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. What are the re-marketing or retention cost assumptions? What is the LTV?

Metrics 150

Metrics Cost Acquisition Startup 150

OnlyOnce

AUGUST 3, 2023

(Post 1 of 4 in the series of Scaling CPO’s) In most startups, the HR function starts out as tactical, because you have to get people hired and paid, and while you might have a founder or early-stage employee who can do these things, often these tasks are frequently outsourced to a PEO.

Hiring 62

Hiring Metrics Leadership Early Stage 62

Both Sides of the Table

MAY 2, 2015

What I love about my job is getting to see teams of super-early-stage companies develop ideas that while raw have potential to make an impact on the market. For a well-funded seed company I have controversially recommended hiring a great office manager that doubles as an administrative assistant.

Operations 150

Operations Metrics Early Stage Non-Compete 150

Austin Startup

JULY 8, 2017

It usually takes experience in the market for business people to truly understand the realities of hiring and working with lawyers. Quickly hiring an “in house” lawyer won’t save you a dime. CEO: “We’re thinking about hiring an in-house lawyer to save some legal fees.” You’re not saving anything. Me: “Great.

Startup 48

Startup Salary Early Stage Software 48

Both Sides of the Table

MAY 13, 2013

For the past 5 years or so Google, Facebook and a handful of tech industry giants have been quietly buying scores of early-stage startups for their talent. The Aqui-hire Business. Many buying companies price these deals on the basis of $1 million per engineer on the team for an early-stage deal. Go do a startup.

Liquidation Preference 357

Liquidation Preference Early Stage Retention Lock-up Period 357

Both Sides of the Table

APRIL 4, 2011

Because it can be hard to define or agree company objectives at an early stage I believe most people avoid them. Retention / Churn. Clearly in the early stages of your company you’ll have to estimate this because you don’t know how long each customer will stick around for or how your monetization will change over time.

Metrics 346

Metrics Startup Acquisition SEM 346

David Teten

JANUARY 14, 2019

Many early-stage companies do not have these issues top of mind, because so many founders are pre-children. When internal job opportunities are publicized, the hiring manager should specify if a job can be executed with flexible/reduced hours. However, even people without children often end up having them somehow. .

Retention 60

Retention Offshore Management Early Stage 60

Up and Running

MARCH 11, 2015

As president of Y Combinator, the hugely successful seed-stage investor/accelerator, Sam Altman has a lot of knowledge to share. He covers broad topics such as net neutrality, but also dives into the specifics of starting a company, touching on things like hiring and employee retention. Follow Charlie on Twitter @ceonyc .

Venture Capital 60

Venture Capital Technical Review Silicon Valley Cofounder 60

Hunter Walker

MAY 11, 2021

Why the next 6–12 months will be the best time in a decade for startups to hire. Here are some things I’m seeing the best startups do to prepare for the opportunity: Build a Stretch Headcount Budget -> Sometimes you gotta bust the headcount plan when there’s a chance to make key hires.

Hiring 109

Hiring Matching Early Stage Retention 109

A Smart Bear: Startups and Marketing for Geeks

DECEMBER 16, 2014

” It doesn’t matter whether we’re talking about valuations , growth rates , retention rates , NPS scores, early-stage uncertainty , ratio of revenue to employee, CAC , cash-burn, LTV , gross margin, or selling your company. “It’s not fair,” we all said to ourselves.

Metrics 246

Metrics Early Stage Retention Revenue 246

The Startup Magazine

DECEMBER 19, 2018

We hire the right people and provide an environment where they can flourish. We’re helping a large university system use analytics to target students for early intervention to maximize retention. As you have a history of building early stage companies, what is the most important thing you tell startup founders?

Louisiana 111

Louisiana Founder Virgin Islands South Africa 111

Austin Startup

AUGUST 20, 2017

Early stage startups have to survive one day at a time and are often presented with limited choices of the moment that enable them to continue. Hiring is a chapter unto itself, but it deserves to lead off any discussion of context. Compensation decisions obviously affect hiring and retention.

Technical Review 48

Technical Review Software Review Cap Table Securities and Exchange Commission 48

View from Seed

APRIL 8, 2020

He helps early-stage startups with sales, marketing, and general “go to market” topics. Have them focus on retention and growth in your existing accounts that have seen success. Another thing you should slow down with is hiring. He has experience in B2B, supply chain, robotics, SaaS, and IoT spaces.

B2B 156

B2B Angel Investor Vertical Early Stage 156

Up and Running

DECEMBER 1, 2015

More often than not, equity compensation is an attraction and retention tool, rather than a replacement to salary. This type of stock is typically given to founders and early employees with the stock value is near zero. Think carefully before you hire someone new and offer them stock from the outset. Hire slowly, fire fast.

Equity 60

Equity Employee Stock Options Vesting 60

Both Sides of the Table

OCTOBER 26, 2014

In that article I talked about how PR drives: recruiting, employee retention, biz dev deals, funding and even M&A and that often “attribution” to your PR activities is unknown. If you haven’t yet raised an A-round my recommendation would be that you not yet hire a big, well-known PR firm. So be careful.

PR 319

PR Venture Capital Hiring Seed Capital 319

YoungUpstarts

MARCH 25, 2013

Following are other ways mentors can assist in career development efforts: • Helping to identify an employee’s long-term career goals: Professionals in the early stages of their work life often fail to consider how they want their careers to develop over time. First, pinpoint your company’s specific goals for mentoring.

Retention 170

Retention Employee Developer Programming 170

The Next Web

JUNE 20, 2013

Cornerstone also benefitted from having less competition when hiring talent. The company has a 98 percent voluntary retention rate (which doesn’t count terminated employees), and Miller attributes part of that success to not having to deal with the poaching that goes on in the Valley.

Cloud 118

Cloud Southern California Los Angeles New York City 118

Mucker Lab

APRIL 6, 2023

What should an early-stage startup founder focus on if they want to implement PLG? But for early stage founders, I think there are two particular scenarios where PLG can be really helpful. So for early-stage founders, those are the two scenarios where PLG might be a great fit. That's the foundation.

Product 78

Product CTO Hire Startup Fractional CTO 78

Startup Lessons Learned

APRIL 14, 2009

In an early-stage startup especially, revenue is not an important goal in and of itself. Let’s start with a simple question: why do early-stage startups want revenue? For more on how this plays into the process of scaling up, see the Customer Creation stage of the customer development model.)

Customer 167

Customer San Francisco Lean Hockey Stick 167

Startup Lessons Learned

JANUARY 2, 2009

Retention cohort analysis. Unfortunately, they are disinterested in doing the hard work to help early stage entrepreneurs and companies. The core of the article is my first attempt to articulate the key metrics (in graph form) that I believe demonstrate customer value. Funnel averages over time. 3comments: Charles Crawford said.

San Francisco 60

San Francisco Tampa Continuous Deployment Lean 60

VC Cafe

JULY 21, 2020

GV (formerly Google Ventures) – Started in 2009, GV is Alphabet’s venture capital fund, focused primarily on early stage in diverse fields: from life sciences and healthcare to robotics and entereprise tech. Gradient Ventures – an early stage fund backed by Alphabet, investing exclusively in AI first companies.

Technical Review 131

Technical Review Startup Early Stage Cloud 131

VC Cafe

SEPTEMBER 26, 2022

So in terms of hiring, get people that can help you build the product faster… anything that minimizes the time between observing a need or a problem, and the execution or the fix for it.” Early hires are super important: check for skills, motivation and cultural fit. Remember that speed is the secret weapon of startups.

Founder 187

Founder Startup Valuation Pre-Money Valuation 187

View from Seed

FEBRUARY 27, 2019

Most startups don’t have the luxury of hiring an experienced PM early in their journey. So, what are the things founders can learn to do well BEFORE they can hire a great first product hire to make sure the company stays focused and iterates fast? product engagement, retention metrics).

Hiring 120

Hiring Bandwidth Product Early Stage 120

ConversionXL

SEPTEMBER 28, 2017

In fact, companies can automate this into a near-real-time process, so they can get an instant-read as to whether the new customer might deserve VIP-level treatment at a very early stage of the relationship.”. Hire a data scientist! Various Google spreadsheets also exist for doing your own modeling. Predictive LTV model.

Metrics 121

Metrics Acquisition Conversion Revenue 121

Steve Blank

APRIL 20, 2021

In other words, you prove retention. It’s really all that matters at the earliest stage. It bears repeating: an early-stage startup must focus on making one customer group excited by a mission-aligned product. With both growth and retention, you earn the right to build more. We call it an MVP tree.

Product 436

Product Viral Channel San Francisco 436

VC Cafe

SEPTEMBER 6, 2023

The majority of the decline comes from much lower investment volumes in the growth stage, but also fewer companies getting funded in the early stages. If you’re a gaming founder, at the earliest stages, looking to raise money, below are a few tips to maximise your chances of success.

Founder 78

Founder Generative AI Early Stage Venture Capital 78

Both Sides of the Table

FEBRUARY 15, 2011

In Silicon Valley you have mega venture capital funds who have a history of giving $20 million to early-stage technology companies hoping to swing for the fences and become the next Google, Facebook or Twitter. We tend to do more $2-3 million “A&# rounds and we look for companies that have an early monetization strategy.

Silicon Valley 313

Silicon Valley Southern California Los Angeles Semantic 313

Both Sides of the Table

MAY 5, 2011

Your highest priority right now is hiring the 1 or 2 people that are going to join your company and make a difference. Chris Devore & Andy Sack have created Founder’s Coop with the goal of funding, incubating & launching more early-stage ventures in Seattle. There’s you and your killer CTO co-founder.

Seattle 317

Seattle Silicon Valley Technical Review Los Angeles 317

maplebutter.com

JANUARY 8, 2013

You are here: Home » Hiring » Crazy! Written By Dan Martell on February 2nd, 2012 | Category: Hiring LeanStartup Marketing Metrics Startup Life | 6 Comments. Product/Metrics (70%/30% time) * Get your product activation (sign-up + meaningful action) to 60% * then, Get your product retention to 20% weekly. Persistence.

Technical Review 44

Technical Review Startup Cofounder Software Review 44

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. You’ve built detailed analytics tracking into your product and you should be seeing organic and viral growth; and can provide Daily/Weekly/Monthly Active Users, 30d/90d/120d retention. 2M in 18 months.

Cofounder 429

Cofounder Seed Stage Valuation Metrics 429

Occam's Razor

MAY 2, 2017

It is hard to understand the implications of the behavior inherent in Path Length – which means you’ll hire more clever Digital Analysts for hour business. There are multiple points of value from the Trailheads program (lower support costs, higher retention, faster time to value for clients etc.)

Metrics 141

Metrics Acquisition eCommerce Analytics 141

mporat.tumblr.com

MARCH 8, 2012

Principal at Genesis Partners, an early-stage Israeli VC. It has become a huge challenge to build that initial technical team, especially if you want your first hire or co-founder to be a rockstar. No, you probably won’t be able to hire them, nor should you try. Venturing from Israel. About Micha.    .

Cofounder 41

Cofounder Founder Retention 41

Austin Startup

MARCH 7, 2018

janryan (@janryan) | Twitter Kerry Rupp Kerry is a Capital Factory Mentor and founding partner of True Wealth Ventures, an early-stage venture capital fund that invests in women-led companies in the sustainable consumer and consumer health verticals. SXSW Panel: Return on Inclusion: Investing in Diverse Startups Arlan ????

Technical Cofounder 48

Technical Cofounder Cofounder Fractional CTO CTO 48

ConversionXL

JULY 11, 2016

3 Growth hacks for early stage startups: Find your scaling lever (HouseTrip, Facebook). Don’t optimize your landing page, optimize your retention – look at early samples to do so. Optimize for the ‘Wow-Moment’ at the beginning of your retention curve – if you don’t know it: guess it.

PPC 48

PPC Analytics Video Non-Compete 48

Hunter Walker

NOVEMBER 25, 2022

The reality is that most hires to early stage startups will be taking a near-term hit to cash compensation or at the very least, earning less than they could if they *only* prioritized salary (and not role, company, or equity upside). And don’t go to the startup if they can’t get above it in some easy or creative way.

Salary 56

Salary Burn Rate Dilution Equity 56

Hunter Walker

SEPTEMBER 2, 2022

It requires valuing the labor of the team we hire to build it, to support our partners (unions) that use it, and to invest in continually making it better. HW: When we first met you had founded Belly , a B2B2C loyalty/retention startup. Look, socialists hate venture capital, and venture capitalists hate unions.

Chicago 79

Chicago Venture Capital Miami Employee 79

www.vccafe.com

MARCH 11, 2013

VC Cafe covers early stage Israeli and European tech & mobile startups. customer retention, churn reduction, lifetime value. find/hire freelancers. hire low-cost international engineering talent. VWorker -Â find/hire freelancers. It used to be hard to find information about early stage startups.

Software Review 53

Software Review Technical Review Startup 53