Startup Professionals Musings

MAY 15, 2020

What I want to hear is an innovative marketing and growth strategy that will set you apart in the minds of investors, as well as customers. Today’s customer is especially attracted to companies like TOMS , who donates a pair of shoes for every pair they sell, or Patagonia, with its support for grassroots environmental groups.

Marketing 170

Marketing Startup Examples Customer 170

Both Sides of the Table

NOVEMBER 3, 2010

Packaging, pricing & discounts – In the early days of my first company we always had “list prices&# we quoted to customers and of course we were always willing to negotiate based on who the client was, how important the business was to us, who the competition was and how well the deal was negotiated. I was the laggard.

Sales 296

Sales Pricing Startup Customer 296

Startup Professionals Musings

JANUARY 24, 2021

Others schedule exhaustive training sessions for everyone on the team, including showcase customers, to make sure that everyone paints a consistent picture. The Founder needs to remember that meetings up to this point have been primarily off-site, with staged demos, and managed personally by the CEO or a small team.

Technical Review 151

Technical Review Startup Satisfaction Invest 151

Startup Professionals Musings

JANUARY 27, 2020

As an aspiring entrepreneur, one of the most important things you need is a memorable “ elevator pitch ,” to communicate your startup value proposition and leave a great first impression on friends, investors, employees, and future customers. Describe technology and features, not competitiveness.

Sample 127

Sample Summary Startup Slides 127

Both Sides of the Table

SEPTEMBER 11, 2009

Some readers have commented that in today’s world you shouldn’t even need a PowerPoint presentation – in this era you should always just demo your product. I also recently wrote a post about a company that came in for a presentation and never even got the slides out or presented a demo. Who are your key customers?

Venture Capital 238

Venture Capital Slides Startup Sales 238

Startup Professionals Musings

JUNE 3, 2023

A few are still trying to make a profitable business out of nurturing startups, but it’s a challenge to make money when your customer startups don’t have many resources to give. I believe their competitive advantage is their top on-site leadership, exclusivity, and connections to investors.

Organization 92

Organization Incubator Startup Resource 92

Berkonomics

AUGUST 3, 2023

Whether the partner is a supplier looking to gain a lock on your business as it grows or a customer looking to create a competitive barrier through use of your product, such an investment typically carries fewer restrictions than from a professional investor and less oversight.

Venture Capital 295

Venture Capital Startup Class Invest 295

Both Sides of the Table

JANUARY 26, 2010

You can always tell during this discussion whether the entrepreneur has logged into their products, talked to their customers, read all the news stories and gotten all of the back channel info on the competition. You can tell if they have a deep-seated competitive spirit. Can’t go a mile deep on competition?

Entrepreneur 286

Entrepreneur Startup CTO Hire Sales 286

Startup Professionals Musings

SEPTEMBER 11, 2020

A few are still trying to make a profitable business out of nurturing startups, but it’s a challenge to make money when your customer startups don’t have many resources to give. I believe their competitive advantage is their top on-site leadership, exclusivity, and connections to investors.

Resource 159

Resource Startup Incubator Seed Funding 159

Startup Professionals Musings

NOVEMBER 8, 2015

The first page of the business plan better be an executive summary which gives the investor a taste of the financials, as well as opportunity, competition, and key executives. “I If you haven’t yet finalized the business model, cost projections, and customer segments, you aren’t ready for investors.

Technical Review 109

Technical Review Entrepreneur Startup Statistics 109

socalTECH

FEBRUARY 18, 2014

We just had the demo day for our third batch of companies. It''s not a three month program, demo day, and folks move out or move on. We take companies all through the year, and have a demo day once a year with the companies who are ready for demo day, where they present, while other might not.

Incubator 187

Incubator Southern California Startup Ideas 187

Tech.Co

APRIL 24, 2018

Being one small company amongst the sea of thousands of startups vying for customers, capital, and talent, the way to get noticed above the crowd, connect with that next big partner, and raise some capital is to throw your hat in the ring to compete at Startup of the Year. A Strong Alumni Network.

Startup 70

Startup Competition Google Capital 70

Both Sides of the Table

APRIL 1, 2015

We built MakeSpace’s logistics systems and customer applications (to see all of your items in storage in beautiful photography) in the first year. Then we launched our service in NYC and in just one year captured 2% of all new storage customers in our target demo in just one year with almost no marketing budget.

Snapchat 150

Snapchat Press .Net Customer 150

Both Sides of the Table

MARCH 31, 2012

My list of excuses includes: product, pricing, competition and lack of sales support. I think it works well for startups because in startups there are inherently less rules and with customers there is less clarity about your product category. This includes presentations, ROI calculators, competitive analyses and so forth.

Startup 319

Startup Sales Course Competition 319

Startup Professionals Musings

SEPTEMBER 24, 2014

The first page of the business plan better be an executive summary which gives the investor a taste of the financials, as well as opportunity, competition, and key executives. “I If you haven’t yet finalized the business model, cost projections, and customer segments, you aren’t ready for investors.

Entrepreneur 119

Entrepreneur Technical Review Statistics Startup 119

Startup Professionals Musings

MARCH 5, 2018

The first page of the business plan better be an executive summary which gives the investor a taste of the financials, as well as opportunity, competition, and key executives. “I If you haven’t yet finalized the business model, cost projections, and customer segments, you aren’t ready for investors.

Funding 62

Funding Technical Review Entrepreneur Startup 62

TechCrunch LA

OCTOBER 22, 2018

Apparently with a physical storefront where it can convince customers of the wonders of on-demand mobility. There will be demos, tutorials, and presentations on how to be safe.” The sheer number of Lime scooters in Santa Monica where the store will arise is already staggering.

Santa Monica 221

Santa Monica Startup Technical Review Education 221

Startup Professionals Musings

AUGUST 4, 2013

In other words, once they are convinced that the product works, they assume their price, sales channel, and marketing will bring in the customers. For example, one CEO I know gave away his software product to the first ten customers. Iterate and improve the fit until your test customers are delighted, not just tolerant.

Product 94

Product Pricing Customer Custom 94

Tech Zulu Event

AUGUST 21, 2011

I dropped in to check out the contest a few times during the competition and the environment was uplifting and exciting. Sparqlight – parts prebuilt before competition. Quick Web App Builder (QWAB) – parts prebuilt before competition. The coolest part about these products was that most of the were live working demos.

Santa Monica 90

Santa Monica Startup PHP HTML 90

Startup Professionals Musings

JUNE 30, 2012

In other words, once they are convinced that the product works, they assume their price, sales channel, and marketing will bring in the customers. For example, one CEO I know gave away his software product to the first ten customers. Iterate and improve the fit until your test customers are delighted, not just tolerant.

Entrepreneur 99

Entrepreneur Pricing Customer Custom 99

Startup Professionals Musings

AUGUST 27, 2012

Here is how and why it works, including a customer-centric quantification of the benefits. Define the characteristics of the overall industry, market forces, market dynamics, and customer landscape. Explain how you will make money and who pays you (real customer). Competition and sustainable advantage. Opportunity sizing.

Slides 99

Slides Competition Sample Sales 99

Both Sides of the Table

OCTOBER 19, 2009

It included one firm who I asked not to call Salesforce.com as a reference (they were our largest pilot customer) and in their kindness they called Marc Benioff (the CEO) and asked his opinion. The first attention we started getting was after we launched the company publicly at Demo on September 25th of this year. Page 3: Competition.

Venture Capital 274

Venture Capital Blogging Startup Slides 274

Tech Zulu Event

OCTOBER 8, 2014

The Demo unit we were shown included a battery-powered external HDMI monitor and USB wireless mouse & keyboard, allowing for a full TriCaster setup with only one power plug! TriCaster Mini is competitively priced at $5,995 base model, or with enhanced recording and remote-broadcast friendly embedded monitor for $7,995.

Screening 103

Screening Entertainment Content Platform 103

Startup Professionals Musings

APRIL 15, 2011

In other words, once they are convinced that the product works, they assume their price, sales channel, and marketing will bring in the customers. For example, one CEO I know gave away his software product to the first ten customers. Iterate and improve the fit until your test customers are delighted, not just tolerant.

Startup 93

Startup Pricing Customer Custom 93

Startup Professionals Musings

JUNE 10, 2011

Here is how and why it works, including a customer-centric quantification of the benefits. Define the characteristics of the overall industry, market forces, market dynamics, and customer landscape. Explain how you will make money and who pays you (real customer). Competition and sustainable advantage. Opportunity sizing.

Slides 93

Slides Competition Sample Sales 93

Startup Professionals Musings

JANUARY 17, 2015

Others schedule exhaustive training sessions for everyone on the team, including showcase customers, to make sure that everyone paints a consistent picture. The Founder needs to remember that meetings up to this point have been primarily off-site, with staged demos, and managed personally by the CEO or a small team.

Technical Review 108

Technical Review Startup Satisfaction Entrepreneur 108

Both Sides of the Table

APRIL 4, 2011

4 times / 100 means if a customer uses your app frequently (say 10-20 times / day) then they are crashing nearly every day. Customer Acquisition. At the highest level you’ll obviously want to track how many customers your adding every month (and for some businesses that have hit scale this is measured on a daily basis).

Metrics 346

Metrics Startup SEO Customer 346

Startup Professionals Musings

APRIL 2, 2012

Don’t say things about your competitors or customers that you wouldn’t be able to defend if they were in the room with you. Prototypes and demos attached. Remember that early prototypes and demos usually break or don’t work for unfamiliar users, and we can’t see all the work and love you have already put into them.

Summary 97

Summary Technical Review .Net Ideas 97

Both Sides of the Table

JUNE 18, 2015

There are too many deals to look at, too many seed funds or angels asking you to look at deals and weekly “demo days” with manicured and monocultural presentations crafted by experienced story tellers to help even the mundane idea sound like it will. For investors life is no different.

Software Review 150

Software Review Startup Venture Capital Invest 150

Startup Professionals Musings

MAY 19, 2010

Here is how and why it works, including a customer-centric quantification of the benefits. Define the characteristics of the overall industry, market forces, market dynamics, and customer landscape. Explain how you will make money and who pays you (real customer). Competition and sustainable advantage. Opportunity sizing.

Slides 94

Slides Competition Sample Sales 94

Berkonomics

JUNE 8, 2017

Whether the partner is a supplier looking to gain a lock on your business as it grows or a customer looking to create a competitive barrier through use of your product, such an investment typically carries fewer restrictions than from a professional investor and less oversight. It’s an option, even though an expensive one.

Venture Capital 266

Venture Capital Class Invest Equity 266

Startup Professionals Musings

FEBRUARY 5, 2011

Don’t say things about your competitors or customers that you wouldn’t be able to defend if they were in the room with you. Prototypes and demos attached. Remember that early prototypes and demos usually break or don’t work for unfamiliar users, and we can’t see all the work and love you have already put into them.

Summary 97

Summary Technical Review .Net Ideas 97

Tech Zulu Event

SEPTEMBER 3, 2013

Here is a demo of our trading platform: Do you have plans to launch an offline-say SMS-based bitcoin? We currently are registered with FinCen at the federal level, and have Anti Money Laundering ( AML ) and Know Your Customer ( KYC ) systems and procedures in place to be compliant with US law. Any competition?

Southern California 76

Southern California Startup Platform Santa Monica 76

Tech Zulu Event

FEBRUARY 8, 2013

. · Divshot, a tool for web designers and developers, won a national pitch competition and one of it’s founders Michael Bleigh created a popular open source library now included in Ruby on Rails. Less Neglect helps companies reduce churn, upsell users, and increase customer acquisition rates.

GRP Partners 96

GRP Partners Startup Tech Coast Angels Bertelsmann 96

Both Sides of the Table

MAY 13, 2013

And they might give a premium if the team has been around a longer period of time, has built some hard-to-build proprietary technology or has some customer traction. Get yourself in a big demo day competition. Many buying companies price these deals on the basis of $1 million per engineer on the team for an early-stage deal.

Press 357

Press Startup Yahoo Venture Capital 357

InfoChachkie

DECEMBER 10, 2012

The team subsequently earned a coveted position in Launchpad LA's current accelerator class after winning the Crowdstart LA competition. The company posted a Show HN entry entitled, " We built a better solution for customer analysis and support.". to actionable user feedback, "Just went through the demo.

News 198

News Sites Startup RSS 198

socalTECH

MARCH 2, 2020

Are Android and iOS then your competition? David Smith: We actually have customers now. We are the core platform for the next generation of AR on 5G, and I think that's the turning point for understanding the need for this, and indeed that we're building a new paradigm for what's occurring. David Smith: Actually, we work on them.

Platform 168

Platform Startup Examples Web 168