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. Next, take a look at your actual revenue each month – not forecast, but real revenue coming in each month.

Burn Rate 436

Burn Rate Startup Valuation Sales Cycle 436

YoungUpstarts

APRIL 22, 2014

Shark Question #2: What were your total revenues for the last quarter and last 12 months, including profit margins? To get these “numbers,” do a review of total revenue and expenses, review by product or service line, and a profit-margin analysis – all of which can all be obtained from your company’s income statement.

CPA 160

CPA Technical Review Later Stage Equity 160

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

Hockey Stick 423

Hockey Stick Bootstrapping Sweat Equity Intellectual Property 423

Steve Blank

JANUARY 22, 2014

as a distribution channel have vastly reduced the amount of capital a startup needs at the early stage when the risk is greatest. Startups still need capital to scale once they find good product-market fit and a repeatable-scalable business model.). Late stage large regionally based funds that invest in late stage or mezzanine deals.

Early Stage 286

Early Stage Silicon Valley Oregon Technical Review 286

Startup Professionals Musings

MAY 4, 2016

Building a minimum viable product, with customer validation. Minimum viable products (MVPs) are recommended for validating the market, with iterative enhancement to quickly meet market feedback. Building your public image and presence should start even before product development, through your website, logo, and blogging.

Intellectual Property 120

Intellectual Property Startup Angel Groups Social Media 120

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. million post-money valuation with no revenue. It was early 2000.

Pre-Money Valuation 336

Pre-Money Valuation Valuation Silicon Valley Stock 336

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. Traction and revenue?

Term Sheet 120

Term Sheet Equity Startup Seed Stage 120

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

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. We all knew if the feature or function that the client was asking for was within the realm of the possible. • We were very, very focused on creating customers and revenue —We were a startup. For one, there are the profits.

Software Review 67

Software Review Development Team Review Later Stage Technical Review 67

David Teten

JANUARY 21, 2021

This essay is part of a series on alternative VC: I: Revenue-Based Investing: a new option for founders who care about control. II: Who are the major Revenue-Based Investing VCs? III: Why are Revenue-Based VCs investing in so many women and underrepresented founders? IV: Should your new VC fund use Revenue-Based Investing?

Equity 78

Equity Revenue Cofounder Colorado 78

ReadWriteStart

MARCH 3, 2021

First, we need to address the core challenges of developing effective early-stage growth strategies for new businesses. Many new businesses have a small customer base, limited revenue, and a finite amount of funding to work with. Without new customers, there’s no new revenue, and therefore no engine of growth to tap into.

Early Stage 125

Early Stage PPC Retention Churn Rate 125

K9 Ventures

FEBRUARY 8, 2020

1/ So much of building a product/company is about progressive discovery. 4/ I’ve seen this in many companies, but the experience with building @HiHello has put this progressive discovery of product at the front of my mind. ” IMHO this was why @cartainc had such a hard time raising in the early stages.

Startup 118

Startup Early Stage Later Stage Revenue 118

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 42

Leadership Technical Review Cofounder Later Stage 42

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. revenue / traction / setting up infrastructure / etc) This can set you apart, because the vast majority of businesses I see at the seed stage are just ideas with no action.

Seed Stage 48

Seed Stage CTO Hire Email Later Stage 48

ReadWriteStart

AUGUST 26, 2022

We come in after a product has landed and found product market fit and has some escape velocity. So first, we were much more sort of with a high growth rate, and we did not even care about how we got the revenue when we got it. And now we are much more careful about revenue quality revenues. That’s not what we do.

Partner 132

Partner Cofounder Retention Acquisition 132

View from Seed

FEBRUARY 27, 2019

As the former Head of Product at Blue Apron where I also built and led our Analytics & Data Science team (I know enough SQL to be dangerous), I have an intuitive sense for the “when” and “what” of this role. Similar to Product Managers, a strong Analytics hire requires a diverse set of skills.

Analytics 149

Analytics Hiring SQL Forecast 149

Startup Professionals Musings

JANUARY 12, 2013

Minimum Viable Product (MVP). For startup new product development, this is a strategy used for fast and quantitative market testing of a product or product feature, popularized first by Eric Ries for web applications. It suggests the minimum features to allow the product to be deployed and get feedback, and no more.

Entrepreneur 274

Entrepreneur Accredited Investor Silicon Valley Angel Investor 274

Both Sides of the Table

FEBRUARY 15, 2016

I know it sounds obvious but just so you understand: There are more capital sources available for earlier-stage capital, the information on which they are evaluating the investment is less (it is almost certainly just team and product) and the risk of the investor getting things wrong is diminished.

Burn Rate 150

Burn Rate Cap Table Valuation Software Review 150

A Smart Bear: Startups and Marketing for Geeks

SEPTEMBER 10, 2013

When you add up all our costs in Sales and Marketing (SaaS metric: CAC), the result is very small compared to the total revenue we’ll earn from than customer over the next few years (SaaS metric: LTV). That should be OK since we’ll be profitable in the long run. Some day 1 is fine if it’s improving.

Metrics 238

Metrics Revenue Flash Later Stage 238

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

David Teten

SEPTEMBER 5, 2014

I’ve written on the expert network industry a fair amount in the past: see How to Earn More Consulting Revenue from Expert Networks and How Executives Can Work with Private Equity and Venture Capital Portfolio Companies. We’re not mainly for B2B companies or later stage companies or anything like that. Who are they?

New York 114

New York Technical Review Networking Advisory Board 114

Berkonomics

AUGUST 3, 2023

Certainly, bootstrapping is a preferred method of funding growth if it does not hold back the speed of growth or hobble the quality of product or service to the extent that better-funded competitors can overtake the business. There is a lot to say about retaining control.

Private Equity 118

Private Equity Valuation Cap Table Accredited Investor 118

Startup Professionals Musings

FEBRUARY 5, 2012

If your startup is at the wrong stage for the investor you are approaching, fishing for money is a waste of time for both of you. For instance, if your company is only a few weeks old and you have zero customers and your product offering is still in design, don’t expect someone to hand over $10 million to fund your efforts. Exit stage.

Investment Bankers 241

Investment Bankers Venture Capital Startup Initial Public Offering 241

Steve Blank

JUNE 15, 2011

Long before others, they saw that these applications could have hundreds of millions of users with “off the chart&# revenue and profits. The awareness phase is where other later-stage investors start to notice the momentum, bringing additional money in and pushing prices higher.

Silicon Valley 327

Silicon Valley Stealth Valuation Mississippi 327

This is going to be BIG.

MAY 9, 2022

2) Do you sell something that isn’t truly a must-have product to startups or other tech companies? 5) Is the post-money on your last round north of $30mm and you’ve yet to show meaningful and repeatable revenue traction that comes with positive contribution margins? 3) Do you need to raise a large amount of growth capital in 2022?

Stock 97

Stock Marketing Valuation Later Stage 97

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.

Founder 231

Founder Vesting Later Stage Early Stage 231

K9 Ventures

OCTOBER 10, 2017

If it doesn’t have the product fully baked yet? A Seed round today — like the Series A round of yesteryear — requires some kind of traction or product. In contrast, you *don’t* need much to qualify as a Pre-Seed stage company. They shouldn’t even be looking for a fully built product. Those times are long gone.

Seed Stage 82

Seed Stage Finance Later Stage Equity 82

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

This is going to be BIG.

FEBRUARY 21, 2021

Anything from intense customer love despite barely even having a product, pre-sales, a deal for access to data that creates a moat that no one else has—the list goes on. This doesn’t take into consideration, however, that venture capital is a financial product—a product that works for some people and doesn’t work for others.

Venture Capital 162

Venture Capital Cofounder Deal Flow Later Stage 162

Startup Professionals Musings

OCTOBER 13, 2010

If your startup is at the wrong stage for the investor you are approaching, the courting is a waste of time for both of you. For instance, if your company is only a few weeks old and you have zero customers and your product offering is still in design, don’t expect someone to hand over $10 million to fund your efforts. Growth stage.

Investment Bankers 231

Investment Bankers Venture Capital Startup Initial Public Offering 231

Berkonomics

MARCH 21, 2019

If you are a going business with a track record of revenues, then the importance of accurate current financial statements cannot be overstated. If there is no record of revenues, see the “The Berkus Method” available with any search query for valuing the business before revenues. Let’s start with the basics.

Hockey Stick 63

Hockey Stick Liquidity Event Valuation Balance Sheet 63

Both Sides of the Table

JULY 17, 2018

" Revenue doesn't pay your bills, GM does  —  @msuster 2/ Founders obsess with revenue as a vanity metric. Some even grow "bad" revenue just to show growth. More people aren't the answer if your core business isn't already productive. Usually a terrible idea as runway extension.

Founder 242

Founder Dilution Software Review Later Stage 242

K9 Ventures

JUNE 5, 2015

As the check size increases, investors tend to look for more traction, established revenue models, proven unit-economics, and other metrics that were previously associated with later stage companies. If it doesn’t have the product fully baked yet? In the 80s and 90s a company would go public when it hit $20M in revenue.

Seed Stage 48

Seed Stage Venture Capital Early Stage Valuation 48

View from Seed

JUNE 16, 2015

My conviction in investing in a company is a function of my belief in the team, the traction of the company, and how the product/opportunity resonates with me personally. My POV is that every VC has a core product. For NextView specifically, we say that we are a one-product company.

Boston 120

Boston Syndicate Syndication eCommerce 120

Genuine VC

FEBRUARY 3, 2011

Yet the company hasn’t figured out product-market fit yet, hasn’t figured out its customer proposition, doesn’t have revenue… it doesn’t have traction. If your end-game is to become a founder of a company, it should be acknowledged that you’ll miss some key components in a later stage company.

Startup 241

Startup Later Stage Angel Financing Seed Stage 241

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

Gust

NOVEMBER 22, 2011

If your startup is at the wrong stage for the investor you are approaching, fishing for money is a waste of time for both of you. For instance, if your company is only a few weeks old and you have zero customers and your product offering is still in design, don’t expect someone to hand over $10 million to fund your efforts. Exit stage.

Venture Capital 171

Venture Capital Investment Bankers Angel Investor Initial Public Offering 171