The Equity Kicker

SEPTEMBER 24, 2014

We see this all the time at Forward Partners where we invest right from the idea stage and most of the companies get a first version of their product live for less than £30k (that generally includes founder salaries and time spent doing customer research). The second development is SEIS and EIS.

Early Stage 119

Early Stage Development Team Review Technical Review Software Review 119

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

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

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

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 209

Venture Capital Silicon Valley RSS Hockey Stick 209

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 217

Silicon Valley IPO Technical Review Venture Capital 217

The Next Web

DECEMBER 30, 2012

How to Build a Startup (EP245) by Steve Blank: You’ll learn the key steps of the Customer Development process. How to identify and engage the first customers for your product, and how to gather, evaluate and use their feedback to make your product, marketing and business model far stronger.

Artificial Inteligence 156

Artificial Inteligence Founder Private Equity Ruby 156

SoCal CTO

JUNE 9, 2010

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. But startups can shoot themselves in the foot when founders use consultants at the wrong time or in the wrong way. Here’s why. Your Process Doesn’t Work.

Fractional CTO 248

Fractional CTO Startup Venture Capital Cofounder 248

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. Three months in, the burn is now at $70k/month.

Burn Rate 152

Burn Rate Equity Software Review Early Stage 152

steveblank.com

JULY 8, 2011

Reply steveblank , on September 16, 2009 at 7:00 pm said: Greg, The Google Group “Lean Startup Circle&# at [link] is a wonderful repository of Customer Development/Lean Startup success and failure. It’s more reference material. Thus, these pages. I’ll add more as time goes on.

Software Review 110

Software Review Startup Silicon Valley Analytics 110

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

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

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 255

Venture Capital Valuation Customer Development Video 255

Steve Blank

FEBRUARY 10, 2016

Keen Home appeared on the TV show, Shark Tank , in 2012, landing one of the highest valuations in the show’s history. Filed under: Customer Development , SiriusXM Radio Show. …That’s how you know you have a good team because some people are going to have bad days inevitably and you trust your team members to pick you up.

Silicon Valley 120

Silicon Valley Ohio Columbus Entrepreneur 120

Steve Blank

MAY 9, 2017

Their need to get into high-profile deals has driven late-stage valuations into unicorn territory. Entrepreneurs first map their assumptions and then test these hypotheses with customers out in the field (customer development) and use an iterative and incremental development methodology (agile development) to build the product.

Restful 222

Restful Silicon Valley Puerto Rico San Jose 222

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 334

Internet IPO Silicon Valley Agile 334

Steve Blank

APRIL 12, 2013

Over 100 startups were listed on ChiNext the first year of its launch at sky-high valuations (average of 66 times earnings.) Filed under: China , Customer Development , Technology , Venture Capital. China Customer Development Technology Venture Capital'

Venture Capital 271

Venture Capital China Offshore SBIR 271

David Teten

SEPTEMBER 23, 2017

HOF Capital has stitched together our workflow across Google Suite , Slack , Airtable , Asana , Streak , and some other tools (leveraging Zapier for basic 3rd party integration, in addition to custom development for certain other integrations). Kushim , Totem , and VisibleVC focus on serving this need among VCs.

Private Equity 60

Private Equity Venture Capital Equity Technical Review 60

Steve Blank

APRIL 12, 2013

Over 100 startups were listed on ChiNext the first year of its launch at sky-high valuations (average of 66 times earnings.) Filed under: China , Customer Development , Technology , Venture Capital. China Customer Development Technology Venture Capital'

Venture Capital 163

Venture Capital China Offshore SBIR 163

The Startup Toolkit

AUGUST 29, 2012

You can give an investor an additional advisory kick to improve the terms (for them) without changing the valuation (for other investors). Sometimes the answer will be to do customer development or to add unit tests or to build a landing page. And sometimes it’s super ambiguous. Is that a good or bad idea?

Technical Review 38

Technical Review CTO Hire Cap Table Software Review 38

Steve Blank

JANUARY 4, 2010

In fact, Google’s offer for $15 Million was equal to the highest valuation from the venture firms. Posted in Customer Development, Durant versus Sloan, Technology, Venture Capital. Tags: Customer Development Durant versus Sloan Technology Venture Capital. The question was: what did the founders want to do?

Hockey Stick 276

Hockey Stick Venture Capital Startup Cofounder 276

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 199

Founder Cofounder Business Model Customer Development 199

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 297

Venture Capital IPO Liquidity Event Entrepreneur 297

Startup Lessons Learned

OCTOBER 28, 2008

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? With that disclaimer out of the way, heres how I order the hierarchy of pitches: Printing money Key questions: are those numbers real?

San Francisco 128

San Francisco Lean Continuous Deployment DC 128

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

ReadWriteStart

MARCH 27, 2011

This is lean development without any customer development. Flips, on the other hand, thrive on trends: what better time for an entrepreneur to create a startup than when valuations are up, investments are quick, exits are plenty and deal flow is increase? The focus is on building. 1: Find a Simple Idea.

Lean 144

Lean Startup Agile Coder 144

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

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

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

www.vccafe.com

MARCH 11, 2013

Steve Blank on Lean Customer Development. Seed Stage Valuation Guide. Customer Development. valuations. Read post Why Learning should be your top 2013 new year’s resolution  for a full list. Codeacademy. Lean Methodology Sources. Steve Blank. SW Courses. Part 1- Intro. Part 2- 3 tools for startups.

Software Review 53

Software Review Technical Review Startup 53

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

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

www.quora.com

JANUARY 16, 2011

are just emerging for business people (customer development, business model generation,). The more structured the effort of the 'distribution' people will be, the clearer the communication with design and technical people and the higher mutual respect/valuation.

Technical Review 51

Technical Review Startup CTO Hire Cofounder 51

SoCal CTO

JANUARY 5, 2011

Both Sides of the Table , July 22, 2010 An updated Digital Trends presentation - Jeff Hilimire , June 2, 2010 I do what I hate - Jessica Mah , January 7, 2010 Startup Equity Allocation - charliecrystle.com , January 11, 2010 When good investment decisions end up backing more women CEOs: Conversation with Cameron Lester at Azure Capital.

Silicon Valley 378

Silicon Valley Startup Term Sheet Venture Capital 378