Yesterday I had the privilege of attending a talk at London Business School by Steve Blank—serial entrepreneur (two IPOs), adjunct professor at Stanford, and one of the fathers of the Lean Startup and Customer Development movements. Alongside Eric Ries and…
“After the crash, venture capital was scarce to non-existent. (Most of the funds that started in the late part of the boom would be underwater). Angel investment, which was small to start with, disappeared, and most corporate VCs shut down.…
Last week LinkedIn reminded me that it's been 9 years since I started VC Cafe (Dec 2005). Several people sent their congratulations (thank you btw), and it reminded me it's been a while since I blogged regularly. I prefer springing into action rather than being sentimental, but I thought a little summary and a selection of highlights may inspire someone who is thinking about blogging to share their thoughts through this medium.
Most startups will fail in their first two years of operation and only one percent of the startups that pitch to VCs will end up receiving funding.
Why do so many founders build things no one wants? Because they begin by trying to think of startup ideas. – Paul Graham, Ycombinator Picks and Axes In his list of startup ideas for Ycombinator applicants, one category in particular…
This was just too good not to share. In a nutshell, start by talking to customers. Come up with a minimum viable product and test product market fit. Avoid building junk that users aren't asking for. Did you find something that is repeatable and scalable in your tests? now it's time to find a business model that captures the value for the product or service you are providing to customers.
Three months ago, Bjoern Herrmann and 21 year old Max Marmer decided to put some hard data to the test, by benchmarking 3,200 statrups on 25 KPIs (Key Performance Indicators) in their very buzzed Startup Genome Report. They didn't stop at just writing reports, and have put together a startup accelerator in Silicon Valley, called Blackbox.
Contrary to popular belief, failing fast and failing cheap could actually do a disservice to your startup. VC Cafe takes a contrarian view on this popular startup piece of advice.
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