Startup Professionals Musings

MARCH 9, 2020

Some make big mistakes, such as Webvan expanding too fast with a huge infrastructure, and Pets.com , trying to grow the business with a negative margin, under the mistaken assumption that winning customers is more important than making a profit. Ask every employee to focus on sales. Aggressively enter new markets and sales channels.

Search Engine Optimization 131

Search Engine Optimization Startup Social Media Metrics 131

Startup Professionals Musings

AUGUST 21, 2021

Switch your focus from product development to sales. Explosive growth to an enterprise normally requires a scalable sales model, a well-documented process with incentives, training, and metrics for tracking and management. Isolate marketing from sales for maximum customer focus.

Startup 151

Startup Course Sales Entrepreneur 151

Startup Professionals Musings

MARCH 10, 2023

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 115

Outsource Development Startup Competition Ideas 115

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. Timing is important, and communication with your customer set is critical. Galvanizing: rally a team and customers for action.

Activity 108

Activity Satisfaction Metrics Startup 108

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.

Custom 91

Custom Customer Marketing Startup 91

socalTECH

MAY 17, 2019

For today's interview, we sat down and spoke with David Loo , the founder and CEO of Perspectium (www.perspectium.com), a startup which is developing service management applications designed to help connect different, enterprise service management software products together. How did you get into this? What specific problem were you seeing?

SaaS 113

SaaS Startup Custom Customer 113

Startup Professionals Musings

OCTOBER 13, 2021

For example, a few years ago, the company Beepi had a vision to build a new market for buying and selling used cars, but became overly focused on fundraising to grow fast, and ignored many customer complaints. Obsessive sales – must meet revenue goals. Hypermetricemia – metrics for everything.

Metrics 133

Metrics Product Yahoo Examples 133

TechCrunch LA

NOVEMBER 5, 2021

Ultimately 1,000 customers signed up, and The Kelp Burger is now the “hero product,” Boyd Myers said. There are even startups looking into that, like Shiru, which recently raised $17 million to develop more healthier bonding agents for meat. The company will also hire additional talent and ramp up its sales and marketing efforts.

Startup 191

Startup Los Angeles Sample Funding 191

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

DECEMBER 12, 2022

As a business advisor, I have too often seen technical entrepreneurs get a product or service off the ground with ease, but then struggle mightily when their business reaches a couple of million in annual sales, or the employee count grows beyond a handful. Implement metrics and set objectives for every organization.

Startup 137

Startup Training Entrepreneur Organization 137

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. Have you projected sales and marketing costs, cash flow, and capital requirements? This means find some hungry people who would love a good dinner, and be willing to pay for it.

Startup 112

Startup Coach Metrics Marketing 112

Startup Professionals Musings

DECEMBER 13, 2019

It’s always tempting to think that more product variations will satisfy more customers and lead to new sales. Some chaos is normal in every new business, but many wait far too long before they install metrics based on “best practices,” and fail to attack obvious bottlenecks with a vengeance. Use multiple small orders at first.

Outsource Development 122

Outsource Development Outsource Metrics Technical Review 122

Startup Professionals Musings

SEPTEMBER 1, 2019

Switch your attention from product development to sales. Second-stage growth usually requires a formal sales model, an experienced and disciplined sales team, and a well-defined process to meet your new goals and demands. These only come with the proper training, investment in tools, and focus on customer relationships.

Startup 97

Startup Sales Metrics Guide 97

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.

Custom 55

Custom Customer Marketing Social Media 55

Startup Professionals Musings

JUNE 2, 2021

I like the summary of the competitive reality in a new book, “ Rethinking Competitive Advantage: New Rules for the Digital Age ,” by Ram Charan, who relates a wealth of current experience from global clients: Customers expect a personalized experience. Features, availability, and brand are just the price of entry.

Competition 142

Competition Software Review Social Media Custom 142

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 Custom 131

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. Have you projected sales and marketing costs, cash flow, and capital requirements? This means find some hungry people who would love a good dinner, and be willing to pay for it.

Startup 156

Startup Coach Metrics Marketing 156

SoCal CTO

JULY 13, 2011

This site aggregates and filters content from thought leaders who talk about topics such as Marketing , Sales , Design , Revenue , Hiring , Social Media , Business Models , Metrics , PR , Venture Capital , Angel Investors , Bootstrapping , Incubators , Agile and many others.

Content 175

Content Startup Social Media IP 175

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

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

Both Sides of the Table

SEPTEMBER 10, 2021

Our fund (Upfront Ventures) recently returned >1x an entire $200 million fund just selling small minatory in secondary sales while still holding most of our stock for an ultimate public market exits. We can’t wait for customers to use the product for 12–18 months and do customer interviews or look at purchase cohorts.

Venture Capital 471

Venture Capital Writing Invest Pricing 471

Startup Professionals Musings

APRIL 28, 2021

I once met with an entrepreneur who had developed a new algae strain to cure world hunger and make him rich. Look for validation from your mainstream customers. Pivot early, as required, to tune your features and marketing to meet the market and technical realities. Even non-profits need income to run a business.

Technical Review 131

Technical Review Case Study Mentor Software Review 131

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.

Metrics 57

Metrics Startup Netflix Custom 57

Startup Professionals Musings

SEPTEMBER 30, 2023

He also still gets excited to donate one percent of sales to environmental groups around the world. Innovative technologies require iterative development, while other ideas are primarily marketing and financial. You may be comfortable driving your future based on vision and emotion, or have long been a stickler for details and metrics.

Startup 94

Startup Ideas Metrics Entrepreneur 94

Startup Professionals Musings

FEBRUARY 4, 2015

Switch your attention from product development to sales. Second-stage growth usually requires a formal sales model, an experienced and disciplined sales team, and a well-defined process to meet your new goals and demands. These only come with the proper training, investment in tools, and focus on customer relationships.

Startup 108

Startup Sales Metrics Entrepreneur 108

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

MARCH 15, 2020

As a business advisor, I have too often seen technical entrepreneurs get a product or service off the ground with ease, but then struggle mightily when their business reaches a couple of million in annual sales, or the employee count grows beyond a handful. Implement metrics and set objectives for every organization.

Startup 125

Startup Training Entrepreneur Organization 125

Both Sides of the Table

MAY 2, 2015

What I love about my job is getting to see teams of super-early-stage companies develop ideas that while raw have potential to make an impact on the market. It freed up Ophir to grow out our sales organization, to work more closely with agencies, to innovate on product and to raise capital. A great CFO will help you plan that.

Outsource Development 150

Outsource Development Metrics Startup Sales 150

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

socalTECH

DECEMBER 20, 2017

Anyone could submit an idea, and others in the customer community could participate by upvoting and commenting on the ideas they liked best! from sales to marketing, product, to ops and finance?—?centers At long last, product managers could collect feature ideas from users at scale. It was PM heaven… Then something funny happened.

Technical Review 100

Technical Review Metrics Ideas Product 100

socalTECH

APRIL 24, 2019

However, in the technical arena--as a programmer, developer, or software engineer--it's hard to tell from a resume how good you really are. The startup has developed a system which uses information from online forums, source code sharing, technical communities, and the like to help find and rank technical talent. How do you do that?

Sites 240

Sites Startup Tool CTO Hire 240

Startup Professionals Musings

AUGUST 7, 2015

When pitching to investors, entrepreneurs always seem to start with a customer pitch, then add a slide or two about the business. In every case, the relevant pitch needs to start by highlighting a real customer problem, then outlining a new solution, with all the features and disruptive technology.

Product 103

Product Slides Custom Customer 103

Startup Professionals Musings

JULY 29, 2016

Some make big mistakes, such as Webvan expanding too fast with a huge infrastructure, and Pets.com , trying to grow the business with a negative margin, under the mistaken assumption that winning customers is more important than making a profit. Ask every employee to focus on sales. Aggressively enter new markets and sales channels.

Search Engine Optimization 57

Search Engine Optimization Startup Social Media Metrics 57

Both Sides of the Table

DECEMBER 27, 2011

The most obvious way to explain this is with sales people. If you hire 6 sales reps in January at $120,000 / year salary then you’ve taken on an extra $60,000 per month in costs yet these sales people might not close new business for 4-6 months. “COGS” represents the amount that each sale costs you.

Startup 418

Startup Venture Capital Sales Technical Review 418

Startup Professionals Musings

SEPTEMBER 13, 2017

Switch your attention from product development to sales. Second-stage growth usually requires a formal sales model, an experienced and disciplined sales team, and a well-defined process to meet your new goals and demands. These only come with the proper training, investment in tools, and focus on customer relationships.

Startup 56

Startup Sales Metrics Guide 56

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 Custom Customer 286

Startup Professionals Musings

JULY 17, 2019

As a business advisor, when I bring this up, at best I will hear the defense that you are focused on the strategy of the moment, such as such as how to increase sales, or reach a new market. This requires constant study of what your customers value, what competitors offer, and your target market.

Technical Review 87

Technical Review Custom Customer Competition 87