(10) Startup Advice and Strategy: Do members of an advisory board usually get paid S’il te plaît, dessine-moi un business model Que vous soyez une start-up ou une entreprise établie, vous vous êtes sûrement déjà posé la question de votre business model. Est-il vraiment performant ? Durable ? Résilient ? Vous voudriez bien l'analyser, le tester et le comparer, mais ne savez pas comment faire. Le livre Business Model Generation , le best-seller d’Alexandre Osterwalder et Yves Pigneur, représente une bonne base pour débuter. Qu’est-ce qu’un business model et pourquoi cela devrait vous intéresser ? Steve Blank, auteur et professeur, le définit ainsi : “Un business model décrit la manière dont votre organisation crée, délivre et recueille la valeur. Quelles sont les composantes d’un business model ? On représente ainsi les 9 composantes de la matrice (canvas) du business model : Cette approche permet d’avoir une vision globale des différentes composantes du modèle d’affaires. Prenons un premier exemple : une compagnie aérienne veut créer une nouvelle offre pour concurrencer les compagnies low-cost. un langage commun
Should Your Startup Have an Advisory Board? This is part of my ongoing series Startup Advice. Many startup companies hire advisory boards. It’s very tempting. So do advisory boards really add value? In my experience most advisory boards under deliver relative to expectations. If you plan to set one up – no problem. Advisory Board Problems: There are several problems that I have encountered myself and in my many discussions with CEO’s who have set up advisory boards. 1. 2. 3. You prepare materials for them the remaining advisers to read through. 4. My view on how to best implement advisory boards: If you do decide to set up an advisory board, here are my tips for how to do it the right way. 1. At a $2 million valuation this is 0.5% of the company – about right. 2. 3. OK, so I’m sure some of you have wonderful experiences with your advisers.
Why Some Business Models Are Better Than Others 2. Recurring RevenuesAsk yourself if every one of the sales in your business represents a new effort, or if it result in (automatic) follow-up sales and revenues? You might not be aware that many of of your purchases lead to follow-up sales. But when Amazon sells you a Kindle they know you’ll be back for follow-up purchases of content, products or ebooks. Other examples: A more classic example of recurring revenues are subscriptions to newspapers and magazines (a dying species). In the software business we are currently seeing a transition from transactional sales of licenses to subscription models with recurring monthly or annual revenues. The particularity of business models with recurring revenues is that there is usually a larger return on the initial sales or customer acquisition costs. If you’re interested in more examples of how some organizations embed recurring revenues in their business model, watch our posts on Amazon Prime and Xiaomi.
How to Configure Your Startup Team I am fond of quoting that about 70% of my investment decision of an early-stage company is the team. My rationale is simple: everything goes wrong and only great teams can respond to competitors, markets, funding environments, staff departures, PR disasters and the like. Final startup grind from msuster How you build out your team in the first few years can have a huge impact on the trajectory of your company. So I naturally spend much time with the companies in which I invest helping them: recruitfigure out rolesmeasure performance / quality of teamidentify gapsdebate the right structure and so forth. There are no “right” answers – just opinions. Quick summary: Be careful not to have too many co-founders. it’s the most expensive dilution you’ll ever face. It’s all in this deck in a prettier format. I’d love to hear your view on the presentation.
The Complete Startup Toolkit (The Best Free Online Startup Resources Right Now) — Tools And Apps Starting a business is hard. It’s even a more difficult when you don’t have the right startup resources, tools and business apps to do what needs to be done in time. Entrepreneurs do everything they can to get their businesses to succeed. This is an awesome curation of the best online resources and tools for startups, originally curated by Ben Tossell, Community Manager at ProductHunt 1. 2. 3. 4. 5. 6. 7. 8. 9. 10. 11. rrrepo –Curated directories, for everything 12. 13. 14. 15. 16. 17. Taking payments online (in Europe) in 2013 In order to make money online a business needs to be able to take payments. This may sound like a simple thing to set up - but it can be rather complex, and disruptive US companies such as Stripe and Square have yet to launch in Europe. Finding a way to take payments for Vinetrade has been one of my biggest challenges (from which I've learnt a lot) and I thought it would be worth writing up my thoughts on the card payment market, where it's going and what Europe needs. The easiest way to take payments online is via card (credit or debit). Behind all card payments are a number of bank transactions. Consumer protection laws make it possible for buyers to claim a refund from their bank if something goes wrong (e.g. they pay for goods that never arrive). This means that banks will put a lot of effort in to minimising their risk. For those who have had difficulty applying directly to banks, WorldPay has been a common alternative and they have a relatively easy online signup process. Paymill
Comment trouver le bon associé et gérer la répartition du capital en entreprise ? | 1001Startups Pour éviter la solitude, augmenter son capital, bénéficier d’expertises nouvelles, les avantages d’une association sont nombreux. Faut-il choisir un ami ? Un parfait inconnu ? Le choix d’un associé est une étape cruciale qui ne se détermine pas qu’en fonction de liens amicaux. Cette étape faite, la prochaine difficulté sera de structurer le pourcentage des parts dans l’entreprise. Choisir un associé, vers qui se tourner ? « Monter une start-up tout seul me semble compliqué. Près de 23% des échecs sont dues à l’équipe. Mener sa barque seul augmente les prises de risques. « J’ai trouvé un super concept, ça te dirait de t’associer avec moi ? Si l’envie de trouver un associé vous prend, déterminez en premier lieu votre propre profil. Par exemple, vous avez fait des études en Commerce, vous avez peut-être même un bagage de commercial en entreprise. Votre associé doit aussi comprendre votre vision, partager l’objectif final et être déterminé à résoudre un problème commun. Prenons un exemple.