Startup Lessons Learned

SEPTEMBER 22, 2008

Lessons Learned by Eric Ries Monday, September 22, 2008 The three drivers of growth for your business model. The AARRR model (hence pirates, get it?) He also has a discussion of how your choice of business model determines which of these metric areas you want to focus on. Choose one.

San Francisco 167

San Francisco CPA SEM CTO Hire 167

www.forentrepreneurs.com

FEBRUARY 2, 2010

Business Model I would like to propose that in addition to team, product, and market, there is actually a fourth, equally important, core element of startups, which is the need for a viable business model. For more on the topic of Viral Growth, refer to my blog post on that topic here.)

Acquisition 103

Acquisition Cost Customer Entrepreneur 103

Startup Professionals Musings

NOVEMBER 11, 2013

The discipline of writing down a plan is the best way to make sure you actually understand how to transform your idea into a business. Business model doesn’t make money. Even a non-profit has to generate revenue (or donations) to offset operating costs. Don’t quit your day job until new revenue is flowing.

Intellectual Property 251

Intellectual Property Startup Viral Early Stage 251

Startup Professionals Musings

OCTOBER 1, 2012

The discipline of writing down a plan is the best way to make sure you actually understand how to transform your idea into a business. Business model doesn’t make money. Even a non-profit has to generate revenue (or donations) to offset operating costs. Don’t quit your day job until new revenue is flowing.

Intellectual Property 274

Intellectual Property Entrepreneur Viral Early Stage 274

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. VC’s worked with entrepreneurs to build profitable and scalable businesses, with increasing revenue and consistent profitability – quarter after quarter.

Internet 334

Internet IPO Silicon Valley Agile 334

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 game has started getting some traction already, and has a good virality index.

Dilution 114

Dilution Revenue Finance Entrepreneur 114

Gust

NOVEMBER 3, 2013

The discipline of writing down a plan is the best way to make sure you actually understand how to transform your idea into a business. Business model doesn’t make money. Even a non-profit has to generate revenue (or donations) to offset operating costs. Don’t quit your day job until new revenue is flowing.

Intellectual Property 183

Intellectual Property Startup Viral Early Stage 183

Startup Professionals Musings

JANUARY 9, 2015

Perhaps the most famous bubble for startups was the dot.com craze that crashed 15 years ago, where the highest valuations were given to companies with massive user growth, but minimal revenue or profit. More than one smart entrepreneur has been caught in the lofty lifestyle of big money investors, viral growth, and movie star status.

Intellectual Property 120

Intellectual Property Startup Bankruptcy Viral 120

Cracking the Code

NOVEMBER 13, 2008

The fact that SaaS valuations are being more affected by the downturn than the Nasdaq can be surprising given the supposed resiliency of the SaaS model (recurring revenues) but it translates the public investors belief that SMB software spend is going to be hit very hard by this recession. multiple fell down to ~2.2x

Software Review 48

Software Review Technical Review Valuation Portfolio 48

reidhoffman.org

NOVEMBER 12, 2013

Friendster’s valuation set the tone for the entire social networking space. Press and analysts characterized LinkedIn in one of two ways: “LinkedIn is an interesting niche that might be worth paying attention to” or “LinkedIn is the Friendster for business”. we had no revenue. Investors see a lot of pitches.

Entrepreneur 111

Entrepreneur Revenue Viral Networking 111

Both Sides of the Table

MAY 23, 2012

Yes, it’s true that FOMO (fear of missing out) is driving some irrational behavior and valuations amongst uber competitive deals and well-financed VCs. The opportunity to transact at the point of purchase increases the sheer number of revenue opportunities. Businesses are also one-click from advertising through Google and now Facebook.

Venture Capital 347

Venture Capital Technical Review LP Mobile 347

Lightspeed Venture Partners

NOVEMBER 12, 2012

Season 4 week 9 of Sharktank was another fun episode, showing the importance of failing fast, being prepared for your pitch and how selecting an investor is about more than just optimizing valuation. And his business is taking on a very crowded market that has been around for a long time. Drive Suits. All entrepreneurs have passion.

Valuation 99

Valuation Post-Money Valuation Viral Algorithm 99

Cracking the Code

DECEMBER 16, 2006

It is true that the SaaS model faces some challenges like service reliability, data privacy, lower level of customization, integration with existing applications, vendor viability concerns. whereas traditional software companies of this size have a growth rate of less than 10% and revenue multiples of 2-2.5x. SaaS 13 Index Valuation.

Software Review 48

Software Review Silicon Valley Technical Review Software 48

David Teten

DECEMBER 3, 2019

Technographics vendors such as Builtwith , Datanyze , HG Data , Stackshare, and Stacklist help CEOs identify the right tech platform on which to build their business; they’re also helpful for investors to due diligence a company’s tech stack choices. Lighter Capital, a Revenue Based Investing VC, offers a Cost of Capital Calculator.

Technical Review 78

Technical Review Software Review Analytics Private Equity 78

Steve Blank

FEBRUARY 26, 2020

There are two reasons to raise money: You have a killer idea that is only partially validated, that you think can get to $50M+ of revenue in 5 years with 80%+ gross margins (if margins are lower, you need a lot more revenue)and you need money to get to product-market fit, or. Team, Product, Traction, Business Model and Market.

Cofounder 429

Cofounder Seed Stage Valuation Metrics 429

crowdSPRING Blog

MAY 8, 2015

What is the ideal size and make-up of a team for a pre-revenue SaaS startup? The Angel VC: Key Revenue Metrics for SaaS companies – buff.ly/1INSu29. Valuation As A Scorecard – buff.ly/1F0CUyC. Online Courses Accelerate Any Business Model bit.ly/1InOB3Z. – buff.ly/1EY9ktL. 1InLxVh.

Small Business 48

Small Business Design Social Media Startup 48

YoungUpstarts

FEBRUARY 14, 2017

Your revenues are declining or you don’t have any revenue at all! Revenues don’t appear overnight; even the greatest success stories had to work hard to start getting traction and growth. Yet if revenues start to decline, or after a few months customers are still leaving you for other solutions, then you may have an issue.

Technical Review 157

Technical Review Architecture Revenue Channel 157

Reid Hoffman

JANUARY 26, 2021

One common mistake is for entrepreneurs to simply select whichever venture capital firm is offering the highest valuation. For a business issue, I’ll say something like, “Here are three reasons why advertising might be this company’s most important business model. This is why advertising is a really good business model.

Startup 36

Startup Equity Early Stage Green 36

betashop.com

OCTOBER 8, 2012

It has been awesome, flattering, and humbling to see that post went viral and has been seen by so many thousands of people — mainly aspiring entrepreneurs — and has been translated into many languages. But, you can iterate and iterate on features, but you cannot iterate your way to a business model.

Technical Review 108

Technical Review Technology Software Review Valuation 108

Cracking the Code

OCTOBER 10, 2008

Be prepared to cross the desert - SaaS requires R&D and sales expense up front for a multi-year stream of revenue, so it demands enough investment capital to fund 4+ years of runway. Farming is also often overlooked, but can help grow customer accounts and revenues from 30% upwards (if successful). Great list! Michael Kassing.

Software Review 48

Software Review North America Europe Metrics 48

Cracking the Code

SEPTEMBER 2, 2008

The Deutsche Bank report has a very interesting chart on the topic presenting the Free Cash Flow margins vs. the revenue growth four years post IPO for select software leaders: As you can see, with 20% Free Cash Flow margin and a 50% growth rate, Salesforce is well positioned in the pack! SaaS 13 Index Valuation. My Investments.

Software Review 48

Software Review Software Technical Review Cloud 48