Startup Professionals Musings

JANUARY 24, 2021

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. Status of the solution.

Technical Review 151

Technical Review Startup Satisfaction Invest 151

Both Sides of the Table

NOVEMBER 29, 2009

Our call recovered and we spent the rest of the time talking about the development of their management team and their product. But it got me thinking about how often entrepreneurs overplay their PR so I thought I’d try to offer some advice and how to play PR with VCs (or more broadly with customers or business development partners).

Venture Capital 291

Venture Capital Press News Startup 291

Both Sides of the Table

NOVEMBER 3, 2009

People mistook extra doses of Ajax for a successful product. and the subsequent acquisition sprees of companies like Google, Yahoo!, The last couple of years has also seen the huge initial success of Ycombinator, the Lean Startup and many other product driven approaches to going to market. portfolios. Do so at your peril.

Web 2.0 334

Web 2.0 Venture Capital Web Technical Review 334

Startup Professionals Musings

DECEMBER 17, 2013

Entrepreneurs have no trouble focusing on how to build a product, and the good ones know how to find and nurture those first critical customers. Sales is simply defined as income from customer purchases of goods and services, minus the cost associated with things like returned or undeliverable merchandise.

Metrics 100

Metrics Technical Review Sales Customer 100

Startup Professionals Musings

JUNE 26, 2015

Few investors these days have the time or patience to read a full business plan, so a better way to catch their eye is with a tightly written and well formatted two-page executive summary. I see too many executive summaries that are simply heavy-duty customer pitches, or lightweight visions of the future.

Summary 101

Summary Patents Technical Review Competition 101

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. Free and freemium products need a solid base.

Startup 106

Startup Metrics Customer Custom 106

Tech Zulu Event

APRIL 24, 2013

According to Patrick Vlaskovits another proselytizer of the term, “Growth hacking comes after the early stage chaos and post-product-market-fit.”. If you build it, they may not come : So, you’ve launched your product, and people use it and seem to like it. It’s the whole conversion flow.

Hulu 111

Hulu Startup Social Media Organization 111

InfoChachkie

JANUARY 16, 2018

Jim Semick: I’ve been launching and managing software products for 15 years now, going back to when you and I worked together at Expertcity before it was acquired by Citrix. I have always worked on early stage products. Some of the products I’ve helped validate and launch include GoToMyPC, GoToMeeting and AppFolio.

Venture Capital 115

Venture Capital Entrepreneur Santa Barbara SaaS 115

Startup Professionals Musings

FEBRUARY 13, 2016

As a startup advisor and investor, I recommend a pitch deck with about 10 slides backed up with a written business plan of approximately 20 pages, both containing quantified answers to the following key questions. Investors want to hear about customers with money who have a painful problem that you can solve now.

Invest 108

Invest Startup Slides Equity 108

Startup Professionals Musings

JUNE 22, 2016

According to most experts , business traction is evidence that somebody really wants your product. It’s business momentum, independent of whether you have a product delivered, proven the business model, or significantly penetrated the opportunity. Customers and investors alike measure traction by your formal advisors.

Metrics 57

Metrics Funding Startup Customer 57

socalTECH

APRIL 2, 2014

Our clients are retail, technology, consumer product goods, and other companies who are trying to address challenges with a very complex, digital marketing mix they face every day. As you might imagine, I started as a brand manager in the consumer product goods market. What''s your background, and how did you get into this?

Marketing 196

Marketing Pasadena Platform Email 196

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. Status of the solution.

Technical Review 108

Technical Review Startup Satisfaction Entrepreneur 108

Startup Professionals Musings

NOVEMBER 12, 2013

In addition, every business has operating costs, like customer acquisition, fulfillment, inventory, and customer service. In the online world, you need a solid connection between your domain name and your product, brand, or business. But the low cost also means that your competition will also be there in force.

Social Media 93

Social Media Content Startup Web 93

Tech Zulu Event

MARCH 7, 2013

CapLinked also netted in new customers such as Thomson Reuters, Sun Capital, and Equity Partners, NextView Ventures and crowd-funding service AI Verified which will take advantage of its iPad compatibility, bulk uploading, and reporting tools. Challenge the status quo.

Mobile 91

Mobile Report Pricing Tool 91

SoCal CTO

DECEMBER 7, 2009

SEO for Startups and Negative Customer Acquisition Costs ) and, of course, the product itself. Normally the product is defined as a web site. Most founders are fairly passionate about the features and functions of the web site, iPhone application, Facebook application, or whatever web application represents the product.

Web 150

Web Sites Email HTML 150

Both Sides of the Table

APRIL 21, 2010

I also talked about Virgin Money , a product that I have used to lend friends money in the past. Assistly “Multi-channel customer support and management service&# – this is another industry I love and I specifically love the team at Assistly. I know the product intimately and it rocks. 2.2mm in Series A.

Venture Capital 265

Venture Capital Capital Email Blogging 265

socalTECH

JULY 13, 2010

After the Google acquisition of DoubleClick, I decided to build my own company. We've created lots of features that help customers troubleshoot and optimize their web pages. We're different--our product and feature set is extremely rich, and every month we release a new version. How long has your product been out?

Tool 232

Tool Web Startup Sites 232

Both Sides of the Table

APRIL 15, 2010

Google monetized this with AdWords (ads on their home page). Golden rule of branding for me: 1) name your company or product your URL and 2) don’t paint yourself into a corner. &# Tweet&# = corner. I think everybody heard about this acquisition. Overture never built the destination site to monetize from. uh, hello!

Venture Capital 271

Venture Capital Capital Google Platform 271

socalTECH

SEPTEMBER 26, 2014

There''s a huge demand for a limited supply of employees, in particularly, there a large demand for product developers, and there''s a shortage of experienced people. If you look at the career sites and pages out there right now, they look like they were built a decade ago. Among those is accessibility of the product.

Design 174

Design Sites Cornerstone OnDemand Startup 174

Both Sides of the Table

DECEMBER 1, 2009

In the VentureHacks post Naval Ravikant argues in “the power of two&# – that you should have two co-founders as in Bill Gates / Paul Allen, Larry / Sergei, Jerry Yang / Larry Page. I think ADD is totally misunderstood – it’s a very PRODUCTIVE condition but it has downsides. For me 3+ is usually a non starter.

Startup 289

Startup Venture Capital Entrepreneur Sales 289

Tech Zulu Event

MAY 9, 2013

Jackson added that the firm was proud of its product, and even uses its own software to manage their capital raised from investors. Jackson and Christopher Grey, CapLinked empowers its clients to manage complex business transactions such as mergers & acquisitions, financings, asset sales, and investor reporting. Over $3M Raised.

Draper 68

Draper Google Software Engineering Invest 68

InfoChachkie

JULY 14, 2011

Messenger : Rob Duva , Co-Founder, COO RingRevenue, prior Director of Customer Acquisition, CallWave. This is especially true for companies with expensive and complex products or services that are more consultative in nature, like insurance, financial services, home services, education and travel, etc. It won’t be easy.”.

Marketing 209

Marketing Advertising Paid Search Startup 209

SoCal Delicious

JANUARY 9, 2014

Simon Sinek’s Golden Circle framework “People don’t buy what you do, they buy why you do it” Simon Sinek If your customers believe in your mission, then they’ll warm to you and listen to what you offer and how. Having a clear focus means it’s easier to communicate what your product is and who it’s for. Here are two examples.

Startup 78

Startup Design Customer Custom 78

Both Sides of the Table

JUNE 18, 2010

An investment doesn’t guarantee your product will suddenly be on the investor’s price sheet. We also talked about how brands are increasing driving much of their traffic to Facebook and away from their own web pages. Potentially limits acquisition opportunities for independent ad networks.

Venture Capital 225

Venture Capital Google Web Sites 225

Startup Professionals Musings

JUNE 26, 2020

For the rest of us, we need a business plan, as well as a product plan. Some of you may be convinced that your product specification communicates the product message even better than a business plan, so why be redundant? Use non-fuzzy terms to quantify customer value. Provide specifics on the customer business model.

Product 169

Product Summary Startup Examples 169

Both Sides of the Table

FEBRUARY 21, 2010

The configuration of the team was: 1 CEO, 1 Product Lead and a tech team of 6 people. They already had a completed product and a distribution deal with the largest affiliate network company, Commission Junction. The problem is that the average value of products that sell on affiliate networks is sub $100.

Advertising 284

Advertising Invest RSS CPC 284

Tech Zulu Event

MAY 9, 2014

This was a chance to blow open the story on their companies, to address a room full of potential investors, mentors, partners, customers, and press. To learn more about all the companies, be sure to visit 500 Startups’ official demo day page. They showed very impressive average customer repurchases.

Startup 111

Startup Mobile Commerce Education 111

Both Sides of the Table

MARCH 11, 2011

The idea actually came to him from the Yellow Pages business. He took out an ad in the Yellow Pages (it was the early 80′s, pre Internet), which cost him $1,000 / month for a half-page ad. So the Yellow Page business was always “pay for placement.&#. If it worked in the Yellow Pages, why not on the Internet?

Competition 350

Competition Idealab Product CitySearch 350

InfoChachkie

MARCH 3, 2011

In the spirit of the “land grab” mentality of the day, we emphasized usage of our screen sharing technology with no thought applied to how we would convert such users into paying customers. If you haven’t already subscribed yet, subscribe now for. free weekly Infochachkie articles! The Internet Should Be Free.

Customer 162

Customer Custom Technical Support Startup 162

Both Sides of the Table

MAY 19, 2020

It’s clear things have changed for good and the need for managing remote communities of employees, customers and partners has become ever more important. In marketing materials founders often refer to their customer base as a “community”, but there’s a huge gap between having customers and creating a community.

Software 234

Software Startup Tool Platform 234

Both Sides of the Table

FEBRUARY 27, 2019

If you buy into the argument that a strong board can actually help you then this post will lay out how to help you have more productive meetings by preparing properly in advance. There are too many pages. This is part of a broader series on Board Meetings. It passes the weight test.

Startup 226

Startup Slides Metrics News 226

SoCal Delicious

SEPTEMBER 19, 2012

Even though their business model was tweaked a little while ago to give customers additional leniency, the business is still expecting to break $100 million in revenue this year, up from $25 million in 2010. Most recently, Rosenblatt cofounded Demand Media, launching in 2006 with $120 million in equity and the acquisition of eHow.com.

Technical Review 75

Technical Review Entrepreneur Riot Games Southern California 75

Frank Addante

OCTOBER 19, 2006

Under Process, Over Deliver So, you need to develop a product? ▼ 2006 (20) ► December (2) Just Say What it Is 12 Proven Guidelines for Rapid Product Development. Internet Advertising ASP) Exit: $112M IPO and acquisition Lesson: Think big. They would go to pages that said "Coming Soon." Build a SWAT team 3.

Startup 40

Startup Ideas Venture Capital Competition 40

socalTECH

FEBRUARY 27, 2012

I think it was Sean Pervical who first signed up for our coming soon page, and we reached out to him, had some coffee, had a few followup meetings, and met Mike. I understood acquisitions, business, fashion, and how to unite business with passion. Then, we will really let our customers tell us what they want to see next.

Commerce 201

Commerce Startup Design Los Angeles 201

Both Sides of the Table

DECEMBER 5, 2010

Brands didn’t advertise their web pages they advertised “AOL Keywords.&# You couldn’t pick up a magazine in the 96-99 timeframe without seeing AOL Keywords advertised everywhere. If you were a newly minted, venture-backed consumer Internet company you had to have a deal with AOL to reach your customers.

Social Network 318

Social Network Networking Web 2.0 Startup 318

Frank Addante

MAY 3, 2006

Under Process, Over Deliver So, you need to develop a product? ▼ 2006 (20) ► December (2) Just Say What it Is 12 Proven Guidelines for Rapid Product Development. Internet Advertising ASP) Exit: $112M IPO and acquisition Lesson: Think big. Take care of the customer: Good ‘ole fashion customer service works.

Startup 40

Startup Venture Capital Yahoo Email 40

InfoChachkie

FEBRUARY 17, 2011

Does the world really need more servers in more datacenters gobbling up more power to send more tweets and Facebook pages around the world? Along the way many things came together: being able to find the right people, getting great customers, having lots of luck, being in the right place at the right time.

Cloud Computing 188

Cloud Computing Santa Barbara EC2 Startup 188