Berkonomics

NOVEMBER 9, 2017

So, aiming a brand-new smartphone full of great features but increased complexity using AARP Magazine as your marketing resource just won’t get the job done. Email readers, continue here…]. When you do connect with your niche, you will have resources to expand and alter your message for the next niche and then the next.

Marketing 266

Marketing Resource Advertising Social Media 266

Berkonomics

MARCH 14, 2019

Of course, we are speaking of increased valuation of your company when we speak of “wealth.” Email readers, continue here…] Are you ahead or behind the market with your product or service? Any new enterprise is at risk if there are not enough resources to get the company to breakeven, which is a proxy for stability.

Outsource Development 120

Outsource Development Ideas Resource Patents 120

Berkonomics

JUNE 29, 2017

If you have been following our recent insights, you’ll be up to speed knowing that professional investors negotiate tough terms, from provisions of control over asset acquisition, eventual sale of the company, future investments, forced co-sale when others attempt to sell their shares and more. Trust works both ways.

Invest 243

Invest Entrepreneur Sales Startup 243

Both Sides of the Table

MAY 9, 2018

You left the meeting dreaming about money and finally having resources to do all of the things you wanted to do. After my board meeting I had to do an interview with a CFO candidate that one of my portfolio companies asked me to speak with. Wednesday I have 4 companies coming in to talk about their companies.

Software Review 381

Software Review Startup Email Conference 381

Berkonomics

FEBRUARY 24, 2022

So the lion recruited a cockroach who had extensive experience as a supervisor and who was famous for writing excellent reports. He also needed a secretary to help him write and type his reports. Just add more ants, hopefully as resourceful as the first? Guess who the lion fired first? So the lesson is obvious.

Course 156

Course Writing Report Startup 156

Both Sides of the Table

JULY 4, 2016

Nowhere is this more apparent than working in a startup where you are definitionally under-resourced and trying to make big accomplishments in compressed periods of time. I try to steer entrepreneurs away from over-introducers and I often find myself wanting to be careful about them becoming an investor in companies I back.

Innocal 255

Innocal Conference Help Study 255

Berkonomics

MARCH 15, 2012

This risk can be mitigated by finding a customer willing to purchase as soon as a proven model is completed, and willing to state this in writing. Another is to gain the support of a core vendor who is willing to offer special extended terms to the company as its investment in creating the product in a finished state.

Outsource Development 200

Outsource Development Ideas Resource Patents 200

InfoChachkie

OCTOBER 8, 2012

Once people who do not know you and have no vested interest in your company's success begin expending their time, money and resources to leverage your value proposition, you are gaining traction. In a like manner, proudly profess your traction to your target VCs until they either write you a check or ask you to look elsewhere.

Venture Capital 265

Venture Capital RSS Customer Custom 265

Both Sides of the Table

MARCH 8, 2010

I recently wrote a piece for Mashable on how to create a company blog. Don’t just write a carbon copy of what somebody else is doing. OK, well, actually the first thing I did is come up with a list of 50 posts that I wanted to write. I didn’t want to run out of things to write about in the first 6 months.

Blogging 286

Blogging Startup Writing Summary 286

Berkonomics

FEBRUARY 25, 2016

Email readers, continue here…] Using your attorney or accountant to find who is close to the decision maker sometimes works. After all, you have a paying relationship with these resources, and asking for help is not considered a daunting request. Do you have any contacts or friends within the target company?

Ideas 120

Ideas Sales Competition Venture Capital 120

Both Sides of the Table

JUNE 23, 2013

I’ve been writing a series on a simple methodology that we used at my first enterprise software company. It’s true that some solutions are really hard to quantify and the most obvious example people point to is email. You can’t quantify the value of email yet everybody needs it!”. Maybe they don’t?

Sales 328

Sales Customer Custom Examples 328

Berkonomics

DECEMBER 16, 2009

But flying without a map of some kind seems just plain too risky. [Email readers continue here.] I recently joined the board of a company that was growing slowly, running beyond breakeven, but had not approved a plan for the current year, let alone attempted to develop one for the next.

Summary 149

Summary Resource Writing Email 149

Berkonomics

JUNE 9, 2016

So the lion recruited a cockroach who had extensive experience as a supervisor and who was famous for writing excellent reports. He also needed a secretary to help him write and type his reports. Just add more ants, hopefully as resourceful as the first? Guess who the lion fired first? So the lesson is obvious.

Report 120

Report Writing Startup Course 120

Both Sides of the Table

MAY 13, 2018

If you truly believe that you, your company and your products are exceptional and your company will be valuable then you’re actually doing them a FAVOR by helping them invest in your startup. an investment in your company. Somehow many first-time founders equate “sales” with something that is beneath them.

Venture Capital 332

Venture Capital Funding Startup Sales 332

socalTECH

MARCH 16, 2017

We are going to write checks of between $100,000 and $500,000, and we are going to invest in what we are calling first institutional capital. That's the first time organized, institutional, managed capital is coming into a company, right after friends and family. Two, is I missed a bunch of deals because I did not have a fund.

Invest 145

Invest Funding Capital Startup 145

Tech Zulu Event

JANUARY 30, 2012

Months of submissions and the amazing help from our judges , the Spotlight is shinning down on awesome companies that were born right out of Southern California. And now without further ado I present the Spotlight: LA Tech Winter Companies: Spotlight Companies. We write and create our own content for the game.

CalTech 91

CalTech Company Companies Idealab 91

Both Sides of the Table

MAY 18, 2010

.&# VC’s will want to learn about what you’re up to and later stage VCs will have their 23-year-old analysts call you to tell you how interested they are in your company. The problem is that the scarcest resource in any entrepreneur’s life is your time. I suggested something like the following.

Startup 305

Startup Venture Capital Writing Conference 305

Tech.Co

MARCH 9, 2020

From analytical reporting tools to helpful integrations such as email and Slack prompts, you'll be able to run your whole business, not just your remote work teams, in a more efficient manner. But if you follow a few best practices, you should be able to keep you and your company safe. Check In Effectively. Project Management Software.

Tips 160

Tips Software Review Study Email 160

SoCal CTO

MARCH 3, 2011

Many of the founders of these companies are surprised to learn that I'm willing to review what they are doing (maybe an hour) and get on the phone for an hour with them and provide free advice. And I try my best to point them to resources that can help them longer term. What are related products/companies? Who's the customer?

CTO Hire 264

CTO Hire Startup Technical Review Development Team Review 264

SoCal CTO

MARCH 3, 2011

Many of the founders of these companies are surprised to learn that I'm willing to review what they are doing (maybe an hour) and get on the phone for an hour with them and provide free advice. And I try my best to point them to resources that can help them longer term. What are related products/companies? Who's the customer?

CTO Hire 259

CTO Hire Startup Technical Review Development Team Review 259

Jason Nazar

AUGUST 15, 2013

The Viral Loop / User Email. Helpful Resources about Search Engine Traffic : 68 Helpful SEO Tools. Helpful Resources about for Getting Referral Traffic : Top Blogs List (with email contacts). Helpful Resources for Getting Social Media Traffic : The Social Media Manual and Promoting Yourself on Twitter (by geekpreneur ).

Web 61

Web Social Media Content Sites 61

SoCal CTO

MARCH 12, 2012

I've recently received several emails from people looking for a technical cofounder for their startup. I promised I would write this post with some thoughts and ideas on the topic. Here's an example of that kind of email. Here are some ideas: In your company or other companies. Get to know the developers.

CTO Hire 211

CTO Hire CTO Coach Startup Equity 211

Tech Zulu Event

NOVEMBER 16, 2013

Something to write your notes, another to set reminders, and one that does both. No folders, submenus, or “category-container-box-lists” Write your reminder with a string of hashtags: #todo #pickup autobiography of arnold schwarzenegger from #amazon. We’ve been there. We’ve all been there. ” Huh?

Product 99

Product Ideas Email Organization 99

socalTECH

SEPTEMBER 29, 2015

What is it to start up a company, and run it to the brink of shutdown�only to have it acquired and restarted immediately? We caught up with co-founder Joey Flores on the story behind the company's brush with death, and its recent acquisition by You42, which was announced last week. So, we decided to shut down the company.

Software Review 100

Software Review Startup Metrics Content 100

socalTECH

NOVEMBER 15, 2012

We spoke with Matt Kumin , the company's founder and CEO--who was formerly an executive at Edmunds.com--to learn about the company's products. We're a content curation platform, software-as-a-service for content, and we are focused on helping companies engage their customer more directly using content.

Web 237

Web Newsletter Content Startup 237

Both Sides of the Table

DECEMBER 14, 2010

.&# I really try to stay out of the middle of these things so I softly said to the team, “maybe you should contact these companies and see how their experience went?&# From there I figure they can both figure out what to discuss – or not. This experience made me want to dig into my archives, re-write & publish this piece.

Venture Capital 298

Venture Capital Entrepreneur Capital Help 298

socalTECH

FEBRUARY 4, 2010

I've watched businesses operate throughout my career, and saw that so many times business users struggle with relatively simple applications, where they can't get them build, can't get them to work, and where they have to kludge together an email system to route things to get things approved. How did the company start?

Startup 150

Startup San Diego Entrepreneur Tool 150

Jason Nazar

JANUARY 14, 2009

“If You Build It…They Will Come” may work for historical baseball ghosts, but it’s not a strategy you can rely on when starting an internet company. The Viral Loop / User Email. Helpful Resources about Search Engine Traffic : 68 Helpful SEO Tools. Driving traffic to your website is a formula that can be reverse engineered.

Web 62

Web Social Media Content Sites 62

Both Sides of the Table

JANUARY 1, 2016

That’s why it’s important to revisit your company’s mission from time-to-time. We try to hire deeply analytical associates to can help companies problem solve and who make us better investors. Take some time to reflect on how well defined you believe your company’s sense of purpose is.

Startup 150

Startup Coach Course Invest 150

Startup Professionals Musings

JULY 18, 2010

Based on a survey just last year by Robert Half Technology , over half of today’s companies block social networks completely, while another 19 percent only permit it "for business purposes." The net is that most companies do dare to put restrictions on social networks “at work.” Contractor, temp, or outsource worker off site.

Social Network 87

Social Network Networking Tool Sites 87

InfoChachkie

JUNE 27, 2011

My response was brief and straightforward, which is common of popular Quora answers (as discussed in How To Write An Effective Quora Answer ). Although my answer was off-the-cuff, the question caused me to consider the issue of raising entrepreneurial children in greater depth, which led me to write this series. No Paychecks.

Entrepreneur 270

Entrepreneur Startup Venture Capital Resource 270

Both Sides of the Table

JULY 24, 2016

Since you’ve already walked through financial & operating metrics the board meeting ought to be the time to run through 2–3 big strategic issues the company faces. It is a waste of what should be valuable resources to you and it is a failure on your part to push yourself to really think about the long-term issues you’re facing.

Guide 196

Guide Startup Metrics Conference 196

Both Sides of the Table

MARCH 27, 2011

But should you actually write one if you’re a startup, an industry figure (lawyer, banker) or VC? This is a post to help you figure out why you should write and what you should talk about. Write out the topic and maybe even the blog title. I wanted to write about the top 10 attributes of an entrepreneur.

Blogging 373

Blogging Startup Writing Venture Capital 373

InfoChachkie

DECEMBER 2, 2009

You must apply dedicated resources to your SEM efforts, either in-house or via a trusted third-party partner, in order to maximize customers acquired from this channel. Some might be from banner ads and others may arise from an email campaign. . However, Search Engine Management (SEM) is not a “set and forget” exercise.

Customer 164

Customer Custom Advertising SEM 164

InfoChachkie

SEPTEMBER 10, 2010

Such Donors are willing to expend time and resources to assist the startup, often without monetary gain. I am continually surprised and disappointed by the number of entrepreneurs and startup companies that do not take the time to say “Thank You.” Give Your Donors Their Tax Deduction.

Entrepreneur 210

Entrepreneur Help Networking Startup 210

socalTECH

JULY 23, 2012

If you've ever written a recommendation, it's one of those tings where someone requests one from you, and if you like that person and want to give them a recommendation, it's sort of a challenge to write something that is thoughtful and interesting and honest, but also not too fluffy. Plus, it makes it difficult from other recommendations.

CTO Hire 147

CTO Hire Startup Sites Technical Review 147

socalTECH

FEBRUARY 27, 2009

We spoke with Dipanshu Sharma, Chairman of the firm, to learn more about the company and its products. That's the case with every other company we know of and who we have talked to. Most companies use Microsoft Project, and although there are a bunch of other projects, Microsoft has the most market share.

Startup 100

Startup Software Review Technical Review Software 100