Steve Blank

MARCH 18, 2011

We’re now in the second Internet bubble. Dot.com Bubble ( 1995-2000): “ Anything goes” as public markets clamor for ideas, vague promises of future growth, and IPOs happen absent regard for history or profitability. With Netscape’s IPO , there was suddenly a public market for companies with limited revenue and no profit.

Internet 334

Internet IPO Silicon Valley Agile 334

Startup Professionals Musings

JANUARY 16, 2011

It has been at least a decade since going public via an Initial Public Offering (IPO) has been considered a credible exit strategy for startups. Usually a small company can sell about 20 percent of its stock in an IPO. In 1999, there were 486 IPOs nationwide; just 10 years later, in 2009, there were only 63.

IPO 223

IPO Social Media Media Exit Strategy 223

Gust

JANUARY 31, 2013

Modern theories of economics and finance teach us that in a world of perfect information, the market will decide what a fair price is for any company’s stock at any point in time based on its current financial condition, results of past operations, analysts’ forecasts of future performance, industry conditions and so on.

SEC 158

SEC Prospectus United States Technical Review 158

Both Sides of the Table

JUNE 22, 2011

The fact that today’s Internet bubble does not represent all companies does not disprove its existence. Ah, but today’s Internet companies have real revenue! And this is happening in mezzanine (pre-IPO) deals as well. And post IPO deals, although these tend to correct more quickly. and profits!

Saudi Arabia 309

Saudi Arabia Valuation IPO Technical Review 309

Agile VC

AUGUST 9, 2012

The company’s lost nearly 80% of its value from the peak earlier this year, in the run up to Facebook’s IPO, and currently trades below $3/share… a fraction of it’s IPO price of $10. So I can appreciate why public stock investors would be leery of Zynga and why the stock price has been punished recently.

Stock 160

Stock LBO .Net Valuation 160

Both Sides of the Table

JULY 16, 2010

The VC industry grew dramatically as a result of the Internet bubble - Before the Internet bubble the people who invested in VC funds (called LPs or Limited Partners) put about $50 billion into the industry and by 2001 this had grown precipitously to around $250 billion. But in bad economies many angels get burned.

LP 311

LP Technical Review Early Stage Silicon Valley 311

Up and Running

AUGUST 18, 2014

If you’d still like to be running the company in 10 years time, you’re probably going to want to ensure that exit plan comes in the form of a steady revenue stream that allows you to pay off investors; an IPO instead of a buy-out; or simply opt for a different strategy – your own funds or private/government loans and grants.

Small Business 154

Small Business Exit Strategy Cofounder Angel Investor 154

Both Sides of the Table

JUNE 17, 2017

It was a stock option incentive related “expense” but I bet you didn’t know that because in an era where we only read the headlines — they must be a train wreck losing billions. Revenue When I look at an income statement I start by focusing on the revenue line. You need to understand the “quality” of the revenue.

Stock Options 227

Stock Options Startup Dilution Venture Capital 227

David Teten

MARCH 14, 2018

We particularly help companies in winning revenue from our LP network and raising capital for subsequent rounds from top-tier late-stage investors. Typically they get cofounder common equity, in addition to the preferred stock that a conventional VC gets. Prehype , Rocket Internet , and numerous others. – Go public.

Private Equity 60

Private Equity Venture Capital Equity Cofounder 60

Agile VC

MARCH 8, 2012

Tech IPOs Are Back – So Now What? Three of the five “blockbuster” tech IPOs I predicted have happened (LinkedIn, Groupon, Zynga) and the biggest of all (Facebook) has filed and will likely go public within the next 90 days. I see several dynamics at work in today’s IPO markets. March 8, 2012.

IPO 100

IPO Silicon Valley Revenue Seed Stage 100

Both Sides of the Table

AUGUST 28, 2009

Goldman Sachs (an investor in our company) told us we’d IPO within 18 months for $1 billion so not to take any offers. As the economy soured and people grew wary of buying Internet software (we were SaaS as early as 1999 – our buyers were certainly “early adopters&# ) and life grew more difficult. We were hot.

PR 331

PR Software Review Ireland Germany 331

Agile VC

FEBRUARY 2, 2012

Facebook S-1: The Most Anticipated IPO in a Decade. Here’s my first look at Facebook viewed through the lens of their IPO filing. How They Make Money : Facebook’s primary revenue stream is of course selling advertising on Facebook.com, which in total accounts for 85% of revenue. 2011 YoY Revenue Growth: 88%.

IPO 100

IPO South Korea Venezuela Revenue 100

Agile VC

JUNE 5, 2011

So Groupon obviously filed their S-1 the other day to formally being the IPO process. They’ve grown from nothing to >$2B in revenue in 30 months time, making the company among the fastest growing businesses in the histroy of the world. Financial Snapshot: 2010 Revenue: $713M. in net revenue and passes $0.58

North America 100

North America Chicago Boston Silicon Valley 100

This is going to be BIG.

MAY 18, 2012

2) Facebook will be hungry for growth in its ad business, and since it is running out of internet connected humans to connect to, it will need tools to make more out of each person. 3) It will get much harder for Facebook to recruit talent, since the promise of the pre-IPO stock pop is gone. If you're just money, you are toast.

IPO 115

IPO Seed Stage Early Stage Green 115

Agile VC

MAY 26, 2011

Google is still a private company (their IPO was Aug 2004). is the leading consumer internet company with Terry Semel as CEO. One partnership was clearly very divided and a vocal minority of GPs thought consumer internet companies were a massive waste of time and money. link] leehower. link] leehower.

Term Sheet 178

Term Sheet Silicon Valley Technical Review Social Network 178

Cracking the Code

NOVEMBER 10, 2009

Thoughts from a Venture Capitalist on Software, Software-as-a-Service (SaaS), Cloud Computing, Internet and more. On the IPO front, LogMeIn made the news, being one of the few tech IPO on the NASDAAQ in 2009. The stock was very well received, jumping 25% on its first day of trading. internet. (6). anecdotes. (13).

Software Review 48

Software Review Technical Review IPO Cloud 48

Steve Blank

OCTOBER 24, 2017

— Unremarked and unheralded, the balance of power between startup CEOs and their investors has radically changed: IPOs/M&A without a profit (or at times revenue) have become the norm. In the 20th century tech companies and their investors made money through an Initial Public Offering (IPO).

Founder 252

Founder Technical Review CTO Hire IPO 252

Steve Blank

JUNE 15, 2011

Today, the signs of the new bubble are the Linked-In initial public offering (IPO), Facebook’s stratospheric valuation and the rapid rise of early-stage startup valuation. Long before others, they saw that these applications could have hundreds of millions of users with “off the chart&# revenue and profits.

Silicon Valley 328

Silicon Valley Stealth Valuation Mississippi 328

Steve Blank

JUNE 17, 2011

My esteemed colleague Ben Horowitz essentially makes four arguments : 1) look at how relatively cheap Apple, Google and Amazon stock is compared to their growth; 2) Major technology cycles tend to be around 25 years long with the bulk of the purchases occurring in the last five-to-ten years. today and in the foreseeable future.).

Investment Bankers 312

Investment Bankers Stock Valuation Venture Capital 312

Agile VC

MAY 22, 2014

How does that stack up against analogous US internet companies? Unfortunately Alibaba doesn’t actually break out revenue by marketplace or business unit. In fact JD.com, which priced it’s IPO yesterday, is a direct seller (e.g. stocks inventory) and is really more analogous to Amazon.

China 159

China Revenue Flash Affiliate 159

Startup Lessons Learned

DECEMBER 23, 2009

Sure I can build a stock chart, like this one , that shows that eBays stock price went into a four-year decline immediately after "eBay Inc Acquires Dutch Company Marktplaats.nl." They were accustomed to measuring their progress primarily by gross revenue compared to their targets. Youve just experienced vanity metrics hell.

Metrics 167

Metrics San Francisco Lean Continuous Deployment 167

crowdSPRING Blog

MAY 22, 2012

Although Facebook’s stock price has fallen well below its IPO price of $38 per share, many people agree that the stock is still significantly overpriced. Facebook stock is trading at 57 times projected earnings (compared to 14 for Google and 12 for Apple). Both stocks have enjoyed strong growth this year.

South Korea 88

South Korea IPO Russia Stock 88

Feld Thoughts

OCTOBER 30, 2014

He had just read my post on being uncomfortable with the phase of the current cycle and told me an anecdote from the great Internet bubble of 2001 that I hadn’t heard. In it, he talks about how he handles public company stocks that he ends up with either via an IPO or a sale of a company he’s involved in to a public company.

Valuation 143

Valuation Stock Angel Investor IPO 143

Gust

MAY 24, 2012

Dual-class voting structures are receiving a lot of attention these days along with intense publicity related to the Facebook IPO , following in the wake of other recent tech IPOs with a similar structure such as Zynga and LinkedIn. Options and warrants, when issued, are also typically exercisable for shares of Common Stock.

IPO 159

IPO Equity Common Stock Stock 159

ReadWriteStart

APRIL 2, 2012

IPOs by year, 1980-2011, with pre-IPO last 12-month sales less than (small firms) or greater than (large firms) $50 million (2009 purchasing power). The real truth is, since the "Internet bubble" burst in 2001, initial public offerings have not resumed the vitality levels of the late 1980s, let alone the boom years of the '90s.

IPO 121

IPO Startup Florida Seed Capital 121

Haystack

NOVEMBER 24, 2018

Typically in M&A, all-cash offers are more common when the acquirer dwarfs the target in terms of market cap; otherwise, M&A usually involves stock in the mix, which leads us to believe Cylance wouldn’t have accepted anything but cash — which makes sense given the company was reportedly booking $130M/year with 3,500 customers.

Acquisition 62

Acquisition Artificial Inteligence Balance Sheet Cofounder 62

Both Sides of the Table

MAY 23, 2012

There are obvious reasons the industry has had less-than-desirable returns, including: massive over-funding of the sector, huge increases in inexperienced venture capitalists that took a decade to peter out, and the massive correction in the value of the public stock markets that closed many exit opportunities for half a decade.

Venture Capital 347

Venture Capital Technical Review LP Mobile 347

Reid Hoffman

MARCH 19, 2019

And from a financial perspective, any investor would be better off buying stock in Amazon than buying and share of a corner bookshop; if you invested $100 in Amazon’s 1997 initial public offering (IPO), those shares would have been worth about $120,000 in 2018. Amazon saw that the internet would change retail.

Cofounder 28

Cofounder Business Model IPO Non-Compete 28

abovethecrowd.com

JULY 10, 2014

As a result, most models are used as a rough guide to see if you are “in the ball park,” or to see if a particular stock is either wildly under-valued or over-valued. What Professor Damodaran thinks, or what anyone who is not a buyer or seller of stocks thinks, is fairly immaterial. So here is the objective of this post.

San Francisco 111

San Francisco San Jose Marketing Technical Review 111

Seeing Both Sides

NOVEMBER 30, 2010

Bill Gurley’s excellent piece on Silicon Valley IPO Anxiety inspired me to take a companion look at the East Coast, particularly Massachusetts and New York, and evaluate the health of the local IPO economy and prospective pipeline. I always admired his perspicacity, even if he didn’t like our stock all the time! Genzyme Corp.

IPO 34

IPO Massachusetts New York Silicon Valley 34

www.mint.com

MARCH 9, 2010

Go there now » Sign up or log in to mint.com Updates Drop Your Debt to Win 2 comments How To The Top 5 Customer Complaint Letters — And What You Can Learn From Them 5 comments Investing In Graphics: What Is a Stock? These days revenue is the best source of capital. 2 comments Mint Life Know your money. Live your life.

Software Review 68

Software Review Startup Post-Money Valuation Technical Review 68

Gust

NOVEMBER 4, 2011

This discussion expands on my Quora answer to a specific question: “ Why were the stock options of MySpace employees worthless even though the company was sold to News Corporation for hundreds of millions? ” The complete story includes a startup-within-a-startup, investments and exits by two VC firms, and some genuine corporate drama.

Valuation 98

Valuation Pre-Money Valuation Merger Vesting 98

readwrite.com

NOVEMBER 27, 2012

There’s a lot of talk in Silicon Valley about the decline of consumer Internet companies and the rising interest in companies that sell software to enterprises. Facebook's stock collapse robbed the company of some of its sparkle. After all, Zynga and Groupon, the darlings of the consumer wave, have tanked.

Silicon Valley 64

Silicon Valley Architecture San Francisco Cloud 64

Both Sides of the Table

DECEMBER 13, 2010

Increasingly it became difficult to tell any system integration company apart and there was a whole new breed of competitors in the market helping companies build Internet businesses. Andersen had lost its long-time CEO, George Shaheen, was hemorrhaging staff and wasn’t exactly known as being an Internet pioneer.

Turkey 302

Turkey Differentiation IP Technical Review 302

abovethecrowd.com

FEBRUARY 24, 2015

Every successful technology company raises money throughout its lifecycle, perhaps starting with a seed investment and progressing through Series A, B, C, late-stage investments, and, for the most successful companies, an IPO. Lost in this conversation are the dramatic differences between a high priced private round and an IPO.

IPO 40

IPO Liquidation Preference Valuation Technical Review 40

Seeing Both Sides

APRIL 10, 2011

In May 1996, Open Market completed a successful IPO and more than doubled on the first day of trading, ending with a $1.2 million in revenue the year before. . But if that observation led them to refrain from investing in the Internet sector, they would have missed one of the most stunning legal creations of wealth in history.

IPO 48

IPO IRR Brazil Government 48

Seeing Both Sides

AUGUST 3, 2012

With over $1 billion in revenue, 2000 employees and a market capitalization of over $6 billion, Akamai has become a role model for scalable start-ups. billion in revenue, over $1 billion in gross profit and $500 million in EBITDA. The first year of revenue (1999) was $4 million – a remarkable achievement. Founding Akamai.

Distribution 49

Distribution Lean Massachusetts Cofounder 49