Startup Professionals Musings

NOVEMBER 30, 2022

During my time in Silicon Valley, I was struck by the fact that most successful entrepreneurs seemed to personally know and regularly hear from all the “movers and shakers” who had the investment capital and leadership they needed. Using metrics to measure results and commitments. Marketing your personal brand and your vision.

Startup 113

Startup Customer Custom Technical Review 113

Startup Professionals Musings

SEPTEMBER 21, 2020

Have you set the right price for your entree, and correctly included all costs? Have you projected sales and marketing costs, cash flow, and capital requirements? Develop metrics with which to measure yourself and use these to incrementally expand and improve your offering as fast as the market and capital will allow.

Startup 156

Startup Coach Metrics Marketing 156

Both Sides of the Table

JUNE 5, 2011

2 preamble issues having read the comments on TC today: 1: I know that the prices of startup companies is much great in Silicon Valley than in smaller towns / less tech focused areas in the US and the US prices higher than many foreign markets. You can be pissed off, but I don’t set prices. That’s stupid.

Startup 336

Startup Pricing Technical Review Marketing 336

InfoChachkie

MAY 22, 2012

The steps outlined below represent an ideal approach to raising capital from sophisticated investors. Step 4: Reconnaissance Mission, Under Promise – An effective technique for acquiring investment capital is to initially not ask for money. Unfortunately, your fundraising efforts will be less linear. Stay Limber.

Venture Capital 236

Venture Capital Capital Research Customer 236

Startup Professionals Musings

AUGUST 10, 2022

A strong vision and deep insight may get your business off the ground, but long-term success requires constant data analysis, metrics, and attention to your customer feedback. Today, customer loyalty is based on the “ total customer experience ,” as opposed to price or service alone. Relentlessly drive improvement, change, and growth.

Mentor 133

Mentor Startup Customer Custom 133

Startup Professionals Musings

SEPTEMBER 20, 2019

For example, if it’s getting harder to charge a price premium for the product you’re marketing, or others are offering your subscription service for free, it may be time to start thinking in a new box. Another example is seeing substitute versions of a product, like eBooks, for a low price displacing hardcover books.

Entrepreneur 93

Entrepreneur eBook Metrics Examples 93

Both Sides of the Table

NOVEMBER 14, 2017

As a startup in this phase you often raise capital, get press, hire staff and everything feels possible. In the case of MakeSpace we had huge initial successes in New York City as Rahul led the scaling of our drivers, our trucks and our warehouses and we figured out the right price points to beat the local competition.

Startup 286

Startup Technical Review Customer Custom 286

Both Sides of the Table

DECEMBER 27, 2011

You have to understand whether they’re likely to yield revenue growth in the near term OR whether you have access to cheap enough capital to fund your losses until your investments pay off. Have easy access to capital by investors who are committed to building businesses at Interent scale. Internet scale.

Startup 418

Startup Venture Capital Sales Technical Review 418

Startup Professionals Musings

DECEMBER 8, 2018

Have you set the right price for your entrée, and correctly included all costs? Have you projected sales and marketing costs, cash flow, and capital requirements? Develop metrics with which to measure yourself and use these to incrementally expand and improve your offering as fast as the market and capital will allow.

Startup 81

Startup Coach Metrics Marketing 81

Startup Professionals Musings

MARCH 18, 2015

For example, if it’s getting harder to charge a price premium for the product you’re marketing, or others are offering your subscription service for free, it may be time to start thinking in a new box. Another example is seeing substitute versions of a product, like eBooks, for a low price displacing hardcover books.

Entrepreneur 106

Entrepreneur eBook Metrics Startup 106

Startup Professionals Musings

NOVEMBER 4, 2016

Have you set the right price for your entrée, and correctly included all costs? Have you projected sales and marketing costs, cash flow, and capital requirements? Develop metrics with which to measure yourself and use these to incrementally expand and improve your offering as fast as the market and capital will allow.

Entrepreneur 93

Entrepreneur Startup Coach Metrics 93

Startup Professionals Musings

AUGUST 13, 2012

In fact, a business plan is needed more by you than investors, as the blueprint for your company, team communication, and progress metrics. It always amazes me how an entrepreneur can define his market opportunity so broadly, and then assess his competition so narrowly in the next breath. Competition and sustainable advantage.

Competition 113

Competition Metrics Startup Invest 113

Startup Professionals Musings

OCTOBER 8, 2017

For example, if it’s getting harder to charge a price premium for the product you’re marketing, or others are offering your subscription service for free, it may be time to start thinking in a new box. Another example is seeing substitute versions of a product, like eBooks, for a low price displacing hardcover books.

eBook 52

eBook Metrics Examples Startup 52

Startup Professionals Musings

DECEMBER 15, 2013

For example, if it’s getting harder to charge a price premium for the product you’re marketing, or others are offering your subscription service for free, it may be time to start thinking in a new box. Another example is seeing substitute versions of a product, like eBooks, for a low price displacing hardcover books.

eBook 95

eBook Metrics Startup Examples 95

Startup Professionals Musings

MAY 13, 2011

In fact, a business plan is needed more by you than investors, as the blueprint for your company, team communication, and progress metrics. It always amazes me how an entrepreneur can define his market opportunity so broadly, and then assess his competition so narrowly in the next breath. Competition and sustainable advantage.

Competition 116

Competition Metrics Startup Sales 116

socalTECH

MARCH 6, 2017

Los Angeles-based Maple Media (maplemedia.io) recently announced a big, $30M funding from Shamrock Capital, to assemble a collection of mobile applications in the utility, productivity, games and entertainment verticals. A lot of what we've been looking at are the metrics. What's the idea behind Maple Media?

Media 153

Media Mobile Startup Acquisition 153

Startup Professionals Musings

APRIL 1, 2019

Owners realize that customers and the market change rapidly these days, and innovative change is necessary to keep ahead of competition and survive. Accept and capitalize on change. Help your owner get beyond the misleading metrics of employee overtime and salary increases. Recommend ways to improve team engagement and culture.

Technical Advisors 75

Technical Advisors Startup Satisfaction Customer 75

Startup Professionals Musings

APRIL 9, 2012

Your competitive advantage. Identify your sustainable competitive advantage, like unique benefits, cost savings, or industry ties. Don’t kill your credibility by saying you have no competition. Who is your customer, what is the price, and how much does it cost you to build one? Business model. Marty Zwilling.

Summary 97

Summary Writing Competition Sample 97

Both Sides of the Table

JULY 16, 2013

I remember just a decade ago in 2003 when we all laughed at how dumb people in the 90′s were talking about the race to “capture as many eyeballs as possible” before your competition. The minute you try to monetize now they have metrics with which to beat you up and say you’re business has limitations.”

Venture Capital 412

Venture Capital Startup Funding Snapchat 412

Startup Professionals Musings

APRIL 10, 2012

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. You need a reliable system of metrics to measure your performance here. Some won’t change, and they will die.

Customer 93

Customer Custom Startup Competition 93

Both Sides of the Table

SEPTEMBER 27, 2010

There are real changes in the venture capital industry and it would have been fun to talk about them. Dave McClure argued passionately that since the overwhelming majority of exits are sub $100 million we need to readjust how much capital goes in. Price creep hurts investors. Answer: Not much. It’s a shame.

Venture Capital 308

Venture Capital Training Startup Entrepreneur 308

InfoChachkie

JANUARY 16, 2018

Without taking a dime of outside capital, the company has achieved impressive success in a competitive, SaaS market segment, landing companies such as Nike, Intuit, NASA, AutoDesk and PBS. Greathouse: Did you decide to bootstrap the business from the start or did you initially plan to take in investor capital? I’ve been there.

Venture Capital 115

Venture Capital Entrepreneur Santa Barbara SaaS 115

Both Sides of the Table

MARCH 25, 2016

Marketing with long payback is precisely what requires venture capital. So when Sam Rosen came to me with the idea of disrupting storage with a product that is priced cheaper than existing incumbents and he could build a product that is a better service I was intrigued. That is how great businesses are built.

Startup 150

Startup Marketing Study SEO 150

Startup Professionals Musings

DECEMBER 30, 2012

Have you set the right price for your entree, and correctly included all costs? Have you projected sales and marketing costs, cash flow, and capital requirements? Develop metrics with which to measure yourself and use these to incrementally expand and improve your offering as fast as the market and capital will allow.

Startup 96

Startup Writing Metrics Marketing 96

Startup Professionals Musings

FEBRUARY 3, 2011

Your competitive advantage. Identify your sustainable competitive advantage, like unique benefits, cost savings, or industry ties. Don’t kill your credibility by saying you have no competition. Who is your customer, what is the price, and how much does it cost you to build one? Business model. Marty Zwilling.

Summary 90

Summary Writing Competition Sample 90

Startup Professionals Musings

FEBRUARY 11, 2011

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. You need a reliable system of metrics to measure your performance here. Some won’t change, and they will die.

Customer 88

Customer Custom Competition Metrics 88

Both Sides of the Table

JULY 19, 2015

Every $10 million financing only puts more pressure on the founders to figure out how to hit the metrics to get to the next milestone and every company that raises $25 million puts a ton of pressure on their 10 competitors who haven’t. The road is littered with startups that shined bright before burning out. Every founder knows this.

Press 150

Press Venture Capital Startup Entrepreneur 150

Both Sides of the Table

MAY 23, 2012

Many observers of the venture capital industry have questioned whether its best days are behind it. 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. They compete on features, price and execution.

Venture Capital 347

Venture Capital Capital Technical Review Startup 347

Startup Professionals Musings

APRIL 22, 2010

In fact, a business plan is needed more by you than investors, as the blueprint for your company, team communication, and progress metrics. It always amazes me how an entrepreneur can define his market opportunity so broadly, and then assess his competition so narrowly in the next breath. Competition and sustainable advantage.

Invest 74

Invest Tips Competition Metrics 74

Startup Professionals Musings

APRIL 7, 2011

Have you set the right price for your entree, and correctly included all costs? Have you projected sales and marketing costs, cash flow, and capital requirements? Develop metrics with which to measure yourself and use these to incrementally expand and improve your offering as fast as the market and capital will allow.

Entrepreneur 91

Entrepreneur Startup Writing Metrics 91

Tech Zulu Event

MARCH 16, 2015

There’s plenty of capital out there, but there’s also a lot of competition for startup funding. His best advice: take capital where you can get it. If your product is capital-intensive this can be a good financing option. Be careful how you price this. Here are the most obvious funding sources : Friends and family.

Startup 40

Startup Venture Capital Equity Funding 40

Startup Professionals Musings

FEBRUARY 11, 2010

Your competitive advantage. Identify your sustainable competitive advantage, like unique benefits, cost savings, or industry ties. Don’t kill your credibility by saying you have no competition. Who is your customer, what is the price, and how much does it cost you to build one? Business model. Marty Zwilling.

Summary 55

Summary Writing Competition Metrics 55

Startup Professionals Musings

MARCH 27, 2010

Have you set the right price for your salad, and correctly included all costs? Have you projected sales and marketing costs, cash flow, and capital requirements? Develop metrics with which to measure yourself and use these to incrementally expand and improve your offering as fast as the market and capital will allow.

Entrepreneur 48

Entrepreneur Startup Metrics Class 48

Both Sides of the Table

FEBRUARY 27, 2019

Often board members themselves don’t do the work to say “what metrics would we like to see.” Any great board member should tell you, “please don’t create any performance metrics or materials that analyze the business that you’re not already creating for your own management’s use.” Sometimes they don’t even know.

Startup 226

Startup Slides Metrics News 226

Both Sides of the Table

JUNE 4, 2013

I see many companies these days just race to raise capital. They see capital raising at the success validator. What in your product is truly differentiated in the market to solve this problem (where do you believe you’re strong against the competition in functionality or delivery). Product / market fit is everything.

Startup 401

Startup Customer Custom Technical Review 401

Startup Professionals Musings

NOVEMBER 24, 2017

What neither group seems to fully comprehend is that retail needs to fundamentally change to succeed, far beyond the addition of an online component, to meet the experience expectations of today’s generation, an oversupplied global marketplace, and technology for instant pricing and distribution.

Customer 52

Customer Custom Technical Review Summary 52