Startup Professionals Musings

JUNE 22, 2016

That should make you wonder - how do you measure traction in a metric? 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.

Metrics 57

Metrics Funding Startup Customer 57

Startup Professionals Musings

JULY 25, 2020

New product process. It starts with a vision, but benefits quickly from a structured process of idea generation, evaluation, prototyping, customer feedback, and success metrics. From time to time, include customers and sales members in ideation sessions. Failure is the best teacher. Set milestones and meet them. Ownership.

Coach 144

Coach Metrics Social Network Competition 144

Startup Professionals Musings

AUGUST 21, 2021

Many entrepreneurs never get past their first-stage focus on their innovative product, to scaling the business globally, organizing a structure to handle thousands of employees, and concentrating their focus “on the business” rather than working “in the business.” Switch your focus from product development to sales.

Startup 151

Startup Course Sales Entrepreneur 151

Startup Professionals Musings

SEPTEMBER 11, 2021

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. As an investor, I would like to see one month of sales, and see how that compares to your projections. Free and freemium products need a solid base.

Startup 121

Startup Metrics Customer Custom 121

Startup Professionals Musings

JUNE 5, 2020

They watch for formal follow-up to questions, demonstration of real product, and revenue results. Detailed product specifications and prototypes. With great idea people, an initial product is rarely fully defined, as features are added and subtracted to meet the audience of the day. Productivity and time management challenges.

Ideas 122

Ideas Entrepreneur Startup IBM 122

Startup Professionals Musings

OCTOBER 13, 2021

As a long-time business consultant and investor, especially to entrepreneurs, I recognize your sparkle of vision , to build the ultimate world-changing product. I found these maladies summarized well in a new book, “ Radical Product Thinking ,” by entrepreneur Radhika Dutt. Obsessive sales – must meet revenue goals.

Metrics 133

Metrics Product Yahoo Examples 133

Startup Professionals Musings

AUGUST 7, 2015

Remember, investors are buying into the business, not the product. Investors are business experts, while the entrepreneur is more likely the product expert. In my experience, the team's credentials are more important than the product. Specific elements of your marketing and sales plans.

Product 103

Product Slides Customer Custom 103

Startup Professionals Musings

JANUARY 6, 2021

In reality, too many choices actually dilutes customer interest in your existing market, and makes your job of production, marketing, and support much more complex. New entrepreneurs, especially technical ones, are excited by early adopters, and tend to focus on their feedback, which will always suggest more product features and options.

Technical Review 160

Technical Review Technical Advisors Startup Mentor 160

Startup Professionals Musings

DECEMBER 13, 2019

In the interests of helping you work smarter and last longer, I would like to offer my top ten list of key resource drains to avoid in early businesses and startups, based on my years of advising entrepreneurs and my own business experience: Expanding your product line too quickly for scaling. Use multiple small orders at first.

Outsource Development 122

Outsource Development Outsource Metrics Technical Review 122

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. The focus of key leaders has to change from driving innovative initiatives to replicating repeatable processes and tuning the overall product cycle.

Technical Review 131

Technical Review Case Study Mentor Software Review 131

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

OCTOBER 17, 2018

This can happen through early marketing, independent of whether you have yet delivered a single product, proven your business model, or have any real customers. Here are some of the key specifics for credibility and acceptance as you create and use these metrics: Itemize investment levels from you, insiders, and family.

Tips 79

Tips Metrics Technical Review Customer 79

Startup Professionals Musings

MAY 1, 2019

Image via Pixabay As a mentor to many small business owners, I always caution them that you can never relax completely, just because your initial solution or product set appears to be getting traction, and the market buzz is positive. Document processes and metrics for economies of scale.

Metrics 86

Metrics Startup Training Customer 86

Startup Professionals Musings

MAY 9, 2015

They watch for formal follow-up to questions, demonstration of real product, and revenue results. Detailed product specifications and prototypes. With great idea people, an initial product is rarely fully defined, as features are added and subtracted to meet the audience of the day. Productivity and time management challenges.

Ideas 115

Ideas Startup IBM IBM 115

Startup Professionals Musings

AUGUST 18, 2018

New product process. It starts with a vision, but benefits quickly from a structured process of idea generation, evaluation, prototyping, customer feedback, and success metrics. From time to time, include customers and sales members in ideation sessions. Failure is the best teacher. Set milestones and meet them. Ownership.

Entrepreneur 64

Entrepreneur Coach Metrics Competition 64

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

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

AUGUST 13, 2022

billion dollar sale to Oracle from Bozeman, Montana. But it is an important metric for firms in pursuit of explosive growth. Wessel measures a 39% acquisition advantage to being in-state. Raising capital isn’t the be-all and end-all of startup success. It decreases your odds of being bought. Personal relationships do count.

Technical Review 123

Technical Review Oracle Software Review Ideas 123

Startup Professionals Musings

AUGUST 14, 2016

New product process. It starts with a vision, but benefits quickly from a structured process of idea generation, evaluation, prototyping, customer feedback, and success metrics. From time to time, include customers and sales members in ideation sessions. Failure is the best teacher. Set milestones and meet them. Ownership.

Coach 64

Coach Metrics Competition Ideas 64

InfoChachkie

SEPTEMBER 29, 2014

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.”. If improperly administered, meetings become counter-productive, especially as an organization grows beyond its initial startup phase.

Tips 223

Tips Framework Metrics Cloud Computing 223

Jason Nazar

MAY 1, 2016

I’ve been a part of dozens (maybe hundreds) of product launches And in each of these cases I ask my team to put together a simple dashboard of a small set of metrics for our paid and free products that let me know the success of our efforts. Paid Product Metrics. Free Product Metrics.

Marketing 40

Marketing CPC Metrics .Net 40

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. Is it one product line or multiple? ” The Details.

Startup 418

Startup Venture Capital Sales Technical Review 418

Jason Nazar

NOVEMBER 1, 2015

I’ve been a part of dozens (maybe hundreds) of product launches And in each of these cases I ask my team to put together a simple dashboard of a small set of metrics for our paid and free products that let me know the success of our efforts. Paid Product Metrics. Free Product Metrics.

Marketing 40

Marketing CPC Metrics .Net 40

TechCrunch LA

SEPTEMBER 7, 2021

DTC entrepreneurs are more focused on immediate impact, because if they’re not selling product, there’s no large brand propping them up. I oversee sales, marketing and partnerships, and my role is really trying to figure out which brands make most sense to partner with MuteSix. What type of clients do you work with?

Commerce 211

Commerce Content Marketing Startup 211

Startup Professionals Musings

MAY 15, 2016

They watch for formal follow-up to questions, demonstration of real product, and revenue results. Detailed product specifications and prototypes. With great idea people, an initial product is rarely fully defined, as features are added and subtracted to meet the audience of the day. Productivity and time management challenges.

Ideas 53

Ideas Startup IBM IBM 53

Both Sides of the Table

NOVEMBER 14, 2017

An alternate outcome that I also unfortunately observe in some cases are companies who had extreme early success with an initial product adoption but failed in key areas that limited the growth and therefore the ultimate financial outcomes. How profitable is my product or service? As an early-stage VC I love this phase.

Startup 286

Startup Technical Review Customer Custom 286

Startup Professionals Musings

AUGUST 12, 2015

New product process. 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. Ownership.

Entrepreneur 101

Entrepreneur Startup Coach Metrics 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. As an investor, I would like to see one month of sales, and see how that compares to your projections. Free and freemium products need a solid base.

Startup 106

Startup Metrics Customer Custom 106

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

SEPTEMBER 19, 2016

Define and use metrics to measure your progress. If your comfort zone is relying on gut reactions, it’s time to stretch your understanding of what constitutes customer acquisition cost, margins, pipeline closure rates, and sales ROI. Celebrate small successes with the team. Validate and scale your business model to success.

Social Network 94

Social Network Startup Ideas Entrepreneur 94

Startup Professionals Musings

NOVEMBER 9, 2019

billion dollar sale to Oracle from Bozeman, Montana. But it is an important metric for firms in pursuit of explosive growth. Wessel measures a 39% acquisition advantage to being in-state. Raising capital isn’t the be-all and end-all of startup success. It decreases your odds of being bought. Personal relationships do count.

Startup 97

Startup Technical Review Oracle Software Review 97

InfoChachkie

JULY 20, 2015

billion dollar acquisition by LinkedIn to Bessemer’s substantial investment in ProCore , AppFolio ’s recent IPO filing and Sonos ’ $130 million secondary, the Santa Barbara tech scene is unquestionably on fire. According to Doug, “ productivity fell dramatically whenever the surf was up.”. From Lynda.com ’s recent $1.5

Santa Barbara 100

Santa Barbara Startup Sales Entrepreneur 100

Both Sides of the Table

JULY 1, 2010

The consumer product they’ve created is called TrueCar. 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. Money to be used for hiring and additional product development. It’s awesome.

Zag 248

Zag Truecar Venture Capital CarsDirect 248

InfoChachkie

SEPTEMBER 15, 2011

At Expertcity (creator of GoToMyPC and GoToMeeting, acquired by Citrix), our VP of Product and Customer Experience led a number of teams during his seven-year tenure including Professional Services, Customer Service and Product Management. Sometimes we measure things and see that in the short term they actually hurt sales.

Tips 279

Tips Startup Framework Customer 279

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 -. Product Manager Entrepreneur Mark Geller SEO for Startups Startup Version 1.0

MyShape 150

MyShape CTO Coach Southern California CTO Hire 150

Startup Professionals Musings

MAY 9, 2016

Most begin by doing the product development, marketing and sales alone, but struggle making the transition to hiring and coaching others, defining repeatable processes and focusing on future strategy. When you build a great solution or product, all you can think about is shipping more volume of your product to a larger audience.

Social Network 59

Social Network Startup Demand Entrepreneur 59

Startup Professionals Musings

MAY 16, 2015

billion dollar sale to Oracle from Bozeman, Montana. But it is an important metric for firms in pursuit of explosive growth. Wessel measures a 39% acquisition advantage to being in-state. Raising capital isn’t the be all and end all of startup success. It decreases your odds of being bought. Personal relationships do count.

Startup 109

Startup Technical Review Oracle Software Review 109