Steve Blank

SEPTEMBER 7, 2009

Finally, I’ll write about 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. Three to six months after first customer ship, if Sales starts missing its numbers, the board gets concerned.

Customer Development 232

Customer Development Developer Customer Silicon Valley 232

Steve Blank

SEPTEMBER 24, 2009

Pattern Recognition One of the great things about being an entrepreneur is that you are constantly running a pattern recognition algorithm against a continual collection of customer and market data. Let’s Fire Our Customers Part of the DNA of great entrepreneurs is a bias towards decisive and immediate action. Get it done, now.

Customer 216

Customer Silicon Valley RSS California 216

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 244

Customer Development Developer Customer Silicon Valley 244

Steve Blank

NOVEMBER 2, 2009

For those of you who have been following the discussion, a Lean Startup is Eric Ries ’s description of the intersection of Customer Development , Agile Development and if available, open platforms and open source. And most startup code and features end up on the floor as customers never really wanted them.

Lean 260

Lean Silicon Valley Startup RSS 260

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. One of the biggest mistakes entrepreneurs make is misunderstanding the role of venture capital investors. What Do VC’s Do?

Silicon Valley 235

Silicon Valley IPO Technical Review Venture Capital 235

Steve Blank

NOVEMBER 21, 2015

I first met Evangelos Simoudis when he ran IBM’s Business Intelligence Solutions Division and then as CEO of his first startup Customer Analytics. Evangelos has spent the last 15 years as a Venture Capitalist, first at Apax Partners and later at Trident Capital. and the emergence of new industries, markets and customers.

Silicon Valley 120

Silicon Valley Venture Capital United States Technical Review 120

Both Sides of the Table

JANUARY 6, 2014

When you first start your company and raise initial venture capital your board probably consists of 1-3 founders and 1-2 VCs. The functions of an early-stage board are pretty obvious and well understood: Providing introductions to customers, biz dev partners, recruits, the press, other investors, etc. In the Early Days.

Technical Review 325

Technical Review Early Stage Software Review Los Angeles 325

David Teten

DECEMBER 3, 2019

Private equity and venture capital investors are copying our sisters in the hedge fund world: we’re trying to automate more of our job. . At Flow Capital, we use HubSpot’s sequences and workflows functions to automate a bulk of our emails and internal tasks. 3) Raise capital. 6) Due diligence.

Technical Review 78

Technical Review Software Review Analytics Private Equity 78

Steve Blank

MAY 17, 2022

And they figure out how they could digitally enable their business – supply chain, customer interactions, etc. They explore and analyze data using machine learning platforms to create models about customers, processes, risks, or whatever they’re trying to predict. Making business smarter : Customer Support. What’s Different?

Artificial Inteligence 422

Artificial Inteligence Software Review Algorithm Technical Review 422

Hearpreneur

FEBRUARY 19, 2023

With the evolution of technology, there's room for so much more but the requirements are becoming extremely competitive as consumer behavior is evolving, with the need for personalization, interactivity, engagement, and an epic customer journey. Thanks to Denise Hemke, Checkr ! #3- Thanks to Matt Bowman, Thrive Internet Marketing Agency ! #9-

Artificial Inteligence 110

Artificial Inteligence Technical Review Entrepreneur Global 110

ReadWriteStart

NOVEMBER 3, 2011

In How To Defend Your Dream Against All Odds , Alex and I explore the company's journey to $200 Million in revenue, while their VCs wrote them off. Zoho is already over $100 million in revenue and is seeing tremendous traction. In that case, the verticals of choice could be manufacturing, wholesale and retail.

North Carolina 116

North Carolina San Diego Entrepreneur Balance Sheet 116

abovethecrowd.com

FEBRUARY 27, 2019

In many cases, a deeper focus on a particular category or vertical allows these marketplaces to distinguish themselves from broader marketplaces like eBay. In November of this year, the company announced that it had achieved “substantially” more than $1B in revenue in the third quarter. billion of GSV (gross services revenue) across 2.0

Internet 88

Internet Matching Vertical Hosting 88

VC Cafe

FEBRUARY 15, 2017

Don’t take my word for it – in the roundup of venture capital predictions for 2017 , I found it to be the top recurring theme. Many large companies will be built (Michael Wolfe, Point Nine Capital). Venture Capital investments in AI, Europe 2016 (Source: Dealroom ). Billion in VC funding.

Artificial Inteligence 122

Artificial Inteligence Technical Review Startup 122

Austin Startup

AUGUST 7, 2017

Instead of arguing why Dallas might be better than Houston we should be talking about how we can work together to get our share of venture capital dollars more in line with our population size and startup activity by unlocking additional capital sources that have been previously inaccessible to tech.

Texas 97

Texas San Antonio Houston Dallas 97

Steve Blank

FEBRUARY 23, 2009

I was consulting for the two venture capital firms who between them put $12 million into my last failed startup. Yet when I talked to my venture capital friends, they said, “Well, that’s just how startups work. We’ve managed startups like this forever; there is no other way to manage them.”

Silicon Valley 131

Silicon Valley RSS Venture Capital Customer Development 131

abovethecrowd.com

APRIL 17, 2013

With each hand, a small percentage of the pot is scraped off by the dealer, which in essence becomes the “revenue” for the casino. While casinos use the term “rake,” a plethora of interesting word choices exist which all describe the same thing – keeping a little bit of the revenue for the company that is running the service.

Europe 101

Europe Social Network Technical Review IPO 101

VC Cafe

MAY 18, 2022

venture capital and private equity) the VC index (by Refinitiv) shows a nearly 40% decline. After the crazy year that was 2021 in venture capital, the tone has rapidly changed in May 2022. What is your plan if half your current customers go bankrupt? Gil Dibner, Angular Ventures. Multiples by vertical.

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Term Sheet Startup Valuation Ukraine 190

Hearpreneur

DECEMBER 8, 2019

This focus has helped me recruit the best and the brightest in the field, build a world-class operation, and most of all, with all the knowledge in a specific vertical, help build a leading agency for food & beverage manufacturers that are looking to build a direct to consumer channel. Photo Credit: Matt Daigle.

Entrepreneur 120

Entrepreneur Technical Review Vertical Las Vegas 120

Steve Blank

JUNE 8, 2009

In the last three posts, we drew the relationship of market risk and invention risk with vertical markets and pointed out verticals where customer development would be useful. In contrast to simply executing your business plan, the Customer Development process is built on low-cost and continuous learning and iterating.

Vertical 125

Vertical Silicon Valley RSS Marketing 125

Steve Blank

JULY 2, 2009

To an entrepreneur, being asked to join a venture firm with an Entrepreneur-in-Residence title means you have been tapped on the shoulder by the VC gods. The CDROM content business in the early 1990’s was one of the many of the long line of venture capital fads. We understood none of this. More detail in future posts.

Silicon Valley 120

Silicon Valley Technical Review RSS Software Review 120

Hunter Walker

JULY 18, 2022

Are you indispensable for customers? Your runway is impacted by the absence of projected revenue. Instead I’ll suggest there are two specific questions that really matter, the answers to which will have the biggest impact on the next 1–5 years of startups and venture capital. Top line growth and margin.

Valuation 116

Valuation Cap Table Startup Later Stage 116

Steve Blank

SEPTEMBER 3, 2009

In the next few posts that follow, I’ll describe how thinking of a solution to this model’s failures led to the Customer Development Model – that offers a new way to approach startup sales and marketing activities. The meaning of alpha test , beta test, and first customer ship are pretty obvious to most engineers.

Customer Development 228

Customer Development Developer Silicon Valley Customer 228

ReadWriteStart

JANUARY 6, 2011

This curriculum is based on the various questions entrepreneurs have asked me over these 64 sessions, spanning financing, positioning, customer acquisition, marketing, sales, channel, and various other early stage, startup-related issues. John already has a couple of customers, and needs about 50 customers to get to $1M in annual revenue.

Vertical 115

Vertical Web San Francisco Entrepreneur 115

Steve Blank

APRIL 9, 2009

And it was going to mention the two words that SuperMac marketing needed to live and breathe: revenue and profit. To do that we will create end-user demand and drive it into the sales channel, educate the channel and customers about why our products are superior, and help Engineering understand customer needs and desires.

Silicon Valley 269

Silicon Valley Technical Review RSS PR 269

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. The venture capital market in this category is fairly concentrated among series A and expansion-stage funds that prefer to invest in companies with substantial revenue.

Vertical 120

Vertical Stealth Portfolio Seed Capital 120

abovethecrowd.com

NOVEMBER 13, 2012

Some customers now use it as a second car alternative. Many failed marketplaces attack purchasing cycles that are simply way too infrequent, which makes it much more difficult to build brand awareness and word-of-mouth customer growth. oDesk’s presence increases the number of first time software outsourcers. Network Effects.

Aggregator 101

Aggregator Marketing Software Review North America 101

Steve Blank

JULY 30, 2009

Your Customers are Not Who You Think For years I thought this “million unit chip sale by accident&# was a “one-off&# funny story. That is until I saw that in startup after startup customers come from places you don’t plan on. Your board nods sagely at your target customer list. What happened?

Silicon Valley 143

Silicon Valley RSS California Customer Development 143

Haystack

NOVEMBER 12, 2018

By all accounts, the Utah-HQ’d company did everything the right way, was an overnight success 16 years in the making, and only raised venture capital as a growth company after years of bootstrapping. Of course, SAP or others could’ve made a run at Qualtrics earlier, and who knows – maybe folks had tried and failed.

Acquisition 105

Acquisition Utah IPO Venture Capital 105

The Startup Magazine

OCTOBER 14, 2021

Fast forward to today; since we founded Taxfyle in 2015, it has earned the support and investment of numerous venture capitalists and is one of the fastest-growing companies in any sector in the U.S. 5000 list , which lists private American companies based on three-year revenue growth between 2016 and 2019. Magazine’ Inc.

CPA 141

CPA Founder Vertical Cofounder 141

Both Sides of the Table

FEBRUARY 13, 2011

The venture capital industry is so heavily skewed to Northern California, which the remains spilled over Boston, New York & Southern California. So it was wonderful to hear from a leading venture capital firm based in Washington DC. A contemporary analog to this type of vertical integration is Comcast/NBC-U.

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Cofounder Merger Founder Venture Capital 277

Seeing Both Sides

AUGUST 16, 2012

Last week, I wrote about Akamai , a company with strong network effects that successfully transitioned from a single product to build a platform that garners over a billion dollars in revenue and is now a core part of the Internet’s fabric. Expedia grew to account for roughly one third of the company’s revenues. Think about that.

Part-Time VPE 54

Part-Time VPE Software Review Costa Rica Technical Review 54

Both Sides of the Table

JUNE 18, 2010

What a pleasure that I got to spend an hour talking with both Om Malik (whom I’ve always respected his views) and Paul Jozefak , a venture capital partner at Neuhaus Partners in Germany (and formerly the head of Europe for SAP Ventures). Network of vertical focused sites: BeachMint, BeachMint, WineMint, etc.;

Venture Capital 225

Venture Capital Non-Compete Vertical Europe 225

The Equity Kicker

MAY 9, 2016

I just read Nicolas Colin’s Brief History of the World (of Venture Capital). We can generalise this into a blueprint for ecosystems generally: Find a vertical market where there is a comparative advantage – Silicon Valley started with military technology, in London fintech and ecommerce are good candidates.

Silicon Valley 60

Silicon Valley Venture Capital eCommerce Startup 60

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.

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Customer Development Developer Customer Silicon Valley 220

Start Up Blog

JANUARY 28, 2015

They too made life better for their customers and took humanity a few steps forward. It is among the hottest spaces for deep research and Venture Capital investment, and like all technologies before it, humans will roll the dice if there is a big dollar to be made, regardless of the potential externalities they might create.

Technical Review 48

Technical Review Startup Australia Artificial Inteligence 48

Start Up Blog

JANUARY 5, 2015

They too made life better for their customers and took humanity a few steps forward. It is among the hottest spaces for deep research and Venture Capital investment, and like all technologies before it, humans will roll the dice if there is a big dollar to be made, regardless of the potential externalities they might create.

Technical Review 48

Technical Review Startup Australia Artificial Inteligence 48

Mucker Lab

DECEMBER 2, 2015

Most brilliant “Internet of Things” ideas are quicksand for capital unless you have the branding, vertical integration and customer lock-in that Apple achieved. 20 years ago, a majority of “Sand Hill” venture capital went into enterprise-focused startups. The iPod model will separate IoT platforms from fads.

Vertical 60

Vertical Widget Distribution China 60