RentJuice (LTV, Monday, Week 3)
launching-technology-venturesyear-twoAlmost no obvious pivots => tons of customer discovery while building product; 12 or so brokers giving constant feedback.
Downsides to running "too lean"
-- Might move too slowly to capture a market opportunity (if it's winner-take-all)
-- Lack of outside DNA (company-building or domain expertise) => building a scalable marketing/sales model is as much a part of building a new product as product development; founders may not have relevant experience to do it right
-- "Comparative advantage" => Jeff Bussgang types faster than his secretary. But his secretary can't go to portfolio company board meetings...
Good tool: vintage curve analysis. Best summary I can find is for credit card loss: http://www.capitalcardservices.com/news_letters/Feb2011/Vintage.pdf
Basically, segment your users into cohorts for the purposes of analytics/identifying trends.