Customer Development Finance Metrics 
Startup Lessons Learned
DECEMBER 23, 2009
Lessons Learned by Eric Ries Wednesday, December 23, 2009 Why vanity metrics are dangerous In a previous post, I defined two kinds of metrics: vanity metrics and actionable metrics. In this post, Id like to talk about the perils of vanity metrics. My personal favorite vanity metrics is "hits."
Steve Blank
AUGUST 21, 2013
Obviously there’s lots of bias built into the data – those who volunteered might be the better teams, the peer reviewers might be selecting for what we taught, funding is no metric for successful science let alone successful companies, etc. – but the difference in funding success is over 300%.
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Steve Blank
SEPTEMBER 14, 2009
We could for example, find warning signs in popular literature about e.g. finance suggesting rapid maturation in bond trading. My own metric is that you need experience >= 1.5 Or were they trained and raised in the bubble and M&A hype and still looking for some shortcut to liquidity? Warning sign? At best. ~ Is 20 years enough?
View from Seed
OCTOBER 24, 2019
Pre-seed investing should be super simple, so any signs of pro-rata rights, tranched financings, charging the company for value-added services, etc. As an inexperienced founder, you are very likely to take at least two rounds of financing before a series A, so the round to try to skip is any sort of second seed. should be avoided.
Feld Thoughts
NOVEMBER 18, 2013
Here’s the punchline: if you run your company as if you have closed a VC equity financing round even though you actually closed a convertible debt round, you’ll be in much better shape when it comes time to raise your Series A financing. Early customer development talks are going great which keeps the team really excited.
Startup Lessons Learned
APRIL 14, 2009
Every board meeting, the metrics of success change. Their product development team is hard at work on a next-generation product platform, which is designed to offer a new suite of products – but this effort is months behind schedule. Time-to-complete-a-sale is not a bad metric for validated learning at this stage.
Startup Lessons Learned
JANUARY 10, 2011
In fact, this crisis was at the heart of Steve Blank ’s original impetus to develop customer development as an alternative set of milestones to use for startups.) The course does not examine financing options or the composition of founding teams. I also frequently see the reverse. The class debuts in a few weeks.
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