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. Hiring Your Team. 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

The Startup Magazine

OCTOBER 19, 2020

Capturing and analyzing data enables companies to get insights that benefit their companies in cost-saving, relevant marketing, product development, etc. These days, instead of hiring an MBA from a big university, companies need Data Scientists. These metrics rely on the historical economic activity of the business.

Technical Review 158

Technical Review Forecast Analytics Social Media 158

ReadWriteStart

NOVEMBER 10, 2010

Today, brands are hiring social media specialists for customer support, crowdsourced product development, promotions and even leads generation. Internal resistance, non-standardized metrics, multiple (and confusing) platforms and lack of resources prove great obstacles to planning. Hiring The Right Candidate.

Social Media 134

Social Media Media Programming Viral 134

YoungUpstarts

JULY 16, 2019

Have you developed any vision of a product development strategy? And keep in mind that the best option is to develop at least 5 domain names connected to your brand’s name to find an unoccupied domain. At least 6 team members should participate in your product development. What slogan do you see there?

eCommerce 113

eCommerce Software Development Software Developers Hosting 113

Feld Thoughts

NOVEMBER 18, 2013

They close on the $750k, hire a buddy or two, buy some Macs, and get to work. ASC starts building product, but as they get into the thick of it, the team realizes executing on their vision is going to be extremely hard. No updates, screen comps, or metrics have been publicly shared yet. Heads down on product, they say.

Burn Rate 153

Burn Rate Equity Software Review Early Stage 153

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 Professionals Musings

SEPTEMBER 14, 2016

Cash flow is a basic survival metric for every startup. Hire a professional marketing and public relations agency once you have a good revenue stream but you don’t need them to start a free blog, establish Facebook and Twitter accounts with initial content and complete the basics of search engine optimization.

Burn Rate 120

Burn Rate Hockey Stick Startup Salary 120

Startup Lessons Learned

APRIL 29, 2013

Last year, the co -founders of B ack to the Roots talked about their innovation accounting and how they were ignoring sales metrics in order to grow. You can give advice about applying Lean Startup ideas to business areas other than product development. George Bilbrey gave insight on using the methods on a sales team.

Lean 165

Lean Technical Review Startup Software Review 165

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

Brandanew

APRIL 25, 2016

Hire external writers. Don’t fall for every vanity metric out there. You can spend your energy towards client acquisition, collaboration, and product development. Depending on the audience you’re targeting focus on channels that will convert. You will need internal or external resources for this job.

Marketing 100

Marketing Curation Channel Small Business 100

ConversionXL

APRIL 3, 2018

Amazon has hired more people for their Alexa division than Google has for the entire company – it’s not hunch, this is going to be the focus. Hire & fire – tools to do a job. Understand growth accounting – new, resurrected vs churned = net growth (can also look at this at feature level, not only product).

Retention 106

Retention Artificial Inteligence Channel Email 106

ConversionXL

APRIL 13, 2017

Call it whatever you like, but when businesses are hiring for any of those titles they simply want somebody who can generate lots of quality leads for as little cash as possible.”. The Growth Manager usually reports either to the CEO, the vice president of Product Management, or the vice president of Marketing. Product vs. Growth?

Analytics 99

Analytics Engineer SEO Channel 99

Steve Blank

MAY 14, 2012

These founders specify, design, and build a fully featured product using classic product development methods without ever leaving their building. Executives look at that date and the calendar, working backward to ignite fireworks on the day the product is launched. Executing on a sales and marketing plan.

Balance Sheet 335

Balance Sheet Business Model Customer Development Metrics 335

Startup Professionals Musings

MAY 30, 2022

Growth is more than simply repackaging existing products, and adding bells and whistles or slick incentives. Hire more help than helpers. In addition to fresh products, you need people smarter than you for real help, with the right combination of skills, experience, and passion to foster and manage new growth.

Mezzanine 368

Mezzanine Private Equity Bandwidth Metrics 368

Steve Blank

JULY 30, 2009

.&# Most startups tend to think they are selling into an Existing market – a market exists and your company has a faster and better product. If that’s you, by all means hire a VP of Sales with a great rolodex and call on established mainstream companies – and ignore the rest of this post.

Silicon Valley 146

Silicon Valley RSS California Customer Development 146

View from Seed

OCTOBER 15, 2014

Team: Hires, fires, departures, responsibility changes, major promotions, and your org chart. Hiring is also essential and may appear regularly, though it will fluctuate in volume and urgency. A seed-stage mobile startup’s housekeeping section might look something like this: Section 3: Core Metrics.

Seed Stage 331

Seed Stage Cap Table Metrics Burn Rate 331

Up and Running

MAY 23, 2016

If you don’t yet have a team yet, list the roles you need to hire for. If you don’t yet have a team yet, list the roles you need to hire for. 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. The business model.

Software Review 74

Software Review Software Delaware Forecast 74

Women Entrepreneurs Can

OCTOBER 19, 2021

You may also consider ensuring that you hire different people, for different parts of your software. Hiring a smaller team may seem more cost-efficient at the start, but taking shortcuts and trying to cover everything without the relevant skills and experience, can hinder your product development later down the line.

Software 59

Software Software Development Software Developers Hiring 59

Startup Professionals Musings

DECEMBER 7, 2022

There is no magic lever for growth, so several initiatives are required, with metrics to assess value returned. Manual processes and people are always the most expensive to scale, so every process needs metrics to determine when automation is appropriate. Introduce new products and enhancements every month. Marty Zwilling.

Startup 335

Startup Social Media Metrics Viral 335

Version One Ventures

OCTOBER 31, 2016

The evolution of the growth function changed this dynamic, mashing together product dev and marketing as integrated functions. About five years ago, we saw the early waves of growth – typically an individual or two (“growth hackers”) who were championing growth within product development.

Software Review 60

Software Review South Africa Hockey Stick Viral 60

Startup Professionals Musings

MARCH 9, 2020

There is no magic lever for growth, so several initiatives are required, with metrics to assess value returned. Manual processes and people are always the most expensive to scale, so every process needs metrics to determine when automation is appropriate. Introduce new products and enhancements every month. Marty Zwilling.

Social Media 329

Social Media Metrics Viral Channel 329

betashop.com

OCTOBER 8, 2012

I firmly believe that in this age where the product development life-cycle is so short and user feedback comes so quickly, you will know within a year whether you are focusing on a worthwhile one thing. The most important hiring criteria for your executives is cultural fit. As CEO, you are responsible for every hire.

Technical Review 108

Technical Review Technology Software Review Valuation 108

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. Sometimes we have hiring opportunities or development opportunities.

Entrepreneur 139

Entrepreneur Jordan Non-Compete Community 139

Startup Professionals Musings

SEPTEMBER 1, 2019

Growth is more than simply repackaging existing products, and adding bells and whistles or slick incentives. Hire more help than helpers. In addition to fresh products, you need people smarter than you for real help, with the right combination of skills, experience, and passion to foster and manage new growth.

Mezzanine 244

Mezzanine Private Equity Startup Bandwidth 244

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

Startup Professionals Musings

NOVEMBER 3, 2013

Growth is more than simply repackaging existing products, and adding bells and whistles or slick incentives. Hire more help than helpers. In addition to fresh products, you need people smarter than you for real help, with the right combination of skills, experience, and passion to foster and manage new growth.

Mezzanine 240

Mezzanine Private Equity Bandwidth Metrics 240

Startup Professionals Musings

MAY 4, 2014

This will include the first version of many critical processes that can be split out later, including market opportunity, requirements, product definition, business model, sales process, and organization. Product development process. If you are contracting or outsourcing, this is even more important. Manage human resources.

Startup 268

Startup Institutional Investors Angel Investor Bootstrapping 268

Startup Professionals Musings

MAY 23, 2012

New product development process. Proper hiring of people with a natural curiosity, open-mindedness, and ability to see the big picture is the way to create and enhance the right mind-set. Product life cycles keep getting shorter and shorter, which mandates accelerated innovation cycles. Training and coaching.

Intellectual Property 247

Intellectual Property IP Valuation .Net 247

Startup Professionals Musings

MARCH 9, 2011

New product development process. Proper hiring of people with a natural curiosity, open-mindedness, and ability to see the big picture is the way to create and enhance the right mind-set. Product life cycles keep getting shorter and shorter, which mandates accelerated innovation cycles. Training and coaching.

Intellectual Property 234

Intellectual Property IP Valuation .Net 234

Startup Professionals Musings

SEPTEMBER 7, 2011

This will include the first version of many critical processes that can be split out later, including market opportunity, requirements, product definition, business model, sales process, and organization. Product development process. If you are contracting or outsourcing, this is even more important. Manage human resources.

Startup 255

Startup Institutional Investors Angel Investor Bootstrapping 255

www.lanceglasser.com

MAY 13, 2012

Metrics for cyclical businesses. Product development. Queuing theory and product development. The Essential Product Investigation Phase Gate. For how to manage that see, for instance, Queuing theory and product development or take some time to investigate resource management tools.)

CTO 40

CTO CTO Hire Technical Review Architecture 40

Startup Professionals Musings

AUGUST 1, 2010

This will include the first version of many critical processes that can be split out later, including market opportunity, requirements, product definition, business model, sales process, and organization. Product development process. If you are contracting or outsourcing, this is even more important. Manage human resources.

Startup 239

Startup Institutional Investors Angel Investor Bootstrapping 239

Steve Blank

JANUARY 10, 2011

The VP of an operating division had run into trouble in product development; the product was late and getting later. The revenue plan had the new product baked into the numbers and it was clear that this division General Manager was going to crater his forecast (happens all the time, nothing new here.) Lie to My Face.

Forecast 271

Forecast Agile Founder Revenue 271

Startup Professionals Musings

JANUARY 31, 2013

This will include the first version of many critical processes that can be split out later, including market opportunity, requirements, product definition, business model, sales process, and organization. Product development process. If you are contracting or outsourcing, this is even more important. Manage human resources.

Institutional Investors 230

Institutional Investors Angel Investor Bootstrapping Database 230

Up and Running

JULY 26, 2016

Selling a product is a tough process, full of “no’s,” whether they come on the phone with a prospect or as a low conversion rate on your landing page. This is what our hiring landscape looked like over the past year: Pre-2015, we hired three founders: 1x hustler in charge of strategic growth hacking. Big press (cheap or free).

Revenue 60

Revenue Acquisition Channel Campaign 60

Version One Ventures

NOVEMBER 28, 2018

Be myopically focused on product-market fit and don’t waste your time on things that won’t contribute to achieving this goal. By fostering a metrics mindset in your organization from the start, you can run experiments more effectively and efficiently as you work on product-market fit. How to hire. Start to be data driven.

Seed Stage 163

Seed Stage Portfolio Metrics Hiring 163