Version One Ventures

JANUARY 15, 2019

Hiring is key to the success of any business, but it can especially critical for startups. Most founders appreciate the importance of making good hires; however, when a startup is scaling rapidly, process often gets left behind. If you don’t take the time to define the job upfront, it’s going to be really hard to hire against a need.

Hiring 117

Hiring Later Stage Early Stage Portfolio 117

Startup Professionals Musings

FEBRUARY 15, 2023

Most new teams are geographically dispersed these days anyway, so paying rent for an office should be differed to later stages when revenue is plentiful. With the unlimited access to “how-to” videos and detailed instructions on the Internet, you shouldn’t need to hire experts for most things.

Equity 349

Equity Hockey Stick Bootstrapping Sweat Equity 349

Steve Blank

APRIL 23, 2014

Most large companies manage three types of innovation: process innovation (making existing products incrementally better), continuous innovation (building on the strength of the company’s current business model but creating new elements) and disruptive innovation (creating products or services that did not exist before.).

Acquisition 333

Acquisition Intellectual Property Silicon Valley Startup 333

View from Seed

JANUARY 5, 2016

Even experienced startup execs who have hired and built teams sometimes find there are nuances to learn between building a team within a larger company versus hiring the first dozen folks in a startup. What did we like/not like about past companies’ approach to hiring and team development? It’s a moving target.

Founder 120

Founder Cofounder Startup Early Stage 120

SVPG

JANUARY 11, 2016

I normally write about how to evolve your organization from a weak product org to a strong one. The scenario is that you are probably a later stage startup or growth stage company. Would you rather hire all your staff and leaders from Google, Facebook, Amazon and Apple? Some believe that this is unavoidable.

Later Stage 60

Later Stage Hiring Naming Software Developers 60

Startup Professionals Musings

MAY 18, 2020

Most new teams are geographically dispersed these days anyway, so paying rent for an office should be differed to later stages when revenue is plentiful. With the unlimited access to “how-to” videos and detailed instructions on the Internet, you shouldn’t need to hire experts for most things.

Hockey Stick 423

Hockey Stick Bootstrapping Sweat Equity Intellectual Property 423

Steve Blank

MARCH 17, 2020

The ripple and feedback effect of all of these closures will have a major impact on our economy, as each industry that gets impacted puts people out of work, and those laid off workers don’t buy products and services. Whatever your product/market fit was last month it’s no longer true and needs to change to meet the new normal.

Burn Rate 436

Burn Rate Startup Valuation Sales Cycle 436

Both Sides of the Table

MAY 4, 2013

What stage? Should I trust my instincts for founders and products or should I be more focused on the market size or business plan? When you are raising a large, later-stage round given by this time you’ve likely got a fairly large business to run. What kind of deals should I be doing? What price?

Early Stage 361

Early Stage Deal Flow Investment Bankers Technical Review 361

YoungUpstarts

JUNE 22, 2020

Product links – Good content doesn’t only give general information but also makes recommendations. These links can be directed to internal products or affiliate links. However, you can hire a professional copywriting services company to ensure you get maximum gains from the content. High Ranking in Search Results.

Affiliate 230

Affiliate Startup Later Stage Search 230

YoungUpstarts

JUNE 15, 2015

Ideas, Products, Teams and Execution – Part I. Very few companies become super-successful without users loving their product. Lecture 2: Ideas, Products, Teams and Execution – Part II. Lecture 4: Building Product, Talking to Users, and Growing. Lecture 7: How to Build Products Users Love.

Cofounder 100

Cofounder Delaware Startup Technical Review 100

Both Sides of the Table

MAY 4, 2013

What stage? Should I trust my instincts for founders and products or should I be more focused on the market size or business plan? When you are raising a large, later-stage round given by this time you’ve likely got a fairly large business to run. What kind of deals should I be doing? What price?

Deal Flow 347

Deal Flow Early Stage Investment Bankers Technical Review 347

The Next Web

AUGUST 26, 2013

Today, in steps 10-12 I want to discuss with you raising your first round of money, hiring to develop and maintain your company culture, as well as defining your role in the management of your startup. They need to challenge your way of thinking, your way of doing business, and your way of building products.

Management 120

Management Cofounder Startup Bootstrapping 120

Hunter Walker

JULY 11, 2022

Instead these companies are better off just investing resources in improving their hiring via candidate flow/sourcing, interview process, offer communication/negotiation and closing experience. Product manager knows founders of a later-stage startup pretty well. Some downsides to this sort of process: It’s half-pregnant.

Later Stage 82

Later Stage Marketing Early Stage Hiring 82

YoungUpstarts

SEPTEMBER 13, 2020

Your blog is getting traffic, your social media has lots of followers and you know your product is good and helpful to your customers. 1 – Product videos. If you have already used every trick in the book to optimize your product descriptions, then you may find that a product video will launch your conversion rate.

eCommerce 194

eCommerce Video Conversion Channel 194

Both Sides of the Table

JUNE 5, 2011

The earlier you invest the higher the chances the company won’t work out and thus you pay a lower price than later-stage investors. You’re unlikely to want to make this sort of investment with the product or the market not yet validated. But 6 months later you’re not working past 10pm.

Pre-Money Valuation 336

Pre-Money Valuation Valuation Silicon Valley Stock 336

ReadWriteStart

MARCH 3, 2021

You can’t afford to hire a full team or place a Super Bowl ad, so you’ll need something more reasonably priced. If you provide answers to common questions, educate consumers, and provide things that people need, they’ll naturally seek you out (and hopefully, buy your product once they trust you). Limited brand equity. Email Marketing.

Early Stage 125

Early Stage PPC Retention Churn Rate 125

David Teten

SEPTEMBER 23, 2017

Even for later-stage companies with predictable financials, the lack of liquidity, audited financials, and standardized metrics creates real challenges to scaling quantitative investing. Later stage investors are using private company marketplace services focused on more established companies, listed below under “Exit Investments”.

Private Equity 60

Private Equity Venture Capital Equity Technical Review 60

Both Sides of the Table

FEBRUARY 23, 2015

” If the “nut” is too high I usually veer them towards later-stage opportunities (post B or C round) where the comp is higher, the exit is more likely / nearer, the upside is still nice but obviously not the same as if you joined early). the standard 4-6% for a hired-gun CEO). And there’s always a but.

Technical Review 150

Technical Review Liquidation Preference Silicon Valley IP 150

View from Seed

JULY 26, 2022

As we build and grow, I get a crash course in every domain of business – Product Development 101, Digital Marketing 101, Hiring 101 and so forth. There are both hard and soft skills that coincide with each of these areas and it’s a whirlwind to keep pace. This keeps things interesting, challenging, humbling and rewarding.

Silicon Valley 156

Silicon Valley Later Stage Early Stage Founder 156

OnlyOnce

DECEMBER 8, 2021

I divided my response into “early stage” and “later stage” founders. Here’s a summary of what I said about early stage founders. More than that, spend more time caring about your customers and learning and telling stories about how you made their lives better with your product or service.

Early Stage 62

Early Stage Founder Later Stage B2C 62

Reid Hoffman

MARCH 9, 2021

Far too often, people think that innovation is limited to the product, service, and technology. Over and over, he has gambled on products and product areas where no current market existed. Products like the Kindle and Amazon Web Services created entirely new markets, which Amazon now dominates or leads.

Leadership 45

Leadership Technical Review Cofounder Later Stage 45

Both Sides of the Table

JULY 22, 2010

You’ll need to hire and retain talen to grow your company. The more senior members you have (say you already have a CEO, CTO, VP marketing, VP Biz Dev, VP Products) then the less options you’ll need and vice versa. The VC assumes you’ll have an option pool. That’s normal. You reap what you sow.

Valuation 405

Valuation Liquidation Preference Pre-Money Valuation Term Sheet 405

View from Seed

APRIL 30, 2015

In many instances, you raise an institutional round to either fulfill a product strategy or go-to-market strategy or you’re increasing sales and marketing hires, so you have better visibility into what needs to happen in the next six, 12, 18 months. NVV: Let’s talk about the seed stage specifically.

Term Sheet 120

Term Sheet Equity Startup Seed Stage 120

OnlyOnce

MARCH 14, 2011

In Part Two, I’ll talk about some of the practices we’re using in our product management and development teams. It was stressful, but productively stressful and fun. A good example of this is our recent Domain Assurance product, our first product to address phishing and spoofing. For one, there are the profits.

Software Review 67

Software Review Development Team Review Later Stage Technical Review 67

ReadWriteStart

AUGUST 26, 2022

We come in after a product has landed and found product market fit and has some escape velocity. Good CEOs will look inside and say: “Hey, maybe we’ve been hiring a little bit too much during the sugar rush phase of the pandemic, and what does that mean for performance management? That’s not what we do. David Zhang.

Partner 132

Partner Cofounder Retention Acquisition 132

Steve Blank

NOVEMBER 30, 2011

After graduating he put together a prototype and had quickly marched through Customer Discovery , iterating his product with the help of CIOs and Fortune 1000 IT departments. He kept telling him he couldn’t remember when he had seen an enterprise software product with so much promise. Bob started hiring second rate developers.

Customer Development 332

Customer Development Cofounder Later Stage Software 332

Both Sides of the Table

MARCH 31, 2012

My list of excuses includes: product, pricing, competition and lack of sales support. Erin’s main points: “As a former tech sales executive, I agree with many of [Mark's] lessons — when applied to later-stage, post-traction point startups. As you grow you need process-driven people.

Startup 319

Startup Early Stage Sales Cofounder 319

YoungUpstarts

MARCH 28, 2019

You’re not trying to sell your products and services to Google’s web-crawler bots. Your product itself should already have given you an idea of your general audience, but it’s good to have an understanding that goes somewhat beyond that. Comparisons of various product options. Your customers are humans — right? Industry news.

Audience 164

Audience Algorithm eCommerce Cofounder 164

Hippoland

OCTOBER 9, 2016

If you’re still in the early stages of your entrepreneur-education/journey, you may even think you need to protect your idea and not share it with anyone. Demonstrate that you can pull the trigger on things quickly — whether it be getting customers, hiring / firing employees, or product development.

Seed Stage 48

Seed Stage CTO Hire Email Later Stage 48

ReadWriteStart

APRIL 26, 2021

Hence, for a startup, hiring and building a high-performing software team is stressful. Have a Concrete Hiring Plan. Hire Skilled and Experienced Developers. Hire a Core Development Team. Having said that, you can hire a software team and assign roles? 3) Have a Concrete Hiring Plan. who bring their?

Software 160

Software Startup Hiring Salary 160

This is going to be BIG.

JUNE 30, 2010

They’ve seen a ton of similar patterns, things to be aware of, or even potential hires that may want to join a company like yours. They also know what’s likely to get funded—what milestones you’d need to hit for them or others at a similar stage to get funded. Sometimes, we even have good product feedback.

Technical Review 113

Technical Review Due Diligence Venture Capital Later Stage 113

YoungUpstarts

MAY 27, 2016

If there is no written definition of each person’s role, problems can ensue at a later stage. Hire a tax attorney. Running a business usually means you have to hire an accountant. It doesn’t matter whether you’re selling a product or service. But, what is that so important?

Dividend 100

Dividend Startup Later Stage Government 100

Steve Blank

JUNE 15, 2010

And some larger funds that specialize in later stage deals may have a partner or two who likes to invest at this stage. Some VC’s invest solely on technology breakthroughs and assume they’ll find a market later.). Early stage investors have different insights then those investing in a later stage.

Founder 232

Founder Vesting Later Stage Early Stage 232

The Equity Kicker

NOVEMBER 28, 2016

Most VCs will say that to evaluate deals they look at the market size, the product and the quality of the team. Different investors place different weights on the three elements but as a rule earlier stage investors place more emphasis on the team and later stage investors place more emphasis on the market.

Seed Stage 60

Seed Stage Later Stage Early Stage Partner 60

Startup Lessons Learned

FEBRUARY 20, 2009

I owe it originally to lean manufacturing books like Lean Thinking and Toyota Production System. The batch size is the unit at which work-products move between stages in a development process. Similar results apply in product management, design, testing, and even operations. For software, the easiest batch to see is code.

San Francisco 161

San Francisco Software Review Continuous Deployment Development Team Review 161

The Equity Kicker

NOVEMBER 22, 2013

Since then he and his team have been sitting alongside us in these offices and we’ve partnered with them to validate their assumptions, launch a v1 product in month 3, build traction and then raise their next round of funding. We also invest in slightly later stage companies who work out of their own offices.

Strategic Investors 94

Strategic Investors Later Stage Portfolio Early Stage 94

Up and Running

AUGUST 17, 2015

Between my experiences as a management consultant, as well as my product and marketing roles at multiple tech companies, I felt that I had enough operational experience to make that leap sooner than later. Business school students are very open to completing consumer surveys, trying out new products, and providing feedback on ideas.

Entrepreneur 60

Entrepreneur Cofounder Angel Investor eCommerce 60