Technology Life Cycle

Debi Rosati of RosatiNet, a venture catalyst firm, (www.rosatinet.com) and I are collaborating on how early stage technology companies create value through their growth stages.  As a starting point, we've created the growth stage model posted below.  We'd be curious to hear what you think. Comments welcome!

Technology Company Growth Stages

 

Comments

[B2B Revenue Generation]

Similar to Ian, I took a different perspective when I read through the article. It's important to not only create value but to retain value through the stages. As a start up company ourselves, we're fortunate to be able to drink our own champagne. We're able to use our own revenue generation solution to automate marketing, align our sales and marketing teams and create more leads for our business. Having the right tools in your toolbox to support the "Revenue Growth" phase, as defined by Ian, is crucial to sustain revenue. We recently wrote an article on 101 business to business lead generation ideas, which seems complementary to Ian's "Launch" and "Revenue Growth" phases. Find it here: http://www.leadliaison.com/best-practices/lead-generation/101-business-to-business-lead-generation-ideas-and-tips/. Perhaps this will help stimulate ideas for start ups as they progress through each phase.

[Ian Graham]

Hi Wendy,

I found your blog today and had a look around there is really some great stuff here. The post regarding company growth stages is one of keen interest to me.
You asked for comments and I have a slightly different take on the idea of company growth stages and wanted to offer an alternative point of view. The key differences are that;

1. the stages are for all start-up companies (not exclusively technology),
2. the boundaries between the stages are delineated by the functions and focus of the company rather than number of employees or revenue.

My take from the picture on your blog was that the scale for the stages shown was essentially revenue and number of employees.

Concept à Implementation à Launch à Revenue Growth à Portfolio Diversity

Concept
- Founders
- Focus: Evaluating options
- Function: formulating a business plan
- Essentially identical to Pre-ignition

Implementation
- Founders + Key employees
- Focus: product development
- Function: building team, evolving roles
- Employees mainly product / service development staff
- Sweat equity
- Friends and family financing possibly Angels
- Initial product / service development

Launch
- Founders + Key employees + Sales / Business Development
- Focus: Generating Revenue
- Function: Sales and marketing
- Continued product / service development and feature enhancement
- Product / Service ready for release
- Customer Trials / Initial Revenue
- Financing organically (through revenue stream) or outside investment possibly VC Series A, …

Revenue Growth
- Focus: Accelerating Revenue Generation
- Function: Sales and marketing
- Additional focus building Sales and Marketing efforts
- Partnering to compliment sales channels
- Expanded Business Development capabilities

Portfolio Diversity
- Focus: Increased Revenue through new product introduction
- Function: Broadening Product Portfolio
- Increase development efforts to introduce new and complimentary product lines
- Continue to augment sales, marketing and business development

Hope you find this helpful.

Cheers,

Ian Graham