The latest from TechCrunch
- What Makes A Startup Successful? Blackbox Report Aims To Map The Startup Genome
- (Founder Stories) Gilt's Kevin Ryan—It Is All In The Presentation (TCTV)
- The Ultimate Guide To Disrupt NYC 2011
| What Makes A Startup Successful? Blackbox Report Aims To Map The Startup Genome | Top |
| Generally speaking, the odds are stacked heavily against the average startup. The rate of failure among entrepreneurs and startups is startlingly high — it comes with the territory. Otherwise, entrepreneurs wouldn’t be pirates . But, what if there were a way to reduce that failure rate by cracking the formula of startup success? No easy feat to map the double helix of startups, but entrepreneurs are risk-takers by nature, so four of these risk-loving international entrepreneurs came together to found the Startup Genome Report , a report that is part of a larger project that dives into the very anatomy of what makes Silicon Valley startups successful — or not. The entrepreneurs who founded the Startup Genome report (Bjoern Herrmann, Max Marmer, Fadi Bishara, Aleksandra Markova), have also created a business accelerator called Blackbox , which will be leveraging the data they have collected (and will collect) from their ambitious R&D enterprise. The Startup Genome Report, as it is today, is a 44 page analysis on data collected from 650+ web startups. The entrepreneurs recruited both UC Berkeley and Stanford faculty members, like Steve Blank , the Sandbox Network team, the Startup Bootcamp team, and the Pollenizer team, to help coauthor and contribute to the study. The goal of the report is to lay the foundation for a new framework for assessing startups more effectively by measuring the thresholds and milestones of development that Internet startups move through. Blackbox, which was co-founded by techVenture and other organizations that have a track record of working with 100+ startups, including 15 exits (such as Bebo, Tapulous & Lala), hopes to use the Startup Genome Report as a cipher to help crack the innovation code, and give fledgling entrepreneurs and startups from around the world access to the characteristics and qualities that make Silicon Valley companies successful. Here are 14 of the most interesting trends identified by the Startup Genome Report, some of which are intuitive and some of which may come as a surprise. Among them? Investors may be less help than they think. Take a look: Founders that learn are more successful: Startups that have helpful mentors, track metrics effectively, and learn from startup thought leaders raise 7x more money and have 3.5x better user growth. Startups that pivot once or twice times raise 2.5x more money , have 3.6x better user growth, and are 52% less likely to scale prematurely than startups that pivot more than 2 times or not at all. Many investors invest 2-3x more capital than necessary in startups that haven't reached problem solution fit yet. They also over-invest in solo founders and founding teams without technical cofounders despite indicators that show that these teams have a much lower probability of success. Investors who provide hands-on help have little or no effect on the company’s operational performance . But the right mentors significantly influence a company's performance and ability to raise money. (However, this does not mean that investors don't have a significant effect on valuations and M&A) Solo founders take 3.6x longer to reach scale stage compared to a founding team of 2 and they are 2.3x less likely to pivot. Business-heavy founding teams are 6.2x more likely to successfully scale with sales driven startups than with product centric startups. Technical-heavy founding teams are 3.3x more likely to successfully scale with product-centric startups with no network effects than with product-centric startups that have network effects. Balanced teams with one technical founder and one business founder raise 30% more money , have 2.9x more user growth and are 19% less likely to scale prematurely than technical or business-heavy founding teams. Most successful founders are driven by impact rather than experience or money. Founders overestimate the value of IP before product market fit by 255%. Startups need 2-3 times longer to validate their market than most founders expect. This underestimation creates the pressure to scale prematurely. Startups that haven't raised money over-estimate their market size by 100x and often misinterpret their market as new. Premature scaling is the most common reason for startups to perform worse. They tend to lose the battle early on by getting ahead of themselves. B2C vs. B2B is not a meaningful segmentation of Internet startups anymore because the Internet has changed the rules of business. We found 4 different major groups of startups that all have very different behavior regarding customer acquisition, time, product, market and team. If you’re interested in learning more, detailed analysis of each of these points can be found in the full Startup Genome Report . The team is also introducing a new survey that aims to help entrepreneurs understand the stage their startup is in and gives them personalized tips and advice for what to focus on based on data from the research project. The more data the project collects, the more accurate its conclusions become, and the more entrepreneurs and their startups can benefit from that knowledge, so check it out here . CrunchBase Information blackbox Startup Genome Project Information provided by CrunchBase | |
| (Founder Stories) Gilt's Kevin Ryan—It Is All In The Presentation (TCTV) | Top |
| Chris Dixon wraps his Founder Stories interview with Gilt Groupe's CEO and Founder, Kevin Ryan by discussing the early sales strategy of Gilt – a strategy that was designed to build customer and brand loyalty, but not the bottom line, at least initially. Revisiting the launch period around four years ago, Ryan says, “we were going to make $4,000 for us on a sale and I spent $7,000 on the photo shoot, and you would say that is not a good business model, but what happened was the brands loved it, the customers loved it … and so now we sell $100,000, $200,000, $300,000 …. on a sale.” The benefit was clear. Businesses liked selling excess items online in a classy environment and customers liked buying them at discount. While the idea was gold, Ryan was quick to point out it was probably the least important part of the equation. He goes on to say, the key to success is “execution, and execution is hiring great people, managing them well and moving quickly.” If you missed any part of Dixon’s interview with Ryan make sure to watch the entire clip below, or Part 1 and Part II separately. Prior episodes of Founder Stories including Foursquare, GroupMe, and Tumblr are here . CrunchBase Information Kevin Ryan Gilt Groupe Chris Dixon Information provided by CrunchBase | |
| The Ultimate Guide To Disrupt NYC 2011 | Top |
| The latest Disrupt has wrapped, but given the volume of news it created and the rate at which posts were pushing each other off the front page, you could be forgiven for missing a few items or videos here and there. Don’t worry, though: we’ve got the highlights of the show collected right here. Actually, that’s not entirely true. We still have a ton of backstage talks and other footage we’re editing and processing, so expect more Disrupt content over the next week as we post these candid interviews with CEOs and Battlefield competitors. In the meantime, enjoy this central repository of all things Disrupt NYC 2011. Photos of the hackers working diligently …and continuing to work diligently deep into the night Video: Lora meets with some of the hackers and collects advice on how to maximize Hackathon time Video: Meet a 14-year-old self-taught hacker and his hack, BuyBy Video: the winning Hackathon demos and interviews with their creators Hacks : NerdNearby : finds tweeters and people checking in near you Gilt-ii : a second layer for shopping site Gilt that lets you auction off your reserved items Joinable : a cloud-based tool for providing email and voice mail to the homeless JoystiCC : lets you control other human beings like chess pieces? Dispatch.io : for easily sharing local documents to cloud services like Google Apps Docracy : allows for collaboration and version tracking on legal documents Interviews, panels, and Fireside Chats (with video and transcript): Fred Wilson: “Be your own bitch” Dennis Crowley talks about worldwide Foursquare adoption and his Gap sweater Arianna Huffington and Michael Arrington discuss the AOL acquisition, Mapquest, and orzo Ron Conway and David Lee on their new fund and myths of entrepreneurship Nora Ephron, Jay Rosen, and Arianna Huffington discuss new media Dave Morin shows off Stacks and explains why they declined to be acquired Charlie Cheever discusses Quora’s growth and why they don’t intend to sell Jeff Jarvis urges transparency in new media journalism and calls Bill Keller “obnoxious” Tim Armstrong explains how paid content can work Disrupting music with social Disrupting social commerce Battlefield session one: disrupting search and discovery: Do@ : a slick search engine that searches using apps instead of the web Rexly : a media recommendation engine based on trusted social graph connections Weotta : plans an outing for you based on mood and intention Skylines : a personalized photo stream based on topics and keywords, instead of people Deja : a flashy interface for video discovery and consumption Battlefield session two: disrupting location, location, location SpotOn : recommends places to go nearby, based on your own social network information Karizma : a video chatting app that connects you with people nearby Sonar : find people by you who you don’t know but should know, based on mutual connections Arrived : a location-aware social planning app that tells you what to do now that you’ve arrived Gnonstop Gnome : an experimental gnome-sharing application with a clever transfer method Battlefield session three: disrupting commerce SneakPeeq : a social shopping site that counts down prices until someone buys an item StyleSeat : a powerful job management system for stylists and other independent operators Spenz : deep spending tracking app with a reward system for usage BillGuard : “Antivirus for bills” that identifies fraudulent charges on your bank account Happy Toy Machine : a plush toy customization engine, “Build-a-Bear on steroids” Bonus link: The TechCrunch Disrupt Official Drinking Game Interviews, panels, and fireside chats: Paul Graham on the Y Combinator process Ashton Kutcher lays out his investment strategies Bing Gordon weighs in on Facebook and Zynga ( and drops some rhyme science ) David Karp and Kevin Systrom on managing hockey-stick growth Roelof Botha: RIP Good Times was no mistake Disrupting display advertising Disrupting publishing, from links to tablets Chris Dixon, Ron Conway, and Eric Hippeau discuss the New York startup scene Battlefield session four: disrupting the real world Desmos : a platform for rich educational content Smartheart : world’s smallest hospital-grade ECG and an iPhone app to go along with it Avado : a tracking and communication platform for doctors and patients MotherKnows : an app for keeping track of all your kids’ important medical data from shots to height Battlefield session five, disrupting enterprise Getaround : rent nearby cars or put yours up for rent, with a special keyfob and app Thinkfuse : richer, shareable status reports for your business ccLoop : collects emails into subscribable “loops,” reducing email clutter ThriftDB : a powerful database tool that’s difficult to describe but very impressive to watch Foretuit : a platform for collaborating on and tracking projects and sales InvoiceASAP : a mobile invoicing app with cloud backup and media integration Battlefield session six, disrupting something else Lumier : no one is quite sure what Lumier is – possibly a skin for Windows Meporter : a citizen journalism platform aimed at hyper-local news Everything Butt Art : an iPad app for teaching kids to draw, relying on butt-based drawings (yes, really) CatchFree : a platform for finding, rating, and recommending free services Kohort : a unified service for managing groups and events Tracks : “Color for normal people,” creates collaborative picture timelines for events Codeguard : an enterprise-level website backup system for consumers Bonus link: Lark launches in Apple stores (plus an onstage proposal ) Interviews, panels, and fireside chats: Google bets on NFC Chris Farmer, a partner at General Catalyst, reveals the top 10 venture capital firms John Biggs talks with Yancey Strickler of Kickstarter as well as a few of Kickstarter’s more successful projects Security and performance booster CloudFlare reveals some impressive stats Electric vs efficiency with Brammo CEO Craig Bramscher and EcoMotors CEO Don Runkle Office hours with Paul Graham: The investor brings entrepreneurs from the audience onstage to hash out their ideas The first Disrupt NYC winner Soluto offers some cool new features Qwiki lets you Qwiki yourself Fireside chat with Christopher Poole of Canvas Networks and 4chan Mike Arrington interviews Marissa Mayer The final Battlefield session | |
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