Startup Professionals Musings

APRIL 24, 2011

I just read the Q1 2011 report from CB Insights , which shows venture capital is back. Your friends and family are really the only answer until you have a significant revenue stream. Back to VCs, Silicon Valley venture capital firms are still the most active. Overall, investors put $7.5

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Venture Capital Revenue Elevator Pitch Silicon Valley 233

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.

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Customer Development Web Developer Customer 228

Steve Blank

SEPTEMBER 14, 2009

Over the same 30 years, Venture Capital firms have honed their skills and strategies to match Wall Streets needs to achieve liquidity for their portfolio companies. One of the biggest mistakes entrepreneurs make is misunderstanding the role of venture capital investors. What Do VC’s Do?

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Silicon Valley IPO Technical Review Venture Capital 235

Steve Blank

NOVEMBER 13, 2012

The book has been shepherded and edited by a great Japanese VC at Mitsui Sumitomo Insurance Venture Capital, Takashi Tsutsumi, with help from Masato Iino. We kept talking, with Steve asking “How long are you staying in Silicon Valley?” Maysee now enjoys hockey stick revenue growth. ————-.

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Japan Customer Development Developer Customer 302

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 216

Steve Blank

AUGUST 31, 2009

Startups don’t fail because they lack a product; they fail because they lack customers and a profitable business model. Look at the Product Development model and you might wonder, “Where are the customers?” Where exactly did the assumptions in our startup business plan come from?” before you ship.

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Customer Development Developer Customer Silicon Valley 244

crowdSPRING Blog

NOVEMBER 30, 2012

Start With a Business Model, Not a Business Plan | WSJ – [link]. The danger of waiting to long to find a business model? In Silicon Valley, Technology Talent Gap Threatens G.O.P. Special Report: Silicon Valley’s dirty secret – age bias | Reuters – [link].

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Social Media Small Business Central African Republic Design 100

Austin Startup

OCTOBER 15, 2017

What seems to be the best way to create customers and revenue may result in a business model that is out of vogue with the investment world and shortchanges you on enterprise valuation. In the long ago I spent a brief period of time assisting Pertec, the San Fernando Valley company that bought MITS and its Altair product line.

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Technical Review Software Review Nevada Silicon Valley 48

ReadWriteStart

SEPTEMBER 10, 2010

They already have several customers including some telcos, and are at about $350,000 in revenues. Gio expects to get to about $500,000 by the end of this year and asked me for advice on venture funding. Because customer financing equals revenue, not equity. Yes, venture capital is very good for scaling businesses rapidly.

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Cloud Silicon Valley Incubator Finance 115

YoungUpstarts

JANUARY 6, 2014

Once I had a few under my belt, I realized I was a start-up junkie, and founded Five Mill Ventures in San Francisco before I was 30. From restaurants to tech companies, I’ve seeded a number of new ventures with my own marketing know-how instead of just cash. But as an avowed startup junkie, I’m always looking forward to the next thing.

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San Francisco Business Model Silicon Valley Coder 154

Steve Blank

AUGUST 5, 2010

Consumer Internet investing seems to have split off from traditional Venture Capital, and is creating a new category of VC’s: Lean VC’s. Electron-based Venture Capital. When I first came to Silicon Valley the world of Venture Capital looked pretty simple. Here’s why.

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Lean Internet Silicon Valley Venture Capital 263

K9 Ventures

JUNE 12, 2012

I’ve written before about how Capital Efficiency doesn’t exist and is an oxymoron. However, there is an important corollary to the non-existence of Capital Efficiency and that is The Curse of Over Capitalization. Some days in Silicon Valley it feels like there are more investors than there are entrepreneurs.

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Venture Capital Silicon Valley Founder Seed Stage 117

Steve Blank

JULY 28, 2011

Silicon Valley was born in an era of applied experimentation driven by scientists and engineers. This approach would shape Silicon Valley’s entrepreneurial ethos: In startups, failure was treated as experience (until you ran out of money). Filed under: Lean LaunchPad , Teaching , Venture Capital.

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Engineer Silicon Valley United States Intellectual Property 284

K9 Ventures

JUNE 12, 2012

I’ve written before about how Capital Efficiency doesn’t exist and is an oxymoron. However, there is an important corollary to the non-existence of Capital Efficiency and that is The Curse of Over Capitalization. Some days in Silicon Valley it feels like there are more investors than there are entrepreneurs.

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Venture Capital Silicon Valley Founder Seed Stage 105

Up and Running

SEPTEMBER 19, 2017

That is to say, they’d want to be able to control costs and revenues at a high level. Takeaway lesson: There’s a reason that private equity companies tend to concentrate their early-stage investments among Ivy League graduates in Silicon Valley, and that reason is reduced risk.

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Private Equity Pre-Money Valuation Equity Startup 94

Steve Blank

APRIL 30, 2009

Luckily (or maybe because we were in Silicon Valley where there was a domain expert for everything) there was a very smart consultant in the retail computer space, Seymour Merrin, who preached about the importance of packaging. Steve Blanks 30 years of Silicon Valley startup advice. Worry about the sales results.

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Sales Silicon Valley RSS Las Vegas 120

Steve Blank

MARCH 18, 2011

The signals are loud and clear : seed and late stage valuations are getting frothy and wacky, and hiring talent in Silicon Valley is the toughest it has been since the dot.com bubble. With Netscape’s IPO , there was suddenly a public market for companies with limited revenue and no profit. Carpe Diem. Breathtaking Scale.

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Internet IPO Silicon Valley Agile 335

Steve Blank

JANUARY 4, 2011

I got smarter about the world outside of Silicon Valley, met some wonderful people who made me feel part of their family and shared some thoughts about entrepreneurship. This post is a personal view of what I saw in what I call “Chilecon Valley” — in no way does it represent the views of the fine institutions I teach at.

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Silicon Valley Chile South America Venture Capital 335

Up and Running

MAY 3, 2012

Entrepreneurship continues to be a sexy topic for governments, with every country worth its salt trying to create its own tech hub, mimicking Silicon Valley. Sean Seton-Rogers of PROfounders Capital recently claimed that of the more than 3,500 business plans they had received, his London, U.K. What is there not to like?

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Entrepreneur Technical Review Silicon Valley Lean 82

www.usatoday.com

JULY 16, 2012

Americas new business model: Sharing. The nation is in a sharing mood — and start-ups are capitalizing on it. TaskRabbit has (people) making over $5,000 a month in San Francisco," says Craig Shapiro, founder of Collaborative Fund, a venture-capital fund specializing in sharing sites. Game Hunters. Jinny Gudmundsen.

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San Francisco Technical Review Zimbabwe New York City 105

Duct Tape Marketing

JULY 26, 2018

Rand Fishkin: I think it’s a company that is striving for rapid growth and seeking to find a scalable, repeatable business model that works. John Jantsch: Isn’t that every business? Would you say that your business point of view in general has changed? What’s the basic revenue play there?

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Silicon Valley SEO Startup Technical Review 32

infochachkie.com

SEPTEMBER 24, 2011

There is an inherent conflict in a consultant’s business model and the needs of a startup. For instance, if a consultant proposes to help you with public relations, pay them a commission equivalent to the greater of a flat fee per story placed or a percentage of revenue generated from the PR coverage. from the Wharton School.

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Equity Silicon Valley Cofounder PR 40

Steve Blank

DECEMBER 17, 2015

Evangelos and I are working on what we hope will become a book about the new model for corporate entrepreneurship. Read part one on the Evolution of Corporate R&D , part two on Innovation Outposts in Silicon Valley , and part three The 6 Decisions to Make Before Setting up an Innovation Outpost. Silicon Valley, Boston).

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Silicon Valley Incubator Acquisition Business Model 120

Cracking the Code

DECEMBER 16, 2006

A couple weeks ago, I attended the 13th Silicon Valley Annual VC/Entrepreneur luncheon organized by NVCA. The guest speaker was a well known and highly successful Silicon Valley veteran: Tony Zingale, President and CEO of Mercury Interactive. Small and medium businesses. (2). Venture Capital. (3).

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Software Review Silicon Valley Technical Review Software 48

Steve Blank

OCTOBER 24, 2017

— Unremarked and unheralded, the balance of power between startup CEOs and their investors has radically changed: IPOs/M&A without a profit (or at times revenue) have become the norm. Typically, this caliber of bankers wouldn’t talk to you unless your company had five profitable quarters of increasing revenue. Board Control.

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Founder Technical Review CTO Hire IPO 274

ReadWriteStart

AUGUST 1, 2011

Silicon Valley was born in an era of applied experimentation driven by scientists and engineers. This approach would shape Silicon Valley's entrepreneurial ethos: In startups, failure was treated as experience (until you ran out of money). It provides private funds for untested and unproven technology and entrepreneurs.

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Silicon Valley Intellectual Property Balance Sheet Lean 118

Reid Hoffman

MARCH 19, 2019

What makes this tricky is that markets evolve, and an innovative technology or business model can transform a normal market into a Glengarry Glen Ross market. Google realized that being the way to find the world’s information was a blitzscalable market, thanks to the network effects in its AdWords revenue engine.

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Cofounder Business Model IPO Non-Compete 28

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. Can it scale?”

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Customer Development Developer Customer Silicon Valley 267

Steve Blank

JUNE 8, 2009

Innovation – Business Model? Business Development – What type of partnership or whole product is needed? Business and Revenue Model – How do we organize to make money? Steve Blanks 30 years of Silicon Valley startup advice. Others you need to know when you execute the plan. Technology?

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Vertical Silicon Valley RSS Marketing 125

Steve Blank

JUNE 22, 2009

We Changed Our Mind In 1966, 10 years after Hewlett’s memo, Hewlett Packard’s revenue and headcount had grown ten fold; $200 million and 11,000 employees – all from test and measurement equipment. For the first 25 years HP’s business model was static. Reply Leave a Reply Click here to cancel reply.

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Silicon Valley RSS California Agile 186

ReadWriteStart

SEPTEMBER 3, 2010

I asked her not to assume that investors will be investing in this business idea, at least not until she can acquire some level of validation, which means tens, if not hundreds of thousands of customers, and several partnerships with daily deal sites. Venture capitalists today don't exactly practice venture capital.

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Channel India Bootstrapping Silicon Valley 115

Steve Blank

JULY 2, 2009

Entrepreneur-in-Residence After SuperMac I had been approached by one of our venture investors to be an entrepreneur in residence (EIR), a Silicon Valley phrase which says one thing but means another. Peter described the first company in which “Hollywood meets Silicon Valley” and we were enthralled.

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Silicon Valley Technical Review RSS Software Review 120

Professor VC

JULY 31, 2008

The last blogger in Silicon Valley. This whole process got me thinking about the textbook business model. Similar to the textbook business, the music business BN (before Napster) was controlled by the labels. The artists received very little of album sales, but kept concert and merchandise revenue.

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San Jose Software Review Angel Investor Silicon Valley 28

SoCal CTO

DECEMBER 1, 2010

Storm Clouds - A VC : Venture Capital and Technology , November 12, 2010 We have enjoyed an amazing run in the web startup and investing space over the past five or six years. Competing To Win Deals - A VC : Venture Capital and Technology , November 7, 2010 The venture capital business is highly competitive.

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Technical Review Technology Product CTO Hire 175

Up and Running

MAY 28, 2015

There’s a lot of questions about what do you actually need in terms of information, if you’re going to do your forecasting, and how does one put together a revenue forecast if you’ve never started a business or your business is brand new. She’s opening a small deli in an office park in the Silicon Valley.

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Lean Business Plan Video Software Review 60

Lightspeed Venture Partners

DECEMBER 10, 2012

Revenue is driven by children’s parties, which cost $600-$4,000 for a two hour party for 15 kids, which apparently is the market price for kids parties in LA. The space can host 6-9 parties per weekend, and they generated $350,000 in revenue last year. By all accounts, the Coop is quite successful.

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Covenant Warrant Southern California Los Angeles 162

Reid Hoffman

SEPTEMBER 8, 2020

Needless to say, this isn’t a business model that works in the pandemic world. It might cater to new customers, it might solve a different need, or it might involve a different revenue model. Essentially, a pivot means that the business changes in some real way. WHAT LEADS TO PIVOTS?

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