Startup Professionals Musings

DECEMBER 2, 2022

You can’t succeed in business without an operational model that delivers value to customers at a reasonable price, with an underlying cost that allows you to make a profit. A target market is the group of customers that the startup plans to attract through marketing and sales their product or service. Sales/Marketing.

Sales 102

Sales Customer Custom Outsource 102

Startup Professionals Musings

OCTOBER 25, 2019

I’m more convinced that technology merely enables disruption, and changing customer interests and needs really causes it. Other companies keep the focus on their customers, and seem to thrive on disruption, much less survive. They make it their top business priority to understand, anticipate, and gratify customers’ needs.

Customer 54

Customer Custom Technical Review Design 54

Startup Professionals Musings

OCTOBER 16, 2023

Projecting financials is a natural extension of the homework every entrepreneur needs to do on customer opportunity size, product costs, pricing, competition and customer value. Forecast sales-volume expectations. This should always be a “bottoms-up” commitment from your sales team, not your own optimistic guess.

Startup 116

Startup Pricing Sales Statistics 116

Startup Professionals Musings

JULY 30, 2021

While you all recognize that reacting to weak market signals is critical to staying in business and staying competitive, I find that many don’t have the skills and focus to trigger change decisions on a timely basis. You may be getting killed today by customer expectations you never worried about just a few years ago.

Marketing 162

Marketing Social Media Metrics Customer 162

Startup Professionals Musings

APRIL 29, 2023

On the product side, once you have a proven product and business model, all you need is money to build inventory, and a sales and marketing operation to drive the business. With services, scaling the business often implies cloning yourself, since you are the intellectual property and the competitive advantage.

Startup 111

Startup Training Services Writing 111

Startup Professionals Musings

JULY 19, 2014

Today’s customers are much more in control of their buying decision, as they have more choices and more information than ever before. Bloom’s recent book, “ The New Experts: Win Today''s Newly Empowered Customers.” Capitalize on the multiplier moment. These decisive moments, and how to respond, are outlined in Robert H.

Customer 98

Customer Custom Entrepreneur Startup 98

Berkonomics

DECEMBER 3, 2020

Imagine the room in which several graduate business school student groups have gathered, tasked with coming up with an idea for a business plan competition. Then find a short list of users, customers, and consultants in that industry who are known to be advanced in their thinking as demonstrated by their prior work. A thought exercise.

Startup 156

Startup Ideas Customer Custom 156

Startup Professionals Musings

OCTOBER 23, 2021

Some investors seem to focus wholly on the strengths of the management team, or a sustainable competitive advantage, and in reality these are the core attributes for every funding equation. Selling too early triggers customer defenses and drives them away. A startup needs to find a voice relevant to its ecosystem.

Education 151

Education Customer Custom Sales 151

Startup Professionals Musings

AUGUST 30, 2015

Today’s customers are much more in control of their buying decision, as they have more choices and more information than ever before. Bloom’s classic book, “ The New Experts: Win Today's Newly Empowered Customers.” Capitalize on the multiplier moment. These decisive moments, and how to respond, are outlined in Robert H.

Customer 101

Customer Custom Startup Course 101

Both Sides of the Table

NOVEMBER 16, 2014

But if you level up , raise capital and grow customers, revenue and staff – life changes. Eventually you need a VP of Product to handle your product roadmap, a CTO for engineering leadership and VPs of sales, marketing & biz dev. Extremely talented people are ultra competitive. Do you hire more sales people?

Entrepreneur 385

Entrepreneur CTO Hire Startup Sales 385

Both Sides of the Table

APRIL 19, 2011

He is very hands-on and helpful – especially for any company looking into customer acquisition. What better than to have capital from somebody who has actually done it in the trenches? Matt’s commitment to re-investing in tech startups is reminiscent to this great Fred Wilson post of “recycling capital. &#.

Acquisition 304

Acquisition Startup Customer Custom 304

Both Sides of the Table

MARCH 31, 2012

I got an email recently from my friend & fellow VC, Jeff Bussgang from Flybridge Capital Partners in Boston. Jeff (also an HBS alum) co-teaches the LTV course with Professor Eisenmann about a student of theirs who had written a blog post about sales taking on some of my previous assertions.

Startup 319

Startup Sales Course Competition 319

Startup Professionals Musings

AUGUST 3, 2020

On the product side, once you have a proven product and business model, all you need is money to build inventory, and a sales and marketing operation to drive the business. With services, scaling the business often implies cloning yourself, since you are the intellectual property and the competitive advantage.

Startup 174

Startup Training Services Writing 174

Startup Professionals Musings

OCTOBER 31, 2022

It’s important to remember that your passion for a new idea needs to be supported by market research and customer feedback , before you will get the credibility and support you expect to work at this stage. In my experience, competition is the biggest challenge here. Galvanizing: rally a team and customers for action.

Activity 108

Activity Satisfaction Metrics Startup 108

Startup Professionals Musings

FEBRUARY 12, 2018

Today’s customers are much more in control of their buying decision, as they have more choices and more information than ever before. Bloom’s classic book, “ The New Experts: Win Today's Newly Empowered Customers.” Capitalize on the multiplier moment. These decisive moments, and how to respond, are outlined in Robert H.

Customer 52

Customer Custom Startup Course 52

TechCrunch LA

DECEMBER 8, 2020

The funding is being led by QED Investors; Founders Fund, Susa Ventures, Navitas Capital, and Prudence Holdings also participated. That also speaks to the vast and interesting quantity of data that the startup is amassing on home sales, and how it can use that to power its platform in the future. million Series A also led by QED.

Sales 282

Sales Demand San Diego Funding 282

Berkonomics

JULY 18, 2019

By definition, your core is your intellectual property foundation, the thing that makes your business most valuable to customers, investors and perhaps someday to potential buyers of the business. Or we do so with brilliant research and development, highly trained sales forces, large advertising campaigns, or secret processes.

Patents 120

Patents Resource Training Advertising 120

Startup Professionals Musings

JUNE 18, 2023

If you can’t identify customer interest, it doesn’t matter how good your product is. Don’t be afraid to test your ultimate entree on customers. Have you projected sales and marketing costs, cash flow, and capital requirements? This means find some hungry people who would love a good dinner, and be willing to pay for it.

Startup 112

Startup Coach Metrics Marketing 112

Both Sides of the Table

SEPTEMBER 10, 2021

how on Earth could the venture capital market stand still? One of the most common questions I’m asked by people intrigued by but also scared by venture capital and technology markets is some variant of, “Aren’t technology markets way overvalued? With the enormous changes to our economies and financial markets?—?how Of course we can’t.

Venture Capital 471

Venture Capital Writing Invest Pricing 471

Startup Professionals Musings

DECEMBER 17, 2016

Some investors seem to focus wholly on the strengths of the management team, or a sustainable competitive advantage, and in reality these are the core attributes for every funding equation. Selling too early triggers customer defenses and drives them away. A startup needs to find a voice relevant to its ecosystem.

Capital 58

Capital Startup Education Customer 58

Tech Zulu Event

NOVEMBER 8, 2013

Identify those segments that will be your best potential customers and use financial projections to predict how much you will be able to sell to them. Then go out there and talk to these potential customers. Use your sales projections to calculate your potential revenue growth. Do they see value in your offering?

Invest 95

Invest Capital Startup Venture Capital 95

Startup Professionals Musings

FEBRUARY 5, 2021

If you don’t have a destination, don’t waste your money trying to get there, and don’t expect anyone to support you along the way Projecting financials is a natural extension of the homework every entrepreneur needs to do on customer opportunity size, product costs, pricing, competition and customer value. Marty Zwilling.

Startup 147

Startup Pricing Sales Statistics 147

Startup Professionals Musings

APRIL 10, 2012

You can’t succeed in your new startup if you can’t win customers, and the new Internet-empowered customers are tough. Bloom’s “ The New Experts ,” that today’s customers are armed with three lethal weapons – instant access to information about every potential purchase, immense choice, and real-time comparison of competitive prices.

Customer 93

Customer Custom Startup Competition 93

Tech Zulu Event

MARCH 19, 2015

Computers and the Internet have now brought in a new era that relies on data to make profitable business decisions in the competitive environment. Below is a full explanation of how small businesses can leverage technology to earn a competitive advantage in the marketplace. Cloud Services. Social Media Automation Tools. CRM Platforms.

Competition 40

Competition Technology Social Media Tips 40

Startup Professionals Musings

SEPTEMBER 18, 2012

He has forgotten that new technologies are perceived by most customers as causing more pain than the problems they hope to eliminate. Yet we all know that many customers delay their adoption of the latest software platform, and fancy new hardware, for a year or two until all the “kinks” are worked out of them. Marty Zwilling.

Customer 95

Customer Custom Technology Marketing 95

TechCrunch LA

OCTOBER 28, 2020

.” Both Vaughn and his Saucey co-founder Daniel Leeb will take management positions at PCH, and Blumberg Capital and Bullpen will have a large equity stake in the newly formed holding company, Vaughn said. Its sales growth has expanded 200% year-over-year even as the company maintains its profitability, according to a statement.

Company 188

Company Companies Los Angeles San Diego 188

Startup Professionals Musings

FEBRUARY 11, 2011

You can’t succeed in your new startup if you can’t win customers, and the new Internet-empowered customers are tough. Bloom’s “ The New Experts ,” that today’s customers are armed with three lethal weapons – instant access to information about every potential purchase, immense choice, and real-time comparison of competitive prices.

Customer 88

Customer Custom Competition Metrics 88

Startup Professionals Musings

OCTOBER 3, 2021

Every one of these probably has a unique story, but in my years as a startup advisor I only remember hearing a few who capitalized on their story. The words can be simple, like “I was meeting with a customer in Boston,” or “When my home was devastated by a tornado.” Stories relay events, and these events have to happen somewhere.

Startup 125

Startup Technical Review Entrepreneur Customer 125

InfoChachkie

MAY 22, 2012

The steps outlined below represent an ideal approach to raising capital from sophisticated investors. If this is the case, offer to make a meaningful introduction to a potential customer or partner of one of their portfolio companies. Major League baseball pitchers spend far more time preparing to pitch than they actually do pitching.

Venture Capital 236

Venture Capital Capital Research Customer 236

TechCrunch LA

AUGUST 9, 2022

Beauty may be in the eye of the beholder, but when it comes to getting ahold of an appointment for your hair or another treatment…that’s a different story: The bespoke nature of a lot of the work has meant that a large swathe of the professionals providing these services have stayed offline when it comes to interfacing with customers.

Help 195

Help Startup UCLA Tool 195

socalTECH

APRIL 26, 2017

My background is I was a sales rep in this industry for fourteen years, with Nikon. The first thing you are trained on, is to qualify customers and figure out if they need upright or inverted microscopes. We got first place in that competition, and they followed up with a $2M investment in the form of a convertible note.

Tech Coast Angels 124

Tech Coast Angels Startup Sales Slides 124

Startup Professionals Musings

SEPTEMBER 21, 2020

If you can’t identify customer interest, it doesn’t matter how good your product is. Don’t be afraid to test your ultimate entree on customers. Have you projected sales and marketing costs, cash flow, and capital requirements? This means find some hungry people who would love a good dinner, and be willing to pay for it.

Startup 156

Startup Coach Metrics Marketing 156

Berkonomics

FEBRUARY 25, 2016

Looking for an entrance into a VC, an angel group, a bank, a CxO for a sales opportunity, or any other entity? Every sales person with a bit of street history will resonate with this question. Are you working with or selling to a particularly important competitor to your target customer? So how do you reconcile this?

Ideas 120

Ideas Sales Competition Venture Capital 120

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. Hiring more people isn’t always the right answer. Internet scale.

Startup 418

Startup Venture Capital Sales Technical Review 418

Startup Professionals Musings

AUGUST 13, 2022

billion dollar sale to Oracle from Bozeman, Montana. Today, Silicon Valley is the consumer and enterprise software capital of the world. Exposure to customers, incumbents, and competitors all drive success. Exposure instills the fear and urgency you need to deliver the right competitive solution. The list goes on and on.

Technical Review 123

Technical Review Oracle Software Review Ideas 123

Berkonomics

JUNE 8, 2017

The subject of raising money is critical to many businesses and a passing option to others, depending upon the capital efficiency of the enterprise. You will realize much more from the ultimate sale of your business even if at a considerably lower price than if splitting the proceeds with investors.

Venture Capital 266

Venture Capital Class Invest Equity 266

TechCrunch LA

SEPTEMBER 5, 2018

The younger Canter upgraded the menu, brought in a point of sale system and renovated the bar. All of these different ordering services began to pop up and each one added more customers and incremental revenue, but each one brought challenges into our staff.” The next stop for the company was capital to build out the technology.

Services 165

Services Los Angeles Startup Capital 165