Startup Professionals Musings

JUNE 12, 2019

Much has been written recently about the requirement to focus today on the total customer experience, as a competitive edge or even for survival. The challenge I hear from savvy business owners and entrepreneurs operating on a shoestring is that providing a superior customer experience costs money.

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Startup Professionals Musings

MARCH 4, 2019

Is your marketing focus product-centric or customer-centric ? With a wealth of products now available, customers look for the most memorable experience , not just the best product. These days, a fun shopping experience, or no-question returns, often tips the scales over extra product features or a lower price.

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Startup Professionals Musings

JUNE 5, 2019

Too many business owners still think of “ customer support ” as an after-sale process to rectify customer problems with completed transactions. With the advent of instant communication and social media, customer service starts at the first hint of interest by you, and never ends for repeat customers.

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socalTECH

NOVEMBER 10, 2017

According to 2U, it has announced a new partnership with the University of Southern California Sol Price School of Public Policy where it will offer up two new, online graduate degrees for professionals from the school. 2U already runs a number of online degree programs for USC, which was one of its first customers. READ MORE>>.

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TechCrunch LA

NOVEMBER 19, 2019

The e-tron Sportback reveal ahead of the LA Auto Show follows the launch earlier this year of Audi’s first all-electric vehicle, the 2019 e-tron. Audi has delivered 18,500 of its all-electric e-tron SUVs globally since March 2019 when the vehicle first came to market. The base price of the Sportback is 71,350 ($79,000).

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TechCrunch LA

APRIL 15, 2021

Saltbox opened its first facility — a 27,000-square-foot location — in its home base of Atlanta in late 2019, filling it within two months. The company’s customers are typically SMB e-commerce merchants “generating anywhere from $50,000 to $10 million a year in revenue,” according to Scriven. Image Credits: Saltbox.

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TechCrunch LA

DECEMBER 8, 2020

He did note that in the four markets where the company has gone live since launching its business in January 2019 — San Diego, Los Angeles, the Inland Empire , and Sacramento — has yielded an annualized revenue run rate of over $400 million in gross merchandise value (the total value of home sales transacted on its platform).

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TechCrunch LA

MAY 20, 2021

So in 2019 she founded Eano , a San Francisco-based startup that aims to walk a homeowner through a renovation and help connect individual contractors with new clients. Eano, she said, offers competitive and transparent pricing so that homeowners aren’t surprised as a remodeling project goes on.

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socalTECH

AUGUST 14, 2019

Power, its 2019 Smart Thermostate Satisfaction Report says that overall satisfaction for smart thermostats has increased from 2018, as the firm said that manufacturers have focused on easing installation and use of those smart thermostats, and also are communicating to their users how much money they are saving once installed.

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TechCrunch LA

JANUARY 25, 2022

Starship raised $40 million Series A led by Morpheus Ventures back in 2019, and last January according to Pitchbook data also raised a further $17 million with strategic backers TDK Ventures (the investment arm of the Japanese electronics giant) and Goodyear Ventures among the investors.

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Startup Professionals Musings

MARCH 8, 2019

Many notable recent successes, including Airbnb and Uber, have done it by finding disruptive customers, with essentially no new technology. They seek customers willing to decouple from accepted buying models, or are actively looking for a better total experience. Instead seek out customers they can’t or won’t serve.

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socalTECH

DECEMBER 27, 2018

2019 will be the year we start seeing a lot of pricing models that entail companies charging their healthcare customer a percentage of what they save them. And a lot of the technology we see creates value for payers, providers and big pharma by bending the cost curve.

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Startup Professionals Musings

MAY 10, 2019

They don’t realize that they are missing out on a great opportunity for “free” promotion, as well as taking a great risk by not listening to what customers are saying, and not monitoring or responding to undeserved challenges to their reputation. Demand professional business skills and customer advocacy.

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Startup Professionals Musings

JANUARY 21, 2019

Especially in a small town, for credibility, you need to quantify your plan consistently to local leaders and organizations, as well as bankers and customers. For example, in a small town with no other hardware store, you may be lulled into complacency as customers flock in at any price, but soon a competitor will pounce.

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Startup Professionals Musings

MAY 1, 2019

Don’t get me wrong, it’s always great to see that first surge of customers, but that’s just the beginning of your work. With the real data from that surge, you need to take a hard look at business model realities, cost of customer acquisition, inventory costs, and other key metrics. Ramp up your communication efforts and vehicles.

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Startup Professionals Musings

APRIL 24, 2019

Based on my own experience in business over the years, and current coaching efforts, I recommend a focus on the following strategies and attributes: Make your customer the center of everything you do. Customers need to believe that you have their interests at heart. Customers need to believe that you have their interests at heart.

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Startup Professionals Musings

APRIL 12, 2019

Image via Flickr by Phil Gyford Starting a new venture still costs real money, even though the entry price has come down dramatically in last few decades. You find that you need to be near major customers, or employee transportation hubs, where rents are higher than you ever anticipated. Ramp-up facilities and utilities required.

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Tech.Co

FEBRUARY 8, 2019

It reportedly paid a hefty $230 million to acquire the podcast publisher and network startup Gimlet Media, and has also acquired the podcast monetization platform Anchor for an undisclosed price. Spotify’s big competitors, Pandora and Apple Music, might all have the same music, but they don’t have podcasts to attract customers.

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Startup Professionals Musings

DECEMBER 7, 2019

I get much more satisfaction, and can provide more realistic help, in steering you through specific pricing, organizational, or competitive challenges you face. In business, we all have to deal with real constraints around every unknown, such as a limited budget, not enough time, and fickle customers.

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Startup Professionals Musings

AUGUST 12, 2019

We certainly want to hear about any positive feedback you have from potential customers on your idea, your prototype, and your business model, but that better not be the end of the story. Promote any inside relationships or customer base. Thus any order-of-magnitude cost reductions or customer value increases are very important.

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Startup Professionals Musings

FEBRUARY 1, 2019

The right strategy for branding these days is to create a most memorable total customer experience for customers, rather than a focus on hyping the product and the company name. Here are some key recommendations for building your branding plan: Find out who your customers are through social media.

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Startup Professionals Musings

NOVEMBER 4, 2019

In my experience, the key steps I look for always include the following: Testing the idea against customers who have money to spend. Prepare your marketing story for customers and investors. Start by developing an “elevator pitch,” that you can deliver in thirty seconds to hook a potential customer or investor.

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Tech.Co

MAY 26, 2020

The eBay affiliate program brings the same basic appeal that Amazon’s originally did – truly massive customer base. Worse, the eBay network made a big change in 2019, rolling back the length of time that an affiliate link remains active after it’s clicked – this went from seven days to just 24 hours. eBay Partner Network.

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Startup Professionals Musings

OCTOBER 23, 2022

They believe that the benefits of sharing data are very much worth the price of providing access to their data. Continuing incidences of personal identity theft , as well major personal data breaches , including Capital One (2019), Marriott/Starwood (2018), and Yahoo (2014) still weigh heavily on their decision process.

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Startup Professionals Musings

FEBRUARY 4, 2019

If you are looking for funding and customers for your new business, you need to identify your “unique selling proposition” (USP) right up front, in 30 seconds or less, to differentiate yourself in today’s information overload. Investor and customer attention spans are short, and both will write you off quickly.

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Tech.Co

JUNE 28, 2021

Or are they simply becoming more realistic in what they promise to their customers and their own staff? “Marshmallow first began by providing car insurance cover for UK-based expats, a group who had historically been quoted insurance prices that were 51% higher than the market average. Are Startups Running Out of Big Ideas?

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TechCrunch LA

DECEMBER 2, 2019

The closure might surprise some, considering Coup has brand recognition and, according to the company a loyal customer base that uses its services. The big attraction isn’t necessarily price either. Evelozcity rebranded as Canoo in spring 2019 and unveiled its prototype electric vehicle several months later.

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Tech.Co

MARCH 1, 2018

That’s why Canecto developed a cutting-edge, AI framework designed to be a web analytics assistant and help provide owners relevant insights around their customer base and learn how visitors interact with their content. Price: $1.99 For retailers, this will mean selling more product, fewer returns and happier customers.

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Both Sides of the Table

DECEMBER 11, 2022

In those years I learned to properly build product, price products, sell products and serve customers. By 2015 it had come to signify by the market a new era where business fundamentals had changed, companies could easily and quickly be worth $10 billion or MORE so why worry about the “entry price!” billion fund.

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TechCrunch LA

MAY 23, 2019

That’s still a steep price for customers to pay out of pocket. The scans take about an hour and costs just $1,950, compared with the $5,000 to $10,000 that a full-body MRI scan can cost. Insurance companies won’t pay for Ezra’s screens… yet. The American Cancer Society estimates that 1.7

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TechCrunch LA

MAY 25, 2019

Haus, like any good consumer startup in 2019, is shipped directly to your door. — Kate Clark (@KateClarkTweets) May 21, 2019. I almost skipped IPO corner this week because no big-name companies dropped or amended their S-1s or completed a highly anticipated IPO, as has been the case basically every week of 2019.

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Startup Professionals Musings

DECEMBER 27, 2019

My simple answer is that they keep their focus on customers, rather than technology. Jeff Bezos has kept his focus on customers. In my view, every startup in today’s world would do well to adopt a management system with the same key objectives: Start with a customer-obsessed business model.

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Startup Professionals Musings

OCTOBER 25, 2019

I’m more convinced that technology merely enables disruption, and changing customer interests and needs really causes it. Other companies keep the focus on their customers, and seem to thrive on disruption, much less survive. They make it their top business priority to understand, anticipate, and gratify customers’ needs.

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Startup Professionals Musings

MARCH 30, 2019

Image via Pixabay According to The Washington Post and WSJ, the economy has been slowing down around the world, and the US will follow suit before 2019 ends. Their prices are high and hard to lower. You have none of these pains; you're sipping cash with no overhead and lots of time to devote to coddling new customers.

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Startup Professionals Musings

APRIL 1, 2019

Yet I find that most employees I know limit their scope of thinking to the specific role they are assigned, and rarely tune their thinking and results to the following key principles that every business owner can relate to: Connect every action to a business focus on customers. Marty Zwilling First published on Inc.com on 03/18/2019.

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InfoChachkie

MARCH 21, 2019

Opportunity knocked when one of her customers was spotted at a high-end boutique, wearing one of Ida’s outfits. The store’s owner, Enid Bissett, asked the customer where she had purchased the dress. The two women established a custom dress shop called Enid Frocks. This public exposure drove wealthy customers to Enid Frocks.

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