Startup Professionals Musings

APRIL 2, 2022

Many entrepreneurs think that adapting to the new technologies, like smart phones and Internet commerce, are the key to attracting new customers. High-technology product startups, without customers, don’t make a business. Solis outlines the heuristics of social psychology that are key to building positive customer experiences today.

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Customer Custom Social Media Technical Review 122

Startup Professionals Musings

AUGUST 22, 2021

Every business I know is intimately familiar with outbound marketing, or pushing your message out to customers through email, newspaper, and television advertising. Only a few really understand the process and value of inbound marketing, for pulling customers to your brand. Don’t just monitor – engage customers.

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Customer Custom Marketing Social Media 172

socalTECH

MARCH 14, 2018

This year, we're sponsoring the Recurring Revenue Conference (www.recurringrevenueconference.com), presented by Sutton Capital Partners. What's the biggest lesson you've learned about retaining and keeping your customers using the subscription model? How does customer service tie into all of this?

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Customer Custom Conference Social Media 166

Startup Professionals Musings

FEBRUARY 25, 2022

I’m sure you have all noticed how today’s customers have changed the way they shop, but I still find, as an advisor and consultant, that many of you aren’t sure how to deal with the new mode, or are still waiting for things to get back to the old normal. Convenience is in the eye of the customer, not your company.

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Demand Customer Custom Startup 126

Both Sides of the Table

MARCH 31, 2012

If you haven’t read Adam Lashinsky’s awesome new book about Apple , you should. It takes on many of the lessons MBA programs and Corporate America have been teaching about business for the past 50+ years and questions whether lessons from Apple might be more applicable in thinking about the future.

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Startup Sales Course Competition 319

Startup Professionals Musings

AUGUST 1, 2022

Think about the questions that you are asking your advisors. I expect questions about how a business works, or what are best practices, but I really can’t help you with removing doubts on your abilities, or providing a sure-fire idea and formula for success in business. Build positive psychological capital to sustain your business.

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Capital Coach Satisfaction Ideas 114

Both Sides of the Table

JUNE 28, 2018

Today the company officially announced its most recent round of capital ?—?having less than 18 months from when the company was created so I thought it was probably a good time to weigh in on the questions I get asked most frequently and why we’re so excited about Bird. having raised $300 million?—?less There is nothing viral!

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Santa Monica Funding Startup Course 256

TechCrunch LA

AUGUST 18, 2022

and Europe, today announced that it has raised $65 million, with $50 million of those as a Series B funding round co-led by Albacore Capital Group and $15 million in convertible notes. Expa and Keyframe Capital, as well as new investor Capital One Ventures also participated in this route. Image Credits: Aero.

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Los Angeles Capital Customer Custom 255

Startup Professionals Musings

FEBRUARY 3, 2020

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 124

Customer Custom Startup Course 124

socalTECH

MARCH 28, 2019

The summit is now associated with March Capital Partners (www.marchcp.com). What's your role at March Capital? Meredith Finn: I joined March Capital at the beginning of the year. How did you end up joining March Capital? That carried through to March, where the big theme is Artificial Intelligence in the enterprise.

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Capital Entrepreneur Invest Artificial Inteligence 162

Both Sides of the Table

AUGUST 20, 2015

We love capital efficiency until we love land grabs until we abhor over funding until we get huge payouts and ring the bell for more funding until we attract every non-VC on the planet to invest in startups until it crashes and we start the cycle all over again none the wiser. I know we spoke about it this week. VC funding.

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Funding Venture Capital Startup Marketing 150

TechEmpower

JULY 31, 2023

How does it meet customers’ needs? One way to approach that last question is to use this simple model: Customer Acquisition Cost (CAC) How will your business reach prospects? Customer Lifetime Value (CLV) How much money will your business generate from each converted customer? Don’t worry about scaling just yet.

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Metrics Startup Slides Technical Review 260

Both Sides of the Table

DECEMBER 26, 2010

The “competition slide&# of your investment deck is such a great opportunity to talk about how you’re positioned (premium product vs. economical product? which features do you believe your customers care about and where you’re try to differentiate? It is a great place to talk about your future roadmap.

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Venture Capital Slides Competition Education 313

Both Sides of the Table

JANUARY 14, 2014

In fact 61% of all mobile searches where a customer contacts a business it is via a phone call (source: Google). People don’t want to speak to customer service reps. I don’t want to speak to customer service reps!! 61% of mobile searches in which a customer contacted a vendor, a phone call was generated.

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Email SaaS Venture Capital Google 339

Startup Professionals Musings

MARCH 16, 2019

Today’s customers are overloaded and overwhelmed by too much information, so making a decision is a challenge. You may think this is only important to your marketing and sales people, but in reality it doesn’t matter how great your product or technology might be, you won’t succeed if you don’t understand your target customer decision process.

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Customer Custom Sales Social Media 107

Both Sides of the Table

DECEMBER 11, 2022

Something happened in the past 7 years in the startup and venture capital world that I hadn’t experienced since the late 90’s — we all began praying to the God of Valuation. How might our next phase of the journey seem brighter, even with more uncertain days for startups and capital markets? Nobody cared about our valuations any more.

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Venture Capital Startup Marketing Pricing 466

socalTECH

OCTOBER 9, 2019

There's a new opportunity in clean technology investments, according to venture capitalist Aaron Fyke , the head of a new, Pasadena-based venture capital investment fund, Thin Line Capital (www.thinlinecapital.com). Talk about the new firm and the new fund? Talk a bit about your background in this area?

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Invest Capital Venture Capital Idealab 113

TechCrunch LA

JUNE 16, 2020

The business attracted interest from Northwestern Mutual Future Ventures, Artemis Fund, Draper Dragon and Unlock Ventures initially, and the company has now added Anthos Capital to its roster of investors. As a father of two young boys, I care about their financial future and I know that other parents are feeling the same way.

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Services Capital Draper Education 235

Both Sides of the Table

JULY 9, 2013

This post talks about the last part of the PUCCKA methodology – an Aligned Purchasing Process. You know exactly when you want to sell to this customer and presumably it’s this quarter! Which customers to target: Elephants, Deer or Rabbits ? And failure to show customer adoption is the death of startup companies.

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Customer Custom Marketing Newsletter 324

Startup Professionals Musings

MAY 21, 2023

If you have the urge to be an entrepreneur, I encourage you to think seriously about each of these, before you zero-in on one or two, and get totally discouraged if those don’t work for you. Negotiate an advance from a strategic partner or customer. Solicit venture capital investors. Marty Zwilling

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Startup Capital Equity Funding 106

SoCal CTO

FEBRUARY 2, 2011

A lot of my time is spent helping early-stage companies get to proof points so that they can raise capital. Think about how you can prove your business model with an MVP. Think about how you can prove your business model with an MVP. What are they really looking for? is a requirement. It's required reading.

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Startup Custom Development Sales Writing 198

socalTECH

JANUARY 3, 2019

As we close out our contributions for the end of 2018, here's Jeb Spencer of TVC Capital. I started thinking about some of the people I know who I admire, respect and love the most and how they achieve their goals. Lexus studied customers in the US and predicted that car buyers had just had it with clunky US cars.

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Capital Southern California El Segundo SaaS 113

socalTECH

OCTOBER 23, 2012

One of the biggest complaints that local entrepreneurs have with Los Angeles has been a dearth of local sources of venture capital. However, the recent surge in startup activity has attracted a lot more capital into the area, including a significant amount of capital from LA's latest fund: Karlin Ventures (www.karlinvc.com).

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Funding Startup Invest Commerce 253

socalTECH

MARCH 1, 2018

This year, we're again sponsoring the Recurring Revenue Conference (www.recurringrevenueconference.com), presented by Sutton Capital Partners. What has been the biggest lesson you've learned in retaining and keeping customers? listen to them to iterate our product, and that's how we get buy-in from our customers. Kevin Anderson.

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Customer Custom Services Conference 113

socalTECH

JANUARY 2, 2020

Today, we share the thoughts of Peter Cowen , Managing Director of Sutton Capital Partners (www.suttoncapitalpartners.com). Socaltech has partnered with Sutton Capital Partners with their Recurring Revenue Conference for several yars. First, business is ultimately about peoplethe strengths and flaws of being human.

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Capital SoCal Southern California SaaS 100

socalTECH

NOVEMBER 24, 2021

Pasadena-based QLess, which develops software for managing virtual customer waiting lines, said on Tuesday evening that it has been acquired by Palisades Growth Capital, along with a syndicate of un-identified family offices. Financial terms of the acquisition were not announced. QLess is led by President and CEO Mark Tapling.

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Equity Pasadena Acquisition Customer 140

Both Sides of the Table

APRIL 21, 2010

Before jumping into the post I wanted to point out one thing about doing TWiVC and posting my notes here on BSOTT. In writing anything positive about any of the companies I’m not suggesting that it means that I prefer them to any of their competitors. Finally, a lot of people asking me about typos on my blog.

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Venture Capital Capital Email Blogging 265

Startup Professionals Musings

SEPTEMBER 9, 2018

In today’s totally interconnected world with its abundance of information, choices, and marketing, how your customers buy has drastically changed. Whether you are an executive, an entrepreneur, a marketer, or a salesperson, it’s time to look beyond how you sell, and focus on how your customers buy.

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Customer Custom Social Media Startup 94

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. No blog post about how Tiger is crushing everybody because it’s deploying all its capital in 1-year while “suckers” are investing over 3-years can change this reality.

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Venture Capital Marketing Technical Review Seed Funding 416

TechCrunch LA

MARCH 19, 2020

A new initiative from a Los Angeles investor is taking stock of venture firms and their ability to commit capital in an effort to match firms that are still open for business and cutting checks to startups that are fundraising in the age of COVID-19. PLEASE RT to spread the word. — Laurent Grill (@laurentgrill) March 18, 2020.

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Venture Capital Capital Technical Review Los Angeles 135

Both Sides of the Table

MAY 4, 2013

When I was new at Venture Capital I was trying to figure out the business. I’m not saying that lawyers were my screening process – simply that they knew about deals early on and they had voted with their time and pocketbooks so I knew I had a degree of filtering. What kind of deals should I be doing? What stage? What price?

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Startup Venture Capital Pricing Technical Review 361

socalTECH

SEPTEMBER 17, 2013

San Diego-based cloud storage firm Nirvanix is shutting down, and has given its customers only two weeks to move their data elsewhere, in a stunning flameout for the venture backed startup. The company seemed to be on the upswing, with a long list of high profile customers; the company had even hired Zynga''s CIO earlier this year.

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Customer Custom Windward S3 147

Startup Professionals Musings

JULY 1, 2019

Many entrepreneurs think that adapting to the new technologies, like smart phones and Internet commerce, are the key to attracting new customers. High-technology product startups, without customers, don’t make a business. Solis outlines the heuristics of social psychology that are key to building positive customer experiences today.

Customer 85

Customer Custom Social Media Technical Review 85

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

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. &#.

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Acquisition Startup Customer Custom 304

Both Sides of the Table

JULY 29, 2010

We received so much positive feedback from our This Week in Venture Capital show walking through valuation calculations & term sheets that we decided to do a Q&A show this week to address topics that entrepreneurs want to learn about. This question runs from about minute 2 – minute 8. This is minutes 8-11.

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Venture Capital Capital Startup Pricing 282

TechCrunch LA

OCTOBER 5, 2020

The funding is coming from funds and accounts managed by BlackRock, Reimagined Ventures, Trinity Capital Investment, Celtic House Venture Partners, Marubeni Ventures, Sixty Degree Capital, Mojo Partners alongside with previous investors GGV Capital, WI Harper Group, Digital Garage, CentreGold Capital , Scrum Ventures, and other unnamed participants.

Technical Review 343

Technical Review Startup Marketing San Diego 343