Matching Metrics Valuation Venture Capital 
Steve Blank
MARCH 31, 2014
As the venture capital business has come roaring back in the last 5 years, startups are awash in available capital. Instead of measuring success in dollars of profit, …firms focus on measuring capital efficiency. Look at the valuations of companies like Tesla, Illumina, and Twitter.
Steve Blank
FEBRUARY 26, 2020
What most founders don’t realize is: Every stage of a startup requires a different set of metrics and milestones and founder skills. Product/market fit means that you’ve found the match between your potential customers’ pains, gains and jobs to be done and the features of your minimal viable product. Number of customers?
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Ben's Blog
MARCH 24, 2011
Since so many distinguished people report a broad variety of qualitative bubble signs, let’s attempt to pattern match the quantitative data. As we do so, keep in mind that the relevant bubble statistic is not valuation. High valuations are fine if the underlying value is there. Venture capital flows.
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?
K9 Ventures
JUNE 5, 2015
Low supply of companies with traction drove the valuations and deal sizes up. The risk here is what I refer to as the curse of over-capitalization. The Venture Capital industry as a whole does a terrible job of giving things the right name and so we end up keeping the same name, but changing the meaning out from under it.
Steve Blank
MARCH 17, 2020
What are the new financial metrics? They triage their deals – first worrying about liquidity of their late stage deals which have the highest valuations. In every major downturn inflated valuations disappear and the few VC’s still writing new checks find it’s a buyer’s market. How do you know? Days of cash left?
K9 Ventures
OCTOBER 19, 2015
If you’re even remotely connected to the “industry” of Venture Capital, you need to read Howard Marks’ It’s Not Easy memo. I like to think of it as looking at the derivative (in a mathematical sense, not a financial sense) is often more revealing than looking at the raw change in a metric.
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