Startup Professionals Musings

OCTOBER 8, 2022

In reality, a simple Excel spreadsheet model customized around your assumptions can save you hours and avoid a wasted expense in validating alternative vendor and marketing decisions. Vendor costs are subject to change, customers are fickle, competitors come out of the woodwork and the economy can take a downturn.

Startup 147

Startup Pricing Sample Customer 147

Startup Professionals Musings

MARCH 31, 2023

Every entrepreneur knows that good demand generation marketing is the key to growth these days, but very few have the discipline or know-how to measure return in a world of a thousand tools and techniques. In fact, we now live in a buyer-led digital age, where the traditional media push-marketing efforts just don’t work.

Metrics 102

Metrics Demand Paramount Content 102

TechCrunch LA

OCTOBER 5, 2020

“The only success criteria of my startup career is whether GrubMarket can eventually make $100 billion of annual sales,” he said to me over both email and in a phone conversation. Its opportunity comes in the form of disruption and a gap in the market. ” I don’t doubt that he means it.

Technical Review 343

Technical Review Startup Marketing San Diego 343

Berkonomics

JULY 11, 2013

Every dollar of gross profit falls to the bottom line, increasing net profit faster with each transaction. A ten percent increase in revenues for a company with 50% gross margin and 5% net profit before the increase would double net profit for the period with that ten percent increase in revenue.

.Net 207

.Net Sales Tool Social Network 207

Both Sides of the Table

SEPTEMBER 28, 2014

Gross Burn vs. Net Burn. Burn rate in case you don’t know is the amount of money a company is either spending (gross) or losing (net) per month. (it Net burn is the amount of money you are losing per month. I often see companies burning $100,000 per month (net) looking to raise $6-8 million.

Startup 383

Startup Company Companies .Net 383

TechCrunch LA

DECEMBER 8, 2020

He did note that in the four markets where the company has gone live since launching its business in January 2019 — San Diego, Los Angeles, the Inland Empire , and Sacramento — has yielded an annualized revenue run rate of over $400 million in gross merchandise value (the total value of home sales transacted on its platform).

Sales 282

Sales Demand San Diego Funding 282

Startup Professionals Musings

OCTOBER 21, 2015

Every entrepreneur knows that good demand generation marketing is the key to growth these days, but very few have the discipline or know-how to measure return in a world of a thousand tools and techniques. In fact, we now live in a buyer-led digital age, where the traditional media push-marketing efforts just don’t work.

Metrics 101

Metrics Marketing Demand Paramount 101

Startup Professionals Musings

JULY 9, 2018

Every entrepreneur knows that good demand generation marketing is the key to growth these days, but very few have the discipline or know-how to measure return in a world of a thousand tools and techniques. In fact, we now live in a buyer-led digital age, where the traditional media push-marketing efforts just don’t work.

Metrics 57

Metrics Demand Marketing Paramount 57

Startup Professionals Musings

JANUARY 6, 2020

In reality, a simple Excel spreadsheet model customized around your assumptions can save you hours and avoid a wasted expense in validating alternative vendor and marketing decisions. Vendor costs are subject to change, customers are fickle, competitors come out of the woodwork and the economy can take a downturn.

Startup 123

Startup Pricing Sample Customer 123

Both Sides of the Table

DECEMBER 27, 2011

The most obvious way to explain this is with sales people. If you hire 6 sales reps in January at $120,000 / year salary then you’ve taken on an extra $60,000 per month in costs yet these sales people might not close new business for 4-6 months. If you don’t, somebody else WILL!” ” The Details.

Startup 418

Startup Venture Capital Sales Technical Review 418

Tech.Co

MARCH 25, 2022

Instacart cites “market turbulence” and a need to attract talent as reasons why it has reassessed. Another reason could be a steep drop in sales growth rate since the start of the pandemic, when many people suddenly became interested in getting groceries dropped off at their door. Pandemic beneficiary with $1.8B

Advertising 116

Advertising Tool .Net Google 116

Startup Professionals Musings

APRIL 5, 2021

Attach to the market, not your idea. To turn your passion into profits, emphasize the market, and always think about your business relative to the customers you serve. Know your markets and execute on your market opportunity by placing a priority on your customer’s experience and perception of value.

Entrepreneur 145

Entrepreneur Course Ideas .Net 145

Jason Nazar

MAY 1, 2016

Customer Acquisition Cost / Cost Per Acquisition . The customer acquisition cost or cost per acquisition is the basic marketing cost to acquire a customer. See what other startup mentors have to say about marketing tactics. d) What percent of your carts/free trials convert into paid customers?

Marketing 40

Marketing CPC Metrics .Net 40

Jason Nazar

NOVEMBER 1, 2015

Customer Acquisition Cost / Cost Per Acquisition . The customer acquisition cost or cost per acquisition is the basic marketing cost to acquire a customer. See what other startup mentors have to say about marketing tactics. d) What percent of your carts/free trials convert into paid customers?

Marketing 40

Marketing CPC Metrics .Net 40

Both Sides of the Table

JUNE 17, 2017

The most obvious way to explain this is with sales people. If you hire 6 senior sales reps in January at $120,000 / year salary then you’ve taken on an extra $60,000 per month in costs yet these sales people might not close new business 6 months. COGS” represents the amount that each sale costs you.

Startup 227

Startup Venture Capital Sales Course 227

socalTECH

DECEMBER 12, 2014

If you''re a brand or retailer, needing to get online, there are a lot of things to deal with to run your e-commerce business smoothly--everything from your e-commerce site itself, to taking photos of your products, packing and shipping, to digital marketing. Who are your ideal customers and market?

Commerce 203

Commerce Venture Capital Internet Brands Startup 203

Both Sides of the Table

MAY 19, 2018

When you raise money from investors you produce information that you are told they want and care about: A fund-raising deck that articulates your company strategy, plans, team, market, competitors and so forth. For starters you have to realize that fund-raising is a sales process. and then asking to take a brochure home with you.

Funding 336

Funding Venture Capital Startup Email 336

Both Sides of the Table

APRIL 25, 2011

It would not be a big stretch to image a well run service business like this making 15-25% net profit margins. Customer financing often comes in the form of your company agreeing to build a product with a “sponsor&# customer or two and helping them with the rollout / implementation. You own the IP you create.

Services 332

Services Venture Capital IP Startup 332

socalTECH

MAY 30, 2019

com, and Vivendi Universal Net USA, where he was also CEO. What we saw with CareerArc, was there was already a tremendous amount of investment in the middle of the market, with all of these different services and products that went into taking care of an employee when they were hired until they were let go. What is CareerArc?

Content 193

Content Social Network Coach Help 193

Startup Professionals Musings

SEPTEMBER 28, 2018

entrepreneurs consistently claim to be happier , and have a higher net worth than employees. There are some key strategies I recommend in developing that mindset, whether you are currently and employee or an aspiring entrepreneur: Keep the business customer at the top of your pyramid. Focus your role on solving the customer problem.

Entrepreneur 93

Entrepreneur Satisfaction Customer Custom 93

Both Sides of the Table

NOVEMBER 3, 2009

The last couple of years has also seen the huge initial success of Ycombinator, the Lean Startup and many other product driven approaches to going to market. Broadly speaking this last trend has been healthy as it has brought an increase focus on launching products that you can test with the market and on capital efficiency.

Web 2.0 334

Web 2.0 Venture Capital Web Technical Review 334

Both Sides of the Table

SEPTEMBER 15, 2013

I agree with YouTube (that they provide more (hosting, ad sales, etc.) Of course it’s a competitive market so MCNs competing for top talent not only compete on rev share to talent but also to services that they provide talent. Building direct customer relationships with viewers (who want to tune into your channels).

Networking 366

Networking Media Content Customer 366

Startup Professionals Musings

MAY 14, 2012

You can’t succeed in business without an operational model that delivers value to customers at a reasonable price, with an underlying cost that allows you to make a profit. The most common failures are solutions looking for a problem, lack of a defined market, and giving away the product. Target market. Sales/Marketing.

Sales 97

Sales Customer Custom Outsource 97

Startup Professionals Musings

FEBRUARY 28, 2015

In reality, a simple Excel spreadsheet model customized around your assumptions can save you hours and avoid a wasted expense in validating alternative vendor and marketing decisions. Vendor costs are subject to change, customers are fickle, competitors come out of the woodwork and the economy can take a downturn.

Startup 103

Startup Pricing Sample Customer 103

InfoChachkie

JANUARY 18, 2012

Put it out on the Net, see what the reactions are…If you build something that starts to resonate, then you can start to… get into tech blogs and talk to the press and tell everybody what you are doing.” Number one is sales. Life is sales. Business development is sales. Winning customers is sales.

Entrepreneur 272

Entrepreneur Startup Conference Santa Barbara 272

socalTECH

JULY 7, 2010

Here are eight Southern California companies and the experienced, successful entrepreneurs heading up their efforts, who haven't had any problems finding investors--or customers--for their firms. Demand Media / Richard Rosenblatt / Los Angeles - Rosenblatt's last big win: MySpace, where he was Chairman, brokering its sale to News Corp.

Southern California 228

Southern California Entrepreneur SoCal Mahalo 228

socalTECH

AUGUST 8, 2016

Last week El Segundo-based Wpromote acquired fellow marketing agency Standing Dog, in a deal which brings the company to 260 employees, and continues to grow the company. Mike Mothner: The business today, is we are a digital agency focused on customer acquisition and growth for businesses of all types. It's a customer centric world.

Acquisition 100

Acquisition Paid Search El Segundo SEO 100

InfoChachkie

JANUARY 5, 2015

At Citrix, GoToAssist customers would occasionally ask if they could just pay for our screen-sharing functionality because they didn''t intend to use the product''s other features, such as reporting and session recording. The effort to implement this customization was minimal and thus cost us very little. customers paid $119.40

Pricing 100

Pricing Product Startup Customer 100

Startup Professionals Musings

JANUARY 29, 2011

You can’t succeed in business without an operational model that delivers value to customers at a reasonable price, with an underlying cost that allows you to make a profit. The most common failures are solutions looking for a problem, lack of a defined market, and giving away the product. Target market. Sales/Marketing.

Sales 98

Sales Customer Custom Outsource 98

socalTECH

JULY 10, 2017

We talked with Tim about how they're now applying this to a new market. With each company that we've started, we've concentrated on a particular market. PointPredictive is focused on the automotive lending market. They were the first company to bring artificial intelligence and machine learning scoring to the commercial market.

Artificial Inteligence 124

Artificial Inteligence Software Review San Diego .Net 124

Both Sides of the Table

MAY 20, 2018

This is true of any buying process where a customer has to make a large investment decision on your software or when an investor must decide whether to give you $5 million. These are similar to the pipeline reviews I used to do with sales reps when I was a CEO. She was imploring them to push harder in their sales process.

Funding 189

Funding Software Review Entrepreneur Venture Capital 189

Startup Professionals Musings

AUGUST 1, 2013

Seasonal sales fluctuations eat cash. Fluctuating sales means more inventory is required to cover the ups and downs. It could be a natural disaster, like a flood or wind storm, or loss of key personnel, equipment failure, or a major customer complaint on the Internet. Even good customers don’t always pay on time.

Startup 114

Startup Sales Layoffs Slides 114

Startup Professionals Musings

JANUARY 17, 2016

Seasonal sales fluctuations eat cash. Fluctuating sales means more inventory is required to cover the ups and downs. It could be a natural disaster, like a flood or wind storm, or loss of key personnel, equipment failure, or a major customer complaint on the Internet. Even good customers don’t always pay on time.

Startup 64

Startup Sales Layoffs Slides 64

Startup Professionals Musings

NOVEMBER 26, 2012

The founders now need a $1M Angel investment to do the marketing for a national NewCo rollout, build a team to manage the rollout, and maybe even pay themselves a salary. Here are the components and “rules of thumb” that I recommend to every startup: Place a fair market value on all physical assets (asset approach).

Startup 108

Startup Invest Patents Outsource Development 108

Startup Professionals Musings

AUGUST 26, 2013

Attach to the market, not your idea. To turn your passion into profits, emphasize the market, and always think about your business relative to the customers you serve. Know your markets and execute on your market opportunity by placing a priority on your customer’s experience and perception of value.

Entrepreneur 103

Entrepreneur Course Ideas .Net 103

Startup Professionals Musings

OCTOBER 12, 2010

You can also use this space to keep track of innovators (R&D personnel) and rainmakers (sales & marketing personnel). Customers: A company’s only sustainable source of cash is sales, so you need to keep track of your business development efforts. Detail isn’t important; tracking your progress is.

.Net 89

.Net Metrics Competition Template 89

Startup Professionals Musings

AUGUST 14, 2015

Maybe more important, you need domain knowledge, relationships and lots of potential customers. Every startup needs a simple elevator pitch, quantifying the value of its journey, that can be communicated in less than a minute to new team members, potential investors and customers. Define success as it relates to this startup.

Startup 101

Startup Metrics Resource Mentor 101