Startup Professionals Musings

OCTOBER 18, 2023

In addition, current investors want to see every startup go public or be acquired, as an exit event, so they can get their due return for that investment which has been tied up for the last few years. For these reasons, I always look for an overt exit strategy in every startup I might consider for an angel investment.

Startup 99

Startup Entrepreneur Metrics Acquisition 99

Startup Professionals Musings

OCTOBER 14, 2022

The key elements of leadership in a company, both individual and organizational, are less tangible, but very critical in setting a market value for investment, acquisition, or going public. In the investment community, these leadership elements are often called “goodwill.” Marty Zwilling.

Technical Review 129

Technical Review Funding Organization Coach 129

Startup Professionals Musings

JANUARY 9, 2022

They randomly churn for hours a day on a couple of their favorite social media platforms, with little thought given to goals, objectives, or metrics; and ultimately give up and fall back to traditional marketing approaches. Create an action plan with metrics. Measuring is all about return-on-investment (ROI). Marty Zwilling.

Social Media 135

Social Media Framework Media Metrics 135

Startup Professionals Musings

JANUARY 9, 2021

In addition, current investors want to see every startup go public or be acquired, as an exit event, so they can get their due return for that investment which has been tied up for the last few years. For these reasons, I always look for an overt exit strategy in every startup I might consider for an angel investment.

Startup 173

Startup Entrepreneur Metrics Acquisition 173

Startup Professionals Musings

AUGUST 21, 2021

Startups usually think in terms of a million to 10 million dollar infusions, but aspiring unicorns usually need to seek financial investments of hundreds of millions, or even a billion dollars. Then there is the pressure to go public ( IPO ), and open your investment to thousands, maybe millions, of small investors.

Startup 151

Startup Course Sales Entrepreneur 151

SoCal CTO

MARCH 9, 2007

skip to main | skip to sidebar SoCal CTO Friday, March 9, 2007 Map of VC Investments Found this Map of 2006 VC Investments post. Technology Advisor Technology Roles in Startups Pricing Customer Acquisition Sunk Costs and More -. Some very interesting graphics including this heat map: Very cool visualization tool!

Venture Capital 150

Venture Capital Invest CTO Coach Southern California 150

Both Sides of the Table

JULY 17, 2018

A firm like ours has almost 100 different investments across all the various partners so we get to see some businesses very intimately. 1/ From vantage point of being able to see hundreds of companies, good & bad I have some advice for founders - Get to know and love "gross margin." Ultimately it matters a great deal.

Software Review 242

Software Review Technical Review Pricing Metrics 242

socalTECH

JANUARY 2, 2020

What was the biggest news for you/your company this year? While it was a good year for our merger and acquisition practice in the SaaS and fintech space, our most exciting news is in our merchant banking sector where we invest in and advise growth companies often for several years. Two lessons learnedand relearned!

Capital 100

Capital SoCal Southern California SaaS 100

SoCal CTO

MARCH 11, 2013

Yes, the investor may literally have said to you: "That is something I'd seriously think about investing in when you have your product built." If you do build the MVP and show it to them, they will ask you about your metrics. They really want metrics, not a product. " But the reality is that they don't mean that.

Metrics 264

Metrics Venture Capital News Product 264

Startup Professionals Musings

JANUARY 15, 2020

The key elements of leadership in a company, both individual and organizational, are less tangible, but very critical in setting a market value for investment, acquisition, or going public. In the investment community, these leadership elements are often called “goodwill.” Marty Zwilling.

Technical Review 124

Technical Review Organization Coach Invest 124

Startup Professionals Musings

DECEMBER 22, 2021

Happy customers quickly become your biggest advocates, today reaching far beyond friends and family, and they make traditional marketing efforts pale in comparison for growth, loyalty, and new customer acquisition costs. Use metrics to assess needs and growth economics. Regularly invent new ways to delight customers.

Custom 114

Custom Customer Satisfaction Metrics 114

Berkonomics

FEBRUARY 13, 2014

Back when we were all trying to figure out the real value of traffic on the web, we investors – and acquiring companies – got a bit crazy with metrics used to value acquisitions and investments. That is the quandary which entrepreneurs face today in building models for new companies around a web presence.

Metrics 207

Metrics Sites Advertising Web 207

Both Sides of the Table

JANUARY 25, 2015

The law of large numbers, platforms that can make your company blow up unexpectedly and the trendy nature of tech markets can be deceiving. I have many investments with early traction and I the entrepreneurs I work with must tire of my constantly saying, “Are we really making a difference? Not vanity metrics.

Product 150

Product Startup Metrics Technical Review 150

Startup Professionals Musings

APRIL 3, 2019

They randomly churn for hours a day on a couple of their favorite social media platforms, with little thought given to goals, objectives, or metrics; and ultimately give up and fall back to traditional marketing approaches. Create an action plan with metrics. Measuring is all about return-on-investment (ROI). Marty Zwilling.

Social Media 96

Social Media Media Marketing Metrics 96

Both Sides of the Table

OCTOBER 6, 2010

But in my experience as an entrepreneur and now spending my time amongst investors I can generalize that almost all VC investments in early stage technology & Internet investments come down to just four key factors. It is probably the right thing for the stage of company. I obviously don’t speak for all investors.

Startup 360

Startup Venture Capital Invest Slides 360

Startup Professionals Musings

MARCH 3, 2021

To keep you on a positive track with potential investors, I recommend the following logic principles, to balance your passion in presenting your vision of a new business: Make sure your plan includes some business metrics. For example, if you have ever watched the Shark Tank show on TV, they always ask about the cost of customer acquisition.

Entrepreneur 162

Entrepreneur Social Media Examples Metrics 162

Both Sides of the Table

NOVEMBER 14, 2017

An alternate outcome that I also unfortunately observe in some cases are companies who had extreme early success with an initial product adoption but failed in key areas that limited the growth and therefore the ultimate financial outcomes. How long does it take me to pay back my original customer acquisition costs?

Startup 286

Startup Technical Review Custom Customer 286

Startup Professionals Musings

AUGUST 7, 2020

In a larger public company, it’s all about making your quarterly numbers, versus investing in strategic growth alternatives that may not pay off until several quarters later. It’s your job as a leader to be the model high performer, quantify the team view with metrics, and expand awareness to the best outside competition and new tools.

Technical Review 124

Technical Review Layoffs Social Media Metrics 124

Startup Professionals Musings

AUGUST 12, 2015

In my experience, finding real innovation in existing company environments is even tougher. It starts with a vision, but benefits quickly from a structured process of idea generation, evaluation, prototyping, customer feedback, and success metrics. Set milestones and meet them. Ownership. Business risks are not just development risks.

Entrepreneur 101

Entrepreneur Startup Coach Metrics 101

Both Sides of the Table

JUNE 12, 2010

Spark Capital is relatively new to VC (founded in 2005) yet has become one of the hottest new VCs having invested in Twitter, Tumblr, AdMeld, Boxee, KickApps and many more companies. Company grew by more than “400% each year” for past few years [assume growth metric = revenues]. Our guest was Mo Koyfman of Spark Capital.

Venture Capital 217

Venture Capital Capital Metrics Competition 217

socalTECH

DECEMBER 11, 2017

Scott tells us how the company--backed by St. Cloud Capital--has managed to coax those equipment rental yards into the digital age, and how the company has tackled other challenges in focusing its business. Scott Cannon: We are an online marketplace for companies in the rental construction equipment space. What is BigRentz?

Startup 174

Startup Metrics Custom Customer 174

socalTECH

SEPTEMBER 27, 2013

We caught up with David Siemer , both an investment banker who runs Siemer & Associates (www.siemer.com) and an early stage investor here with Siemer Ventures (www.siemervc.com), to get his thoughts on the subject. Now, a new breed of companies is finally making it out, which has had a huge impact on valuations.

Southern California 124

Southern California SoCal Commerce Invest 124

socalTECH

FEBRUARY 18, 2014

MuckerLab is one of a number of accelerators who have managed to scoop up venture funding for its companies, with such portfolio companies Surf Air, Retention Science, Wallaby, Chromatik, and others. We just had the demo day for our third batch of companies. How are things going over there at MuckerLab?

Incubator 187

Incubator Southern California Startup Ideas 187

Startup Professionals Musings

MAY 10, 2019

Image via Pixabay After a frustrating meeting with a small business client recently who didn’t “have time” for social media, I was surprised to find evidence on the Internet that up to one quarter of small business owners are still hesitant to invest time, money, and effort into a social media strategy. Do your homework before you begin.

Social Media 99

Social Media Media Tool Startup 99

socalTECH

JANUARY 14, 2011

MarketShare recently launched a rebranding effort for the company, and is in the midst of a major hiring and expansion phase. Wes Nichols: MarketShare is an analytics company. Essentially, we help them learn how to get more with less, and also how to consider new investments in things like social media, mobile marketing, or video.

Social Media 235

Social Media Demand Activity Marketing 235

Startup Professionals Musings

APRIL 1, 2017

They randomly churn for hours a day on a couple of their favorite social media platforms, with little thought given to goals, objectives, or metrics; and ultimately give up and fall back to traditional marketing approaches. Create an action plan with metrics. Measuring is all about return-on-investment (ROI). Marty Zwilling.

Social Media 62

Social Media Media Metrics SEO 62

Startup Professionals Musings

SEPTEMBER 30, 2015

In addition, current investors want to see every startup go public or be acquired, as an exit event, so they can get their due return for that investment which has been tied up for the last few years. For these reasons, I always look for an overt exit strategy in every startup I might consider for an angel investment.

Startup 98

Startup Entrepreneur Metrics Acquisition 98

InfoChachkie

JANUARY 16, 2018

Without taking a dime of outside capital, the company has achieved impressive success in a competitive, SaaS market segment, landing companies such as Nike, Intuit, NASA, AutoDesk and PBS. What makes their story more remarkable, in the age of 20-something billionaires, is that both of the company’s founders are in their 50’s.

Venture Capital 115

Venture Capital Entrepreneur Santa Barbara SaaS 115

Startup Professionals Musings

NOVEMBER 4, 2015

The key elements of leadership in a company, both individual and organizational, are less tangible, but very critical in setting a market value for investment, acquisition, or going public. In the investment community, these leadership elements are often called “goodwill.” Marty Zwilling.

Technical Review 100

Technical Review Organization Coach Invest 100

Startup Professionals Musings

AUGUST 27, 2018

Too many companies try to force a sense of employee urgency through deadlines and performance goals. The best companies, including Google, create urgency within their team by engaging them in the business, addressing personal needs and flexibility, and building win-win relationships. Set metrics and rewards specifically for innovation.

Metrics 58

Metrics IBM IBM Competition 58

Startup Professionals Musings

AUGUST 18, 2013

They randomly churn for hours a day on a couple of their favorite social media platforms, with little thought given to goals, objectives, or metrics; and ultimately give up and fall back to traditional marketing approaches. Create an action plan with metrics. Measuring is all about return-on-investment (ROI). Marty Zwilling.

Social Media 102

Social Media Media Product Metrics 102

socalTECH

MARCH 6, 2017

After I sold my last company, Shift, in May of 2015, I took some time off to look for the next thing to do. A lot of what we've been looking at are the metrics. Increasingly, it takes a lot of spending to build out an app, and then getting users for an app, whether that's through paid acquisition or another method.

Media 153

Media Mobile Startup Acquisition 153

Both Sides of the Table

DECEMBER 27, 2011

You have to understand whether they’re likely to yield revenue growth in the near term OR whether you have access to cheap enough capital to fund your losses until your investments pay off. Exec Summary: Most companies (98+%) in the world (even tech startups) should be very profit focused. If you don’t, somebody else WILL!”

Startup 418

Startup Venture Capital Sales Technical Review 418

Startup Professionals Musings

AUGUST 7, 2015

Of course, these should never be in a customer pitch, but investors expect an overall strategy with specific budgets, milestones and metrics. This allows them to calculate burn rates, break-even points and forecast the company valuation over time. Immediate investment requirements and use of funds.

Product 103

Product Slides Custom Customer 103

SoCal CTO

MARCH 1, 2007

skip to main | skip to sidebar SoCal CTO Thursday, March 1, 2007 Entreprenuer Network Great post by Ben Kuo - The Importance of the “Network&# to Entrepreneurs - the informal connections between people in the technology industry here who have a vested interest in helping entrepreneurs take their companies to the next level.

Networking 150

Networking CTO Coach Southern California CTO Hire 150

socalTECH

AUGUST 31, 2009

Hamet is now helping True Ventures look at investments in Southern California, and we thought it would be worthwhile to talk to him about the firm's new interest here, his role, plus his insights into where the advertising industry is now. We stay away from Series B investments, it's all Series A and earlier. Hamet Watt: Not really.

Southern California 164

Southern California Venture Capital Advertising Entrepreneur 164

SoCal CTO

MARCH 20, 2007

His work in social media, e-Learning and Performance Support has won awards and has led him into engagements at many Fortune 500 companies including Credit Suisse, Royal Bank of Canada, Citibank, Lexus, Microsoft, Nissan, Universal, IBM, Hewlett-Packard, Sun Microsystems, Fidelity Investments, Symbol Technologies and SHL Systemhouse.

Venture Capital 150

Venture Capital Guide CTO Coach Southern California 150