Both Sides of the Table

JANUARY 29, 2010

Competitiveness - One attribute that I believe most VCs look for in entrepreneurs is competitiveness. If you stumble on to a really good idea believe me it will get competitive really quickly. I know that people who aren’t competitive always find competitive people slightly distasteful. I had to say it.

Competition 296

Competition Entrepreneur Startup GRP Partners 296

Berkonomics

JULY 26, 2018

These are so succinct, so well defined, so precise that everyone in sales and everyone involved in marketing must be able to answer these three questions without pause, and convincingly. It would pay you to work over this set of questions in a special session with sales, marketing and senior management in the room at once.

Sales 226

Sales Custom Customer Pricing 226

Startup Professionals Musings

MAY 19, 2010

As a member of the local angel group Selection Committee, I’ve seen a lot of startup presentations to investors, and I’ve never seen one that was too short - maybe short on content, but not short on pages! Every startup needs both a business plan and an investor presentation, completed before you formally approach any investors.

Slides 94

Slides Competition Sample Sales 94

TechCrunch LA

DECEMBER 8, 2020

He did note that in the four markets where the company has gone live since launching its business in January 2019 — San Diego, Los Angeles, the Inland Empire , and Sacramento — has yielded an annualized revenue run rate of over $400 million in gross merchandise value (the total value of home sales transacted on its platform).

Sales 282

Sales Demand San Diego Funding 282

Startup Professionals Musings

MAY 29, 2023

I recognized this as I was reading the classic book, ” The Only Sales Guide You’ll Ever Need ,” by Anthony Iannarino, who is an international sales leader and expert on optimizing results. His focus is on sales, but I see the same skills needed for entrepreneurs. Diagnosing and understanding the customer problem.

Startup 154

Startup Sales Entrepreneur Custom 154

Both Sides of the Table

JULY 6, 2015

Many people are too cautious in sales processes and as a result when they present their solutions they end up sounding milquetoast and undifferentiated from anybody else in the market. I recently wrote about the three rules of sales. Assume competition and assume within the buying organization you have enemies.

Sales 150

Sales SaaS Startup Venture Capital 150

SoCal Tech Calendar

JULY 20, 2016

and WeAreLATech are coming together to present the best local female-founded startups while celebrating the greater LA startup and tech community. Proceeds from ticket sales will go to the top startup, sending them to compete at Tech.Co's Startup of the Year competition in September. See https://nvite.com/TechCoLA/bd7a.

Startup 100

Startup Competition Sales 100

Both Sides of the Table

MARCH 31, 2012

Jeff (also an HBS alum) co-teaches the LTV course with Professor Eisenmann about a student of theirs who had written a blog post about sales taking on some of my previous assertions. That student is Erin McCann who formerly worked in sales at Google, so she has some ground to stand on in her assertions.

Startup 319

Startup Sales Course Competition 319

Startup Professionals Musings

JULY 30, 2010

In my own effort to keep up with the times, I just finished a new book by Landy Chase, titled “ Competitive Selling: Out-Plan, Out-Think, Out-Sell to Win Every Time.” Establish the competitive playing field early. Selling around tough competition. Learning to negotiate properly is the key to every competitive sale.

Competition 92

Competition Entrepreneur Startup Custom 92

Startup Professionals Musings

JULY 30, 2021

The recent pandemic was a strong signal for change, and I see most of you entrepreneurs and business owners responding to the business changes required and new opportunities presented. When sales fall off, you need to dig deep for the “why,” rather than just assuming the price needs to go down.

Marketing 162

Marketing Social Media Metrics Custom 162

SoCal Tech Calendar

SEPTEMBER 16, 2012

The popularity and virality of TED Talks has raised the bar dramatically for any and all presentations. Your competition certainly has! If your goal is only to improve the way you present at group meetings or on sales calls, learning the TEDx format is going to put you in a different league.

SoCal 133

SoCal Southern California Competition Sales 133

Startup Professionals Musings

JANUARY 9, 2023

In the competitive realm of business, you only get one chance to make a great first impression. You have to be able to communicate effectively in all the common forms, including business writing, as well as talking, presenting, and producing videos. You can’t afford that competitive disadvantage. Martin Zwilling.

Tips 123

Tips Writing Startup Summary 123

Both Sides of the Table

MAY 14, 2018

after all you aren’t presenting this at TED. Summary: Send the Deck Pitch decks are sales & marketing decks and like in any sales activity, any great sales person assumes his or her competition will eventually get their deck. Competition isn’t won or lost by your marketing decks?—?it’s

Funding 239

Funding Venture Capital IP Email 239

Tech Zulu Event

OCTOBER 19, 2011

CapLinked , the online platform for private investment funded by members of the “ PayPal Mafia “—announced that it is launching a worldwide pitch competition for entrepreneurs to present their business ideas to a panel of all-star judges from Idealab, Rincon, Rapidfire, and Actarus.

Competition 70

Competition Idealab Slides Startup 70

Startup Professionals Musings

MARCH 3, 2023

It allows all members of your team, including marketing, support, and sales, to size and build the business plan processes they need to find customers, deliver, and maintain grow the business. The customer pain point must be defined before the solution is presented, so it doesn’t look like you have a solution looking for a problem.

Product 112

Product Summary Activity Entrepreneur 112

Startup Professionals Musings

MARCH 3, 2021

To keep you on a positive track with potential investors, I recommend the following logic principles, to balance your passion in presenting your vision of a new business: Make sure your plan includes some business metrics. Postulate competitive reactions and your responses. Present a viable exit strategy for investors to cash out.

Entrepreneur 162

Entrepreneur Social Media Examples Metrics 162

Tech.Co

JULY 22, 2016

Tech.Co and WeAreLATech are coming together to present the best local female-founded startups while celebrating the greater LA startup and tech community. Proceeds from ticket sales will go to the top startup, sending them to compete at Tech.Co’s Startup of the Year competition in September.

Los Angeles 70

Los Angeles Startup Angel Competition 70

Startup Professionals Musings

JULY 18, 2022

At present, no world patents or international patent process really exists, so you need to apply in every relevant country. Easier access to international markets is creating limitless sales opportunities on a worldwide basis. Selectively protect your intellectual property worldwide.

Patents 106

Patents Offshore Startup Demand 106

Berkonomics

FEBRUARY 25, 2016

Looking for an entrance into a VC, an angel group, a bank, a CxO for a sales opportunity, or any other entity? Every sales person with a bit of street history will resonate with this question. Dropping that name will often immediately draw a response if the decision maker is curious or particularly competitive.

Ideas 120

Ideas Sales Competition Venture Capital 120

Berkonomics

JUNE 27, 2019

During CEO roundtables which I attend regularly, fellow CEO’s analyze a compatriot’s use of time during the once-a-year personal presentations each makes in turn. We often ask our sales people to “find the pain” and show how our product solves that pain problem. Find the pain.

Custom 120

Custom Customer Course Email 120

Startup Professionals Musings

SEPTEMBER 6, 2020

I recognized this as I was reading the classic book, ” The Only Sales Guide You’ll Ever Need ,” by Anthony Iannarino, who is an international sales leader and expert on optimizing results. His focus is on sales, but I see the same skills needed for entrepreneurs. Diagnosing and understanding the customer problem.

Entrepreneur 134

Entrepreneur Startup Sales Custom 134

Startup Professionals Musings

AUGUST 27, 2012

As a member of the local Angel group selection committee, I’ve seen a lot of startup presentations to investors, and I’ve never seen one that was too short - maybe short on content, but not short on pages! Every startup needs both a business plan and an investor presentation, completed before you formally approach any investors.

Slides 99

Slides Competition Sample Sales 99

Berkonomics

SEPTEMBER 19, 2019

If you are the head of sales and the pipeline is emptying or sales have slowed for any sustained period, the red flag must be raised, even if the focus is on you as a result and not upon the problem when the news is first delivered. We discussed these with management thoroughly for a total of four hours.

News 120

News Statistics Resource Sales 120

Berkonomics

JULY 9, 2011

These are so succinct, so well defined, so precise that everyone in sales and everyone involved in marketing must be able to answer these three questions without pause, and convincingly. It would pay you to work over this set of questions in a special session with sales, marketing and senior management in the room at once.

Sales 222

Sales Custom Customer Pricing 222

Startup Professionals Musings

JANUARY 23, 2022

In addition, today’s customers judge a company by perceived people relationships through social media, phone conversations, and sales experiences. In the end, engagement drives customer retention, sales, growth and profit. You need a team focused on the future as well as the present. What goes around, comes around.

Coach 128

Coach Organization Mentor Startup 128

Startup Professionals Musings

MAY 31, 2020

It allows all members of your team, including marketing, support, and sales, to size and build the business plan processes they need to find customers, deliver, and maintain grow the business. The customer pain point must be defined before the solution is presented, so it doesn’t look like you have a solution looking for a problem.

Entrepreneur 124

Entrepreneur Startup Summary Product 124

Startup Professionals Musings

JUNE 25, 2021

Find out if something very similar is already selling, and who your competition would be if you proceed. Pitching” is the insider term for presenting your product idea to people who could conceivably buy it or fund your efforts. Now get real (cook it). Before you get too excited, it’s time to do some homework.

Ideas 136

Ideas Entrepreneur Mentor Resource 136

Berkonomics

JANUARY 26, 2017

Satisfy the seller’s need to claim a higher sales price victory by moving a substantial part of the price into a future earn–out, or using the target company’s own cash to pay part of the price, or asking the seller to finance a significant piece of the sale. Offering too little in an acquisition to satisfy the seller? What power!

Pricing 120

Pricing Sales Tool Equity 120

Both Sides of the Table

DECEMBER 17, 2011

Actually, I think the advice in this post applies to any sales meeting also. The short answer is that by knowing the key members of the management team the VC firm can quickly identify strengths on your time and know whether you have some competitive advantage in your chose field relative to other people with whom you will compete.

Slides 296

Slides GRP Partners Venture Capital Writing 296

socalTECH

APRIL 26, 2017

My background is I was a sales rep in this industry for fourteen years, with Nikon. Eugene Cho: We had a seed round for less than $3M, and we did a note round with the Tech Coast Angels for $2M after we won their Quick Pitch competition, over about 150 other companies. So how was it you were able to ramp up sales so quickly?

Tech Coast Angels 124

Tech Coast Angels Startup Sales Slides 124

Berkonomics

APRIL 4, 2019

At the annual meeting (which can be attended by phone), there are actions that require a vote of the shares present either by proxy or in person. If there is a concern over some investors gaining a competitive advantage, the amount of information may be reduced to the minimum for some classes of those investors.

Class 120

Class Course Report Competition 120

Both Sides of the Table

DECEMBER 27, 2010

Conventional wisdom in most companies is that “the competition is the enemy&# – it’s the rallying cry to dig deeper, get more features out the door, issue press releases citing differences and attack the competition’s weaknesses in sales presentations. You know, frenemies. When Enemies are Good.

Cloud Computing 320

Cloud Computing Competition Press Startup 320

Startup Professionals Musings

SEPTEMBER 30, 2023

He also still gets excited to donate one percent of sales to environmental groups around the world. Plan to spend a couple of months on this effort, and then allocate at least 50 percent of your time presenting and selling it the first year. Document and communicate a solid business plan.

Startup 94

Startup Ideas Metrics Entrepreneur 94

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

socalTECH

APRIL 26, 2017

My background is I was a sales rep in this industry for fourteen years, with Nikon. Eugene Cho: We had a seed round for less than $3M, and we did a note round with the Tech Coast Angels for $2M after we won their Quick Pitch competition, over about 150 other companies. So how was it you were able to ramp up sales so quickly?

Tech Coast Angels 100

Tech Coast Angels Startup Sales Slides 100

Startup Professionals Musings

SEPTEMBER 22, 2021

Founders who present themselves as a lone entrepreneur may develop an innovative solution, but building a business requires a team. You need to show that you have a powerful team, and can attract and lead people with strong skills complimentary to yours for marketing, finance, sales, and operations.

Ideas 140

Ideas Entrepreneur Equity Resource 140

Startup Professionals Musings

APRIL 18, 2021

This is a good time for the CEO to present the final investor charts, and answer any questions from employees. Sales and marketing strategy. An investor will try to get an independent reading on competition, barriers to entry, price sensitivity, and what percentage of the market your company can expect to capture.

Technical Review 152

Technical Review Startup Satisfaction Summary 152