Startup Professionals Musings

SEPTEMBER 11, 2021

Obviously this definition is generic, so my first recommendation is that you take the lead in defining traction metrics for your startup, and then selling your results convincingly to investors. As an investor, I would like to see one month of sales, and see how that compares to your projections. Customer acquisition cost.

Startup 121

Startup Metrics Customer Custom 121

Startup Professionals Musings

OCTOBER 18, 2023

In addition, current investors want to see every startup go public or be acquired, as an exit event, so they can get their due return for that investment which has been tied up for the last few years. For these reasons, I always look for an overt exit strategy in every startup I might consider for an angel investment.

Startup 99

Startup Entrepreneur Metrics Acquisition 99

Startup Professionals Musings

JANUARY 9, 2021

In addition, current investors want to see every startup go public or be acquired, as an exit event, so they can get their due return for that investment which has been tied up for the last few years. For these reasons, I always look for an overt exit strategy in every startup I might consider for an angel investment.

Startup 173

Startup Entrepreneur Metrics Acquisition 173

Startup Professionals Musings

APRIL 28, 2021

I recommend a trial run with an experiment or MVP (minimum viable product), at full price and cost, before the big bang launch, risking your investment money and a major time commitment. Mergers and acquisitions also require new skills. Paul Allen was the technical visionary, Test the viability of your business parameters.

Technical Review 131

Technical Review Case Study Mentor Software Review 131

Both Sides of the Table

JULY 17, 2018

A firm like ours has almost 100 different investments across all the various partners so we get to see some businesses very intimately. " Revenue doesn't pay your bills, GM does  —  @msuster 2/ Founders obsess with revenue as a vanity metric. Some even grow "bad" revenue just to show growth.

Software Review 242

Software Review Technical Review Pricing Metrics 242

Startup Professionals Musings

OCTOBER 17, 2018

Unfortunately, your personal assessment that you have traction probably won’t be convincing to potential investors and partners, so it’s important that you create and track your progress against some metrics. Define metrics on customer feedback and user counts. Count connections with experts, media, and influencers.

Tips 79

Tips Metrics Technical Review Customer 79

Startup Professionals Musings

DECEMBER 22, 2021

Happy customers quickly become your biggest advocates, today reaching far beyond friends and family, and they make traditional marketing efforts pale in comparison for growth, loyalty, and new customer acquisition costs. Use metrics to assess needs and growth economics.

Customer 114

Customer Custom Satisfaction Metrics 114

Startup Professionals Musings

MARCH 3, 2021

To keep you on a positive track with potential investors, I recommend the following logic principles, to balance your passion in presenting your vision of a new business: Make sure your plan includes some business metrics. For example, if you have ever watched the Shark Tank show on TV, they always ask about the cost of customer acquisition.

Entrepreneur 162

Entrepreneur Social Media Examples Metrics 162

Both Sides of the Table

JUNE 12, 2010

Spark Capital is relatively new to VC (founded in 2005) yet has become one of the hottest new VCs having invested in Twitter, Tumblr, AdMeld, Boxee, KickApps and many more companies. Company grew by more than “400% each year” for past few years [assume growth metric = revenues]. Our guest was Mo Koyfman of Spark Capital.

Venture Capital 217

Venture Capital Capital Metrics Competition 217

Both Sides of the Table

DECEMBER 27, 2011

The most obvious way to explain this is with sales people. If you hire 6 sales reps in January at $120,000 / year salary then you’ve taken on an extra $60,000 per month in costs yet these sales people might not close new business for 4-6 months. If you don’t, somebody else WILL!” ” The Details.

Startup 418

Startup Venture Capital Sales Technical Review 418

Startup Professionals Musings

AUGUST 12, 2015

It starts with a vision, but benefits quickly from a structured process of idea generation, evaluation, prototyping, customer feedback, and success metrics. They benchmark their ideas against competition, use metrics to track acceptance, sales growth, and return on investment. Set milestones and meet them. Ownership.

Entrepreneur 101

Entrepreneur Startup Coach Metrics 101

socalTECH

JANUARY 14, 2011

We have a very sophisticated, analytics and software platform that over half the Fortune 50 are now using, to help guide how they invest in marketing and sales activities and investments. You mentioned that you've been growing the company recently, and made a recent acquisition? Did the TV stimulate search?

Social Media 235

Social Media Demand Activity Marketing 235

Startup Professionals Musings

AUGUST 7, 2015

Customers may be attracted to your marketing message, but investors look harder at the startup team, seeking superior expertise in the key areas of growing a business, product domain, financial, marketing and sales. Specific elements of your marketing and sales plans. Immediate investment requirements and use of funds.

Product 103

Product Slides Customer Custom 103

InfoChachkie

JANUARY 16, 2018

The problem is that stakeholders, like marketing and sales, don’t know what the latest version of the roadmap is. Greathouse: Having run these groups, I know all about the inherent friction between sales and marketing with regard to lead quality, volume, etc., We both made personal investments in the company.

Venture Capital 115

Venture Capital Entrepreneur Santa Barbara SaaS 115

Both Sides of the Table

NOVEMBER 14, 2017

How long does it take me to pay back my original customer acquisition costs? This financial leader could well have come through the finance org at another startup or at a larger company but they often also can come from strategy consulting (Bain, BCG or McKinsey) or through investment banking (Goldman Sachs, Morgan Stanley, etc.).

Startup 286

Startup Technical Review Customer Custom 286

Startup Professionals Musings

SEPTEMBER 30, 2015

In addition, current investors want to see every startup go public or be acquired, as an exit event, so they can get their due return for that investment which has been tied up for the last few years. For these reasons, I always look for an overt exit strategy in every startup I might consider for an angel investment.

Startup 98

Startup Entrepreneur Metrics Acquisition 98

socalTECH

DECEMBER 11, 2017

Really, we're the sales and marketing arm of those companies. They invested in 2014, and asked me to meet with Dallas Imbimbo, the CEO and Founder. You have to make sure your cost of acquisition, retention rates, and conversion metrics are all in place. How we made it easy, is a system we call Quickrentz. Cloud Capital.

Startup 174

Startup Metrics Customer Custom 174

Startup Professionals Musings

FEBRUARY 26, 2013

Obviously this definition is generic, so my first recommendation is that you take the lead in defining traction metrics for your startup, and then selling your results convincingly to investors. As an investor, I would like to see one month of sales, and see how that compares to your projections. Customer acquisition cost.

Startup 106

Startup Metrics Customer Custom 106

InfoChachkie

JULY 20, 2015

The latest evidence of the city’s dynamic startup ecosystem is the recent announcement by Citrix to investment significant resources in the Santa Barbara Innovator’s Program. Many of these individuals become restless in their youthful “retirement” and begin investing and advising young companies. From Lynda.com ’s recent $1.5

Santa Barbara 100

Santa Barbara Startup Sales Entrepreneur 100

SoCal CTO

MARCH 12, 2007

Maybe its because Im 66", but I think most clothes shopping really stinks and when was the last time that a sales person was actually helpful. Technology Advisor Technology Roles in Startups Pricing Customer Acquisition Sunk Costs and More -. Clothes are very personal and its really a pain to find stuff thats going to look good on you.

MyShape 150

MyShape CTO Coach Southern California CTO Hire 150

Tech Zulu Event

AUGUST 31, 2015

VCs are looking to make investments that pay off big. That means you need to develop credible financial projections that demonstrate the viability and future potential of your target market and clearly spell out how investing in your business will achieve their return targets. But the bottom line is that it comes down to the numbers.

Seed Funding 40

Seed Funding Course Metrics Invest 40

Both Sides of the Table

MAY 23, 2012

Looking ahead at the next decade I am excited by what I believe will be viewed as one of the best and most rational investment periods for venture capital due to seven discrete factors: 1. Mobile devices deliver “bottom of funnel” sales opportunities that deliver real & immediate economic results. Bottom of the sales funnel.

Venture Capital 347

Venture Capital Capital Technical Review Startup 347

InfoChachkie

SEPTEMBER 15, 2011

Sometimes we measure things and see that in the short term they actually hurt sales. But we do it anyway, because we believe that the short-term metrics probably aren’t indicative of the long term.”. Because of his grounding as an investment banker, Jeff appreciated the value of hard data. Don’t Chase The Quick Buck.

Tips 279

Tips Startup Framework Customer 279

Both Sides of the Table

JULY 1, 2010

And finally, Scott demonstrated his internal management tool for managing the metrics of his business. Rumored to have turned down acquisition offers from Yahoo and Facebook. Company plans to use the capital to build out sales and marketing and r&d. -a Investing much of new cash to build presence in Android platform.

Zag 248

Zag Truecar Venture Capital CarsDirect 248

InfoChachkie

APRIL 7, 2010

Sharing changes the dynamic of the sales process. This congruence greatly reduces the friction of the sales process while strengthening the integrity of the relationship. Establishing mutually agreed upon and readily measurable metrics up-front are essential to creating viable sharing relationships. When Sharing Works.

Resource 154

Resource Paramount Press Metrics 154

Startup Professionals Musings

NOVEMBER 2, 2018

Yet, when you are pitching to investors, this has to be balanced by generating enough profit to keep the venture thriving, growing, and providing a healthy return-on-investment (ROI) to investors. The best advantage includes intellectual property to provide a barrier to entry or incent acquisition. billion a few years ago.

Customer 19

Customer Custom Acquisition Entrepreneur 19

Tech Zulu Event

MAY 9, 2014

Updates could be as exciting as closing investment deals, or harrowing as the news of losing a co-founder. About $37B worth of lost sales a year, worldwide. In seed stage funding, we’re often told that the investments are ultimately about the people/teams, and not necessarily the metrics.

Startup 111

Startup Mobile Commerce Education 111

InfoChachkie

AUGUST 24, 2010

For instance, when a venture capital partner votes for a follow-on investment in exchange for the future support of one of her investments, idea cronyism is at work. Additionally, many opportunities require financial investments which must be considered in tandem with non-financial resource requirements. from the Wharton School.

Ideas 187

Ideas Resource Technical Review Startup 187

socalTECH

NOVEMBER 17, 2010

Especially with DVD sales declining, we offer an interesting way to help studios. Our metrics show that when people watch chips, they increase their tendency to want to watch that feature length film. We represented Google in the acquisition of YouTube. One of the companies was YouTube, and was one of the deal which I worked on.

Startup 190

Startup Los Angeles Content Hollywood 190

Both Sides of the Table

MARCH 25, 2016

What would it take in investments to acquire and retain traffic to support these businesses? billion in sales and thus controls less than 10% of the market. The metrics were good but we wondered how much better they would be when we expanded our product. What is the CPM of ads in this industry (should I even be ad supported?).

Startup 150

Startup Marketing Study SEO 150

InfoChachkie

MARCH 2, 2010

We pooled our resources and each invested $50 into the adVenture, which we named Capital Cards, due to our proximity to Washington, DC. We were happy to accommodate his request, as the money derived from the sale of the sets allowed us to purchase vintage cards via our weekly newspaper ads. free weekly Infochachkie articles!

Pricing 138

Pricing Advertising Marketing Startup 138

Tech Zulu Event

DECEMBER 13, 2013

Which I have shown to do, but anybody who invests in tech, invests in team. My every day is trying to fundraise, reaching, re-reaching out, and trying to keep people updated with metrics. We haven’t had any capital to really test customer acquisition strategies. I have three sales guys, who are on commission only.

Technical Review 87

Technical Review Mobile Startup Los Angeles 87

socalTECH

NOVEMBER 25, 2008

We were over 2x up on this round, and we also had a bunch of individual investors who wanted to put in--people who had invested in our competition a few years ago. The other thing to note is that there are lots of companies that are underfunded, and are going to be acquisition targets by the big medical oligopolies. READ MORE>>

Startup 113

Startup CTO Hire Resource Venture Capital 113

SoCal Delicious

SEPTEMBER 22, 2008

First, let me recommend reading a previous blog, called omg I’m just a startup, I can’t do those fancy metrics. Once you create a small list of these queries, then you can start to formalize the ideas into specific metrics that you track daily. User acquisition via each method you use. Aggregate metrics.

Startup 29

Startup IP Email Report 29