Startup Professionals Musings

JUNE 26, 2015

I see too many executive summaries that are simply heavy-duty customer pitches, or lightweight visions of the future. " Investors want to buy into an entrepreneur with a startup that can provide evidence of an ability to double customer productivity, at half the cost, with patented technology.

Summary 101

Summary Patents Technical Review Competition 101

Startup Professionals Musings

JUNE 7, 2015

Employees and customers alike are looking for meaning, not simply employment and commodity prices. I can think of at least five ways that this benefits the business, as well as customers: Products in a purpose culture more readily sell at a premium price. Doing good opens the door to a broader customer base.

Entrepreneur 117

Entrepreneur Organization Startup Pricing 117

Startup Professionals Musings

AUGUST 29, 2011

Gartner says our market will be $50 billion in 2015.” It always amazes me how an entrepreneur can define his market opportunity so broadly, then assess his competition so narrowly in the next breath. Or worse yet, the entrepreneur is so arrogant that he hasn’t even used Google to figure out he has competition just down the street.

Entrepreneur 108

Entrepreneur Funding Innocal Competition 108

Startup Professionals Musings

DECEMBER 26, 2020

Many successful crowdfunding campaigns, just like many startups funded by angels and VCs, fail miserably due to normal business challenges, including inventory buildup, marketing, competition, and customer support. Thus crowdfunding is clearly not the panacea for funding and success that many entrepreneurs envision.

Startup 151

Startup Equity Funding Demand 151

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 Customer Custom 103

Startup Professionals Musings

OCTOBER 10, 2015

Does it mean the right thing from a customer perspective, societal impact, maximizing business returns or personal benefit? Another article indicates that 80 percent of customers continue to base some portion of their buying decisions on their perceptions of the company’s ethics. Be a coach, rather than a dictator.

Entrepreneur 102

Entrepreneur Training Demand Customer 102

Startup Professionals Musings

SEPTEMBER 28, 2015

Instead, find and quantify the specific demographics of the subset that your solution best fits, and target all your features and messaging to those customers. A near-term customer value proposition. Sustainable competitive advantage. In all cases, you need customer support, formal processes and training in place.

Pricing 100

Pricing Technical Review Entrepreneur Startup 100

Both Sides of the Table

JUNE 22, 2015

So that we’re speaking the same language I would define “exclusive” as a period in which your company is prohibited from doing business with certain customers or business partners, which is why many incorrectly assume this is necessarily bad. PR Malloy (@diddly_do_indy) June 13, 2015.

Outsource Development 150

Outsource Development Startup Customer Custom 150

Startup Professionals Musings

SEPTEMBER 14, 2015

A few years ago, before the Internet was pervasive, before everyone carried a smartphone and before do-it-yourself software tools were available for free, it was difficult to reach a critical mass of new customers without spending a million dollars on a website, custom software and television advertising. The control is yours to keep.

Startup 108

Startup Search Engine Optimization Social Media Outsource Development 108

Tech Zulu Event

SEPTEMBER 22, 2014

The competition for consumers embracing e-commerce has led to retailers meeting the challenge of providing speedy delivery, relying on companies such as UPS and Fedex to do so, and making shipping systems more efficient. The retailers will often use these affordable options to turn around and offer free shipping to customers.

Commerce 84

Commerce Services Pricing Competition 84

Startup Professionals Musings

OCTOBER 13, 2012

Recognizing this is as much about culture as about language, ensures an understanding of regional motivators, cultural taboos and local customs – so that your solutions are ideally designed and marketed to deliver value that has genuine local relevance. An international brand will command higher prices and additional customer demand.

Marketing 104

Marketing Startup Patents Offshore 104

Startup Professionals Musings

AUGUST 20, 2011

Recognizing this is as much about culture as about language, ensures an understanding of regional motivators, cultural taboos and local customs – so that your solutions are ideally designed and marketed to deliver value that has genuine local relevance. An international brand will command higher prices and additional customer demand.

Entrepreneur 103

Entrepreneur Patents Offshore Startup 103

Startup Professionals Musings

JANUARY 17, 2015

Others schedule exhaustive training sessions for everyone on the team, including showcase customers, to make sure that everyone paints a consistent picture. Due diligence always involves on-site visits, informal discussions with any or all members of the team, vendors, and good customers as well as bad. Traction in the marketplace.

Technical Review 108

Technical Review Startup Satisfaction Entrepreneur 108

Startup Professionals Musings

JULY 31, 2015

Passionate entrepreneurs tend to talk on and on about their disruptive technology, their intent to change the world and free services, but if a business can’t provide quantifiable value to real customers, the dream will likely turn into a nightmare. Investors worry about competitors more than customer features.

Startup 104

Startup Summary Patents Examples 104

Startup Professionals Musings

NOVEMBER 21, 2013

Recognizing this is as much about culture as about language, ensures an understanding of regional motivators, cultural taboos and local customs – so that your solutions are ideally designed and marketed to deliver value that has genuine local relevance. An international brand will command higher prices and additional customer demand.

Entrepreneur 97

Entrepreneur Patents Startup Offshore 97

Startup Professionals Musings

AUGUST 24, 2015

What most entrepreneurs fail to appreciate is that even the most basic marketing takes time, money and creativity, and even the best still may not succeed in winning over competitive approaches or the status quo. Marty Zwilling First published on Entrepreneur.com on 8/14/2015. Here are the five key phases: Innovation trigger.

Startup 97

Startup Marketing Entrepreneur Social Network 97

Startup Professionals Musings

AUGUST 2, 2012

Marketers see it as a better way to target customers, but the current consumer offerings have been slow to deliver. If your B2B contacts are frequenting other non-competitive local businesses, LBS data could point you to more lucrative business partnerships. See who checks into your competition. Understand the competition.

Services 82

Services Competition Mobile Entertainment 82

Startup Professionals Musings

NOVEMBER 9, 2015

Once you have a complete offering, with real revenue from real customers, it’s time to ramp up the business. Organic growth at this stage may be non-competitive. Even here, an alternative solution is to partner with a related vendor or potential big customer for equity or royalty advances.

Startup 101

Startup Entrepreneur Equity Summary 101

Tech.Co

APRIL 24, 2018

Being one small company amongst the sea of thousands of startups vying for customers, capital, and talent, the way to get noticed above the crowd, connect with that next big partner, and raise some capital is to throw your hat in the ring to compete at Startup of the Year. A Strong Alumni Network.

Startup 70

Startup Competition Google Capital 70

Startup Professionals Musings

DECEMBER 11, 2015

They don’t realize that knocking competitors is assessed as a weakness and denying that you have any competition suggests there is no market for your solution. Smart investors, competitors and smart customers, will listen and watch carefully as you position your new offering. Use real case studies and customer feedback.

Capital 63

Capital Competition Case Study Patents 63

Startup Professionals Musings

OCTOBER 17, 2016

A few are still trying to make a profitable business out of nurturing startups, but it’s a challenge to make money when your customer startups don’t have many resources to give. I believe their competitive advantage is their top on-site leadership, exclusivity, and connections to investors.

Incubator 106

Incubator Startup Help Resource 106

socalTECH

JULY 17, 2019

We are across many platforms, and have a whole array of enterprise customers. Fast forward to around 2015, and we decided to shoot all of our vehicles stereoscopically for virtual reality. It was a way for us to go to our enterprise customers, put a headset on them, and show them the imagery in 3D.

Sales 124

Sales Research Content Edmunds 124

Startup Professionals Musings

MARCH 22, 2015

Yet the 2015 Office Romance Survey by Vault, Inc. Can be a competitive advantage. Competition over salary, promotions, and position. This can cause feelings of unfairness, and initiate emotionally competitive efforts. Success is the best antidote to emotional vulnerability. But all good things can be overdone.

Startup 96

Startup Course Competition Social Media 96

Startup Professionals Musings

SEPTEMBER 11, 2023

Many successful crowdfunding campaigns, just like many startups funded by angels and VCs, fail miserably due to normal business challenges, including inventory buildup, marketing, competition, and customer support. Thus crowdfunding is clearly not the panacea for funding and success that many entrepreneurs envision.

Startup 100

Startup Equity Entrepreneur Demand 100

Startup Professionals Musings

JANUARY 22, 2016

By default, innovation in every business decreases over time, and continuous innovation requires ongoing initiatives and measures of customer perceived value. Recognize that customers care about the whole experience. When is the last time you listened to customers and clients directly, and acted on their feedback immediately?

Startup 58

Startup Organization Demand Customer 58

socalTECH

NOVEMBER 19, 2018

Those technologies allow us to scale and offer a superior product for customers. He saw that the industry was being disrupted globally, and actually started with the idea of building a new company that could be scalable, and flexible, and offer delivery of that content at competitive pricing. Who are your core customers?

Content 113

Content Startup Mobile Platform 113

socalTECH

JANUARY 14, 2016

mPulse was formed in April of 2015, as a spinoff of a company called mobileStorm, which has been in mobile marketing and communications for the last fifteen years. It's a pretty diverse set of customers, who are all driven of our SaaS-based, contact engine we have created. It's a highly competitive market. What is mPulse?

Mobile 100

Mobile Southern California Startup Marketing 100

socalTECH

NOVEMBER 2, 2017

We got really serious after the success of that customer, who wanted to make this technology available for all of its employees across the globe. How is it your first customer was in Australia? I think we're seeing our growth finally is starting to be exponential, while back in 2015 and 2016 we found we needed to have some patience.

Help 100

Help Southern California Startup Technical Review 100

Startup Professionals Musings

NOVEMBER 30, 2015

A large portion of your competitive advantage and your potential value to investors is the size of your intellectual property portfolio. Entrepreneurs who have no patents, trade secrets or trademarks are usually deemed non-fundable and non-competitive. Demonstrate a concentrated focus on customers early on.

Entrepreneur 59

Entrepreneur Startup Technical Review Ideas 59

Startup Professionals Musings

MAY 4, 2016

The number of startups rose in 2015 for the first time in five years, with the largest year-over-year increase in two decades. Of course, that’s both the good news and the bad news for aspiring entrepreneurs, since it means more competition, and the business landscape is changing faster than ever. Marty Zwilling.

Startup 61

Startup Social Media News Tool 61

socalTECH

DECEMBER 7, 2016

I built my own company around marketing services, and have been around business development, marketing, custom service, and sales, and also on the consumer side of technology, a little bit a mix of the two. We worked on Beatshare at Chapman, where there was a business plan competition, which we won. How did you two connect?

Tech Coast Angels 100

Tech Coast Angels CTO Coach Startup Pasadena Angels 100

Startup Professionals Musings

JANUARY 9, 2016

Develop and continually refine your competitive advantage. Entrepreneurs know that no competitive advantage means failure. Entrepreneurs understand that every aspect of customer satisfaction and business requires a sense of urgency to win. Marty Zwilling First published on Entrepreneur.com on 12/30/2015.

Satisfaction 56

Satisfaction Entrepreneur Competition Organization 56

Xconomy

JULY 19, 2016

In 2015, Cybersecurity startups saw 332 funding deals with investments hitting the highest ever at $3.8 For 2015, there were 133 information security M&A deals, according to 451 Research’s Tech M&A Outlook 2016. Symantec Forces the Industry to Stay Competitive. billion (235 percent growth over 5 years).

Symantec 40

Symantec IBM IBM Acquisition 40

Startup Professionals Musings

NOVEMBER 28, 2015

If it doesn’t fit into one of the Four Fundamentals: growing revenue, getting new customers, keeping the customers they already have, or eliminating costs, they should rethink what they are doing. Marty Zwilling Published on IvyExec.com on 11/27/2015. Shirk accountability and role model. Over-rely on consensus decisions.

Startup 61

Startup Entrepreneur Training News 61

InfoChachkie

NOVEMBER 23, 2015

Twilio has now raised around $235 million, including a July 2015 round totaling $130 million. Rather, we value entrepreneurs' time and thus our diligence generally includes introducing them to potential customers and partners. The difference is that VoiceXML does not leverage customers' knowledge of web development.

Venture Capital 100

Venture Capital Technical Review Software Review Southern California 100

Both Sides of the Table

JANUARY 1, 2016

A great leader knows customers and has direct relationships with them. She can anticipate reactions to price increases or product changes by customers and she can sustain competitive challenges because she knows the customer will stick by her. They are on the road visiting customers and investors. Team Building.

Startup 150

Startup Coach Course Invest 150

Xconomy

JULY 6, 2016

National Institutes of Health director Francis Collins (pictured) and FDA commissioner Rob Califf spoke on a call this afternoon to update the Precision Medicine Initiative, or PMI, which President Obama unveiled in early 2015. “In medicine, ‘one size fits all’ is often far from an optimal strategy,” Collins said.

Study 59

Study PMI San Diego Sample 59