Startup Professionals Musings

NOVEMBER 5, 2022

As a business consultant with experience in large companies as well as startups, I often hear about dysfunctional management hierarchies, as well as the value provided by exceptional ones. We have all heard about the successes of flattened management organizations in the last decade at Facebook, Valve, Zappos, and others.

Outsource 133

Outsource Training Organization Social Media 133

Startup Professionals Musings

MARCH 3, 2023

Serious investors, on the other hand, look for a professional business plan or summary first, and hardly ever look at the product plan. Now let’s talk about the basic components of a business plan. Opportunity segmentation and competitive environment. A product plan is never a substitute for a business plan. Marty Zwilling

Product 112

Product Summary Activity Entrepreneur 112

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. Will they resent scrutiny from the outside?

Technical Review 260

Technical Review Development Team Review Software Review TechEmpower 260

Startup Professionals Musings

FEBRUARY 15, 2021

For example, I once worked for a small software company selling a sophisticated enterprise workflow solution. 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. We both often lost as a result.

Startup 173

Startup Outsource Development Examples Customer 173

Startup Professionals Musings

SEPTEMBER 16, 2022

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. As with real estate, it’s still about location, location, location. Relying totally on a virtual team implies they are managing your company, not you. Marty Zwilling.

Outsource Development 138

Outsource Development Outsource Summary Training 138

Startup Professionals Musings

OCTOBER 14, 2023

If you sold your last startup for $800 million, you probably already know how to build a business, and even conservative investors won’t worry about the quality of your next business plan.

Startup 102

Startup Writing Mentor Sample 102

Startup Professionals Musings

APRIL 4, 2013

The best advocates do this because they care about you as a person, not because of personal aspirations. The trailblazer is not overly competitive, but always is a few steps ahead and enjoys setting an example that you are inspired by, or motivated to follow. Workship - Trailblazer. Workships and friendships can’t be forced.

Startup 99

Startup Mentor Entrepreneur Competition 99

Startup Professionals Musings

SEPTEMBER 8, 2023

The best advocates do this because they care about you as a person, not because of personal aspirations. The trailblazer is not overly competitive, but always is a few steps ahead and enjoys setting an example that you are inspired by, or motivated to follow. Workship - Trailblazer. Workships and friendships can’t be forced.

Mentor 91

Mentor Competition Summary Coach 91

InfoChachkie

SEPTEMBER 4, 2012

Most sophisticated investors ignore them, focusing their attention on an entrepreneur's pitch and presentation materials, financial forecast and executive summary. As such, the primary goal of your executive summary is to open the door to an in-person meeting. Entrepreneurs routinely seek my advice regarding their executive summaries.

Venture Capital 211

Venture Capital Summary Technical Review Template 211

Both Sides of the Table

MAY 14, 2018

I know all of this because every VC knows this because we’ve all either funded companies that have marketing technology or we’ve seen a pitch with a company that does this. Your deck should be so good that a VC asks you for permission to show it to his or her portfolio companies. A deck is a deck. Just send it.

Funding 239

Funding Venture Capital IP Email 239

Both Sides of the Table

OCTOBER 22, 2015

But the bigger truth is the competition is important. We will have two well-funded companies educating the market on why this market opportunity for the $24 billion US storage market is ripe for disruption. More consumers and businesses will hear about our solutions and want to learn more. Everybody reads the tech press.

Funding 150

Funding Competition Marketing Summary 150

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. Now let’s talk about the basic components of a business plan. Opportunity segmentation and competitive environment. A product plan is never a substitute for a business plan. Marty Zwilling.

Entrepreneur 124

Entrepreneur Startup Summary Product 124

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. The founders of a company are fighting. Can we help them get along?

Startup 269

Startup Venture Capital Layoffs Resource 269

Startup Professionals Musings

FEBRUARY 12, 2022

Change is about the only thing constant in the world of startups. The solution is to establish and maintain a culture and processes that don’t view change as a discrete event to be spotted and managed, but as an ongoing opportunity to improve competitiveness. In summary, change will happen.

Startup 116

Startup Training Statistics Summary 116

Both Sides of the Table

SEPTEMBER 1, 2016

Rolf Winkler wrote a piece in the WSJ about A16Z’s returns in which he says they “lag behind Sequoia, Benchmark and Founders Fund.” What about those RETURNS the WSJ article spoke of? In the article it talks about Sequoia’s $19 billion sale of WhatsApp to Facebook that generated apparently $3 billion for Sequoia and its shareholders.

Venture Capital 264

Venture Capital Invest Funding Competition 264

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. It consumes time and energy and the payoff doesn’t come for a long time.

Press 341

Press Startup Email Sales 341

Startup Professionals Musings

OCTOBER 30, 2022

Bloom is a widely known expert on managing business growth, and he starts by summarizing the three key weapons of current customers, which include an instant summary of choices, prices, and features. This new world is all about empowered customers. Bloom’s classic book, “ The New Experts: Win Today's Newly Empowered Customers.”

Customer 146

Customer Custom Startup Course 146

Startup Professionals Musings

AUGUST 21, 2011

I found a good summary of the relevant keys to business operational excellence in a new book by Faisal Hoque, called “ The Power of Convergence.” His focus is on repeatable practices to maximize business opportunities in large companies, but I’m convinced that these apply equally well to startups: Clearly define your value chain.

Startup 100

Startup Ideas Summary Competition 100

Startup Professionals Musings

DECEMBER 21, 2020

The best advocates do this because they care about you as a person, not because of personal aspirations. The trailblazer is not overly competitive, but always is a few steps ahead and enjoys setting an example that you are inspired by, or motivated to follow. Workship - Trailblazer. Workships and friendships can’t be forced.

Mentor 135

Mentor Competition Summary Coach 135

Both Sides of the Table

MARCH 30, 2010

Burstly, a Santa Monica based company, provides an open and free ad management platform that helps mobile application developers better monetize their inventory. As I naturally get asked all the time why we invested in Company A or Company B, I thought I’d just put forth my thesis in writing.

Mobile 282

Mobile Invest Company Companies 282

Startup Professionals Musings

JANUARY 31, 2021

If you sold your last startup for $800 million, you probably already know how to build a business, and even conservative investors won’t worry about the quality of your next business plan.

Sample 137

Sample Writing Mentor Content 137

InfoChachkie

SEPTEMBER 19, 2012

These courses all proved to be serious influences on turning the dream of starting their own company into a reality. On the first day of class, Professor Greathouse told his students, “Take a look around the class, these are the people you will most likely start a company with,” and boy was he right.

Class 231

Class Startup Santa Barbara RSS 231

Both Sides of the Table

SEPTEMBER 15, 2014

Many questioned whether it could survive under the fail whale, inevitable competition from Facebook, founder fighting, fights with 3rd-party developers let alone become a revolutionary business that could make money. Internally at Upfront Ventures we talk about “high consensus” vs. controversial deals with “high conviction.”

Funding 362

Funding Technical Review Ideas Startup 362

Startup Professionals Musings

APRIL 16, 2023

His professional background includes having held marketing-executive roles at big companies as well as startups. Here is my summary of the seven most successful lead-generation vehicles he and I still recommend today, despite the popularity of viral marketing: Search-engine marketing. Social-media advertising.

Marketing 114

Marketing Invest Social Media SEM 114

InfoChachkie

JULY 21, 2011

Paige is a gifted communicator and my summary does not do him justice. He offers a number of worthwhile tips and tricks that I was not able to capture in the textual summary, so the 14-minute audio file is well worth your time. What follows is a summary which paraphrases Paige’s responses. Click here to listen to the Audio File.

Summary 246

Summary Tips Sales Entrepreneur 246

Startup Professionals Musings

NOVEMBER 25, 2022

He went on to start many successful companies, including General Electric. Begin by asking more questions and being more curious about everyone you meet, their journey, experiences, and what they can teach you. The business world today is very competitive, and customers are more and more demanding.

Startup 122

Startup Satisfaction Summary Coach 122

Both Sides of the Table

JULY 12, 2011

If you don’t read it and you care about tech & entrepreneurship, you should. He’s thoughtful about markets, investors, products and is always very well reasoned in his arguments. He and I once took different sides of an debate about whether “VC signaling&# in early-stage deals is a serious problem or not.

Technical Review 281

Technical Review Venture Capital Startup Artificial Inteligence 281

Startup Professionals Musings

DECEMBER 11, 2019

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. As with real estate, it’s still about location, location, location. Relying totally on a virtual team implies they are managing your company, not you. Marty Zwilling>

Outsource Development 121

Outsource Development Outsource Entrepreneur Summary 121

Startup Professionals Musings

AUGUST 9, 2023

Here is a summary of their key observations, with our joint specifics on what to expect, and how to overcome these obstacles: Customers don’t buy what they don’t know and understand. Many healthcare solutions, for example, may appear to have great value to patients, but require doctors to feel safe, and insurance companies to approve.

Case Study 89

Case Study Customer Custom Study 89

Startup Professionals Musings

NOVEMBER 15, 2020

Here is a summary of their key observations, with our joint specifics on what to expect, and how to overcome these obstacles: Customers don’t buy what they don’t know and understand. Many healthcare solutions, for example, may appear to have great value to patients, but require doctors to feel safe, and insurance companies to approve.

Case Study 174

Case Study Startup Customer Custom 174

Both Sides of the Table

JANUARY 12, 2014

Yesterday I wrote a post about “ growth hacking ” and why I thought it was wrong that people were hating on the term unnecessarily. Link has a summary of his argument plus a great video). It’s worth a quick read. My argument is pretty simple. Online marketing uses techniques for driving promotion and place.

Marketing 379

Marketing Startup SEM SEO 379

Both Sides of the Table

MAY 24, 2018

You company is the product and you’re selling an equity ownership in your company but much more broadly you’re selling trust & confidence that you’re going to build something enormously valuable and that you’re going to be enjoyable to work hand-in-hand with over the coming decade of each other’s lives.

Venture Capital 314

Venture Capital Technical Review Invest Slides 314

Both Sides of the Table

JULY 23, 2014

The VC market has right-sized (returned back to mid 90′s levels & less competition). Lower costs to start a business (95% reduction), many more companies created & funded by angels / seed. ” The pioneering fund of funds realize that their source of differentiation is much more about the latter than the former.

Venture Capital 398

Venture Capital Technical Review Startup Seed Funding 398

Both Sides of the Table

JANUARY 22, 2014

So I thought I’d write about out with what I would look for in a VC knowing what I know now and why. It’s insanely competitive to get into our industry so most have degrees from institutions like Stanford, Harvard, Wharton and University of Chicago (blatant plug ;-). .” VCs, how to select a VC, etc.)

Venture Capital 364

Venture Capital Coach Writing SaaS 364

Startup Professionals Musings

JULY 20, 2020

His professional background includes having held marketing-executive roles at big companies as well as startups. Here is my summary of the seven most successful lead-generation vehicles he and I still recommend today, despite the popularity of viral marketing: Search-engine marketing. Social-media advertising.

Customer 146

Customer Custom Marketing Startup 146

Both Sides of the Table

NOVEMBER 14, 2017

An alternate outcome that I also unfortunately observe in some cases are companies who had extreme early success with an initial product adoption but failed in key areas that limited the growth and therefore the ultimate financial outcomes. MakeSpace (as he named it) would help you get your excess goods into low-cost warehouses.

Startup 286

Startup Technical Review Customer Custom 286

Startup Professionals Musings

FEBRUARY 3, 2020

Bloom is a widely known expert on managing business growth, and he starts by summarizing the three key weapons of current customers, which include an instant summary of choices, prices, and features. This new world is all about empowered customers. Bloom’s classic book, “ The New Experts: Win Today's Newly Empowered Customers.”

Customer 124

Customer Custom Startup Course 124