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.

Startup 269

Startup Venture Capital Layoffs Resource 269

Startup Professionals Musings

JULY 20, 2020

Contrary to popular opinion, viral marketing has not eliminated the need for old-fashioned lead generation to bring customers to a startup. His professional background includes having held marketing-executive roles at big companies as well as startups. Social-media advertising. Cold calling.

Customer 146

Customer Custom Marketing Startup 146

Startup Professionals Musings

APRIL 9, 2012

Modern investors love to first read a two-page summary of your business plan, formatted like a glossy marketing collateral sheet, with text well laid out in columns and sidebars, and a couple of relevant graphics. You may have already found several articles, web pages, or books about writing the perfect executive summary.

Summary 97

Summary Writing Competition Sample 97

TechEmpower

AUGUST 21, 2023

At TechEmpower, we’ve conducted more than 50 technical reviews for companies of all sizes, industries, and technical stacks. Other common scenarios that we’ve seen: Scaling and new markets: Your company and product are established, and now you’re scaling or going after new markets. But what does the right team look like?

Technical Review 260

Technical Review Development Team Review Software Review TechEmpower 260

Startup Professionals Musings

FEBRUARY 3, 2020

This can be an advantage to startups who don’t have the resources and brand awareness of mature businesses, if they understand and position themselves to win in the decisive moments of the new customer buying process. Great startups manage to continually improve the relationship through outstanding follow-on support and service.

Customer 124

Customer Custom Startup Course 124

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. Understanding how your company will change as you move through these phases is critical if you hope to scale to a large business one day.

Startup 286

Startup Technical Review Customer Custom 286

Both Sides of the Table

MARCH 31, 2012

Many MBA programs still cater too much to the needs of large, corporate management jobs or prepare students to enter big consulting companies or investments banks. 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.

Startup 319

Startup Sales Course Competition 319

Startup Professionals Musings

FEBRUARY 3, 2011

Modern investors love to first read a two-page summary of your business plan, formatted like a glossy marketing collateral sheet, with text well laid out in columns and sidebars, and a couple of relevant graphics. You may have already found several articles, web pages, or books about writing the perfect executive summary.

Summary 90

Summary Writing Competition Sample 90

Startup Professionals Musings

OCTOBER 30, 2022

This can be an advantage to startups who don’t have the resources and brand awareness of mature businesses, if they understand and position themselves to win in the decisive moments of the new customer buying process. Great startups manage to continually improve the relationship through outstanding follow-on support and service.

Customer 146

Customer Custom Startup Course 146

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. For example, I once worked for a small software company selling a sophisticated enterprise workflow solution. Here is a summary of each: Complementary strengths allows extended market penetration.

Startup 173

Startup Outsource Development Examples Customer 173

Startup Professionals Musings

JUNE 30, 2021

By definition, all of you entrepreneurs are leaders, by taking the initiative to start a new company. Yet I have learned over the years as a startup advisor that all business leaders are not the same. Johnson accepted full company accountability on Twitter for a racial profiling incident at a Starbucks in Philadelphia.

Coach 162

Coach Startup Resource Competition 162

Startup Professionals Musings

OCTOBER 6, 2023

For the elite startups and entrepreneurs who manage to attract the investor they dream of, and survive the term sheet negotiation, there is still one more hurdle before the money is in the bank. That might start with the CEO giving the investor pitch to the whole organization, and distributing the current business plan document to everyone.

Technical Review 118

Technical Review Startup Satisfaction Invest 118

Startup Professionals Musings

NOVEMBER 15, 2020

They are devastated when their business growth never starts or stalls, and they have no idea how to get it moving again. As an advisor to many startups, I often spend hours with business owners helping them anticipate every possible obstacle to the adoption of their solution, and developing a rollout plan to include antidotes.

Case Study 174

Case Study Startup Customer Custom 174

Startup Professionals Musings

AUGUST 4, 2023

I recall a good summary of how to motivate and train a team to accomplish this in the classic book, “ The Business of Creativity: How to Build the Right Team for Success ,” by Keith Granet. The best startups give everyone business cards and encourage team members to talk about the business with anyone who should be interested.

Startup 95

Startup Coach Mentor Social Media 95

Startup Professionals Musings

JUNE 26, 2020

What you don’t realize is these famous investors only deal with entrepreneurs who sold their last company for a $100M dollars or more. To be clear, I define a product specification as the technical definition of your product, to be used for development and testing purposes, with a quick business summary for context. and trademarks.

Product 169

Product Summary Startup Examples 169

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. I was impressed with his summary of the top ten outsourcing mistakes made by entrepreneurs, followed by real guidance on how they can and should be avoided. Adapting to culture goes both ways, and training is the key.

Outsource Development 138

Outsource Development Outsource Summary Training 138

Startup Professionals Musings

MAY 31, 2020

Serious investors, on the other hand, look for a professional business plan or summary first, and hardly ever look at the product plan. It does need to include a high-level summary of the components in the product plan, with key additional sections as follows: Definition of customer problem, followed by your solution.

Entrepreneur 124

Entrepreneur Startup Summary Product 124

Berkonomics

JULY 6, 2017

Know your market and competition, or don’t spend a dime on anything else. In 1994, (I know a long time ago), I invested over a million dollars into a company whose entrepreneurs had a vision that I bought into for many reasons, not the least of which was that I had industry experience and understood the need.

Competition 266

Competition Research Summary Pricing 266

Both Sides of the Table

MARCH 11, 2011

Summary notes, as always, provide below. At the time when you did a search on Lycos, Alta Vista or similar for a category such as Cars you ended up getting 9 spam results and 1 proper website to meet your needs. So he launched a company with exclusively paid search. They were a juggernaut and Google was a small company.

Competition 350

Competition Idealab Product CitySearch 350

Startup Professionals Musings

APRIL 16, 2023

Contrary to popular opinion, viral marketing has not eliminated the need for old-fashioned lead generation to bring customers to a startup. His professional background includes having held marketing-executive roles at big companies as well as startups. Social-media advertising. Cold calling.

Marketing 114

Marketing Invest Social Media SEM 114

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

Startup Professionals Musings

APRIL 18, 2021

If your startup is great enough to get a term sheet from angel investors or a venture capitalist, the next step for the investor is to complete the dreaded due diligence process. Some startups do nothing to prepare for the due diligence process, assuming the people and business plan documents will speak for themselves.

Technical Review 152

Technical Review Startup Satisfaction Summary 152

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. ” Harsh, but reality.

Startup 418

Startup Venture Capital Sales Technical Review 418

Startup Professionals Musings

NOVEMBER 25, 2022

After many years working in business and investing in startups, I’m convinced that the primary reason for new business and career failures is NOT a lack of skill or money, but people giving up too quickly on their dreams and goals. He went on to start many successful companies, including General Electric.

Startup 122

Startup Satisfaction Summary Coach 122

Startup Professionals Musings

JANUARY 24, 2021

For the elite startups and entrepreneurs who manage to attract the investor they dream of, and survive the term sheet negotiation, there is still one more hurdle before the money is in the bank. That might start with the CEO giving the investor pitch to the whole organization, and distributing the current business plan document to everyone.

Technical Review 151

Technical Review Startup Satisfaction Invest 151

Startup Professionals Musings

FEBRUARY 11, 2010

Modern investors love to first read a two-page summary of your business plan, formatted like a glossy marketing collateral sheet, with text well laid out in columns and sidebars, and a couple of relevant graphics. You may have already found several articles, web pages, or books about writing the perfect executive summary.

Summary 55

Summary Writing Competition Metrics 55

Both Sides of the Table

SEPTEMBER 20, 2014

It is the bane of every startups existence because it takes up so much time, it is so competitive to sign people and it feels like unproductive time because it’s not moving the ball forward on product, engineering, sales, marketing, biz dev, fund raising. Set up calls for VCs to welcome her to the team. Recruiting.

Press 341

Press Startup Email Sales 341

Both Sides of the Table

MAY 19, 2020

with $15 million to Prove It The venture capital world has started firing up a few cylinders again and looking for businesses that it believes will help us all succeed in ways that resonate with new ways of working as we begin to return to work. Community-building is advice I give to nearly every startup team with whom I work.

Software 234

Software Startup Tool Platform 234

socalTECH

NOVEMBER 17, 2010

Amazon is not the only company looking to make a business out of online film submissions: We dug up some of the other local competition in this space, mined from our database of startups , with brief details below: Amazon Studios. Have we missed other notable, film-competitions sites out there?

Sites 217

Sites Hollywood Summary USC 217

Startup Professionals Musings

FEBRUARY 22, 2019

Every mature company I know is looking for more innovation from within. They are painfully aware that tenure on the list of S&P companies is shrinking – from thirty-three years back in 1964, down to twenty-four in 2016, and predicted to be just twelve by 2027. In this context, strategy deviations can keep the company on track.

Company 93

Company Companies Software Review IBM 93

Startup Professionals Musings

NOVEMBER 14, 2020

I recall a good summary of how to motivate and train a team to accomplish this in the classic book, “ The Business of Creativity: How to Build the Right Team for Success ,” by Keith Granet. The best startups give everyone business cards and encourage team members to talk about the business with anyone who should be interested.

Marketing 130

Marketing Develop Development Startup 130

Startup Professionals Musings

JANUARY 6, 2019

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. While these may be necessary for funding, they may not be sufficient to make your startup the great success embodied in your vision.

Startup 97

Startup Education Customer Custom 97

Startup Professionals Musings

JANUARY 14, 2015

Successful startups seem to follow similar paths to greatness, and unfortunately all too often that path leads them back down the hill much faster than they went up. Thus it behooves every entrepreneur to start watching these things more carefully from the very start. Consider MySpace and Webvan. Product-line expansion.

Startup 98

Startup Marketing Web 2.0 IBM 98

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. While these may be necessary for funding, they may not be sufficient to make your startup the great success embodied in your vision.

Education 151

Education Customer Custom Sales 151

InfoChachkie

JANUARY 3, 2012

His talk was especially intriguing, as he attended UCSB, but dropped out to start a clothing design company. As I note in Spilling The Beans , the basic ideas upon which startups are founded are worth nothing. It is the dogged pursuit of excellence that turns worthless ideas into worthwhile startups. Chaos By Design.

Ideas 266

Ideas Guide Startup Santa Barbara 266

InfoChachkie

SEPTEMBER 19, 2012

These courses all proved to be serious influences on turning the dream of starting their own company into a reality. The biggest motivator for starting brightblu was John Greathouse’s Entrepreneurship class. Ben, Sid and Taylor started BrightBlu while still students. Share and Enjoy.

Class 231

Class Startup Santa Barbara RSS 231

Startup Professionals Musings

DECEMBER 14, 2013

Here is my summary of her roadmap which I believe can get you back on the right track with a “customer-centric” approach rather than a “company-centric” approach: Find out what customers want and how they want to buy it. Don’t start from how you want to sell. Start where the customer wants you to be and work backwards.

Startup 105

Startup Search Engine Optimization Summary Customer 105