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ESADE Business School Commencement Speech

Steve Blank

Unfortunately as we’ve learned from recent experience, using Return on Net Assets and IRR as proxies for efficiency and execution won’t save a company when their industry encounters creative disruption. The first will be commodity businesses that are valued for their ability to execute their current business model.

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10 Reflections After 10 Years of NextView

View from Seed

One industry specific example is the strange fascination among some LPs and GPs around term IRR. Even though everyone knows that VC funds take 10+ years to come to fruition, one often can’t help but benchmark themselves based on IRR in the early days. But then again, this is what skeptics have been predicting for 10+ years.

IRR 205
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10 Reflections After 10 Years of NextView

View from Seed

One industry specific example is the strange fascination among some LPs and GPs around term IRR. Even though everyone knows that VC funds take 10+ years to come to fruition, one often can’t help but benchmark themselves based on IRR in the early days. But then again, this is what skeptics have been predicting for 10+ years.

IRR 156
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10 Reflections After 10 Years of NextView

View from Seed

One industry specific example is the strange fascination among some LPs and GPs around term IRR. Even though everyone knows that VC funds take 10+ years to come to fruition, one often can’t help but benchmark themselves based on IRR in the early days. But then again, this is what skeptics have been predicting for 10+ years.

IRR 136
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Why Companies are Not Startups

Steve Blank

The Enterprise: Business Model Execution We know that a startup is a temporary organization designed to search for a repeatable and scalable business model. The corollary for an enterprise is: A company is a permanent organization designed to execute a repeatable and scalable business model.

IRR 335
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Fund Raising is a Means Not an End

Steve Blank

When you take money from investors their business model becomes yours. Sigh… What I should have been hearing is the search for the business model, specifically the progress on product/market fit, but I hear the fund raising story first at least 90% of the time. What is an IRR? What’s a Startup?

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Flexible VC, a New Model for Companies Targeting Profitability

David Teten

This causes the cost of capital for Flexible VC, often calculated through IRR (similar to an interest rate), can be higher than that of venture debt or traditional RBI. Typical business stage. An already proven business model and its already valuable assets. Typical business model. Venture Debt.