Startup Professionals Musings

JANUARY 14, 2023

Simply stated, it means that your business has the potential to multiply revenue with minimal incremental cost. A software product is a classic example of a scalable solution, since it costs real money to build the first copy, but unlimited additional copies can be quickly cloned for almost no incremental cost.

Hockey Stick 339

Hockey Stick Intellectual Property Non-Compete Business Model 339

Startup Professionals Musings

FEBRUARY 26, 2013

Traction is evidence that your product or service has started that “hockey- stick” adoption rate which implies a large market, a valid business model, and sustainable growth. A graph that shows a hockey-stick “up and to the right” curve with at least three data points per key indicator is a great visual assist.

Hockey Stick 266

Hockey Stick Early Stage Metrics Acquisition 266

Startup Professionals Musings

SEPTEMBER 7, 2013

Simply stated, it means that your business has the potential to multiply revenue with minimal incremental cost. A software product is a classic example of a scalable solution, since it costs real money to build the first copy, but unlimited additional copies can be quickly cloned for almost no incremental cost.

Hockey Stick 278

Hockey Stick Intellectual Property Startup Non-Compete 278

This is going to be BIG.

JULY 26, 2010

The only concern was that they didn’t know what their cost of customer acquisition was, nor did they which channels would be most effective, or how much they could acquire out of each channel. You can spend the next six weeks trying out a bunch of different channels and seeing what works, which is what we recommended.

Acquisition 139

Acquisition Hockey Stick Customer SEM 139

ConversionXL

FEBRUARY 19, 2016

You get more traffic, more conversions, more money – in an endless hockey stick shaped cycle. You can usually tell this is the case when your SEO traffic converts well below other acquisition channels. Also note that often, organic traffic is one of the highest converting channels. Of course, it’s not so simple.

SEO 48

SEO Technical Review Algorithm Software Review 48

Startup Professionals Musings

APRIL 6, 2016

It’s more possible to bootstrap today than a few years ago, as the cost of entry continues to go down. Likewise, too many volunteers and interns will only increase your workload and rework costs. Use multiple social-media channels, blogging, email and voicemail to build the same image and responsiveness as larger competitors.

Bootstrapping 120

Bootstrapping Hockey Stick Sweat Equity Intellectual Property 120

Startup Professionals Musings

FEBRUARY 14, 2016

Simply stated, it means that your business has the potential to multiply revenue with minimal incremental cost. A software product is a classic example of a scalable solution, since it costs real money to build the first copy, but unlimited additional copies can be quickly cloned for almost no incremental cost.

Hockey Stick 120

Hockey Stick Intellectual Property Non-Compete Business Model 120

Startup Professionals Musings

JANUARY 11, 2015

Simply stated, it means that your business has the potential to multiply revenue with minimal incremental cost. A software product is a classic example of a scalable solution, since it costs real money to build the first copy, but unlimited additional copies can be quickly cloned for almost no incremental cost.

Hockey Stick 120

Hockey Stick Intellectual Property Non-Compete Business Model 120

Duct Tape Marketing

JULY 26, 2017

Though I would say based on the numbers that I see it’s not like a hockey stick growth, but the growth in people’s desire to listen to the content and people’s desire to create terrific podcast content has really never been higher. I am on an AT 2035, but I do run it through a two channel mixer.

Audio 60

Audio Programming Software Review Hosting 60

Hippoland

AUGUST 8, 2018

Forget about traction and hockey stick growth. Very simply, your cost to acquire a customer needs to be lower than the value of that customer (lifetime value). Ads can also be cost-per-click or cost-per-action ads. Another way is to have unique promotion channels, but these must be scalable.

Founder 48

Founder Sales Cycle Affiliate Retention 48

Hippoland

AUGUST 8, 2018

Forget about traction and hockey stick growth. Very simply, your cost to acquire a customer needs to be lower than the value of that customer (lifetime value). Ads can also be cost-per-click or cost-per-action ads. Another way is to have unique promotion channels, but these must be scalable.

Founder 48

Founder Sales Cycle Affiliate Retention 48

Up and Running

APRIL 28, 2015

Finding and winning customers can sometimes be the biggest challenge for a startup, so it’s important to show that you have a solid grasp of how you will reach your target market and what sales channels you plan on using. Investors see “hockey stick” projections all the time and will mentally be cutting your projections in half.

Forecast 60

Forecast Hockey Stick Exit Strategy Intellectual Property 60

ConversionXL

APRIL 3, 2019

Then they noticed that they’d been cannibalizing other channels—people converting as referrals were leads already acquired from other channels. Incentives work, but they might work too well and convert people who are not really into the service/product or cannibalize other channels. It costs money to learn. Conclusion.

Artificial Inteligence 114

Artificial Inteligence Technical Review Metrics SEO 114

Steve Blank

NOVEMBER 8, 2010

Describing your product as “new and “never been done before” instead of “we’re just like those others guys, but better” could cost your company billions. This results in a much slower adoption curve – the classic hockey stick. RIM and TiVo are two examples of getting it right and wrong. Research in Motion (RIM).

Hockey Stick 279

Hockey Stick Customer Development Silicon Valley Networking 279

Steve Blank

SEPTEMBER 10, 2009

With that implicit assumption, startups hire a VP of Sales with a great rolodex and call on established mainstream companies while marketing creates a brand and buzz to create demand and drive it into the sales channel (web, direct salesforce, etc.) Even more serious, startups can have radically different cash needs. End result?

Customer Development 223

Customer Development Developer Customer Silicon Valley 223