The Startup Magazine

JUNE 2, 2024

While at 3M, he reimagined the faltering pale-yellow Post-it note into the rainbow-hued, multiuse megabrand it is today and was also instrumental in the development of the company’s Scotch-Brite microfiber cloth, which has since become synonymous with scratch-free cleaning worldwide. “I Focusing on Your Sales Funnel With a Ph.D.

North America 98

North America Artificial Inteligence America Valuation 98

Steve Blank

SEPTEMBER 14, 2009

Underwriters realized that as long as the public was happy snapping up shares, they could make huge profits on the inflated valuations (regardless of whether or not the company should have ever been public.) The valuations for acquisitions were nothing like the Internet bubble, but there was a path to liquidity, difficult as it was.

Silicon Valley 235

Silicon Valley IPO Technical Review Venture Capital 235

David Teten

SEPTEMBER 6, 2018

HOF Capital has stitched together our workflow across Google Suite , Slack , Airtable , Asana , Copper , and some other tools (leveraging Zapier for basic 3rd party integration, in addition to custom development for certain other integrations). 9) Accelerate portfolio company value.

Technical Review 60

Technical Review Private Equity Management Cap Table 60

David Teten

SEPTEMBER 6, 2018

HOF Capital has stitched together our workflow across Google Suite , Slack , Airtable , Asana , Copper , and some other tools (leveraging Zapier for basic 3rd party integration, in addition to custom development for certain other integrations). 9) Accelerate portfolio company value.

Technical Review 60

Technical Review Private Equity Management Cap Table 60

Both Sides of the Table

APRIL 15, 2010

billion valuation. They only recently raised $30 million at around a $300 million valuation and THAT raised eyebrows. The investor isn’t disclosed (or I haven’t seen it) but it’s rumored to be DST, the Russian investors who invested in Zynga and Facebook (at a $10 billion valuation).

Venture Capital 271

Venture Capital Affiliate Valuation San Francisco 271

ReadWriteStart

JULY 21, 2011

They really wanted to invest, but it was the beginning of the bubble, and I wanted (what was then) an absurd valuation. All we had were six slides, and I wanted a $10 million post-money valuation. We had gone back and forth with them on valuation, but this was a new firm and they wanted to close a deal with us.

Post-Money Valuation 122

Post-Money Valuation Valuation IPO Venture Capital 122

Feld Thoughts

NOVEMBER 18, 2013

Convertible debt financings have become an increasingly attractive approach for seed rounds because it delays the valuation discussion, costs less from a legal standpoint, and is an easier financial instrument to “keep raising more small amounts of money” on. One of them used to be a lead developer at [insert hot consumer tech company here].

Burn Rate 152

Burn Rate Equity Software Review Early Stage 152

SoCal CTO

JUNE 9, 2010

Guide to Evaluating Startup Ideas - Tony Wright dot com , May 27, 2010 A great developer I once worked with was kvetching at lunch one day. They’re deep into Customer Development ,” he said. Valuation is an important aspect of VC deal terms, and a major determinant of your ultimate outcome. Innovative. Disruptive.

Fractional CTO 248

Fractional CTO Startup Venture Capital Cofounder 248

David Teten

MARCH 28, 2012

The company teams they work with are usually highly motivated entrepreneurs trying to engage in extensive product and customer development efforts for a product they don’t typically have a full vision of, for a customer whose needs are opaque, and for a use case which is ambiguous.

Portfolio 144

Portfolio Private Equity Venture Capital Early Stage 144

Steve Blank

FEBRUARY 10, 2016

Prior to founding Keen Home , Nayeem Hussain spent his career focusing on M&A, corporate development/strategy, and financial analysist, first at Prudential Financial and then at Loral Space & Communications. Keen Home appeared on the TV show, Shark Tank , in 2012, landing one of the highest valuations in the show’s history.

Silicon Valley 120

Silicon Valley Ohio Columbus Entrepreneur 120

Startup Lessons Learned

SEPTEMBER 22, 2008

The law of large numbers (of customers) says you cant help but make at least some money - your valuation is determined by how well you monetize the tidal wave of growth. In this model, you take some fraction of the lifetime value of each customer and plow that back into paid acquisition through SEM, banner ads, PR, affiliates, etc.

San Francisco 167

San Francisco CPA SEM CTO Hire 167

Steve Blank

APRIL 12, 2013

The first post described how China built a science and technology infrastructure to support advanced weapons systems development. These local governments financially supported the startups because, by locating in these zones, the new ventures were seen as contributing to local economic development.

Venture Capital 276

Venture Capital China Offshore SBIR 276

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. Underwriters realized that as long as the public was happy snapping up shares, they could make huge profits from the inflated valuations. Carpe Diem.

Internet 335

Internet IPO Silicon Valley Agile 335

Steve Blank

JANUARY 13, 2011

In November 2010 as part of my interview about entrepreneurs and Customer Development , the Shoshin Project also asked me about my thoughts on investing in innovation. They wanted some words of wisdom for their investment bank and hedge fund customers. Fast forward to today. Filed under: Venture Capital.

Venture Capital 262

Venture Capital Valuation Customer Development Video 262

Steve Blank

APRIL 12, 2013

The first post described how China built a science and technology infrastructure to support advanced weapons systems development. These local governments financially supported the startups because, by locating in these zones, the new ventures were seen as contributing to local economic development.

Venture Capital 168

Venture Capital China Offshore SBIR 168

David Teten

SEPTEMBER 23, 2017

produced this analysis of engineering representation within VC firms: Selected VCs with Highest Representation of Developers in Workforce. HOF Capital is currently developing a proprietary sourcing tool to automatically filter for potential deal prospects that fit our criteria. VC Firm. $ Tech % of workforce. Google Ventures (GV).

Private Equity 60

Private Equity Venture Capital Equity Technical Review 60

Steve Blank

JANUARY 4, 2010

In fact, Google’s offer for $15 Million was equal to the highest valuation from the venture firms. They used Customer and Agile development to search for a scalable and repeatable business model to become a large company. Customer and Agile development to find the business model. Size of the target market.

Hockey Stick 299

Hockey Stick Venture Capital Startup Cofounder 299

The Startup Toolkit

AUGUST 29, 2012

If the founding team is non-technical and you can’t figure out whether you are being screwed by your developers or whether your potential new CTO is amazing, a tech advisor can help by joining you in interviews and reviewing commits. Sometimes advisors are a quick and cheap way to overcome. And sometimes it’s super ambiguous.

Technical Review 38

Technical Review CTO Hire Cap Table Software Review 38

Steve Blank

MAY 13, 2010

They’re deep into Customer Development ,” he said. Customer Development is the process of how you get out of the building and search for the model. Customer Development is designed so that you the founder(s) gather first hand experience about customer and market needs. Here’s why. Lessons Learned.

Founder 226

Founder Cofounder Business Model Customer Development 226

Startup Lessons Learned

OCTOBER 28, 2008

Turns out, they were incredibly well-credentialed graduate students who had, in fact, developed some interesting new robotics technology. Most important slide: valuation Promising results Key questions: can you monetize that traffic? (or The Entrepreneur’s Guide to Customer Development ► June (3) What is a startup?

San Francisco 128

San Francisco Lean Continuous Deployment DC 128

Steve Blank

JULY 15, 2010

In either case Customer Development provides entrepreneurs with a methodology for being capital efficient. Being acquired has lots of math challenges about your valuation, amount of money raised, percent of founder ownership, type of investor, etc. You need a plan for partnership and long term funding from day one.

Venture Capital 303

Venture Capital IPO Liquidity Event Entrepreneur 303

A Smart Bear: Startups and Marketing for Geeks

OCTOBER 23, 2012

But all that investment in growth and sales force didn’t have a long-term payback, and the actual value of the product to small businesses wasn’t as high as claimed, even though the simplest of customer development reveals this fact (ask any restauranteur).

IPO 240

IPO Flash Bootstrapping Private Equity 240

Steve Blank

APRIL 5, 2017

Smart CEOs treat communications as a force multiplier for sales, a tool to dramatically increase valuation and the vehicle to get acquirers lined up at the door. Filed under: Customer Development , Marketing. Communications as a Force Multiplier. Not so successful CEOs treat it as tactic that can be handed to others.

Marketing 316

Marketing Audience Technical Review PR 316

Steve Blank

NOVEMBER 12, 2009

The presentation didn’t have a single word about Lean Startups or Customer Development. Reply Dan Hodgins , on November 13, 2009 at 1:12 am Said: Hi Steve, Just listened to your “Retooling Early Stage Development&# for about the 10th time tonight as I was cleaning my room. Your results may vary.

Venture Capital 239

Venture Capital Silicon Valley RSS Hockey Stick 239

View from Seed

JANUARY 28, 2016

This is the best time to fundraise because that’s when you are able to command a meaningfully higher valuation for your next round to minimize your own dilution. Third, we look for founders that are customer obsessed, and are inclined to do the careful work of customer development that makes the pre-seed really productive.

Cofounder 120

Cofounder Finance Founder Syndicate 120

Rob Go

JULY 16, 2012

What many of the insights around Customer Development have been really impactful to my thinking, there is something that has always bothered me as the “Lean Startup Movement” has gotten more and more formulaic. Similarly, I have an unfinished blog post in my drafts folder about how “traction” is overvalued.

Lean 47

Lean Framework Venture Capital Valuation 47

The Startup Toolkit

JANUARY 12, 2017

Learning in advance that you don’t need to build a feature is one of the highest-impact (and most common) results of good customer development. It’s why talking to customers is able to speed you up, even though it feels like it’s slowing you down at the time (“But we could be coooooodiiiiiiiing!

Stealth 20

Stealth Bootstrapping Valuation Equity 20

The Next Web

DECEMBER 30, 2012

These are with no doubt worthwhile goals, but I’d like to pose an important challenge for founders: Make learning and development your key resolution in 2013. How to Build a Startup (EP245) by Steve Blank: You’ll learn the key steps of the Customer Development process. Learn to Develop an iPhone or iPad App in 4 Weeks.

Artificial Inteligence 156

Artificial Inteligence Founder Private Equity Ruby 156

Rob Go

JANUARY 28, 2016

This is the best time to fundraise because that’s when you are able to command a meaningfully higher valuation for your next round to minimize your own dilution. Third, we look for founders that are customer obsessed, and are inclined to do the careful work of customer development that makes the pre-seed really productive.

Cofounder 28

Cofounder Finance Founder Syndicate 28

grasshopperherder.com

SEPTEMBER 24, 2011

Valuations. I was approached with one sweat equity offer that placed the valuation of the company at >$5 million pre-money and before even a seed round of funding. I would be very wary of accepting a valuation like this, simply because I’m not qualified and as a consultant, I shouldn’t have to be. Unseen Metrics.

Sweat Equity 41

Sweat Equity Equity Cofounder Non-Compete 41

ReadWriteStart

MARCH 27, 2011

This is lean development without any customer development. The development part is similar to a lean startup: you want to be agile. The development part is similar to a lean startup: you want to be agile. For example, it could be a successful single app or game. The focus is on building. 1: Find a Simple Idea.

Lean 144

Lean Startup Agile Coder 144

SoCal CTO

JANUARY 5, 2011

First Principles. Steve Blank , January 25, 2010 10 Tips for Adding Game Mechanics to a Non-Gaming Service - ReadWriteStart , September 21, 2010 Startups & VCs: Learn How to Design, Market, & Eat Your Own. -

Silicon Valley 378

Silicon Valley Startup Term Sheet Venture Capital 378

Steve Blank

MAY 9, 2017

Defense and Intelligence organizations drove the pace of innovation in Silicon Valley by providing research and development dollars to universities, and defense companies built weapons systems that used the Valley’s first microwave devices and semiconductor components. and there were no books, blogs or YouTube videos about entrepreneurship.

Restful 243

Restful Silicon Valley Puerto Rico San Jose 243

steveblank.com

JULY 8, 2011

signup, upgrade, trial pricing Zuora – online subscription management FeeFighters – find the cheapest credit card processors HealPay – Collections made easy Customer Support Tender – support, knowledgebase tool for your site GetSatisfaction - conversations between companies / customers.

Software Review 110

Software Review Startup Silicon Valley Analytics 110

www.quora.com

JANUARY 16, 2011

3d - developer, designer and distributor. You can argue that the DNA created by Microsoft's over emphasis on distribution (Steve) and development (Bill), has ultimately cost it $50bn or more in lost revenue, market share and market capitalization. They are many more examples. They are indispensable and the foundation for success.

Technical Review 51

Technical Review Startup CTO Hire Cofounder 51

www.vccafe.com

MARCH 11, 2013

Steve Blank on Lean Customer Development. s helpful to find an developer tool that allows you to write html/css and renders the view in real time, so you donâ??t Firebase : Are all your developers front-end engineers? s easier to use/develop with. Mobile Tools: If you are a web developer, you donâ??t

Software Review 53

Software Review Technical Review Startup 53