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.

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Hockey Stick Early Stage Metrics Acquisition 266

Startup Professionals Musings

JANUARY 14, 2023

Focus on marketing and indirect channels to get the message out quickly. Organic growth (reinvesting profits only) will not allow you to build the “hockey stick” growth curve desired by premium buyers at exit, or financial analysts positioning you for public stock sale. Scaling requires leveraging outside resources.

Hockey Stick 339

Hockey Stick Intellectual Property Non-Compete Business Model 339

Version One Ventures

OCTOBER 31, 2016

As an investor and former founder, I know that scalable growth (and the pretty hockey stick graph) is the holy grail for every startup. For example, Zynga was originally built on top of viral Facebook channels. And Andrew understands growth strategy as well as anyone in the industry.

Software Review 60

Software Review South Africa Hockey Stick Viral 60

Startup Professionals Musings

SEPTEMBER 7, 2013

Focus on marketing and indirect channels to get the message out quickly. Organic growth (reinvesting profits only) will not allow you to build the “hockey stick” growth curve desired by premium buyers at exit, or financial analysts positioning you for public stock sale. Scaling requires leveraging outside resources.

Hockey Stick 278

Hockey Stick Intellectual Property Startup Non-Compete 278

Austin Startup

OCTOBER 24, 2017

Retention The scary reverse-hockey stick chart shows up in this report, too. As I’ve advocated for in the past, new users need longer onboarding periods across a variety of tactics and channels to get them excited about the app, drive exploration, and bring them back in after their initial session.

Retention 48

Retention Conversion Hockey Stick eCommerce 48

Steve Blank

NOVEMBER 8, 2010

This results in a much slower adoption curve – the classic hockey stick. TiVo had plenty of other battles to fight: competition, issues with channel partners, patent battles, as well as the movie studios, cable companies, broadcast networks and advertisers who all wanted TiVo dead. New Market Revenue Curve.

Hockey Stick 279

Hockey Stick Customer Development Silicon Valley Networking 279

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

Use multiple social-media channels, blogging, email and voicemail to build the same image and responsiveness as larger competitors. Investors have spread the word that you can’t get “hockey-stick” growth without a large cash infusion. Use your networking to get advice, but all jobs can be do-it-yourself.

Bootstrapping 120

Bootstrapping Hockey Stick Sweat Equity Intellectual Property 120

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?

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Customer Development Developer Customer Silicon Valley 222

Startup Professionals Musings

FEBRUARY 14, 2016

Focus on marketing and indirect channels to get the message out quickly. Organic growth (reinvesting profits only) will not allow you to build the “hockey stick” growth curve desired by premium buyers at exit, or financial analysts positioning you for public stock sale. Scaling requires leveraging outside resources.

Hockey Stick 120

Hockey Stick Intellectual Property Non-Compete Business Model 120

Startup Professionals Musings

JANUARY 11, 2015

Focus on marketing and indirect channels to get the message out quickly. Organic growth (reinvesting profits only) will not allow you to build the “hockey stick” growth curve desired by premium buyers at exit, or financial analysts positioning you for public stock sale. Scaling requires leveraging outside resources.

Hockey Stick 120

Hockey Stick Intellectual Property Non-Compete Business Model 120

Software By Rob

SEPTEMBER 17, 2013

VC companies need hockey stick growth. Channels can be smaller. Since escape velocity for a bootstrapper might mean having a few thousand customers, not a million customers, then you can focus on growth channels that have a much lower ceiling. Ugly growth, as long as you are growing, can be celebrated as a bootstrapper.

Hockey Stick 69

Hockey Stick Bootstrapping Cofounder Acquisition 69

This is going to be BIG.

JANUARY 21, 2010

Since we often invest before the big “hockey stick” traction that bigger VCs wait for, a lot of times the company is still trying to tweak exactly what service or application will take off in a given market. At First Round , I often hear the term “product-market” fit.

Product 68

Product Hockey Stick Entrepreneur Syndicate 68

ConversionXL

APRIL 10, 2020

No one cares about a team or individuals’ “experience” with platforms or channels. Hockey-stick growth requires being ahead of, not in line with, conventional wisdom: The most impactful ideas won’t be found in “best practices.” The solution isn’t just to learn a platform or channel. Mailchimp’s Willie Tran agrees.

Hockey Stick 68

Hockey Stick Analytics Channel Sales Cycle 68

Software By Rob

SEPTEMBER 17, 2013

VC companies need hockey stick growth. Channels can be smaller. Since escape velocity for a bootstrapper might mean having a few thousand customers, not a million customers, then you can focus on growth channels that have a much lower ceiling. Ugly growth, as long as you are growing, can be celebrated as a bootstrapper.

Hockey Stick 27

Hockey Stick Bootstrapping Cofounder Acquisition 27

Hippoland

AUGUST 8, 2018

Forget about traction and hockey stick growth. So you will likely get outspent on any paid marketing channel you may use to drive traffic to you at scale if there are other people trying to drive traffic to the same property. 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. So you will likely get outspent on any paid marketing channel you may use to drive traffic to you at scale if there are other people trying to drive traffic to the same property. 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. Identify and iterate down-funnel levers.

Artificial Inteligence 114

Artificial Inteligence Technical Review Metrics SEO 114

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 59

Audio Programming Software Review Hosting 59