Startup Professionals Musings

DECEMBER 17, 2022

Every entrepreneur thinks he can relax a bit after his business model is proven, funding is in place, and revenues are scaling as projected up that hockey-stick curve. Initially, all companies sell to customers who are the easiest to reach and most excited about the new product. An expanding customer base demands better support.

Hockey Stick 265

Hockey Stick Guerilla Acquisition Startup 265

Startup Professionals Musings

MAY 18, 2020

It’s equally easy to go online and incorporate your new entity, register some intellectual property and have some fun with social media for marketing and interacting with customers. Keep expenses down, but keep customer visibility and sensitivity as a top priority. Practice living on a shoestring budget.

Hockey Stick 423

Hockey Stick Bootstrapping Sweat Equity Intellectual Property 423

Startup Professionals Musings

NOVEMBER 27, 2015

Let me summarize the advantages of this to your startup: Immediate real customer feedback. Startups which insist on operating in stealth mode in fear of competitor response miss the more important customer response. Time to train and prepare staff to deal with customers. Maximum agility for required pivots.

Hockey Stick 120

Hockey Stick Startup Stealth Agile 120

Both Sides of the Table

JANUARY 11, 2014

“Growth hacking perpetuates this myth that you can magically achieve hockey-stick growth by using short-term “hacks.” “ I have always encouraged teams to think about growth as daily blocking-and-tackling rather than a dark art. I laughed as I did at much of his rant. He even used some terminology near and dear to my heart.

Technical Review 384

Technical Review Hockey Stick SEM Channel 384

Up and Running

MARCH 14, 2018

Customer acquisition: Marketing and sales strategy. How will you reach your customers? Your financials should easily allow you to calculate your customer acquisition costs. If your financial chart shows “hockey-stick growth,” be sure to explain what happens to cause those inflection points. How much will it cost?

Hockey Stick 164

Hockey Stick Exit Strategy Technical Review Angel Investor 164

Startup Professionals Musings

APRIL 19, 2020

I see too many business plans that are really product plans for customers, touting free services and long feature lists. No product, even with a large opportunity, is ready to scale until you can show it working, with multiple customers paying the full price, to validate the business model. Word-of-mouth does not scale.

Hockey Stick 386

Hockey Stick Intellectual Property Startup Non-Compete 386

Startup Professionals Musings

MAY 8, 2022

If you take investor money, expect a push for hockey-stick growth and a liquidity event, like going public (IPO) or sale (M&A), to get the payback. You can’t have it all, just like your startup can’t be all things to all customers. Transition to a specialist role, plan to exit, be prepared to be pushed out, or plan to fail.

Founder 325

Founder Hockey Stick Cofounder Liquidity Event 325

Startup Lessons Learned

APRIL 14, 2009

Lessons Learned by Eric Ries Tuesday, April 14, 2009 Validated learning about customers Would you rather have $30,000 or $1 million in revenues for your startup? This may sound crazy, coming as it does from an advocate of c harging customers for your product from day one. They are gaining valuable customer data.

Customer 167

Customer San Francisco Lean Hockey Stick 167

Small Business Force

SEPTEMBER 7, 2013

Virtually, every business plan that's ever been presented to the investor community, invariably, has that fabled "hockey stick growth" period where suddenly revenue jumps exponentially. So, while "hockey stick growth" might be something you're chasing, it may not be something you can manage. Don't just let it happen.

Hockey Stick 42

Hockey Stick Bandwidth Entrepreneur Venture Capital 42

Austin Startup

OCTOBER 24, 2017

With over 20k customers running 250k apps, they’ve got a brought data set to pull from, so I was very excited to hear the results of their benchmarking. Retention The scary reverse-hockey stick chart shows up in this report, too. unique users, and 50b events, from June 1st through August 31st, 2017.

Retention 48

Retention Conversion Hockey Stick eCommerce 48

Startup Lessons Learned

JANUARY 15, 2010

Behind this analysis is a spreadsheet model, complete with detailed metrics for a set of customer behaviors that show just how valuable the new product will be. For a little while, the team can resort to the last defense of entrepreneurs in trouble: the promised hockey-stick. Read the rest here. Read the rest here.

Hockey Stick 105

Hockey Stick San Francisco Entrepreneur Lean 105

Version One Ventures

OCTOBER 31, 2016

As an investor and former founder, I know that scalable growth (and the pretty hockey stick graph) is the holy grail for every startup. Most growth teams begin with commercially available monitoring and analytics tools, but over time, companies that have really scaled end up building their own custom data infrastructure.

Software Review 60

Software Review South Africa Hockey Stick Viral 60

Up and Running

JANUARY 2, 2013

Customer Acquisition : This is usually one of the most skipped sections of an investor pitch and a full business plan. How will you reach your customers? Your financials should easily allow you to calculate your customer acquisition costs. How much will it cost? How will you measure success?

Hockey Stick 164

Hockey Stick Exit Strategy Technical Review Due Diligence 164

Startup Professionals Musings

FEBRUARY 26, 2013

Traction is evidence that your product or service has started that “hockey- stick” adoption rate which implies a large market, a valid business model, and sustainable growth. A graph that shows a hockey-stick “up and to the right” curve with at least three data points per key indicator is a great visual assist.

Hockey Stick 266

Hockey Stick Early Stage Metrics Acquisition 266

Startup Professionals Musings

AUGUST 10, 2019

If you take investor money, expect a push for hockey-stick growth and a liquidity event, like going public (IPO) or sale (M&A), to get the payback. You can’t have it all, just like your startup can’t be all things to all customers. Transition to a specialist role, plan to exit, be prepared to be pushed out, or plan to fail.

Hockey Stick 243

Hockey Stick Cofounder Liquidity Event Startup 243

Up and Running

OCTOBER 8, 2014

Ingenie claims to help customers (often students) save up to 50% of what they would otherwise be paying. When you play unicycle hockey, you typically use a unicycle, an ice-hockey stick and a tennis ball. James Shields uses an ice hockey stick during a serious unicycle hockey competition. Very clever.

Hockey Stick 144

Hockey Stick South Africa Africa Cambodia 144

Startup Professionals Musings

SEPTEMBER 26, 2014

Every entrepreneur thinks he can relax a bit after his business model is proven, funding is in place, and revenues are scaling as projected up that hockey-stick curve. Initially, all companies sell to customers who are the easiest to reach and most excited about the new product. An expanding customer base demands better support.

Hockey Stick 263

Hockey Stick Guerilla Acquisition Revenue 263

Startup Professionals Musings

MARCH 3, 2018

Every entrepreneur thinks he can relax a bit after his business model is proven, funding is in place, and revenues are scaling as projected up that hockey-stick curve. Initially, all companies sell to customers who are the easiest to reach and most excited about the new product. An expanding customer base demands better support.

Hockey Stick 130

Hockey Stick Guerilla Acquisition Revenue 130

Startup Professionals Musings

SEPTEMBER 7, 2013

I see too many business plans that are really product plans for customers, touting free services and long feature lists. No product, even with a large opportunity, is ready to scale until you can show it working, with multiple customers paying the full price, to validate the business model. Word-of-mouth does not scale.

Hockey Stick 278

Hockey Stick Intellectual Property Startup Non-Compete 278

Startup Professionals Musings

DECEMBER 14, 2014

If you take investor money, expect a push for hockey-stick growth and a liquidity event, like going public (IPO) or sale (M&A), to get the payback. You can’t have it all, just like your startup can’t be all things to all customers. Transition to a specialist role, plan to exit, be prepared to be pushed out, or plan to fail.

Hockey Stick 268

Hockey Stick Cofounder Entrepreneur Liquidity Event 268

This is going to be BIG.

JULY 26, 2010

The only concern was that they didn’t know what their cost of customer acquisition was, nor did they which channels would be most effective, or how much they could acquire out of each channel. The good thing is that customer acquisition is a pretty easily testable thing. Which channels will be most effective in acquiring customers?

Acquisition 128

Acquisition Hockey Stick Customer SEM 128

Reid Hoffman

DECEMBER 10, 2020

If I’m going to find out that a set of founders lack integrity, don’t behave like partners, take on unacceptable risks that might harm their customers or society, or simply aren’t the kinds of people I want to spend a decade with, I want to know those facts before I start down the path of evaluating that investment.

Hosting 69

Hosting Hockey Stick IPO Silicon Valley 69

Startup Professionals Musings

APRIL 6, 2016

It’s equally easy to go online and incorporate your new entity, register some intellectual property and have some fun with social media for marketing and interacting with customers. Keep expenses down, but keep customer visibility and sensitivity as a top priority. Practice living on a shoestring budget.

Bootstrapping 120

Bootstrapping Hockey Stick Sweat Equity Intellectual Property 120

Startup Professionals Musings

AUGUST 19, 2017

If you take investor money, expect a push for hockey-stick growth and a liquidity event, like going public (IPO) or sale (M&A), to get the payback. You can’t have it all, just like your startup can’t be all things to all customers. Transition to a specialist role, plan to exit, be prepared to be pushed out, or plan to fail.

Hockey Stick 144

Hockey Stick Cofounder Entrepreneur Liquidity Event 144

Startup Professionals Musings

NOVEMBER 1, 2015

Every entrepreneur thinks he can relax a bit after his business model is proven, funding is in place, and revenues are scaling as projected up that hockey-stick curve. Initially, all companies sell to customers who are the easiest to reach and most excited about the new product. An expanding customer base demands better support.

Hockey Stick 120

Hockey Stick Guerilla Startup Acquisition 120

Startup Professionals Musings

FEBRUARY 14, 2016

I see too many business plans that are really product plans for customers, touting free services and long feature lists. No product, even with a large opportunity, is ready to scale until you can show it working, with multiple customers paying the full price, to validate the business model. Word-of-mouth does not scale.

Hockey Stick 120

Hockey Stick Intellectual Property Non-Compete Business Model 120

Gust

NOVEMBER 15, 2012

In my own portfolio I have companies that are generally perceived to be extremely successful with high profile customers and lots of sales…but they just happen to have a liquidation preference ladder of $25 million!

Seed Stage 131

Seed Stage Hockey Stick Cap Table Liquidation Preference 131

Startup Professionals Musings

JULY 19, 2013

If you take investor money, expect a push for hockey-stick growth and a liquidity event, like going public (IPO) or sale (M&A), to get the payback. You can’t have it all, just like your startup can’t be all things to all customers. Transition to a specialist role, plan to exit, be prepared to be pushed out, or plan to fail.

Founder 245

Founder Hockey Stick Cofounder Liquidity Event 245

Startup Professionals Musings

JANUARY 11, 2015

I see too many business plans that are really product plans for customers, touting free services and long feature lists. No product, even with a large opportunity, is ready to scale until you can show it working, with multiple customers paying the full price, to validate the business model. Word-of-mouth does not scale.

Hockey Stick 120

Hockey Stick Intellectual Property Non-Compete Business Model 120

ReadWriteStart

NOVEMBER 11, 2010

Your audience could be a customer, investor, journalist, colleague, friend, and you need to be ready to be imaginative, memorable, strategic. The "Hockey Stick" is a Great Story, Don't Get Me Wrong. The "hockey stick" is a pretty familiar visualization for startups. We know the story. We know the image.

Hockey Stick 120

Hockey Stick Startup Audience Conversion 120

Steve Blank

SEPTEMBER 10, 2009

In future posts I’ll describe how Eric Ries and the Lean Startup concept provided the equivalent model for product development activities inside the building and neatly integrates customer and agile development. Not All Startups Are Alike There’s an urban legend that Eskimos-Aleuts have more words to describe snow than other cultures.

Customer Development 196

Customer Development Developer Customer Silicon Valley 196

Ben's Blog

JULY 20, 2011

When I ran Opsware, we had the non-linear quarter problem also known affectionately as the hockey stick. The hockey stick refers to the shape of the revenue graph over the course of a quarter. Our hockey stick was so bad that one quarter, we booked 90% of our new bookings on the last day of the quarter.

Hockey Stick 78

Hockey Stick Management Employee Retention 78

Steve Blank

JANUARY 4, 2010

Now with customers and early revenue, it was out raising its first round of venture money. Not only did their sales curve look like a textbook case of a VC-friendly hockey stick, but their Lessons Learned funding presentation was an eye-opener.). Customer and Agile development to find the business model.

Hockey Stick 276

Hockey Stick Venture Capital Startup Cofounder 276

Software By Rob

SEPTEMBER 17, 2013

VC companies need hockey stick growth. Let’s say you have a bootstrapped SaaS product and you get 20 new customers in January, 10 in February, and 15 in March. You now have 45 customers paying you every month. Since a bootstrapped startup is dealing with much smaller numbers of customers then you have an advantage.

Hockey Stick 69

Hockey Stick Bootstrapping Cofounder Acquisition 69

crowdSPRING Blog

SEPTEMBER 8, 2017

Good insight … Navigating The Make-Or-Break Years As You Create Hockey Stick Growth [link]. The Psychology of Design: Why Your Business Must Understand How Design Influences Customer Behavior – [link] pic.twitter.com/JHY3v8XwFf. . — crowdspring (@crowdSPRING) September 6, 2017. – [link].

Artificial Inteligence 48

Artificial Inteligence Hockey Stick Small Business Design 48

Both Sides of the Table

DECEMBER 26, 2010

which features do you believe your customers care about and where you’re try to differentiate? This is not only a way to talk about you versus your competition but a chance to reinforce two things: 1) what you see as the most important buying criteria for your customers and 2) how you believe your firm differentiates.

Hockey Stick 313

Hockey Stick Differentiation AJAX Vertical 313

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. This may actually work if you’re in an existing market where customers understand what the product does and how to compare it with products that currently exist. They don’t.

Revenue 230

Revenue Balance Sheet Hockey Stick Burn Rate 230