Customer Development for Web Startups(steveblank.com) |
Customer Development for Web Startups(steveblank.com) |
* Rapid growth
* Frenzied hiring
* Profitability relatively late in the game
* Focus on the product and passionate users (ala Paul Buchheit and Gmail)
* Focus on exactly how you make money from that product
* Hire incrementally at (or just before) the point you are profitable
* Accept slower (less fashionable and exciting ?) growth
It also has the added advantage of freeing you from the hand of the VCs and looking over you shoulder fretting about your burn rate.
* Rapid growth, Frenzied hiring and Profitability relatively late in the game "
If anything, Steve Blank reccomends a strategy completely opposed to the above. Read his book. The flowchart may make more sense then?
Once you have product/market fit, you have the semblance of a business. You transition towards growth from there.
I just don't like the idea of hiring "managers" before profitability is reached. Seems crazy to me.
My interpretation of this process for a Web startup is getting to transition using just the founders (plus advisors).
It is different than the stereotypical valley mindset because the dotcom companies scaled before they knew that they had found a real problem, created the right solution, and sorted out a business model that could scale with more manpower behind it.