Startup Professionals Musings

FEBRUARY 19, 2013

The “valley of death” is a common term in the startup world, referring to the difficulty of covering the negative cash flow in the early stages of a startup, before their new product or service is bringing in revenue from real customers. Commit to a major customer. It always reduces risk to plan your business first.

Intellectual Property 309

Intellectual Property Technical Review Venture Capital Startup 309

Startup Professionals Musings

JULY 14, 2014

The “valley of death” is a common term in the startup world, referring to the difficulty of covering the negative cash flow in the early stages of a startup, before their new product or service is bringing in revenue from real customers. Commit to a major customer. It always reduces risk to plan your business first.

Entrepreneur 283

Entrepreneur Intellectual Property Technical Review Incubator 283

Startup Professionals Musings

JANUARY 12, 2018

The “valley of death” is a common term in the startup world, referring to the difficulty of covering the negative cash flow in the early stages of a startup, before their new product or service is bringing in revenue from real customers. Commit to a major customer. Only one-third make it past their tenth anniversary.

Intellectual Property 134

Intellectual Property Technical Review Startup Incubator 134

Both Sides of the Table

SEPTEMBER 22, 2012

He also nails the reason why venture capital is still necessary to grow large businesses quickly in a world where the costs of running startups have fallen dramatically. After all, growth equals high valuations and loads of venture capital! It might be for technical reasons or it might be for customer adoption reasons.

Silicon Valley 390

Silicon Valley Venture Capital Startup Technical Review 390

Steve Blank

NOVEMBER 16, 2009

I was in New York last week with my class at Columbia University and several events made me realize that the Customer Development model needs to better describe its fit with web-based businesses. In it, I got asked a question I often hear: “What if we have a web-based business that doesn’t have revenue or paying customers?

Customer Development 228

Customer Development Web Developer Customer 228

Startup Professionals Musings

JULY 1, 2017

The “valley of death” is a common term in the startup world, referring to the difficulty of covering the negative cash flow in the early stages of a startup, before their new product or service is bringing in revenue from real customers. Commit to a major customer. It always reduces risk to plan your business first.

Product Development 177

Product Development Cost Developer Product 177

Both Sides of the Table

NOVEMBER 3, 2009

This is part of my ongoing series of posts and I need to file this one under both Raising Venture Capital and Startup Advice. The last couple of years has also seen the huge initial success of Ycombinator, the Lean Startup and many other product driven approaches to going to market. Let’s take your revenue line.

Business Plan 334

Business Plan AJAX Venture Capital Technical Review 334

Steve Blank

SEPTEMBER 7, 2009

Finally, I’ll write about how Eric Ries and the Lean Startup concept provided the equivalent model for product development activities inside the building and neatly integrates customer and agile development. Three to six months after first customer ship, if Sales starts missing its numbers, the board gets concerned.

Customer Development 233

Customer Development Developer Customer Silicon Valley 233

Startup Professionals Musings

JULY 8, 2015

The “valley of death” is a common term in the startup world, referring to the difficulty of covering the negative cash flow in the early stages of a startup, before their new product or service is bringing in revenue from real customers. Commit to a major customer. It always reduces risk to plan your business first.

Entrepreneur 120

Entrepreneur Intellectual Property Technical Review Incubator 120

Steve Blank

AUGUST 31, 2009

The first hint lies in its name; this is a product development model, not a marketing model, not a sales hiring model, not a customer acquisition model, not even a financing model (and we’ll also find that in most cases it’s even a poor model to use to develop a product.) Where Are the Customers? Product Development Diagram 1.

Customer Development 246

Customer Development Developer Customer Silicon Valley 246

SoCal CTO

MARCH 1, 2010

Startup Killer: the Cost of Customer Acquisition | For Entrepreneurs , February 2, 2010 Looks at the critical equation around customer acquisition cost vs. customer lifetime value similar to what I discussed in Startup Metrics but in more depth. Great stuff. This post looks at the implementation details of HTML 5 video.

Acquisition 150

Acquisition Cofounder Technical Cofounder Cost 150

Up and Running

MAY 28, 2015

We recently had Tim Berry, Palo Alto Software founder and business planning expert, present our Bplans audience with his latest advice on lean business planning. Start your lean business plan today: Download our Free Lean Plan Template one-page-pitch-download.pdf. I’m going to start with what’s a lean business plan.

Lean 60

Lean Business Plan Video Software Review 60

Both Sides of the Table

SEPTEMBER 28, 2014

So if your costs are $500,000 per month and you have $350,000 per month in revenue then your net burn (500-350) is equal to $150,000. But those of us with longer memories remember that the revenue line can move south very quickly when the market overall turns south. Gross burn is the total amount of money you are spending per month.

Burn Rate 383

Burn Rate Balance Sheet .Net Valuation 383

ReadWriteStart

APRIL 8, 2023

Customers will be even more comfortable with the introduction of voice commerce, another unicorn of the online shopping experience. Sustainability is the Queen In 2023, customers have become even more environmentally conscious, as recent statistics prove. million people and generate monthly revenue. Only in 2021, 72.9%

eCommerce 185

eCommerce Technical Review Software Review Analytics 185

Steve Blank

SEPTEMBER 24, 2009

Pattern Recognition One of the great things about being an entrepreneur is that you are constantly running a pattern recognition algorithm against a continual collection of customer and market data. Let’s Fire Our Customers Part of the DNA of great entrepreneurs is a bias towards decisive and immediate action. Get it done, now.

Customer 218

Customer Silicon Valley RSS California 218

Steve Blank

SEPTEMBER 14, 2009

Over the same 30 years, Venture Capital firms have honed their skills and strategies to match Wall Streets needs to achieve liquidity for their portfolio companies. One of the biggest mistakes entrepreneurs make is misunderstanding the role of venture capital investors. What Do VC’s Do?

Silicon Valley 237

Silicon Valley IPO Technical Review Venture Capital 237

View from Seed

OCTOBER 24, 2019

Some very early dollars may be required to assemble the early team, in which case I’d lean towards bringing on some angels who are willing to invest in a company at a very favorable price. There are always exceptions, on both the positive and negative side, and many companies really shouldn’t be raising venture capital at all.

Dilution 149

Dilution B2B Burn Rate Early Stage 149

VC Cafe

JANUARY 24, 2021

billion gamers worldwide will help the global games market generate revenues of $189.3 billion in revenue last year. According to Ark Invest’s research , revenue from virtual worlds will compound 17% annually from roughly $180 billion today to $390 billion by 2025. Fortnite alone made $1.8 Twitch stats in 2020.

Technical Review 207

Technical Review Audio Forecast Social Media 207

Steve Blank

AUGUST 5, 2010

Consumer Internet investing seems to have split off from traditional Venture Capital, and is creating a new category of VC’s: Lean VC’s. I think you can blame Customer and Agile Development for a small part of it. Electron-based Venture Capital. Quickly iterate the product in front of customers.

Lean 266

Lean Internet Silicon Valley Venture Capital 266

ReadWriteStart

JUNE 1, 2020

The primary source of your funds should be your paying customers, i.e., your business should generate enough revenues and profits to fund the growth and expansion. Any custom manufactured IoT device would require software development as well as hardware customization. Both of which are expensive and time-consuming.

Startup 150

Startup Entrepreneur Elevator Pitch Seed Stage 150

Steve Blank

MAY 28, 2009

Customer/Market Risk Versus Invention Risk One day I was having lunch with a VC sharing what I learned from my students. Our firm has a portfolio of companies across a broad range of markets and the way we look at it is pretty simple – the deals fall into two types: those with customer/market risk and those with invention risk.”

Vertical 167

Vertical Silicon Valley Marketing Customer 167

ReadWriteStart

FEBRUARY 21, 2021

Even if you have an angel investor or a venture capital (VC) firm backing you, you’ll have an abundance of expenses, limited income, and a finite amount of time before the money completely runs out. So what are the best ways to stay on the lean-side of things? Accordingly, you’ll need to be frugal.

Startup 106

Startup Software Review Open Source Technical Review 106

VC Cafe

JULY 26, 2020

“After the crash, venture capital was scarce to non-existent. ” Steve Blank, “Is the lean startup dead?” ” The Lean Startup movement started out of necessity. Ditch the business plan and when assumptions are proven wrong, pivot Customer Development: Build a product your customers want (vs.

Lean 214

Lean Seed Capital Startup Burn Rate 214

The Startup Magazine

MAY 26, 2024

Bucher, founder of venture capital firm Day One Ventures, was recently accepted into the Milken Institute’s membership program, with her official induction taking place at the prestigious global conference. As a general partner of Day One Ventures, she supports companies and founders who demonstrate this same dedication.

Los Angeles 78

Los Angeles Global Founder Venture Capital 78

SoCal CTO

FEBRUARY 2, 2011

There's a lot out there around Customer Development - read Steve Blank : Entrepreneurship as a Science – The Business Model/Customer Development Stack - Steve Blank , October 25, 2010 Checklists for Chaos, The Path to Success - Steve Blank , October 28, 2010 and reading about Lean, MVPs, etc. What do you really need to prove?

Valuation 198

Valuation Revenue Pre-Money Valuation Early Stage 198

Steve Blank

FEBRUARY 23, 2009

I was consulting for the two venture capital firms who between them put $12 million into my last failed startup. Yet when I talked to my venture capital friends, they said, “Well, that’s just how startups work. We’ve managed startups like this forever; there is no other way to manage them.”

Silicon Valley 133

Silicon Valley RSS Venture Capital Customer Development 133

Up and Running

NOVEMBER 15, 2017

Customer testimonials. Botanical Bounty needs to establish its reputation as a highly-efficient, high-potency medicinal herb grower, and one effective and inexpensive way to do that would be to lean on loyal customer testimonials in the company’s marketing strategy. Access startup capital. Potential strategies for growth.

Botswana 148

Botswana Business Plan Oregon Distribution 148

Both Sides of the Table

JUNE 22, 2011

Ah, but today’s Internet companies have real revenue! customers who paid for services often get burned. I’m looking for ones that understand that in order to build huge, meaningful companies they’ll need to likely build through these boom years and some lean ones. If you are interested the Vimeo is here.

Saudi Arabia 309

Saudi Arabia Valuation IPO Technical Review 309

Venture Chronicles

MAY 26, 2010

This is the “tastes great, less filling&# debate that recurs on a regular basis in the venture capital and entrepreneur communities. From Lean vs Fat Startups: The Disrupt Debate ]. I’d be willing to bet that more investors lose a great amount of aggregate capital here than at any other stage.

Lean 40

Lean Early Stage Valuation Startup 40

Steve Blank

AUGUST 20, 2013

What if we could increase productivity and stave the capital flight by helping Life Sciences startups build their companies more efficiently? on medical device revenues, regardless of profitability delays or cash-flow breakeven. Venture Capital Issues. Early stage Venture Capital for medical device startups has dried up.

Startup 304

Startup Venture Capital Lean IPO 304

Steve Blank

NOVEMBER 2, 2009

For those of you who have been following the discussion, a Lean Startup is Eric Ries ’s description of the intersection of Customer Development , Agile Development and if available, open platforms and open source. Over its lifetime a Lean Startup may spend less money than a traditional startup.

Lean 264

Lean Silicon Valley Startup RSS 264

Steve Blank

JULY 28, 2011

The combination of Venture Capital and technology entrepreneurship is one of the great business inventions of the last 50 years. The class will be a version of the Lean LaunchPad class we developed in the Stanford Technology Ventures Program , (the entrepreneurship center at Stanford’s School of Engineering).

Engineer 288

Engineer Silicon Valley United States Intellectual Property 288

Both Sides of the Table

OCTOBER 17, 2019

Just as I was getting the swing of things the world shifted beneath my feet and the stock market went into a free fall and venture capital all but shut down for nearly a year. I mentioned that we sold our position in Kyriba for > $1 billion but when we invested it had virtually no revenue. Over the past 2.5

IP 223

IP Intellectual Property IRR Cofounder 223

Steve Blank

DECEMBER 7, 2010

There are few courses which teach aspiring entrepreneurs the skills (business models, customer and agile development, design thinking, etc.) If you’ve read any of my previous posts, you know I believe that: 1) a product is just a part of a startup, but understanding customers, channel, pricing, etc. to optimize this search.

Wiki 319

Wiki Lean Management Business Model 319

Steve Blank

MARCH 18, 2011

Lean Startups/Back to Basics (2000-2010): No IPO’s, limited VC cash, lack of confidence and funding fuels “lean startup” era with limited M&A and even less IPO activity. VC’s worked with entrepreneurs to build profitable and scalable businesses, with increasing revenue and consistent profitability – quarter after quarter.

Internet 335

Internet IPO Silicon Valley Agile 335

David Teten

DECEMBER 16, 2015

The most common financial metrics ffVC asks companies to compare vs. budget are: Gross Revenue. Users/Customers. Customer Acquisition Cost (CAC). Customer Lifetime Value (CLTV). Monthly Recurring Revenue (MRR). Average Revenue Per Account. ff Venture Capital portfolio company. Gross Profit.

Metrics 60

Metrics Analytics Balance Sheet .Net 60

Up and Running

MARCH 27, 2014

Have you ever heard of the book The Lean Startup by Eric Ries? But I really believe that there are lessons in The Lean Startup for all businesses, big and small—including my own. Both of us believe wholeheartedly in the lean startup method for small businesses, and both of us have used it in our own businesses to great success.

Lean 95

Lean Startup Silicon Valley Small Business 95