Startup Lessons Learned

DECEMBER 23, 2009

Lessons Learned by Eric Ries Wednesday, December 23, 2009 Why vanity metrics are dangerous In a previous post, I defined two kinds of metrics: vanity metrics and actionable metrics. In this post, Id like to talk about the perils of vanity metrics. My personal favorite vanity metrics is "hits."

Metrics 167

Metrics San Francisco Lean Continuous Deployment 167

Startup Professionals Musings

SEPTEMBER 29, 2018

Cash flow is a basic survival metric for every startup. Deferred payments start with stretching the payables period but, more importantly, include giving employee equity in lieu of a higher salaries and negotiating vendor deferred payments out of future revenues. Desperate entrepreneurs lose their leverage and die young.

Burn Rate 223

Burn Rate Hockey Stick Startup Salary 223

Up and Running

FEBRUARY 20, 2015

If you don’t understand your key financial metrics, you have no way of monitoring your business’s health—and you risk mingling assets, incurring penalties for filing taxes late, overlooking expenses, and running into difficulties paying bills and employees, just to mention a few! Each article will give you: A brief definition of the metric.

Metrics 60

Metrics Burn Rate .Net Churn Rate 60

Steve Blank

SEPTEMBER 5, 2018

Tech IPO prices exploded and subsequent trading prices rose to dizzying heights as the stock prices became disconnected from the traditional metrics of revenue and profits. First Movers” didn’t understand customer problems or the product features that solved those problems (what we now call product-market fit).

Lean 335

Lean Burn Rate Startup IPO 335

YoungUpstarts

AUGUST 2, 2016

Product managers should also understand the company’s goals. It is one of the most important processes in a product development lifecycle to deliver the product. The product itself can be ideal and work faultlessly, but what really matters is how it enters the market. necessary product. necessary product.

Management 100

Management Product Churn Rate Green 100

Startup Professionals Musings

OCTOBER 5, 2014

Cashflow is a basic survival metric for every startup. Deferred payments start with stretching the payables period but, more importantly, include giving employee equity in lieu of a higher salaries and negotiating vendor deferred payments out of future revenues. Desperate entrepreneurs lose their leverage and die young.

Burn Rate 262

Burn Rate Hockey Stick Entrepreneur Salary 262

Women Entrepreneurs Can

FEBRUARY 27, 2024

Among these, sales, marketing, customer service, and product development take center stage. After all, these departments work tirelessly to secure deals and generate revenue, only to face setbacks when payments aren’t collected promptly. By neglecting accounts receivable, businesses miss out on crucial revenue streams.

Software Review 40

Software Review Metrics Analytics Software 40

Both Sides of the Table

MAY 27, 2013

In his tenure as CEO of DataSift we have never missed a monthly revenue figure. He has grown our US operations from 1 employee (him) to a global organization of 75 employees that will finish the year with 8-digit revenues (90+% recurring) and more than 350% year-over-year growth.

Advisory Board 365

Advisory Board CTO Hire Fractional CTO Los Angeles 365

Startup Professionals Musings

DECEMBER 7, 2022

There is no magic lever for growth, so several initiatives are required, with metrics to assess value returned. Resist the urge to delegate accounting decisions, under the assumption that incoming revenue takes the pressure off. Ask every employee to focus on sales. Personally optimize every cash flow transaction. Marty Zwilling.

Startup 335

Startup Social Media Metrics Viral 335

Startup Professionals Musings

SEPTEMBER 14, 2016

Cash flow is a basic survival metric for every startup. Deferred payments start with stretching the payables period but, more importantly, include giving employee equity in lieu of a higher salaries and negotiating vendor deferred payments out of future revenues. Desperate entrepreneurs lose their leverage and die young.

Burn Rate 120

Burn Rate Hockey Stick Startup Salary 120

Gust

APRIL 27, 2014

This will include the first version of many critical processes that can be split out later, including market opportunity, requirements, product definition, business model, sales process, and organization. Product development process. Billing and revenue collection. It all has to be written down and maintained.

Startup 187

Startup Institutional Investors Angel Investor Bootstrapping 187

Up and Running

JULY 26, 2016

Between January 2015 and January 2016, we grew our platform Slidebean from $1K to $20K in monthly recurring revenue. Getting the first tracks of revenue is one of the toughest processes of building a startup. 1x hacker in charge of product/development. 1x hipster working with both product and growth.

Revenue 60

Revenue Acquisition Channel Campaign 60

Startup Professionals Musings

MAY 30, 2022

By definition, second-stage ventures generally have 10 to 99 employees and/or $750,000 to $50 million in revenue, and see that as just the beginning. Switch your attention from product development to sales. Managing business growth is more than metrics. Of course, not every entrepreneur wants to tackle this challenge.

Mezzanine 368

Mezzanine Private Equity Bandwidth Metrics 368

YoungUpstarts

JUNE 11, 2015

If you know what those numbers (also called metrics) are, how to collect them, and how to evaluate what they mean, you will increase your understanding of what drives your customers. Develop products customers want. Figuring out what customers want and what they will purchase is one of the holy grails of product development.

Analytics 100

Analytics Customer Acquisition Metrics 100

YoungUpstarts

AUGUST 30, 2011

93% of startups that scale prematurely never break the $100k revenue per month threshold. Inconsistent startup outsource 4-5 times as much of their product development than consistent startups. No startup that scaled prematurely passed the 100,000 user mark. Inconsistent startups write 3.4 times more code in efficiency stage.

Silicon Valley 189

Silicon Valley Software Review Startup Cofounder 189

A Smart Bear: Startups and Marketing for Geeks

APRIL 5, 2010

In the quest for optimization, A/B tests, metrics, and funnels, we're in danger of losing the fun and value of creative work. When we demand overwhelming customer outcry before committing to the slightest product change, we're in danger of losing the value of creating a cool feature that takes too much effort but people just love.

Software Review 226

Software Review Metrics Lean Algorithm 226

Startup Professionals Musings

MARCH 9, 2020

There is no magic lever for growth, so several initiatives are required, with metrics to assess value returned. Resist the urge to delegate accounting decisions, under the assumption that incoming revenue takes the pressure off. Ask every employee to focus on sales. Personally optimize every cash flow transaction. Marty Zwilling.

Social Media 329

Social Media Metrics Viral Channel 329

Startup Professionals Musings

MAY 4, 2016

Before you bring on partners, develop intellectual property, raise capital, or generate revenues, you need to establish an official business entity. Building your public image and presence should start even before product development, through your website, logo, and blogging. Set milestones and manage to those targets.

Intellectual Property 120

Intellectual Property Startup Angel Groups Social Media 120

YoungUpstarts

NOVEMBER 20, 2019

On the other hand, if you arrive at a VC pitch without a comprehensive understanding of the industry you’re hoping to compete in, or without a clear path to profitability or a thoughtful product-development road map, you’ll likely leave empty-handed. You may be able to generate revenue, but VCs want exponential growth.

Technical Review 140

Technical Review Due Diligence Early Stage Differentiation 140

Startup Lessons Learned

SEPTEMBER 22, 2008

Master of 500 Hats: Startup Metrics for Pirates (SeedCamp 2008, London) This presentation should be required reading for anyone creating a startup with an online service component. He also has a discussion of how your choice of business model determines which of these metric areas you want to focus on.

San Francisco 167

San Francisco CPA SEM CTO Hire 167

Startup Lessons Learned

APRIL 14, 2009

Lessons Learned by Eric Ries Tuesday, April 14, 2009 Validated learning about customers Would you rather have $30,000 or $1 million in revenues for your startup? All things being equal, of course, you’d rather have more revenue rather than less. And yet revenue alone is not a sufficient goal.

Customer 167

Customer San Francisco Lean Hockey Stick 167

Up and Running

SEPTEMBER 24, 2019

When you’re trying to grow your subscription business, you need to understand the key metrics that drive your growth. While you always want to focus on improving your product or service to help retain customers, there are a few things you can do to help reduce churn that aren’t related to product development and building out new features.

Revenue 73

Revenue Churn Rate Analytics Metrics 73

Up and Running

MAY 15, 2014

As an entrepreneur raised in the era of analytics, I want to find metrics for everything. PopInShop’s progress retroactively validated my decision, as the metrics on overall growth supported my gut: after reverting to my status as a lone founder, the company made fast strides on product development and partnerships.

Partner 113

Partner Cofounder Equity Metrics 113

View from Seed

NOVEMBER 18, 2014

Foster product development and marketing which creates organic (or somewhat organic) user traction. Generate Real Revenue. Another approach to raise Series A is to drive meaningful revenue. For B2B startups especially, this is the best signal of product-market fit – a sign that the company is investable.

Syndicate 333

Syndicate Syndication Seed Stage Startup 333

Startup Professionals Musings

SEPTEMBER 1, 2019

By definition, second-stage ventures generally have 10 to 99 employees and/or $750,000 to $50 million in revenue, and see that as just the beginning. Switch your attention from product development to sales. Managing business growth is more than metrics. Of course, not every entrepreneur wants to tackle this challenge.

Mezzanine 244

Mezzanine Private Equity Startup Bandwidth 244

Up and Running

JULY 27, 2016

When you’re trying to grow your subscription business, you need to understand the key metrics that drive your growth. While you always want to focus on improving your product or service to help retain customers, there are a few things you can do to help reduce churn that aren’t related to product development and building out new features.

Revenue 60

Revenue Churn Rate Metrics Analytics 60

YoungUpstarts

JULY 2, 2020

Another common mistake that marketing teams are making is using the same metrics for success that they have used in the past. If you use these same metrics, you’re going to be sorely disappointed in the results. Don’t focus on old measurements for success. Be flexible: Try new avenues and channels to find what works and what doesn’t.

Marketing 262

Marketing Metrics Channel Differentiation 262

ReadWriteStart

NOVEMBER 10, 2010

Today, brands are hiring social media specialists for customer support, crowdsourced product development, promotions and even leads generation. Internal resistance, non-standardized metrics, multiple (and confusing) platforms and lack of resources prove great obstacles to planning. The Proof Is In The Revenue.

Social Media 134

Social Media Media Programming Viral 134

Steve Blank

MARCH 4, 2014

They measure their success on metrics that reflect success in execution, and they reward execution. 20 th century Management Tools for Execution In the 20 th century business schools and consulting firms developed an amazing management stack to assist companies to execute. StageGate Process. What Does this Mean?

IRR 335

IRR Startup Business Model Agile 335

Genuine VC

MARCH 24, 2014

The five conditions for a Series A financing which he enumerated are: a core team ready to scale, demonstrable market size, repeatable cost effective customer acquisition, metric momentum, and plausible monetization. The strategy here is to foster product development and marketing which creates overall (semi-)organic user momentum.

Seed Capital 212

Seed Capital Metrics Cofounder Revenue 212

Startup Lessons Learned

SEPTEMBER 15, 2008

The application of agile development methodologies which dramatically reduce waste and unlock creativity in product development. See Customer Development Engineering for my first stab at articulating the theory involved) Ferocious customer-centric rapid iteration, as exemplified by the Customer Development process.

Lean 168

Lean San Francisco Startup Continuous Deployment 168

Steve Blank

MAY 14, 2012

These founders specify, design, and build a fully featured product using classic product development methods without ever leaving their building. Executives look at that date and the calendar, working backward to ignite fireworks on the day the product is launched.

Balance Sheet 335

Balance Sheet Business Model Customer Development Metrics 335

Up and Running

SEPTEMBER 7, 2016

We proved it when we decided to make customer retention our only goal for an entire 365 days, and grew annual revenues 130 percent as a direct result. We don’t have any traditional metrics in our customer support team. If you do genuinely need metrics, be truly customer-centric in the ones you choose to follow.

Customer 60

Customer Retention Startup Metrics 60

View from Seed

OCTOBER 15, 2014

A seed-stage mobile startup’s housekeeping section might look something like this: Section 3: Core Metrics. The goal isn’t to suddenly self-sustain and generate tens of millions in revenue immediately following a seed investment (though nobody would argue if that happened). The seed stage is all about traction.

Seed Stage 331

Seed Stage Cap Table Metrics Burn Rate 331

Startup Professionals Musings

MAY 4, 2014

This will include the first version of many critical processes that can be split out later, including market opportunity, requirements, product definition, business model, sales process, and organization. Product development process. Billing and revenue collection. It all has to be written down and maintained.

Startup 268

Startup Institutional Investors Angel Investor Bootstrapping 268

Startup Lessons Learned

JANUARY 15, 2010

Behind this analysis is a spreadsheet model, complete with detailed metrics for a set of customer behaviors that show just how valuable the new product will be. They are long-term bets on the development of a new line of business, a new technology platform, or the creation of a new market.

Hockey Stick 105

Hockey Stick San Francisco Entrepreneur Lean 105

Steve Blank

MARCH 11, 2015

And worse, even if someone does manage to start something new, our management structure has so many financial, legal and HR hurdles that every initiative needs to match our existing business financial metrics, processes and procedures. They’ve learned the best distribution channel to get the product from their company to the customer.

Widget 120

Widget Lean Business Model Metrics 120