Startup Professionals Musings

MARCH 4, 2020

Hiring requirements must be anticipated and implemented with the same precision and tracking as manufacturing volumes, sales leads, and customer service. Trying to save costs by seeking resumes on the Internet will result in poor quality candidates, more time required for screening and interviews, and high turnover.

Organization 135

Organization Satisfaction Entrepreneur Screening 135

SoCal CTO

DECEMBER 19, 2012

You likely are writing your first one of these. This should be an iterative process with advisors and customers providing feedback on the product. Customer Development Notes I'm assuming founders are having customer development conversations. Don't stress over format. Don't stress if you are doing it right.

Develop 354

Develop Development Technical Review CTO Coach 354

Both Sides of the Table

OCTOBER 3, 2013

She entered you reservation by writing in a time slot in a paper calendar and you were in. I am stunned at the speed at which the team cranked out this application while at the same time building out an entire suite of merchant solutions to help them better manage customers. After hours there was the answering machine.

Development Team Review 324

Development Team Review Course Mobile Writing 324

Both Sides of the Table

OCTOBER 20, 2013

It’s a shame because the ability to nail these presentations at key conferences can be once-in-a-lifetime opportunities to influence journalists, business partners, potential employees, customers and VCs. So I thought I’d write a piece on how not to suck when you give a presentation. Show some energy! Far more expedient.

Slides 399

Slides Startup Conference Writing 399

Startup Professionals Musings

NOVEMBER 11, 2016

As a business advisor and advocate for entrepreneurs, I find myself almost always talking and writing about change. Peers and customers alike still expect responsiveness. Yet peers and customers notice phone calls and e-mails not returned in twenty-four hours or less. Someone is always taking attendance.

Startup 93

Startup Writing Entrepreneur Screening 93

Both Sides of the Table

SEPTEMBER 28, 2011

You’re writing a freaking blog post! Customer support – After my pre-breakfast meeting I had my actual breakfast meeting. But it’s mostly customer service. I never get grumpy that people write. If you do randomly write me I have advice. Or ask Tasha to send you a screen shot of my weekly calendar.

Email 314

Email Product Startup Writing 314

Both Sides of the Table

JANUARY 14, 2014

In fact 61% of all mobile searches where a customer contacts a business it is via a phone call (source: Google). Only naive people believe that but for inexperienced entrepreneurs you can be fooled into the narrative by the press who sometimes write stories without the actual data. I don’t want to speak to customer service reps!!

Email 339

Email SaaS Venture Capital Google 339

Tech Zulu Event

SEPTEMBER 1, 2012

will also allow users to carry out product or service surveys by engaging customers. This allows publishers to easily create missions and activities to get people involved more directly than just reading stuff on a screen. The developers decide what to see and run their app, based on location, demographics, or your own custom filters.

Mobile 68

Mobile Writing Activity Screening 68

Both Sides of the Table

DECEMBER 16, 2009

.&# They know instinctually how customers buy and how to excite them. Because they’re street smart, most great entrepreneurs tend to prefer getting out and talking with real customers rather than sitting in a cubicle all day doing beautiful PowerPoint slides. They have a sixth sense for the competitors’ weaknesses.

Entrepreneur 306

Entrepreneur Startup Outsource Development Customer 306

socalTECH

JULY 22, 2016

When we talk to customers, we hear about these pain points. Gabe Grifoni: I had actually transitioned to the writing side, and focusing on tech. That got me to CES for some technical writing and journalism, and I started checking out the scene. We're really growing our customer relations.

Technical Review 100

Technical Review Startup Software Review CTO Hire 100

socalTECH

OCTOBER 4, 2012

YouTube has a player which works in Google hangouts, so they can instantly screen your work or your pitch, and you can get instant feedback that way. An example is Melissa Rundle, who was been writing for the industry doing FunnyOrDie type comedies. Those teachers are what set us apart. What's your background?

Web 187

Web Content Startup Education 187

Startup Professionals Musings

JULY 8, 2016

Hiring requirements must be anticipated and implemented with the same precision and tracking as manufacturing volumes, sales leads, and customer service. Trying to save costs by seeking resumes on the Internet will result in poor quality candidates, more time required for screening and interviews, and high turnover.

Organization 57

Organization Entrepreneur Satisfaction Screening 57

Both Sides of the Table

FEBRUARY 24, 2011

This is a post I’ve been dying to write for 18 months. OK, that sounds like an interesting business, but nothing to write a freakin’ blog post about? You fish where your customers are. I know this because you’re not a young teenager. You can also use the app even if you don’t have a smartphone.

Gogii 310

Gogii Invest Blogging Startup 310

Both Sides of the Table

AUGUST 8, 2009

Traction can simply mean showing that you’re making progress with customers, product development, channel partners, initial revenue as a proof point, attracting well-known angel investors, winning industry awards / recognition. Keep on the radar screen – I know the VC’s seemed to love you when they met you.

Venture Capital 309

Venture Capital Guide Startup Technical Review 309

Both Sides of the Table

JULY 25, 2010

I’ve been meaning to write about this for a while and was going to use AngelList by Nivi & Naval as the basis for my example and the perfect prompt came yesterday when I read Fred Wilson’s blog post on AngelList. Anything requiring lead generation and/or customer acquisition I call Matt Coffin. Go get your anchors.

Guide 293

Guide Funding Venture Capital Technical Review 293

socalTECH

OCTOBER 30, 2008

to the business of script writing, and is looking to combine a free online tool for writing scripts with matching those scripts with content producers. Are you targeting Hollywood and existing script writing software? Scripped (www.scripped.com) is applying the world of Web 2.0 What's Scripped?

Content 138

Content Writing Software Review Hollywood 138

Both Sides of the Table

APRIL 17, 2010

The VC’s & executives were then asked to make “commitments&# (in writing) to 3-5 of the companies that they felt they could make some sort of contribution to. Walk into any Coffee Bean & Tea Leaf in Southern California and you can’t miss their digital screens. Watch this space.

Company 276

Company Companies Startup Southern California 276

Both Sides of the Table

NOVEMBER 25, 2010

Ask your customer why you lost. Write things down. We helped the write out their requirements for a system. Something happened and it was clear to me that this IE issues was just a smoke screen. You are most vulnerable right after it has been announced that you won (I will write a separate post on this).

Outsource Development 333

Outsource Development Software Review Technical Review News 333

Both Sides of the Table

NOVEMBER 25, 2010

Ask your customer why you lost. Write things down. We helped the write out their requirements for a system. Something happened and it was clear to me that this IE issues was just a smoke screen. You are most vulnerable right after it has been announced that you won (I will write a separate post on this).

Outsource Development 328

Outsource Development Software Review Technical Review News 328

Both Sides of the Table

MAY 26, 2011

I’m not arguing that no screening is required. He encouraged me to write this post and after smoking me out on Twitter I had no choice. I’ve made every excuse to myself in the past, “I can’t fire him now, he owns the customer relationships and it’s a crucial point in our sales process.” But here’s the thing. So here goes.

Startup 335

Startup Technical Review Framework Entrepreneur 335

Both Sides of the Table

MAY 13, 2018

If you’re raising a round where a new lead investor would invest $5 million the VC fund must have no less than $100 million and if you’re looking for them to write $15–20 million as the lead their fund realistically should be at least $400 million. The first meeting is usually with 1–2 people within the VC firm.

Venture Capital 332

Venture Capital Funding Startup Sales 332

Both Sides of the Table

MAY 4, 2013

I’m not saying that lawyers were my screening process – simply that they knew about deals early on and they had voted with their time and pocketbooks so I knew I had a degree of filtering. They do this because they have amazing skills at writing business plans. Of course I went through normal other channels of deal flow.

Startup 361

Startup Venture Capital Pricing Technical Review 361

socalTECH

DECEMBER 28, 2017

The act of writing job descriptions will help them verbalize and understand what they need to see in a candidate. It’s important to use the right screening tools. For instance, All Web Leads , a customer acquisition marketing business, needed to hire 100 employees each month. Click To Tweet.

Screening 203

Screening Web Writing Resource 203

Both Sides of the Table

JANUARY 13, 2011

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. Who are your key customers? Mobile app? Bijan is right.

Venture Capital 299

Venture Capital Slides Technical Advisors Startup 299

Both Sides of the Table

AUGUST 15, 2009

We helped the write out their requirements for a system. Something happened and it was clear to me that this IE issues was just a smoke screen. You are most vulnerable right after it has been announced that you won (I will write a separate post on this). Ask your customer why you lost. Write things down.

Startup 151

Startup Outsource Development Software Review Technical Review 151

Both Sides of the Table

MAY 4, 2013

I’m not saying that lawyers were my screening process – simply that they knew about deals early on and they had voted with their time and pocketbooks so I knew I had a degree of filtering. They do this because they have amazing skills at writing business plans. Of course I went through normal other channels of deal flow.

Venture Capital 347

Venture Capital Startup Pricing Invest 347

Tech Zulu Event

OCTOBER 11, 2012

The multi-tiered platform allows for money to be transferred between Facebook friends, the ability to click and purchase any item that you see on Facebook and through the published API’s, developers can integrate and write their own applications on top of the ZunguZ platform. Why the name? We don’t compete with banks.

Software Review 92

Software Review Social Network Platform Technical Review 92

Both Sides of the Table

JANUARY 10, 2010

Want to take a year pursuing your dream to write a screenplay, travel through Asia, run a triathlon or start your own fashion line? I got to experience much of the local culture and customs. Obviously if you’re in a customer support role, a sales role or a customer service industry this can be impossible.

Startup 295

Startup Email Technical Review Course 295

Tech Zulu Event

JANUARY 30, 2012

For those who still might be wondering what Spotlight: LA Tech is all about, It’s a screening room for new technology homegrown in our region. We write and create our own content for the game. Everything happens in the browser (no software to download) and the finished product looks amazing on large screens!

CalTech 91

CalTech Company Companies Idealab 91

Both Sides of the Table

APRIL 13, 2011

Huge thank you to Steve De Long for the write up. Either it’s a bunch of pictures or screen shots or it’s a bunch of words. If you have time check out the video (or download on iTunes – Episode 27 - and listen at the gym or on your commute!). Or, as always, summary notes available below. Is that when it became big?

Venture Capital 288

Venture Capital Startup Technical Review Software Review 288

Tech Zulu Event

JULY 19, 2010

A bright and beautiful screen thanks to the Super AMOLED display. Swype, Write & Go. Dedicated zoom buttons, double tapping the screen and multi-touch pinch-zooming are all available to you. It features an on-screen QWERTY keyboard by Swype in both landscape and portrait mode. Aldiko e-book.

Technical Review 40

Technical Review Screening RSS Web 40

Both Sides of the Table

JULY 19, 2011

They’re also good at screening candidates. Very customer focused. But when they’re trying to get David Pogue, Walt Mossberg or Kara Swisher to write a story for you, they’re also thinking about their other clients – now and in the future. This is the skilled bit that you can’t effectively manage.

Venture Capital 319

Venture Capital Pricing Startup Outsource 319

Tech Zulu Event

DECEMBER 6, 2013

” I’m not a morning person; in fact, it’s 2pm as I’m writing this and I’m still in sweat pants, but for this, I’ll gladly be there. Customers know what works well and are frustrated by the lack of innovation in the industry. I believe car companies just won’t bother their customers like that.”

Advertising 97

Advertising Startup Marketing Mobile 97

Both Sides of the Table

AUGUST 17, 2014

I’ll try to get write-ups shortly but for now here is an overview of my interview with Nanea Reeves – President and COO of textPlus. In this short clip below, Nanea emphasizes this important point – if you create a product customers love, it will ultimately be a good business decision as well. Company Organization.

Technical Review 315

Technical Review Blogging RSS Organization 315

Both Sides of the Table

JANUARY 17, 2011

So I thought I’d write a post about how I drive my personal creativity. (A The key is channeling what you learn when you drive onto paper for retention purposes so you have to write it down soon afterward. When I write a blog post I often see the words before I write them. These are all creative processes.

Writing 356

Writing Startup Ideas Summary 356

Both Sides of the Table

MARCH 30, 2010

As I naturally get asked all the time why we invested in Company A or Company B, I thought I’d just put forth my thesis in writing. He’s a natural leader, appropriately competitive, very customer focused and a pleasure to work with. I’ll explain in detail below. He knows the ad management and ad network businesses.

Mobile 282

Mobile Invest Company Companies 282

socalTECH

SEPTEMBER 18, 2019

In an era, where every single streaming music service seems to be the same thingindistinguishable from each otherhow do they differentiate and create customer loyalty? million paying customers when Cricket sold to AT&T. They understand their customers, and know how to build incredible, deeply emotional relationships with them.

Startup 113

Startup Artificial Inteligence Content Platform 113