Startup Professionals Musings

JULY 11, 2012

Since my background includes software development, I often get the question about when to build a solution in-house, versus outsourcing it to a local company, near-shore service, or off-shore organization in China, India, or Eastern Europe. Don’t outsource your core competency. It’s like giving up control of your company.

Outsource Development 89

Outsource Development Outsource Software Development Software 89

socalTECH

MARCH 1, 2018

As part of the lead in to the conference, and as a part of our sponsor relationship with the conference, we're running a series of interviews with speakers from the conference about their experience in the area of recurring revenues, customer service, and similar topics. We respond very quickly to all of our customers. Kevin Anderson.

Customer 113

Customer Custom Services Conference 113

Startup Professionals Musings

APRIL 17, 2011

Since my background includes software development, I often get the question about when to build a solution in-house, versus outsourcing it to a local company, near-shore service, or off-shore organization in China, India, or Eastern Europe. Don’t outsource your core competency. It’s like giving up control of your company.

Outsource Development 90

Outsource Development Outsource Software Development Software 90

Startup Professionals Musings

APRIL 4, 2010

Since my background includes software development, I often get the question about when to build a solution in-house, versus outsourcing it to a local company, near-shore service, or off-shore organization in China, India, or Eastern Europe. Don’t outsource your core competency. It’s like giving up control of your company.

Outsource Development 51

Outsource Development Outsource Software Offshore 51

Both Sides of the Table

MARCH 21, 2013

So when I meet with GRP portfolio companies that do enterprise sales I try to emphasize the following: 1. This might mean helping customers buy traffic, arb’ing deals, helping with RTB pricing or trading, etc. This might mean helping customers buy traffic, arb’ing deals, helping with RTB pricing or trading, etc.

Software Review 321

Software Review Software Services Company 321

Startup Professionals Musings

APRIL 10, 2021

Entrepreneurs often have formidable technical expertise, key to developing a new product or service, but a great naïveté in management skills. It’s still your company, so you have to follow-up, step in for disaster recovery, and keep the interplay between tasks and organizations working. No company that is static can grow or survive.

Startup 171

Startup Organization Training Entrepreneur 171

Both Sides of the Table

APRIL 20, 2010

The CTO / Lead Architect - If you want to build a great technology company, you’ll need a “rockstar&# engineering lead. So I believe that every great technology startup has the technology visionary inside the company. They often aren’t great at planning development work. Let’s start with the basics.

CTO Hire 400

CTO Hire Fractional VPE Startup Outsource Development 400

Both Sides of the Table

APRIL 3, 2014

Nor do they exist in the investors of early-stage companies. I had never had any sales training so everything we did for the first couple of years was instinctual. We focused together on improving our sales methodology, our training and our comp plans through a larger than life ex country manager from PTC named Kai Krickel.

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Sales Help Startup Pricing 382

Both Sides of the Table

JUNE 22, 2015

So that we’re speaking the same language I would define “exclusive” as a period in which your company is prohibited from doing business with certain customers or business partners, which is why many incorrectly assume this is necessarily bad. Excite, MSN and eventually Google. THAT is the power of exclusivity.

Outsource Development 150

Outsource Development Startup Customer Custom 150

socalTECH

OCTOBER 20, 2011

Dan Tamkin: I was brought in by some of the venture capitalists and angels behind Unified Dispatch, after I did a prior company turnaround at Computer Motion, the first medical robotics company, where I had been CFO, and which had just been sold. The original company found that getting IVR deployed was actually very hard.

Outsource Development 190

Outsource Development Startup Outsource Altadena 190

Both Sides of the Table

MARCH 19, 2013

And of course the most successful technology companies: Google, Facebook, Salesforce.com [duh], Oracle, Microsoft all have loads of sales people. The most important way to sell a product for an early-stage business (or frankly any stage) is to have strong referenceable customers. How do you get referenceable customers?

Startup 403

Startup Sales Software Review Technical Review 403

Startup Professionals Musings

MAY 4, 2014

Develop your business plan. Product development process. If you are contracting or outsourcing, this is even more important. At this stage, you should start recruiting, hiring, paying, and training others to help you run your business. Customer service and support. Manage human resources.

Startup 107

Startup Outsource Development Training Outsource 107

Both Sides of the Table

FEBRUARY 5, 2011

Nor do they exist in the investors of early-stage companies. I had never had any sales training so everything we did for the first couple of years was instinctual. We focused together on improving our sales methodology, our training and our comp plans. Specifically what is often not in the DNA of founders are sales skills.

Sales 316

Sales Startup Pricing Customer 316

Both Sides of the Table

SEPTEMBER 16, 2009

Nearly all of the mistakes I made at my first company I fixed by the time of my second company. This is the only mistake I repeated twice and it is a mistake that I see many, many companies make. When you start your company the very first question you need to ask yourself is which kind of customers do you want to serve.

Startup 389

Startup Customer Custom Resource 389

socalTECH

APRIL 21, 2017

What's the secret to creating a profitable, successful, physical subscription based business--and to do that at the scale of large, consumer product goods (CPGs) companies? xWe spoke with a few companies in the recurring revenue area space, ahead of the Recurring Revenue Conference ([link] which we are helping to sponsor next week.

Startup 145

Startup Product Customer Custom 145

Startup Professionals Musings

JANUARY 31, 2013

Develop your business plan. Product development process. If you are contracting or outsourcing, this is even more important. At this stage, you should start recruiting, hiring, paying, and training others to help you run your business. Customer service and support. Manage human resources.

Outsource Development 92

Outsource Development Training Outsource Metrics 92

Both Sides of the Table

MARCH 30, 2011

In the initial phases of any new market you’re developing a product (hopefully with a minimal set of features), getting feedback from customers, refining your product based on user feedback and then re-launching your product. I believe that over capitalizing companies too early often favors the VC. Rinse & repeat.

Development Team Review 374

Development Team Review Technical Review Startup Resource 374

Startup Professionals Musings

AUGUST 25, 2017

In case you haven’t noticed it, the rapid evolution of do-it-yourself (DIY) facilities for developers, including 3-D printers, SketchUp and makerspaces such as TechShop , have scaled down the cost of prototypes and hardware design by an order of magnitude. Meeting the new consumer demand for customization.

Ideas 61

Ideas Outsource Development Startup Education 61

Startup Professionals Musings

SEPTEMBER 7, 2011

Develop your business plan. Product development process. If you are contracting or outsourcing, this is even more important. At this stage, you should start recruiting, hiring, paying, and training others to help you run your business. Customer service and support. Manage human resources.

Startup 102

Startup Outsource Development Writing Training 102

Tech Zulu Event

APRIL 9, 2014

Traditionally, these between a rock and hard place problems have been solved with a limited pool of expensive options – usually associated with long contracts and high billables for “MBA quality” work. What if you could combine the flexibility of outsourcing with the quality level of highly skilled strategists?

Outsource Development 105

Outsource Development Software Review Technical Review Outsource 105

InfoChachkie

APRIL 13, 2015

End-of-quarter discounting is a rational tactic for public companies that are slavishly bound to quarterly financial objectives. However, habitual discounting at a startup is self-defeating, as it reinforces your customers'' proclivity to delay their purchases, patiently waiting for you to reduce your prices.

Pricing 100

Pricing Startup Sales SaaS 100

Startup Professionals Musings

AUGUST 14, 2010

By Ernst Gemassmer Once you have succeeded in developing a solution and obtained initial funding, the next challenge is to penetrate the relevant domestic and international markets. Common channel strategies include direct to customer, distributor, and joint venture arrangements. Ensure proper product and technical training.

Startup 85

Startup Outsource Development Training Resource 85

Startup Professionals Musings

JANUARY 31, 2012

Many writers have outlined the critical success factors for product companies, like sell every unit at a profit, patent the design, and continuous product improvement. The distinction between product companies and services companies is easy to see. The distinction between product companies and services companies is easy to see.

Satisfaction 91

Satisfaction Patents Outsource Development Services 91

socalTECH

JUNE 9, 2014

And, even more, how to do you manage the jump on the viral video train again, and keep those viral hits coming? We caught up with Lee Essner , the President of Jukin Media, to learn more about how the company thinks it has figured out how to make a business round viral videos. What is Jukin Media?

Media 235

Media Content Startup IP 235

Startup Professionals Musings

AUGUST 17, 2013

Entrepreneurs often have formidable technical expertise, key to developing a new product or service, but a great naïveté in management skills. It’s still your company, so you have to follow-up, step in for disaster recovery, and keep the interplay between tasks and organizations working. No company that is static can grow or survive.

Startup 109

Startup Entrepreneur Organization Training 109

Startup Professionals Musings

AUGUST 1, 2010

Develop your business plan. Product development process. If you are contracting or outsourcing, this is even more important. At this stage, you should start recruiting, hiring, paying, and training others to help you run your business. Customer service and support. Manage human resources.

Startup 95

Startup Outsource Development Writing Training 95

Both Sides of the Table

NOVEMBER 25, 2010

This is an updated post from my ongoing series on Startup Advice that I learned from founding two companies. . Last year I lost a deal in a company that I wanted to invest in and that I thought I should have won. I wanted to be sure that they knew how much all of our partners loved what they were doing with their company.

Outsource Development 333

Outsource Development Software Review Technical Review News 333

Both Sides of the Table

NOVEMBER 25, 2010

This is an updated post from my ongoing series on Startup Advice that I learned from founding two companies. . Last year I lost a deal in a company that I wanted to invest in and that I thought I should have won. I wanted to be sure that they knew how much all of our partners loved what they were doing with their company.

Outsource Development 328

Outsource Development Software Review Technical Review News 328

Startup Professionals Musings

SEPTEMBER 20, 2010

Many writers have outlined the critical success factors for product companies, like sell every unit at a profit, patent the design, and continuous product improvement. The distinction between product companies and services companies is easy to see. The distinction between product companies and services companies is easy to see.

Product 91

Product Services Satisfaction Patents 91

socalTECH

MARCH 1, 2013

We spoke with CEO Darren Marble to learn more about why analytics are important to the modern film-maker, and how the company is helping. Darren Marble: I spent the last ten years in enterprise sales, selling enterprise software and services to Fortune 500 companies. That's great training for the startup world.

Hollywood 256

Hollywood CTO Hire Social Media Platform 256

Startup Professionals Musings

MARCH 28, 2016

As startups grow from development organizations to a sustainable and repeatable business, processes must be documented, employees hired and trained and customer-support organizations built. Creating operational processes and procedures. The best entrepreneurs take the initiative on these rather than wait for a CFO to drive them.

Entrepreneur 59

Entrepreneur Activity Training Outsource Development 59

Startup Professionals Musings

JULY 17, 2012

Entrepreneurs often have formidable technical expertise, key to developing a new product or service, but a great naïveté in management skills. It’s still your company, so you have to follow-up, step in for disaster recovery, and keep the interplay between tasks and organizations working. No company that is static can grow or survive.

Entrepreneur 94

Entrepreneur Startup Organization Training 94

Startup Professionals Musings

MAY 22, 2011

Entrepreneurs often have formidable technical expertise, key to developing a new product or service, but a great naïveté in management skills. It’s still your company, so you have to follow-up, step in for disaster recovery, and keep the interplay between tasks and organizations working. No company that is static can grow or survive.

Entrepreneur 111

Entrepreneur Startup Organization Training 111

Startup Professionals Musings

NOVEMBER 26, 2012

Once you have a potential investor excited about your team, your product, and your company, the investor will inevitably ask “What is your company’s valuation?” This time I’ll use a hypothetical health-care web site company named NewCo as an example to illustrate the points. Early customers and contracts in progress add value.

Startup 108

Startup Invest Patents Outsource Development 108

Startup Professionals Musings

SEPTEMBER 9, 2013

Executives from large companies have sometimes long forgotten how to do this (“My people will contact your people to work out the details.”). Others hire consultants, or outsource much of the real work. Team members and customers expect startup founders to be innovative. CEOs need to do more and observe less.

Startup 103

Startup Entrepreneur Template Mentor 103

Both Sides of the Table

AUGUST 15, 2009

This is part of my ongoing series on Start-up Lessons that I learned from founding two companies. In the 2003/04 timefame I was living in the UK and running my first company. I had been competing to win a contract at Thames Water, the largest water company in the UK. I was to tell noone until the contract was signed.

Startup 151

Startup Outsource Development Software Review Technical Review 151

Startup Professionals Musings

SEPTEMBER 30, 2011

Once you have a potential investor excited about your team, your product, and your company, the investor will inevitably ask “What is your company’s valuation?” This time I’ll use a hypothetical health-care web site company named NewCo as an example to illustrate the points. Early customers and contracts in progress add value.

Funding 98

Funding Startup Patents Outsource Development 98