Startup Professionals Musings

SEPTEMBER 5, 2016

In my experience as an advisor to aspiring entrepreneurs, I often encounter the myth that an initial startup requires investors. The media tends to highlight experienced entrepreneurs who succeed with early new venture funding, like Uber’s Garrett Camp , but fail to point out the more common bootstrapping successes.

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Both Sides of the Table

JANUARY 6, 2014

And here’s an important point that I think modern entrepreneurs often forget: Investors are “co-owners” of your business. The functions of an early-stage board are pretty obvious and well understood: Providing introductions to customers, biz dev partners, recruits, the press, other investors, etc. Mentorship.

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Startup Professionals Musings

MARCH 25, 2016

Many entrepreneurs assume that everyone will love their solution as much as they do, so they tune their marketing focus based on their own needs and wants. That’s the right place to start, but real growth and scale requires attracting customers who are not like you. Update your technology to reach new customer segments.

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Startup Professionals Musings

MAY 21, 2016

There are a few entrepreneurs who seem to always be ahead of the rest, and are able to sense where the market is going tomorrow. Everyone wants to support the entrepreneur with the courage to make bold decisions, and can make it happen. So what does one have to do to get on the list? His new product presentations were legendary.

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Startup Professionals Musings

AUGUST 12, 2016

As a business advisor, I have too often seen technical entrepreneurs get a product or service off the ground with ease, but then struggle mightily when their business reaches a couple of million in annual sales, or the employee count grows beyond a handful. True entrepreneurs love the tactical and problem solving challenges.

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Startup Professionals Musings

NOVEMBER 18, 2016

When entrepreneurs introduce new products to the market, their passion and conviction often leads them to assume that every potential customer will see the immediate need and value, and will quickly adopt the solution. If your solution alleviates a high level of existing pain, customers more readily change.

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Startup Professionals Musings

JUNE 4, 2017

With the Identity Theft Resource Center® reporting a 40 percent increase in data breaches in 2016, there seems to be a growing population out there worried about all the people intent on hurting them. My plea to entrepreneurs is to recognize these concerns as an opportunity, to make people’s life better, rather than stoke the fires.

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Startup Professionals Musings

SEPTEMBER 26, 2016

The biggest challenge for every entrepreneur and every startup today is to get noticed and remembered in today’s information overload. The number of entrepreneurs worldwide is huge, starting an estimated 50 million new businesses in the past year, or 137,000 per day. Stories relay events, and these events have to happen somewhere.

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Startup Professionals Musings

DECEMBER 5, 2016

Too many entrepreneurs put their best creative thinking into the startup idea, and believe that the business implementation simply requires following tried and true business practices. To win, you need to think outside the box to deliver a better customer experience, business model, and new positioning. Start thinking outside the box.

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Startup Professionals Musings

JULY 29, 2016

Too many entrepreneurs don’t know what to do at this point, largely accounting for that disappointing 50 percent of startups that fail in the first five years, according to Gallup. Others do far too little, assuming the viral effect and word-of-mouth will soon kick in, and sales will suddenly grow exponentially.

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Startup Professionals Musings

FEBRUARY 13, 2016

Entrepreneurs who are looking to attract investors need to develop and pitch a plan -- preferably written -- that answers every potential investor question about your startup before it is asked. Investors want to hear about customers with money who have a painful problem that you can solve now. It’s really not that difficult.

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Startup Professionals Musings

SEPTEMBER 19, 2016

As an entrepreneur looking for an idea, it makes sense to explore problem areas within your knowledge comfort zone, but when you are building a business with the solution, you have to stretch your comfort zone to keep up with the market and stay ahead of competitors. The idea is the only easy part. The hard part is the business execution.

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Startup Professionals Musings

OCTOBER 12, 2016

Does your business have a visible positive strategy, or do your customers and employees still see your primary focus as closing more sales and killing competitors? Certainly that has been the strategy of many companies, and has worked in the past, but today’s customers and workers are looking for more.

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Startup Professionals Musings

AUGUST 5, 2016

All too often as a startup investor, I hear the term “disruptive technology” from an entrepreneur, played like a trump card that should override any other potential business qualms. These normally require an innovative new business model, non-linear thinking for marketing, sales, and distribution. Relate emphatically to the customer.

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Startup Professionals Musings

NOVEMBER 21, 2016

Others, like Guy Kawasaki , have irreverently called some of these “entrepreneur lies,” but I prefer to think of them as innocent enhancements or omissions that can kill your deal. Lead with your intent to offer the solution free to customers. Of course, customers love free, but investors hate it. Skip the hype.

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Startup Professionals Musings

MAY 27, 2016

As an angel investor, I’ve learned to believe in this approach, since I have seen great ideas go astray, due to poor execution and I have seen apparently marginal ideas make millions, managed by a savvy entrepreneur. Even social entrepreneurs need milestones, quantifiable results, and revenue to sustain their value.

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TechCrunch LA

MAY 19, 2020

After wrestling with recalcitrant homeowners, husbanding their parcels of land to keep their property values high, the state’s leadership passed a law that increased the availability of new rental units and put more money into homeowners’ pockets in 2016.

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Startup Professionals Musings

JUNE 10, 2016

For example, if you watch the TV show “Shark Tank,” you will remember several entrepreneurs with specialty products doing well online who want money to move into big box retail. The most common channels in use today include e-commerce, direct to customer, wholesale to dealers, and value-added resellers. Set marketing plans accordingly.

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Startup Professionals Musings

JUNE 22, 2016

Almost every entrepreneur looking for outside investors has heard the annoying rejection, “You are just too early – come back when you have more traction.” I like his set of action items, and have added a few of my own for measuring early traction leading to growth: Turn initial customer goals into measurable traction metrics.

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Both Sides of the Table

JANUARY 14, 2014

All the data actually suggests with the growth of mobile, inbound sales calls will double from 30 billion to 60 billion in 3 years (source: Kelsey). In fact 61% of all mobile searches where a customer contacts a business it is via a phone call (source: Google). In the US alone there are 30 billion inbound sales calls every year.

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Startup Professionals Musings

AUGUST 19, 2016

Unfortunately, many passionate entrepreneurs read this initial surge as success, and charge ahead with more of the same passion, leading to a series of potential pitfalls that can quickly jeopardize the health of the entire business. On the other end of the transaction, customer support, returns, and transportation can add up.

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socalTECH

JANUARY 4, 2016

As an entrepreneur and a new investor, this couldn't be more relevant. As an entrepreneur, being more focused on the outcome than the process can be counterproductive. Things like building a great product, building and nurturing a great culture, presenting a really clear value proposition to customers or partners.

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Startup Professionals Musings

MAY 9, 2016

Good entrepreneurs are all about managing change, but too many forget that they have to change themselves as their dream evolves from a startup to a scalable business. Now you have real customers who can quickly turn off hundreds of potential customers if you ignore their feedback. Trust your gut, and ignore naysayers.

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Startup Professionals Musings

MAY 16, 2016

Most new entrepreneurs have great ideas, and many are highly skilled in building their solutions. They don’t realize that strong team engagement leads to even stronger customer engagement, which can more than double your startup revenue and growth, according to experts. Facilitate and use customer, peer engagement feedback.

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Startup Professionals Musings

JULY 8, 2016

Business success is all about having the best team, yet the average entrepreneur has little prior experience with hiring people and building top-notch teams. Most new entrepreneurs assume their passion will attract and motivate the right team members. Marty Zwilling First published on Forbes on 07/02/2016.

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Startup Professionals Musings

APRIL 9, 2016

Technical entrepreneurs love to compare the number of features in their product to competitors, and they love to keep adding features -- just because they can. Unfortunately, this approach often turns off mainstream customers, who find the result hard to use. Avoid adding features for a single customer to close a sale.

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socalTECH

NOVEMBER 2, 2017

We got really serious after the success of that customer, who wanted to make this technology available for all of its employees across the globe. Anne Fulton: I've always been an organizational psychologist crossed with a serial entrepreneur. I can't help myself in being an entrepreneur. This is like my fifth business.

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Startup Professionals Musings

MAY 6, 2016

But in my experience as a startup advisor, too many entrepreneurs get stuck there, and always find excuses for not really exploring mergers, acquisitions, partnerships, and alliance alternatives. For example, at any given moment in your business, you may be limited by development, marketing, or sales. Think outside the box.

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Startup Professionals Musings

JANUARY 11, 2016

I meet many entrepreneurs with a real passion for their new idea, but unfortunately they don’t all realize that passion is necessary but not sufficient fuel to turn their idea into a successful business. Interact with real customers to validate passion in their feedback. Reality check your potential for building a business.

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Startup Professionals Musings

APRIL 6, 2014

zettabytes by the year 2016. There is still infinite room for new startup sales modes and models. This gives rise to the personalization and customization that we all want. Analytics will soon drive nearly all business decisions for any company that wants to remain relevant to its customers. Marty Zwilling.

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Startup Professionals Musings

OCTOBER 10, 2016

As a business advisor, I certainly recognize the need for talking to make an investment case, close a sale, or communicate with your team. You can’t learn anything new while you’re talking, yet many business professionals and entrepreneurs seem to never stop. Marty Zwilling First published on Inc.com on 09/27/2016.

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Startup Professionals Musings

DECEMBER 6, 2017

exabytes per month at the end of 2016, of which half was video. There is still infinite room for new startup sales modes and models. This gives rise to the personalization and customization that we all want. Analytics will soon drive nearly all business decisions for any company that wants to remain relevant to its customers.

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socalTECH

APRIL 21, 2017

For people who send things out, it's a chance to be in front of your customer. We're working with some very large, extremely well known CPGs to help them establish that direct selling channel, and help them create a relationship with their customer. You need to understand what it means when a customer receives a product.

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Startup Professionals Musings

JANUARY 2, 2017

People who are good at solving problems for other people make great entrepreneurs. At worst, it’s a learning opportunity for you and your team, which can lead to providing a better customer solution or experience. Entrepreneurs are often too passionate and impatient. Marty Zwilling First published on Inc.com on 12/16/2016.

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Both Sides of the Table

JANUARY 3, 2016

Examples of VC platform services include: recruiting, marketing, design support, inside sales reps, consulting, accounting services and so forth. The new war for platforms has mostly been waged by Andreessen Horowitz who have raised astounding amounts of capital and therefore had the fees to put into providing more services for entrepreneurs.

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Startup Professionals Musings

OCTOBER 14, 2016

What every entrepreneur is asking me these days, is “How do I get to be a unicorn?” Yet there are a common set of driving factors that every entrepreneur should know, including the following: Extraordinary marketplace traction. Marty Zwilling First published on Inc.com on 09/29/2016. These are popularly called “unicorns.”

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Startup Professionals Musings

APRIL 25, 2016

On the other hand, if you are a new entrepreneur, a well-written and complete business plan demonstrates that you understand the issues and have a real plan for execution. Entrepreneurs with exciting new technologies too often assume that the technology will sell itself. Team not a good match for the challenge. Minimize both.

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