Startup Professionals Musings

MAY 30, 2022

That’s where I see too much entrepreneur burnout, growth plateaus, and founders being replaced, to their chagrin. By definition, second-stage ventures generally have 10 to 99 employees and/or $750,000 to $50 million in revenue, and see that as just the beginning. Switch your attention from product development to sales.

Mezzanine 368

Mezzanine Private Equity Bandwidth Metrics 368

Steve Blank

AUGUST 31, 2009

After 20 years of working in startups, I decided to take a step back and look at the product development model I had been following and see why it usually failed to provide useful guidance in activities outside the building – sales, marketing and business development. So what’s wrong the product development model?

Customer Development 238

Customer Development Developer Customer Silicon Valley 238

The Startup Magazine

SEPTEMBER 10, 2019

There is a myth among first time tech founders that product is everything. Many lack intuitive financial sense that can help them build a great company once they achieve product-market fit. Here are five financial concepts that every startup founder should know to build an everlasting company. Asset valuation.

Founder 117

Founder Valuation Dividend Startup 117

Startup Professionals Musings

OCTOBER 19, 2015

That’s why I recommend that they find a co-founder who loves business challenges, including marketing and finance. Outside investors are most interested in scaling a proven business model, not research and development. Most founders bootstrap product development. Fabulous solutions require great technology.

Technical Review 120

Technical Review Intellectual Property Cofounder Bootstrapping 120

Berkonomics

AUGUST 10, 2017

Since this number is budgeted and pre-authorized, managers tend to focus upon other things such as sales, marketing and product development issues. There is an art to efficient management of a process, whether that is the process of bringing a product to market from R&D to production or developing a new product’s launch program.

Silicon Valley 97

Silicon Valley Burn Rate Angel Investor Down Round 97

Feld Thoughts

SEPTEMBER 16, 2011

Since SayAhh is in the pre-launch development stage, the company doesn’t have any revenue yet. They also haven’t launched a product, so there is no corresponding “cost of goods sold” – the direct cost of delivering their product. The default Quickbooks setup uses “Income” to refer to “Revenue”.

Balance Sheet 125

Balance Sheet Fractional CTO Burn Rate Salary 125

ReadWriteStart

JANUARY 27, 2011

And, oh by the way, we also really like the idea of the 1M/1M entrepreneurs building valuation and negotiating leverage through these business development efforts, instead of signing off large chunks of their company in form of equity early on. million in revenue. The business is already profitable with $2.9

Dilution 114

Dilution Revenue Finance Entrepreneur 114

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. More on that in a moment.

Customer 167

Customer San Francisco Lean Hockey Stick 167

Startup Professionals Musings

SEPTEMBER 1, 2019

That’s where I see too much entrepreneur burnout, growth plateaus, and founders being replaced, to their chagrin. By definition, second-stage ventures generally have 10 to 99 employees and/or $750,000 to $50 million in revenue, and see that as just the beginning. Switch your attention from product development to sales.

Mezzanine 244

Mezzanine Private Equity Startup Bandwidth 244

View from Seed

NOVEMBER 18, 2014

Recently, we looked at our own portfolio at NextView Ventures to dig a little deeper on how startups actually raise that next round of financing. Of the NextView-backed founders have have tried to raise this round, over 70% have done so (compared to a mean success rate in the industry of around 27%, according to some sources ).

Syndicate 333

Syndicate Syndication Seed Stage Startup 333

Genuine VC

MARCH 24, 2014

A couple years ago, my partner Lee penned a blog post about the milestone benchmarks for startups raising a Series A round of financing. The strategy here is to foster product development and marketing which creates overall (semi-)organic user momentum. Generate Real Revenue.

Seed Capital 212

Seed Capital Metrics Cofounder Revenue 212

Up and Running

JUNE 14, 2017

Some believe in the all-in approach to product development: build an advanced app. The problem was that building out all the features in the premium version would take four to six months and many thousands of dollars in app development that I didn’t have. Such value is centered around market validation and growth potential.

Technical Review 96

Technical Review Distribution Redemption Demand 96

VC Cafe

FEBRUARY 27, 2024

A founder asked me what makes a $2M round “pre-seed”? especially if the startup already has a product and revenue? While the answers are somewhat semantic, the pre-seed funding round is making a comeback in 2024 startup financing.

Valuation 186

Valuation Software Review Generative AI Technical Review 186

View from Seed

OCTOBER 15, 2014

So, rather than try and fill time unnecessarily and create a lengthy deck just because you’re “supposed to,” Rob — and we’d guess many other VCs as well — will often suggest that a founder create a simple one-sheeter that might start small and build over time. Finance is mission critical, for instance – it just appears on a recurring basis.

Seed Stage 331

Seed Stage Cap Table Metrics Burn Rate 331

Startup Professionals Musings

SEPTEMBER 13, 2017

That’s where I see too much entrepreneur burnout, growth plateaus, and founders being replaced, to their chagrin. By definition, second-stage ventures generally have 10 to 99 employees and/or $750,000 to $50 million in revenue, and see that as just the beginning. Switch your attention from product development to sales.

Mezzanine 141

Mezzanine Private Equity Startup Bandwidth 141

Startup Professionals Musings

NOVEMBER 3, 2013

That’s where I see too much entrepreneur burnout, growth plateaus, and Founders being replaced, to their chagrin. By definition, second-stage ventures generally have 10 to 99 employees and/or $750,000 to $50 million in revenue, and see that as just the beginning. Switch your attention from product development to sales.

Mezzanine 240

Mezzanine Private Equity Bandwidth Metrics 240

Berkonomics

MARCH 30, 2010

Since this number is budgeted and pre-authorized, managers tend to focus upon other things such as sales, marketing and product development issues. There is an art to efficient management of a process, whether that is the process of bringing a product to market from R&D to production or developing a new product’s launch program.

Silicon Valley 85

Silicon Valley Burn Rate Angel Investor Down Round 85

K9 Ventures

OCTOBER 10, 2017

I’ll start with all the questions I can think of, from many different perspectives: founders, LPs, the press, and even other VCs. This post is intended to be a dynamic document, and I will attempt to update it from time to time with new questions that may arise or as financing trends evolve. Q: Is Pre-Seed a Thing?

Seed Stage 82

Seed Stage Finance Later Stage Equity 82

Austin Startup

AUGUST 20, 2017

Messy cap tables can come back to haunt you when you do a financing or sell the company. Kalanick, former investor BFF turned highly disappointed by founder behavior. Usually the founders duke it out among themselves as to titles and responsibilities and relative shareholdings. Even for ISO’s, have you heard of form 83(b)?

Technical Review 48

Technical Review Software Review Cap Table Securities and Exchange Commission 48

Hearpreneur

FEBRUARY 14, 2018

2- Business and Finance. I blog about home and gardening topics and make money from product recommendations to my audience, mostly through Amazon associates program. I don’t feel comfortable sharing exact revenue numbers but it’s now making me more than $1,000 per month. Thanks to Chloe Spilotro, Sparkle Couture by Chloe ! #2-

Entrepreneur 69

Entrepreneur Technical Review SEO New York City 69

OnlyOnce

MAY 13, 2021

If you’re leading HR, or Finance, or Marketing, or any key function inside a startup, what resources are available to you? Simply put, the first book left me with the nagging feeling that it wasn’t enough to only help CEOs excel, because starting and scaling a business is a collective effort. What should you be thinking about?

Startup 62

Startup Cofounder Venture Capital Leadership 62

Startup Professionals Musings

FEBRUARY 4, 2015

That’s where I see too much entrepreneur burnout, growth plateaus, and founders being replaced, to their chagrin. By definition, second-stage ventures generally have 10 to 99 employees and/or $750,000 to $50 million in revenue, and see that as just the beginning. Switch your attention from product development to sales.

Mezzanine 120

Mezzanine Private Equity Startup Bandwidth 120

Steve Blank

MAY 28, 2009

Market Risk vs. Invention Risk - Click to Enlarge For companies building web-based products, product development may be difficult, but with enough time and iteration engineering will eventually converge on a solution and ship a functional product - i t’s engineering, not invention.

Vertical 144

Vertical Silicon Valley Marketing Customer 144

YoungUpstarts

FEBRUARY 28, 2018

by Steve Owens, Founder and CTO of Finish Line Product Development Services. Product Mis-Timed – 13%. No Financing/Investor Interest – 8%. Rule #2: Revenue is your first priority. Rule #2: Revenue is your first priority. In this context, revenue can be an investment as well as sales.

Startup 133

Startup Revenue Product Development Distribution 133

ReadWriteStart

JUNE 29, 2020

It means relying on your own savings and revenue to operate and expand.”. Your data will be ordered and structured into information based on specific niches like engineering and construction, finance, technology, and business. Thus, you must manage your available finances wisely. Implement the “lean startup” philosophy.

Bootstrapping 85

Bootstrapping Global Startup Hungary 85

Startup Lessons Learned

DECEMBER 23, 2009

If you never have, you can create your own using Google Finance. They were accustomed to measuring their progress primarily by gross revenue compared to their targets. If you never have, you can create your own using Google Finance. The Entrepreneur’s Guide to Customer Development ► June (3) What is a startup?

Metrics 167

Metrics San Francisco Lean Continuous Deployment 167

Growthink Blog

MAY 10, 2012

Mezzanine Financing Most companies that raise equity capital and are eventually acquired or go public receive multiple rounds of financing first. No right or wrong answer here, but if this is your vision then it's important to consider when negotiating deal terms on earlier stage financing rounds. Seed Funding 3.

Equity 88

Equity Mezzanine Later Stage Venture Capital 88

Steve Blank

JUNE 8, 2009

Execution by Vertical Market As the class progressed, students asked how the activities/functions of a startup; (Sales, Marketing, Business Development, Product Development, etc.) How does product development differ in communications hardware versus enterprise software, etc. would look in each of the verticals.

Vertical 122

Vertical Silicon Valley RSS Marketing 122

Up and Running

JULY 24, 2015

Founders Workbench. The Founders Workbench has a variety of tools to help you get your startup off the ground. Product development. If you need a little help with your product development and getting it on store shelves, you can check out Edison Nation. They can help with development and licensing, too.

Entrepreneur 60

Entrepreneur Small Business Administration SBA Pennsylvania 60

Business Plan Blog

OCTOBER 4, 2013

If you have a technical background and you are focused on product development, consider a co-founder with a sales and marketing background that can focus on selling your world class product. Rather, give titles such as VP of Engineering, Product/Technology, Sales, Marketing, Finance, etc. Early Stage.

Part-Time VPE 79

Part-Time VPE Fractional VPE Cofounder CTO Hire 79

Up and Running

MAY 23, 2016

In fact, SaaS industry revenue is projected to grow from $49 billion in 2015 to $67 billion in 2018, a compound annual growth rate of approximately eight percent. We created UpKeep to fill this void—a cloud-based solution that was affordable for any size business.” – Ryan Chan, founder of UpKeep.

Software Review 74

Software Review Software Delaware Forecast 74

Growthink Blog

NOVEMBER 2, 2016

And more excitedly, through the development of a new product with a market potential many times greater than the company’s current core offering. It was also meandering, energy was fruitlessly expended on ideas without reasonable probability of success, and was distracted throughout (pleasantly so!)

Conversion 48

Conversion Los Angeles Europe Acquisition 48

Steve Blank

NOVEMBER 5, 2009

Unfortunately in early stage startups the drive for financing hijacks the corporate DNA and becomes the raison d’etre of the company. The Traditional VC Pitch Entrepreneurs who pursue the traditional product development model don’t have customer data to answer these questions. Is there a profitable business model?

Customer Development 262

Customer Development Developer Customer Silicon Valley 262

Steve Blank

OCTOBER 1, 2009

Sloan kept the corporate staff small and focused on policymaking, corporate finance and planning. The founder of what became General Motors was William (Billy) Durant. Billy Durant - Founder General Motors More in the next posts. Sloan had each of the divisions start systematic strategic planning. What happened to him?

Silicon Valley 156

Silicon Valley United States RSS Customer Development 156

www.readwriteweb.com

OCTOBER 18, 2010

These are areas that may be gaps in the portfolio of large companies, and are perfect for M&A deals in three to five years after building enough validation and $10-$20 million in revenue. So, please note the TAM Analysis is a vitally important aspect of building any financing strategy.

Marketing 52

Marketing Bootstrapping Incubator Angel Investor 52

www.readwriteweb.com

OCTOBER 18, 2010

These are areas that may be gaps in the portfolio of large companies, and are perfect for M&A deals in three to five years after building enough validation and $10-$20 million in revenue. So, please note the TAM Analysis is a vitally important aspect of building any financing strategy.

Marketing 52

Marketing Bootstrapping Incubator Angel Investor 52

SoCal CTO

DECEMBER 1, 2010

Equity-Only CTO and Equity-Only Developers - SoCal CTO , November 1, 2010 I had a recent email dialog with the founder of a company looking for a CTO for their startup. And I tried to evaluate the idea and figure out: What did the founder really need here? Was it a Startup Founder Developer Gap ? So what gives?

Technical Review 175

Technical Review Technology Product CTO Hire 175