Remove Entrepreneur Remove Finance Remove Silicon Valley Remove Vertical
article thumbnail

Vertical Markets 2: Customer/Market Risk versus Invention Risk.

Steve Blank

Steve,&# he said, “you’re missing the most interesting part of vertical markets. The implications for entrepreneurs is that each of these (market risk versus invention risk,) require radically different financing models, a different type of venture investor, different timing for hiring sales and marketing, etc. Order Here.

Vertical 144
article thumbnail

Strategy Roundtable For Entrepreneurs: VCs Are Not Always Right

ReadWriteStart

I know that many, many entrepreneurs are feeling dejected because of investor rejections. Parallel6 is already clocking over $1 million in revenue and is looking to enhance its customer acquisition and also raise some financing. In that case, the verticals of choice could be manufacturing, wholesale and retail.

Insiders

Sign Up for our Newsletter

This site is protected by reCAPTCHA and the Google Privacy Policy and Terms of Service apply.

article thumbnail

Why the Future of Tesla May Depend on Knowing What Happened to Billy Durant

Steve Blank

The entrepreneur who founded and grew the largest startup in the world to $10 billion in revenue and got fired is someone you have probably never heard of. Sloan kept the corporate staff small and focused on policymaking, corporate finance, and planning. A version of this article appeared in the Harvard Business Review.

Michigan 268
article thumbnail

How Boards Need to Evolve Over Time

Both Sides of the Table

And here’s an important point that I think modern entrepreneurs often forget: Investors are “co-owners” of your business. There are just as many bad entrepreneurs who do bad things. And somebody who isn’t thinking necessarily thinking about how to maximize their ownership in your next round of financing.

article thumbnail

Someone Stole My Startup Idea – Part 2: They Raised Money With My.

Steve Blank

I was out and about in Silicon Valley doing what I would now call Customer Discovery trying to understand how marketing departments in large corporations worked. I remember presenting our ideas for Marketing Automation to one VP of Marketing in a large Silicon Valley company. Certainly not fun, but great insight.

article thumbnail

Can You Trust Any vc's Under 40?

Steve Blank

One of the biggest mistakes entrepreneurs make is misunderstanding the role of venture capital investors. There’s lots of lore, emotion, and misconceptions of what VC’s do or don’t do for entrepreneurs. What this meant for entrepreneurs and VC’s was simple– the gold rush to liquidity was on. What Do VC’s Do?

article thumbnail

The Customer Development Manifesto: Reasons for the Revolution.

Steve Blank

The first hint lies in its name; this is a product development model, not a marketing model, not a sales hiring model, not a customer acquisition model, not even a financing model (and we’ll also find that in most cases it’s even a poor model to use to develop a product.) Steve Blanks 30 years of Silicon Valley startup advice.