Account executives (AEs), 64
Acquirer strategic shift, 156–157
acquirer strategic shift, 156–157
due-diligence issues, 159
lack of chemistry, 158
lack of competitive bidding situation, 158
lack of relationship, 156
selling, 155
Admiral Greer, 142
AdWords, 80
AEs. See Account executives
Airbnb, 96
Amazon, 4, 18, 49, 61, 65, 66, 72, 75
Angel investment, 104
Angel investors, 103, 104, 107, 108, 116, 122, 136
Anti-spam products, 22
APIs. See Application programming interfaces
Apple, 4, 9, 23–25, 72–74, 125, 126, 130, 135
Apple Super Bowl (1984), 78
Application programming interfaces (APIs), 82
Assisted-viral products, 23
Audience, communication with, 146–147
Bad communication, 87
Bad contracts, 69
building incredible technology, 17–18
friction to achieve adoption, 20
magic of product chemistry, 23–24
prototype products, 26
simple, universal and viral products, 22–23
Ballmer, Steve, 120
B2B. See Business-to-business company
BHAG. See Big Hairy Audacious Goal
Bias, fighting, 62
Big Hairy Audacious Goal (BHAG), 78, 89
Big Idea, The, 31
Big-idea company, building, 101–103
Blank, Steve, 8
Board meetings, managing, 91–93
Bootstrapped entrepreneurs, 116
Box.net, 73
Brin, Sergei, 120
Business-to-business (B2B) company, 64, 172
Capital, invested, 162
Capital E, entrepreneur with, 29–30
Capital markets, 58
Capital planning model (CPM), 150
product-market fit, cash flows from, 115–118
Cash out date, 122
CEO and acquirers, lack of chemistry, 158
Cialdini, Robert, 76
CityVille, 5
CLV. See Customer lifetime value
Collins, Jim, 78
delivering good news, 94
managing board meetings, 91–93
Company's cost per click (CPC), 57–58
Competitive bidding situation, 158
Consumer company, valuation of, 53
Content-hosting solution, 57
Cook, Scott, 107
Cook, Tim, 120
Cost per acquisition (CPA), 57–58
CPA. See Cost per acquisition
CPC. See Company's cost per click
CPM. See Capital planning model
CRM. See Customer relationship management
Customer lifetime value (CLV), 58–60
Customer relationship management (CRM), 79
Customers, communication with, 95–96
D. E. Shaw & Co, 78
Deal failure, 158
Debt, cash management, 117–118
Dell, Michael, 30
Demand generation, 61
investors, 107
nights and weekends plan, 107
rent and ramen plan, 106
Direction, changing, 10
Duffield, Dave, 35
EA. See Electronic Arts
Early-adopter program, 17
Early execution vs. executing at scale, 118–119
Earn-outs, 160
Economies of scale, 4
Electronic Arts (EA), 5
E-mail–based payments, 12
acting like entrepreneur, 38
communicating point of view, 97
goal of, 4
quest, 31
targetting small markets, 5
teams without clear vision, 32–33
weaknesses, improving on, 38–39
Entrepreneurship, motivations, 165–167
Equivalent, in business context, 22
Excite, 125
product-market fit, cash flows from, 115–118
early execution vs. executing at scale, 118–119
first-mover advantage, myth of, 124–125
under-resourced/over-resourced, 113–115
Facebook, 3–6, 18, 20, 21, 39, 66, 75, 76, 79, 82, 103, 120, 124, 125, 135
Failing fast, great startup, 63
Farming user base, 67
File-sharing market, 72
Financial markets, 103
First-mover advantage, myth of, 124–125
Fluid organizations, startups, 112–113
Founder liquidity, 162
Gerstner, Lou, 130
surviving lack of capital, 103–106
team building, 108
Good news, delivery of, 94
Good to Great, 78
Google, 4, 9, 18, 39, 72, 75, 79, 103, 120, 124–126, 135
Google AdWords, 47, 58, 61, 80
Great design, 24
Great liquidity events, 163
Great marketing, 83
Great operators, 120
Great product-market fit, 9
Great product(s), 27
building, 173
design, 24
Groupon, 51
Grove, Andy, 96
Healthcare startups, 8
Hiring, from companies, 119
Hunt for Red October, The, 142
Inability to scale, 36
Ineffective sales people, 68
Influence: The Psychology of Persuasion, 76
Infographics, 81
Initial public offerings (IPOs), 163
Insiders, 162
Institutional buyers, 153
Intel, 23
Interim liquidity, 162
Internet, 21
Investment(s)
decisions, 149
Investor(s), 107
investors lump failures, 71–73
IPO. See Initial public offerings
Jobs, Steve, 78, 101, 120, 166, 168
Keynote Mobile Solutions, 102
Klaff, Oren, 143
Life-science company, 8
great liquidity events, 163
IPOs, 163
secondary markets and interim liquidity, 162
Mad Men, 61
Main Street, 53
Market(s)
efficiency, 172
importance of, 52
size, 172
Marketing, spending money on, 47–48
Marquee investors, 136
Mass market, 53
Media sharing, 76
Memorandum of understanding (MOU), 159
Mentors, 175
Momentum investors, 136
customer lifetime value, 59–60
Motivations
fueling entrepreneurship, 165–167
MOU. See Memorandum of understanding
Murdoch, Rupert, 125
Musk, Elon, 101
Net adoption curve, 50
Net Promoter Score (NPS), 54–55
News Corp, 125
New York Times, 81
Nights and weekends plan, 107
NPS. See Net Promoter Score
Online advertising, 57
Over-resourced, startups, 113–115
Page, Larry, 120
Palm Pilots, 12
Partnering, sales leverage, 67
PayPal, 12
PeopleSoft, 35
Personal health, of entrepreneur, 170–171
Pitch Anything, 143
due diligence, 148
perfection, 142
presentation failure, 145
audience, connecting with, 146–147
spell it out, 141
sponsor, supporting, 149
great product, bad market, 6–7
pivots that worked, 12
structural issues, 8
Porras, Jerry, 78
Premature scaling, 123
Pre-money valuation, 139
Presentation failure, 145
audience, connecting with, 146–147
Pricing, mismatched, 69
Private markets, 104
Product(s)
scaling, 26
usage, 16
vision, 173
visionaries, 120
Product-market fit, 3–4, 173–174
cash flows from, 118
Profit-based earn-out goals, 161
Prototype products, 26
Public markets, 104
Public-market stocks, 162
Rent and ramen plan, 106
Repeatable, profitable acquisition mechanism, 123–124
Robertson, Niel, 119
Ryan, Jack, 142
SaaS. See Software as a Service
Saban, Nick, 18
Sales and marketing, investment in, 45–56
creating value, 51
opportunity and risk involved, 52–53
spending money on marketing, 47–48
Sales engine, clogging up, 68–70
bad contracts, 69
ineffective sales people, 68
mismatched pricing, 69
Sales engineers (SEs), 64
Sales-execution problem, 61–62
Salesforce, 75
Salesforce.com, 4, 20, 30, 31, 67, 79
Sales Learning Curve (SLC), 49, 50, 52
partnering, 67
software delivery, 64
zero-cost user acquisition, 66
Sandberg, Sheryl, 120
Schmidt, Eric, 120
Search engine marketing (SEM), 79
Search engine optimization (SEO), 57, 79
Secondary markets and interim liquidity, 162
SecondMarket, 162
Selling, 155
SEM. See Search engine marketing
SEO. See Search engine optimization
SEs. See Sales engineers
Shane, Scott, 169
SharesPost, 162
Siebel, 20
SLC. See Sales Learning Curve
Small and medium businesses (SMBs), 80
Social gaming, 5
Software as a Service (SaaS), 64
Sony, 5
Sponsor, supporting, 149
Startup diet, the, 170
Startup Genome Project, 123
Stepping stones, to startup victory, 165–176
building great product, 173
craziness, 175
execution, 174
great mentor, 175
market efficiency, 172
market size, 172
persistence, 174
product vision, 173
simplification, 175
stubbornness, 174
target market, 171
willingness to change mind, 174
friction leading to failure, 168–169
Structural issues, product-market fit, 8
Sunk costs, 124
Team building, 108
TechCrunch, 176
Timeshare, 6
Time value of money, 170
Town Hall, 5
Traditional way, sales leverage, 63–64
Trickle-down effect, 7
TripAdvisor, 61
Trust and Safety Center, 96
Twitter, 22
Under-resourced, startups, 113–115
"United Breaks Guitars", 73
Use case, 16
Users
Venture-backed company, challenges in, 18
Venture-backed entrepreneurs, 115
Venture funds, 105
Venture investors, 106, 122, 169
VentureBeat, 176
Virtual goods, purchase of, 6
Vision
Walmart, 4
Warm coffee comfort problem, 146
Welch, Jack, 130
Whittaker, Lou, 171
Wireless carriers, 9
Yahoo, 125
Yelp, 61
Zero-cost user acquisition, 66