Feld Thoughts

NOVEMBER 18, 2013

Here’s the punchline: if you run your company as if you have closed a VC equity financing round even though you actually closed a convertible debt round, you’ll be in much better shape when it comes time to raise your Series A financing. So why would you treat your debt investors (somewhat) like equity investors?

Burn Rate 152

Burn Rate Equity Software Review Early Stage 152

The Equity Kicker

SEPTEMBER 24, 2014

I wrote the post below for Crowdcube , one of the UK’s leading equity crowdfuding sites. Two developments have changed the face of startup investing in the UK in recent years. The first development is increased capital efficiency. I could give lots of examples but perhaps the best is the way we work with solo-founders.

Early Stage 119

Early Stage Development Team Review Technical Review Software Review 119

www.instigatorblog.com

OCTOBER 23, 2010

Changing Equity Structures for Early Startup Employees Tweet Recently someone asked me for advice on how much equity they should give to their early employees. David Crow just posted about this very topic: Founders vs. Early Employees and shows the Venture Hacks chart. But I also told him that I though the numbers were wrong.

Equity 41

Equity Employee Startup Vesting 41

The Equity Kicker

MARCH 3, 2014

When I started with Forward Partners I went out to speak with a bunch of our target customers, entrepreneurs, and I learned a bunch of stuff which helped shape our strategy of empowering great entrepreneurs with minority stake investments and real-world useful help – but I’d have learned much more if I’d read this book first.

Customer Development 94

Customer Development Developer Customer Hosting 94

Steve Blank

APRIL 14, 2013

Even though they’re next to Zhongguancun, the hottest place for startups in China, there seems to be a lower appetite for risk, a lack of interest in equity (instead optimizing for a high salary) and very little loyalty to any one company. ” A good number of startups in Beijing seem driven by the VCs – and not the founders.

China 327

China Silicon Valley Non-Compete Intellectual Property 327

viniciusvacanti.com

SEPTEMBER 7, 2010

Home About Contact Me How To Make It as a First-Time Entrepreneur Vinicius Vacanti Guide to Finding a Technical Co-Founder September 7, 2010 | View Comments Steve Job's Technical Co-Founder “I’ve got this HUGE idea. I just need to find a technical co-founder.&# So, why should they pick you? Have Experience.

Cofounder 43

Cofounder Technical Cofounder Founder Ruby 43

Steve Blank

JUNE 12, 2020

This was followed by an 8-minute slide presentation describing their customer discovery journey over the 10-weeks. All the teams used the Mission Model Canvas , (videos here ) Customer Development and Agile Engineering to build Minimal Viable Products, but all of their journeys were unique. He runs H4X Labs.

Oakland 313

Oakland Asia Lean Video 313

Hunter Walker

FEBRUARY 20, 2021

You don’t even need to do anything and we’ll give you equity. Great founders are always recruiting. It doesn’t have to be a huge commitment on their part (or significant equity), but just start giving them some tie to your startup and some incentive to maintain the relationship. Can we put you as an advisor in our deck?

Advisory Board 150

Advisory Board Equity Vesting Startup 150

Steve Blank

APRIL 14, 2013

Even though they’re next to Zhongguancun, the hottest place for startups in China, there seems to be a lower appetite for risk, a lack of interest in equity (instead optimizing for a high salary) and very little loyalty to any one company. ” A good number of startups in Beijing seem driven by the VCs – and not the founders.

China 219

China Silicon Valley Non-Compete Intellectual Property 219

Steve Blank

NOVEMBER 27, 2012

I teach potential founders a hands-on, experiential class called the Lean LaunchPad at Berkeley, Stanford, Columbia and Caltech. customer development. Some general customer development slides click here. They don’t ask for equity and charge just enough to cover the costs of pizza and the room rental.

Open Source 335

Open Source Silicon Valley Lean Customer Development 335

The Equity Kicker

MARCH 26, 2018

In our experience, structured customer development work is right up there amongst the most valuable things a founder can do in the early days of their startup. Once you have an idea that feels strong, it’s imperative to speak with customers about it. But good customer development is tough to do.

Customer 75

Customer Framework Differentiation Customer Development 75

Steve Blank

JANUARY 20, 2014

When Customer Development and the Lean Startup were just a sketch on the napkin, Dino Vendetti, a VC at Bay Partners, was one of the first venture capitalists I shared my ideas with. Over the years we brainstormed about how Lean entrepreneurship would affect regional development. Founders Pad.

Silicon Valley 317

Silicon Valley Oregon Lean Venture Capital 317

blog.aparttimecto.com

OCTOBER 23, 2010

Unless you’re fortunate to have one or more technical founders, you’ll quickly be faced with this simple question: Do we hack out a prototype somehow, find a developer or outsource the development? Create the prototype yourself Pros: Cheap - this only takes up the time of your and your founders.

CTO Hire 40

CTO Hire Fractional CTO Equity Vesting 40

Steve Blank

JUNE 4, 2012

This is a 3-day program for entrepreneurship faculty from around the world how to teach entrepreneurship via the Lean LaunchPad approach ( business model canvas + customer development ) and bring their entrepreneurship curriculums into the 21st century. Filed under: Customer Development , Lean LaunchPad , Teaching.

Silicon Valley 311

Silicon Valley Lean Utah Customer Development 311

Steve Blank

JUNE 2, 2011

A revolution has taken hold as customer development and agile engineering reinvent the Startup process. The process they use to guide their search is customer development. They would: Blog their Customer Development progress as a narrative. Founders operate in a chaotic regime. Victor Hugo.

Silicon Valley 289

Silicon Valley Business Model Early Stage Venture Capital 289

Steve Blank

DECEMBER 30, 2014

They add mentors and additional services and some offer free space in exchange for equity. Accelerators take teams with fairly focused ideas and offer a formal 3-4 month program of tutoring/mentoring with seed funding in exchange for equity. Incubators are designed for teams with an idea.

San Diego 265

San Diego North Carolina Chicago Lean 265

rob.by

MARCH 8, 2012

He begins by explaining how he arrived at his conclusion: I began the hunt to find a technical co-founder – a software engineer who works for no cash – to help me build my dream website. Twelve months into my startup journey I had four half-built websites that had been built by my four ex-technical co-founders.

Technical Cofounder 42

Technical Cofounder Cofounder Software Engineering Fractional CTO 42

The Startup Lawyer

MARCH 17, 2012

With the surge in demand for technical co-founders, many startups have no choice but to contract with dev shops to build their idea. A dev shop is never a substitute for a technical co-founder. Either way, the startup will require additional technical development, but may lack the resources to continue compensating the dev shop.

Cofounder 92

Cofounder Vesting Equity Agile 92

Steve Blank

JULY 2, 2015

Matt Weingart, program development manager in the Strategic Development Office at the Department of Energy’s Lawrence Livermore National Laboratory. Takashi Tsutsumi and Masato Iino , founders of Learning Entrepreneur’s Lab in Japan. The focus of our first segment is how Silicon Valley and the U.S.

Channel 120

Channel Japan Bosnia Silicon Valley 120

David Teten

OCTOBER 1, 2015

Not surprisingly, the list above also is ranked from least to most equity stake in an investment for the investor, relative to the cash they invest. What are the terms of their relationship with the founder? How would one set up such a startup to eventually raise capital from outside VCs, who will be wary of ‘dead equity’ (i.e.,

Software Developers 60

Software Developers Software Development Software Review Technical Cofounder 60

Steve Blank

SEPTEMBER 30, 2015

And Silicon Valley’s pay-it-forward culture is a huge help to startup founders. Gary Marcus , one of the country’s best-known cognitive psychologists, is a professor of psychology and neural science at NYU and founder of Geometric Intelligence. The stuff founders are made of. If you can’t hear the clip, click here.

Artificial Inteligence 120

Artificial Inteligence Entrepreneur Silicon Valley New York 120

ReadWriteStart

JUNE 15, 2011

The process they use to guide that search is "Customer Development" ; and to track their progress startups now have a scorecard to document their week-by-week changes – the business model canvas. They would: Blog their Customer Development progress as a narrative. Structure : Founders operate in a chaotic regime.

Silicon Valley 118

Silicon Valley Startup Early Stage Business Model 118

Startup Lessons Learned

MAY 14, 2009

Unlike other incubator-led programs, this workshop is open to anyone who wants to learn, and it does not require companies take investment or give out equity. Im working on a future post where Ill share the details of how I used customer development to shape both the content and packaging of this event, so look for that soon.

Lean 60

Lean San Francisco Continuous Deployment Software Review 60

Spencer Fry

APRIL 17, 2017

What tends to give are what you really need to be focusing on most at the start of your business: customer development, customer outreach, marketing, copy, and design. As a bootstrapped startup, the only accountability you have is to yourself and to your co-founder if you have one. Having great accountability.

Bootstrapping 63

Bootstrapping Cap Table Liquidation Preference Cofounder 63

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. Khan Academy.

Artificial Inteligence 156

Artificial Inteligence Founder Private Equity Ruby 156

www.instigatorblog.com

MARCH 2, 2010

The Board probably existed beforehand, but was made up only of the founders. This is typically done with a small piece of equity. lol [link] Ben Yoskovitz @Zack: You don’t necessarily have to pay your Advisory Board with money – generally you compensate with equity. There’s no surprise there. Expectations.

Advisory Board 40

Advisory Board Startup Cofounder Equity 40

Steve Blank

DECEMBER 3, 2009

Worries from the garage One of the worries I hear from entrepreneurs (not just my students) is that Customer Development means getting out of the building and sharing what you are working on. My co-founder, head of business development and I were in Japan raising money. Once it almost mattered. Fast forward nine months.

Silicon Valley 166

Silicon Valley RSS Startup California 166

The Equity Kicker

OCTOBER 2, 2014

(Our other category of investment is ‘idea stage’, often with solo-founders.). We got to know David Gildeh, the CEO and one of three co-founders, around this time last year. At that time he was talking about infrastructure monitoring, doing customer development work but had yet to start the company.

Cofounder 95

Cofounder Continuous Deployment Seed Stage Cloud 95

The Equity Kicker

OCTOBER 1, 2014

We have been interviewing lots of solo founders recently as we look to deepen our understanding of one of our key customer segments. ‘What do they want?’ ’ and ‘Where do they hang out?’ ’ are our two main questions.

Lean 102

Lean Customer Development Networking Founder 102

The Equity Kicker

JANUARY 10, 2018

Twenty years ago there were precious few resources available for founders and most either had to find an advisor who had done it before or rely on trial and error. What I am saying is that founders need something more. The task for founders, then, is to first identify the areas where they will excel.

Silicon Valley 68

Silicon Valley Framework Lean Founder 68

The Equity Kicker

SEPTEMBER 22, 2014

At different times over the last year or so I’ve been writing about combining design thinking with the lean startup and the importance of doing great customer development , and it has just come home to me that the underlying point of it all is to add customer empathy to the lean start up process.

Lean 128

Lean Startup Customer Development Design 128

grasshopperherder.com

FEBRUARY 19, 2011

If you’re waiting for a technical co-founder to put up a landing page with signup form, you’re lazy. If you’re waiting for a marketing guy to talk to customers, you’ll never understand the target market. If you offer me 1% of the equity, I’ll do 1% of the work. Names redacted.)

Cofounder 47

Cofounder NDA Founder Sweat Equity 47

The Equity Kicker

JULY 29, 2013

Enough customers who will pay enough to make this a large market. Have a product picker as a co-founder. It could be a technical founder, business founder, a product manager, or a designer, but someone on the founding team better have great product picking skills. A clear way to monetize.

Product 108

Product Cofounder Lean Distribution 108

Startup Lessons Learned

OCTOBER 5, 2010

Also included is the incredible Venture Hacks Bible, which is worth the price of admission on its own, and The Entrepreneurs Guide to Customer Development (which I previously reviewed here). The Entrepreneur’s Guide to Customer Development ► June (3) What is a startup? And theres so much more.

Lean 153

Lean San Francisco Startup Continuous Deployment 153

SoCal CTO

SEPTEMBER 8, 2010

Before I get into the details for founders, let me talk about options-hungry employees. am sure you have seen them and may be you are one of them. - Seth Levine's VC Adventure , August 30, 2010 Paul Graham, founder of Y-Combinator , sent out a tweet on Friday saying: “Convertible notes have won. equity debate. Dying at 70?

Startup 191

Startup CTO Hire Cofounder Venture Capital 191

SoCal CTO

DECEMBER 1, 2010

Equity-Only CTO and Equity-Only Developers - SoCal CTO , November 1, 2010 I had a recent email dialog with the founder of a company looking for a CTO for their startup. And I tried to evaluate the idea and figure out: What did the founder really need here? Was it a Startup Founder Developer Gap ?

Technical Review 175

Technical Review Technology Product CTO Hire 175

The Equity Kicker

DECEMBER 17, 2015

Victoria’s Secret is now one of two primary brands at L Brands, a $28bn company where Wexner is CEO, Chairman and Founder. Interestingly, much of the insight that made the business work is the sort of insight that comes from customer development. He’s now 78.

Customer 60

Customer Bankruptcy Customer Development Global 60