View from Seed

OCTOBER 24, 2019

The reason is that b2b fundraising is largely driven by data and metrics, and pre-seed dollars usually don’t get you to many meaningful data points. Most series A’s in B2B require a minimum level of top line revenue and a minimum amount of historical data to prove retention and some sort of repeatable growth engine.

Dilution 149

Dilution B2B Burn Rate Early Stage 149

David Teten

JANUARY 19, 2021

This structure allows for alignment on the front end, and real-time flexibility for performance metrics,” says Samira Salman , a family office investor and advisor. . Flexible VCs have created structures based on other company performance metrics than revenues, such as profits or founder salaries. Flexible VC 102: Variations.

Cofounder 78

Cofounder Technical Review Equity Dividend 78

Haystack

DECEMBER 29, 2018

6/ Venture Capital In Expansion Phase. Public investors, cross-over investors, and even traditional private equity firms have taken notice, further blurring the lines of what constitutes true venture capital. the firm may have a right to raise up to $100B but may not call all of it).

Technical Review 165

Technical Review Venture Capital Russia China 165

SoCal CTO

JUNE 9, 2010

Draw Your Ideas - A VC : Venture Capital and Technology , May 16, 2010 I saw Jack Dorsey give this talk at The 99% Conference last month. The Yin and Yang of Product and Engineering - A VC : Venture Capital and Technology , May 22, 2010 For a tech company, product and engineering are the heart and soul of the business.

Fractional CTO 248

Fractional CTO Startup Venture Capital Cofounder 248

View from Seed

MARCH 24, 2021

At NextView Ventures we have written many pieces about venture capital — how to raise it, build your business, engage with investors, iterate your product, navigate expanding industries, etc. Finance is about reporting on historical performance and future planning through the lens of financial metrics.”

Seed Stage 177

Seed Stage Hiring IPO Analytics 177

SoCal CTO

MARCH 11, 2013

If you do build the MVP and show it to them, they will ask you about your metrics. They really want metrics, not a product. Often you can't tell if something like a search engine or matching algorithm is really going to have better results until you use it. Results of Algorithms.

Algorithm 264

Algorithm Metrics Viral Venture Capital 264

Startup Professionals Musings

AUGUST 1, 2021

You never have the time and resources for International expansion, acquisitions, venture capital investors, or going public. You have tried all the popular initiatives and quick-fix remedies, including social media, search engine optimization, and content marketing. Conventional strategies don’t seem to work for you.

Entrepreneur 436

Entrepreneur Venture Capital Operations Social Media 436

Steve Blank

MAY 29, 2011

Max entered Stanford in the fall of 2010 as a freshman, took as many of the engineering entrepreneurship classes as he could and independent study with me. (He Founders that learn are more successful : Startups that have helpful mentors, track metrics effectively, and learn from startup thought leaders raise 7x more money and have 3.5x

Technical Cofounder 333

Technical Cofounder Early Stage Startup Silicon Valley 333

ReadWriteStart

APRIL 8, 2023

Search engine optimization, paid search, social media channels, online stores, and even pop-up spots are examples of practical omnichannel usage. In my experience, I follow different resources, for instance, the Andreessen Horowitz blog , one of the top venture capital funds reporting trends in their newsletters, and INC.5000

eCommerce 185

eCommerce Technical Review Software Review Analytics 185

Austin Startup

AUGUST 10, 2017

Before graduating, I decided to forgo the finance path and instead dove into engineering and later sales and product management roles at VersaSuite (health IT) in Austin. We invest in protocols that meet our quantitative and qualitative metrics. has about ~40 employees and has raised $9M in venture capital. Factom, Inc.

Technical Review 48

Technical Review Cofounder Technical Cofounder Austin 48

SoCal CTO

MARCH 9, 2007

Dr. Karrer was valedictorian at Loyola Marymount University, attended the University of Southern California as a Tau Beta Pi fellow, one of the top 30 engineers in the nation, and received a M.S. in Computer Science. He is a frequent speaker at industry and academic events. ► February (2) CTO Founders / Cofounders Part-Time Startup CTO?

Technical Cofounder 150

Technical Cofounder Southern California Los Angeles CTO Hire 150

David Teten

JANUARY 23, 2021

The next best move is to build your core team, e.g., recruit an Advisory Board, Venture Partners, and EIRs. For ideas, see How Executives Can Work from Home with Private Equity and Venture Capital Funds. Julia Rhee , Advisor to Typhon Capital Management, observes, “You need to reverse-engineer institutions’ checkboxes.

Private Equity 78

Private Equity Venture Capital Technical Review Software Review 78

SoCal CTO

MARCH 13, 2007

Dr. Karrer was valedictorian at Loyola Marymount University, attended the University of Southern California as a Tau Beta Pi fellow, one of the top 30 engineers in the nation, and received a M.S. in Computer Science. He is a frequent speaker at industry and academic events. ► February (2) CTO Founders / Cofounders Part-Time Startup CTO?

Technical Cofounder 150

Technical Cofounder Southern California Los Angeles Internet 150

SoCal CTO

MARCH 1, 2007

Dr. Karrer was valedictorian at Loyola Marymount University, attended the University of Southern California as a Tau Beta Pi fellow, one of the top 30 engineers in the nation, and received a M.S. in Computer Science. He is a frequent speaker at industry and academic events. ► February (2) CTO Founders / Cofounders Part-Time Startup CTO?

Technical Cofounder 150

Technical Cofounder Networking Southern California Los Angeles 150

SoCal CTO

MARCH 12, 2007

Dr. Karrer was valedictorian at Loyola Marymount University, attended the University of Southern California as a Tau Beta Pi fellow, one of the top 30 engineers in the nation, and received a M.S. in Computer Science. He is a frequent speaker at industry and academic events. ► February (2) CTO Founders / Cofounders Part-Time Startup CTO?

Technical Cofounder 150

Technical Cofounder Southern California Los Angeles CTO Hire 150

www.forentrepreneurs.com

FEBRUARY 2, 2010

Blog About Log in Register Designing startup metrics to drive successful behavior Great companies are almost always run by great management teams. Good metrics should also be actionable, and drive successful behavior. In a follow up post, I will use this technique to walk through the design of a set of metrics for a SaaS company.

Metrics 55

Metrics Design Entrepreneur Startup 55

Reid Hoffman

MARCH 23, 2021

The metrics from the dashboard are the key inputs for collective decisions. You can always instrument your business and gather metrics, but that doesn’t mean the data you gather will be useful. Just track metrics that help you improve the product. One of the fundamental principles of venture capital is that size does matter.

Venture Capital 46

Venture Capital Metrics Investment Bankers Framework 46

SoCal CTO

MARCH 20, 2007

Dr. Karrer was valedictorian at Loyola Marymount University, attended the University of Southern California as a Tau Beta Pi fellow, one of the top 30 engineers in the nation, and received a M.S. in Computer Science. He is a frequent speaker at industry and academic events. ► February (2) CTO Founders / Cofounders Part-Time Startup CTO?

Technical Cofounder 150

Technical Cofounder Southern California Los Angeles CTO Hire 150

SoCal CTO

MARCH 5, 2007

Dr. Karrer was valedictorian at Loyola Marymount University, attended the University of Southern California as a Tau Beta Pi fellow, one of the top 30 engineers in the nation, and received a M.S. in Computer Science. He is a frequent speaker at industry and academic events. ► February (2) CTO Founders / Cofounders Part-Time Startup CTO?

Open Source 150

Open Source Business Model Technical Cofounder Southern California 150

YoungUpstarts

MAY 7, 2019

What makes it such a game-changer is that it provides target metrics, strategies and tactics that early stage startups can use to guide them through the crucial go-to-market phase. Market-Engineering. So, what is ”market-engineering”? But to win the hand, you must also be able to engineer a market for it.

Cleveland 217

Cleveland Early Stage Framework Startup 217

Steve Blank

APRIL 2, 2009

Metrics – Mine is Bigger Than Yours The first thing SuperMac needed to do was to change how our potential color desktop publishing customers viewed our products versus our competitors’ products. As hokey as it is, when confronted with uncertainty or unknowns, human beings like to be reassured by comparative metrics.

Silicon Valley 124

Silicon Valley Technical Review RSS Software Review 124

This is going to be BIG.

FEBRUARY 26, 2010

Our team includes 12 top-notch engineers from NVidia, Microsoft, Stanford, Berkeley and Cornell. On top of that throw in a bunch of web servers and SQL databases, cross-platform 3D graphics code and a highly scalable physics engine and you get the idea. We are also one of the stickiest sites on the internet.

San Francisco 92

San Francisco CTO Hire Developer EC2 92

Steve Blank

JUNE 1, 2011

The combination of Venture Capital and technology startups is only about 50 years old. Rather than invent a new form of corporate governance, venture investors adopted the traditional board meeting structure from large corporations. The Wrong Metrics. What do those numbers/metrics look like? Here’s how.

Silicon Valley 292

Silicon Valley Business Model Venture Capital Balance Sheet 292

Steve Blank

JUNE 1, 2011

The combination of Venture Capital and technology startups is only about 50 years old. Rather than invent a new form of corporate governance, venture investors adopted the traditional board meeting structure from large corporations. The Wrong Metrics. What do those numbers/metrics look like? Here’s how.

Silicon Valley 263

Silicon Valley Business Model Venture Capital Balance Sheet 263

SoCal CTO

MARCH 22, 2007

Dr. Karrer was valedictorian at Loyola Marymount University, attended the University of Southern California as a Tau Beta Pi fellow, one of the top 30 engineers in the nation, and received a M.S. in Computer Science. He is a frequent speaker at industry and academic events. ► February (2) CTO Founders / Cofounders Part-Time Startup CTO?

Technical Cofounder 150

Technical Cofounder Southern California Los Angeles CTO Hire 150

Steve Blank

JULY 1, 2014

Investors sitting through Incubator or Accelerator demo days have three metrics to judge fledgling startups – 1) great looking product demos, 2) compelling PowerPoint slides, and 3) a world-class team. Other than measuring engineering progress, there’s no standard language to communicate progress.

Sacramento 308

Sacramento Framework Customer Development Lean 308

This is going to be BIG.

AUGUST 31, 2011

You have trackable metrics for sales, site conversions, traffic, etc., Their job could be to hand every engineer in your company a weekly list of 5 other engineers to e-mail, with some copy and an opportunity for personized notes on the person in an effort to get them to a phone interview. so why not for hiring?

CTO Hire 113

CTO Hire Hiring Bandwidth Metrics 113

Steve Blank

JUNE 23, 2016

As a consequence, corporations used metrics like return on net assets (RONA), return on capital deployed, and internal rate of return (IRR) to measure efficiency. These metrics make it difficult for a company that wants to invest in long-term innovation.

Architecture 227

Architecture IRR Balance Sheet Liquidity Event 227

abovethecrowd.com

OCTOBER 17, 2013

For starters, the business metrics are quite compelling. Katrina has also proven herself in the recruiting field, having recruited Eric Colson from Netflix to run analytics and algorithms, Mike Smith from WalMart.com to run operations, and Jeff Barrett from Opower to build engineering. https://stitchfix.com/gifts.

eCommerce 62

eCommerce Technical Review North America San Francisco 62

Startup Lessons Learned

OCTOBER 4, 2008

In 2007, BusinessWeek named Ries one of the Best Young Entrepreneurs of Tech and in 2009 he was honored with a TechFellow award in the category of Engineering Leadership. He serves on the advisory board of a number of technology startups, and has worked as a consultant to a number of startups, companies, and venture capital firms.

San Francisco 155

San Francisco Technical Cofounder Fractional CTO CTO 155

Steve Blank

APRIL 9, 2009

To do that we will create end-user demand and drive it into the sales channel, educate the channel and customers about why our products are superior, and help Engineering understand customer needs and desires. And the results weren’t the traditional PR metrics of number of articles or inches of ink. Two paragraphs, Five bullets.

Silicon Valley 263

Silicon Valley Technical Review RSS PR 263

www.forentrepreneurs.com

FEBRUARY 2, 2010

Business model viability, in the majority of startups, will come down to balancing two variables: Cost to Acquire Customers (CAC) The ability to monetize those customers, or LTV (which stands for Lifetime Value of a Customer) Successful web businesses have long understood these metrics as they have such an easy way to measure them.

Acquisition 103

Acquisition Cost Customer Entrepreneur 103

Startup Professionals Musings

JUNE 4, 2016

You never have the time and resources for International expansion, acquisitions, venture capital investors, or going public. You have tried all the popular initiatives and quick-fix remedies, including social media, search engine optimization, and content marketing. Conventional strategies don’t seem to work for you.

Founder 120

Founder Venture Capital Social Media Acquisition 120

500hats.com

AUGUST 2, 2012

TL:DR : This post aims to recap significant changes in the venture capital industry over the past ten years, and then make some [biased] predictions as to major forces at play in the next five years. However, all three shifts are related and can be summed up simply as: Geeks are Taking Over Venture Capital.

Silicon Valley 74

Silicon Valley Early Stage Venture Capital Valuation 74

Steve Blank

JULY 30, 2009

Look for some “ skunk works &# project where the product developers are actively seeking alternatives to their own engineering organization. In Apple’s case Burrell Smith was designing a computer in a skunk works unbeknownst to the rest of Apple’s engineering.

Silicon Valley 133

Silicon Valley RSS California Customer Development 133

Both Sides of the Table

JUNE 11, 2015

We brought on Nanea Reeves as President to shore up quality on the product, engineering and ops side. He had always read all of the materials, gone through the metrics, done pre-calls with the CEO and was always respectful in how he walked through the challenges of the company and our remedies. Conclusions?

Silicon Valley 150

Silicon Valley Los Angeles San Francisco Architecture 150

Startup Professionals Musings

JUNE 3, 2015

You never have the time and resources for International expansion, acquisitions, venture capital investors, or going public. You have tried all the popular initiatives and quick-fix remedies, including social media, search engine optimization, and content marketing. Conventional strategies don’t seem to work for you.

Entrepreneur 120

Entrepreneur Venture Capital Social Media Acquisition 120