Bill Gurley
Stephen Covey used to talk about your circle of influence, and Buffett talks about your circle of competence. Macro things are not things that start-ups can impact or control. So there’s not much reason for them to affect your thoughts about whether you would start a company or not. They might add anxiety, but I don’t know that they have any real impact.
Content: Quotation | Author: Bill Gurley | Source: McKinsey Quarterly | Subject: Entrepreneurship
Bill Gurley
I hate the 5 to 10 percent layoffs. You don’t get any material impact to lowering your expenses. Yet you get all the cultural negatives of having done a layoff. You get 100 percent of the pain and very little gain. And then you’re in retweet land—you end up with two or three of them.
Content: Quotation | Author: Bill Gurley | Source: McKinsey Quarterly | Subject: Human Resources
The Dangerous Seduction of the Lifetime Value (LTV) Formula
Many consumer Internet business executives are loyalists of the Lifetime Value model, often referred to as the LTV model or formula. Lifetime value is the net present value of the profit stream of a customer. This concept, which appears on the surface to be quite benign, is typically used to compare the costs of acquiring a customer (often referred to as SAC, which stands for … [ Read more ]
Content: Article | Author: Bill Gurley | Subjects: Customer Related, Finance, Marketing / Sales
All Markets Are Not Created Equal: 10 Factors To Consider When Evaluating Digital Marketplaces
A true marketplace needs natural pull on both the consumer and supplier side of the market. Aggregating suppliers is a necessary, but insufficient step on its own. You must also organically aggregate demand. With each step, it should get easier to acquire the incremental consumer AS WELL AS the incremental supplier. Highly liquid marketplaces naturally “tip” towards becoming a clearinghouse where neither the consumer nor … [ Read more ]
Content: Article | Author: Bill Gurley | Subjects: Economics, Entrepreneurship, Strategy
The One Internet Metric That Really Matters
The conversion rate captures the crucial aspects of a Website. A small increase in it can have powerful effects.
Content: Article | Author: Bill Gurley | Source: FORTUNE | Subjects: IT / Technology / E-Business, Management