Steve Blank

NOVEMBER 13, 2012

Maysee now enjoys hockey stick revenue growth. In fact, I recently started my Customer Development blog with my partner, Masato Iino, to accumulate the learning and discovery of Customer Development and Lean LaunchPad in Japan, and to update readers with more concepts and tools to do Customer Development in their startups.

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Japan Customer Development Developer Customer 296

David Teten

JANUARY 19, 2021

(co-written with Jamie Finney, Founding Partner at Greater Colorado Venture Fund. Similar to the explosion of seed funds in the past decade, we (and some limited partners too ) believe these Flexible VCs are on the forefront of what will become a major segment of the venture ecosystem. Of the Inc. 5000 companies, only 6.5% return cap.

Cofounder 78

Cofounder Technical Review Equity Dividend 78

Startup Professionals Musings

AUGUST 10, 2019

Old co-workers or new friends with complementary skills usually make the best partners. If you take investor money, expect a push for hockey-stick growth and a liquidity event, like going public (IPO) or sale (M&A), to get the payback. The founder’s title and role dilemma. The control and growth dilemma.

Hockey Stick 243

Hockey Stick Cofounder Liquidity Event Startup 243

Up and Running

OCTOBER 8, 2014

My partner, James Shields , is an avid unicyclist. More than that, he’s an avid unicycle hockey player. When you play unicycle hockey, you typically use a unicycle, an ice-hockey stick and a tennis ball. James Shields uses an ice hockey stick during a serious unicycle hockey competition.

Hockey Stick 144

Hockey Stick South Africa Africa Cambodia 144

Reid Hoffman

DECEMBER 10, 2020

If I’m going to find out that a set of founders lack integrity, don’t behave like partners, take on unacceptable risks that might harm their customers or society, or simply aren’t the kinds of people I want to spend a decade with, I want to know those facts before I start down the path of evaluating that investment. I think David’s wrong.”.

Hosting 69

Hosting Hockey Stick IPO Silicon Valley 69

Startup Professionals Musings

DECEMBER 14, 2014

Old co-workers or new friends with complementary skills usually make the best partners. If you take investor money, expect a push for hockey-stick growth and a liquidity event, like going public (IPO) or sale (M&A), to get the payback. The Founder’s title and role dilemma. The control and growth dilemma.

Hockey Stick 268

Hockey Stick Cofounder Entrepreneur Liquidity Event 268

Startup Professionals Musings

SEPTEMBER 7, 2013

Organic growth (reinvesting profits only) will not allow you to build the “hockey stick” growth curve desired by premium buyers at exit, or financial analysts positioning you for public stock sale. Document processes and build online training videos so new people can come online quickly and consistently.

Hockey Stick 278

Hockey Stick Intellectual Property Startup Non-Compete 278

Startup Professionals Musings

AUGUST 19, 2017

Old co-workers or new friends with complementary skills usually make the best partners. If you take investor money, expect a push for hockey-stick growth and a liquidity event, like going public (IPO) or sale (M&A), to get the payback. The founder’s title and role dilemma. The control and growth dilemma.

Hockey Stick 144

Hockey Stick Cofounder Entrepreneur Liquidity Event 144

Startup Professionals Musings

APRIL 6, 2016

Use your equity for key executives and business partners. You can use it best to entice new team members and partners, giving you more horsepower and commitment for the long run. Investors have spread the word that you can’t get “hockey-stick” growth without a large cash infusion.

Bootstrapping 120

Bootstrapping Hockey Stick Sweat Equity Intellectual Property 120

Startup Professionals Musings

JULY 19, 2013

Old co-workers or new friends with complementary skills usually make the best partners. If you take investor money, expect a push for hockey-stick growth and a liquidity event, like going public (IPO) or sale (M&A), to get the payback. The Founder’s title and role dilemma. The control and growth dilemma.

Founder 245

Founder Hockey Stick Cofounder Liquidity Event 245

Startup Professionals Musings

FEBRUARY 14, 2016

Organic growth (reinvesting profits only) will not allow you to build the “hockey stick” growth curve desired by premium buyers at exit, or financial analysts positioning you for public stock sale. Document processes and build online training videos so new people can come online quickly and consistently.

Hockey Stick 120

Hockey Stick Intellectual Property Non-Compete Business Model 120

Startup Professionals Musings

JANUARY 11, 2015

Organic growth (reinvesting profits only) will not allow you to build the “hockey stick” growth curve desired by premium buyers at exit, or financial analysts positioning you for public stock sale. Document processes and build online training videos so new people can come online quickly and consistently.

Hockey Stick 120

Hockey Stick Intellectual Property Non-Compete Business Model 120

Startup Lessons Learned

OCTOBER 28, 2008

We pitch to potential partners, vendors, publishers, conferences, employees, and even lawyers. Most important slide: hockey stick Micro-scale results Key questions: who is the customer, and how do you know? If you still cant do it, move one level down the hierarchy and see if you can make that story stick.

San Francisco 128

San Francisco Lean Continuous Deployment DC 128

The Equity Kicker

SEPTEMBER 8, 2015

AirBnB has delivered on the proverbial hockey stick growth that I imagine they had in their pitch deck back in 2010. We advise our partner companies that 20-30% growth per month puts them in good shape to raise a Series A. The chart above shows the number of guests AirBnB has hosted each summer for the last five years.

Hockey Stick 60

Hockey Stick Forecast Startup Valuation 60

thebarefootvc

DECEMBER 16, 2011

Discovery, in contrast to search, took center stage as Pinterest displayed hockey stick growth (and raised VC money near a $200M valuation in late 2011). The viral nature of social media no doubt aided this growth, as did improvements in the online shopping experience.

Technical Review 110

Technical Review India Mobile Hockey Stick 110

Gust

NOVEMBER 29, 2011

David is a very well known venture capitalist, a partner in August Capital. Hockey stick sales forecasts are cool when they’re based on some justifiable logic. I saw a great answer to that question in Pitching a VC: Why Financials Matter , posted earlier this month by David Hornik on his Ventureblog. Well said.

Hockey Stick 70

Hockey Stick Forecast Early Stage Finance 70

Steve Blank

FEBRUARY 16, 2010

More than likely the revenue projection would resemble the hockey stick like the graph on the right. This board had relatively young partners who hadn’t quite grasped the consequences of what they had funded and had allowed the founder to execute a revenue plan that couldn’t be met. New Market Revenue Curve.

Revenue 231

Revenue Balance Sheet Hockey Stick Burn Rate 231

Steve Blank

NOVEMBER 8, 2010

This results in a much slower adoption curve – the classic hockey stick. TiVo had plenty of other battles to fight: competition, issues with channel partners, patent battles, as well as the movie studios, cable companies, broadcast networks and advertisers who all wanted TiVo dead. New Market Revenue Curve.

Hockey Stick 272

Hockey Stick Customer Development Silicon Valley Networking 272

Agile VC

JANUARY 27, 2012

Also, I’d argue these factors have made the “hockey stick” growth curves even steeper because when company’s “get hot” there are so many more eyeballs and networks to capture and convert. My partner @ LeeHower looks back: [link] 5 days ago Search. Previous Entries.

Hockey Stick 113

Hockey Stick Seed Stage Silicon Valley Syndicate 113

Austin Startup

DECEMBER 7, 2010

As consumer technology companies begin to get off the ground and make forecasts, there is the inevitable user adoption hockey stick that rockets the local user count to ridiculous heights with no market budget but significant “viral effects&# and “social media.&#

Hockey Stick 66

Hockey Stick Houston Austin Chicago 66

This is going to be BIG.

JANUARY 21, 2010

Since we often invest before the big “hockey stick” traction that bigger VCs wait for, a lot of times the company is still trying to tweak exactly what service or application will take off in a given market. This is something that founders should pay a lot of attention to when choosing a partner.

Product 68

Product Hockey Stick Entrepreneur Syndicate 68

Small Business Force

JUNE 29, 2013

Most typically, the financials, have that "magic hockey stick," seemingly so necessary in every plan, probably, either developed by the entrepreneur's accountant with or without the entrepreneur's input, and they all tie out nicely. Investors will be your partners�probably for life! It's not over until that occurs.

Hockey Stick 37

Hockey Stick Due Diligence Finder SEC 37

Hippoland

AUGUST 8, 2018

Forget about traction and hockey stick growth. This could mean partnering exclusively with someone who makes products offline (and who is not tech savvy to compete online with you). Unit economics are something I’ve found most entrepreneurs (and investors!) don’t think about at all.

Founder 48

Founder Sales Cycle Affiliate Retention 48

Hippoland

AUGUST 8, 2018

Forget about traction and hockey stick growth. This could mean partnering exclusively with someone who makes products offline (and who is not tech savvy to compete online with you). Unit economics are something I’ve found most entrepreneurs (and investors!) don’t think about at all.

Founder 48

Founder Sales Cycle Affiliate Retention 48

Up and Running

APRIL 28, 2015

Investors see “hockey stick” projections all the time and will mentally be cutting your projections in half. This can often be in the form of intellectual property licensing from a university or a key distribution partner who will be taking your product to market. Remember to try and be realistic. Demo and screenshots.

Forecast 60

Forecast Hockey Stick Exit Strategy Intellectual Property 60

Up and Running

AUGUST 21, 2014

When you look at SaaS metrics, keeping your CAC low and increasing your ARPU is going to be the fastest way to the hockey stick that SaaS companies are trying to achieve. We like KISSmetrics better, but I was just talking to a partner of ours yesterday who uses Totango and likes that better. If we increase our-.

Metrics 84

Metrics Startup Churn Rate Forecast 84

Cracking the Code

APRIL 21, 2021

After going $0 to $1mm in their first 10 years, UiPath has now hockey-sticked to over $600mm in revenue in 2020, and the automation market is still in early innings. The Global Partners of Accel. When we got to know Daniel in late 2016, we saw someone who was thinking differently.

Leadership 62

Leadership Hockey Stick North America Europe 62

David Teten

AUGUST 20, 2019

Many of the leading RBI investors, including Decathlon Capital , Indie.VC , Lighter Capital , Corl , Feenix Partners , Clearbanc (which has a distinct model), and Founders First Capital report far higher rates of women and underrepresented founders pitching them and winning capital than traditional VCs see.

Revenue 60

Revenue SBIC Cofounder Venture Capital 60

Up and Running

MARCH 11, 2015

It’s to highlight some of the key parts of your opportunity and what makes it so amazing that whoever it is that you’re talking to, whether it’s a bank, or an investor, or a family member, or a potential business partner, that they are on the edge of their seat and they ask for your full plan, and they want to know more.

Technical Review 60

Technical Review Software Review Due Diligence Exit Strategy 60

Up and Running

AUGUST 16, 2017

For example, missing crucial deadlines for finishing the business plan, or drawing hockey stick profit projections can repel potential investors. Try to find a partner that diversifies your skill set. To help students and startups, I have compiled a list of reasons business plans are rejected or given a low grade.

Business Plan 127

Business Plan Hockey Stick Cofounder Salary 127

ConversionXL

APRIL 3, 2019

The reality is that it’s hockey stick growth—you have to spend tons of money before you see any results (and then the results are exponential). They also brought in an enabling partner from an outside agency. Leadership thinks it’s spending tons of money; practitioners feel like they have no resources.

Artificial Inteligence 114

Artificial Inteligence Technical Review Metrics SEO 114