Steve Blank

SEPTEMBER 5, 2018

Most entrepreneurs today don’t remember the Dot-Com bubble of 1995 or the Dot-Com crash that followed in 2000. Tech IPO prices exploded and subsequent trading prices rose to dizzying heights as the stock prices became disconnected from the traditional metrics of revenue and profits. It’s the antithesis of the Lean Startup.

Lean 335

Lean Burn Rate Startup IPO 335

Startup Professionals Musings

DECEMBER 7, 2022

Too many entrepreneurs don’t know what to do at this point, largely accounting for a disappointing 50 percent of startups that fail in the first five years, according to InvoiceTracker. There is no magic lever for growth, so several initiatives are required, with metrics to assess value returned. Ask every employee to focus on sales.

Startup 335

Startup Social Media Metrics Viral 335

Startup Professionals Musings

SEPTEMBER 14, 2016

Cash flow is a basic survival metric for every startup. Desperate entrepreneurs lose their leverage and die young. As a mentor to many entrepreneurs and startups, here are my best recommendations for keeping the burn rate low, planning ahead and maintaining credibility with investors: Manage cash flow personally every day.

Burn Rate 120

Burn Rate Hockey Stick Startup Salary 120

Startup Professionals Musings

MAY 30, 2022

Early-stage entrepreneurs rightly keep their focus on creating an innovative product or service. That’s where I see too much entrepreneur burnout, growth plateaus, and founders being replaced, to their chagrin. Of course, not every entrepreneur wants to tackle this challenge. There is no free lunch.

Mezzanine 368

Mezzanine Private Equity Bandwidth Metrics 368

Gust

APRIL 27, 2014

I’m continually amazed at the number of entrepreneurs who go for months into a new business without really keeping a formal record of money spent or assets acquired. Product development process. Even if you are doing the work yourself, you need to document requirements, features, metrics, and milestones.

Startup 187

Startup Institutional Investors Angel Investor Bootstrapping 187

YoungUpstarts

NOVEMBER 20, 2019

I’ve been fortunate enough to be on both sides of the table, as an entrepreneur and a VC, and I’ve observed that most investors look for the same things I do when deciding whether to invest in a company. You may be able to generate revenue, but VCs want exponential growth. Like you, they’re looking for opportunity.

Technical Review 140

Technical Review Due Diligence Early Stage Differentiation 140

YoungUpstarts

AUGUST 30, 2011

Blackbox , founded by entrepreneurs Bjoern Lasse Herrmann and Max Marmer, in June released its first Startup Genome Report — a 67-page in depth analysis on what makes Silicon Valley startups successful based on profiling over 650 startups. 93% of startups that scale prematurely never break the $100k revenue per month threshold.

Silicon Valley 189

Silicon Valley Software Review Startup Cofounder 189

Up and Running

JULY 26, 2016

Between January 2015 and January 2016, we grew our platform Slidebean from $1K to $20K in monthly recurring revenue. Getting the first tracks of revenue is one of the toughest processes of building a startup. 1x hacker in charge of product/development. 1x hipster working with both product and growth.

Revenue 60

Revenue Acquisition Channel Campaign 60

Startup Professionals Musings

MAY 4, 2016

Of course, that’s both the good news and the bad news for aspiring entrepreneurs, since it means more competition, and the business landscape is changing faster than ever. Excellent detailed resources are everywhere, including a new book, “ The Startup Checklist ,” by serial entrepreneur and founder of the New York Angels, David S.

Intellectual Property 120

Intellectual Property Startup Angel Groups Social Media 120

Startup Professionals Musings

MARCH 9, 2020

Too many entrepreneurs don’t know what to do at this point, largely accounting for that disappointing 50 percent of startups that fail in the first five years, according to Gallup. There is no magic lever for growth, so several initiatives are required, with metrics to assess value returned. Ask every employee to focus on sales.

Social Media 329

Social Media Metrics Viral Channel 329

Startup Lessons Learned

JANUARY 15, 2010

Lessons Learned by Eric Ries Friday, January 15, 2010 Two Ways to Hold Entrepreneurs Accountable (for Harvard Business Review) The next part in the series I am writing for Harvard Business Review is online. This time, Im discussing the challenge for corporate CFOs and VCs alike in holding entrepreneurs accountable. Read the rest here.

Hockey Stick 105

Hockey Stick San Francisco Entrepreneur Lean 105

Startup Lessons Learned

SEPTEMBER 22, 2008

Master of 500 Hats: Startup Metrics for Pirates (SeedCamp 2008, London) This presentation should be required reading for anyone creating a startup with an online service component. He also has a discussion of how your choice of business model determines which of these metric areas you want to focus on.

San Francisco 167

San Francisco CPA SEM CTO Hire 167

Up and Running

MAY 15, 2014

When it comes to this topic, I’ve sought counsel from mentors, fellow entrepreneurs, and numerous resources available online. As an entrepreneur raised in the era of analytics, I want to find metrics for everything. I got customers, found partnerships, and generated revenues. I could hustle.

Partner 113

Partner Cofounder Equity Metrics 113

Startup Lessons Learned

APRIL 14, 2009

Lessons Learned by Eric Ries Tuesday, April 14, 2009 Validated learning about customers Would you rather have $30,000 or $1 million in revenues for your startup? All things being equal, of course, you’d rather have more revenue rather than less. And yet revenue alone is not a sufficient goal.

Customer 167

Customer San Francisco Lean Hockey Stick 167

Startup Professionals Musings

SEPTEMBER 1, 2019

Early-stage entrepreneurs rightly keep their focus on creating an innovative product or service. That’s where I see too much entrepreneur burnout, growth plateaus, and founders being replaced, to their chagrin. Of course, not every entrepreneur wants to tackle this challenge. There is no free lunch.

Mezzanine 244

Mezzanine Private Equity Startup Bandwidth 244

View from Seed

NOVEMBER 18, 2014

Foster product development and marketing which creates organic (or somewhat organic) user traction. Generate Real Revenue. Another approach to raise Series A is to drive meaningful revenue. For B2B startups especially, this is the best signal of product-market fit – a sign that the company is investable.

Syndicate 333

Syndicate Syndication Seed Stage Startup 333

Startup Lessons Learned

SEPTEMBER 15, 2008

So far, I have found "lean startup" works better with the entrepreneurs Ive talked to than "agile startup" or even "extreme startup.") The application of agile development methodologies which dramatically reduce waste and unlock creativity in product development. What are the characteristics of a lean startup?

Lean 168

Lean San Francisco Startup Continuous Deployment 168

Genuine VC

MARCH 24, 2014

The five conditions for a Series A financing which he enumerated are: a core team ready to scale, demonstrable market size, repeatable cost effective customer acquisition, metric momentum, and plausible monetization. The strategy here is to foster product development and marketing which creates overall (semi-)organic user momentum.

Seed Capital 212

Seed Capital Metrics Cofounder Revenue 212

Startup Professionals Musings

MAY 4, 2014

I’m continually amazed at the number of entrepreneurs who go for months into a new business without really keeping a formal record of money spent or assets acquired. Product development process. Even if you are doing the work yourself, you need to document requirements, features, metrics, and milestones. Marty Zwilling.

Startup 268

Startup Institutional Investors Angel Investor Bootstrapping 268

Startup Professionals Musings

SEPTEMBER 13, 2017

Early-stage entrepreneurs rightly keep their focus on creating an innovative product or service. That’s where I see too much entrepreneur burnout, growth plateaus, and founders being replaced, to their chagrin. Of course, not every entrepreneur wants to tackle this challenge. There is no free lunch.

Mezzanine 141

Mezzanine Private Equity Startup Bandwidth 141

Startup Professionals Musings

NOVEMBER 3, 2013

Early-stage entrepreneurs rightly keep their focus on creating an innovative product or service. That’s where I see too much entrepreneur burnout, growth plateaus, and Founders being replaced, to their chagrin. Of course, not every entrepreneur wants to tackle this challenge. There is no free lunch.

Mezzanine 240

Mezzanine Private Equity Bandwidth Metrics 240

Up and Running

SEPTEMBER 7, 2016

I’ve heard some entrepreneurs compare that feeling to owning their first pet. We proved it when we decided to make customer retention our only goal for an entire 365 days, and grew annual revenues 130 percent as a direct result. We don’t have any traditional metrics in our customer support team.

Customer 60

Customer Retention Startup Metrics 60

Startup Professionals Musings

JULY 29, 2016

Too many entrepreneurs don’t know what to do at this point, largely accounting for that disappointing 50 percent of startups that fail in the first five years, according to Gallup. There is no magic lever for growth, so several initiatives are required, with metrics to assess value returned. Ask every employee to focus on sales.

Social Media 120

Social Media Metrics Viral Channel 120

Startup Lessons Learned

JUNE 5, 2009

And so the spreadsheet is built with conservative assumptions, including a final revenue target. No matter how low we make the revenue projections for this new product, it’s extremely unlikely that they are achievable. Just because entrepreneurs tend to forget about these models doesn’t mean their investors do.

San Francisco 102

San Francisco Lean Continuous Deployment Startup 102

Startup Lessons Learned

JANUARY 2, 2009

We were even more embarrassed by the pathetically small number of customers we had, and the pathetically low amount of revenue we had earned so far. We’d always cringe as we admitted that, no, we really only had a few thousand customers and a few thousand dollars in monthly revenue. Retention cohort analysis. I am chugging along.

San Francisco 60

San Francisco Tampa Continuous Deployment Lean 60

Startup Professionals Musings

JANUARY 31, 2013

I’m continually amazed at the number of entrepreneurs who go for months into a new business without really keeping a formal record of money spent or assets acquired. Product development process. Even if you are doing the work yourself, you need to document requirements, features, metrics, and milestones.

Institutional Investors 230

Institutional Investors Angel Investor Bootstrapping Database 230

Startup Lessons Learned

DECEMBER 28, 2009

Thats a perfectly reasonable reaction, given that most releases of most products are bad news. Even worse, the sad state of product development generally means that the new "features" are as likely to be ones that make the product worse, not better. Monitoring of real-world metrics.

Continuous Deployment 122

Continuous Deployment San Francisco Lean Metrics 122

Startup Lessons Learned

AUGUST 24, 2009

Despite all the energy invested in talking to authors about the size of their platform, very few gatekeepers have a rigorous set of metrics for measuring it. When I reviewed a recent product development book, it immediately shot up to Amazon sales rank 300. What is the right revenue model? Is that a lot? Is that good?

San Francisco 113

San Francisco Lean Technical Review Distribution 113

Startup Professionals Musings

FEBRUARY 4, 2015

Early-stage entrepreneurs rightly keep their focus on creating an innovative product or service. That’s where I see too much entrepreneur burnout, growth plateaus, and founders being replaced, to their chagrin. Of course, not every entrepreneur wants to tackle this challenge. There is no free lunch.

Mezzanine 120

Mezzanine Private Equity Startup Bandwidth 120

Startup Lessons Learned

FEBRUARY 20, 2009

Luckily, I now have the benefit of a forthcoming book, The Principles of Product Development Flow. Labels: five whys root cause analysis , product development 11comments: Peter Severin said. The Entrepreneur’s Guide to Customer Development ► June (3) What is a startup? Interesting post.

San Francisco 161

San Francisco Software Review Continuous Deployment Development Team Review 161

A Smart Bear: Startups and Marketing for Geeks

MAY 1, 2012

Sacha demonstrated the benefits of selling many copies of an eBook at a low price, while Jarrod pointed out the advantages of higher prices, bringing in more revenue with 1/6th the number of units sold. In that case, A can’t keep growing forever, so its revenue is limited, which is a bad spot. maximizing per-unit profitability).

Customer 320

Customer Revenue Acquisition Cofounder 320

Startup Professionals Musings

SEPTEMBER 7, 2011

I’m continually amazed at the number of entrepreneurs who go for months into a new business without really keeping a formal record of money spent or assets acquired. Product development process. Even if you are doing the work yourself, you need to document requirements, features, metrics, and milestones.

Startup 255

Startup Institutional Investors Angel Investor Bootstrapping 255

Startup Lessons Learned

NOVEMBER 17, 2008

Strategy - startups first encounter this when they have the beginnings of a product, and theyve achieved some amount of product/market fit. Growth - when you have existing customers, the pressure is on to grow your key metrics day-in day-out. Two Ways to Hold Entrepreneurs Accountable (for Ha.

San Francisco 88

San Francisco Lean Continuous Deployment DC 88

Hearpreneur

OCTOBER 20, 2017

Besides the general focus on customer and product development, an entrepreneur should foresee the next moves that will serve to guide him on the right path.When an entrepreneur can forecast his next moves, even his/her employees become part of the moves the business makes. Thanks to Jaimyn Chang, Boomin Agency !

Forecast 56

Forecast Artificial Inteligence Entrepreneur SEO 56

Startup Professionals Musings

SEPTEMBER 18, 2015

Successful entrepreneurs must never stop looking for ways to improve their own productivity, as well as the efficiency and momentum of the team. The need for this focus may seem obvious to you, but I still hear many complaints from entrepreneurs and employees alike on the hours they work, and how they are underpaid for their time.

Salary 120

Salary Metrics Employee Demand 120

Startup Lessons Learned

OCTOBER 23, 2013

It provides a basic introduction to analytics as they apply to Lean Startup, including sections on what metrics to use and how to interpret them. For instance, Ben lists out the worst of the “vanity metrics,” a term that describes appealing but meaningless or misleading numbers. Alistair: There are plenty. Consider a restaurant.

Analytics 167

Analytics Lean Widget Metrics 167

Startup Lessons Learned

NOVEMBER 8, 2008

This theory has become so influential that I have called it one of the three pillars of the lean startup - every bit as important as the changes in technology or the advent of agile development. You can learn about customer development, and quite a bit more, in Steves book The Four Steps to the Epiphany. Heres the catch.

Customer Development 168

Customer Development Developer San Francisco Customer 168