Both Sides of the Table

APRIL 20, 2010

I recently did a post for startups on understanding sales people. This post is designed mostly for non-technical founders. Some CTO’s swear that it is a huge improvement in development timeframes and doesn’t cause performance issues. They often aren’t great at planning development work.

CTO Hire 400

CTO Hire Fractional VPE Startup Outsource Development 400

Startup Professionals Musings

MAY 4, 2014

Develop your business plan. This will include the first version of many critical processes that can be split out later, including market opportunity, requirements, product definition, business model, sales process, and organization. Product development process. If you are contracting or outsourcing, this is even more important.

Startup 107

Startup Outsource Development Training Outsource 107

Startup Professionals Musings

APRIL 22, 2014

If both of you are experts at software development, even though one loves design and the other loves coding, that still won’t get the marketing done. Look at the big picture first of development, finance, and marketing/sales. This is probably the best place to apply your “gut” feeling. Complementary skills.

Software Review 107

Software Review Entrepreneur CTO Hire Outsource Development 107

Startup Professionals Musings

JUNE 26, 2020

To be clear, I define a product specification as the technical definition of your product, to be used for development and testing purposes, with a quick business summary for context. Include marketing, sales, and customer rollout plans. Marty Zwilling First published on Predictable Designs on 06/10/2020.

Product 169

Product Summary Startup Examples 169

Startup Professionals Musings

JULY 16, 2017

Very few entrepreneurs have the range of skills and experience to be the solution creator as well as business creator, or operational as well as sales leader. If both of you are experts at software development, even though one loves design and the other loves coding, that still won’t get the marketing done.

Software Review 56

Software Review CTO Hire Outsource Development CTO Coach 56

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

FEBRUARY 8, 2013

If both of you are experts at software development, even though one loves design and the other loves coding, that still won’t get the marketing done. Look at the big picture first of development, finance, and marketing/sales. This is probably the best place to apply your “gut” feeling. Complementary skills.

Software Review 103

Software Review Equity CTO Hire Outsource Development 103

Both Sides of the Table

MARCH 30, 2011

In the initial phases of any new market you’re developing a product (hopefully with a minimal set of features), getting feedback from customers, refining your product based on user feedback and then re-launching your product. Markets develop for a complex set of factors that are often beyond all of our control.

Development Team Review 374

Development Team Review Technical Review Startup Resource 374

Both Sides of the Table

NOVEMBER 1, 2009

We spent time out in the marketplace talking with customers, looking at their solutions, comparing ourselves with our competition and then squirreling ourselves away in our offices designing our next set of features. Our sales guys were on the front line and heard what they needed to win deals. Tim started to change our processes.

Organization 280

Organization Customer Custom Tips 280

Both Sides of the Table

DECEMBER 16, 2009

They spot opportunities that aren’t being met and the design products to meet these needs. He asked each sales / biz dev person to call customers and tell them they had to change their contracts. I just knew that our sales sucked wind and we were burning through tons of cash. We were SMOKING cash. I’m sorry.

Entrepreneur 306

Entrepreneur Startup Outsource Development Customer 306

Startup Professionals Musings

JANUARY 31, 2013

Develop your business plan. This will include the first version of many critical processes that can be split out later, including market opportunity, requirements, product definition, business model, sales process, and organization. Product development process. If you are contracting or outsourcing, this is even more important.

Outsource Development 92

Outsource Development Training Outsource Metrics 92

Both Sides of the Table

SEPTEMBER 16, 2009

Initially as a systems designer and programmer and post MBA as a strategy consultant. I could easily go into the board rooms of major European companies (I was based in London) and land $500k – $1 million contracts so my order book grew rapidly. Some companies / products are designed for large organizations from day 1.

Startup 389

Startup Customer Custom Resource 389

Startup Professionals Musings

SEPTEMBER 7, 2011

Develop your business plan. This will include the first version of many critical processes that can be split out later, including market opportunity, requirements, product definition, business model, sales process, and organization. Product development process. If you are contracting or outsourcing, this is even more important.

Startup 102

Startup Outsource Development Writing Training 102

Startup Professionals Musings

AUGUST 20, 2012

A simple differentiation is that a product plan is designed for internal use, to get the product out. The product plan tells your developers what to build, and the marketing team what to market. Enough detail is required so that someone else can build it without you (outsourcing). Development and rollout. Market research.

Product 92

Product Outsource Development Competition High Tech 92

Both Sides of the Table

MARCH 10, 2012

When I started my first tech company in 1999 I had pretty good tech chops and had led teams but had very little exposure to many other things that matter in a startup including sales, marketing & business development. And those long contracts they want you to sign with terms that seemed more like Latin than English.

Startup 322

Startup Training Outsource Development Design 322

Startup Professionals Musings

JUNE 29, 2011

If both of you are experts at software development, even though one loves design and the other loves coding, that still won’t get the marketing done. Look at the big picture first of development, finance, and marketing/sales. This is probably the best place to apply your “gut” feeling. Complementary skills.

Software Review 96

Software Review CTO Hire Startup Outsource Development 96

Startup Professionals Musings

APRIL 28, 2014

Chief Sales Officer (VP Sales). What you really need is a VP of Marketing and Customer Development, who can help with lead generation and honing the message, rather than an executive to manage a sales team and existing customers. See this anecdote by Steve Blank on how a hotshot sales executive can sink your startup.

CTO Hire 100

CTO Hire Funding Cloud Computing CIO 100

socalTECH

MARCH 9, 2017

Veracity, which is backed by Microsemi and Frost Data Capital, recently inked a contract with the U.S. Department of Energy to help develop tools to secure the power grid. OT networks had a parallel development track with IT systems, but had primarily been focused on industrial applications. Thanks for the time today.

Networking 124

Networking Startup Incubator Orange County 124

Startup Professionals Musings

AUGUST 1, 2010

Develop your business plan. This will include the first version of many critical processes that can be split out later, including market opportunity, requirements, product definition, business model, sales process, and organization. Product development process. If you are contracting or outsourcing, this is even more important.

Startup 95

Startup Outsource Development Writing Training 95

Startup Professionals Musings

MAY 29, 2011

A simple differentiation is that a product plan is designed for internal use, to get the product out. The product plan tells your developers what to build, and the marketing team what to market. Enough detail is required so that someone else can build it without you (outsourcing). Development and rollout. Market research.

Product 93

Product Entrepreneur Outsource Development Competition 93

SoCal CTO

MARCH 4, 2010

The short story is that he received 400+ responses and goes through how he categorized/vetted the responses: 300 Didn’t Fit – Outside expertise/interest, pushing for immediate funding assistance, too many ideas (not focused), looking for sales agents. And a big factor is how big is the Founder Developer Gap.

Technical Review 170

Technical Review Technical Advisors CTO Coach Startup 170

Tech Zulu Event

JULY 5, 2016

Selling new products, opening new markets outsourcing business functions and every other decision affects the bottom line. The process of selling one item could include its purchase from the manufacture, shipping to its point of sale, storage, keeping records for the item and other phases of the business transaction. Monitoring.

Software Review 40

Software Review Technical Review .Net Outsource Development 40

socalTECH

JUNE 8, 2009

Eric Sikola: We've got seven people full time, and all our development is offshore, our CTO is onshore, and we have people doing graphical design locally plus others helping part time. I just really felt market demanded this and it's a productivity tool that could be used by an entire organization or individual.

Web 2.0 100

Web 2.0 Startup SaaS Report 100

socalTECH

NOVEMBER 29, 2010

The origins of the design that we have goes back to a company from the United Kingdom in the late 90's, and actually came out of high speed, centrifuge technology which is used for uranium enrichment. It's a fairly straightforward system design, and is essentially what Urenco developed. READ MORE>>.

Design 138

Design Training Southern California Outsource Development 138

socalTECH

JUNE 19, 2013

Ben Satterfield is the co-founder of TestFlight, an immensely popular piece of software for iOS (and now Android) which lets developers distribute beta copies of their apps to their users. TestFlight recently joined forces with Burstly (www.burstly.com) to create a suite of apps for mobile developers and publishers. What is Burstly?

Startup 262

Startup Mobile Outsource Development Tool 262

Startup Professionals Musings

MAY 24, 2010

If both of you are experts at software development, even though one loves design and the other loves coding, that still won’t get the marketing done. Look at the big picture first of development, finance, and marketing/sales. This is probably the best place to apply your “gut” feeling. Complementary skills.

Software Review 92

Software Review CTO Hire Outsource Development Startup 92

SoCal CTO

OCTOBER 15, 2009

Steve Gilison worked as a market researcher and product manager at a startup where my company, TechEmpower , did the software / web development. I have about 11 years in the technology sector including roles doing market research, sales and product development. My focus has been marketing strategy and product development.

Los Angeles 179

Los Angeles Product Angel Startup 179

Startup Professionals Musings

FEBRUARY 22, 2013

Chief Sales Officer (VP Sales). What you really need is a VP of Marketing and Customer Development, who can help with lead generation and honing the message, rather than an executive to manage a sales team and existing customers. See this anecdote by Steve Blank on how a hotshot sales executive can sink your startup.

Startup 97

Startup Invest CTO Hire Cloud Computing 97

Startup Professionals Musings

NOVEMBER 26, 2012

Back in the “heyday of the dot.com startups,” it was not uncommon to see a valuation incremented by $1M or every paid full-time professional programmer, engineer, or designer. Early customers and contracts in progress add value. Every customer contract and relationship needs to be monetized, even ones still in negotiation.

Startup 108

Startup Invest Patents Outsource Development 108

SoCal CTO

JANUARY 5, 2011

Steve Blank , January 25, 2010 10 Tips for Adding Game Mechanics to a Non-Gaming Service - ReadWriteStart , September 21, 2010 Startups & VCs: Learn How to Design, Market, & Eat Your Own. - First Principles.

Startup 378

Startup Venture Capital Blogging CTO Coach 378

socalTECH

AUGUST 8, 2012

Gene Dolgoff: After years of research and development, we have developed technology which converts two dimensional video to 3D. It was a series of different technologies we had ot develop and apply for patents on, and now that we have it, we're working on a prototype. Why turn to crowdfunding and Fundable for this?

Startup 252

Startup Sites Patents Outsource Development 252

Jason Nazar

MAY 2, 2016

Design a logo ( 99designs ). Ensure your business name is available on a wide variety of social networking websites in order to develop consistent branding ( KnowEm ). Create a sales forecasts and financial projections regularly. Execute the 5 Step Sales Process. Go mobile and consider app development.

Outsource Development 40

Outsource Development Startup Google Mentor 40

Both Sides of the Table

SEPTEMBER 8, 2009

I took an advanced computer course in high school where I learned to build databases in Ashton Tate’s dBase III+ and to compile my designs using a product called Clipper. I took a job in corporate finance as an intern my junior year at First Interstate Bank and I did system design on the side, as my main job was corporate planning.

Startup 337

Startup Venture Capital Study Course 337

Tech Zulu Event

SEPTEMBER 11, 2012

Designed to be highly available, the new platform comes equipped with a host of new features and an elegantly intuitive interface that customers can use to create, scale and monitor their cloud telephony campaigns. There are no contracts or start-up fees, and campaigns can seamlessly scale in the cloud as demand arises.

SaaS 68

SaaS Platform CTO Hire Class 68

Startup Professionals Musings

SEPTEMBER 30, 2011

Back in the “heyday of the dot.com startups,” it was not uncommon to see a valuation incremented by $1M or every paid full-time professional programmer, engineer, or designer. Early customers and contracts in progress add value. Every customer contract and relationship needs to be monetized, even ones still in negotiation.

Funding 98

Funding Startup Patents Outsource Development 98

Startup Professionals Musings

DECEMBER 1, 2010

Chief Sales Officer (VP Sales). What you really need is a VP of Marketing and Customer Development, who can help with lead generation and honing the message, rather than an executive to manage a sales team and existing customers. See this anecdote by Steve Blank on how a hotshot sales executive can sink your startup.

Startup 90

Startup CTO Hire Cloud Computing CIO 90

Tech Zulu Event

DECEMBER 13, 2013

App developers are coming up with new ideas daily to make our lives easier. Your chores can be outsourced through Porter. That’s the only thing that is outsourced. One guy was a designer, two guys were Ruby engineers, and I included – not an engineer. I have three sales guys, who are on commission only.

Technical Review 87

Technical Review Mobile Startup Los Angeles 87