Startup Professionals Musings

APRIL 21, 2023

As a startup advisor in this age of the entrepreneur, I see many more startups, but innovation is still hard to find. An entrepreneur looking for a sure thing will never innovate. It starts with a vision, but benefits quickly from a structured process of idea generation, evaluation, prototyping, customer feedback, and success metrics.

Coach 137

Coach Metrics Competition Ideas 137

Startup Professionals Musings

DECEMBER 17, 2013

Entrepreneurs have no trouble focusing on how to build a product, and the good ones know how to find and nurture those first critical customers. What I’m talking about here is a level of discipline and skill necessary to collect and analyze the relevant business data, known as metrics. Customer loyalty and retention.

Metrics 100

Metrics Technical Review Sales Custom 100

Startup Professionals Musings

OCTOBER 18, 2023

Once an entrepreneur, always an entrepreneur. Although many won’t admit it, true entrepreneurs can’t wait to exit their current startup, and build a new and better one with their next great idea. New startup founders keep all the operating metrics they need in their head. Mature your business processes and customer base.

Startup 99

Startup Entrepreneur Metrics Acquisition 99

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.” That should make you wonder - how do you measure traction in a metric? Customers and investors alike measure traction by your formal advisors.

Metrics 57

Metrics Funding Startup Custom 57

Startup Professionals Musings

JANUARY 17, 2022

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. Your customers’ biggest need is not for more things. Your best strategy is to find more customers that fit the things you do best, rather than building more things.

Startup 144

Startup Social Media Metrics Custom 144

Startup Professionals Musings

NOVEMBER 14, 2012

Entrepreneurs have no trouble focusing on how to build a product, and the good ones know how to find and nurture those first critical customers. What I’m talking about here is a level of discipline and skill necessary to collect and analyze the relevant business data, known as metrics. Customer loyalty and retention.

Metrics 106

Metrics Startup Sales Statistics 106

Startup Professionals Musings

JANUARY 9, 2021

Once an entrepreneur, always an entrepreneur. Although many won’t admit it, true entrepreneurs can’t wait to exit their current startup, and build a new and better one with their next great idea. New startup founders keep all the operating metrics they need in their head. Mature your business processes and customer base.

Startup 173

Startup Entrepreneur Metrics Acquisition 173

Startup Professionals Musings

FEBRUARY 8, 2015

Many startups and mature businesses have not yet accepted the fact that customer satisfaction and loyalty in this “always connected” age are about more than product and service quality. They are all about how customers broadcast their pleasure or unhappiness to others. Customer upsell: Sell more to existing customers.

Custom 100

Custom Customer Satisfaction Social Media 100

Startup Professionals Musings

AUGUST 12, 2015

As a startup investor in this age of the entrepreneur, I see many more startups, but innovation is still hard to find. An entrepreneur looking for a sure thing will never innovate. It starts with a vision, but benefits quickly from a structured process of idea generation, evaluation, prototyping, customer feedback, and success metrics.

Entrepreneur 101

Entrepreneur Startup Coach Metrics 101

Startup Professionals Musings

AUGUST 21, 2021

Yet as a business advisor I am convinced that making the jump from a startup to a the next unicorn takes a different mindset, and actions most entrepreneurs are reluctant to face. In my experience, less than half of founding entrepreneurs even aspire to stay and scale their company. Switch your focus from product development to sales.

Startup 151

Startup Course Sales Entrepreneur 151

Startup Professionals Musings

JULY 25, 2020

As a startup advisor in this age of the entrepreneur, I see many more startups, but innovation is still hard to find. An entrepreneur looking for a sure thing will never innovate. It starts with a vision, but benefits quickly from a structured process of idea generation, evaluation, prototyping, customer feedback, and success metrics.

Coach 144

Coach Metrics Social Network Competition 144

Startup Professionals Musings

SEPTEMBER 11, 2021

Obviously this definition is generic, so my first recommendation is that you take the lead in defining traction metrics for your startup, and then selling your results convincingly to investors. One customer is not traction, and beta tests with a thousand customers at no cost don’t count. Customer acquisition cost.

Startup 121

Startup Metrics Custom Customer 121

Startup Professionals Musings

OCTOBER 11, 2013

Many startups and mature businesses have not yet adapted to the fact that customer satisfaction in this “always connected” age is more than product and service quality. It’s more about which customers broadcast their pleasure or unhappiness to others. Here are four basics that always apply: Customer retention is priority number one.

Custom 97

Custom Customer Satisfaction Social Media 97

Startup Professionals Musings

AUGUST 18, 2018

As a startup investor in this age of the entrepreneur, I see many more startups, but innovation is still hard to find. An entrepreneur looking for a sure thing will never innovate. It starts with a vision, but benefits quickly from a structured process of idea generation, evaluation, prototyping, customer feedback, and success metrics.

Entrepreneur 64

Entrepreneur Coach Metrics Competition 64

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. You spend the months influencing the influencers.

Social Media 135

Social Media Framework Media Metrics 135

Startup Professionals Musings

OCTOBER 13, 2021

As a long-time business consultant and investor, especially to entrepreneurs, I recognize your sparkle of vision , to build the ultimate world-changing product. I found these maladies summarized well in a new book, “ Radical Product Thinking ,” by entrepreneur Radhika Dutt. Hypermetricemia – metrics for everything.

Metrics 133

Metrics Product Yahoo Examples 133

Startup Professionals Musings

JANUARY 6, 2021

Every new business I know dreams of building momentum in their business, where growth continues to increase, customers become your best advocates, and employee motivation is high. Unfortunately, with limited resources, this isn’t possible, and it frustrates customers and the team. Focus first on finding more of the right customers.

Technical Review 160

Technical Review Technical Advisors Startup Mentor 160

InfoChachkie

JANUARY 16, 2018

Greathouse: Your collective experiences have clearly made bootstrapping a viable option for you, more so than might be the case for a typical, younger entrepreneur who needs more direction, doesn’t have cash discipline, etc. We have customers from so many different industries like software, financial services, healthcare, and media.

Venture Capital 115

Venture Capital Entrepreneur Santa Barbara SaaS 115

Berkonomics

AUGUST 7, 2014

How should you become the best marketer you can be, even if you are a first time entrepreneur or a seasoned CEO? Interview potential customers, hold focus groups, meet with existing customers. There’s an answer for that. The title of this insight helps us find a formula: LALA. Berkonomics books available at www.berkus.com.

Marketing 176

Marketing Metrics Education Resource 176

Startup Professionals Musings

MARCH 3, 2021

Based on my own years of experience in startups and big business, and more recently as an angel investor, I often cringe when I see one of you entrepreneurs missing a cue that I have seen work for many before you. A passionate entrepreneur I met a while back had found that a certain algae could be grown cheaply, and could end world hunger.

Entrepreneur 162

Entrepreneur Social Media Examples Metrics 162

Startup Professionals Musings

APRIL 28, 2021

Almost every entrepreneur and new business owner I mentor is certain that his/her idea has a very high probability of success, and all find it hard to believe that ninety percent of startups ultimately fail. I once met with an entrepreneur who had developed a new algae strain to cure world hunger and make him rich.

Technical Review 131

Technical Review Case Study Mentor Software Review 131

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. For startups, the entrepreneur and founder is almost always the face of the company. Focus on talent and people growth.

Technical Review 129

Technical Review Funding Organization Coach 129

Startup Professionals Musings

NOVEMBER 7, 2011

Most then add customer service at the rollout, but very few really understand what it means to be truly customer centric, and even fewer really achieve it. Customer centricity is far more than providing excellent customer service, although that’s a step in the right direction. Focus on individual customer value.

Custom 90

Custom Customer Services Pricing 90

Startup Professionals Musings

JUNE 3, 2015

The best part of being an entrepreneur is having the independence to make your own decisions, the flexibility for a better work/life balance, and personal satisfaction from driving change. The road to business success is filled with challenges and frustrations that most aspiring entrepreneurs never even imagined. It’s very frustrating.

Entrepreneur 111

Entrepreneur Search Engine Optimization Satisfaction Social Media 111

Startup Professionals Musings

DECEMBER 13, 2019

In the interests of helping you work smarter and last longer, I would like to offer my top ten list of key resource drains to avoid in early businesses and startups, based on my years of advising entrepreneurs and my own business experience: Expanding your product line too quickly for scaling. Use multiple small orders at first.

Outsource Development 122

Outsource Development Outsource Metrics Technical Review 122

Startup Professionals Musings

OCTOBER 17, 2018

According to most investors I know, traction is some clear evidence that the “dogs are eating the dog food” – usually meaning that you have at least one customer paying full price for your solution. Another term often mentioned is “momentum,” or growing visibility and advocacy within your customer set.

Tips 79

Tips Metrics Technical Review Custom 79

Startup Professionals Musings

AUGUST 13, 2022

I still have to tell some entrepreneurs that even with the best idea, they have to move to Silicon Valley to find the investors they need, or they need to move to the U.S. Exposure to customers, incumbents, and competitors all drive success. But it is an important metric for firms in pursuit of explosive growth.

Technical Review 123

Technical Review Oracle Software Review Ideas 123

Startup Professionals Musings

DECEMBER 31, 2012

Most then add customer service at the rollout, but very few really understand what it means to be truly customer centric, and even fewer really achieve it. Customer centricity is far more than providing excellent customer service, although that’s a step in the right direction. Focus on individual customer value.

Custom 90

Custom Customer Startup Pricing 90

Startup Professionals Musings

NOVEMBER 14, 2015

Every entrepreneur is quick to tell friends and potential investors about his or her vision of changing the world, about all the customers who have expressed an interest, and about all the other investors who are lining up to get a piece of the action. Is your customer-acquisition rate accelerating?

Acquisition 100

Acquisition Entrepreneur Custom Customer 100

Startup Professionals Musings

MAY 9, 2015

In my experience with entrepreneurs, there seems to a wealth of self-proclaimed “idea people” who aspire to start businesses, but only a few who are willing and able to dig in and get the job done. Only rare great entrepreneurs, like Bill Gates and Elon Musk, have proven to be both. Managing marketing metrics and the sales pipeline.

Ideas 115

Ideas Startup IBM IBM 115

Startup Professionals Musings

APRIL 15, 2019

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. Your customers’ biggest need is not for more things. Your best strategy is to find more customers that fit the things you do best, rather than building more things.

Social Media 87

Social Media Metrics Custom Customer 87

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. You spend the months influencing the influencers.

Social Media 96

Social Media Media Marketing Metrics 96

InfoChachkie

SEPTEMBER 29, 2014

But we do it anyway, because we believe that the short-term metrics probably aren''t indicative of the long term.”. As I discuss in Entrepreneurs Should Go For The Quick Buck – Then Stop , there are situations in which a startup can generate profitable, near-term revenue that does not support, and may even undermine, its long-term strategy.

Tips 223

Tips Framework Metrics Cloud Computing 223

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. For startups, the entrepreneur and founder is almost always the face of the company. Focus on talent and people growth.

Technical Review 124

Technical Review Organization Coach Invest 124

Both Sides of the Table

JANUARY 25, 2015

” This, too, is a must read for any entrepreneur. 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. I am obsessed with a topic because it has literally become my job.

Product 150

Product Startup Metrics Technical Review 150

Both Sides of the Table

JANUARY 31, 2010

TechCrunch Europe ran an article in November of last year that European startups need to work as hard as those in Silicon Valley and I echoed the sentiment in my post about the need for entrepreneurs to be maniacal about their businesses if one wants to work in the hyper competitive tech world. We were based in London.

Entrepreneur 308

Entrepreneur Startup Venture Capital Conference 308

Startup Professionals Musings

AUGUST 14, 2015

Too many entrepreneurs tackle starting a business as a random walk into a business minefield, and they count on their street smarts, thick skin and pure determination to get them to their destinations alive. Maybe more important, you need domain knowledge, relationships and lots of potential customers.

Startup 101

Startup Metrics Resource Mentor 101