ConversionXL

SEPTEMBER 6, 2013

So What is Customer Development? Steve Blank, a serial entrepreneur in Silicon Valley, developed a methodology for creating businesses that runs in parallel with the traditional product development process. The core idea behind customer development is that the assumptions you make about a target market are only guesses.

Customer Development 126

Customer Development Conversion Developer Customer 126

Startup Lessons Learned

OCTOBER 20, 2008

Lessons Learned by Eric Ries Monday, October 20, 2008 The engineering managers lament I was inspired to write The product managers lament while meeting with a startup struggling to figure out what had gone wrong with their product development process. Good luck, engineering manager. It was painful for a lot of people.

Software Review 164

Software Review Engineer Management Technical Review 164

View from Seed

MARCH 24, 2021

” Below are our favorite pieces from the past few years, divided in to a few key categories: fundraising, company building, product development, industry trends, and the life of a VC. Finance is about reporting on historical performance and future planning through the lens of financial metrics.”

Seed Stage 177

Seed Stage Hiring IPO Analytics 177

ConversionXL

AUGUST 30, 2018

It slows product development. The key is to connect user research to an improved user experience and, in turn, an increase in customer retention, leads, or any other metric for which C-suite members are accountable. The finance team understands that content customers are less likely to churn and destabilize revenue flows.

Design 111

Design Framework Product Development Technical Review 111

The Next Web

AUGUST 26, 2012

For this reason you should find out as quickly as possible if the product is indeed offering real value to your customers by looking at real data. The metrics that matter the most are returning customers (user retention), turnover per customer and viral growth (k-factor). Most start-ups fail.

Bankruptcy 121

Bankruptcy Technical Review Intellectual Property Due Diligence 121

Startup Professionals Musings

MAY 30, 2022

Very few startups are cash-rich enough to self-finance aggressive second-stage growth. They need a large infusion from venture capitalists, private equity, bank loans, or mezzanine financing. Switch your attention from product development to sales. Managing business growth is more than metrics.

Mezzanine 368

Mezzanine Private Equity Bandwidth Metrics 368

Steve Blank

MARCH 4, 2014

They measure their success on metrics that reflect success in execution, and they reward execution. 20 th century Management Tools for Execution In the 20 th century business schools and consulting firms developed an amazing management stack to assist companies to execute. Our Investment Readiness Level is just one of those metrics.)

IRR 335

IRR Startup Business Model Agile 335

Startup Lessons Learned

MAY 7, 2009

In the case of an entrepreneur pitching for finance, its the same fear that has them putting on a facade and not comfortable in what they do and dont know that will see them a long way off getting funded. Obviously they're not voicing their objections that way, but it isn't hard to read between the lines.

San Francisco 131

San Francisco Continuous Deployment Software Review Lean 131

Up and Running

MAY 23, 2016

Another great way to test your idea is to create a minimum viable product, or MVP. This is the simplest version of your product minus the frills and frosting. It’s a particularly popular strategy in the world of product development and is used to quickly and quantitatively test a product or a product feature.

Software Review 74

Software Review Software Delaware Forecast 74

View from Seed

OCTOBER 15, 2014

Examples of housekeeping include the following list, though not every item will appear every time: Finance: Cash out date, burn rate, 409A valuation, cap table, common/preferred stock dashboard. Finance is mission critical, for instance – it just appears on a recurring basis. Note that “housekeeping” doesn’t mean “not important.”

Seed Stage 331

Seed Stage Cap Table Metrics Burn Rate 331

View from Seed

NOVEMBER 18, 2014

Recently, we looked at our own portfolio at NextView Ventures to dig a little deeper on how startups actually raise that next round of financing. Foster product development and marketing which creates organic (or somewhat organic) user traction. Build Audience Momentum.

Syndicate 333

Syndicate Syndication Seed Stage Startup 333

A Smart Bear: Startups and Marketing for Geeks

MARCH 11, 2014

You have your general management meeting and in your general management meeting you talk about product development, about marketing and about finance. So again, none of this is me trying to say what you should do for product development, in fact, or what you should write in code in fact. Edwin: I know.

Technical Cofounder 220

Technical Cofounder Cofounder Software Review Management 220

Startup Lessons Learned

NOVEMBER 14, 2013

For instance, Brant Cooper will lead you through applying Lean Startup in HR, IT and finance teams. Patrick Sheridan will lead a workshop on bringing mobile development to established companies , especially for execs and team leaders. If there’s a problem in production, developers need to own it.

Continuous Deployment 162

Continuous Deployment Norway Lean Analytics 162

Up and Running

SEPTEMBER 6, 2016

To create this first year in business checklist, I turned to our in-house experts here at Palo Alto Software: Sabrina Parsons, CEO; Noah Parsons, COO; Josh Cochrane, Vice President of Product Development; and Josh Fegles, Academic and Government Channel Sales Director, and founder of gluten-free cookie company Jude’s Foods.

Forecast 60

Forecast Software Review Lean Finance 60

Hearpreneur

JULY 19, 2021

I love knowing that my business empowers lawyers to actually understand how marketing works and how to hold the vendors they work with (and often their own internal employees) accountable for their work in measurable, fair, and metrics-backed ways. Thanks to Shiv Gupta, Incrementors SEO Services ! #27- 27- The diversity it brings.

Entrepreneur 139

Entrepreneur Jordan Non-Compete Community 139

Steve Blank

NOVEMBER 21, 2015

Existing companies are starting to feel the pressures of new technologies and the massive wave of new entrants fueled by the explosion of investment from a recent form of financing – venture capital. By the 1920’s, in the Age of the Automobile and Oil, large companies sought to control the new product development process.

Silicon Valley 120

Silicon Valley Venture Capital United States Technical Review 120

David Teten

APRIL 1, 2021

As an agenda for each meeting, I suggest: – How can we most add value, in addition to helping with financing? Nick Kim , Crosscut’s Head of Platform, in his presentation at the 4th Annual VC Platform Summit, shared their Platform development methodology, which he viewed as an exercise in product development.

Private Equity 78

Private Equity Venture Capital Portfolio Equity 78

Genuine VC

MARCH 24, 2014

A couple years ago, my partner Lee penned a blog post about the milestone benchmarks for startups raising a Series A round of financing. The strategy here is to foster product development and marketing which creates overall (semi-)organic user momentum.

Seed Capital 212

Seed Capital Metrics Cofounder Revenue 212

Startup Professionals Musings

SEPTEMBER 1, 2019

Very few startups are cash-rich enough to self-finance aggressive second-stage growth. They need a large infusion from venture capitalists, private equity, bank loans, or mezzanine financing. Switch your attention from product development to sales. Managing business growth is more than metrics.

Mezzanine 244

Mezzanine Private Equity Startup Bandwidth 244

Startup Professionals Musings

NOVEMBER 3, 2013

Very few startups are cash-rich enough to self-finance aggressive second-stage growth. They need a large infusion from venture capitalists, private equity, bank loans, or mezzanine financing. Switch your attention from product development to sales. Managing business growth is more than metrics.

Mezzanine 240

Mezzanine Private Equity Bandwidth Metrics 240

conversionxl.com

SEPTEMBER 10, 2013

So What is Customer Development? Steve Blank, a serial entrepreneur in Silicon Valley, developed a methodology for creating businesses that runs in parallel with the traditional product development process. The core idea behind customer development is that the assumptions you make about a target market are only guesses.

Customer Development 60

Customer Development Conversion Developer Customer 60

www.lanceglasser.com

MAY 13, 2012

Finance and budgeting. Metrics for cyclical businesses. Product development. Queuing theory and product development. For how to manage that see, for instance, Queuing theory and product development or take some time to investigate resource management tools.) Let the Games Begin! Stock buybacks.

CTO 40

CTO CTO Hire Technical Review Architecture 40

mashable.com

MAY 24, 2011

May 23, 2011 by Christina Warren 20 Share on Tumblr email share Share on Tumblr email share The Mobile App Trends Series is supported by Sourcebits , a leading product developer for mobile platforms. Sourcebits offers design and development services for iOS, Android, Mobile and Web platforms.

Mobile 90

Mobile Web Social Media Software Review 90

Both Sides of the Table

JULY 1, 2010

He’s personally led more than 50 financing rounds. And finally, Scott demonstrated his internal management tool for managing the metrics of his business. Money to be used for hiring and additional product development. Offers two products: Palantir Government and Palantir Finance. It’s awesome.

San Francisco 248

San Francisco Venture Capital Analytics Mobile 248

Both Sides of the Table

NOVEMBER 8, 2011

But the most important metric has been the deep and lasting relationships that have been built with startups and also between senior executives. There were regular events where experts talked about: fund raising, term sheets, constructing a team, product development, establishing biz dev partners, M&A, dealing with the press, etc.

Los Angeles 287

Los Angeles Silicon Valley Incubator Startup 287

Steve Blank

SEPTEMBER 10, 2009

In future posts I’ll describe 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. Market Type also affects the market size as well as how you launch the product into the market.

Customer Development 222

Customer Development Developer Customer Silicon Valley 222

YoungUpstarts

JANUARY 7, 2013

2005 to Today: Retail, Manufacturing, Finance, Government Specific, etc. In a similar fashion, the evolution of IT over the decades has resulted in the change of platforms, resulting in the development of what is known as the 3rd Platform. 1990s to 2000: Infrastructure, Security, Management, etc.

Technology 174

Technology Singapore Malaysia Indonesia 174

Startup Professionals Musings

SEPTEMBER 13, 2017

Very few startups are cash-rich enough to self-finance aggressive second-stage growth. They need a large infusion from venture capitalists, private equity, bank loans, or mezzanine financing. Switch your attention from product development to sales. Managing business growth is more than metrics.

Mezzanine 141

Mezzanine Private Equity Startup Bandwidth 141

VC Adventure

MARCH 17, 2022

With the markets down significantly, financings (at least at the later stages) slowing down, and inflation and interest rates on the rise, perhaps now is a good time to talk about your burn rate. Hopefully, you took advantage of the robust financing markets of the past few years to put some money on your balance sheet.

Balance Sheet 92

Balance Sheet Burn Rate Metrics Valuation 92

Startup Professionals Musings

FEBRUARY 4, 2015

Very few startups are cash-rich enough to self-finance aggressive second-stage growth. They need a large infusion from venture capitalists, private equity, bank loans, or mezzanine financing. Switch your attention from product development to sales. Managing business growth is more than metrics.

Mezzanine 120

Mezzanine Private Equity Startup Bandwidth 120

BeyondVC

DECEMBER 10, 2009

So first and foremost, I let him know that while it was nice to have a well thought out spreadsheet, that the most important thing was getting the product developed and the right team in place. While many SAAS companies may collect cash monthly or quarterly, some collect annual fees by offering discounts by paying upfront.

Churn Rate 112

Churn Rate Burn Rate Startup Metrics 112

Startup Lessons Learned

JULY 6, 2011

Inspired by lessons from lean manufacturing, it relies on “validated learning,” rapid scientific experimentation, as well as a number of counter-intuitive practices that shorten product development cycles, measure actual progress without resorting to vanity metrics, and learn what customers really want.

Lean 167

Lean Startup Metrics Private Equity 167

maplebutter.com

JANUARY 8, 2013

Written By Dan Martell on February 2nd, 2012 | Category: Hiring LeanStartup Marketing Metrics Startup Life | 6 Comments. Building Product 2. Building Metrics / Usage Reports / KPI 3. Product/Metrics (70%/30% time) * Get your product activation (sign-up + meaningful action) to 60% * then, Get your product retention to 20% weekly.

Technical Review 44

Technical Review Startup Cofounder Software Review 44

YoungUpstarts

FEBRUARY 22, 2016

Many finance and strategy leaders are now being asked to lead and support innovation too, he adds. In fact, 67 percent of senior finance and accounting professionals now support innovation in some fashion versus only 35 percent 10 years ago. It’s true that what gets measured gets done.

Government 100

Government Channel Metrics Portfolio 100

Duct Tape Marketing

APRIL 27, 2022

You know, we're seeing multiple companies use it for product development and they're, they're using what they're hearing in their communities to make their product better and have a, a continuous conversation with, with a customer. And, and that third piece is really the insights piece.

Community 76

Community New York Small Business New York City 76

YoungUpstarts

FEBRUARY 11, 2019

No doubt you’re thinking about myriad administrative and organizational needs relating to accounting and finance, staffing, your product and service roadmap for the year and more. Today’s best SMB-focused CRMs capture metrics more effectively than ever before. by John Oechsle, President and CEO of Swiftpage.

Artificial Inteligence 127

Artificial Inteligence Sales Cycle Colorado Retention 127

K9 Ventures

OCTOBER 10, 2017

This post is intended to be a dynamic document, and I will attempt to update it from time to time with new questions that may arise or as financing trends evolve. Q: What amount of financing is considered Pre-Seed? It’s a legitimate stage of financing in the venture eco-system as of this writing (October 2017).

Seed Stage 82

Seed Stage Finance Later Stage Equity 82