crowdSPRING Blog

MAY 9, 2018

This is hardly a surprise: a viral-friendly experience and Instagram aesthetic heavily inform the Glossier marketing campaign. Customers want to know what ingredients are involved and where they’re coming from, said Jonathan Keidan , the founder of early-stage venture fund Torch Capital. Know what matters.

Marketing 90

Marketing Social Media Cofounder Design 90

This is going to be BIG.

AUGUST 8, 2011

Surely--but then I realize how difficult it is to be an early stage VC in NYC. If you're a junior VC, you're not going to have the best investment filter, nor the most experience--but you can definitely be a leader in your community and build a great network of potential hires and partners. What did I do?

Venture Capital 110

Venture Capital PR Hiring Networking 110

Haystack

SEPTEMBER 2, 2018

Earlier this week, in the wake of Y Combinator’s Demo Day, I saw a tweet go viral and generate lots of chatter. What I do feel deeply, however, is that we all in the early-stage startup ecosystem are likely being a bit too over-protective. The tweet was written by YC’s President, Michael Seibel.

Seed Stage 76

Seed Stage Seed Capital Equity Europe 76

Reid Hoffman

MARCH 23, 2021

Many times, a global view of data is sufficient, like the virality curve at PayPal. Even if the answers aren’t definitive, they can help you distinguish between a helpful gut instinct and feel-good wishful thinking. But other times, you need the ability to make micro as well as macro decisions. COMMON DECISION-MAKING PITFALLS.

Venture Capital 50

Venture Capital Metrics Investment Bankers Framework 50

View from Seed

JUNE 30, 2015

As a founder, I think it’s easier to talk to potential investors about where they invest across the lifecycle of a company (whether it’s truly early-stage/early lifecycle, for instance), versus round stages like seed, series A, etc. Almost all VCs actually invest across this spectrum.

Seed Stage 120

Seed Stage Syndicate Syndication Dilution 120

Duct Tape Marketing

DECEMBER 28, 2023

And it's the same thing for individuals because at that early stage of a business, when you don't yet have a product, even sometimes when you don't yet have customers, you don't yet have traction and sales, how are you going to judge it? These are the kind of decisions we wanted to help people with at that early stage.

Framework 67

Framework Cofounder Early Stage IPO 67

Hippoland

OCTOBER 16, 2016

In this post, I’m going to very *simplistically* dive into some high level categories and talk about how early stage investors consider each. Essentially my definition for companies in this category is that the technology is so difficult to build that only a small subset of people in the world can build it. Really really fast.

Startup 48

Startup Vertical Early Stage Bootstrapping 48

Duct Tape Marketing

JANUARY 19, 2023

And it's the same thing for individuals because at that early stage of a business, when you don't yet have a product, even sometimes when you don't yet have, um, customers, you don't yet have traction in sales, how are you gonna judge it? These are the kind of decisions we wanted to help people with at that early stage.

Audio 84

Audio Cofounder Framework Early Stage 84

View from Seed

MARCH 22, 2016

This is for the early-stage companies — the entrepreneurs with great ideas and tireless work ethics who feel like they’ve emailed half of the country’s news outlets with nothing but the rare “thanks, but not interested” reply to show for it. Its actual definition is “being one of a kind; unlike anything else.” The irony hurts.

Seed Stage 120

Seed Stage San Francisco Startup CTO Hire 120

Up and Running

JULY 26, 2016

There are a number of other variables here like virality (the chances of a user referring another user), but I don’t want to overcomplicate things. Especially in the early stages, keeping a relationship with your customers can be paid off exponentially, not only in overall engagement but with extremely valuable word of mouth marketing.

Revenue 60

Revenue Acquisition Channel Campaign 60

Rob Go

MARCH 2, 2017

This might mean a free viral product that we believe can quickly get scale and grease the wheels for a paid enterprise service, similar to what we see in our portfolio company Code Climate or our former portfolio GrabCAD which was successfully acquired a few years ago. The third thing we often talk about is “Distribution Advantage.”

Portfolio 28

Portfolio Distribution Business Model Viral 28

reidhoffman.org

NOVEMBER 12, 2013

We are the leader in the professional domain with viral growth. For early stage companies, it’s important to show that you’re on path, that you have prospects, and that you can get to your vision. Here, we argue that we have a viral product that creates a network that possesses network effects.

Entrepreneur 111

Entrepreneur Revenue Viral Networking 111

Ben's Blog

MAY 15, 2020

Finally, we’ll zoom out and assess the big picture: how various categories of company may be impacted long-term, how this crisis compares to 2008 (and what that means for early-stage founders), and the industries and business models that are now prime for growth. Mobile isn’t growing on a fast rate.

Founder 36

Founder Conversion Technical Review Cash Position 36

www.forentrepreneurs.com

FEBRUARY 2, 2010

Companies should definitely measure how many leads, opportunities, trials and wins were derived from each marketing campaign. VC Venture capital Viral growth Plugin by wpburn.com wordpress themes Copyright © David Skok 2009, 2010. Looking forward to your next post on secret sauce of SaaS metrics. All rights reserved.

Metrics 55

Metrics Design Entrepreneur Startup 55

Startup Lessons Learned

JULY 15, 2020

A common test would be a viral entry or a viral attachment assay. On the one hand, I do think that there's a role for basically high risk tolerance faster, like early stage investment mentality and research and academia. Eric Ries : Explain what a reporter gene is. I think that'd be really important.

Technical Review 68

Technical Review Software Review Finance Technology 68

Occam's Razor

APRIL 8, 2013

If it's the number of invites sent, it's virality. In the early stages of launch, the most important metric was the number of families who fired up the app at least once a day. And with this new definition, over 80% of the early adopters were using the application regularly. That metric is tied to a KPI.

Metrics 156

Metrics Analytics Lean Churn Rate 156

A Smart Bear: Startups and Marketing for Geeks

OCTOBER 24, 2011

That’s definitely a waste of time no matter who you are. Patrick: Definitely. So, my initial gut says that you’re definitely not going to want to go after the people with little money in their checking account. Cool, thanks. You don’t learn how to swing on the course, you have to get to the golf course.

Cofounder 208

Cofounder Technical Review Software Review Differentiation 208

Occam's Razor

MAY 2, 2017

We focus on the better conversion rate definition, divide it by Visitors (or Users in GA). I have a massive bias against the current click-bait, let’s go viral , “hot story of the moment” traffic. Every SINGLE thing of value at Salesforce ends with the same gosh darn lead gen form, we measure Leads.

Metrics 141

Metrics Acquisition eCommerce Analytics 141

Up and Running

MAY 23, 2016

He says, “Spending a few thousand on a domain could make a big difference long term, and give you the credibility and advantage over the competition, especially in the very beginning and early stages of the business.”. The Definitive Guide to Building a Brand. 4 Reasons to Brand Your Business.

Software Review 74

Software Review Software Delaware Forecast 74

A Crowded Space

AUGUST 4, 2011

Josh: Yeah, it definitely is, and there’s an interesting mystique to VC that sort of goes away pretty quickly once you join the VC industry. The trend of the Internet of things or the quantified self is definitely rapidly growing. It’s definitely part of that social proof. So I think it’s definitely a plus.

Technical Review 60

Technical Review Venture Capital San Francisco Boston 60

Hippoland

FEBRUARY 12, 2018

And I understand the nitty gritty operations required to do these customer acquisition methods, so that gives me conviction that with the right team, this type of business can fly. On the flip side, I am definitely the wrong person to help with a fly-business. I know nothing about viral marketing.

Seed Stage 48

Seed Stage Business Model B2B Email 48

Hippoland

FEBRUARY 12, 2018

And I understand the nitty gritty operations required to do these customer acquisition methods, so that gives me conviction that with the right team, this type of business can fly. On the flip side, I am definitely the wrong person to help with a fly-business. I know nothing about viral marketing.

Seed Stage 48

Seed Stage Business Model B2B Email 48

mashable.com

SEPTEMBER 12, 2011

No doubt early-stage companies can be started on a shoestring by low-paid entrepreneurs, but when financing a scalable, sustainable product, a free application server won’t make much of a difference. In fact, it’s barely even the beginning for most companies in their seed stage financings.

Startup 79

Startup Social Media RSS Social Network 79

Steve Blank

FEBRUARY 26, 2020

For startups the early stage funding landscape looks like this: Step 1: The Pre-seed round – you raise $100-$750K. Btw, the definition of each startup financing stage has changed in the last decade. The Startup Investment Landscape. Step 2: The Seed round – you raise $1-$3M (in some cases even $2-5M).

Cofounder 431

Cofounder Seed Stage Valuation Metrics 431

mashable.com

SEPTEMBER 14, 2011

If you’re working with an open source project, for example, it’s important that you have a definitive business model to drive revenue — though not at the cost of alienating your community of core contributors. To that end, companies will offer enterprise-ready software that comes with additional features, services and support.

France 77

France Marketing Social Media Startup 77

VC Cafe

NOVEMBER 2, 2010

B y definition, early stage startups don’t have lots of money and resources. They hope to raise awareness through viral marketing and word of mouth, since participating in professional industry events can be a pretty expensive ordeal when you take into account hotels, flights, tickets, etc.

Finder 128

Finder Startup Social Network Mobile 128

www.quora.com

JANUARY 16, 2011

It is definitely written in a condescending manner. But you definitely need more than a beginner. As a developer, I feel that design/creative is undervalued in the early stages of product development. to echo Yyz earlier you need to prove early stage market traction! I don't think you need a top 10%.

Developer 42

Developer Technical Review Cofounder Technical Cofounder 42

Reid Hoffman

JULY 20, 2022

Leonardo Da Vinci filled thousands of notebook pages with his sketches, drawings, and writings, but fewer than 20 surviving paintings are, in the words of the Encyclopedia Britannica, “definitively attributed to him.” “Press the button – we do the rest,” an early Kodak ad exclaimed.

Warrant 48

Warrant Artificial Inteligence Social Media Early Stage 48

Cracking the Code

OCTOBER 10, 2008

While the CAC ratio helps SaaS businesses at scale to manage their Sales and Marketing spend, the SLC is a helpful framework for early stage businesses before you have meaningful data. By definition, your sales prospects are online - Savvy online marketing is a core competence (sometimes the only one) of every successful SaaS business.

Software Review 48

Software Review North America Europe Metrics 48

sharkseo.com

NOVEMBER 29, 2010

While those initial links will be very useful in sending traffic your way in the early stage, they can be massive useful later by allowing search engines to find your site and gain authority and link value. Aaron Wall, SEO Book Add a free feature which is accessible, useful, and spreads virally. The result of that?

Bootstrapping 49

Bootstrapping SEO Startup Widget 49

Cracking the Code

JULY 6, 2007

David Cowan , the Bessemer Managing Partner who pioneered early stage investments in automated subscription services ( Verisign , Postini , Netli.), The "revenue" in the MRR/CMRR definition is the monthly subscription revenue, different from billings. Note: high CAC ratio means high productiviy (see blog post for definition).

Software Review 66

Software Review Metrics Valuation Technical Review 66

VC Cafe

JUNE 30, 2022

Can we agree on a definition for the Metaverse? I covered various definitions previously on VC Cafe in “ A very short peek into the Metaverse “ The term metaverse doesn’t describe one specific technology, but rather the way we interact with technology. Tyler Cowen interviews Marc Andreessen on Web3.

Cloud 200

Cloud Venture Capital Cofounder Non-Compete 200

mashable.com

OCTOBER 5, 2012

Naming can be one of the most difficult challenges in the early stages of a startup. Naming your startup is definitely a challenging process! viral video. viral videos. But while many people have written about the topic, few have actually codified the process to help entrepreneurs succeed in the endeavor.

Naming 84

Naming Startup Social Media RSS 84