Startup Professionals Musings

APRIL 21, 2017

In addition, today’s customers judge a company by perceived people relationships through social media, phone conversations, and sales experiences. Thus I believe that business leaders and entrepreneurs need to focus first on people leadership, rather than process leadership. Customers demand more engagement and flexibility.

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TechCrunch LA

JUNE 3, 2022

“We want to inspire, but we also want to be realistic and show beauty in real life,” Glossier founder and CEO Emily Weiss said in a 2017 interview with Inc, just as the brand had reached what Weiss herself described as “cult status.” It’s more of a mockery,” said Isa Watson , founder and CEO of social media app Squad.

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Startup Professionals Musings

NOVEMBER 11, 2019

exabytes per month at the end of 2017, of which more than half was video. Virtual living: the rise and growing dominance of social media. This gives rise to the personalization and customization that we all want. Use internal collaboration platforms, then extend to online customers through your website, blogs, and social media.

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Startup Professionals Musings

FEBRUARY 27, 2019

In addition, like an entrepreneur with a new business, you have to factor in all the indirect costs previously covered by employers, including training, health care, and time off for vacations. In fact, thinking like an entrepreneur is a good strategy today for success, even if you are currently in a long-term employment situation.

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Startup Professionals Musings

MARCH 17, 2017

People follow influencers on social media to find what they buy, who they vote for, and which social causes they support. They flocked to businesses like Apple, when influencer Steve Jobs was at the helm, and anxiously await the next moves from visible entrepreneurs, including Mark Zuckerberg and Elon Musk. Now customers look for more.

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Startup Professionals Musings

AUGUST 2, 2017

Every business I know is intimately familiar with outbound marketing, or pushing your message out to customers through email, newspaper, and television advertising. Only a few really understand the process and value of inbound marketing, for pulling customers to your brand. Participate in the top social media sites for maximum impact.

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socalTECH

NOVEMBER 19, 2018

Kanaan Jemili: uCast Global is a digital media company that is looking at creating a scalable global solution for online video. Those technologies allow us to scale and offer a superior product for customers. We bought our first company in 2017 to create this, and we rolled up a few companies to bring this vision to life.

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Startup Professionals Musings

MAY 5, 2017

Here are some key ones that I recommend, based on my experience in business, and my many years as an advisor to entrepreneurs: Choose a name that works across the Internet and the world. Having a website won’t help if customers can’t find it. Use social media to actively engage with your customers.

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Startup Professionals Musings

JANUARY 13, 2017

A good entrepreneur is not necessarily born a good salesman. Julie is known as the entrepreneur’s selling mentor, for both men and women. In my view, every entrepreneur has to be a great salesman to succeed (among the many other required skills), so you should take a hard look at these points: Dust off your moxie.

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Startup Professionals Musings

APRIL 7, 2017

Entrepreneurs always work hard to create an innovative product or service, but often count on standard seller marketing for sales. But the reality is that sellers are no longer in charge of the customer buying process. The best way to do this is with real customer interviews. Don’t start from how you want to sell.

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Startup Professionals Musings

FEBRUARY 24, 2017

Most of the guidance you see for entrepreneurs is aimed at those who are selling a product (Apple, Tesla, Xiaomi), or selling a service (Uber, Airbnb, Snapchat). The “product” value is difficult to quantify, the costs are nebulous, and entrepreneurs have to clone themselves to scale the business.

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Startup Professionals Musings

MARCH 6, 2017

In the entrepreneur world, most of the energy I see is focused on the current opportunity bubbles, now including anything mobile, the new sharing economy (Uber, Airbnb), or yet another social media app (Snapchat, WhatsApp). Subtle differences don’t usually attract investors or customers. Now is the time to float your own.

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Startup Professionals Musings

FEBRUARY 1, 2017

As an advisor to early-stage entrepreneurs, I see a lot of dreams, but not so many business results. I’ve always wished I had a magic metaphor to motivate the best dreamers to become the best entrepreneurs. There is no cookie-cutter route to success as an entrepreneur. Venture where no business has gone before.

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Startup Professionals Musings

JANUARY 25, 2017

Your concept has to be understood by customers and investors in 30 seconds or less, and everyone needs to immediately see how awesome it would be, or that they would be nuts not to have it. I’m looking for the “hook” right up front, or I lose interest quickly, just like every customer and investor these days.

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Startup Professionals Musings

MARCH 22, 2017

As an advisor to startups and entrepreneurs, I often hear the myth that all new businesses must start with a great idea. I believe the best entrepreneurs start by finding a large opportunity, and only then use good ideas to capitalize on that opportunity. I just finished a new book, “ The Entrepreneur’s Playbook ,” by Leonard C.

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Startup Professionals Musings

APRIL 28, 2017

Of course, there are no guarantees, but if can find an independent sizing of the market opportunity, your job of convincing customers, and investors, will be much easier. Not all ideas have cost-effective solutions, or customers able and willing to pay real money. Draft a short pitch for customers, and one for investors.

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Startup Professionals Musings

NOVEMBER 26, 2017

In my role as a mentor to entrepreneurs and an angel investor, I find that too many are stuck in this myth that a good pitch, and good marketing content, should consist of more product features, and more hype on customer benefits. Customers buy from people they trust, respect, and admire.

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Startup Professionals Musings

MARCH 31, 2017

More recently, most people think of Mark Zuckerberg as the creator of social media, but few remember his earlier efforts at creating video games, a music player, and Facemash, the last being his idea of a great dating app. As an advisor to entrepreneurs, I often preach the need for resilience, but I’m not sure how to recognize it before-hand.

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Startup Professionals Musings

JUNE 5, 2017

I found this perspective validated in a new book, “ Plan Commit Win: 90 Days to Creating a Fundable Startup ,” by serial entrepreneur and strategic consultant Patrick Henry. This is an emerging theme in the past decade as investors learn that customers assign more value and loyalty to business owners who display this attribute.

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InfoChachkie

AUGUST 8, 2016

I thought it would be interesting to understand the challenges and concerns of entrepreneurs who began selling online for the first time in 2016, so I sat down with Heidi Muther, COO at Z S upply , LLC. Founded in 2011, Z Supply, LLC has created five women’s fashion brands with a sixth brand and extension into Men’s, launching Spring 2017.

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Startup Professionals Musings

OCTOBER 13, 2017

Evolving customer expectations and technology are the norm, forcing every company, from startups to large enterprises, to innovate quickly, despite their fear of change, uncertainty, and doubt. Get in sync with customers by frequent customer interaction. Connect and strengthen your customer ecosystem.

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Startup Professionals Musings

AUGUST 18, 2017

Mark Zuckerberg was not the first to build a social media platform, so he had to find investors who believed in him. She speaks from years of experience coaching entrepreneurs and executives on the magic of a story. Marty Zwilling First published on Inc.com on 08/04/2017.

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Startup Professionals Musings

NOVEMBER 6, 2017

In that context, we all have to deal with a huge information overload, which can stifle creativity, just by the sheer weight of trying to consume all the data bombarding us daily from the Internet, social media, and press. Take the time to listen fully to the voices that really count, including your team leaders and customers.

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Startup Professionals Musings

JUNE 3, 2019

My recommendation to entrepreneurs is to recognize these concerns as an opportunity to make people’s life better, rather than worry and dodge the risk. There are others, like LifeLock , acquired in 2017 by Symantec for $2.3 billion, now providing identity theft services for nearly 5 million consumers in all 50 states.

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Startup Professionals Musings

FEBRUARY 13, 2017

With real-time online reviews and feedback via the Internet, and instant relationships via social media, a voice from the top that is inconsistent with what is heard from the firing line defines a dysfunctional and noncompetitive company for today’s customer. Marty Zwilling First published on Huffington Post on 02/12/2017.

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Startup Professionals Musings

JANUARY 22, 2017

In this age of interactive social media, your culture image quickly spreads to customers, and determines their loyalty. Everyone knows and admires the leaders , including Google and Zappos, but most entrepreneurs have only a fuzzy idea of what to do to get there. So, how do you build trust? Demonstrate honesty and vulnerability.

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Startup Professionals Musings

FEBRUARY 6, 2017

Yet these same entrepreneurs often quickly get set in their ways, and find themselves resisting changes to their own business, and begin to fear further customer change in their domain. That means all realignments require over-communication, in multiple medias – video, voice, documents, and actions.

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Startup Professionals Musings

MAY 15, 2017

Each time I mentor an entrepreneur, I learn new things about their technology, customers, and business domain. Shared social media is the new networking. These days, flexibility and agility to meet new customer requirements is a key to success. Marty Zwilling First published on Inc.com on 05/02/2017.

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Startup Professionals Musings

MAY 29, 2017

As an entrepreneur, even with no prior startups, you must highlight non-business examples. Effective communication in business requires an efficient flow of information to all constituents, and ability to share in any media, including speaking, writing, and listening. Marty Zwilling First published on Inc.com on 05/16/2017.

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Startup Professionals Musings

DECEMBER 22, 2017

Others schedule long and exhaustive practice and coaching sessions for everyone on the team, including showcase customers, to make sure that everyone tells the most positive and consistent story. Make sure everyone accurately posts their role with your startup on social media profiles, resumes, and references.

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Startup Professionals Musings

APRIL 17, 2017

The command and control leadership of the past is proving to be too inflexible, devoid of values, and not empathic to people issues – customers, employees, and partners. Due to social media and the Internet, these relationships now need to extend to customers, partners, and suppliers.

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Startup Professionals Musings

JANUARY 27, 2017

Customer service has traditionally been a support function to respond to customer initiated requests, meaning someone waits for the phone to ring or for a website support request form. The old days of routing a customer to a single phone queue for any request will quickly kill any brand loyalty or advocate referral.

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Startup Professionals Musings

MAY 27, 2017

Unfortunately, often the result is potential customers who are confused, the limited resources of your business are spread too thin, and customers and investors look elsewhere for a better fit. Thus one of my key messages to entrepreneurs, as a business advisor and angel investor, is “focus.” One plus one sometimes equals zero.

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socalTECH

DECEMBER 27, 2016

Today's contribution is from Brad Brooks , the co-founder and CEO of TigerText , which provides clinical communication solutions for the healthcare industry, and also co-founder of anonymous social media app Whisper. Finally, what do you think will have the biggest impact on the technology industry in 2017?

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Startup Professionals Musings

JANUARY 11, 2019

When someone says Intellectual Property (IP), most entrepreneurs think only of patents. Significant differences will confuse your customers, and open the door to imitators and scam artists. Social media accounts. Immediately go to relevant social media sites and grab the same name, even if you never plan to use the accounts.

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Startup Professionals Musings

APRIL 14, 2017

As a startup, you need to use your limited resources to excel at a few core things for your best customers, in order to stand out and get the momentum going. He talks in detail about ten of the key challenges that Facebook faced in their growth, to move from a tiny social media upstart to one of the most successful companies in the world.

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Startup Professionals Musings

MAY 10, 2017

It's a line from an old movie "Field of Dreams" which is still leading to the demise of too many startups, led by entrepreneurs who really started their business to build an exciting new product or service. Use demand generation services , as required, to build the relationship and nurture them into paying customers.

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