Steve Blank

SEPTEMBER 5, 2018

Reading the NY Times article “ Jeffrey Katzenberg Raises $1 Billion for Short-Form Video Venture, ” I realized it was time for a new startup heuristic: the amount of customer discovery and product-market fit you need to find is inversely proportional to the amount and availability of risk capital. ” Fire, Ready, Aim.

Lean 335

Lean Burn Rate Startup IPO 335

Steve Blank

OCTOBER 15, 2020

He was also responsible for leading the production, negotiation, and passage of the 2016-19 National Defense Authorization Acts. We need pockets of marketplace-type behavior where actual systems are competed out based on outcome-oriented metrics. Disruptive Technology. And we buy new things more regularly.

Technical Review 394

Technical Review Artificial Inteligence Technology United States 394

YoungUpstarts

OCTOBER 25, 2020

Email marketing is all about informing, influencing, and gaining the loyalty of a contact base that’s interested in your product or services. There is practically no other distribution channel that drives engagement and builds customer relations better than email marketing. With more than 2.5

Email 232

Email Sales Marketing Campaign 232

ConversionXL

FEBRUARY 3, 2022

It outlines four major growth strategies: market penetration , market development , product development , and diversification. The goal of market penetration is to leverage new tactics to increase product sales , including existing customers and new customers within existing markets. Product development. Market penetration.

Marketing 115

Marketing Framework Metrics Channel 115

Startup Professionals Musings

MARCH 4, 2019

Is your marketing focus product-centric or customer-centric ? If you only sell products, it’s time to realize that times have changed. With a wealth of products now available, customers look for the most memorable experience , not just the best product. Assuming that customers fit a bell curve distribution.

Customer 213

Customer Product Retention Azure 213

Startup Professionals Musings

APRIL 21, 2023

New product process. It starts with a vision, but benefits quickly from a structured process of idea generation, evaluation, prototyping, customer feedback, and success metrics. This includes personal and team commitments to delivery schedules, quality assurance, manufacturing, and distribution requirements. Ownership.

Intellectual Property 343

Intellectual Property Metrics .Net Social Network 343

VC Cafe

MARCH 1, 2024

Alow users to generate, refine, and stitch different content types in one workspace Enabling in-platform refinement – AI products can help users identify what can be improved, and then automatically make these changes. Iterating with intelligent editors – products that enable users to take an existing output and refine it (ex.

Artificial Inteligence 176

Artificial Inteligence Technical Review Software Review Generative AI 176

Startup Professionals Musings

NOVEMBER 4, 2019

I love good causes and social entrepreneurs, but a recent pitch to me about eliminating world hunger with a new product (harvesting algae at low cost) seemed to forget that really hungry people don’t have any money. Make the product or service come alive. Even a non-profit needs income to operate.

Intellectual Property 235

Intellectual Property Elevator Pitch Harvest Technical Review 235

Up and Running

SEPTEMBER 19, 2018

One of our Bplans writers described going into business in cannabis as a “ once-in-a-generation opportunity ,” with the product rapidly becoming legal for recreational as well as medical use in many states. In legal states, the markets have become so saturated that cannabis companies can end up with thousands of pounds of unsold product.

Business Plan 154

Business Plan Technical Review Forecast Software Review 154

ConversionXL

JULY 2, 2019

This ideal task distribution, as we later learned, was far from reality. Inefficient task distribution for each position. Those mistakes, in turn, had to be identified and corrected by their mentor, a senior analyst, before the tasks could enter production. Don’t try to make a dashboard with all the metrics you can imagine.

Analytics 121

Analytics Metrics Distribution Algorithm 121

Steve Blank

MARCH 31, 2014

Metrics like Return on Net Assets, Return on Capital and Internal Rate of Return are the guiding stars of the board and CEO. As Harvard professor Clayton Christensen noted, these efficiency metrics provided wise guidance for times when capital was scarce and raising money was hard. We legalized robbing the corporate treasury.

Private Equity 329

Private Equity Metrics China Intellectual Property 329

VC Cafe

JUNE 6, 2024

It’s not a surprise, given that entrepreneurs are obsessed with data and metrics, but in the conservative VC market of 2024, it feels even more important for founders to know what ‘good’ looks like and what investors expect. Metric Unremarkable Good Excellent Outlier ARR <$500k $500k-$1.5m $1.5m-$2.5m >$2.5m

B2B 78

B2B Burn Rate Generative AI Retention 78

ConversionXL

OCTOBER 4, 2022

Set your sights on Google’s Popular Products 4. From here, attach valid marketing metrics to each goal. Some goals may be measured by more than one metric. Both of these metrics can be used to measure progress. Who might their products and brand appeal to? Leverage FOMO in social media marketing 3. What isn’t?

eCommerce 129

eCommerce Marketing Social Media Retention 129

Women Entrepreneurs Can

MAY 3, 2024

The Importance of First Impressions In the cannabis industry, where product quality and brand image are paramount, packaging contributes significantly to the customer’s first impression. Packaging is a consumer’s first tangible interaction with a product, so its impact on the purchase decision cannot be overstated.

Technical Review 40

Technical Review Software Review Social Media Design 40

ConversionXL

FEBRUARY 3, 2022

But, as Sean Ellis notes, it isn’t about manipulating customers—it’s about helping them: “Sustainable growth is about understanding the value people get from your product and helping people realize this value. Growth hacking is about caring for and optimizing the user experience to build trust and keep customers using your product.

Retention 113

Retention Marketing Acquisition Channel 113

Startup Professionals Musings

DECEMBER 7, 2022

Continually add new marketing and distribution partners. There is no magic lever for growth, so several initiatives are required, with metrics to assess value returned. Manual processes and people are always the most expensive to scale, so every process needs metrics to determine when automation is appropriate.

Startup 335

Startup Social Media Metrics Viral 335

Both Sides of the Table

NOVEMBER 14, 2017

An alternate outcome that I also unfortunately observe in some cases are companies who had extreme early success with an initial product adoption but failed in key areas that limited the growth and therefore the ultimate financial outcomes. How profitable is my product or service? were more distributed.

Operations 286

Operations New York City Technical Review Startup 286

Startup Professionals Musings

OCTOBER 21, 2023

Too many founders have learned that passion and free beta products do not imply a sustainable business. Proof of any business model starts with a finished product or solution, sold to a new customer for full price, with high satisfaction for the value received. Marketing is everything these days. Plan for a real revenue model.

Business Model 273

Business Model Customer Angel Investor Bootstrapping 273

ReadWriteStart

JULY 7, 2021

For example, manufacturing companies use On-demand courier delivery apps for kickstarting their production activities in their factories and plants. The user chooses a particular courier service – and adds important information like the type of products to be delivered, pick-up, delivery destination, and deadline for delivery.

Technical Review 163

Technical Review Artificial Inteligence Demand Social Media 163

Startup Professionals Musings

DECEMBER 14, 2013

Entrepreneurs always work hard to create an innovative product or service, but often count on standard seller marketing for sales. Distribute an Executive Summary and Recommendations report, as well as transcripts of your interviews, to all the key players in your company. Include planned measurements and metrics.

Revenue 263

Revenue Startup Technical Review Business Model 263

Startup Professionals Musings

JULY 25, 2020

New product process. It starts with a vision, but benefits quickly from a structured process of idea generation, evaluation, prototyping, customer feedback, and success metrics. This includes personal and team commitments to delivery schedules, quality assurance, manufacturing, and distribution requirements. Ownership.

Intellectual Property 360

Intellectual Property Social Network Metrics .Net 360

YoungUpstarts

NOVEMBER 20, 2019

If you can check these boxes and convince venture capitalists that you’ve achieved product fit in a market with plenty of room for growth, you have a real shot at securing funding. The market for our product was global, and we had unique advantages in terms of our product and how we distributed it to customers.

Technical Review 140

Technical Review Due Diligence Early Stage Differentiation 140

SoCal CTO

OCTOBER 8, 2009

A post by Fred Wilson pointed me to Dave McClure's Startup Metrics presentation. Define what you need from a metrics and reporting standpoint. Startup Metrics for Pirates (SeedCamp, Sept 2009) View more documents from Dave McClure. You only build what you need to prove that model. Great stuff.

Metrics 225

Metrics Startup Retention Acquisition 225

Startup Professionals Musings

APRIL 7, 2017

Entrepreneurs always work hard to create an innovative product or service, but often count on standard seller marketing for sales. Distribute an Executive Summary and Recommendations report, as well as transcripts of your interviews, to all the key players in your company. Include planned measurements and metrics.

Small Business 147

Small Business Revenue Technical Review Business Model 147

Startup Professionals Musings

DECEMBER 23, 2016

Define and use market metrics to tune your plan. Businesses often settle on one social media or distribution channel based on initial testing, and never look back. You need metrics to spot these changes, and regular new initiatives to test new and old alternatives. Regularly update internal process tools and technology.

Social Media 120

Social Media Technical Review Metrics Channel 120

Startup Professionals Musings

OCTOBER 20, 2023

Quantify the results, and avoid any fuzzy words, such as better usability, advanced technology, or more productivity. Before you spend big money on inventory and scale over a wide area, make sure you have finalized your marketing, manufacturing, and distribution resources. Put operational systems and metrics in place early.

Marketing 290

Marketing Leadership Differentiation Equity 290

ConversionXL

SEPTEMBER 1, 2020

The key is not to get bogged down by short-term metrics at the expense of long-term growth. Customer Lifetime Value is first and foremost, influenced by factors that are your KPIs: RFM distribution; Margin; Customer Experience (Product reviews, Net Promoter Score, Customer Effort Score, etc.); RFM distribution.

Customer 132

Customer SMS Retention Acquisition 132

A Smart Bear: Startups and Marketing for Geeks

FEBRUARY 26, 2019

Sometimes that’s airtight product/market it. Sometimes that’s defensible distribution channels. Sometimes that’s product design so thrilling that every customer spreads the word to five more. There isn’t one most important SaaS metric. Sometimes that’s a market insight that takes competitors five years to understand.

Restful 202

Restful Founder Revenue Acquisition 202

ConversionXL

MARCH 6, 2019

On Facebook, an ideal customer may log on to see photos of a new nephew, not to check out a 30-second demo of your SaaS product. This post focuses on deployment rather than production, but here are high-level takeaways from those posts: Quality = attention span. LinkedIn video ads: tech specs, targeting, metrics, and cost.

Video 129

Video B2B Technical Review Campaign 129

Steve Blank

NOVEMBER 16, 2009

What metrics do we use to see if we learned enough in Customer Discovery ? And without revenue how do we know if we achieved product/market fit to exit Customer Validation?” I gave my boilerplate answer, “I’m a product guy and I tend to invest and look at deals that have measurable revenue metrics. Don’t launch.

Customer Development 228

Customer Development Web Developer Customer 228

ConversionXL

OCTOBER 14, 2021

In this article, we’ll share key brand tracking metrics and methods for how to measure and optimize your success. Key brand tracking metrics. For example, you could deploy CSAT surveys at various parts of the buyer’s journey (distributed across leads so as not to bombard a single customer with multiple questions).

Metrics 157

Metrics Marketing Campaign Audience 157

Startup Professionals Musings

JANUARY 22, 2021

Too many founders have learned that passion and free beta products do not imply a sustainable business. Proof of any business model starts with a finished product or solution, sold to a new customer for full price, with high satisfaction for the value received. Marketing is everything these days. Plan for a real revenue model.

Business Model 414

Business Model Angel Investor Bootstrapping Revenue 414

Version One Ventures

OCTOBER 31, 2016

Just a decade ago, most software/cloud startups used a traditional model where product and marketing were siloed: product teams created the product and marketing drove people to the website to buy it. The evolution of the growth function changed this dynamic, mashing together product dev and marketing as integrated functions.

Software Review 60

Software Review South Africa Hockey Stick Viral 60

YoungUpstarts

NOVEMBER 6, 2017

Kahn had a better idea – several, in fact – that led to the Smart Parka, the first product of North Aware that launched in 2016 with the help of a highly successful Kickstarter campaign. Things like negotiating distribution channels and partners and how to handle market expansions.

Founder 189

Founder Pakistan Software Developers Software Development 189

Startup Professionals Musings

SEPTEMBER 22, 2022

For example, many investors I know tell me they look for business plans that allocate the largest portion of a requested investment to marketing, but most often see the top “ use of funds ” to be further product or service development. Of course, you can’t possibly brand yourself if you don’t know who you really are.

Marketing 333

Marketing Revenue Matching Viral 333

Startup Professionals Musings

NOVEMBER 3, 2012

Entrepreneurs always work hard to create an innovative product or service, but often count on standard seller marketing for sales. Distribute an Executive Summary and Recommendations report, as well as transcripts of your interviews, to all the key players in your company. Include planned measurements and metrics.

Technical Review 234

Technical Review Business Model Revenue Social Media 234

Startup Lessons Learned

APRIL 26, 2009

Lessons Learned by Eric Ries Sunday, April 26, 2009 Product development leverage Leverage has once again become a dirty word in the world of finance, and rightly so. But I want to talk about a different kind of leverage, the kind that you can get in product development. We didnt think wed able to compete with that.

Product Development 88

Product Development Developer San Francisco Product 88