businesses. The criteria change after a company reaches the growth stage when it is deemed to have attained product market fit.

Seed Stage 132

Seed Stage Technical Review Early Stage Due Diligence 132

Startup Professionals Musings

AUGUST 8, 2022

There is nothing wrong with a focus on making the current business model work better. Typical incentives give percentages of quarterly revenues and contribution as rewards for success. Assign innovation projects to production organizations. Decisions made lower down always get more buy-in.

Stock Options 277

Stock Options Incubator Framework Stock 277

Startup Professionals Musings

OCTOBER 30, 2020

Products that can be easily produced and sold via multiple channels, including the Internet, are more easily scaled world-wide. Minimize one-time sales in your business model. You need a stable customer base with an automatically renewing revenue stream, such as the subscription model.

Merger 386

Merger Acquisition Software Review Social Media 386