Both Sides of the Table

JANUARY 6, 2014

When you first start your company and raise initial venture capital your board probably consists of 1-3 founders and 1-2 VCs. 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.

Technical Review 325

Technical Review Early Stage Software Review Los Angeles 325

Steve Blank

NOVEMBER 16, 2009

In it, I got asked a question I often hear: “What if we have a web-based business that doesn’t have revenue or paying customers? And without revenue how do we know if we achieved product/market fit to exit Customer Validation?” They’re putting money into web services/business – most without early revenue. End of theory.&#

Customer Development 219

Customer Development Web Developer Customer 219

Steve Blank

FEBRUARY 23, 2009

I was consulting for the two venture capital firms who between them put $12 million into my last failed startup. (My Yet when I talked to my venture capital friends, they said, “Well, that’s just how startups work. My mother kept asking if they were going to make me pay the money back.

Silicon Valley 125

Silicon Valley RSS Venture Capital Customer Development 125

David Teten

JANUARY 21, 2021

This essay is part of a series on alternative VC: I: Revenue-Based Investing: a new option for founders who care about control. II: Who are the major Revenue-Based Investing VCs? III: Why are Revenue-Based VCs investing in so many women and underrepresented founders? IV: Should your new VC fund use Revenue-Based Investing?

Equity 78

Equity Revenue Cofounder Colorado 78

ReadWriteStart

JANUARY 6, 2011

6, 2011 we hosted our 64th free One Million by One Million (1M/1M) strategy roundtable for entrepreneurs, and the first for this year. As usual, then, I worked with three entrepreneurs working on specific businesses. John already has a couple of customers, and needs about 50 customers to get to $1M in annual revenue.

Vertical 115

Vertical Web San Francisco Entrepreneur 115

Steve Blank

JUNE 8, 2009

In the last three posts, we drew the relationship of market risk and invention risk with vertical markets and pointed out verticals where customer development would be useful. would look in each of the verticals. Business and Revenue Model – How do we organize to make money? Marketing – How do you create end user demand?

Vertical 122

Vertical Silicon Valley RSS Marketing 122

Steve Blank

SEPTEMBER 7, 2009

Instead of a Sales team and organized to sell with a consistent and successful sales roadmap generating revenue, it is a disorganized and unhappy organization burning lots of cash. Because the company based its headcount and expenses on the expectation that the Sales organization will bring in revenue according to plan.

Customer Development 224

Customer Development Developer Customer Silicon Valley 224

Steve Blank

SEPTEMBER 24, 2009

Pattern Recognition One of the great things about being an entrepreneur is that you are constantly running a pattern recognition algorithm against a continual collection of customer and market data. But at times it’s why entrepreneurs can sink their own companies. More on this in later posts.)

Customer 195

Customer Silicon Valley RSS California 195

View from Seed

MARCH 29, 2018

We wanted to learn more about the nuanced industry market forces before applying the same hands-on investing model we do with tech startups in other verticals. The venture capital market in this category is fairly concentrated among series A and expansion-stage funds that prefer to invest in companies with substantial revenue.

Vertical 120

Vertical Stealth Portfolio Seed Capital 120

The Startup Magazine

OCTOBER 14, 2021

The Startup Magazine continues our Founder Interview series with entrepreneur Richard Lavina, Co-Founder and CEO of accounting services platform, Taxfyle. 5000 list , which lists private American companies based on three-year revenue growth between 2016 and 2019. Last year, Taxfyle ranked No. Magazine’ Inc. There is no secret sauce.

CPA 135

CPA Founder Vertical Cofounder 135

abovethecrowd.com

NOVEMBER 13, 2012

Entrepreneurs accurately recognize that the connective tissue of the Internet provides an opportunity to link the players in a particular market, reducing friction in both the buying and selling experience. The supplier not only looks to you as a provider of revenue, but they receive that revenue “net of the fee.”

Aggregator 101

Aggregator Marketing Software Review North America 101

Both Sides of the Table

JUNE 18, 2010

What a pleasure that I got to spend an hour talking with both Om Malik (whom I’ve always respected his views) and Paul Jozefak , a venture capital partner at Neuhaus Partners in Germany (and formerly the head of Europe for SAP Ventures). industry investors rather than VCs) a good idea for entrepreneurs.

Venture Capital 225

Venture Capital Non-Compete Vertical Europe 225

Steve Blank

APRIL 9, 2009

And it was going to mention the two words that SuperMac marketing needed to live and breathe: revenue and profit. If marketing can’t deliver the 40,000 leads what else can we do for sales to still achieve our revenue and profitability?”) They understood the mission intent was our corporate revenue and profit goals.

Silicon Valley 259

Silicon Valley Technical Review RSS PR 259

Hearpreneur

FEBRUARY 19, 2023

Some entrepreneurs will say the future is definitely bright but to others, some of these changes are meant to work against their expansion and business operations. This means that more and more entrepreneurs are designing solutions to global problems, creating innovative products and services that meet real needs, and driving social change.

Artificial Inteligence 108

Artificial Inteligence Technical Review Entrepreneur Global 108

Steve Blank

AUGUST 31, 2009

Was the sales revenue model based on actually testing the hypotheses outside the building? Greg Boutin Founder, Growthroute Ventures, [link] Reply TO REVENUE » Talking on Techie-Biz Divide at Communitech Guelph on Sept. As entrepreneurs we must never settle for allowing our hypothesis to go unchecked.

Customer Development 238

Customer Development Developer Customer Silicon Valley 238

Steve Blank

JULY 30, 2009

Unfortunately most startups learn this by going through the “Fire the first Sales VP&# drill: You start your company with a list of potential customers reading like a “who’s who&# of whatever vertical market you’re in (or the Fortune 1000 list.) Your board nods sagely at your target customer list. What happened?

Silicon Valley 131

Silicon Valley RSS California Customer Development 131

Mucker Lab

DECEMBER 2, 2015

Most brilliant “Internet of Things” ideas are quicksand for capital unless you have the branding, vertical integration and customer lock-in that Apple achieved. 20 years ago, a majority of “Sand Hill” venture capital went into enterprise-focused startups. The iPod model will separate IoT platforms from fads.

Vertical 60

Vertical Widget Distribution China 60

Austin Startup

DECEMBER 20, 2020

I used to meet a high profile entrepreneur or investor moving here every month and now it seems it’s one or two a week. Normally, you can literally just show up at Capital Factory and hang out in the kitchen. Everyone is looking to plug-in and with COVID it’s harder than ever.

Austin 110

Austin Texas Cofounder Los Angeles 110

Cracking the Code

NOVEMBER 13, 2008

The fact that SaaS valuations are being more affected by the downturn than the Nasdaq can be surprising given the supposed resiliency of the SaaS model (recurring revenues) but it translates the public investors belief that SMB software spend is going to be hit very hard by this recession. Rethink vertical segmentation: Healthcare?

Software Review 48

Software Review Technical Review Valuation Portfolio 48

Steve Blank

APRIL 30, 2009

Your design or ad agencies can impress you with their awards, but if you’re not moving product or creating demand, you’ve missed the point. Worry about the sales results. What did we learn?

Sales 120

Sales Silicon Valley RSS Las Vegas 120

Steve Blank

SEPTEMBER 3, 2009

Once the product begins to ship, startup sales execs use orders and revenue as its marker of progress in understanding customers. Well, because the revenue plan we promised the investors shows us generating customer revenue from the day of first customer ship.” Doesn’t it depend on vertical market.?

Customer Development 215

Customer Development Developer Customer Silicon Valley 215

Hunter Walker

MAY 20, 2018

The idea was to build a publishing-focused brand with events as a revenue base while we figured out our own differentiation in a crowded market — and then added business lines around advertising, custom content and now subscriptions. How should media entrepreneurs weigh funding options for their startups?

PR 64

PR Media Differentiation Audience 64

David Teten

DECEMBER 3, 2019

Private equity and venture capital investors are copying our sisters in the hedge fund world: we’re trying to automate more of our job. . Small investment firms often have interns and entrepreneurs in residence passing through, each of which is a security risk. When I was single, I registered for (a lot of) dating websites.

Technical Review 78

Technical Review Software Review Analytics Private Equity 78

Startup Lessons Learned

AUGUST 24, 2009

We faced this same problem in entrepreneurship and venture capital, but we are getting past it. What is the right revenue model? The Entrepreneur’s Guide to Customer Development ► June (3) What is a startup? We have to look at fundamental business questions right from the start: what is the right audience?

San Francisco 113

San Francisco Lean Technical Review Distribution 113

Steve Blank

FEBRUARY 23, 2009

In hindsight it appeared clear that startups that survive the first few tough years do not follow the traditional product-centric launch model espoused by product managers or the venture capital community. As you stated, the VCs only want to hear about product development and, I would add, revenue models.

Silicon Valley 127

Silicon Valley RSS Venture Capital California 127

Steve Blank

NOVEMBER 2, 2009

In times when venture capital is hard to get, investors extract high costs for failure (down-rounds, cram downs , new management teams, shut down the company.) Sales people cost money, and when they’re not bringing in revenue, their wandering in the woods is time consuming, cash-draining and demoralizing.

Lean 244

Lean Silicon Valley Startup RSS 244

Gust

OCTOBER 12, 2011

During the summer of 2010, I developed a workshop, A New ACEF Valuation Workshop for Angels and Entrepreneurs. To provide some reference points, I surveyed thirteen angels groups in North American to determine their recent experience in negotiating the pre-money valuation of pre-revenue companies. 2011 Angel Group Valuation Survey.

Angel Groups 125

Angel Groups Valuation Pre-Money Valuation St. Louis 125

Steve Blank

NOVEMBER 5, 2009

Product Development – Getting Funded as The Goal In a traditional product development model, entrepreneurs come up with an idea or concept, write a business plan and try to get funding to bring that idea to fruition. Knowing this venture firms have come up with a canonical checklist of what they would like to see.

Customer Development 262

Customer Development Developer Customer Silicon Valley 262

abovethecrowd.com

APRIL 17, 2013

With each hand, a small percentage of the pot is scraped off by the dealer, which in essence becomes the “revenue” for the casino. While casinos use the term “rake,” a plethora of interesting word choices exist which all describe the same thing – keeping a little bit of the revenue for the company that is running the service.

Europe 101

Europe Social Network Technical Review IPO 101

Steve Blank

APRIL 22, 2009

Corner Cases and Consensus are For Large Companies Carefully considering each and every possible outcome before you proceed with a decision is something large companies with large revenues, shareholders and employees need to do. Unlike large corporations, startup meetings are not about achieving consensus for every objection raised.

Silicon Valley 176

Silicon Valley RSS California Customer Development 176

Steve Blank

JUNE 22, 2009

We Changed Our Mind In 1966, 10 years after Hewlett’s memo, Hewlett Packard’s revenue and headcount had grown ten fold; $200 million and 11,000 employees – all from test and measurement equipment. And venture capital and entrepreneurship has made life even tougher for the modern corporation.

Silicon Valley 164

Silicon Valley RSS California Agile 164

Steve Blank

MAY 26, 2009

Verticals Are Different I began to realize that entrepreneurs (and their professors) act like every vertical market and industry has the same set of rules. So the first heuristic is: do not assume the startup rules are the same for all vertical markets. Just for discussion, the markets I chose were: Web 2.0,

Vertical 149

Vertical Silicon Valley Intellectual Property RSS 149

The Next Web

OCTOBER 2, 2013

Jenny Lee, a partner at venture capital firm GGV Capital which has a presence in both the US and China, also observes that in the US, the willingness to pay for an app is pretty high — especially for a utility tool, which is what CooTek’s TouchPal X Keyboard essentially is. But on the other hand they have more time.

China 122

China Developer Intellectual Property Mobile 122

Steve Blank

SEPTEMBER 10, 2009

While that’s not true, it is a fact that entrepreneurs only have one word for “startup.” Most startups following the Product Development Model never achieve their revenue plan and burn through a ton of cash not knowing what hit them. After twelve months Handspring’s revenue was $170 million. They never understood Market Type.

Customer Development 196

Customer Development Developer Customer Silicon Valley 196

Steve Blank

APRIL 23, 2009

I was asked to explain why a marketing program that cost $150,000 bucks literally generated nothing in revenue for the company. They hit each other with baseball bats until one of them dropped.) This first Zen moment happened at a SuperMac exec staff meeting. Ownership and Teamwork not turf.

Silicon Valley 120

Silicon Valley RSS California Customer Development 120

Steve Blank

JULY 2, 2009

Entrepreneur-in-Residence After SuperMac I had been approached by one of our venture investors to be an entrepreneur in residence (EIR), a Silicon Valley phrase which says one thing but means another. Depending on the size of the venture firm they may have one to three EIR’s who stay an average of a year or so.

Silicon Valley 120

Silicon Valley Technical Review RSS Software Review 120

Steve Blank

OCTOBER 1, 2009

Sloan put in place GM’s management accounting system (borrowed from DuPont) that for the first time allowed the company to: 1) produce an annual operating forecast that compared each division’s forecast (revenue, costs, capital requirements and return on investment) with the company’s financial goals. I find both intriguing.

Silicon Valley 156

Silicon Valley United States RSS Customer Development 156