Startup Professionals Musings

AUGUST 25, 2011

Here is my summary of her detailed roadmap to get you back on the right track with a “customer-centric” approach rather than a “company-centric” approach: Find out what customers want and how they want to buy it. She recommends phone interviews by you, by appointment, with structured questions, and you document results.

Customer 96

Customer Custom Search Engine Optimization Summary 96

Startup Professionals Musings

AUGUST 13, 2012

Terms like “every customer needs this” and “next generation platform” are far too soft, and should be avoided. It always amazes me how an entrepreneur can define his market opportunity so broadly, and then assess his competition so narrowly in the next breath. Competition and sustainable advantage. Executive team.

Competition 113

Competition Metrics Startup Invest 113

Startup Professionals Musings

APRIL 7, 2017

Distribute an Executive Summary and Recommendations report, as well as transcripts of your interviews, to all the key players in your company. These range from basic search engine optimization (SEO) tracking, like Google Analytics , to a new generation of marketing platforms, like HubSpot.

Search Engine Optimization 58

Search Engine Optimization Startup SEO Customer 58

Startup Professionals Musings

NOVEMBER 10, 2014

Well-known crowd-funding platforms on the Internet, led by Kickstarter and Indiegogo , have worked for years to provide non-equity “funding” for many startups, as outlined in my previous article Don’t Be Fooled By All The Hype For Crowd Funding. Crowd sample size and makeup not representative of market.

Funding 101

Funding Equity Entrepreneur Invest 101

Both Sides of the Table

FEBRUARY 18, 2013

Summary Version. I called this trend “ Torso TV ” because the “head” of consumption (largest number of views) was dominated by platforms that had massive distribution (think TV stations, radio or retail outlets that sell CDs and DVDs. easy sharing (through social networks or platforms like YouTube).

Startup 380

Startup Media Content Platform 380

Both Sides of the Table

AUGUST 3, 2009

I believe that Twiistup is now a platform from which to grow and highlight what is uniquely LA. For highlighting what is uniquely LA, for adhering to a strict quality standard for speakers and for building this great platform for the future Francisco Dao (aka “ The Man ”) should feel proud of what he has accomplished.

Twiistup 228

Twiistup SoCal Southern California Yammer 228

Startup Professionals Musings

MAY 13, 2011

Terms like “every customer needs this” and “next generation platform” are far too soft, and should be avoided. It always amazes me how an entrepreneur can define his market opportunity so broadly, and then assess his competition so narrowly in the next breath. Competition and sustainable advantage. Executive team.

Competition 116

Competition Metrics Startup Sales 116

InfoChachkie

JUNE 9, 2011

Value Prop Twitter Style : “Ranker is a social site/platform for ranking anything, powered by semantic technology that aggregates opinions into ‘wisdom of crowds’ rankings”. What follows is a summary which paraphrases Clark’s responses. Clark Benson is the Founder and CEO of Ranker.com. free weekly Infochachkie articles!

Google 264

Google Organic Search Sites Startup 264

Startup Professionals Musings

MARCH 17, 2013

Well-known crowd-funding platforms on the Internet, led by Kickstarter and Indiegogo , have worked for years to provide non-equity “funding” for many startups, as outlined in my previous article Will the Real Crowd Funding Model Please Stand Up? Crowd sample size and makeup not representative of market.

Funding 106

Funding Equity Entrepreneur Sample 106

Both Sides of the Table

JANUARY 13, 2011

I wrote the summary notes in this blog post. I talked about this in the TWiVC video but I didn’t do a good enough job of writing it up in the summary notes in the post. And when you finish the demo you can bring in the other important components such as competition, team, customer acquisition strategy, etc. Mobile app?

Venture Capital 299

Venture Capital Slides Technical Advisors Startup 299

Startup Professionals Musings

DECEMBER 1, 2017

As an experienced business advisor, here is my current summary, with some of the pros and cons or special considerations for each: Product is free, revenue is from advertisers. It is a very competitive approach, but requires design and development effort for value at every level. Keep the number of tiers small for manageability.

Pricing 66

Pricing Customer Custom Advertising 66

Both Sides of the Table

FEBRUARY 28, 2018

This has obviously occurred in battles with tech platforms like Yelp vs. Google or Zynga vs. Facebook). Curation is obviously also a form of competitive advantage for companies like StitchFix, TrunkClub and DailyLook who offer stylists to help you curate your clothing experiences. from Charter’s subscribers. even a DTC company?—?if

Product 296

Product Course Customer Custom 296

Both Sides of the Table

APRIL 20, 2010

They’re up to date on the latest platform decisions whether it’s understanding Spring , Hibernate and Lucene. new features need to go into the sale people’s slides so that they know the latest and greatest about how to differentiate from the competition. In summary.

CTO Hire 400

CTO Hire Fractional VPE Startup Outsource Development 400

Tech Zulu Event

MARCH 16, 2015

There’s plenty of capital out there, but there’s also a lot of competition for startup funding. Build your financial model from the bottom-up showing what your average sale looks like and how it feeds into your top level summary financial picture. According to Shayne, only 1 out of 1000 business plans might get VC funding.

Startup 40

Startup Venture Capital Equity Funding 40

Startup Professionals Musings

APRIL 22, 2010

Terms like “every customer needs this” and “next generation platform” are far too soft, and should be avoided. It always amazes me how an entrepreneur can define his market opportunity so broadly, and then assess his competition so narrowly in the next breath. Competition and sustainable advantage. Executive team.

Invest 74

Invest Tips Competition Metrics 74

Both Sides of the Table

JULY 1, 2010

By going on sales calls you pick up directly the feedback of what customers want and also what they’re telling you about competition. I had long ago ceded the knowledge and responsibility for making the detailed technical recommendations about platforms, databases, hosting solutions, etc.

Startup 308

Startup CTO Coach Technical Review CTO Hire 308

Both Sides of the Table

MAY 19, 2020

If you want to watch my interview from 7 years ago it’s here or you can read the summary notes I wrote up ) Derek built Startup Grind from 2011 with 20 people in one room for a conference into a global phenomenon with 600 chapters all over the world and more than 2 million members. Derek founded Bevy ?—?a just to name a few.

Software 234

Software Startup Tool Platform 234

Both Sides of the Table

MARCH 6, 2011

It is a communication platform. If I’m not mistaken, I may have been the first person to send out an angel “personal intro&# email on AngelList through their new platform when it launched or at least I was one of the first few. That said, a summary below is available for those who prefer to read the notes version.

Startup 292

Startup Venture Capital Blogging Summary 292

Both Sides of the Table

JUNE 13, 2011

The golden rules to live by are: Platforms are channels not businesses. If you put all of your eggs into one platform shame on you, not them. KIK became large in the first place specifically because BBM wasn’t interoperable across platforms so you know the market is broader than one closed ecosystem. It’s why we all exist.

Google 325

Google Press Marketing Content 325

Startup Professionals Musings

DECEMBER 3, 2012

I agree with Eric’s summary of the top ten types of pivots to consider: Zoom-in pivot. Platform pivot. This refers to a change from an application to a platform, or vice versa. Many founders envision their solution as a platform for future products, but don’t have a single killer application just yet. Technology pivot.

Course 109

Course Startup Platform Entrepreneur 109

Startup Professionals Musings

SEPTEMBER 16, 2011

I agree with Eric’s summary of the top ten types of pivots to consider: Zoom-in pivot. Platform pivot. This refers to a change from an application to a platform, or vice versa. Many founders envision their solution as a platform for future products, but don’t have a single killer application just yet. Technology pivot.

Entrepreneur 102

Entrepreneur Startup Platform Customer 102

Both Sides of the Table

JANUARY 16, 2012

Executive Summary. If you want to watch the video version summary of my advice on fund raising it’s here. He knows the history of all of the payment gateways, mobile payment platforms, credit offerings, remittance companies, etc. But the summary for you is: - get an intro. Fund raising is bloody hard. Tell a friend!

Develop 366

Develop Development Funding Venture Capital 366

Both Sides of the Table

JULY 6, 2015

Assume competition and assume within the buying organization you have enemies. You see – running a SaaS platform for customers like you is the ONLY thing our team does. When we went to raise funds we faced lots of competition as there are of course many other VC funds in the country. Take nothing for granted.

Sales 150

Sales SaaS Startup Venture Capital 150

Frank Addante

JUNE 4, 2006

. – Digital Messaging Infrastructure Company (incubated by Addante and Associates, LLC) Age: 25 - 29 (present) Time Period: 2002 - present My Role: Founder High Point: TBD Here is a summary of my experiences to-date with StrongMail: 1. Relaxing 2. Incubation 3. Go-to-Market 5. Spam Changes Everything 6. Venture Capital Funding 7.

Startup 40

Startup Venture Capital Email CTO Hire 40

Both Sides of the Table

DECEMBER 12, 2016

The most common theme of being a startup in today’s world is that the computing environment and platforms change so rapidly that only the best equipped teams survive the transitions (think Facebook’s shift to mobile or Snapchat’s embrace of augmented reality). Why Invest?

Software 105

Software Mobile Artificial Inteligence Oracle 105

Both Sides of the Table

DECEMBER 22, 2011

Socially connected individuals and platforms that enable faster roll-outs of successful products. If you’re a startup and you haven’t read my summary of Clay Christensen’s seminal work please do. Unprecedented transparency of information. Payment ready consumers (Amazon, iTunes, PayPal) and businesses (Google AdWords, Square).

Startup 386

Startup Pricing Marketing Product 386

Both Sides of the Table

JULY 5, 2010

The conversations bleed into the sales messages the next time, they wend their way into software designs and form the plan of attach against competition. My example is that at my second company we build an exclusively SaaS platform except that we needed to build hooks into some Microsoft Office applications.

Technical Advisors 335

Technical Advisors Outsource Development Offshore Startup 335

Both Sides of the Table

FEBRUARY 12, 2017

The 30-minute interview of Jonah Peretti is here but my summary in the notes below. I would see this many times of the next decade where I learned that nearly every part of the web that involved monetization was immediately gamed and arms races emerged between platforms to combat abuse and people looking for a quick buck.

Buzzfeed 210

Buzzfeed Media Content News 210