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

The Startup Toolkit

AUGUST 30, 2012

The vast majority of VC rounds go to revenue generating companies. 25% during product development. 60% are for revenue generating companies with a sellable product. We were failing to raise because our business wasn’t there yet. Funding can be a red herring.

Silicon Valley 52

Silicon Valley San Francisco New Jersey India 52

Steve Blank

FEBRUARY 23, 2009

The same issues arose time and again: big company management styles versus entrepreneurs wanting to shoot from the hip, founders versus professional managers, engineering versus marketing, marketing versus sales, missed schedule issues, sales missing the plan, running out of money, raising new money. Order Here. To Order Outside of the U.S.

Silicon Valley 131

Silicon Valley RSS Venture Capital Customer Development 131

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. Order Here. Now In Print!

Vertical 162

Vertical Silicon Valley Marketing Customer 162

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

Steve Blank

AUGUST 27, 2009

This series of posts is a brief explanation of how we’ve evolved from Product Development to Customer Development to the Lean Startup. The Product Development Diagram Emerging early in the twentieth century, this product-centric model described a process that evolved in manufacturing industries.

Silicon Valley 269

Silicon Valley Product Startup Product Development 269

Startup Professionals Musings

JANUARY 12, 2013

Super-angel investors are a new category of investors (like Mike Maples Jr. ), closer to venture capitalists, who are perceived to be more sophisticated, insightful, or well-connected in the startup community, particularly with respect to technology companies in Silicon Valley and other technology centers (also called micro-VCs).

Entrepreneur 274

Entrepreneur Accredited Investor Silicon Valley Angel Investor 274

ReadWriteStart

JANUARY 27, 2011

I have discussed at length why revenue sharing channel deals may serve as perfectly fine alternatives to raising equity (or even complements) because of their non-dilutive nature. million in revenue. Social CRM is becoming quite a trend, and CrowdEngineering really pushes the envelope on the subject.

Dilution 114

Dilution Revenue Finance Entrepreneur 114

Seeing Both Sides

FEBRUARY 25, 2016

Growing revenue and profits is a core objective of most companies, and it is the responsibility of every function to contribute to the pursuit of this goal. Yet, the Growth Manager role remains poorly understood, especially outside Silicon Valley.

Management 20

Management Analytics Technical Review Framework 20

Seeing Both Sides

FEBRUARY 25, 2016

Growing revenue and profits is a core objective of most companies, and it is the responsibility of every function to contribute to the pursuit of this goal. Yet, the Growth Manager role remains poorly understood, especially outside Silicon Valley.

Management 20

Management Analytics Technical Review Framework 20

Austin Startup

AUGUST 20, 2017

Kalanick, former investor BFF turned highly disappointed by founder behavior. That will keep the Silicon Valley wags buzzing for some time to come. Usually the founders duke it out among themselves as to titles and responsibilities and relative shareholdings. How about your Investors ?

Technical Review 48

Technical Review Software Review Cap Table Securities and Exchange Commission 48

YoungUpstarts

JUNE 27, 2019

Because where is a large proportion of the revenue of coffee producers — say Starbucks, and also Red Bull — coming from? In most cases, I would venture to assert that very few boards, management groups, product development teams and analytics units in most established organizations have those discussions.

Silicon Valley 113

Silicon Valley United States Boston Cofounder 113

Startup Lessons Learned

NOVEMBER 8, 2008

Customer development is a parallel process to product development, which means that you dont have to give up on your dream. Our goal in product development is to find the minimum feature set required to get early customers. Instead, we do everything possible to validate the founders belief.

Customer Development 168

Customer Development Developer San Francisco Customer 168

infochachkie.com

SEPTEMBER 24, 2011

For instance, if a consultant proposes to help you with public relations, pay them a commission equivalent to the greater of a flat fee per story placed or a percentage of revenue generated from the PR coverage. Such positions include: PR, Sales, Product Development, Lead Generation, Strategic Planning, Fund Raising, etc.

Equity 40

Equity Silicon Valley Cofounder PR 40

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. What happened to him? Who was he?

Silicon Valley 179

Silicon Valley United States RSS Customer Development 179

Steve Blank

FEBRUARY 23, 2009

Through trial and error, hiring and firing, successful startups all invented a parallel process to product development. I call this process “Customer Development,” a sibling to “Product Development,” and each and every startup that succeeds recapitulates it, knowingly or not. Thanks for demystifying this process!

Silicon Valley 133

Silicon Valley RSS Venture Capital California 133

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. If youre making revenue, you should be finding ways to grow it predictably month-over-month; if youre focused on customer engagement, your product should be getting more sticky, and so on.

San Francisco 88

San Francisco Lean Continuous Deployment DC 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 125

Vertical Silicon Valley RSS Marketing 125

Steve Blank

NOVEMBER 2, 2009

The key contributors to an out-of-control burn rate is 1) hiring a sales force too early, 2) turning on the demand creation activities too early, 3) developing something other than the minimum feature set for first customer ship. And I can even imagine cases where it might burn more cash than a traditional startup. Lets see why.

Lean 260

Lean Silicon Valley Startup RSS 260

YoungUpstarts

OCTOBER 20, 2016

by Samar Singla, founder of Click Labs. When we say on-demand, the glorious image of Silicon Valley and its technological environs pops up in the layman’s mind, and even that may be too imaginative. Click Labs excels in product development outsourcing in general and building On Demand platforms in particular.

Demand 100

Demand Singapore Malaysia Asia 100

Steve Blank

NOVEMBER 5, 2009

It should go without saying that this post is not advice, nor is it recommendation of what you should do, it’s simply my observation of how companies using Customer Development positioned themselves to successfully raise money from venture investors. Is there a profitable business model? Can it scale?” Just as a refresher.

Customer Development 267

Customer Development Developer Customer Silicon Valley 267

Startup Lessons Learned

AUGUST 24, 2009

When I reviewed a recent product development book, it immediately shot up to Amazon sales rank 300. Most publishers are still caught up in an outdated “vision vs. metrics&# argument, which is already obsolete here in Silicon Valley. What is the right revenue model? Is that a lot? Is that good?

San Francisco 113

San Francisco Lean Technical Review Distribution 113

Steve Blank

AUGUST 24, 2009

Page views drive his ad revenue, which is probably CPM based. He spoke at the Founder Institute last week, and his advice was to not hire a PR agency until there were so many inbound requests that you can’t handle them yourself. He prefers to interact directly with the founders of a startup. Order Here. Now In Print!

Silicon Valley 210

Silicon Valley PR Technical Review RSS 210

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 ? You got it.

Technical Review 175

Technical Review Technology Product CTO Hire 175

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

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. Raymond has built a nice business through efficient distribution deals and will do about $250,000 in revenue this year.

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. Raymond has built a nice business through efficient distribution deals and will do about $250,000 in revenue this year.

Marketing 52

Marketing Bootstrapping Incubator Angel Investor 52

maplebutter.com

JANUARY 8, 2013

Or should I launch products and a startup for each of them, focusing on only 1 product at a time? I would focus on one product and set a goal to generate $1M in yearly revenue from it. Do that – nothing else but one product / company / focus and get to $1M in sales with atleast $15% net profit. do something else.

Technical Review 44

Technical Review Startup Cofounder Software Review 44

Startup Lessons Learned

JULY 9, 2009

We were focused on revenue, but we didnt understand that revenue is not important for its own sake in an early stage company. And then, at my first Silicon Valley startup , I watched friends get laid off in successive waves as it started to fail. Maybe, but the thought never even entered our minds.

San Francisco 94

San Francisco Lean Continuous Deployment DC 94

techcrunch.com

OCTOBER 23, 2010

So for this first post, here’s the best advice I can give you: join an awesome founding team and get your product out the door ASAP. One of the things I do as a founder of a later stage startup is to meet with early stage entrepreneurs to help them get their companies going. Especially if you aren’t from around Silicon Valley.

Technical Review 84

Technical Review Cofounder Technical Cofounder Software Review 84

www.paulgraham.com

APRIL 28, 2010

I wasnt sure what to talk about at Startup School, so I decidedto ask the founders of the startups wed funded. So I sent all the founders an email asking what surprised them aboutstarting a startup. Be Careful with Cofounders This was the surprise mentioned by the most founders. What hadnt Iwritten about yet?

Technical Cofounder 110

Technical Cofounder Startup Cofounder Founder 110

techcrunch.com

OCTOBER 23, 2010

The number one question you all asked after reading my last blog post about starting a business from scratch was “how do I find my co-founders?&# And therein lies the problem in finding co-founders for that startup you’re dying to launch. Having trouble meeting folks you think would be good co-founders?

Cofounder 66

Cofounder Founder Silicon Valley Technical Cofounder 66

www.quora.com

JANUARY 16, 2011

Find Questions, Topics and People Add Question Add Question Non-Technical Co-Founders Co-Founders Technical Co-founders Finding Co-Founders Startups & "How Important Are Ideas?" " Web Development Startups Solo Founders I am a creative guy with a startup idea. Rockstar v.

Developer 42

Developer Technical Review Cofounder Technical Cofounder 42

Startup Lessons Learned

NOVEMBER 22, 2008

The whole episode cost us hundreds of thousands of dollars in lost revenue. In fact, it was the revenue trends that eventually alerted us to the magnitude of the problem. Unfortunately, revenue a trailing indicator. Its a great time to increase revenues without spending money on acquiring new customers.

.Net 158

.Net Operations San Francisco Lean 158

Steve Blank

MAY 9, 2017

I’ve seen the Valley grow from Sunnyvale to Santa Clara to today where it stretches from San Jose to South of Market in San Francisco. I’ve watched the Valley go from Microwave Valley – to Defense Valley – to Silicon Valley to Internet Valley. So how did this happen? Where is it going?

Restful 243

Restful Silicon Valley Puerto Rico San Jose 243

mashable.com

JUNE 11, 2013

Perhaps the team is working on a product that really isnt that great or useful. Or maybe the co-founders have a poisonous relationship that will hinder the companys growth. Maybe they never thought about product-market fit. Check out the tips below from founders, CEOs and investors alike. Leave it in the comments.

Cofounder 111

Cofounder Technical Review Startup Software Review 111

Startup Lessons Learned

SEPTEMBER 11, 2009

This single decision wound up costing the company significant revenue and over the course of several months sent its customer growth into decline. As a founder of a company, there is nothing more painful than to see your most loyal and devoted customers suffering. That is what company founders and staff do not get.

Community 158

Community Management Lean Software Review 158