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Why Misunderstanding Startup Metrics Can Cost You Your Business

Both Sides of the Table

There has been a lot of public debate over the past several weeks about whether it’s a good thing to be “gross margin positive” or not and commentary always reminds me that some people at startups don’t quite understand financial metrics or even how to think about which ones are healthy. So if you’re able to raise easily no problem.

Metrics 150
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6 Key Rules To Stay Competitive In The Digital World

Startup Professionals Musings

As a business advisor, I have to recommend even to established companies that they review and revamp their competitive strategy now, even if it appears to be working today. Simple metrics and your personal knowledge of the industry can’t keep up with all the relevant competitive forces. You need to be part of a larger ecosystem.

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8 Tactics To Make You A Fearless Business Innovator

Startup Professionals Musings

As a potential investor, I always think of the high rate of failure of disruptive technologies, due to the longer learning curve of customers, infrastructure change consistently required, and higher marketing costs. Define realistic metrics to keep track of progress. You need metrics to incentivize the right team behaviors.

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Interview with Eric M. Jackson, CapLinked

socalTECH

Eric is also author of the book The PayPal Wars: Battles With Ebay, the Media, the Mafia, And the Rest of Planet Earth , where he documented that experience. For investors, it gives them a dash board of key metrics, and ensures those investors stay in the loop. I wrote the book because I thought the story needed to be told.

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What Happens When Startups Turn from Their Innovation Stage to Operational Excellence?

Both Sides of the Table

As a startup in this phase you often raise capital, get press, hire staff and everything feels possible. He came to work in our offices at Upfront Ventures as an EIR and immediately began building software to improve how storage was picked up, photographed, scanned and routed to a warehouse. As an early-stage VC I love this phase.

Startup 286
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Should Startups Focus on Profitability or Not?

Both Sides of the Table

You have to understand whether they’re likely to yield revenue growth in the near term OR whether you have access to cheap enough capital to fund your losses until your investments pay off. Have easy access to capital by investors who are committed to building businesses at Interent scale. Internet scale.

Startup 418
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So What is The Right Level of Burn Rate for a Startup These Days?

Both Sides of the Table

This has led VC & entrepreneur bloggers alike to similar conclusions: start raising capital early and be careful about having too high of a burn rate because that lessens the amount of runway you have until you need more cash. But the hardest question to actually answer is, “What is the right burn rate for your company?

Startup 150