Steve Blank

AUGUST 31, 2009

The first hint lies in its name; this is a product development model, not a marketing model, not a sales hiring model, not a customer acquisition model, not even a financing model (and we’ll also find that in most cases it’s even a poor model to use to develop a product.) Where Are the Customers? Product Development Diagram 1.

Customer Development 241

Customer Development Developer Customer Silicon Valley 241

Version One Ventures

FEBRUARY 18, 2014

Should an investor really be expected to use the 10, 15, or 20 products in his or her portfolio? A PayPal spokesperson further clarified the message of the memo: “We really want to be driving the best customer experiences that are possible. It’s naturally tougher to be a user for business apps, particularly vertically-focused apps.

Portfolio 156

Portfolio Product Vertical Email 156

VC Adventure

AUGUST 31, 2017

Good SaaS businesses retain > 85% of their customers and have close to 100% revenue renewal rates when including upsell. And as a rule of thumb for businesses in our portfolio we target payback periods of 12 months or less. Verticalization. Not surprisingly churn matters.

IPO 113

IPO Vertical Balance Sheet Valuation 113

Version One Ventures

APRIL 25, 2017

Not every start-up can play in a vertical that’s an investor darling. The most effective strategy I’ve seen is for founders to push investors to call their customers in order to understand the value of the product. Our portfolio company, Outreach.io , used this tactic when they tried to raise a seed round after a pivot.

Customer 130

Customer Vertical Stock Portfolio 130

Version One Ventures

NOVEMBER 9, 2021

EnPowered Payments links business customers (such as large electricity users like manufacturing facilities, hospitals, hotels, and greenhouses) to a market of lenders. The customers pay for their energy project on their existing utility bills using savings from the project. EnPowered is led by Tomas van Stee and Mike Kirkup.

Stealth 148

Stealth Vertical Portfolio Finance 148

Mucker Lab

OCTOBER 12, 2016

Vertical integration of different funding risks. I also believe that the ebb and flow of the venture investment cycle has been exacerbated by the recent vertical integration of early, growth, and even late stage venture funds. The investment thesis wasn’t wrong — it’s just that they bet on the wrong horse.

Harvest 60

Harvest Vertical IPO Early Stage 60

Version One Ventures

JULY 21, 2020

No matter the vertical, geography, business model, macro or micro trends, entrepreneurs form the nucleus of a generational company. Amazing, mission-driven founders are found throughout our portfolio. But ultimately, as our interests change, the one constant has been the founder.

Founder 213

Founder Vertical Differentiation Portfolio 213

David Teten

AUGUST 19, 2019

We’re also regularly following-on for existing portfolio companies.”. At least 12 months of customer history, generally 20+ enterprise customers or 200+ SMB customers. The combination of investment capital and credit card processing (CCP) fees creates a “win-win” partnership for investors and portfolio companies.

Revenue 60

Revenue Technical Review Software Review Equity 60

Where to Play

AUGUST 18, 2020

In 2000, they included tentage into their portfolio and since then they have established themself as a premium brand in marriage event management. Most of their business growth was vertical by focusing on food, tentage, and decoration for marrying couples and their families. Opportunity Nr.

Pakistan 62

Pakistan Sales Cycle Marketing Technical Review 62

Cracking the Code

MARCH 24, 2015

We were fortunate to host very talented speakers from our portfolio (Ilya Sukhar from FB/Parse, Steve Marx from Dropbox, Bill Ready from Braintree, Ali Rayl from Slack, Eric Wittman from Atlassian, Sam Mac Donnell from HotelTonight.) gathered at the event. It is not very polished but was designed for a fast read.

API 48

API Fractional CTO CTO Hire San Francisco 48

David Teten

SEPTEMBER 23, 2017

I’ve primarily seen quantitative analytic techniques used in origination , filtering , and in portfolio company recruiting , but technology can be used throughout the nine steps of the private company investing process: The 9 Steps of the Private Company Investing Process. 9% (1 / 12). Source: Knowledge.VC , based on scraping firm websites

Private Equity 60

Private Equity Venture Capital Equity Technical Review 60

View from Seed

MARCH 29, 2018

We wanted to learn more about the nuanced industry market forces before applying the same hands-on investing model we do with tech startups in other verticals. Many of these companies, however, exhibit similar characteristics to the things we invest in outside of the health vertical. They can be surprisingly capital efficient.

Vertical 120

Vertical Stealth Portfolio Seed Capital 120

View from Seed

JANUARY 11, 2018

We dove deep into how this investment thesis extends to major verticals of consumer spending like entertainment , clothing , and home. This benefit changes the cash cycle for property owners, freeing up more capital to improve customers’ experiences with property improvements and additional services.

B2B 120

B2B B2C Vertical Portfolio 120

Duct Tape Marketing

NOVEMBER 23, 2023

Exclusive to new customers—upgrade and grow your business with ActiveCampaign today! I think now it's more about, I guess having a horizontal relationship with the people in your audience versus a vertical one. So vertical, you're the expert. Now, this offer is limited to new active campaign customers only.

Framework 74

Framework Campaign Audience Vertical 74

Hearpreneur

FEBRUARY 1, 2019

Follow your passions only if there is a market for them and customers willing to pay. Thanks to Rafe Gomez, Vertical Cloud Inc. ! . #4- The toughest business lesson I learned was: don’t spend years developing a product that doesn’t have a distinct customer base. Look for early adopters and products being used.

Entrepreneur 56

Entrepreneur Delaware Hiring Social Media 56

Hearpreneur

FEBRUARY 1, 2019

Follow your passions only if there is a market for them and customers willing to pay. Thanks to Rafe Gomez, Vertical Cloud Inc. ! #4- The toughest business lesson I learned was: don’t spend years developing a product that doesn’t have a distinct customer base. Look for early adopters and products being used.

Entrepreneur 54

Entrepreneur Delaware Hiring Social Media 54

Version One Ventures

MARCH 25, 2014

At version one, we are big believers in the vertical SaaS opportunity. A mobile-first approach, combined with a laser-like focus on a specific vertical, can create the right toolset to help SMBs achieve huge productivity gains ( I wrote about this nearly a year ago for TechCrunch).

Vertical 153

Vertical Cloud Mobile Partner 153

Transformify

JULY 4, 2018

It is possible to source and transfer candidates to any external applicant tracking system via a custom integration. Our clients source candidates across all geographies and verticals. The localisations in all other languages are purchased separately and customized to address the needs of the respective client. USD 20-USD 50.

Technical Review 40

Technical Review Software Review Database Algorithm 40

Agile VC

FEBRUARY 5, 2014

We invest in internet enabled companies at NextView and our portfolio is roughly equally split between consumer and B2B businesses. Business facing companies typically provide software or an online service for which their customers pay a fee. But B2B startups need to take a different tack.

Revenue 234

Revenue Product B2B Marketing 234

Steve Blank

FEBRUARY 23, 2009

Both venture firms sought my advice for their portfolio companies. I was between my 7th and 8th and final startup; licking my wounds from Rocket Science, the company I had cratered as my first and last attempt as a startup CEO. It was a long way from Ellis Island.) Surprisingly, I enjoyed seeing other startups from an outsider’s perspective.

Silicon Valley 126

Silicon Valley RSS Venture Capital Customer Development 126

Version One Ventures

OCTOBER 23, 2018

When we consider SaaS products in virtually every vertical, we realize how much potential there still is to re-invent the user experience. Why aren’t there better ways of automating standard customer interactions? Note, this is something our portfolio company Ada is actually starting to address very successfully). For example….

Artificial Inteligence 94

Artificial Inteligence Vertical API Bootstrapping 94

View from Seed

MARCH 15, 2018

Often, these startups tend to fall in areas like home , food , apparel , transportation — but fitting squarely within a specific vertical isn’t a requirement. . You can look to our portfolio for some examples. Markets, though, aren’t always well defined.

Technology 120

Technology Artificial Inteligence Marketing Vertical 120

Occam's Razor

JULY 24, 2018

Customer Lifetime Value on the other hand takes a long time to become useful, over months and months (if actioned, it can have a super strategic impact on the business – tens of millions of dollars). The value of voice of customer metrics is evident by their high placement in context of the y-axis. Other hidden features.

Analytics 93

Analytics Framework Metrics Algorithm 93

Steve Blank

SEPTEMBER 14, 2009

Over the same 30 years, Venture Capital firms have honed their skills and strategies to match Wall Streets needs to achieve liquidity for their portfolio companies. In this time, building a successful business meant building a company that had paying customers quarter after quarter. What Do VC’s Do?

Silicon Valley 223

Silicon Valley IPO Technical Review Venture Capital 223

Both Sides of the Table

APRIL 23, 2011

ESPN, Forbes, AOL were customers. He is starting to see this occur in sites that are verticalizing content. An example is Metacafe, a Highland Capital portfolio company. It has become a short form premium destination that is verticalizing content in category channels. The company later sold for around $300 million.

Vertical 265

Vertical Curation Boston Burn Rate 265

Version One Ventures

APRIL 8, 2014

It offers custom reports, real-time updates, specific filtering, and easy organization of start-ups based on stage, vertical, geography, and Mattermark score (a proprietary index that measures momentum). Mattermark was launched in the Fall 2013 and is led by Danielle Morrill , Kevin Morrill , and Andy Sparks. Why we’re excited.

Venture Capital 160

Venture Capital Vertical Curation SEC 160

Version One Ventures

JULY 6, 2016

Here’s a quick recap of some of this quarter’s news clippings for V1 and our portfolio companies. Portfolio companies in the news. Businesses using Shippo in San Francisco, NYC, and Chicago now can offer local customers on-demand delivery via UberRUSH. Data analysis for large verticals. Funding announcements.

San Francisco 104

San Francisco Syndicate Syndication Seattle 104

Version One Ventures

JANUARY 2, 2019

Each week we like share our thoughts on a range of topics from vertical markets to general startup advice and our reflections on investing. Among our Silicon Valley-based portfolio companies, every company past “A” has a distributed team. platform integration, customer service and distributing team members across the board. . “So

Silicon Valley 144

Silicon Valley Venture Capital Distribution Artificial Inteligence 144

Version One Ventures

NOVEMBER 29, 2016

A high number of quality suppliers attract more customers; then more customers attract more suppliers to join, until the growth of sellers and buyers quickly accelerates. Expand into different verticals. Don’t spread across verticals too fast. The other way to grow the business is by expanding the product portfolio.

San Francisco 60

San Francisco Vertical Equity Cofounder 60

Austin Startup

DECEMBER 3, 2019

Techstars provides their accelerator portfolio companies with access to financial, human and intellectual capital to fuel the success of their business. Homebuyer (Cincinnati, OH) Dan Green, CEO Homebuyer is a lead nurture system for mortgage lenders that reduces customer acquisition costs and increases per-loan profits.

Austin 62

Austin Curation Startup Dallas 62

Duct Tape Marketing

NOVEMBER 5, 2019

Kim Spalding: However, we see that so many small businesses, you know, don’t have all the digital tools that they need to reach customers. All of those things make your listing really come to life, and grab customers when they find you online. Post offers, right? Then, moved to Google Plus. Kim Spalding: That is totally right.

Small Business 35

Small Business Search Dallas Vertical 35

Version One Ventures

JANUARY 27, 2014

Customer support opportunities. Considering the fact that more than 50% of inbound customer service calls will be made from mobile devices by 2016, mobile presents a big opportunity to rethink the customer support experience. However, mobile devices give companies even more ways to reach out and assist their customers.

Mobile 161

Mobile Web SEO Distribution 161

Version One Ventures

SEPTEMBER 8, 2014

However, as an investor watching my portfolio companies and other start-ups in the market, I can see how large rounds negatively impact the culture of budding business. At the beginning, it’s important to do things that don’t scale, especially when it comes to customer acquisition. Pitfall #4: Culture of “we’ve done it”.

Guerilla 158

Guerilla Seed Money Vertical Early Stage 158

David Teten

DECEMBER 3, 2019

However, in private markets, there is more room to optimize across all 11 steps of the investing process: firm management , marketing, fundraising , origination , manage relationships, due diligence, negotiation, monitoring, portfolio acceleration , reporting, and. 3) Raise capital.

Technical Review 78

Technical Review Software Review Analytics Private Equity 78

Cracking the Code

NOVEMBER 13, 2008

A few days ago, Bessemer West Coast SaaS Practice - David Cowan , Byron Deeter and myself, hosted a CFO Dinner for our SaaS portfolio at John Bentleys in Redwood City. Fifteen CFOs participated - about half of them from Bessemer portfolio SaaS companies (Cornerstone On Demand, Intacct. Rethink vertical segmentation: Healthcare?

Software Review 48

Software Review Technical Review Valuation Portfolio 48

Both Sides of the Table

JUNE 18, 2010

Network of vertical focused sites: BeachMint, BeachMint, WineMint, etc.; first vertical to launch by 2010 Holiday Season. Customers Include: Reuters, Associated Press, , Dow Jones, Ask.com , healthcare companies, and major investment banks and hedge funds. Potential competitors: Gilt Groupe , ShoeDazzle. Read More: TechCrunch.

Venture Capital 225

Venture Capital Non-Compete Vertical Europe 225

The Equity Kicker

AUGUST 28, 2012

In the case of social software all the evidence suggests that the investment theme is strong and there will be more winners in this space, but the next generation will work hard to differentiate themselves from their forbears by specialising in different process areas or distinct verticals.

Vertical 94

Vertical Acquisition eCommerce Flash 94