Berkonomics

JUNE 8, 2017

Some businesses require very little capital and the founder can self-finance the enterprise and retain 100% of its ownership and control from ignition through liquidity event (startup through sale). Small Business Administration (SBA) federally-guaranteed bank loans are becoming available again after years of limited activity.

Venture Capital 266

Venture Capital Class Invest Equity 266

Startup Professionals Musings

NOVEMBER 10, 2021

That means full transparency and no excuses for issues and activities that are obviously in your domain. Unfortunately, I often see goal misalignments with teams, such as marketing measured on sales volume, or sales measured on customer retention. First of all, you need to be a role model for accountability.

Startup 132

Startup Training Metrics Examples 132

Both Sides of the Table

FEBRUARY 16, 2015

In practice it can be a fine line between sparring partner / coach and stepping over the line to brute-force persuasion. At times I wanted the engineering team to produce features to support our sales efforts to I occasionally leaned on them a bit. Another area we CEOs often meddle is in sales. I did this. ” PR.

Startup 150

Startup Sales CTO Coach Course 150

Startup Professionals Musings

AUGUST 30, 2023

In this context, I was impressed with the insights provided in a new book, “ Stay Sane In An Insane World ,” by peak performance coach Greg Harden. In business, these cover the gamut from vision, creativity, innovation, to sales, financial management, and negotiation. That requires a variety of activities and rest.

Mentor 104

Mentor Startup Coach Satisfaction 104

Both Sides of the Table

MARCH 24, 2014

Working with early-stage teams : coaching, mentoring, setting strategy, rolling up sleeves: 9/10. This investment started with Dana Settle (Greycroft) and I each putting in $750,000 into a young company doing less than $1 million in sales and has blossomed into one of the fastest growing companies in Los Angeles if not the entire country.

Venture Capital 387

Venture Capital Downey Writing Press 387

Both Sides of the Table

APRIL 10, 2014

But you do need to find a way to do activities that are more scalable. These are important leveling-up activities but the CEO is often still up at 10pm f **g around with QuickBooks entries. Which other activities will get less attention than your negotiation over how the year-3 exit clause on your biz dev relationship will work?

Startup 381

Startup Resource Venture Capital Activity 381

Both Sides of the Table

JANUARY 6, 2014

I think that mindset is useful to remind entrepreneurs that it is a shared journey and capital (whether active or passive) is a part of your success and your ability to access it when you need to and for the amounts you need is a very critical differentiator between successful companies and unsuccessful one. how to evolve our management team.

Startup 325

Startup Sales Technical Review Software Review 325

SoCal CTO

MARCH 4, 2010

The short story is that he received 400+ responses and goes through how he categorized/vetted the responses: 300 Didn’t Fit – Outside expertise/interest, pushing for immediate funding assistance, too many ideas (not focused), looking for sales agents. Each situation is just a bit different.

Technical Review 170

Technical Review Technical Advisors CTO Coach Startup 170

socalTECH

MAY 30, 2019

Richards also has been an active angel investor in local startups. The final piece is online coaching, which allows people, 7 days a week, to click and talk to a professional development coach, and help them go through questions, answer things like what should by resume look like. You've got to have great sales enablement.

Content 193

Content Social Network Coach Help 193

Startup Professionals Musings

MARCH 30, 2022

Today even small businesses need complex organizations that work together in alignment, remote and online, including marketing, sales, delivery, and support. You must build a foundation of trust to get the relationships you need for honest communication, focus on the future, and real coaching on how to improve the business.

Template 109

Template Demand Social Media Summary 109

Startup Professionals Musings

DECEMBER 22, 2021

Your goal must be to make every aspect of a customer interaction a joy to both you and them, starting from the shopping experience, to the sales close, to delivery and service. Too many businesses I know still see customer service as a burden, rather than an opportunity to gain loyalty and advocacy.

Custom 114

Custom Customer Satisfaction Metrics 114

CEO Flow

AUGUST 17, 2009

I have a great opportunity for both you and the person that refers them to me…keep reading… CEOFlow is my coaching program for CEOs. I do work with men, but I don’t actively go looking for them.) I’m offering a f^ree CEOFlow coaching session to five CEOs (each is a $375 value). How To Apply.

Coach 45

Coach Email Blogging Help 45

Both Sides of the Table

JULY 1, 2010

You’ll get sales information from your VP of Sales, marketing information from your VP Marketing, tech information from your CTO and so on. An obvious example would be in sales. By going on sales calls you pick up directly the feedback of what customers want and also what they’re telling you about competition.

Startup 308

Startup CTO Coach Technical Review CTO Hire 308

Startup Professionals Musings

AUGUST 14, 2016

The most common proposals I hear are for yet another social networking site ( over 200 active ), or another dating site (over 2500 in the US alone). Training and coaching. Ongoing coaching from the top is essential to maintain the attitude and spirit. From time to time, include customers and sales members in ideation sessions.

Coach 64

Coach Metrics Competition Ideas 64

Startup Professionals Musings

AUGUST 4, 2019

I like the guidance from marketing coach David Newman’s classic book “ Do It! If you are focused exclusively on prospects who are actively seeking to solve the problem you are positioned to solve, you won’t need five or seven attempts to get their attention. Instead of asking themselves “How and when will this generate sales?”

Marketing 97

Marketing Entrepreneur Startup Technical Review 97

Both Sides of the Table

MAY 19, 2018

For starters you have to realize that fund-raising is a sales process. A brochure is an easy out for you in the sales process without being rude. We did some outbound sales & marketing, we responded to some inbound enquiries that came “over the transom” from marketing activities and we responded to RFPs (requests for proposal).

Funding 336

Funding Venture Capital Startup Email 336

Startup Professionals Musings

AUGUST 12, 2015

The most common proposals I hear are for yet another social networking site ( over 200 active ), or another dating site (now over 2500 in the US alone). Training and coaching. But these still need coaching on the unknowns, and ongoing education to keep up with the industry and the technology. Idea management.

Entrepreneur 101

Entrepreneur Startup Coach Metrics 101

Both Sides of the Table

SEPTEMBER 19, 2010

He’s bound to be able to help a company or two at the time of a sale. My own firm was involved with the sale of our portfolio company BillMeLater (an online credit company – think PayPal but for credit) to eBay for $1 billion in October 2008. It’s an active job throughout the entire life of the portfolio company.

Invest 280

Invest Angel Venture Capital Yahoo 280

Both Sides of the Table

OCTOBER 22, 2009

Everyone in the outside world is talking about how great you are but internally you know that your sales aren’t ramping, your product isn’t shipping on time, you have doubts about the quality of your code, you’re not convinced you’re doing a good job on marketing – whatever. Your solution? My advice: don’t.

Startup 327

Startup Sales Class CIO 327

Startup Professionals Musings

JULY 13, 2015

The last thing they can afford is to waste any of these, but in my mentoring and coaching activities, I see it happening all too often. Waste in a startup is any activity that spends resources, but creates no value or competitive advantage in the eyes of customers. Focus on activities rather than results.

Resource 105

Resource Startup Entrepreneur Training 105

Both Sides of the Table

MARCH 18, 2010

When I kicked off Launchpad LA a year ago I had a few objectives: Create an ecosystem where all Southern California VC’s had the chance to work together more actively outside of the boards on which we mutually sit. I still plan to be as actively involved but realized I needed the help of some talented LA based entrepreneurs.

Technical Review 259

Technical Review Venture Capital Southern California Tech Coast Angels 259

Startup Professionals Musings

MAY 30, 2014

The last thing they can afford is to waste any of these, but in my mentoring and coaching activities, I see it happening all too often. Waste in a startup is any activity that absorbs resources, but creates no value or competitive advantage in the eyes of customers. Focus on activities rather than results.

Entrepreneur 115

Entrepreneur Resource Training Product 115

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. Take an active role in a higher cause or social reform.

Custom 93

Custom Customer IBM IBM 93

Both Sides of the Table

NOVEMBER 19, 2009

Your head of sales thinks she should fire somebody. You’re sales person is getting blocked by the CTO who says she shouldn’t go above him but the CTO isn’t approving the deal. Yes, I know it’s my job as the CEO to be the coach for people and that’s fine. What lovely charts! Nobody seemed shocked.

Entrepreneur 414

Entrepreneur Technical Review Slides CTO Coach 414

Startup Professionals Musings

AUGUST 12, 2017

I like the guidance from marketing coach David Newman’s classic book “ Do It! If you are focused exclusively on prospects who are actively seeking to solve the problem you are positioned to solve, you won’t need five or seven attempts to get their attention. Instead of asking themselves “How and when will this generate sales?”

Tips 75

Tips Marketing Technical Review Startup 75

Startup Professionals Musings

JANUARY 8, 2018

The last thing they can afford is to waste any of these, but in my mentoring and coaching activities, I see it happening all too often. Waste in a startup is any activity that spends resources, but creates no value or competitive advantage in the eyes of customers. Focus on activities rather than results.

Resource 52

Resource Training Entrepreneur Activity 52

Startup Professionals Musings

DECEMBER 5, 2014

I like the guidance from marketing coach David Newman’s recent book “ Do It! If you are focused exclusively on prospects who are actively seeking to solve the problem you are positioned to solve, you won’t need five or seven attempts to get their attention. Instead of asking themselves “How and when will this generate sales?”

Technical Review 103

Technical Review Tips Marketing Entrepreneur 103

Startup Professionals Musings

JUNE 19, 2013

I found some help from marketing coach David Newman’s new book “ Do It! If you are focused exclusively on prospects who are actively seeking to solve the problem you are positioned to solve, you won’t need five or seven attempts to get their attention. Instead of asking themselves “How and when will this generate sales?”

Startup 103

Startup Marketing Social Media Technical Review 103

Both Sides of the Table

DECEMBER 9, 2013

Get board members to help me with things they are uniquely positions to help with – mostly introductions, recruiting or coaching my team members. In my nearly 15 years of attending board meetings I can tell you that the distribution of time actually spent on these activities while you’re in person is more like: 1.

Writing 337

Writing Venture Capital Help SaaS 337

Both Sides of the Table

MAY 25, 2013

According to FLAG Capital there are 100 active VCs (as defined by making at least $1 million in VC per quarter for 4 consecutive quarters). So for argument’s sake let’s triple the number of active VCs and call it 300. If you read Ken Auletta’s piece it makes it clear there was active VCs involvement in the early days.

Venture Capital 374

Venture Capital Entrepreneur Invest Funding 374

Both Sides of the Table

JULY 27, 2013

Another meeting last week with a different founder who sold for 100′s of millions and is not an active angel, “Startups are hard. Confidence is THE single most important attribute in being able to attract money, hire staff, stave off creditors, get press, do biz dev deals, close big sales and one day sell your company.

Startup 371

Startup Press Blogging Entrepreneur 371

Both Sides of the Table

JANUARY 1, 2016

If you have a team of 10 people then by definition 90% of the time spent on activities is not put in by you and on a team of 100 it’s 99%. But putting no time into anchoring your beliefs because you’re too busy executing sales, marketing, support, product & engineering is an easy recipe for leadership drift. Conviction.

Startup 150

Startup Coach Course Invest 150

Both Sides of the Table

JANUARY 16, 2012

Fund raising (as is much of life) is a sale – pure and simple. As with any sales campaign you need to: Qualify your buyers early so you focus your scarce resources on people likely to buy your product. . Three rules in sales: Why buy anything? Remember again that the three major steps to a sale are: Why buy anything?

Develop 366

Develop Development Funding Venture Capital 366

Both Sides of the Table

JANUARY 3, 2016

Examples of VC platform services include: recruiting, marketing, design support, inside sales reps, consulting, accounting services and so forth. As a partnership we’re all pretty young (relatively) and active in investments and we most mostly did this job out of our love for working with entrepreneurs at startups.

Venture Capital 150

Venture Capital Platform Startup Resource 150

Startup Professionals Musings

JANUARY 2, 2017

If you want to improve your strength in this area, or need to coach your team along these lines, I recommend the following steps: Approach every problem as a positive business opportunity. For example, what looks like a sales revenue problem may actually be a new competitor offering, a marketing decline, or a lag in receivables.

Metrics 58

Metrics Entrepreneur Examples Coach 58

Startup Professionals Musings

MAY 8, 2011

These efforts proved to be a major distraction from our main objective, namely sales and service of our high tech products. In practice that meant that we could once again focus on running our sales and service activities. The new regulations now permitted so-called ‘facilitating payments to petty bureaucrats’.

Outsource Development 88

Outsource Development High Tech Outsource Examples 88

Startup Professionals Musings

JULY 10, 2010

These efforts proved to be a major distraction from our main objective, namely sales and service of our high tech products. In practice that meant that we could once again focus on running our sales and service activities. The new regulations now permitted so-called ‘facilitating payments to petty bureaucrats’.

High Tech 71

High Tech Outsource Press Coach 71