Startup Professionals Musings

SEPTEMBER 30, 2013

Make sure your plan answers every relevant question that you could possibly imagine from your business partners, spouse, and potential investors. Don’t expect them to believe your $100M revenue projection, if you are still waiting for the first revenue dollar. Get a real customer and real revenue.

Intellectual Property 281

Intellectual Property Entrepreneur Sweat Equity CTO Hire 281

Steve Blank

JUNE 27, 2017

Initially, a startup has no business model and no market share to defend. Its employees and investors don’t depend on an existing revenue stream. If they select a business model that targets industry incumbents, they don’t have to worry about upsetting existing customers, partners or distribution channels.

Startup 306

Startup New York City Valuation Distribution 306

Steve Blank

SEPTEMBER 5, 2018

Since NewTV won’t be making the content, they will be licensing from and partnering with traditional entertainment producers. NewTV will depend on partners like telcos to distribute the content. Startups wrote business plans, generated expansive 5-year forecasts and executed (hired, spent and built) to the plan.

Lean 335

Lean Burn Rate Startup IPO 335

Steve Blank

MARCH 8, 2011

It was designed to bring together many of the new approaches to building a successful startup – customer development, agile development, business model generation and pivots. Startups are in fact only temporary organizations, organized to search –not execute–for a scalable and repeatable business model.

Lean 307

Lean Business Model Customer Development Guinea 307

Startup Professionals Musings

AUGUST 31, 2012

Make sure your plan answers every relevant question that you could possibly imagine from your business partners, spouse, and potential investors. Don’t expect them to believe your $100M revenue projection, if you are still waiting for the first revenue dollar. Get a real customer and real revenue.

Intellectual Property 260

Intellectual Property Sweat Equity CTO Hire Fractional CTO 260

Startup Professionals Musings

JUNE 17, 2011

Make sure your plan answers every relevant question that you could possibly imagine from your business partners, spouse, and potential investors. Don’t expect them to believe your $100M revenue projection, if you are still waiting for the first revenue dollar. Get a real customer and real revenue.

Intellectual Property 253

Intellectual Property Sweat Equity CTO Hire Fractional CTO 253

Steve Blank

AUGUST 21, 2013

What we found is that during the class almost all of them pivoted - making substantive changes to one or more of their business model canvas components. It was whether after meeting with partners and regulators, they had a plan to deal with the intensifying regulatory environment. – See more here. The syllabus is here.

SBIR 321

SBIR Technical Review Lean Startup 321

Startup Professionals Musings

OCTOBER 30, 2020

Get support from credible industry groups and partners. Minimize one-time sales in your business model. You need a stable customer base with an automatically renewing revenue stream, such as the subscription model. Focus on a solution that is scalable world-wide. Your solution must have value for every customer.

Merger 386

Merger Acquisition Software Review Social Media 386

A Smart Bear: Startups and Marketing for Geeks

NOVEMBER 5, 2014

Consider the consequences of these monthly pricing possibilities: $0/mo means your goal is to maximize growth (trust and usage) instead of revenue. Your product is designed with natural tripwires to trigger other pricing ( Freemium model ), or not (business model left as an exercise to your future self).

Bootstrapping 294

Bootstrapping Technical Review B2C Sales Cycle 294

Startup Professionals Musings

FEBRUARY 8, 2020

Implement a modern real business model. Even non-profits need revenue to cover their costs, and continue to provide services. Find a strategic partner to accelerate growth. Opportunity and revenue projections based on deep market and customer analysis are a smarter risk.

Management 322

Management Entrepreneur Forecast Stock Options 322

Startup Professionals Musings

JANUARY 7, 2013

The market and venture capitalists are looking for business, but with a continuing focus on proven business models. Your friends and family are really the only answer until you have a significant revenue stream. Follow with a killer executive summary, investor presentation, and financial model.

Venture Capital 252

Venture Capital IPO Elevator Pitch Initial Public Offering 252

Steve Blank

FEBRUARY 23, 2013

My friend Ron Ashkenas interviewed me for his blog on the Harvard Business Review. Ron is a managing partner of Schaffer Consulting , and is currently serving as an Executive-in-Residence at the Haas School of Business at UC Berkeley. Big Companies versus Startups: Durant versus Sloan Business Model versus Business Plan'

Business Model 226

Business Model Business Plan Technical Review Search 226

Startup Professionals Musings

NOVEMBER 2, 2022

Implement a modern real business model. Even non-profits need revenue to cover their costs, and continue to provide services. Find a strategic partner to accelerate growth. Opportunity and revenue projections based on deep market and customer analysis are a smarter risk.

Forecast 304

Forecast Stock Options Technical Review Metrics 304

TechEmpower

JULY 31, 2023

Proving your Business Model Works - Build, Define, and Review But how do you prove your numbers? Finally, review the numbers with your partners. R : Revenue - Can you monetize any of this behavior? These two questions/answers can help define the early proof points for your company.

Metrics 260

Metrics Startup Retention Acquisition 260

Startup Professionals Musings

OCTOBER 17, 2018

This can happen through early marketing, independent of whether you have yet delivered a single product, proven your business model, or have any real customers. Assemble a credible inside advisory board and partners. Investors and potential partners measure your credibility by the quality of your advisors and peer partners.

Advisory Board 199

Advisory Board Technical Review Metrics Business Model 199

Steve Blank

NOVEMBER 13, 2012

By then, I had become a venture capitalist at Mitsui Sumitomo Insurance and found myself talking to a lot of entrepreneurs who were proclaiming their great technology yet were struggling with little revenue, and claiming they were “crossing the chasm”. Maysee now enjoys hockey stick revenue growth.

Japan 305

Japan Customer Development Developer Customer 305

Startup Professionals Musings

AUGUST 27, 2014

Implement a modern real business model. Even non-profits need revenue to cover their costs, and continue to provide services. Find a strategic partner to accelerate growth. Opportunity and revenue projections based on deep market and customer analysis are a smarter risk.

Startup 283

Startup Forecast Stock Options Technical Review 283

Steve Blank

NOVEMBER 4, 2013

The instructor then presents a cohort specific lecture explaining how the business model for their area (therapeutics, diagnostics, devices and digital health) builds on and/or differs from the canonical business model in the online Udacity lectures (which the students had to watch as homework.). Lessons Learned.

Lean 266

Lean Customer Business Model Customer Development 266

Steve Blank

MARCH 31, 2014

Companies horde cash and squeeze the most revenue and margin from the money they use. The first will be commodity businesses that are valued for their ability to execute their current business model. The second class will be firms with a demonstrated ability to continually innovate and reinvent their business models.

Private Equity 330

Private Equity Metrics China Intellectual Property 330

Steve Blank

JANUARY 2, 2014

Part 7: Revenue Streams in Life Sciences. Over the course of the class Mira Medicine team spoke to over 80 customers, partners and payers. of all the parts of the business model canvas. Part 4: This Will Save us Years – Customer Discovery in Medical Devices. Part 6: Distribution channels in Life Sciences.

Lean 250

Lean Algorithm Customer Development IP 250

Steve Blank

APRIL 4, 2011

This week they were testing who the customer, user, payer for the product will be (and discovering if they have a multi-sided business model , one with both buyers and sellers.) as well as channel partners and cloud industry technology consultants. The Business Model Canvas is a great way to diagram it out.

Customer 241

Customer Business Model Nebraska Cloud 241

Startup Professionals Musings

FEBRUARY 8, 2023

Others have seized on the opportunity to restructure their business for the future, eliminate marginal processes, and find new growth partners. Now is the time to reach out to satisfied existing customers for repeat business, as it is less expensive to generate more revenue from your past customers than it is to land new ones.

Technical Review 239

Technical Review Revenue Social Media Cost 239

Startup Professionals Musings

APRIL 11, 2022

An effective tool I see used more and more, as a prelude to a more detailed business plan, is the Business Model Canvas , first introduced by Alexander Osterwalder back in 2008. In my experience as a new business advisor, a business is nothing until people are aligned and work in sync. Key partners.

Business Model 334

Business Model Intellectual Property Angel Investor Channel 334

VC Cafe

NOVEMBER 2, 2019

Benchmarks are typically specific to stage/business model/geo. In Rob Go’s words: For seed and Series A deals, investors will also need to see a high-potential team with founder/market fit , a large and attractive market opportunity , and a business model with increasing returns to scale. Consumer apps and services.

B2C 141

B2C Technical Review Startup Retention 141

Startup Professionals Musings

JUNE 26, 2013

Being “lifecycle investment partners” has a downside. Too many founders today face the conundrum that they need capital to get started, and even Angels defer until after you have your product built, business model proven, and a real revenue stream. They can plant more seeds, and place less dependency on the big win.

Angel Investor 231

Angel Investor Entrepreneur Early Stage Silicon Valley 231

YoungUpstarts

SEPTEMBER 16, 2014

Minecraft” accounts for nearly all of Mojang’s revenue, highlighting the risk to Microsoft should interest in “Minecraft” dissolve, or Microsoft fails to produce “Minecraft” sequels or add-on software. TBR believes the ideas of these opportunities has merit, but are peripheral pursuits for Microsoft.

Acquisition 157

Acquisition Azure Merger Sweden 157

YoungUpstarts

MAY 13, 2014

by Joshua Conran , senior partner at Deksia . Niche businesses almost always originate from an identifiable need in the marketplace. These two childhood friends saw how busy and exhausted new parents were and identified the need for a convenient way to purchase diapers. Know Your Total Addressable Market.

Pennsylvania 224

Pennsylvania Retention Differentiation Reputation 224

YoungUpstarts

JUNE 4, 2019

by Bruce Cleveland, Founding Partner at Wildcat Venture Partners and author of “ Traversing the Traction Gap “ As we continue our exploration of the Traction Gap Framework® – a step-by-step approach that startup teams can use to go from ideation to preparing to scale – I will walk you through the principles.

Framework 127

Framework Architecture Cleveland Early Stage 127

VC Cafe

FEBRUARY 27, 2024

especially if the startup already has a product and revenue? To reduce the impact of dilution, the expectation is that startup valuation should more or less double between the pre-seed to the seed, and seed to series A (ideally backed by reasonable traction/ revenue multiples). A founder asked me what makes a $2M round “pre-seed”?

Valuation 186

Valuation Software Review Generative AI Technical Review 186

Both Sides of the Table

DECEMBER 17, 2009

But then your customes start using your products, your competitors come out with new offerings and your business partners decide to launch a similar product rather than working with you. That might even mean a totally different business or it might just be a totally different business model. I had seen enough.

Entrepreneur 291

Entrepreneur Term Sheet Early Stage Affiliate 291

Both Sides of the Table

JANUARY 4, 2014

She started it with a partner, 50-50. And then for whatever reason they had different outlooks about the future of the business and with a 50-50 partnership had very limited ability to deal with the issues you all face: Who should stay and who should go? They were close friends, lived down the road and members of our synagogue.

Founder 340

Founder Cofounder Sacramento Technical Review 340

Steve Blank

OCTOBER 25, 2010

It’s the combination of Business Model Design and Customer Development. Business Model Design. Today every business organization from startup to large company uses the words “business model.” More importantly they showed how any company’s business model could be defined in 9 boxes.

Customer Development 332

Customer Development Business Model Developer Customer 332

Steve Blank

DECEMBER 17, 2015

In the first stage the Outpost focusses on networking and partnering in the Innovation Cluster in which it is based (i.e. Stage 1: Networking and Partnering – the Technology Connectors. In addition to getting plugged into the ecosystem’s network, the first role of the Outpost is to partner. In what order?

Silicon Valley 120

Silicon Valley Incubator Acquisition Business Model 120

YoungUpstarts

MAY 28, 2014

” Getting some revenue from at least 3 clients (proving that there’s value to what you’re doing) would be fantastic, but other types of traction and validation would help too. On the other hand, businesses have challenges they face on a regular basis due to changing industry needs and other regulations. Kickstarter.

Security 200

Security Incubator Technical Review Bootstrapping 200

YoungUpstarts

MAY 24, 2019

by Bruce Cleveland, Founding Partner at Wildcat Venture Partners and author of “ Traversing the Traction Gap “ As we continue our exploration of the Traction Gap Framework® – a step-by-step approach that startup teams can use to go from ideation to preparing to scale – I will walk you through the principles.

Framework 113

Framework Architecture Cleveland Early Stage 113

David Teten

JANUARY 21, 2021

(co-written with Jamie Finney, Founding Partner at Greater Colorado Venture Fund. This essay is part of a series on alternative VC: I: Revenue-Based Investing: a new option for founders who care about control. II: Who are the major Revenue-Based Investing VCs? IV: Should your new VC fund use Revenue-Based Investing?

Equity 78

Equity Revenue Cofounder Colorado 78

Steve Blank

APRIL 8, 2010

They collected information that justified their assumptions about the problem, opportunity, market size, their solution and competitors and the their team, They rolled up a 5-year sales forecast with assumptions about their revenue model, pricing, sales, marketing, customer acquisition cost, etc. It was an exquisitely crafted plan.

Business Model 332

Business Model Business Plan Customer Cap Table 332