Both Sides of the Table

MARCH 2, 2011

It’s apropos because there is so much noise these days with email, Twitter, Facebook, blogs, web shows, etc. If I check Twitter it’s usually because I’m waiting for a meeting to start and I never write posts during the day. Should entrepreneurs have convertible debt or priced equity? I read 95% of my email.

Email 287

Email Blogging Venture Capital Writing 287

Both Sides of the Table

JANUARY 14, 2014

If you follow the tech media you would be subject to a lot of narrative biases that are completely off base – and this includes the value of email and phone calls. All the data actually suggests with the growth of mobile, inbound sales calls will double from 30 billion to 60 billion in 3 years (source: Kelsey). THE FULL STORY.

Email 339

Email SaaS Venture Capital Google 339

Both Sides of the Table

MAY 13, 2018

The most important advice I could give you before you set out in fund raising mode is to understand that fund-raising a sales & marketing process and needs to be managed. Somehow many first-time founders equate “sales” with something that is beneath them. In sales there are also three rules: Qualify, qualify, qualify.

Venture Capital 332

Venture Capital Funding Startup Sales 332

Both Sides of the Table

MAY 27, 2013

In this period (less than 2 years) he has brought on incredibly talented senior execs is sales, marketing, product management, client services, finance, vp engineering and more. Email updates frequently. Key point – if your emails are as long as my blog posts you’re forked. Make your emails actionable.

Tips 365

Tips Email Venture Capital CTO Coach 365

Startup Professionals Musings

FEBRUARY 5, 2020

Funding is depleted before customer sales ramp up. Keep control by writing every check personally, and manage receivable and payables tightly. Examples abound of startups who had to pivot for success, including Twitter moving from podcasts to social commentating, and Yelp moving from email to online.

Startup 131

Startup Entrepreneur Examples Customer 131

Both Sides of the Table

JUNE 1, 2011

That was back when VCs weren’t so quick to respond to emails. I started by writing 3-4 times / week. I didn’t have any grand ambitions other than to write, share ideas and try to build awareness of who I am through my thoughts. Just like a sales person at the end of a quarter. I did that? Here we go.

Startup 391

Startup Blogging Venture Capital Writing 391

Berkonomics

JUNE 11, 2015

I was fortunate that I could write software and doubly fortunate that my despair at working for ‘the Man’ – and feeling compelled to strike out on my own – coincided with the dawn of the personal computer era. We went from our largest-ever sale of 3 licenses at one time to a thousand.

Customer 120

Customer Custom Writing Southern California 120

Startup Professionals Musings

AUGUST 19, 2013

This is sad, since “how to write a business plan” is a frequent topic found in every business journal, and a common title in the business section of every book store. Forcing yourself to write down a plan is actually the only way to make sure you actually understand it yourself. What is the definition of a good business plan?

Sample 92

Sample Writing Startup Summary 92

Startup Professionals Musings

JULY 21, 2012

This is sad, since “how to write a business plan” is a frequent topic found in every business journal, and a common title in the business section of every book store. Forcing yourself to write down a plan is actually the only way to make sure you actually understand it yourself. What is the definition of a good business plan?

Sample 96

Sample Writing Summary Startup 96

Berkonomics

FEBRUARY 3, 2010

This insight follows closely the conclusions from the previous declaration, that professional investors negotiate tough terms, from provisions of control over asset acquisition, eventual sale of the company, future investments, forced co-sale when others attempt to sell their shares and more.

Resource 149

Resource Startup Invest Entrepreneur 149

Both Sides of the Table

JUNE 19, 2015

Sales people (and website customer acquisition folks) all think in terms of funnels and yet non-sales professionals seldom do. Every night before I went to bed I would say to myself, what one thing could I do to make progress on this hire, which is why people who worked with me on it probably noticed a lot of late-night emails.

Startup 150

Startup Framework Sales Venture Capital 150

SoCal CTO

JANUARY 5, 2011

Will Price , October 11, 2010 Georgians Should Vote No - Force of Good: a blog by Lance Weatherby , October 28, 2010 Free Software for Managing a Lean Startup - Platforms and Networks , January 17, 2010 Purpose Driven Life - Journey of a Serial Entrepreneur , July 26, 2010 Two Decade-Defining Acquisitions?

Startup 378

Startup Venture Capital Blogging CTO Coach 378

Startup Professionals Musings

DECEMBER 8, 2010

This is sad, since “how to write a business plan” is a frequent topic found in every business journal, and a common title in the business section of every book store. Forcing yourself to write down a plan is actually the only way to make sure you actually understand it yourself. What is the definition of a good business plan?

Startup 91

Startup Funding Sample Writing 91

Startup Professionals Musings

APRIL 9, 2012

You may have already found several articles, web pages, or books about writing the perfect executive summary. They all offer a list of requirements that might take 50 pages to address, but of course they ask you to write concisely. Who is your customer, what is the price, and how much does it cost you to build one?

Summary 97

Summary Writing Competition Sample 97

Startup Professionals Musings

FEBRUARY 3, 2011

You may have already found several articles, web pages, or books about writing the perfect executive summary. They all offer a list of requirements that might take 50 pages to address, but of course they ask you to write concisely. Who is your customer, what is the price, and how much does it cost you to build one?

Summary 90

Summary Writing Competition Sample 90

Both Sides of the Table

JANUARY 21, 2010

When to get a lawyer - If you plan to be a venture or angel backed technology company (what I mostly write about) the best time to start meeting and getting to know lawyers is long before you ever start your company. I write about some of the lessons in my post on Startup Mistakes. Consider it a sales & marketing expense for them.

Startup 318

Startup IP Southern California Entrepreneur 318

Both Sides of the Table

FEBRUARY 7, 2010

There’s one attribute (coming soon) that I need to have in order to write a check but I don’t believe is vital for success. I’ll publish the final post in this series this week and then move on to my next series – sales & marketing. I’ll be covering my PUCCKA sales methodology.

Entrepreneur 267

Entrepreneur Startup SaaS San Diego 267

Both Sides of the Table

SEPTEMBER 29, 2009

Three reasons: There is a relative valuation between the price a VC pays and their expectations of what it will exit for in an IPO or trade sale. Also, it’s harder to pay a $30 million pre-money value on an unproved company when you see public companies with $100 million in sales trading for less than $20 million.

Venture Capital 263

Venture Capital Startup Invest Funding 263

InfoChachkie

DECEMBER 2, 2009

If you have the proper mechanisms to accurately calculate your Cost Per Customer / Lifetime Value Equation, you will happily purchase as many customers from affiliates as your cash flow constraints will allow, as long as the average acquisition price is less than the customers’ average lifetime value.

Customer 164

Customer Custom Advertising SEM 164

Both Sides of the Table

APRIL 19, 2011

Big thank you to Darius Vasefi , of EyeOnJewels for the write up. People want to invest in people they trust – once you’ve made money for someone you can always go back, and even get better pricing. o Everything is for sale but it’s the price that moves the timing. Here’s a summary of our interview.

Acquisition 304

Acquisition Startup Customer Custom 304

Both Sides of the Table

MARCH 25, 2016

The questions that a VC mulls before writing a check are precisely the questions you should be asking yourself. So when Sam Rosen came to me with the idea of disrupting storage with a product that is priced cheaper than existing incumbents and he could build a product that is a better service I was intrigued. Market Size.

Startup 150

Startup Marketing Study SEO 150

Both Sides of the Table

SEPTEMBER 8, 2009

He writes with a great perspective and is well worth reading. Do you really think Porter’s Five Forces is going to help you figure out what feature set to launch or how to price your product? Many MBAs took marketing courses but have never been on the front line of A/B testing, email campaigns or PR initiatives.

Startup 337

Startup Venture Capital Study Course 337

Both Sides of the Table

JANUARY 1, 2016

But putting no time into anchoring your beliefs because you’re too busy executing sales, marketing, support, product & engineering is an easy recipe for leadership drift. They respond to email. I wanted to just write. I like writing. We could all do better – I’m sure. Conviction. I hate editing.

Startup 150

Startup Coach Course Invest 150

Startup Professionals Musings

FEBRUARY 11, 2010

You may have already found several articles, web pages, or books about writing the perfect executive summary. They all offer a list of requirements that might take 50 pages to address, but of course they ask you to write concisely. Who is your customer, what is the price, and how much does it cost you to build one?

Summary 55

Summary Writing Competition Metrics 55

Eric Greenspan

MAY 29, 2010

That said, when a customer posts on Facebook that you should lower your prices by 50%, perhaps this is not something you should spend too much time on. However, if your customers don’t post anything at all, good or bad, perhaps your pricing is too high overall. After writing this blog post, I found this on Facebook.

Social Media 214

Social Media Customer Custom Media 214

socalTECH

SEPTEMBER 1, 2011

We have a very unique capability in scalability, but at an agreeable price point. The traditional way to handle that is to write code. We can take all those search results, put them into a spreadsheet, and automatically email it to interested parties. About 30 to 45 percent of our business is international.

Networking 214

Networking IBM IBM Pacific Palisades 214

Tech Zulu Event

NOVEMBER 18, 2011

This article will cover two things; First, the top mistakes small business owners make that end with inquiries leading you to the exit door before making a sale. Typically entrepreneurs doubt themselves because they undervalue their offerings, but it isn’t about creating a product, setting a price and hoping people will buy.

Customer 85

Customer Custom Marketing SEO 85

Tech Zulu Event

APRIL 18, 2016

Many retailers report $100,000 is the minimum price of entry. The price of a retail app varies depending on the developer and features; nevertheless, it’s a big number. RetailNext data shows that sales over the 2015 Thanksgiving weekend were down by 4.7 This is certainly on the high end of the spectrum.

Mobile 40

Mobile Sites Customer Custom 40

SoCal CTO

SEPTEMBER 8, 2010

Pricing models, the freemium myth and why you may not be charging enough for your product - Seth Levine's VC Adventure , August 12, 2010 I’ve been pulled into a number of product and pricing meetings recently (for reasons unknown I’ve become the Foundry pricing and productization guy). clearly didn’t cause this.” How it happens.

Startup 191

Startup Venture Capital Blogging CTO Hire 191

Startup Professionals Musings

JUNE 2, 2011

An inflated sense of financial well-being can result in sloppy budgeting and accounting as you write checks here and there without pause. If you spend $50K on a website selling party supplies but you soon realize it's the sales of catering supplies you offer that have taken off, you will want to have a site that promotes your newfound focus.

Startup 92

Startup Capital Blogging Ideas 92

Both Sides of the Table

MAY 25, 2013

In the original version of his post, Andy writes. Nothing was more heart warming than the photo of David Karp hugging Bijan Sabet after the sale to Yahoo! So I prefer to watch what works first and pay a higher price to get in when it’s proven.” Many don’t return my emails on time. ” Fair enough.

Venture Capital 374

Venture Capital Entrepreneur Invest Funding 374

socalTECH

FEBRUARY 27, 2009

The key here is to provide visibility to everyone along the process--not just at the start, when you put it on the wall, or email the project plan to everyone. There was a disconnect between the product and the sales process. Everyone wants to read a PDF, but few want to write or change them.

Startup 100

Startup Software Review Technical Review Software 100

SoCal Delicious

SEPTEMBER 22, 2008

Heres 5 steps to start exploring: View the "Best Of" list with 50+ essays on viral marketing, gaming, and ads » Get introduced: About this blog, why entrepreneurs and marketers recommend it » Receive updates by email or RSS feed or Twitter. Write me an e-mail and let me know what youre up to! Pricing and revenue?

Startup 29

Startup IP Email Report 29

Both Sides of the Table

MARCH 27, 2010

Example: Work Experience can be broken down into: has managed a team, has led direct sales efforts, has worked for a startup before, etc. I set up an auto-responder that tells people what the process is when they email us (on some occasions I did this manually). What was your original price quote? What was your final price?

Startup 301

Startup Examples Sales Pricing 301

Both Sides of the Table

APRIL 12, 2018

Many people will write the history on why Ring became an enormously successful company and why it became a real-world unicorn in a world when many startups are anointed that merely on paper. He launched a business called Unsubscribe, which helped consumers deal with the deluge of email lists that one gets signed up to and get rid of them all.

Startup 247

Startup Pricing Product Marketing 247

SoCal Delicious

MAY 6, 2012

Our Best Interviews Via Email: Monthly. There are hundreds of entrepreneurs here in Los Angeles who are building awesome companies, writing awesome books, making awesome movies and are trying to solve important problems to help make this world a better place. Idea Mensch. where entrepreneurs share their stories. Subscribe to RSS.

Los Angeles 78

Los Angeles Entrepreneur Angel Fractional CTO 78

Both Sides of the Table

MARCH 1, 2011

I appreciate the write-up and your continued support of this blog. We will white label the system, and not only that, we’ll allow you to set your own pricing.” After rejuvenating from the exhausting sale of Quigo, Mike started a ‘boring site’ called Tracked.com that he thought would be a better version of Yahoo!

Google 302

Google Startup Advertising Acquisition 302