Startup Professionals Musings

APRIL 27, 2019

In fact, it’s all about the “focus” required to get early stage technology products across the deadly chasm from early adopters to mainstream customers. Missions and products that are too broad confuse your team, your customers, and potential investors. Product development chasm. Marketing and sales chasm.

Technical Review 255

Technical Review Dilution Early Stage Product Development 255

Startup Professionals Musings

AUGUST 4, 2014

Value factors include your related product breadth and depth, relationships with thought leaders, key vendors and large potential customers. Building the product may be the easy part of your startup challenge. Keep your wits about you to make sure that dilution is done equitably and evenly.

Cofounder 261

Cofounder Stock Founder Technical Cofounder 261

Both Sides of the Table

MAY 9, 2018

Your product demo crushed. I also had to negotiate a follow-on round at a portfolio company because new investors were trying to force a bit option-pool top-up that would dilute the founders and existing shareholders and existing investors were fighting over prorata rights. But the real product being bought or sold is “trust.”

Software Review 381

Software Review Churn Rate Due Diligence New York 381

Startup Professionals Musings

OCTOBER 13, 2021

As a long-time business consultant and investor, especially to entrepreneurs, I recognize your sparkle of vision , to build the ultimate world-changing product. I found these maladies summarized well in a new book, “ Radical Product Thinking ,” by entrepreneur Radhika Dutt. While the idea was great, they failed on execution.

Dilution 334

Dilution Metrics Acquisition Revenue 334

Startup Professionals Musings

APRIL 23, 2017

In fact, it’s all about the “focus” required to get early stage technology products across the deadly chasm from early adopters to mainstream customers. Missions and products that are too broad confuse your team, your customers, and potential investors. Product development chasm. Marketing and sales chasm.

Customer 191

Customer Entrepreneur Technical Review Dilution 191

Startup Professionals Musings

AUGUST 24, 2016

Value factors include your related product breadth and depth, relationships with thought leaders, key vendors, and large potential customers. Building the product may be the easy part of your startup challenge. Keep your wits about you to make sure that dilution is done equitably and evenly. But don’t get greedy.

Equity 120

Equity Cofounder Technical Cofounder Intellectual Property 120

The Startup Magazine

MARCH 14, 2022

The equity dilution at this nascent stage is on desirable terms; such investing can lead to profitable returns. Organisations in our country now trust their employees with remote and hybrid work, improving their productivity and boosting morale. At this stage, the founder mainly raises funding from their sources or family and friends.

Technical Review 145

Technical Review Due Diligence India Startup 145

Startup Professionals Musings

AUGUST 31, 2018

Instant global communication now makes it easy to reach new markets without rethinking your entire product strategy. Expand your product line, staying close to the core. Totally new and risky products will dilute your focus, and may confuse existing customers. Pursue strategic alliances and partnerships.

Angel Investor 167

Angel Investor Dilution Software Review Distribution 167

Both Sides of the Table

FEBRUARY 6, 2013

it’s the most expensive dilution you’ll ever face. But not anal if one founder who shares equity graciously with early employees who are treated as “co-founders” My idea startup team is heaving on tech personnel but also has strong product management. Quick summary: Be careful not to have too many co-founders.

Cofounder 388

Cofounder Early Stage Startup Silicon Valley 388

Startup Professionals Musings

DECEMBER 18, 2013

In fact, it’s all about the “focus” required to get early stage technology products across the deadly chasm from early adopters to mainstream customers. Missions and products that are too broad confuse your team, your customers, and potential investors. Product development chasm. Marketing and sales chasm.

Entrepreneur 252

Entrepreneur Marketing Technical Review Dilution 252

Startup Professionals Musings

DECEMBER 29, 2021

Unfortunately, what I see in this Internet age is information overload, and new product differentiation is harder than ever before. In this context, based on recent feedback , over 30,000 new products get introduced every year, and 95 percent fail, primarily because they don’t stand out over existing alternatives.

Restful 336

Restful Differentiation Social Media Dilution 336

Startup Professionals Musings

NOVEMBER 10, 2012

In fact, it’s all about the “focus” required to get early stage technology products across the deadly chasm from early adopters to mainstream customers. Missions and products that are too broad confuse your team, your customers, and potential investors. Product development chasm. Marketing and sales chasm.

Startup 254

Startup Technical Review Dilution Early Stage 254

This is going to be BIG.

JANUARY 18, 2024

Plus, we agree that we should have this type of meeting and try to make it productive for all parties. They get frustrated by the pace of things out of the gate and feel like a company’s products should be everywhere yesterday. If your early customers aren’t blown away by the experience, you’re never going to become a huge company.

.Net 88

.Net Cap Table Startup Technical Review 88

Up and Running

JULY 2, 2014

We had personally invested $70,000 of our own money at this point, and we were hoping to raise at least another $250,000 to help us hire a team, launch our company, and begin to build our product. of our company in exchange for the $300K, and my business partner and I each diluted from 50% ownership down to 33.3%

Technical Review 118

Technical Review Angel Investor Due Diligence Dilution 118

Startup Professionals Musings

JANUARY 31, 2020

Yet I find a big difference between “starting a new business” and “creating a new product.” In my experience, most successful entrepreneurs have indeed created a new product, but most people who claim to be inventors have a hard time starting a business. Two people with complementary skills are often equal to three.

Founder 312

Founder Intellectual Property Dilution Startup 312

View from Seed

AUGUST 17, 2021

at exit due to dilution. It creates dilution, and investing in these rounds increases your effective post-money. In some cases, great companies massively expand the definition or potential of the market with innovative products, technology leverage, and great execution. So it’s like this same fund actually invested $2.5M

IRR 205

IRR Dilution Founder Portfolio 205

YoungUpstarts

APRIL 19, 2012

When not approached carefully, growth can destroy value as it outstrips a company’s managerial capacity, processes, quality, and financial controls, or substantially dilutes customer value propositions. Growth can dilute a business’s culture and customer value proposition and put the business in a different competitive space.

Dilution 209

Dilution Virginia Management Washington 209

Startup Professionals Musings

NOVEMBER 5, 2022

Good managers improve focus and productivity through effective communication and coordinating disparate activities. Most experts agree that the key to worker productivity, decision making, and satisfaction, is raising their level of engagement from the currently low thirty percent range.

Management 333

Management Dilution Forecast Leadership 333

YoungUpstarts

JULY 31, 2019

But “fundraising debt” comes into the picture when you raise too much too early, diluting your business at the beginning of the venture, with no real plan or unrealistic projections for how your business will scale. Many would argue that even the most theoretically scalable products in healthcare, i.e

Cofounder 127

Cofounder Burn Rate Technical Cofounder Seed Capital 127

Startup Professionals Musings

DECEMBER 11, 2022

Getting investors to trust you with their money is always a challenge, and it’s even more difficult in the early stages, where you don’t have a significant revenue stream, a few customers, or maybe even a product yet. Investors are looking to buy a chunk of the business, not the product. Dysfunctional or non-functional team members.

Due Diligence 271

Due Diligence Intellectual Property Entrepreneur Preferred Stock 271

Startup Professionals Musings

FEBRUARY 14, 2021

In their passion and excitement about a new product or service, entrepreneurs tend to continually narrow the scope of potential competitors, and often claim to have no direct competitors. Order-of-magnitude cost reduction or productivity increase. Clear product differentiation and a singular focus.

Intellectual Property 417

Intellectual Property Angel Investor Dilution Differentiation 417

Startup Professionals Musings

SEPTEMBER 13, 2011

In fact, it’s all about the “focus” required to get early stage technology products across the deadly chasm from early adopters to mainstream customers. Missions and products that are too broad confuse your team, your customers, and potential investors. Product development chasm. Marketing and sales chasm.

Marketing 238

Marketing Entrepreneur Technical Review Dilution 238

Feld Thoughts

SEPTEMBER 2, 2011

If the full pool were to be given out, the dilution is fairly significant to the founders. They would own from 55% and 45% down to 36% and 29%, but until options are exercised they are not diluted. Our (now three) co-founders begin building out their product.

Cap Table 133

Cap Table CTO Hire Technical Cofounder Cofounder 133

Startup Professionals Musings

OCTOBER 17, 2022

Like big corporations with a heavy investment in existing product lines, it’s hard to stop linear investing to look for innovative new opportunities. This can cause early investor dilution, lower ultimate returns or leave the startup stranded. The investment model is changing from hard selection to “spray and pray.”

Angel Investor 342

Angel Investor Venture Capital Silicon Valley Portfolio 342

Steve Blank

NOVEMBER 13, 2018

I worked with engineering to try to find product/market fit ( big endian or little endian ?) They go from organizations struggling for survival as they search for product/market fit, to building a repeatable and scalable business model, and then growing to profitability. What should I have done? What should my CEO have done?

Part-Time VPE 333

Part-Time VPE Employee Cofounder Hiring 333

Startup Professionals Musings

APRIL 12, 2021

Of course, it helps to pick a business model that minimizes these costs, such as e-commerce to minimize initial staff and facilities, or professional services, where you are the initial product. Don’t underestimate the advantages of providing your products and services in exchange for access to facilities and equipment you need to grow.

Dilution 404

Dilution Incubator Bootstrapping Government 404

Up and Running

JULY 1, 2020

Businesses start when their founders see a need for a product or service that they can provide. While it’s called a business plan, it can be written and utilized to successfully enter a new market, launch a product, or weigh the potential of adding an employee. This typically occurred with new products.

Business Plan 152

Business Plan Forecast Operations Dilution 152

YoungUpstarts

MAY 6, 2019

They make money by starting a product from scratch and then selling it in thousands of dollars. In most cases, they hit the jackpot when their products are sold for millions. You don’t have a product and most of your meetings will not bring any fruit. You are looking for cofounders that can help you build a product.

Startup 113

Startup Technical Cofounder Merger Early Stage 113

Startup Professionals Musings

JULY 1, 2022

7% Product Manager,2 -.3% You should also assume that your percentage will go down through dilution as the company raises additional rounds, and offer sizes will go down as the company grows. CEO brought in to replace the founder, 5 - 10% CTO, CFO, VP of Marketing or Sales, 1.5 - 3% Chief Engineer or Architect, 1 - 1.5%

Stock Options 343

Stock Options Advisory Board Stock Startup 343

Startup Professionals Musings

MAY 8, 2022

The downside is loss of control and financial dilution. No one wants to put in money until you have a product, and you need money to build the product. Startups are usually founded by product or service experts who don’t enjoy the various growth phases. Should you start a company solo or find co-founders to help you?

Founder 325

Founder Hockey Stick Cofounder Liquidity Event 325

YoungUpstarts

SEPTEMBER 23, 2017

In the first stage, it processes its proposition with early adopters and keeps on pivoting till the time it has the right product and way of positioning it. Nonetheless, many entrepreneurs don’t do this because accepting ownership dilution when it isn’t necessary, is too painful. A start-up often tends to go through 2 distinct stages.

Cofounder 124

Cofounder Sweat Equity Equity Dilution 124

Startup Professionals Musings

JULY 24, 2022

Overcoming execution obstacles is combating dilution, not compromising, for these innovators. They don’t have to start by overcoming the choking gravities of an existing organization and product set. They seek smart people, who openly express their doubts, and then collaborate to overcome them.

Marketing 313

Marketing Dilution Social Network Government 313

Startup Professionals Musings

NOVEMBER 8, 2021

If you are living your passion, you want to interact with customers, and “touch and feel” the product every day. Of course, that doesn’t dilute the owner’s equity, but it may well limit you to organic growth, versus international rollouts and acquisition options. Insist on being engaged at the transaction level.

Entrepreneur 371

Entrepreneur Equity Dilution LLC 371

Startup Professionals Musings

JULY 23, 2021

The push is always on to grow your market with new geographies, new products, and new market segments. Yet every change can cause brand dilution or competition you don’t need. This resulted in lawsuits and fines, angered many new customers, and the Wells Fargo brand is still recovering.

Leadership 426

Leadership Management Brazil Differentiation 426

Startup Professionals Musings

AUGUST 27, 2010

In fact, it’s all about the “focus” required to get early stage technology products across the deadly chasm from early adopters to mainstream customers. Missions and products that are too broad confuse your team, your customers, and potential investors. Product development chasm. Marketing and sales chasm.

Startup 227

Startup Technical Review Dilution Early Stage 227

The Startup Magazine

FEBRUARY 2, 2021

Academic lab research concentrates heavily on advancing experimental science designs that emphasize the understanding of scientific mechanisms and publishing papers that explore phenomena, rather than developing commercialized data or products.

Technical Review 117

Technical Review Syria Developer United States 117

Version One Ventures

MARCH 13, 2013

It’s hard to grab people’s mindshare and create a loyal user base when people only need to use your product or service occasionally. The toothbrush test is valid for SaaS products as well. Products that are critical to the daily workflow, like business management software and collaboration tools, tend to have the lowest churn rates.

Product 165

Product Churn Rate Dilution Social Network 165