Both Sides of the Table

JANUARY 6, 2014

When you first start your company and raise initial venture capital your board probably consists of 1-3 founders and 1-2 VCs. when to build out our offices in Silicon Valley, New York & Los Angeles. how & when to raise capital. In the Early Days. So our board meetings consisted of discussion about.

Technical Review 325

Technical Review Early Stage Software Review Los Angeles 325

ReadWriteStart

NOVEMBER 3, 2011

In How To Defend Your Dream Against All Odds , Alex and I explore the company's journey to $200 Million in revenue, while their VCs wrote them off. Zoho is already over $100 million in revenue and is seeing tremendous traction. In that case, the verticals of choice could be manufacturing, wholesale and retail.

North Carolina 116

North Carolina San Diego Entrepreneur Balance Sheet 116

Steve Blank

SEPTEMBER 24, 2009

This tendency is a two edged sword: by iterating strategy a startup can dramatically improve the size and trajectory of the company, but at times this process can be the bane of venture investors (and why they have prematurely grey hair.) 4) You don’t see any revenue gain past three years. Order Here. To Order Outside of the U.S.

Customer 216

Customer Silicon Valley RSS California 216

Steve Blank

AUGUST 31, 2009

Was the sales revenue model based on actually testing the hypotheses outside the building? Greg Boutin Founder, Growthroute Ventures, [link] Reply TO REVENUE » Talking on Techie-Biz Divide at Communitech Guelph on Sept. Look at the early Silicon Valley companies – Homebrew Club =>PCs. Order Here.

Customer Development 244

Customer Development Developer Customer Silicon Valley 244

Steve Blank

APRIL 9, 2009

And it was going to mention the two words that SuperMac marketing needed to live and breathe: revenue and profit. If marketing can’t deliver the 40,000 leads what else can we do for sales to still achieve our revenue and profitability?”) They understood the mission intent was our corporate revenue and profit goals. Order Here.

Silicon Valley 269

Silicon Valley Technical Review RSS PR 269

Steve Blank

JULY 30, 2009

Unfortunately most startups learn this by going through the “Fire the first Sales VP&# drill: You start your company with a list of potential customers reading like a “who’s who&# of whatever vertical market you’re in (or the Fortune 1000 list.) Steve Blanks 30 years of Silicon Valley startup advice.

Silicon Valley 143

Silicon Valley RSS California Customer Development 143

Steve Blank

JUNE 8, 2009

In the last three posts, we drew the relationship of market risk and invention risk with vertical markets and pointed out verticals where customer development would be useful. would look in each of the verticals. Business and Revenue Model – How do we organize to make money? Marketing – How do you create end user demand?

Vertical 125

Vertical Silicon Valley RSS Marketing 125

Steve Blank

APRIL 30, 2009

Luckily (or maybe because we were in Silicon Valley where there was a domain expert for everything) there was a very smart consultant in the retail computer space, Seymour Merrin, who preached about the importance of packaging. Steve Blanks 30 years of Silicon Valley startup advice. Worry about the sales results.

Sales 120

Sales Silicon Valley RSS Las Vegas 120

ReadWriteStart

JANUARY 6, 2011

John already has a couple of customers, and needs about 50 customers to get to $1M in annual revenue. In fact, in the discussion on JuJu brands is yet another validation of the verticalization and niche-ization of the Internet. So, effectively, at the cost of one full-time sales rep, they can access coverage in four different regions.

Vertical 115

Vertical Web San Francisco Entrepreneur 115

Steve Blank

SEPTEMBER 3, 2009

Once the product begins to ship, startup sales execs use orders and revenue as its marker of progress in understanding customers. Well, because the revenue plan we promised the investors shows us generating customer revenue from the day of first customer ship.” Doesn’t it depend on vertical market.? Order Here.

Customer Development 228

Customer Development Developer Silicon Valley Customer 228

Gust

OCTOBER 12, 2011

To provide some reference points, I surveyed thirteen angels groups in North American to determine their recent experience in negotiating the pre-money valuation of pre-revenue companies. See the 2010 data reported here: Current Pre-money Valuations of Pre-revenue Companies. Pre-money Valuation of Pre-revenue Companies.

Angel Groups 125

Angel Groups Valuation Pre-Money Valuation St. Louis 125

Steve Blank

APRIL 22, 2009

Corner Cases and Consensus are For Large Companies Carefully considering each and every possible outcome before you proceed with a decision is something large companies with large revenues, shareholders and employees need to do. Steve Blanks 30 years of Silicon Valley startup advice. Order Here. To Order Outside of the U.S.

Silicon Valley 201

Silicon Valley RSS California Customer Development 201

Steve Blank

FEBRUARY 23, 2009

In hindsight it appeared clear that startups that survive the first few tough years do not follow the traditional product-centric launch model espoused by product managers or the venture capital community. As you stated, the VCs only want to hear about product development and, I would add, revenue models. Order Here.

Silicon Valley 133

Silicon Valley RSS Venture Capital California 133

Steve Blank

NOVEMBER 2, 2009

In times when venture capital is hard to get, investors extract high costs for failure (down-rounds, cram downs , new management teams, shut down the company.) Sales people cost money, and when they’re not bringing in revenue, their wandering in the woods is time consuming, cash-draining and demoralizing. Something else?

Lean 260

Lean Silicon Valley Startup RSS 260

Steve Blank

AUGUST 27, 2009

Yet we used the product development model not only to manage product development, but as a road map for finding customers and to time our marketing launch and sales revenue plan. Steve Blanks 30 years of Silicon Valley startup advice. Thirty years later we now realize that its one the causes of early startup failure.

Silicon Valley 269

Silicon Valley Product Startup Product Development 269

Austin Startup

DECEMBER 20, 2020

He was also born here and went to UT Austin before heading out to Silicon Valley for a stint. Bob invented Ethernet, founded 3Com (revenues of $5.7B), was the Editor of InfoWorld magazine, and was a venture capitalist at Polaris in Boston.

Austin 110

Austin Texas Cofounder Los Angeles 110

Steve Blank

JUNE 22, 2009

We Changed Our Mind In 1966, 10 years after Hewlett’s memo, Hewlett Packard’s revenue and headcount had grown ten fold; $200 million and 11,000 employees – all from test and measurement equipment. And venture capital and entrepreneurship has made life even tougher for the modern corporation. Order Here.

Silicon Valley 186

Silicon Valley RSS California Agile 186

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. Order Here. Now In Print!

Silicon Valley 179

Silicon Valley United States RSS Customer Development 179

Steve Blank

APRIL 23, 2009

I was asked to explain why a marketing program that cost $150,000 bucks literally generated nothing in revenue for the company. Steve Blanks 30 years of Silicon Valley startup advice. They hit each other with baseball bats until one of them dropped.) This first Zen moment happened at a SuperMac exec staff meeting. Order Here.

Silicon Valley 120

Silicon Valley RSS California Customer Development 120

Startup Lessons Learned

AUGUST 24, 2009

We faced this same problem in entrepreneurship and venture capital, but we are getting past it. Most publishers are still caught up in an outdated “vision vs. metrics&# argument, which is already obsolete here in Silicon Valley. What is the right revenue model? August 24, 2009 2:17 PM Norbert Mocsnik said.

San Francisco 113

San Francisco Lean Technical Review Distribution 113

Steve Blank

SEPTEMBER 10, 2009

Most startups following the Product Development Model never achieve their revenue plan and burn through a ton of cash not knowing what hit them. After twelve months Handspring’s revenue was $170 million. Steve Blanks 30 years of Silicon Valley startup advice. They never understood Market Type. Why does Market Type matter?

Customer Development 220

Customer Development Developer Customer Silicon Valley 220

Steve Blank

NOVEMBER 5, 2009

A Progress Graph on the right visually shows how far you’ve come (in whatever units of goodness you’re tracking – revenue, units, users, etc.) Good if you have your own money, better if the cash comes from investors, but best if it’s revenues from customers. Get back up and running.

Customer Development 267

Customer Development Developer Customer Silicon Valley 267

Steve Blank

JULY 2, 2009

Entrepreneur-in-Residence After SuperMac I had been approached by one of our venture investors to be an entrepreneur in residence (EIR), a Silicon Valley phrase which says one thing but means another. Peter described the first company in which “Hollywood meets Silicon Valley” and we were enthralled.

Silicon Valley 120

Silicon Valley Technical Review RSS Software Review 120

Austin Startup

AUGUST 7, 2017

Instead of arguing why Dallas might be better than Houston we should be talking about how we can work together to get our share of venture capital dollars more in line with our population size and startup activity by unlocking additional capital sources that have been previously inaccessible to tech. It’s not Silicon Valley.

Texas 97

Texas San Antonio Houston Dallas 97

Steve Blank

MAY 26, 2009

Verticals Are Different I began to realize that entrepreneurs (and their professors) act like every vertical market and industry has the same set of rules. So the first heuristic is: do not assume the startup rules are the same for all vertical markets. Just for discussion, the markets I chose were: Web 2.0,

Vertical 156

Vertical Silicon Valley Intellectual Property RSS 156

Steve Blank

AUGUST 24, 2009

Page views drive his ad revenue, which is probably CPM based. Steve Blanks 30 years of Silicon Valley startup advice. Is this behavior an outlier or is it the norm in the PR industry? Or is it just someones end of innocence ? Mike Arrington is a capitalist. Customers walk, patients sue, and people vote. Order Here. Now In Print!

Silicon Valley 210

Silicon Valley PR Technical Review RSS 210

Reid Hoffman

SEPTEMBER 8, 2020

It might cater to new customers, it might solve a different need, or it might involve a different revenue model. For example, if you think you have a great idea for a business, a standard Silicon Valley startup technique is to create a faux website and run some Facebook or Google ads to see whether or not the concept appeals to the market.

Startup 36

Startup Silicon Valley Business Model Mobile 36

Cracking the Code

MARCH 28, 2022

While the average forward revenue multiple has declined slightly since its February 2020 peak (19x), it’s still higher today than last year at 17x vs 15.8x The firm was founded more than 35 years ago and the team quickly realised that innovation was not confined to Silicon Valley. The Index added another $0.9T in Sept 2020.

Global 62

Global Europe Software Review 62

www.chubbybrain.com

SEPTEMBER 28, 2011

If you are an entrepreneur seeking funding, try our free Funding Recommendation Engine to identify a list of angels, venture capital and state grant programs that best match your business. spent $20 million to get back to the same revenue that I had when I was CEO. Think of it as 7 bonus post-mortems on the house.

Software Review 79

Software Review Startup Technical Review Vesting 79

Steve Blank

MAY 4, 2009

But without sales there is no revenue, and without revenue there is no company. All the strategic thinking in the world won’t make up for a missed revenue plan. If sales revenue and profits are high enough, we could take the company public or sell it, and the stock would be worth more than the paper it was printed on.

Silicon Valley 132

Silicon Valley RSS Non-Compete California 132

Steve Blank

APRIL 16, 2009

And in this very unique case, we figured out how to maximize revenue and profit by branding and product line extensions. Marketings job is to take engineering products and use them to maximize revenue and profit. Steve Blanks 30 years of Silicon Valley startup advice. We did that when we surveyed our customers.

Silicon Valley 145

Silicon Valley Product RSS Engineer 145

Cracking the Code

OCTOBER 13, 2020

It reminds me of living in Silicon Valley 10 years ago when so many foundational SaaS companies were started. Cloud Entrepreneurs: Embracing the “Silicon Valley State of Mind" Accel has been a big believer in cloud since the early days of this secular shift. Big milestones for the old continent!

Europe 71

Europe Cloud Silicon Valley 71

Steve Blank

NOVEMBER 21, 2015

Evangelos has spent the last 15 years as a Venture Capitalist, first at Apax Partners and later at Trident Capital. During the last three years he’s worked with over 100 companies, many of which established Innovation Outposts in Silicon Valley. Venture capital firms, as we know them only date back to the 1970s.)

Silicon Valley 120

Silicon Valley Venture Capital United States Technical Review 120

techcrunch.com

FEBRUARY 19, 2010

Researchers polled experts in lending, mezzanine capital, private equity, venture capital and private businesses themselves. Not a big shock, but things don’t look pretty, especially in the venture capital world. 41% of them feel that they qualify for venture capital funding. Add to this that 72.7%

Venture Capital 62

Venture Capital Technical Review Sweat Equity Valuation 62

Cracking the Code

SEPTEMBER 20, 2016

Global SaaS revenues are expected to grow by $19 billion in 2016, an increase of 22% from 2015, while traditional software revenues are shrinking by $10B. Two dollars in SaaS revenues are created for every $1 of software revenues eaten – an impressive stat, but where does Europe stand on the global SaaS map?

Europe 48

Europe Artificial Inteligence Vertical 48

abovethecrowd.com

NOVEMBER 14, 2017

market in terms of revenue dollars (there is no question that digital tools will successfully impact specific acute diseases/disorders, but it’s our intuition these are best left to 100% focused HC investors). Bill is a general partner at Benchmark, one of Silicon Valley’s really legendary venture capital firms.

Singapore 43

Singapore Government Silicon Valley Software Review 43