Startup Professionals Musings

JUNE 30, 2019

The “valley of death” is a common term in the startup world, referring to the difficulty of covering the negative cash flow in the early stages of a startup, before their new product or service is bringing in revenue from real customers. Join a startup incubator. Use crowd funding. Get a loan or line-of-credit.

Intellectual Property 219

Intellectual Property Technical Review Startup Incubator 219

Startup Professionals Musings

FEBRUARY 19, 2013

The “valley of death” is a common term in the startup world, referring to the difficulty of covering the negative cash flow in the early stages of a startup, before their new product or service is bringing in revenue from real customers. Join a startup incubator. Use crowd funding. Get a loan or line-of-credit.

Intellectual Property 309

Intellectual Property Technical Review Venture Capital Startup 309

Startup Professionals Musings

JANUARY 12, 2018

The “valley of death” is a common term in the startup world, referring to the difficulty of covering the negative cash flow in the early stages of a startup, before their new product or service is bringing in revenue from real customers. Join a startup incubator. Only one-third make it past their tenth anniversary.

Intellectual Property 134

Intellectual Property Technical Review Startup Incubator 134

Both Sides of the Table

SEPTEMBER 22, 2012

I think I’ve read Paul Graham’s post on “ Startup = Growth ” three or four times now. Viewing the article through the lens of a venture capitalist there’s much to agree with under the mantra of “growth!” Eventually a successful startup will grow into a big company. Growth, again.

Silicon Valley 390

Silicon Valley Venture Capital Startup Technical Review 390

Steve Blank

JANUARY 22, 2014

Over the years Dino and I brainstormed about how Lean entrepreneurship would affect regional development. Success depends on finding startups that have identified acute customer pains in large markets where conditions are ripe for a new entrant. I visited Bend last year and caught up with his progress. Tech investing is risky.

Early Stage 286

Early Stage Silicon Valley Oregon Technical Review 286

Startup Professionals Musings

JULY 14, 2014

The “valley of death” is a common term in the startup world, referring to the difficulty of covering the negative cash flow in the early stages of a startup, before their new product or service is bringing in revenue from real customers. Join a startup incubator. Use crowd funding. Get a loan or line-of-credit.

Entrepreneur 283

Entrepreneur Intellectual Property Technical Review Incubator 283

Both Sides of the Table

SEPTEMBER 28, 2014

I was reading Danielle Morrill’s blog post today on whether one’s “ Startup Burn Rate is Normal. I love how transparently Danielle lives her startup (& encourages other to join in) because it provides much needed transparency to other startups. ” I highly recommend reading it.

Burn Rate 383

Burn Rate Balance Sheet .Net Valuation 383

ReadWriteStart

JUNE 1, 2020

I have often been asked about Startup Funding by entrepreneurs. Many myths surround the subject of startup funding. Here is Startup Funding, a Comprehensive Guide for Entrepreneurs. You must have seen a lot of startups giving out promotions, discounts, and incentives at the early phase of their business. Crowdfunding.

Startup 150

Startup Entrepreneur Elevator Pitch Seed Stage 150

Startup Professionals Musings

JULY 1, 2017

The “valley of death” is a common term in the startup world, referring to the difficulty of covering the negative cash flow in the early stages of a startup, before their new product or service is bringing in revenue from real customers. Join a startup incubator. Use crowd funding. Get a loan or line-of-credit.

Product Development 177

Product Development Cost Developer Product 177

ReadWriteStart

FEBRUARY 21, 2021

Launching a new startup is always exciting. When you have the right idea at the right time, a startup that begins life as two people in a garage can eventually become a multi-billion-dollar enterprise. So what are the best ways to stay on the lean-side of things? The upward potential in front of you is practically limitless.

Startup 106

Startup Software Review Open Source Technical Review 106

Both Sides of the Table

NOVEMBER 3, 2009

This is part of my ongoing series of posts and I need to file this one under both Raising Venture Capital and Startup Advice. The last couple of years has also seen the huge initial success of Ycombinator, the Lean Startup and many other product driven approaches to going to market. Here’s why.

Business Plan 334

Business Plan AJAX Venture Capital Technical Review 334

David Teten

MARCH 5, 2021

What can we learn from the best 40 venture capital investments of all time? This would be easy to detect: among their portfolio companies, do startups with female founders outperform those without? First Round Capital found that among its portfolio companies, startups with female founders outperformed those without by 63%.” .

Cofounder 78

Cofounder Founder Technical Cofounder Technical Review 78

Startup Lessons Learned

JULY 11, 2019

Among her early investments are Lyft, TaskRabbit and Modcloth, which, as our recent conversation shows, are only part of the reason Forbes called her “the most powerful woman in startups.” Ann will be speaking at this year’s Lean Startup Conference in October about all of this and more. I've been in venture now twice.

Founder 68

Founder Lean Venture Capital Cofounder 68

Startup Professionals Musings

JULY 8, 2015

The “valley of death” is a common term in the startup world, referring to the difficulty of covering the negative cash flow in the early stages of a startup, before their new product or service is bringing in revenue from real customers. Join a startup incubator. Use crowd funding to build reserves.

Entrepreneur 120

Entrepreneur Intellectual Property Technical Review Incubator 120

Steve Blank

NOVEMBER 13, 2012

The Japanese edition of The Startup Owner’s Manual hit the bookstores in Japan this week. The book has been shepherded and edited by a great Japanese VC at Mitsui Sumitomo Insurance Venture Capital, Takashi Tsutsumi, with help from Masato Iino. Finding a repeatable process for startups. ————-. .

Japan 292

Japan Customer Development Developer Customer 292

Steve Blank

NOVEMBER 16, 2009

In it, I got asked a question I often hear: “What if we have a web-based business that doesn’t have revenue or paying customers? And without revenue how do we know if we achieved product/market fit to exit Customer Validation?” However the Customer Development Model and the Lean Startup work equally well for startups on the web.

Customer Development 219

Customer Development Web Developer Customer 219

Up and Running

MAY 28, 2015

We recently had Tim Berry, Palo Alto Software founder and business planning expert, present our Bplans audience with his latest advice on lean business planning. Start your lean business plan today: Download our Free Lean Plan Template one-page-pitch-download.pdf. I’m going to start with what’s a lean business plan.

Lean 60

Lean Business Plan Video Software Review 60

Steve Blank

MAY 9, 2017

I’ve spent my life in innovation, eight startups in 21 years, and the last 15 years in academia teaching it. the wave of semiconductor startups in the 1960’s/70’s, the emergence of Venture Capital as a professional industry, the personal computer revolution in 1980’s, the rise of the Internet in the 1990’s and finally.

Restful 222

Restful Silicon Valley Puerto Rico San Jose 222

Both Sides of the Table

JUNE 29, 2011

Yesterday I wrote Part 1 of the series on the changes to the software industry over the past decade that has led to changes in the venture capital industry itself. This led to an explosion in startups. I don’t think purely option-based investing in startups suits the long-term brand of the investor.

Venture Capital 296

Venture Capital Software LP Early Stage 296

Both Sides of the Table

OCTOBER 6, 2010

Everyone has their own definition of momentum (user numbers, revenue, channel partners, biz dev deals, whatever). If you have good experience then the VC will be leaning forward for the rest of the presentation. They might want you to start lean. Tags: Raising Venture Capital Startup Advice.

Early Stage 360

Early Stage Startup Venture Capital Seed Stage 360

SoCal CTO

MARCH 1, 2010

Here are some recent great posts that I’ve come across that generally fall in the intersection of startups and CTOs. They have a related post: Designing startup metrics to drive successful behavior | For Entrepreneurs , but I think that looking at my Startup Metrics post provides a bit broader set of metrics to consider.

Acquisition 150

Acquisition Cofounder Technical Cofounder Cost 150

Steve Blank

SEPTEMBER 7, 2009

This post describes how following the traditional product development can lead to a “startup death spiral.&# In the next posts that follow, I’ll describe how this model’s failures led to the Customer Development Model – offering a new way to approach startup sales and marketing activities.

Customer Development 224

Customer Development Developer Customer Silicon Valley 224

ReadWriteStart

APRIL 8, 2023

million people and generate monthly revenue. In my experience, I follow different resources, for instance, the Andreessen Horowitz blog , one of the top venture capital funds reporting trends in their newsletters, and INC.5000 TikTok and Influencers One viral video on TikTok can reach 1.5

eCommerce 185

eCommerce Technical Review Software Review Analytics 185

Both Sides of the Table

DECEMBER 22, 2011

If you’re a startup and you haven’t read my summary of Clay Christensen’s seminal work please do. In the simplest form, new startups have a product that is INFERIOR to that offered by the competition but at a dramatically lower price with the seller opting for a very thin margin on their product. Why Deflationary Business Win.

Non-Compete 386

Non-Compete Startup Internet Cost 386

Steve Blank

SEPTEMBER 14, 2009

Over the same 30 years, Venture Capital firms have honed their skills and strategies to match Wall Streets needs to achieve liquidity for their portfolio companies. One of the biggest mistakes entrepreneurs make is misunderstanding the role of venture capital investors. What Do VC’s Do?

Silicon Valley 217

Silicon Valley IPO Technical Review Venture Capital 217

VC Cafe

JANUARY 24, 2021

billion gamers worldwide will help the global games market generate revenues of $189.3 billion in revenue last year. According to Ark Invest’s research , revenue from virtual worlds will compound 17% annually from roughly $180 billion today to $390 billion by 2025. Fortnite alone made $1.8 Twitch stats in 2020.

Technical Review 207

Technical Review Audio Forecast Social Media 207

Steve Blank

NOVEMBER 7, 2013

In 2012 I got together with Alexander Osterwalder , Henry Chesbrough and Andre Marquis to think about the Lean and the future of corporate innovation. What CEOs, management teams and shareholders care about is growth —revenue growth, greater user adoption, increased market share, bigger margins, etc. in developing these new models.

Lean 326

Lean Nepal Cofounder Customer Development 326

Steve Blank

AUGUST 5, 2010

Consumer Internet investing seems to have split off from traditional Venture Capital, and is creating a new category of VC’s: Lean VC’s. Electron-based Venture Capital. When I first came to Silicon Valley the world of Venture Capital looked pretty simple. Here’s why.

Lean 258

Lean Internet Silicon Valley Venture Capital 258

Both Sides of the Table

JULY 16, 2010

One is the “denominator problem&# which says that if an LP invests X% (the denominator) into “alternative investments&# such as venture capital and if their total amount available to invest (the numerator) goes down by 30% then the amount they allocate to VC will by definition need to go down by 30% to stay the same percentage.

LP 311

LP Technical Review Early Stage Silicon Valley 311

Both Sides of the Table

MAY 19, 2010

Our guest this week on #TWiVC was Dana Settle , partner at Greycroft Partners , a venture capital firm with offices in New York and Los Angeles. Another topic we debated early in the program was “lean startup” vs. “ fat startup ” where we both took the obvious hedge and said “it depends.” Total raised: $15.0mm.

Partner 240

Partner New York City Cofounder Syndicate 240

SoCal CTO

FEBRUARY 2, 2011

There's a lot out there around Customer Development - read Steve Blank : Entrepreneurship as a Science – The Business Model/Customer Development Stack - Steve Blank , October 25, 2010 Checklists for Chaos, The Path to Success - Steve Blank , October 28, 2010 and reading about Lean, MVPs, etc. is a requirement. It's required reading.

Valuation 198

Valuation Revenue Pre-Money Valuation Early Stage 198

Steve Blank

NOVEMBER 5, 2009

Unfortunately in early stage startups the drive for financing hijacks the corporate DNA and becomes the raison d’etre of the company. Chasing funding versus chasing customers and a repeatable and scalable business model, is one reason startups fail. The goal of their startup in this stage becomes “getting funded.”

Customer Development 262

Customer Development Developer Customer Silicon Valley 262

Up and Running

MAY 23, 2016

In fact, SaaS industry revenue is projected to grow from $49 billion in 2015 to $67 billion in 2018, a compound annual growth rate of approximately eight percent. Step 1: Start with a lean plan. At this stage, simply list your primary revenue streams and your key expenses. Subscription Business Trends and Predictions for 2016.

Software Review 74

Software Review Software Delaware Forecast 74

YoungUpstarts

JULY 6, 2020

They’re all VC-backed, and it was venture capital financing, those back then young startups, received, which was integral to their tremendous growth. However, many first-time entrepreneurs fail to grasp the important distinctions between a “venture backable” business and a “lifestyle business.”

Venture Capital 226

Venture Capital Software B2B Early Stage 226

Austin Startup

JUNE 26, 2019

New business are hard: 50% succeed in the first 5 years Startups are hard: 10% succeed?—?only only 1% ever receive outside capital (and not all businesses are built for outside capital) Marketplaces are hard Raising money for a women-led startups is hard: only 2% of all venture funding is invested in (white) female founders (.02%

Silicon Valley 54

Silicon Valley Startup B2C Sweat Equity 54

Venture Chronicles

MAY 26, 2010

This is the “tastes great, less filling&# debate that recurs on a regular basis in the venture capital and entrepreneur communities. From Lean vs Fat Startups: The Disrupt Debate ]. I’d be willing to bet that more investors lose a great amount of aggregate capital here than at any other stage.

Lean 40

Lean Early Stage Valuation Startup 40

David Teten

DECEMBER 3, 2019

Private equity and venture capital investors are copying our sisters in the hedge fund world: we’re trying to automate more of our job. . See Bessemer Venture Partners’ A comprehensive guide to security for startups. (To see the video above, please click the image, and then click on the Play button.). 2) Market .

Technical Review 78

Technical Review Software Review Analytics Private Equity 78