Up and Running

MAY 2, 2011

Tweet Your business plan is the foundation of your business. It’s also an invaluable tool when it comes time to apply for a business loan. When lenders ask for a business plan, they are looking specifically for the following items: History of the business. How revenues are generated.

Business Plan 92

Business Plan SBA Revenue Finance 92

Steve Blank

NOVEMBER 1, 2010

With an out-of-this-world business plan. When it was spun out as a a separate company, Iridium’s 1990 business plan had assumptions about potential customers, their problems and the product needed to solve that problem. A Business Plan Frozen in Time. This business plan was a static document.

Business Plan 335

Business Plan Customer Business Model Customer Development 335

The Startup Magazine

OCTOBER 19, 2020

Similarly, customers are more knowledgeable, aware, and conscious to choose from the variety out there, which slows down the company’s revenue and growth. In a conventional business perspective, there are significantly lesser areas to differentiate yourself from the competition.

Technical Review 158

Technical Review Forecast Analytics Social Media 158

Business Plan Blog

OCTOBER 4, 2013

One recipe for failure (business failure and capital raising failure) is building a lopsided team weighted to one function of the business. If you have a technical background and you are focused on product development, consider a co-founder with a sales and marketing background that can focus on selling your world class product.

Part-Time VPE 79

Part-Time VPE Fractional VPE Cofounder CTO Hire 79

Steve Blank

MAY 6, 2015

Waterfall Development. While it sounds simple , the Build Measure Learn approach to product development is a radical improvement over the traditional Waterfall model used throughout the 20 th century to build and ship products. revenue streams generated by the value proposition(s). Lessons Learned.

Lean 120

Lean Agile Business Model Customer Development 120

The Startup Magazine

AUGUST 11, 2023

It is necessary to cover the early stages of product development, thorough market research, and other processes during the initial step. Seed capital is a component of the initial investments made in young businesses. During the pre-seed fundraising stage, investors need a viable business plan to base their investments on.

Seed Stage 147

Seed Stage Technical Review Early Stage Due Diligence 147

YoungUpstarts

MAY 3, 2017

From product development to market research, many startups are one-person operations in their early days. Even as their teams grow, entrepreneurs often feel that they must tend to every aspect of the business, including low-level tasks that distract from revenue-generating activity. The result?

Technical Review 113

Technical Review Management Arizona Software Review 113

Startup Professionals Musings

MAY 4, 2016

He nails the current key startup parameters, including the following: Crafting a lean business plan as your road map. The days of lengthy, text-heavy, business plan documents prepared by expensive experts are behind us. Establishing your brand with interactive social media.

Intellectual Property 120

Intellectual Property Startup Angel Groups Social Media 120

SoCal CTO

DECEMBER 1, 2010

No Business Plan Survives First Contact With A Customer – The 5.2 Risk-takers and Strategists: Jeremiah Owyang on Long-Term Social Media Planning - ReadWriteStart , November 10, 2010 Two years ago, 93% of Americans believed companies should have a social media presence. The Proof Is In The Revenue. billion dollar mistake.

Technical Review 175

Technical Review Technology Product CTO Hire 175

YoungUpstarts

MAY 23, 2018

They’re people who like to build things, or they’re people who like to connect with others, but they’re rarely people who like to fill in spreadsheets and review reports and come up with predictive data models that tell them how long they can keep operating on their current revenue. Often, founders have an entrepreneurial mindset.

Due Diligence 133

Due Diligence Startup Finance Leadership 133

Startup Lessons Learned

NOVEMBER 8, 2008

Most likely, your business plan is loaded with opinions and guesses, sprinkled with a dash of vision and hope. Customer development is a parallel process to product development, which means that you dont have to give up on your dream. This is a common mistake.

Customer Development 168

Customer Development Developer San Francisco Customer 168

YoungUpstarts

MAY 6, 2019

Product development. Now that you have a refined product idea and a team that can turn this idea into reality, the product development stage will start. Initial product development usually consists of prototyping and MVP. Prototyping usually means the initial working draft of the product idea.

Startup 113

Startup Technical Cofounder Merger Early Stage 113

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

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. After all, it got the old VP fired, right?).

Balance Sheet 335

Balance Sheet Business Model Customer Development Metrics 335

Steve Blank

NOVEMBER 18, 2010

For decades startups were managed by pretending the company would follow a predictable path (revenue plan, scale, etc.) The Revenue Plan – The Third Fatal Assumption. Notice that the traditional product introduction model leads to a product launch and the execution of a revenue plan.

Burn Rate 252

Burn Rate Management Business Model Customer Development 252

Steve Blank

MARCH 4, 2014

Product management tools like Stage-Gate ® emerged to systematically manage Waterfall product development. The product management process assumes that product/market fit is known, and the products can get spec’d and then implemented in a linear fashion. StageGate Process. What Does this Mean?

IRR 335

IRR Startup Business Model Agile 335

Up and Running

MARCH 17, 2022

Many business owners know and understand the value of a business plan. The business plan is a key component of the startup and fundraising process and serves as a foundation for your organization. What is a business plan? It lays out who is running the business and what the business does.

Business Plan 145

Business Plan Operations Lean Forecast 145

Up and Running

MAY 23, 2016

In fact, SaaS industry revenue is projected to grow from $49 billion in 2015 to $67 billion in 2018, a compound annual growth rate of approximately eight percent. Step 1: Start with a lean plan. Instead of sitting down to write a 40-page business plan, start with a one-page pitch. How to Write a Traditional Business Plan.

Software Review 74

Software Review Software Delaware Forecast 74

Steve Blank

SEPTEMBER 3, 2009

This post describes how the traditional product development model distorts startup sales, marketing and business development. Once the product begins to ship, startup sales execs use orders and revenue as its marker of progress in understanding customers. What plan says that?

Customer Development 229

Customer Development Developer Silicon Valley Customer 229

Startup Lessons Learned

DECEMBER 14, 2009

Now, Andrew’s excellent piece that I quoted from above correctly diagnoses two situations where consumer internet companies often get in trouble: They focus too much on short-term revenue, getting caught in a local maximum via constant optimization. It doesn’t say anything about which risks it should be used to mitigate.

Customer 156

Customer San Francisco Viral Lean 156

Up and Running

JUNE 14, 2017

Some believe in the all-in approach to product development: build an advanced app. The problem was that building out all the features in the premium version would take four to six months and many thousands of dollars in app development that I didn’t have. Demand Validation: How to Find Out If Customers Want to Buy Your Product.

Technical Review 96

Technical Review Distribution Redemption Demand 96

Startup Lessons Learned

JUNE 5, 2009

And so the spreadsheet is built with conservative assumptions, including a final revenue target. No matter how low we make the revenue projections for this new product, it’s extremely unlikely that they are achievable. In a startup context, numbers like gross revenue are actually vanity metrics, not actionable metrics.

San Francisco 102

San Francisco Lean Continuous Deployment Startup 102

Steve Blank

AUGUST 27, 2009

This series of posts is a brief explanation of how we’ve evolved from Product Development to Customer Development to the Lean Startup. The Product Development Diagram Emerging early in the twentieth century, this product-centric model described a process that evolved in manufacturing industries.

Silicon Valley 271

Silicon Valley Product Startup Product Development 271

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. According to one study a decade ago, only 45% of founders plan to exit after stage one, and my guess is that less than half the remainder survive the next stage in their own company.

Mezzanine 368

Mezzanine Private Equity Bandwidth Metrics 368

Startup Professionals Musings

MAY 4, 2014

Develop your business plan. Write down the key elements of your business plan very early, and keep it current as things evolve. 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

Duct Tape Marketing

APRIL 29, 2024

You could choose our system to move from vendor to trusted advisor, attract only ideal clients, and confidently present your strategies to build monthly recurring revenue. Listeners who sign up via that link will also receive 15% off an annual plan. From there, it says, let's go test the market before we've ever built product.

Entrepreneur 75

Entrepreneur Cofounder Early Stage Artificial Inteligence 75

Startup Professionals Musings

JULY 12, 2020

That means they normally only invest in startups with a working product that has already been sold to at least one customer for full price (beta tests, giveaways and best friends don’t count). They are willing to cover marketing, inventory and scaling, but not product development. Make your focus and priorities clear.

Elevator Pitch 336

Elevator Pitch Salary Angel Investor Viral 336

Austin Startup

NOVEMBER 16, 2010

Calxeda is on track with its business and ARM-based product development plans, moving toward providing first samples of its industry-changing technologies in 2011. The new name, Calxeda , pronounced “Cal-zeh-dah,” is a derivative of the Latin for “Smooth-Stone.”

Naming 59

Naming Hiring Technical Review Virginia 59

Startup Professionals Musings

SEPTEMBER 7, 2011

Develop your business plan. Write down the key elements of your business plan very early, and keep it current as things evolve. Product development process. Billing and revenue collection. It all has to be written down and maintained.

Startup 255

Startup Institutional Investors Angel Investor Bootstrapping 255

Startup Lessons Learned

JANUARY 2, 2009

We were even more embarrassed by the pathetically small number of customers we had, and the pathetically low amount of revenue we had earned so far. We’d always cringe as we admitted that, no, we really only had a few thousand customers and a few thousand dollars in monthly revenue. Retention cohort analysis. I am chugging along.

San Francisco 60

San Francisco Tampa Continuous Deployment Lean 60

Startup Professionals Musings

AUGUST 1, 2010

Develop your business plan. Write down the key elements of your business plan very early, and keep it current as things evolve. Product development process. Billing and revenue collection. It all has to be written down and maintained.

Startup 239

Startup Institutional Investors Angel Investor Bootstrapping 239

Startup Professionals Musings

JANUARY 31, 2013

Develop your business plan. Write down the key elements of your business plan very early, and keep it current as things evolve. Product development process. Billing and revenue collection. It all has to be written down and maintained.

Institutional Investors 230

Institutional Investors Angel Investor Bootstrapping Database 230

Startup Professionals Musings

MAY 31, 2014

That means they normally only invest in startups with a working product that has already been sold to at least one customer for full price (beta tests, giveaways and best friends don’t count). They are willing to cover marketing, inventory and scaling, but not product development. Make your focus and priorities clear.

Elevator Pitch 285

Elevator Pitch Salary Angel Investor Viral 285

Steve Blank

JANUARY 10, 2011

The VP of an operating division had run into trouble in product development; the product was late and getting later. The revenue plan had the new product baked into the numbers and it was clear that this division General Manager was going to crater his forecast (happens all the time, nothing new here.)

Forecast 271

Forecast Agile Founder Revenue 271

Startup Professionals Musings

JANUARY 12, 2013

See how many you have personally experienced already, or are currently mentioned in your business plan: Crowd-sourcing equity. Minimum Viable Product (MVP). It suggests the minimum features to allow the product to be deployed and get feedback, and no more. Gamification. Startup pivot.

Entrepreneur 274

Entrepreneur Accredited Investor Silicon Valley Angel Investor 274

Steve Blank

AUGUST 18, 2010

We were lucky to learn about Customer Development early on in the life of our startup. It made more sense than our 60 page business plan predicated on a B-school class and a supernatural ability to predict the future. More importantly, we’d witnessed Customer Development’s massive success at another local startup.

Customer Development 231

Customer Development Developer Customer California 231

Startup Professionals Musings

OCTOBER 12, 2010

In business, one important measure is the value of the company. That’s because a company’s value is a composite of all of the quantitative and qualitative factors that comprise a company: revenues, expenses, risks, growth prospects, quality of the management team, competitive advantages, strength of the intellectual property, and so forth.

Intellectual Property 223

Intellectual Property .Net Valuation Distribution 223