Startup Professionals Musings

SEPTEMBER 15, 2021

But very quickly, it is becoming obvious to startups that the value and satisfaction exceeds the costs. To legally facilitate startups who want to give top priority to socially conscious solutions, thirty-five states, starting with Maryland way back in 2010, have passed legislation allowing incorporation as a Benefit Corporation (B-Corp).

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Startup Professionals Musings

OCTOBER 16, 2023

Thus, financial projections for up to five years are a necessary element in every business plan. Per the words of an old country song, “if you don’t know where you’re going, you will probably end up somewhere else.” If you are losing money on every unit, it’s hard to make it up in volume. Forecast sales-volume expectations.

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Startup Pricing Sales Statistics 116

Startup Professionals Musings

AUGUST 12, 2019

Most entrepreneurs are quick to assert to potential investors that their product or solution will kill the competition, but unfortunately your opinion alone is not enough to convince most experienced investors. A competitive advantage to a non-problem or tiny niche is not interesting to investors.

Competition 86

Competition Patents Startup Customer 86

TechCrunch LA

MAY 20, 2021

One startup that aims to help make the process simpler, cheaper and less stressful by helping people manage the home renovation process has raised $6 million to help it grow even faster. Construction tech startups are poised to shake up a $1.3-trillion-dollar Renovating a home is an exciting, yet often fraught-filled, endeavor.

Technical Review 185

Technical Review Startup Venture Capital Software Review 185

Both Sides of the Table

NOVEMBER 14, 2017

Nearly every successful tech startup I’ve observed over the past 20 years has gone through a similar growth pattern: Innovate, systematize then scale operations. Innovate In the early years of a startup there is a lot of kinetic energy of enthusiastic innovators looking to launch a product that changes how an industry works.

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Startup Technical Review Customer Custom 286

Startup Professionals Musings

FEBRUARY 3, 2020

Almost instantly, via the Internet or on their smartphone in the store, they can find the lowest price alternative or their favorite features, without waiting for push marketing or listening to your best sales person. Great startups manage to continually improve the relationship through outstanding follow-on support and service.

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Customer Custom Startup Course 124

Startup Professionals Musings

OCTOBER 30, 2022

Almost instantly, via the Internet or on their smartphone in the store, they can find the lowest price alternative or their favorite features, without waiting for push marketing or listening to your best sales person. Great startups manage to continually improve the relationship through outstanding follow-on support and service.

Customer 146

Customer Custom Startup Course 146

Both Sides of the Table

JUNE 28, 2011

In this three-part series I will explore the ways that the Venture Capital industry has changed over the past 5 years that I would argue are a direct result of changes in the software industry, not the other way around. When I built my first company starting in 1999 it cost $2.5 Amazon will surely keep moving up the stack.

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Venture Capital Software Capital Startup 334

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? The most connected and high-potential founders start with wads of cash.

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Venture Capital Writing Invest Pricing 471

Startup Professionals Musings

MAY 29, 2022

In the old days, every entrepreneur planned on taking their startup public, and making it big. Today the rate of startups going public (IPO – Initial Public Offering) is finally up from the dead zone of the last two decades, and is now double the rate back in 1999. Startups going public are laid open to competitors and critics.

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Startup Report IBM IBM 98

Startup Professionals Musings

JUNE 18, 2023

I realized a while back that creating a new company for the first time is a lot like whipping up a great dinner entree for the first time – you need a recipe, even though it may look simple. Yet you may not be so sure where to start, and how to put it all together. Emeril Lagasse is always ready to “kick it up a notch!”

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Startup Coach Metrics Marketing 112

Both Sides of the Table

SEPTEMBER 15, 2022

At our mid-year offsite our partnership at Upfront Ventures was discussing what the future of venture capital and the startup ecosystem looked like. Even then private market investors can paper over valuation changes by investing at the same price but with more structure so it’s hard to understand the “headline valuation.”

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Venture Capital Marketing Technical Review Seed Funding 416

Startup Professionals Musings

JUNE 19, 2023

Find enough venturesome capital. Nearly all new businesses aspiring to reach meaningful scale require some sort of outside funding to finance a competitive growth trajectory. The objective must be to get sufficient capital, with experienced and motivated counsel, to make the venture succeed. Grab the next-mover advantage.

Entrepreneur 101

Entrepreneur Startup Ideas Competition 101

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

Both Sides of the Table

FEBRUARY 25, 2019

Here are some observations I have from this exposure: If a company moves from strength-to-strength with predictable outcomes, easy financings, low staff turn-over, limited competitive threats then the composition of the board probably doesn’t matter as much. This is part of a series on a Board of Directors at a Startup.

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Startup Venture Capital Layoffs Resource 269

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. Her post is short & well written so definitely worth a read if you’re a startup person and want to hear some sensible views on sales. And that leads me to today’s post.

Startup 319

Startup Sales Course Competition 319

TechCrunch LA

MARCH 31, 2021

The sweeping infrastructure package put forward today by President Joe Biden comes with a price tag of roughly $2 trillion (and hefty tax hikes) but gives startups and the broader tech industry about $1 trillion worth of reasons to support it. The vast majority of those are nowhere up to modern codes.

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Startup Technical Review Invest Research 229

Both Sides of the Table

MAY 30, 2018

VC firms see thousands of deals and have a refined sense of how the market is valuing deals because they get price signals across all of these deals. As an entrepreneur it can feel as intimidating as going to buy a car where the dealer knows the price of every make & model of a car and you’re guessing at how much to pay.

Venture Capital 324

Venture Capital Pricing Startup Invest 324

Both Sides of the Table

SEPTEMBER 28, 2014

I was reading Danielle Morrill’s blog post today on whether one’s “ Startup Burn Rate is Normal. I love how transparently Danielle lives her startup (& encourages other to join in) because it provides much needed transparency to other startups. Let’s set up a framework. Gross Burn vs. Net Burn.

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Startup Company Companies .Net 383

Startup Professionals Musings

SEPTEMBER 26, 2020

Find enough venturesome capital. Nearly all new businesses aspiring to reach meaningful scale require some sort of outside funding to finance a competitive growth trajectory. The objective must be to get sufficient capital, with experienced and motivated counsel, to make the venture succeed. Grab the next-mover advantage.

Startup 171

Startup Ideas Entrepreneur Competition 171

Both Sides of the Table

MAY 23, 2010

Often when startups who have raised venture capital need another round of financing they will turn to their existing investors to give them money before raising from outsiders. It starts as a debt instrument (e.g. They also trust VC’s to determine the right price to pay for the company securities that they buy.

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Startup Funding Venture Capital Pricing 290

Both Sides of the Table

DECEMBER 27, 2011

I find it amusing when a journalist writes an article about a prominent startup (either privately held or preparing for an IPO) and decries that, “They’re not even profitable!” Exec Summary: Most companies (98+%) in the world (even tech startups) should be very profit focused. One of them is profitability.

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Startup Venture Capital Sales Technical Review 418

Both Sides of the Table

MARCH 11, 2010

This is part of my ongoing series on Raising Venture Capital. Recently I’ve been debating with a number of young startup companies that are raising money in the next few months, “what is the right about of capital to raise at a startup?&#. Who started this meme? There are trade offs. add a buffer.

Startup 319

Startup Venture Capital Capital Competition 319

Startup Professionals Musings

APRIL 29, 2023

The critical success factors for a product business are well known, starting with selling every unit with a gross margin of 50 percent or more, building a patent and other intellectual property, and continuous product improvement. Start with a service you know and love. You have no shelf life, so you can’t make money while you sleep.

Startup 111

Startup Training Services Writing 111

Startup Professionals Musings

APRIL 25, 2012

Porter proposed his Five Forces framework for analyzing the competitive environment which I think makes even more sense today. Every existing business, as well as every startup, needs to reassess their product or service in the context of these five forces: Intensity of competitive rivalry. Way back in 1979, Michael E.

Competition 94

Competition Startup Pricing Framework 94

Startup Professionals Musings

SEPTEMBER 16, 2022

These approaches allow your startup to grow more rapidly, save costs, but costly mistakes can lead to business failure. Fixed price bidding is the only effective outsourcing model.” Getting a fixed price bid works for well-defined short-term projects, like blogging or programming. Be flexible. Recognize and embrace differences.

Outsource Development 138

Outsource Development Outsource Summary Training 138

Startup Professionals Musings

FEBRUARY 15, 2021

Startup founders are known for their passion for their startup idea, and for their passion to kill every competitor. As small companies, neither startup could afford to extend their product alone, but through creative leadership, we were able to negotiate a win-win strategic partnership for a joint product.

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Startup Outsource Development Examples Customer 173

Both Sides of the Table

MARCH 1, 2016

At the Upfront Summit in early February, we had a chance to have many off-the-record conversations with Limited Partners (LPs) who fund Venture Capital (VC) funds about their views of the market. In fact, if you add the capital flows of the past ten years, there have been just shy of $50 billion in net cash outlays.

Venture Capital 150

Venture Capital Capital Marketing Seed Funding 150

Startup Professionals Musings

AUGUST 3, 2020

The critical success factors for a product business are well known, starting with selling every unit with a gross margin of 50 percent or more, building a patent and other intellectual property, and continuous product improvement. Start with a service you know and love. You have no shelf life, so you can’t make money while you sleep.

Startup 174

Startup Training Services Writing 174

Startup Professionals Musings

NOVEMBER 30, 2022

As an investor in startups, I most often see entrepreneurs who are technologists, or at least have a real passion for a specific product. Here is my list of key drivers that I find critical to thriving in big businesses, as well as startups: Networking to build and maintain key relationships.

Startup 113

Startup Customer Custom Technical Review 113

Both Sides of the Table

MARCH 25, 2016

Many startup businesses – tech or otherwise – fail. Trying outrageous new things or even trying mundane things but in new ways but with extreme quality & innovation is what fuels the tech startup industry. But today I want to give you advice on how to decrease your odds of failure in a startup.

Startup 150

Startup Marketing Study SEO 150

Startup Professionals Musings

APRIL 24, 2021

If you are a young startup founder, how do you find that CEO or other executive for your “dream team” to close on funding or complement your skills to kick start your company? A good place to start is the classic "The Effective Executive - The Definitive Guide to Getting the Right Things Done" , by Peter Drucker.

Startup 163

Startup eHarmony Networking Guide 163

Both Sides of the Table

APRIL 19, 2011

I recently sat down with Matt Coffin , the founder of LowerMyBills, which sold for $400 million but was very nearly a bankruptcy only a few years early, and talked “startups.&#. Matt is one of the most transparent, focused & honest startup guys you’ll meet. Or read the quick, informative summary below the image!

Acquisition 304

Acquisition Startup Customer Custom 304

Both Sides of the Table

JUNE 30, 2011

This is the final part of a 3-part series on the major changes in the structure of the software & the venture capital industries. The series started here if you want to read from the start. Or the Cliff Note’s version: Open Source & Cloud Computing (led by Amazon) drove down tech startup costs by 90%.

Venture Capital 289

Venture Capital Capital Cloud Computing Marketing 289

InfoChachkie

JANUARY 23, 2012

"I started the site when I was 19. "When you give everyone a voice and give people power, the system usually ends up in a really good place. " When asked about the competition he feared most, Bill Gates is alleged to have said, "the two guys inventing away in a garage somewhere." 1) Get A Mentor. "I

Startup 268

Startup Tips CTO Coach Technical Review 268

Startup Professionals Musings

MAY 24, 2013

Porter proposed his Five Forces framework for analyzing the competitive environment which I think makes even more sense today. Every existing business, as well as every startup, needs to reassess their product or service in the context of these five forces: Intensity of competitive rivalry. Way back in 1979, Michael E.

Startup 80

Startup Framework Competition Pricing 80

Both Sides of the Table

SEPTEMBER 26, 2015

One of the least understood parts of the venture capital industry and venture capital firms is how investment decisions actually get made. If a deal has a lot of support and no strong detractors it will often but up to the sponsoring partner to know what he or she wants to do with the deal. ” Some firms are collegiate.

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Venture Capital Capital Startup Invest 150