Up and Running

APRIL 19, 2017

When it comes to starting and managing a business, forecasting your sales is essential. Having a sales forecast can help you budget and manage your business’s funds, create a plan for expansion, and avoid unpleasant surprises. The basics of sales forecasting. How to Forecast Sales. Don’t Want to Plan?

Forecast 85

Forecast Curation Sales Hockey Stick 85

Up and Running

FEBRUARY 13, 2017

When I asked the standard “How are you,” he answered: “If I see another hockey stick forecast this week, I’m going to throw something at somebody.”. That was so long ago that I had to ask him to explain the hockey stick metaphor. ” See Also: How to Forecast Sales. Growth is good.

Forecast 130

Forecast Hockey Stick Startup Sales 130

Startup Professionals Musings

SEPTEMBER 7, 2013

Build a business plan and model that is attractive to investors. I see too many business plans that are really product plans for customers, touting free services and long feature lists. It’s hard to build and scale a business on free high-support products. These are more likely scalable and investable.

Hockey Stick 278

Hockey Stick Intellectual Property Startup Non-Compete 278

Startup Professionals Musings

FEBRUARY 14, 2016

Build a business plan and model that is attractive to investors. I see too many business plans that are really product plans for customers, touting free services and long feature lists. It’s hard to build and scale a business on free high-support products. These are more likely scalable and investable.

Hockey Stick 120

Hockey Stick Intellectual Property Non-Compete Business Model 120

Startup Professionals Musings

JANUARY 11, 2015

Build a business plan and model that is attractive to investors. I see too many business plans that are really product plans for customers, touting free services and long feature lists. It’s hard to build and scale a business on free high-support products. These are more likely scalable and investable.

Hockey Stick 120

Hockey Stick Intellectual Property Non-Compete Business Model 120

SoCal CTO

MAY 19, 2010

In his recent post, Top 10 Ways to Win a Business Plan Competition , he says: #4 I wanted to push this further down the list, but I just bristle at this: the revenue forecast. My 4 plans get increasingly more incredible, ranging from $50M, $60M, $70M to $161M in year 5! These are so detached from reality.

Hockey Stick 205

Hockey Stick NPV IRR Valuation 205

Steve Blank

FEBRUARY 16, 2010

In my last post I described what happened when a company prematurely scales sales and marketing before adequately testing its hypotheses in Customer Discovery. You would think that would be enough to get wrong, but entrepreneurs and investors compound this problem by assuming that all startups grow and scale by executing the Revenue Plan.

Revenue 230

Revenue Balance Sheet Hockey Stick Burn Rate 230

Small Business Force

FEBRUARY 15, 2013

A recent story about the famed "Maker's Mark" bourbon, a privately-owned family business, set me to thinking about how few small business owners anticipate or have a plan for "success beyond their wildest dreams." Sure, you've got a business plan and it shows the proverbial "hockey stick" of growth.

Hockey Stick 37

Hockey Stick Dilution Viral Demand 37

Up and Running

AUGUST 21, 2014

You need to get to a point in your funnel where you have enough people coming in that you can get to that conversion rate that will get you the sales that you need to drive your business forward. Sales is obviously the company’s paycheck. As I was mentioning, sales aren’t free. If we increase our-.

Metrics 84

Metrics Startup Churn Rate Forecast 84

Professor VC

AUGUST 26, 2011

The objections range from "its hard", "nobody believes them" to "all hockey sticks look alike". To that last one, there is certainly some truth as the standard time vs. revenue chart in most business plans looks like this: Im not teaching Entrepreneurial Finance this semester for the first time since Fall 2007.

Silicon Valley 35

Silicon Valley San Jose Hockey Stick Venture Capital 35

Up and Running

MARCH 11, 2015

She is regularly invited to participate as a judge for business plan competitions, as well as speak on topics including entrepreneurship, angel investing, social media, and authentic self promotion. Needless to say, the webinar was absolutely packed with great tips on what it takes to pitch your business so that investors take notice.

Technical Review 60

Technical Review Software Review Due Diligence Exit Strategy 60