Startup Professionals Musings

OCTOBER 31, 2022

It’s important to remember that your passion for a new idea needs to be supported by market research and customer feedback , before you will get the credibility and support you expect to work at this stage. In my experience, competition is the biggest challenge here. Galvanizing: rally a team and customers for action.

Activity 108

Activity Satisfaction Metrics Startup 108

Startup Professionals Musings

SEPTEMBER 16, 2023

Of course, that’s both the good news and the bad news for aspiring entrepreneurs, since it means more competition, and the business landscape is changing faster than ever. Building a minimum viable product, with customer validation. Who would not want to join the unicorns (recent startups with a current valuation of over $1 billion)?

Entrepreneur 104

Entrepreneur Startup Social Media News 104

Startup Professionals Musings

NOVEMBER 30, 2022

While these investors, and early customers, will always argue that they found you, I’m convinced that there is no substitute for aggressive networking on your part. Ability to relate aspirations to customer needs. You need to show insights to real customers and their needs, that get beyond your passions and projections.

Startup 113

Startup Customer Custom Technical Review 113

Startup Professionals Musings

NOVEMBER 29, 2021

The most competitive startups do both, all the time and every time. In today’s competitive world, with its accelerating rate of change, no competitive advantage lasts long. The only sustainable competitive advantage is creativity. Creativity is the ultimate competitive advantage. Celebrate ideas.

Competition 135

Competition Netflix Ideas Metrics 135

Both Sides of the Table

SEPTEMBER 15, 2022

But it will be patiently deployed, waiting for a cohort of founders who aren’t artificially clinging to 2021 valuation metrics. We could talk with customers, meet the entire management team, review financial plans, review customer purchasing cohorts, evaluate the competition, etc. By 2021 we had to write a $3.5m

Venture Capital 416

Venture Capital Marketing Technical Review Seed Funding 416

Startup Professionals Musings

SEPTEMBER 22, 2022

Great marketing is required to generate revenue and grow every business, especially new businesses which have no brand recognition nor loyal customer base. Yet, as a business consultant, I still find many of you business leaders relying primarily on your technology, word-of-mouth , or location to attract necessary customers.

Marketing 133

Marketing Customer Custom Outsource Development 133

Startup Professionals Musings

JUNE 7, 2020

Entrepreneurs need to document a process of responding to a market need, sizing opportunity, assigning a specific business model, and planning for marketing, sales, and customer satisfaction. Solution development and delivery. Hobbies are developed ad-hoc, driven by personal needs.

Entrepreneur 131

Entrepreneur Outsource Development Startup Competition 131

Startup Professionals Musings

AUGUST 27, 2023

Everyone in the company must adopt the principles of customer-first focus, agility in responding to change, and constant innovation to improve your processes as well as the solution. Measure progress through metrics on sales, revenue, and penetration. Seek customer feedback on ways to improve value and satisfaction.

Customer 91

Customer Custom Marketing Startup 91

Startup Professionals Musings

FEBRUARY 1, 2023

In my experience advising businesses, large and small, I have often been surprised by the level of complacency and general malaise I find in the ranks, with a resultant direct loss of productivity and competitiveness. Develop metrics to monitor work intensity. Let that be part of their job satisfaction.

Satisfaction 108

Satisfaction Metrics Competition Examples 108

Startup Professionals Musings

NOVEMBER 28, 2020

Of course, that’s both the good news and the bad news for aspiring entrepreneurs, since it means more competition, and the business landscape is changing faster than ever. Building a minimum viable product, with customer validation. Over 600,000 new businesses were created in the last year, or over one per minute of every day.

Tips 161

Tips Startup Social Media News 161

Startup Professionals Musings

FEBRUARY 12, 2022

The solution is to establish and maintain a culture and processes that don’t view change as a discrete event to be spotted and managed, but as an ongoing opportunity to improve competitiveness. How good are you and everyone on your team at proactively scanning the environment for opportunities, emerging trends, and customer feedback?

Startup 116

Startup Training Statistics Summary 116

Startup Professionals Musings

JUNE 18, 2023

If you can’t identify customer interest, it doesn’t matter how good your product is. Don’t be afraid to test your ultimate entree on customers. Develop metrics with which to measure yourself and use these to incrementally expand and improve your offering as fast as the market and capital will allow. Don’t stand still.

Startup 112

Startup Coach Metrics Marketing 112

Startup Professionals Musings

MARCH 25, 2016

That’s the right place to start, but real growth and scale requires attracting customers who are not like you. Update your technology to reach new customer segments. Today’s customers want to be mobile and location sensitive. Make your offering part of improving customer lifestyle rather than just solving a problem.

Customer 55

Customer Custom Marketing Social Media 55

Startup Professionals Musings

AUGUST 19, 2022

For a hands-on guide in developing data-driven people strategies, I found some practical techniques in the classic book, “ The Data Driven Leader ,” by Jenny Dearborn and David Swanson. It’s the same for customers and products, where analytics have long proven their value. Use data analysis and metrics to measure for results.

Tool 121

Tool Statistics Entrepreneur Metrics 121

Startup Professionals Musings

SEPTEMBER 21, 2020

If you can’t identify customer interest, it doesn’t matter how good your product is. Don’t be afraid to test your ultimate entree on customers. Develop metrics with which to measure yourself and use these to incrementally expand and improve your offering as fast as the market and capital will allow. Don’t stand still.

Startup 156

Startup Coach Metrics Marketing 156

Startup Professionals Musings

AUGUST 18, 2018

It starts with a vision, but benefits quickly from a structured process of idea generation, evaluation, prototyping, customer feedback, and success metrics. Business risks are not just development risks. Innovative technologies have no value until they are turned into solutions to real customer problems. Ownership.

Entrepreneur 64

Entrepreneur Coach Metrics Competition 64

Both Sides of the Table

NOVEMBER 2, 2010

As a tech startup grows it needs to develop more process & management if it is to scale. In the evangelical phase you’re working through these with customers on the fly. But they want to establish a baseline in the customer’s mind of the value they will get by using your product. It is tacit knowledge.

Sales 289

Sales Startup Training Pricing 289

Startup Professionals Musings

AUGUST 12, 2015

It starts with a vision, but benefits quickly from a structured process of idea generation, evaluation, prototyping, customer feedback, and success metrics. Business risks are not just development risks. Innovative technologies have no value until they are turned into solutions to real customer problems. Ownership.

Entrepreneur 101

Entrepreneur Startup Coach Metrics 101

Startup Professionals Musings

SEPTEMBER 22, 2021

Develop a personal story as a visionary and learner. These show a focus on the business elements required for success, and metrics for ensuring accountability, management control, and feedback along the way. You need to show you have a “Plan B,” and a never-give-up mindset, in handling any competitive threat or customer reaction.

Ideas 140

Ideas Entrepreneur Equity Resource 140

Startup Professionals Musings

SEPTEMBER 30, 2018

For example, most e-commerce platforms today offer millions of products, with a changing mix daily and a changing market, such that it’s virtually impossible to manually predict a strategy for mapping customer demographics to products displayed online. No human or paper tracking systems are a competitive alternative.

Artificial Inteligence 84

Artificial Inteligence Metrics Commerce Software 84

Startup Professionals Musings

SEPTEMBER 30, 2023

Innovative technologies require iterative development, while other ideas are primarily marketing and financial. These relationships must be nurtured over time, balanced against your personal life, and grow to include major customers, competitors, and potential acquirers. Assess who you can get for value and mentoring.

Startup 94

Startup Ideas Metrics Entrepreneur 94

Both Sides of the Table

SEPTEMBER 10, 2021

We can’t wait for customers to use the product for 12–18 months and do customer interviews or look at purchase cohorts. At the time I wasn’t 100% sure but he made compelling arguments about how other markets have developed as they matured so I took note. It’s just now that we’re Seed Investors. Secrets of Sand Hill Road.

Venture Capital 471

Venture Capital Writing Invest Pricing 471

Startup Professionals Musings

FEBRUARY 5, 2020

Funding is depleted before customer sales ramp up. One of the pitfalls of optimism is the expectation for early customer growth, and understating the real costs of design, development, and inventory. Don’t underestimate your own value as customers arrive, establishing a line of credit, and borrowing against inventory.

Startup 131

Startup Entrepreneur Examples Customer 131

Startup Professionals Musings

AUGUST 7, 2020

In the short term you need customers to find you at any price, and in the longer term you need revenue, profit, and return loyalty. That keeps people from pushing themselves to develop the kind of new solutions that will permanently change the business for the better, versus short-term band-aids.

Technical Review 124

Technical Review Layoffs Social Media Metrics 124

Startup Professionals Musings

JULY 17, 2019

He outlines six dimensions of a winning business strategy, with some practical, research-based steps that I like, to focus on in achieving extraordinary results: Above all, deliver an exceptional total customer experience. Highlight your competitive value, not your technology. Seek out and capitalize on emerging opportunities.

Technical Review 87

Technical Review Customer Custom Competition 87

Startup Professionals Musings

AUGUST 14, 2016

It starts with a vision, but benefits quickly from a structured process of idea generation, evaluation, prototyping, customer feedback, and success metrics. Business risks are not just development risks. Innovative technologies have no value until they are turned into solutions to real customer problems. Ownership.

Coach 64

Coach Metrics Competition Ideas 64

Startup Professionals Musings

FEBRUARY 17, 2019

The most competitive startups do both, all the time and every time. In today’s competitive world, with its accelerating rate of change, no competitive advantage lasts long. The only sustainable competitive advantage is creativity. Creativity is the ultimate competitive advantage. Celebrate ideas.

Company 90

Company Companies Competition Netflix 90

socalTECH

DECEMBER 20, 2017

It means competition is more fierce because formidable new competitors can arrive overnight. Anyone could submit an idea, and others in the customer community could participate by upvoting and commenting on the ideas they liked best! Why has product management be so slow to adapt? Read more… ?? Read more… ?? ?? ?? Read more… ?? ??

Technical Review 100

Technical Review Metrics Ideas Product 100

Both Sides of the Table

NOVEMBER 14, 2017

There is nothing more pure than building a product, putting it out in the world and seeing paying customers using your product and in some cases loving it. As companies get this initial customer feedback on their product they start to have to ask harder questions about unit economics: How much does it cost us to acquire a new customer?

Startup 286

Startup Technical Review Customer Custom 286

Startup Professionals Musings

JULY 25, 2018

Most startups are created by one or two entrepreneurial founders, with a vision and focus on developing an innovative solution, rather than on developing people. In fact, most see a more direct relationship between customers and their business success, so employee focus by default will end up in third place. Start today.

Metrics 57

Metrics Startup Netflix Customer 57

Startup Professionals Musings

MAY 12, 2019

The solution is to establish and maintain a culture and processes that don’t view change as a discrete event to be spotted and managed, but as an ongoing opportunity to improve competitiveness. How good are you and everyone on your team at proactively scanning the environment for opportunities, emerging trends, and customer feedback?

Startup 94

Startup Training Statistics Summary 94

socalTECH

JUNE 11, 2018

For our interview this morning, we caught up with Scot Lawrie , the President and technical Co-founder of Los Angeles-based Coverfly (www.coverfly.com), and John Rhodes , Coverfly's head of Marketing and Business Development, to learn a bit more about the early stage, bootstrapped startup focused on Hollywood script writers. What is Coverfly?

Technical Review 100

Technical Review Hollywood Platform Competition 100

Startup Professionals Musings

JANUARY 30, 2017

Yet, in my experience as a mentor to entrepreneurs, the majority of failures I see are related to starting and growing the business, not developing the solution. In fact, I can condense the sum of my business experiences into eight key disciplines: Start with a total and ongoing customer focus. Demonstrate an ongoing sense of urgency.

Ideas 72

Ideas Startup Metrics Entrepreneur 72

Startup Professionals Musings

MAY 24, 2015

Entrepreneurs need to document a process of responding to a market need, sizing opportunity, assigning a specific business model, and planning for marketing, sales, and customer satisfaction. Solution development and delivery. Hobbies are developed ad-hoc, driven by personal needs.

Outsource Development 99

Outsource Development Startup Competition Ideas 99

Both Sides of the Table

FEBRUARY 20, 2017

Here’s how it goes: You have a business development group with two people. So they create a task list of all the marketing activities an organization can do: press releases, web site updates, customer case studies, blog posts, daily Tweets, Facebook fan page, attending conferences, etc. You get a lot of traffic — not always results.

Activity 164

Activity Conference Press Case Study 164

Startup Professionals Musings

MAY 28, 2016

Entrepreneurs need to document a process of responding to a market need, sizing opportunity, assigning a specific business model, and planning for marketing, sales, and customer satisfaction. Solution development and delivery. Hobbies are developed ad-hoc, driven by personal needs.

Ideas 62

Ideas Outsource Development Startup Competition 62

TechCrunch LA

SEPTEMBER 7, 2021

They also have a very smart and efficient approach to creative development that was critical to helping us scale,” she wrote. (If In today’s highly competitive ad environment, both content and data are kings. “They demonstrate best-in-class expertise with Facebook and Google paid ad platforms. The key takeaway?

Commerce 211

Commerce Content Marketing Startup 211