Startup Professionals Musings

SEPTEMBER 11, 2021

Almost every early-stage startup who has approached investors for funding has heard the innocuous sounding rejection “I love your idea, but come back when you have more traction.” First of all, a definition. Average transaction size and revenue per customer. Market penetration.

Hockey Stick 304

Hockey Stick Early Stage Metrics Acquisition 304

OnlyOnce

SEPTEMBER 8, 2022

Selling from a White Board means that you are essentially working with an interested potential customer on a custom and conceptual sale; selling from PowerPoint means that you are selling tailored solutions—you’re no longer at the discovery stage. If your board asks you if you’re ready to step on the gas and scale your revenue engine (e.g.,

Revenue 62

Revenue Hiring Forecast Early Stage 62

View from Seed

JANUARY 27, 2021

. $100M is a meaningful increase from our $50M third fund, though it’s still quite small in the grand scheme of venture, especially amid the recent wave of late stage financings and SPACs. We believe that this fund is the perfect size for us to be the best possible partners to early-stage entrepreneurs today.

LP 411

LP Early Stage Seed Stage Venture Capital 411

Both Sides of the Table

NOVEMBER 14, 2017

As an early-stage VC I love this phase. Throughout the first year we made many fixes and saw our revenue base in these markets accelerate so we felt we were ready to attack Los Angeles, amongst the most important storage markets in the country. I will miss my daily interactions with Sam.

Operations 286

Operations New York City Technical Review Startup 286

Startup Professionals Musings

OCTOBER 8, 2023

A better approach is to first understand who these people are, why and how they invest, and then focus on the ones who are the best match for your particular startup stage, location and industry. By definition, angels are accredited investors, who invest their own money for a percentage of the business.

Venture Capital 265

Venture Capital Accredited Investor Syndicate Syndication 265

Both Sides of the Table

APRIL 26, 2016

In product business it is often measured over multiple purchases and assumptions are made about the repeat rates and in the enterprise or services world LTV can be based on churn rates, which are notoriously hard to predict in an early-stage business. In SaaS (or any recurring revenue business) this is also a very difficult task.

Metrics 150

Metrics Cost Acquisition Startup 150

Eric Friedman

MAY 9, 2019

In any early stage environment there are typically limited development cycles, budgets, and overall resources to get things done. In this constant struggle, I learned (definitely the hard way) that Revenue = Resources. This was in 2010 and certainly early in the life cycle of network growth and sales.

Revenue 60

Revenue Warrant Early Stage Cofounder 60

YoungUpstarts

SEPTEMBER 4, 2016

And, ensuring a consistent growth is definitely one of them. Once your business starts generating enough revenue, you can hire a marketing agency or consultant to handle the task. Every new business has its own share of teething troubles.

Dividend 113

Dividend Early Stage Social Media Hosting 113

Both Sides of the Table

AUGUST 3, 2010

How much dilution should I take for it?&# My friend’s company was pre-revenue. The only thing worse than your early-stage company buying another early stage company is you trying to pull off a merger of equals. If they’re early stage like you, they’re likely just dogs.

Merger 276

Merger Technical Review Early Stage Dilution 276

Startup Professionals Musings

MAY 30, 2022

Early-stage entrepreneurs rightly keep their focus on creating an innovative product or service. After celebrating success at that level, they often find themselves ill-prepared to move to the next stage, for scaling their business into a high-performing enterprise.

Mezzanine 368

Mezzanine Private Equity Bandwidth Metrics 368

VC Cafe

AUGUST 2, 2022

think about the entrepreneurs that started in the early days of the Internet, mobile, crypto, VR and yes… now Metaverse. Given the ‘fuzzy’ period we’re in, where we still struggle with a definition of the Metaverse, it’s easy to dismiss it all as a fad. Fortnite generated $5.8 but still lost $2.8

IP 206

IP Cofounder Valuation Acquisition 206

Both Sides of the Table

JULY 16, 2010

One is the “denominator problem&# which says that if an LP invests X% (the denominator) into “alternative investments&# such as venture capital and if their total amount available to invest (the numerator) goes down by 30% then the amount they allocate to VC will by definition need to go down by 30% to stay the same percentage.

LP 311

LP Technical Review Early Stage Silicon Valley 311

Both Sides of the Table

APRIL 3, 2014

Nor do they exist in the investors of early-stage companies. By definition an MVP (minimum viable product) means there’s room for improvement. We’re definitely a premium product, which is why we don’t just drop prices to match their moves to “buy” business. Or whatever. The more, the better.

Sales 382

Sales Startup Technical Review Matching 382

View from Seed

JULY 19, 2022

On average, an eCommerce retailer spends 15-30% of their revenue on paid marketing channels, but in recent months, new privacy regulations, iOS 14 tracking changes and the phase out of 3rd-party cookies, have increased the cost to acquire a new customer by 155% , a trend that is expected to continue in the coming years. And your least?

eCommerce 156

eCommerce Greece Early Stage SMS 156

Both Sides of the Table

JUNE 5, 2011

Early-stage investors in technology startups are only looking for growth-oriented companies that can achieve an “exit&# someday – either via selling your company to a larger company or via an IPO. Prices have definitely gone up in 2011 as depicted in the anecdotal chart below. It was early 2000.

Pre-Money Valuation 336

Pre-Money Valuation Valuation Silicon Valley Stock 336

Startup Professionals Musings

JANUARY 27, 2021

A better approach is to first understand who these people are, why and how they invest, and then focus on the ones who are the best match for your particular startup stage, location and industry. By definition, angels are accredited investors, who invest their own money for a percentage of the business.

Search 317

Search Accredited Investor Angel Investor Venture Capital 317

Up and Running

JULY 26, 2016

Between January 2015 and January 2016, we grew our platform Slidebean from $1K to $20K in monthly recurring revenue. Getting the first tracks of revenue is one of the toughest processes of building a startup. Customer Lifetime Value (LTV): The potential revenue that you’ll be receiving from a given user.

Revenue 60

Revenue Acquisition Channel Campaign 60

Both Sides of the Table

JUNE 22, 2015

msuster looking for an inspired post on when an exclusivity deal (w/ major industry player) works (cons as well) for an early stage tech co. — The more specific you can get in your definition the better. I must admit I discuss this very frequently with portfolio companies but hadn’t thought to write about it.

PR 150

PR Early Stage Software Naming 150

Growthink Blog

DECEMBER 27, 2017

How many customers fit the definition? Presenting a plan in which the company grows too quickly will show the naiveté of the management team, while presenting too conservative a growth plan will often fail to excite an early stage investor (who typically looks for a 10X return on her investment). Detail all revenue streams.

Venture Capital 129

Venture Capital Business Plan Technical Review Private Placement 129

Duct Tape Marketing

JANUARY 25, 2023

Growing Your Audience (And Your Revenue) With A Book written by John Jantsch read more at Duct Tape Marketing Marketing Podcast with Matt Briel In this episode of the Duct Tape Marketing Podcast , I interview Matt Briel. And now I think it's definitely through technology, through, you know, a lot of advances in opportunities.

Audience 88

Audience Revenue Distribution Differentiation 88

Both Sides of the Table

MAY 19, 2013

Yet our initial customer success didn’t translate into big revenue growth and we faced issues such as: Do we support developers, end-users or both? I have a very public seed stage investment policy and awe.sm I have previously written why I don’t believe in the COO role at early-stage startups.

Technical Review 303

Technical Review Cofounder Analytics Founder 303

Feld Thoughts

AUGUST 25, 2015

The key reason for the explosion in capital flowing into the industry, and therefore the large increase in practitioners, had nothing to do with 1970’s performance, early stage investing, or technology. Some were Silicon Valley early stage companies, such as Apple, Quantum, and Masstor Systems. This isn’t correct either.

Venture Capital 70

Venture Capital SBIC Technical Review Silicon Valley 70

Version One Ventures

DECEMBER 14, 2016

Every announcement – whether it was a funding round, exit or layoffs – was analyzed within the context that the tech bubble has definitely burst or that we’re still in the bubble. forward revenue in February 2016 (the low), they appreciated by 6% each month for the following six months. So, what really happened in 2016?

Technical Review 60

Technical Review Early Stage Portfolio Valuation 60

Steve Blank

NOVEMBER 16, 2009

In it, I got asked a question I often hear: “What if we have a web-based business that doesn’t have revenue or paying customers? And without revenue how do we know if we achieved product/market fit to exit Customer Validation?” They’re putting money into web services/business – most without early revenue. Great quote.

Customer Development 219

Customer Development Web Developer Customer 219

ReadWriteStart

AUGUST 28, 2012

It also depends on how innovative your technology is - if you’re using existing platforms and delivery methods, you can definitely hire out a great team to run your company. Very early-stage startups may have to give up as much as 30% of their company to bring on a rockstar programmer. Laura Roeder , LKR.

Technical Review 131

Technical Review Cofounder Founder Software Review 131

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? All things being equal, of course, you’d rather have more revenue rather than less. And yet revenue alone is not a sufficient goal.

Customer 167

Customer San Francisco Lean Hockey Stick 167

Both Sides of the Table

JULY 23, 2014

Early-stage VCs have realized that they need to capitalize on this trend, which is why many traditional VCs have set up “opportunity” funds that sit alongside their core funds as a means of capturing more private-market (pre IPO) value. Unprecedented revenue growth + companies staying private longer =.

Technical Review 398

Technical Review Venture Capital Valuation Pre-Money Valuation 398

Hippoland

APRIL 9, 2017

2) You mix up the definition of common software startup KPIs This is unfortunate. Often, I see entrepreneurs get the definition of common startup KPIs wrong, and it comes back to bite them even if it’s just an innocent mistake. But, really they mean GMV (in most cases). And you may not have all the answers (or most of the answers!)

Cofounder 48

Cofounder Early Stage Software Review Naming 48

View from Seed

APRIL 30, 2015

Especially in the early stages, so much about the company may change in how they think about product or go-to-market — and change multiple times — before raising an institutional round. Traction and revenue? But the costs are definitely there. NVV: What do debt providers look for in a company’s track record?

Term Sheet 120

Term Sheet Equity Startup Seed Stage 120

Duct Tape Marketing

NOVEMBER 2, 2023

02:06] Can you share your experience starting with an early-stage company (Hubspot) that eventually went public? [07:11] That's hundred grand annual revenue. And that became about, and now is about 40% of HubSpot's revenue. But yeah, so they definitely made a bunch of changes. Definitely.

Metrics 75

Metrics Analytics Forecast Software Review 75

Up and Running

NOVEMBER 19, 2015

The intellectual property of a business, which in many instances functions as the lifeblood of a company, is almost always financially valuable and that value increases as the company grows and starts generating revenue. Problems with formally protecting your IP.

Intellectual Property 60

Intellectual Property Business Plan IP Early Stage 60

Both Sides of the Table

FEBRUARY 5, 2011

Nor do they exist in the investors of early-stage companies. By definition an MVP (minimum viable product) means there’s room for improvement. We’re definitely a premium product, which is why we don’t just drop prices to match their moves to “buy&# business. My first startup was no different.

Sales 316

Sales Technical Review Matching Hiring 316

Rob Go

JUNE 16, 2014

A few notable excerpts: Kyle Alspach’s commentary on seed and series A at BetaBoston; Brad Feld’s tweet a few weeks ago that “$100k MRR [monthly recurring revenue] used to be interesting. On top of that, investors from other geographies definitely do invest in early-stage companies that are not in their backyard.

Early Stage 67

Early Stage Boston Portfolio Venture Capital 67

Startup Professionals Musings

SEPTEMBER 1, 2019

Early-stage entrepreneurs rightly keep their focus on creating an innovative product or service. After celebrating success at that level, they often find themselves ill-prepared to move to the next stage, for scaling their business into a high-performing enterprise.

Mezzanine 244

Mezzanine Private Equity Startup Bandwidth 244

Startup Professionals Musings

FEBRUARY 26, 2013

Almost every early-stage startup who has approached investors for funding has heard the innocuous sounding rejection “I love your idea, but come back when you have more traction.” First of all, a definition. Average transaction size and revenue per customer. Market penetration.

Hockey Stick 266

Hockey Stick Early Stage Metrics Acquisition 266

Startup Professionals Musings

OCTOBER 5, 2015

I challenge any entrepreneur, for example, to define the difference between "seed-stage" and "early-stage" financing. Asking for early-stage money before you have customers and revenue will likely kill your credibility with real investors. Yet, knowing this distinction is important.

Seed Stage 120

Seed Stage Finance Early Stage Startup 120

ReadWriteStart

AUGUST 28, 2012

It also depends on how innovative your technology is - if you’re using existing platforms and delivery methods, you can definitely hire out a great team to run your company. Very early-stage startups may have to give up as much as 30% of their company to bring on a rockstar programmer. Laura Roeder , LKR 2.

Technical Review 79

Technical Review Cofounder Founder Software Review 79