Steve Blank

FEBRUARY 11, 2010

In Discovery startups take all their hypotheses about the business model: product, market, customers, channel, etc. CEO – “Well, we’ve missed our sales numbers for the last six months.” What does this have to do with missing your sales plan? The CEO asks the VP of Sales to join us in the conference room.

Burn Rate 251

Burn Rate Silicon Valley Marketing Boston 251

Startup Professionals Musings

OCTOBER 16, 2023

There is no black magic involved in predicting the future, if you use these four simple steps, with my basic rules of thumb to keep you on the right track: Determine your margin on sales. Forecast sales-volume expectations. Forecast sales-volume expectations. Per-unit cost less cost of goods sold is your gross profit or margin.

Forecast 290

Forecast Burn Rate Widget Business Plan 290

Both Sides of the Table

APRIL 26, 2016

profitable and companies like Amazon who chose to focus on growth > profitability were not losing money on each book sale (ie they were gross margin positive). But often this doesn’t tell the whole story because often companies are also spending money on PR and other marketing activities in order to support the sales process.

Metrics 150

Metrics Cost Acquisition Startup 150

Both Sides of the Table

JANUARY 6, 2014

When you first start your company and raise initial venture capital your board probably consists of 1-3 founders and 1-2 VCs. In the first two years we were really focused on getting our product adopted through major channel partners like Commission Junction, LinkShare, Google, eBay, ShareASale and others. In the Early Days.

Technical Review 325

Technical Review Early Stage Software Review Los Angeles 325

Steve Blank

APRIL 30, 2009

SuperMac sold our graphic boards for the Macintosh through multiple distribution channels: direct sales to major accounts, national chains, independent rep firms, etc. But the computer retail channel was a large part of our sales. Her packaging class was so good that we sent every new marketer at SuperMac to take it.

Sales 120

Sales Silicon Valley RSS Las Vegas 120

Startup Professionals Musings

DECEMBER 2, 2022

There are dozens of sources to help you construct your business model, and a good example is a classic book by venture capital investor Elizabeth Edwards, simply named “ Startup ,” which is really designed as a handbook for launching a company for less. Sales/Marketing. Be specific on sales channels and marketing initiatives.

Business Model 256

Business Model Distribution Viral Green 256

This is going to be BIG.

FEBRUARY 22, 2010

VP of Sales, Monetate - Philadelphia, PA A finger hovers above a mouse button. Using Monetate Real-time Marketer, companies are boosting sales while slashing costs and time-to-market. The company is not just looking for a VP of Sales, but for a champion for all things sales throughout the organization. It wants to click.

Part-Time VPE 92

Part-Time VPE CTO Hire Engineer Sales 92

Startup Professionals Musings

AUGUST 21, 2021

In my experience, here are some of the key elements of that “second-stage” of entrepreneurship: Move from small investors to major venture capital. Switch your focus from product development to sales. Working with the media is required, both social as well as the press, through public relations and internal channels.

Merger 379

Merger Due Diligence SEC IPO 379

SoCal CTO

JUNE 9, 2010

Draw Your Ideas - A VC : Venture Capital and Technology , May 16, 2010 I saw Jack Dorsey give this talk at The 99% Conference last month. Through advertising or direct sales, these sites harvest intent. He’d wasted a year of his life and had a pile of stock options that weren’t very interesting. Tesla is not. It's a great talk.

Fractional CTO 248

Fractional CTO Startup Venture Capital Cofounder 248

Up and Running

SEPTEMBER 10, 2014

I’m a mom, a full-time sales manager, and recruiter. According to the Angel Capital Association: Angels (private money) invest in 55,000 startups each year versus 1,500 companies by VC (venture capital) funding. Entrepreneurs need to find a way to get traction (sales) without funding. I’m not your average angel.

Angel Investor 159

Angel Investor Technical Review Software Review Accredited Investor 159

Up and Running

NOVEMBER 15, 2017

Sales channel relationships. Botanical Bounty also needs to establish a strong sales channel with herbal supplement manufacturers, and should invest plenty of energy into building those relationships and establishing Botanical Bounty as a reliable vendor. Example SWOT analysis: Replay Plastics. About the company.

Botswana 148

Botswana Business Plan Oregon Distribution 148

Startup Professionals Musings

FEBRUARY 5, 2021

There is no black magic involved in predicting the future, if you use these four simple steps, with my basic rules of thumb to keep you on the right track: Determine your margin on sales. Forecast sales-volume expectations. Forecast sales-volume expectations. Per-unit cost less cost of goods sold is your gross profit or margin.

Forecast 369

Forecast Burn Rate Startup Widget 369

David Teten

JULY 12, 2012

x% of sales made today will be donated to __). I’ve donated lunch with me to some charities via this channel. ff Venture Capital recently hosted an event in its offices to feature two of its portfolio companies: MovableInk and Parse.ly. You can also donate your time and advice through charity website Charitybuzz.

Venture Capital 122

Venture Capital PR Technical Review Startup 122

Gust

DECEMBER 6, 2011

A medical device company, on the other hand, may need cash resources to pay for FDA testing, designing the prototype, manufacturing the product, establishing an inventory of the devices and establishing marketing and sales channels for the products. Center for Venture Research. Venture Capital. $20 20 billion.

Angel Investor 179

Angel Investor Venture Capital Valuation Software Engineering 179

The Startup Magazine

NOVEMBER 28, 2022

Mitul also has a tremendous knowledge of sales systems, having built and led global GTM teams of 70+ people in Sales (inc. Inside Sales), Channel, Pre-Sales, SDRs, Marketing, Customer Success, and Professional Services. During that time, he had key successes. Mobile phone technological advance.

Founder 150

Founder B2B Private Equity India 150

Both Sides of the Table

AUGUST 8, 2009

Traction can simply mean showing that you’re making progress with customers, product development, channel partners, initial revenue as a proof point, attracting well-known angel investors, winning industry awards / recognition. Tags: Pitching VCs Start-up Advice startup technology vc venture capital. Neither is the norm.

Technical Review 309

Technical Review Term Sheet Venture Capital Revenue 309

David Teten

JANUARY 23, 2021

The next best move is to build your core team, e.g., recruit an Advisory Board, Venture Partners, and EIRs. For ideas, see How Executives Can Work from Home with Private Equity and Venture Capital Funds. Treat this as a formal sales process, and aggressively maintain your CRM. . Lastly, gather feedback.

Private Equity 78

Private Equity Venture Capital Technical Review Software Review 78

Up and Running

DECEMBER 18, 2013

RocketHub also recently partnered with the TV channel A&E for marketing and funding help for their favorite fundraising campaigns. EarlyShares is a pretty sophisticated fundraising platform looking to compete with traditional venture capital firms. If you’re looking for an equity-sharing arrangement….

Kenya 119

Kenya Angel Investor Technical Review Software Review 119

Steve Blank

APRIL 9, 2009

Five Easy Pieces – The Marketing Mission After a few months of talking to customers , talking to our channel and working with sales we defined the marketing Mission (our job) was to: Help Sales deliver $25 million in sales with a 45% gross margin. The same was true for the Product Marketing group.

Silicon Valley 269

Silicon Valley Technical Review RSS PR 269

Haystack

JUNE 5, 2018

Not yet profitable but invaluable to developers worldwide, the decade-old company bootstrapped, differentiated from formidable competitors GitLab and Atlassian’s BitBucket, weathered leadership upheavals, and eventually ingested lots of venture capital which helped them weather the challenges they faced.

Acquisition 71

Acquisition Azure Open Source Seattle 71

ReadWriteStart

JUNE 1, 2020

Instead of funding, you pay the investors a structured royalty, which is a portion of the sales. Under this category, you have the angel investors who would invest their own money and Venture Capital or VC firms, who manage funds aimed towards specific startup sectors and stages. Royalty based investment. Equity investors.

Startup 150

Startup Entrepreneur Elevator Pitch Seed Stage 150

Transformify

OCTOBER 29, 2019

Phil started his career working in venture capital before getting into employer branding. Obviously, if you can find channels that lead to lower cost per hire, this saves the company money. So, hiring those 100 sales and ops people faster meant getting another $600 million of value to our shareholders!

Marketing 61

Marketing Software Review Hiring New York 61

Both Sides of the Table

MAY 19, 2010

Our guest this week on #TWiVC was Dana Settle , partner at Greycroft Partners , a venture capital firm with offices in New York and Los Angeles. The “private sale” market phenomenon was started in France by Vente-Privee (literally means “private sale”) and was replicated in Germany by BrandsforFriends. Time will tell.

Partner 240

Partner New York City Cofounder Syndicate 240

Steve Blank

FEBRUARY 10, 2016

Funding challenges and other issues founders face in the early days of starting up were the focus of interviews with the latest guests on Entrepreneurs are Everywhere , my radio show on SiriusXM Channel 111 (airing weekly Thursdays at 1 pm Pacific, 4 pm Eastern). Tune in Thursday at 1 pm PT, 4 pm ET on Sirius XM Channel 111.

Silicon Valley 120

Silicon Valley Ohio Columbus Entrepreneur 120

VC Cafe

MARCH 21, 2022

presents more than just another sales channel for retailers. The digital /virtual goods market is already a $190 billion market opportunity today, according to CB Insights. . Skechers is the latest brand to announce a virtual store opening in Decentraland ( Source ).

Startup 187

Startup Community Social Network Portfolio 187

YoungUpstarts

JUNE 27, 2011

Before every sale, new hire, big investment, or any other important business decision, take a moment to make sure you’re going after the best business opportunity and not just so you can say wow or you did it. As CEO, he grew it to more than 1,000 stores worldwide with annual sales topping $5 billion. Always have a fallback plan.

Cofounder 124

Cofounder Ohio Florida Technical Review 124

mashable.com

OCTOBER 16, 2010

The venture capital industry is facing real competition for the first time in decades. Not only that, but the growing battle between venture capital firms and “super angels&# presents an amazing opportunity for entrepreneurs trying to build the next big thing. The answer is the rise of super angels, Graham said.

Angel Investor 83

Angel Investor Venture Capital Social Media Technical Review 83

The Startup Magazine

OCTOBER 29, 2018

Consider Tesla, Warby Parker and Peloton, all of which use physical locations as storerooms to supplement their online sales channels. There is no one way to reimagine brick-and-mortar businesses, but a few successful examples do exist.

Technical Review 142

Technical Review Startup Social Media Green 142

Startup Professionals Musings

OCTOBER 18, 2013

Venture capital investments are returning to startups. Venture capital firms raised $4.1 Otherwise, sales, marketing, and operational costs will kill you. Next comes sales volume by channel. Holiday sales fluctuations eat cash. That should be true even if your customer is really a distributor.

Business Plan 215

Business Plan Venture Capital Demand Forecast 215

mashable.com

OCTOBER 16, 2010

The venture capital industry is facing real competition for the first time in decades. Not only that, but the growing battle between venture capital firms and “super angels&# presents an amazing opportunity for entrepreneurs trying to build the next big thing. The answer is the rise of super angels, Graham said.

Angel Investor 84

Angel Investor Venture Capital Social Media Technical Review 84

Growthink Blog

JUNE 21, 2017

Since business time immemorial predicting the needs and wants of our customers has been seen as an intuitive and dark art - truly understood only by genius marketers and sales savants. What Our Customers Will Want.

Software Review 69

Software Review Technical Review Acquisition Search 69

David Teten

JANUARY 11, 2020

But for B2B sales, meeting people in person is often mandatory. In the venture capital/private equity business, investors are B2B microinfluencers. PEVCTech.com , a community for investors and technologists responsible for investing in private companies, primarily at private equity and venture capital funds.

Social Media 60

Social Media Technical Review Media Private Equity 60

Steve Blank

AUGUST 31, 2009

After 20 years of working in startups, I decided to take a step back and look at the product development model I had been following and see why it usually failed to provide useful guidance in activities outside the building – sales, marketing and business development. So what’s wrong the product development model? before you ship.

Customer Development 244

Customer Development Developer Customer Silicon Valley 244

YoungUpstarts

APRIL 26, 2016

There is a multitude of marketing channels available to entrepreneurs. If you are on a tight budget, then you may have to limit your marketing efforts to a few channels such as PPC and email advertising. Several websites offer free and for-sale business plan templates. Here are five essential tips to keep in mind: 1.

Business Plan 100

Business Plan Intellectual Property Social Media Small Business Administration 100

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.

Lean 263

Lean Internet Silicon Valley Venture Capital 263

Steve Blank

FEBRUARY 12, 2015

You’ll realize you’re ready to exit the Search step when you have customer validation: You’ve found a sales channel that matches how the customer wants to buy and the costs of using that channel are understood. writing the HR manual, sales comp plan, expense reports, branding guidelines, etc.).

Startup 120

Startup Lean Venture Capital Advisory Board 120

This is going to be BIG.

MAY 19, 2010

They're going through their personal networks and around the typical hiring channels—especially since environment and people matter so much when you join a company. At the stage we invest in companies, they often have big gaps to fill—like someone to lead marketing or sales or be a CTO where there was just a couple of developers before.

CTO Hire 99

CTO Hire Hiring Portfolio Early Stage 99