Startup Professionals Musings

DECEMBER 19, 2022

As a startup advisor, I see many aspiring entrepreneurs whose primary motivation seems to be to work part time, or get rich quick, or avoid anyone else telling them what to do. Yet, for those with more realistic expectations and the right motivation, the entrepreneur lifestyle can be the dream life you envisioned.

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Startup Professionals Musings

JUNE 26, 2023

Entrepreneurs seem more quickly frustrated these days when their “million-dollar idea” doesn’t turn into a sustainable business overnight. So why do entrepreneurs think that building a business is intuitively obvious, and should happen overnight? Even the revered Steve Jobs of Apple didn’t get it all right the first time.

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TechCrunch LA

APRIL 15, 2021

E-commerce is booming, but among the biggest challenges for entrepreneurs of online businesses are finding a place to store the items they are selling and dealing with the logistics of operating. He also believes Saltbox is “extremely well-positioned to help power and enable the next generation of great direct to consumer brands.”

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Startup Professionals Musings

MAY 18, 2022

Here are some key insights that I and others have collected for mature company leaders, as well as serial entrepreneurs. Unfortunately, in this new age of rapid market change and harder-to-satisfy customers, you can’t assume that what worked yesterday will work tomorrow. If you like it, so will all your potential customers.

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Startup Professionals Musings

SEPTEMBER 16, 2023

The rate of new entrepreneurs increased between 2013 and 2021, from 280 to 360 out of 100,000 of the adult population. They helped create over 5 million new businesses in 2022, a forty percent increase over the previous year. Building a minimum viable product, with customer validation. The cost of social media done well is low.

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TechCrunch LA

JUNE 16, 2020

Ksenia Yudina initially founded the company to provide financial planning and services to lower- and middle-class families looking for ways to start saving for their children’s education, she said. “To me the investment in UNest is a great opportunity to help my community.

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TechCrunch LA

JULY 9, 2019

Doctours , a Los Angeles-based online platform for booking trips and treatments for medical and dental care around the world, is expanding its services to 35 countries. The company also offers specialized medical tourism insurance to all of its customers, according to O’Shaughnessy. O’Shaughnessy wrote in an email.

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TechCrunch LA

JULY 23, 2019

Can subscriptions and everyday payments be used to help build or rebuild a credit score? The service, which launched earlier this month, is one of the slew of new ideas coming from businesses that are angling to help build up credit scores for folks who can’t (or won’t) get a credit card, or who are rebuilding their credit.

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TechCrunch LA

FEBRUARY 20, 2020

Snapchat, they hoped, would spin-off entrepreneurs and angel investors who would reinvest in the local ecosystem and create new companies that would in turn foster more wealth, establishing LA as a hub for tech talent and venture dollars on par with New York and Boston. Over the past four years, Relativity href="[link] has raised $185.7

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Startup Professionals Musings

AUGUST 30, 2021

Yet there is no standardized testing or certification required or available anywhere to help you decide if you are a good fit for entrepreneurship, or founding a business is right for you. You will be controlled by your customers, investors, lenders – and you are personally responsible for answering to all of them, all of the time.

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Startup Professionals Musings

JANUARY 11, 2020

In my experience working with entrepreneurs, once they feel they have a winning formula for their business, they are often hesitant to change or update it. They forget that adapting their company and themselves as their customers evolve is the key to long-term survival. Create an overt strategy to react to emerging customer trends.

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Startup Professionals Musings

SEPTEMBER 6, 2020

His focus is on sales, but I see the same skills needed for entrepreneurs. His top eight required skill set elements for sales don’t even mention product skills, and match my view of the right skill set for successful entrepreneurs, with only a few priority changes: Creating and sharing a vision. Negotiating and creating win-win deals.

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Startup Professionals Musings

MARCH 27, 2020

As a startup advisor, I see many aspiring entrepreneurs whose primary motivation seems to be to work part time, or get rich quick, or avoid anyone else telling them what to do. Yet, for those with more realistic expectations and the right motivation, the entrepreneur lifestyle can be the dream life you envisioned.

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Startup Professionals Musings

FEBRUARY 17, 2021

It wasn’t so many years ago that starting a new e-commerce business on the Internet was a complex custom development project, usually costing a million dollars or more. With a little help from a friend, you can handle expenses, revenue, and payroll, with QuickBooks or a similar package. Work out of your home, and keep your own books.

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Startup Professionals Musings

MARCH 14, 2022

My recommendation to entrepreneurs is to recognize these concerns as an opportunity to make people’s life better, rather than worry and dodge the risk. We all just need your help in managing personal data correctly, and making sure you are part of the solution, rather than part of the problem. Don’t take shortcuts on these.

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Startup Professionals Musings

MAY 28, 2017

With the advent of the Internet, social media, and instant communication via texting, customer expectations for service, as part of their entire customer experience, have changed. They expect you to be there, to know their history as a customer, and to treat them with priority and respect.

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socalTECH

NOVEMBER 28, 2018

Santa Monica-based on-demand, scooter rental service Bird said on Tuesday it has launched a new program, which will let anyone build and operate their own Bird e-scooter network. Bird said it will create a customized website for those entrepreneurs, and provide "everything you need to manage your fleet of e-scooters".

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Startup Professionals Musings

SEPTEMBER 21, 2019

If an entrepreneur doesn’t find themselves in over their head at least 20% of the time, they are probably not pushing the limits, not taking enough risk, and probably not working on an idea that’s worth doing. The challenge in to know when and how to ask for help, and not let bravado and ego mask anxieties. Seek help or get out.

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Startup Professionals Musings

MAY 15, 2013

Customer service has always been reactionary, meaning someone has to wake up and answer website email requests. That’s just not savvy enough to hold today’s fickle, less loyal, and ready to jump customer. This exemplary customer service is just savvy marketing. Self-service needs to have escape hatches.

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Startup Professionals Musings

NOVEMBER 29, 2019

As a mentor to many aspiring entrepreneurs, I challenge them to think beyond what I call linear extensions to a current trend, such as another “easier-to-use” app for smartphones, a new dating site for pets, or another niche social network. Examples I have seen include atomic battery technology, or how marine algae could help feed the world.

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Startup Professionals Musings

JUNE 6, 2012

Customer service has always been reactionary, meaning someone to wake up and answer website email requests. That’s just not sufficient to hold today’s fickle, less loyal, and ready to jump customer. Self-service technologies, social media, and smart phones have created a new set of expectations for high-tech consumers today.

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Startup Professionals Musings

JANUARY 12, 2020

Every new entrepreneur has to initiate the right actions to be perceived as a leader in their chosen business domain by their team and by their customers, or the road to success and satisfaction will be lost along the way. No entrepreneur can build a business alone. Make an honest effort to help others.

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Startup Professionals Musings

JULY 18, 2020

When I heard a friend and business mentor say, “Your startup won’t fail if you don’t quit,” I realized that every entrepreneur should adopt “never give up” as their mantra. Nothing is more discouraging to aspiring entrepreneurs than the high failure rate. Otherwise, look for advances from distributors, vendors or even future customers.

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Startup Professionals Musings

APRIL 23, 2017

Moore titled “ Crossing the Chasm ,” but most entrepreneurs have no idea how it relates to them. In fact, it’s all about the “focus” required to get early stage technology products across the deadly chasm from early adopters to mainstream customers. Customer support chasm. Product development chasm.

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socalTECH

OCTOBER 19, 2018

Earlier this month, Los Angeles-based Catalog (www.catalog.cc), a startup developing artificial intelligence software to help independent visual artists scale their content production efforts, announced it raised $1.5M To bundle all of these components requires you to have customers with similar needs. in a seed funding round.

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Both Sides of the Table

APRIL 25, 2011

There’s a line of thinking in Silicon Valley that you should build product businesses rather than services businesses. It’s nearly impossible to get a services company financed by VCs. It is advice I give entrepreneurs often as I have written here on why most businesses should never raise VC.

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socalTECH

MARCH 28, 2019

Earlier this month, the annual Montgomery Summit conference was held in Santa Monica, including a special portion of the conference dedicated to the Rise of the Female Entrepreneur. I got started in investment banking, focused on helping medical companies buy technology companies, and then later in the enterprise space and in the cloud.

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Startup Professionals Musings

OCTOBER 26, 2020

None of these investment banks offer traditional banking services, as you would expect from one of the following: Retail banks Commercial banks Credit unions Savings and loans As startup founders, you first need to deal with one of these traditional banks, probably a commercial bank. Very confusing.

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Startup Professionals Musings

JUNE 25, 2021

It seems like everyone wants to be an entrepreneur and get rich these days. Ask some potential customers to see if there is real interest, and start thinking about price versus cost. Be wary of crafty shysters who will flood your mailbox with official-looking mail offering to help for a fee, or demanding fees you forgot to pay.

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Startup Professionals Musings

MAY 19, 2019

Image via Flickr by jardenberg Your marketing launch is the most important element of startup success these days, to get customer attention in this world of information overload. Yet it is the one element that too many entrepreneurs focus on only as an afterthought. The eye is just as important as the mind when it comes to customers.

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Berkonomics

FEBRUARY 25, 2021

How should you become the best marketer you can be, even if you are a first-time entrepreneur or a seasoned CEO? The title of this insight helps us find a formula: LALA. Interview potential customers, hold focus groups, meet with existing customers. There’s an answer for that. Memorize your use of “LALA”.

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socalTECH

JANUARY 2, 2014

Michael Chasin: LawKick.com is essentially a marketplace that makes it easier than ever to find legal help. How the website works, is the client goes to the website, and indicates what they need help with. How has the attorney response been to your service? We''re a free service for clients, and don''t charge them.

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Startup Professionals Musings

MAY 2, 2022

Most of the entrepreneurs and business owners I work with recognize that they must occupy and practice a primary leadership position , but many will admit that they are not thriving in this role. The support currently provided by product service can become inadequate to satisfy new customers, as your growth and image becomes better known.

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Startup Professionals Musings

MAY 29, 2023

His focus is on sales, but I see the same skills needed for entrepreneurs. His top eight required skill set elements for sales don’t even mention product skills, and match my view of the right skill set for successful entrepreneurs, with only a few priority changes: Creating and sharing a vision. Negotiating and creating win-win deals.

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Startup Professionals Musings

AUGUST 29, 2015

With the advent of social media and the pervasive move to smartphones, even customers who still prefer to purchase in brick-and-mortar stores have dramatically changed their shopping habits. If you refuse to play by their rules, they have the power to easily find alternatives, and actively pull other potential customers away.

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socalTECH

FEBRUARY 25, 2014

Jon Kraft: Our mission is to help kids discover and pursue their passions in life. I actually convinced Girish to help me with that other project, and worked together. One of our goals, is to help kids understand their unique strengths, and find things that they really can be passionate about. Tell me about your new company?

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TechCrunch LA

NOVEMBER 23, 2020

Founded four years ago by Matt Danna and Sean Stavropoulos, Boulevard was inspired by Stavropoulos’ inability to book a haircut and Danna’s hunch that the inability of salons and spas to cater to customers like the busy programmer could be indicative of a bigger problem. billion transaction by Vista Equity Partners.

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