Startup Professionals Musings

MAY 27, 2013

Investors hear this as trying to do too many things with limited resources, meaning the startup will not shine at anything, and will not survive the competition. Keep these balanced and aligned between people (customers, employees) and process (quality, service, revenue), and keep the scope realistic (eliminating world hunger is too broad).

Startup 103

Startup Competition Technical Review Oracle 103

Startup Professionals Musings

NOVEMBER 9, 2019

billion dollar sale to Oracle from Bozeman, Montana. Exposure to customers, incumbents, and competitors all drive success. Exposure instills the fear and urgency you need to deliver the right competitive solution. Being close to your customers, your vendors, or even your competitors can make all the difference.

Startup 97

Startup Technical Review Oracle Software Review 97

Both Sides of the Table

NOVEMBER 4, 2010

This is important because the customers they serve (the red line) demand a product that meets their complex requirements. In fact, the incumbent is usually very dismissive of this new competition as our the large buyers of the incumbent’s products. So the startups tend to focus on totally new customers. They can’t.

Startup 376

Startup Framework Marketing Customer 376

Frank Addante

MAY 23, 2012

The dad was, of course, alluding to Google's frequently-used strategy to make available free services in otherwise paid markets to rattle competition and gain market share for advertising-supported products. Focus on building a truly great product and offer it to your customers with great service to back it up.

Oracle 111

Oracle Google Competition Marketing 111

Both Sides of the Table

JULY 1, 2010

As a CEO you never stop needing to go on sales calls (or to work the phones in telesales or customer support) and ceasing to do this as your company grows because you’re focusing on investors, recruiting, PR or whatever is a mistake. I also make visits to senior level customers of portfolio companies with which I’m involved.

Startup 308

Startup CTO Coach Technical Review CTO Hire 308

Both Sides of the Table

FEBRUARY 5, 2011

Whenever I heard why we didn’t feel a sales process at an important customer was going well (or if we lost) I would get involved myself. They are as good at selling you as they are at selling your product to customers. Customer also buy social proof because others are acting as strong references. They’re in beta).

Sales 316

Sales Startup Pricing Customer 316

Startup Professionals Musings

MARCH 25, 2013

That means evaluating third-party market research, getting real customer feedback from prototypes, and listening to concerns of successful executives in the same business area. “I In reality, building a solution won’t make it connect with customers, manage competition, or communicate and proselytize the offering in the industry.

Entrepreneur 100

Entrepreneur Oracle Customer Custom 100

socalTECH

AUGUST 24, 2009

One of the startup areas where we've been seeing renewed activity in the last few months is in the enterprise software space--specifically, in software-as-a-service applications targeted at corporate customers. I'd used every CRM tool out there--Oracle, Siebel, PeopleSoft--you name it, I've used it. Our customers really like that.

Oracle 145

Oracle Sales Startup Screening 145

Startup Professionals Musings

FEBRUARY 17, 2012

That means evaluating third-party market research, getting real customer feedback from prototypes, and listening to concerns of successful executives in the same business area. “I In reality, building a solution won’t make it connect with customers, manage competition, or communicate and proselytize the offering in the industry.

Entrepreneur 104

Entrepreneur Oracle Customer Custom 104

Startup Professionals Musings

MAY 16, 2015

billion dollar sale to Oracle from Bozeman, Montana. Exposure to customers, incumbents, and competitors all drive success. Exposure instills the fear and urgency you need to deliver the right competitive solution. Being close to your customers, your vendors, or even your competitors can make all the difference.

Startup 109

Startup Technical Review Oracle Software Review 109

Frank Addante

MAY 23, 2012

” The dad was, of course, alluding to Google’s frequently-used strategy to make available free services in otherwise paid markets to rattle competition and gain market share for advertising-supported products. Focus on building a truly great product and offer it to your customers with great service to back it up.

Oracle 63

Oracle Google Competition Marketing 63

Startup Professionals Musings

DECEMBER 2, 2017

billion dollar sale to Oracle from Bozeman, Montana. Exposure to customers, incumbents, and competitors all drive success. Exposure instills the fear and urgency you need to deliver the right competitive solution. Being close to your customers, your vendors, or even your competitors can make all the difference.

Sites 59

Sites Startup Technical Review Oracle 59

Startup Professionals Musings

DECEMBER 7, 2013

billion dollar sale to Oracle from Bozeman, Montana. Exposure to customers, incumbents, and competitors all drive success. Exposure instills the fear and urgency you need to deliver the right competitive solution. Being close to your customers, your vendors, or even your competitors can make all the difference.

Startup 102

Startup Technical Review Oracle Entrepreneur 102

Startup Professionals Musings

APRIL 4, 2016

These leaders not only recognize team members who have high potential, but they willingly and selflessly customize their coaching to what these special protégés really need. Measure by relationships as well as competitiveness. Take chances on unconventional talent.

Oracle 53

Oracle Organization Entrepreneur Examples 53

InfoChachkie

MAY 23, 2011

Exclusivity excludes your startup from taking full advantage of future customer, partner and market opportunities. Market segments – like certain geographies, there may be groups of customers that are outside your primary target market(s). As such, deals are not exclusive, they are excludesive.

Technical Review 183

Technical Review Marketing Sales Competition 183

socalTECH

JULY 23, 2009

It's a very interesting process, and although we can't use lots of names, our customers will talk to other companies and tell them they have to have this, which is pretty neat. How much competition is there in this space with people like Oracle, SAP, etc? You'd think that SAP would have a module, or surely Oracle has a module.

Startup 124

Startup Software Review CTO Hire Oracle 124

Startup Professionals Musings

JUNE 15, 2010

How will the inevitable changes in markets, consumer behaviors, and competitive offerings affect outcomes? Pretty much anything that goes into a business plan falls into one of these four categories: Opportunity : Every successful business exploits an opportunity. How much of your product will you sell each year over the next five years?

Startup 91

Startup Oracle Entrepreneur Ideas 91

InfoChachkie

NOVEMBER 9, 2010

We also incurred substantial software licensing charges from Sun Microsystems, Microsoft and Oracle. However, the most effective way to minimize dilution is to extract capital from customers’ pockets. Smaller funding rounds with modest valuations often results in less dilution for the Founders and their employees.

Entrepreneur 157

Entrepreneur Invest Funding Capital 157

InfoChachkie

NOVEMBER 9, 2010

We also incurred substantial software licensing charges from Sun Microsystems, Microsoft and Oracle. However, the most effective way to minimize dilution is to extract capital from customers’ pockets. Smaller funding rounds with modest valuations often results in less dilution for the Founders and their employees.

Entrepreneur 140

Entrepreneur Cloud Computing Invest Funding 140

Frank Addante

SEPTEMBER 25, 2006

Cisco, Oracle, Apple, Electronic Arts and Atari. Rich Customers Target customers who will move fast and pay a premium for a unique offering. Focus Customers will only buy a simple product with a singular value proposition. Outwit the competition. Customer, not Competition Be a leader, not a follower.

Company 40

Company Companies Startup Venture Capital 40

Both Sides of the Table

APRIL 3, 2010

As always it comes down to competition. We had to buy expensive Sun servers, Oracle databases, Unix licenses and build complex software. They were grateful for the extra money as their launch was overwhelmingly successful and they had to rapidly hire staff to support customer demand. I’m sure this happens, too.

Venture Capital 265

Venture Capital Seed Funding Pricing Invest 265

Startup Professionals Musings

MAY 27, 2017

Unfortunately, often the result is potential customers who are confused, the limited resources of your business are spread too thin, and customers and investors look elsewhere for a better fit. Customers want a solution from you, not many. Realistically characterize the competition. Eliminating world hunger is too broad.

Entrepreneur 63

Entrepreneur Competition Customer Custom 63

Both Sides of the Table

MAY 5, 2011

He listed all of the product releases that were up coming, the customers that were in the pipeline and where he saw his competition moving. When you account for competition for talent, the difficulty of retention, the cost of living and the difficulty of rising above the noise – there are many advantages of staying put.

Venture Capital 317

Venture Capital Technical Review Startup Press 317

Both Sides of the Table

APRIL 10, 2010

And aside from having great market power (the main reason for Twitter to own the client and the customer) advertising is one of the primary reasons that I believe Twitter needs to own the client applications. Often these were things that would make Salesforce more competitive vis-a-vis Oracle and Microsoft.

Acquisition 287

Acquisition Develop Development Conference 287

Both Sides of the Table

DECEMBER 12, 2016

He spent nearly five years at each of Salesforce.com and Oracle and was an Area VP at Salesforce leading sales efforts at some of the largest clients that Salesforce.com has. In all my time investing I have never seen such a senior revenue officer join a company at this stage. Why Invest? This is the area where Tact has crushed it.

Software 105

Software Mobile Artificial Inteligence Oracle 105

Both Sides of the Table

FEBRUARY 12, 2017

Jonah was working on his masters thesis and he asked Nike to produce a customized shoe with the word “Sweatshop” on it. Of course we saw this in the case of Uber where employees and customers protested the CEO’s decision to be on Donald Trump’s business advisory council.

Buzzfeed 210

Buzzfeed Media Content News 210