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. The sooner you pass your work on to a later stage, the sooner you can find out how they will receive it. Expo SF (May.

San Francisco 161

San Francisco Software Review Continuous Deployment Development Team Review 161

The Next Web

SEPTEMBER 13, 2013

The rest of Asia is still developing with far more angel and early-stage investors than mid-to-later stage folks. Singapore is by far the most developed behind those big three markets with government schemes attracting over a dozen early stage firms to set up shop here (e.g.

Asia 132

Asia Silicon Valley India Term Sheet 132

ReadWriteStart

AUGUST 26, 2022

I think every company’s portfolio is different, so they’re all different sizes, different stages, different geographies, different cash positions, and different market leadership positions. . I will say the one thing we tell all our portfolio companies is to get fit and lean in. I like the get fit and lean in.

Partner 132

Partner Cofounder Retention Acquisition 132

Startup Professionals Musings

APRIL 6, 2016

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. Defer your desire for expensive perks and vacations until later when you have time for them. Favor profitability over revenue and user growth.

Bootstrapping 120

Bootstrapping Hockey Stick Sweat Equity Intellectual Property 120

Both Sides of the Table

JUNE 13, 2018

If your teaser deck was 8–12 pages it would likely include: team market problem why your solution solves this problem progress to date (funding, team, customers, revenue if significant) TAM (market sizing / why this will be valuable) Your “meeting deck” should just be an expansion of what was in your teaser deck. whether they invest or not.

Portfolio 261

Portfolio IP Later Stage Email 261

Steve Blank

JUNE 15, 2010

Certain VC’s like the new class of Super-Angels and small VC funds specialize in the early stage of a startup where you are searching for a business model. And some larger funds that specialize in later stage deals may have a partner or two who likes to invest at this stage. Lean Startups ?

Founder 232

Founder Vesting Later Stage Early Stage 232

Both Sides of the Table

MAY 13, 2018

If you have a mediocre meeting with a high-quality prospect and you don’t think they’re likely to lean in they drop to a B or C. One of the most important aims of a fund-raising process is to keep similar firms at the same stage of your process. Sometimes engagement at the later stages seems to go dry. To be clear?—?your

Term Sheet 332

Term Sheet Due Diligence Campaign Sales 332

ConversionXL

JUNE 2, 2022

In this article, you’ll learn how to define your ABM strategy so you can target the right accounts and increase your revenue. Think of it as a filter that helps you find the highest chance of return on investment, revenue potential, and profitability. Cloud-based data warehouse Snowflake had an ambitious goal to triple its revenue.

Customer 98

Customer Marketing Channel Acquisition 98

The Entrepreneurial Mind

JUNE 14, 2010

They do play a role, but only a limited one with later stage businesses that have good cash flow. Remember that the Great Depression saw the start-up of many businesses that later thrived and became industry giants, including Disney, Hewlett-Packard, Publix Super Markets, and Kentucky Fried Chicken, just to name a few.

Kentucky 56

Kentucky Washington Nashville Bootstrapping 56

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.

Silicon Valley 179

Silicon Valley United States RSS Customer Development 179

David Teten

DECEMBER 3, 2019

Data companies focused on early-stage startups include Aingel , fundsUP , Preseries , PredictLeads , and Sploda. Later stage investors are using for sourcing private company marketplace services focused on more established companies, listed below under “Step 11: Exit”. They read reviews of the products of target investments.

Technical Review 78

Technical Review Software Review Analytics Private Equity 78

Steve Blank

SEPTEMBER 2, 2015

Of the cohort that just graduated I think eight are completely self-sufficient and actually revenue positive and another 10 are in Series A round financing. . We’re in our second cohort, 71 young folks, all of whom are alums of the university, given the opportunity and resources to build their businesses.

Entrepreneur 120

Entrepreneur New York Cofounder Equity 120

Both Sides of the Table

JUNE 29, 2011

Some have done earlier-stage deals and done well. Others have chased earlier-stage but lack the skills or relationships to do this effectively. Some have moved into later stage investments in an effort to “put logos on their websites.&# They should start “lean.&# Enter VC.

Venture Capital 296

Venture Capital Software LP Early Stage 296

Steve Blank

JUNE 11, 2013

The test is: If you add one more sales person or spend more marketing dollars, does your sales revenue go up by more than your expenses? What are revenue strategy and pricing tactics? These sources are a lot more forgiving of iterations and pivots than later-stage venture-capital funds. When to raise money.

Venture Capital 334

Venture Capital IRR Liquidity Event Business Model 334

Steve Blank

JUNE 11, 2013

The test is: If you add one more sales person or spend more marketing dollars, does your sales revenue go up by more than your expenses? What are revenue strategy and pricing tactics? These sources are a lot more forgiving of iterations and pivots than later-stage venture-capital funds. When to raise money.

Venture Capital 226

Venture Capital IRR Liquidity Event Business Model 226

Austin Startup

JUNE 26, 2019

You might notice what’s not on that list above: revenue, investors. No revenue isn’t always a problem for venture-style businesses; no investors + no revenue = challenges for most founders without tremendous self-funding. Lean into it. What did our customers think? Step on the scale.

Silicon Valley 54

Silicon Valley Startup B2C Sweat Equity 54

techcrunch.com

OCTOBER 23, 2010

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. Take the top 10 largest tech innovators (take your pick of largest by revenue or largest by idea) of the last 20 years in Silicon Valley. How many were started by programmers?

Technical Review 84

Technical Review Cofounder Technical Cofounder Software Review 84

Steve Blank

MAY 9, 2017

Fourth, in the last decade, corporate investors and hedge funds have jumped into later stage investing with a passion. Their need to get into high-profile deals has driven late-stage valuations into unicorn territory. I’m glad to have been part of the team inventing the Lean Startup methodology.

Restful 243

Restful Silicon Valley Puerto Rico San Jose 243

pandodaily.com

NOVEMBER 29, 2012

But at a macro level, widespread failure this early is far less painful than if it came at later stages. As a result, Pandora is nowhere near profitable at more than $103 million in quarterly revenue, paying more than half of this sum to labels for content licenses. ” On a micro level, failure is always painful.

Technical Review 93

Technical Review Silicon Valley Incubator Syria 93