Startup Professionals Musings

JANUARY 6, 2020

In reality, a simple Excel spreadsheet model customized around your assumptions can save you hours and avoid a wasted expense in validating alternative vendor and marketing decisions. Vendor costs are subject to change, customers are fickle, competitors come out of the woodwork and the economy can take a downturn.

Startup 123

Startup Pricing Sample Customer 123

InfoChachkie

DECEMBER 2, 2009

As noted in Pour and Stir Part I , the key to the successful execution of this strategy is managing the following equation: The cost to acquire a customer < lifetime value of a customer. Decreasing Your Customer Acquisition Costs. Unattributed – There is no such thing as organic customers.

Customer 164

Customer Custom Advertising SEM 164

Startup Professionals Musings

OCTOBER 23, 2012

Entrepreneurs and startups often ask if they should use social media for marketing, digital media, or traditional media. The place to start today is if your company only uses traditional media for marketing, or no marketing. Don’t try to tackle all 20 major categories of digital social media at once.

Media 92

Media Social Media Marketing Resource 92

Both Sides of the Table

FEBRUARY 7, 2013

And we wanted a head of global marketing. RedBeacon went on to sell to HomeDepot in what was considered a very successful acquisition on all sides. But Ethan had left by the time of the acquisition. We generally have a policy to only fund entrepreneurs once the first version of a product has shipped or it near to shipping.

CTO Coach 359

CTO Coach Google CTO Hire Yammer 359

socalTECH

AUGUST 27, 2014

We spoke with one of those companies-- El Segundo-based ConsumerTrack (www.consumertrack.com)--which is a $30M, bootstrapped an online marketing company which is driving millions of customers to big name, financial customers. Brett Rossman: ConsumerTrack is a performance-based, online marketing company.

Startup 239

Startup El Segundo Marketing Media 239

InfoChachkie

JULY 26, 2010

Entrepreneurs can emulate de la Guerra’s strategy and make their adVenture appear far larger than reality and thus increasing its influence and market reach while discouraging competitive threats by creating an industry alliance. This last category proved to be especially lucrative. free weekly Infochachkie articles!

Entrepreneur 168

Entrepreneur Santa Barbara Startup Conference 168

Startup Professionals Musings

FEBRUARY 28, 2015

In reality, a simple Excel spreadsheet model customized around your assumptions can save you hours and avoid a wasted expense in validating alternative vendor and marketing decisions. The way to start is with a sample financial model, freely available from many sources on the Internet, such as this one from Entrepreneur.

Startup 103

Startup Pricing Sample Customer 103

Both Sides of the Table

JUNE 28, 2018

My friend Michael Broukhim, founder & co-CEO of FabFitFun and I recently had a catch-up meeting for 3-miles on the Santa Monica “Bird Trail” No company has ever elicited so many questions by friends, colleagues, entrepreneurs, fellow VCs and journalists as has Bird, the company that pioneered the electronic scooter as a service market.

Santa Monica 256

Santa Monica Funding Startup Course 256

Both Sides of the Table

NOVEMBER 18, 2012

It’s what life was like as an entrepreneur. According to the SEC we’re not allowed to market the fact that we’re fund raising, so I won’t. But this is nothing like the stress of being an entrepreneur. What’s it really like being an entrepreneur? I didn’t sleep much back then.

Blogging 420

Blogging Press Entrepreneur Venture Capital 420

socalTECH

JULY 24, 2009

Helping entrepreneurs succeed. Binary Pulse Technology Marketing (www.binarypulse.com). Custom Insurance Programs for Technology Companies. An on-line community for entrepreneurs. Cox Communications - Orange County - Looking for Product Marketing Manager. Silicon Valley Bank (www.svb.com). Startups Made Simple.

SoCalTech 100

SoCalTech Orange County Southern California Westlake Village 100

Both Sides of the Table

FEBRUARY 21, 2010

One of the investment themes I’ve been focused on in the past 3 years has been Performance-Based Marketing. When I started investing the US advertising market was $300 billion with only 10% of it ($30 billion) of it being online and measurable. But of course Google eventually became the massive winner in this category.

Advertising 284

Advertising Invest RSS CPC 284

socalTECH

NOVEMBER 19, 2012

One of the fastest growing startups in Southern California in recent years was Hautelook, which went from just an ideas to a huge, $270M acquisition by Nordstrom only X years later. Hautelook was able to help define--and conquer--the online flash sales category, in record time. Tell us a little bit about your background?

Southern California 200

Southern California Startup Customer Custom 200

Startup Professionals Musings

OCTOBER 5, 2015

I challenge any entrepreneur, for example, to define the difference between "seed-stage" and "early-stage" financing. Asking for early-stage money before you have customers and revenue will likely kill your credibility with real investors. Most investors won’t touch a first-time entrepreneur at this stage.

Funding 104

Funding Venture Capital Startup Seed Funding 104

socalTECH

AUGUST 7, 2009

Helping entrepreneurs succeed. An on-line community for entrepreneurs. Binary Pulse Technology Marketing (www.binarypulse.com). Binary Pulse Technology Marketing (www.binarypulse.com). Custom Insurance Programs for Technology Companies. Cox Communications - Orange County - Looking for Product Marketing Manager.

SoCalTech 100

SoCalTech Orange County Southern California IP 100

socalTECH

DECEMBER 11, 2017

From a customer standpoint, though, it's pretty clear. So, from the customer side, it was much easier. We bring value to those small guys who can't compete against a $60 million marketing budget. Really, we're the sales and marketing arm of those companies. We had to simplify all of this for them to use us.

Startup 174

Startup Metrics Customer Custom 174

socalTECH

JANUARY 17, 2017

In emerging markets and the developing world, access to banking, capital, and financial resources is fare more difficult than here in the U.S., Shivani Siroya: Tala is a data company that is working in emerging markets. What we've developed, is an Android app that allows us to open up financial access to customers in emerging markets.

Startup 100

Startup Santa Monica Customer Custom 100

Startup Professionals Musings

FEBRUARY 26, 2013

Traction is evidence that your product or service has started that “hockey- stick” adoption rate which implies a large market, a valid business model, and sustainable growth. One customer is not traction, and beta tests with a thousand customers at no cost don’t count. Market penetration. Customer acquisition cost.

Startup 106

Startup Metrics Customer Custom 106

Both Sides of the Table

JUNE 17, 2017

I often ask entrepreneurs to consider, “What’s your objective? I want to understand how many units the company is selling, whether this is increasing over time and how well they’re doing at retaining the customers that they do acquire. They hired a marketing team to promote their products more broadly.

Startup 227

Startup Venture Capital Sales Course 227

Both Sides of the Table

MARCH 11, 2011

He invented the category of sponsored search. At the time when you did a search on Lycos, Alta Vista or similar for a category such as Cars you ended up getting 9 spam results and 1 proper website to meet your needs. So when he saw the browser it instantly dawned on him that this would be the greatest customer development tool ever.

Competition 350

Competition Idealab Product CitySearch 350

Both Sides of the Table

DECEMBER 27, 2011

” I mention journalists here because they perpetuate the myth that focusing on profits is ALWAYS the right answer and then I hear many entrepreneurs (and certainly many “normals”) repeating the same mantra. If you have a market lead then raising capital and making investments now will help you as others enter the market.

Startup 418

Startup Venture Capital Sales Technical Review 418

Startup Professionals Musings

MAY 9, 2016

Good entrepreneurs are all about managing change, but too many forget that they have to change themselves as their dream evolves from a startup to a scalable business. Now you have real customers who can quickly turn off hundreds of potential customers if you ignore their feedback. Trust your gut, and ignore naysayers.

Social Network 59

Social Network Startup Demand Entrepreneur 59

Both Sides of the Table

MARCH 25, 2016

In our industry we applaud the efforts for entrepreneurs to have tried and we know that today’s failure can bring the experience for tomorrow’s success. Market Size. It’s ok to target a small market and you can probably build a niche business that is extremely valuable to you as an individual.

Startup 150

Startup Marketing Study SEO 150

Both Sides of the Table

APRIL 14, 2012

. “it’s smart to use an impending investment valuation to drive a higher acquisition valuation” I would like to amend her statement slightly to read, “it’s smart to use an impending investment valuation to drive an higher acquisition.” Christin goes on. A nice play if you can make it.”

Venture Capital 316

Venture Capital Pricing Social Network Acquisition 316

SoCal Delicious

MAY 6, 2012

where entrepreneurs share their stories. 63 Los Angeles Entrepreneurs To Be Proud Of By mario on May 2, 2012 in Features , grid. Free Corporations For First-Time Entrepreneurs. Right now they’re setting up 500 free corporations for first time entrepreneurs. Here are 62 63 Los Angeles entrepreneurs we can be proud of.

Los Angeles 78

Los Angeles Entrepreneur Angel Fractional CTO 78

Startup Professionals Musings

AUGUST 17, 2014

Most entrepreneurs struggle with financial projections, not wanting to commit to numbers they can’t deliver, and having no clue what investors might consider reasonable. Most entrepreneurs, with no experience, believe that they can make good money with lower margins than competitors. Gross margins greater than 50%.

Equity 99

Equity Venture Capital Invest Pricing 99

Startup Professionals Musings

MAY 28, 2013

Most entrepreneurs struggle with financial projections, not wanting to commit to numbers they can’t deliver, and having no clue what investors might consider reasonable. Most entrepreneurs, with no experience, believe that they can make good money with lower margins than competitors. Gross margins greater than 50%. Marty Zwilling.

Startup 97

Startup Equity Entrepreneur Venture Capital 97

SoCal Delicious

SEPTEMBER 19, 2012

Ten Tech Entrepreneurs Who Are Putting LA on the Map. Tech startup accelerators dot the landscape, feeding investments into the waiting arms of the nation’s most intelligent and driven entrepreneurs. Miller was even honored as an Ernst & Young “Entrepreneur of the Year” for 2011. Follow PandoDaily: Search.

Technical Review 75

Technical Review Entrepreneur Riot Games Southern California 75

socalTECH

JULY 5, 2017

There were lots of things we did around investment and acquisitions. The last piece, was we figured that we could disintermediate a broken, retail channel, by creating a customized, sophisticated, Web 2.0 Shaan Sethi: I think the medical market is quite different from traditional apparel. I was in the consumer, retail space.

Web 2.0 100

Web 2.0 Equity Legalzoom Capital 100

Both Sides of the Table

JULY 29, 2010

We received so much positive feedback from our This Week in Venture Capital show walking through valuation calculations & term sheets that we decided to do a Q&A show this week to address topics that entrepreneurs want to learn about. on the entrepreneur side of the table) when I raised at too high of a price. Never cold.

Venture Capital 282

Venture Capital Capital Startup Pricing 282

Both Sides of the Table

MAY 4, 2010

It was especially fun for me because we got the chance to talk about the VC industry and how entrepreneurs should think about the VC industry in addition to discussing deals. We discussed whether investing in the second largest player in a category makes sense given that Groupon is 10x the revenue, 3.5x the funding and market coverage.

Clearstone 236

Clearstone Venture Capital ReachLocal Google 236

InfoChachkie

JULY 20, 2015

Six outstanding entrepreneurs have created this sweet flavor of success in one of the most beautiful places on earth – Santa Barbara, California. As Emmy Award winning comedian Bill Grundfest aptly points out in this video , entrepreneurs should seek the intersection of the things they enjoy doing and the tasks which will make them money.

Santa Barbara 100

Santa Barbara Startup Sales Entrepreneur 100

Both Sides of the Table

JANUARY 13, 2011

I would mostly lump me in that category. In reading the comments on Bijan’s blog and having discussed this so many times, I know some entrepreneurs only want to talk with VCs that think that Powerpoint causes leprosy. Something like, &# I was thinking about jumping into the demo first before discussing the market.

Venture Capital 299

Venture Capital Slides Technical Advisors Startup 299

SoCal CTO

MARCH 20, 2007

Whats interesting is that Ive been seeing opportunities to use social marketing for businesses that typically target Time Poor audiences. I also read - The Difference Between Apple and Microsoft Marketing that tells us: Apples marketing is designed for Time Poor buyers, while Microsofts is designed for Time Rich buyers.

CTO Coach 150

CTO Coach Southern California CTO Hire Social Media 150

InfoChachkie

FEBRUARY 24, 2011

To what extent have you been able to leverage your experiences as a brand marketer to effectively address the differing concerns of these constituents, without utterly confusing your message? Without their buy in, we don’t get the opportunity to interact with end customers. We’re positioned well to scale.”.

Startup 233

Startup Design Mobile Social Network 233

InfoChachkie

SEPTEMBER 22, 2009

Entrepreneurs create opportunities by creating ripples, and mini-ventures are great ripple creators. the smartass entrepreneur replied, “It’s called business. The two Founders then offered their security software for free on the Internet and it quickly became one of the most popular open-source security solutions on the market.

Ideas 153

Ideas Startup Pricing Entrepreneur 153

socalTECH

JUNE 9, 2014

That''s relevant, because of our third piece, where we have been hired by traditional media companies, to basically provide them a turnkey, outsources content acquisition team. We''re developing programming around our brands, such as Failarmy, and we also have a deal with Dick Clark Products to take Failarmy to the international market.

Media 235

Media Content Startup IP 235

Tech Zulu Event

DECEMBER 13, 2013

Today, we support four categories: house cleaning, dry cleaning – pickup and delivery, wash and fold – pickup and delivery, and dog walking. What we are spending money and time on is onboarding customers on one end and on the other end onboarding providers. We haven’t had any capital to really test customer acquisition strategies.

Technical Review 87

Technical Review Mobile Startup Los Angeles 87