Startup Professionals Musings

DECEMBER 17, 2013

Entrepreneurs have no trouble focusing on how to build a product, and the good ones know how to find and nurture those first critical customers. For starters, here is my selection of some key metrics that every six-sigma joint like GE tracks without thinking, but that too many small businesses haven’t yet formalized: Sales revenue.

Metrics 100

Metrics Technical Review Sales Customer 100

Startup Professionals Musings

JUNE 2, 2021

As a business advisor, I have to recommend even to established companies that they review and revamp their competitive strategy now, even if it appears to be working today. Features, availability, and brand are just the price of entry. The real challenge is to win massive consumer preference repeatedly.

Competition 142

Competition Software Review Social Media Customer 142

Both Sides of the Table

APRIL 25, 2011

There’s a line of thinking in Silicon Valley that you should build product businesses rather than services businesses. It’s nearly impossible to get a services company financed by VCs. And stop effing around trying to create a product company.&#. You’re a small fish. You’re a small fish.

Services 332

Services Venture Capital IP Startup 332

Startup Professionals Musings

JANUARY 24, 2021

Use this opportunity to validate their satisfaction and support for your company and your solution. Here investors are looking for feature problems or quality issues on the current product. A hard look will be taken at the technology maturity, the current development progress, and customer satisfaction with early product shipments.

Technical Review 151

Technical Review Startup Satisfaction Invest 151

Both Sides of the Table

FEBRUARY 24, 2016

They are the classic case of the Innovator’s Dilemma because they fundamentally can’t innovate on their product and can’t lower costs or their business craters. They have high-priced property and zero innovation. And it’s easy to run circles around them as our product differentiation shows.

Startup 150

Startup Pricing Marketing Product 150

Startup Professionals Musings

FEBRUARY 11, 2017

Customers go there to check on the details of your offerings and verify that you are not a scam, investors look there to check out your management and sales approach, and suppliers expect to find contact information. Finalizing the web site validates your product plan and sales strategy. Websites do take time to get done right.

Web 62

Web Startup Sites Design 62

Both Sides of the Table

NOVEMBER 3, 2009

Ajax was the new buzzword and many companies went overboard. People mistook extra doses of Ajax for a successful product. and the subsequent acquisition sprees of companies like Google, Yahoo!, In all of these new product and cost-focused new trends, a big problem has emerged that all of these movements have not addressed.

Web 2.0 334

Web 2.0 Venture Capital Web Technical Review 334

Tech.Co

AUGUST 16, 2017

Finding potential customers continues to be a huge challenge not only for established marketing and sales teams but also for startup executives and solo entrepreneurs. You need to find lead gen tools that will convert leads, fill your sales funnel, and increase your revenue effectively. Enter the person’s name and company domain.

Tool 79

Tool Startup Help Template 79

Both Sides of the Table

JUNE 20, 2014

My point was that Amazon continues to dominate the web services business because AWS continues to cut prices & margin in the same way a hypermarket does to control market share. Every politician in the country knows this as well as every consumer brand, every retailer, every restaurant and every media company. I wasn’t.

Invest 291

Invest Content Media Networking 291

Startup Professionals Musings

JULY 12, 2013

Customers go there to check on the details of your offerings and verify that you are not a scam, investors look there to check out your management and sales approach, and suppliers expect to find contact information. Finalizing the web site validates your product plan and sales strategy. Websites are a big job and take time.

Web 99

Web Startup Sites Design 99

socalTECH

MARCH 22, 2012

The company also made quite an impression with its viral video --which you have to watch to appreciate--of CEO Michael Dubin extolling the virtues of the company's products, and panning overpriced, expensive razor brands. We talked with Dubin earlier about the company. What's the opportunity here?

Dollar Shave Club 210

Dollar Shave Club Startup Pricing Sample 210

Startup Professionals Musings

AUGUST 9, 2018

Even more disappointing are other statistics that show most websites that do exist have a very low “conversion rate,” or ratio of visitors to the site versus ones who meet your goal of buying a product or signing up for a newsletter. Test your pricing and packaging options, and tune them regularly. No company exists in a vacuum.

SEO 53

SEO Tips Newsletter Statistics 53

InfoChachkie

JANUARY 16, 2018

Without taking a dime of outside capital, the company has achieved impressive success in a competitive, SaaS market segment, landing companies such as Nike, Intuit, NASA, AutoDesk and PBS. What makes their story more remarkable, in the age of 20-something billionaires, is that both of the company’s founders are in their 50’s.

Venture Capital 115

Venture Capital Entrepreneur Santa Barbara SaaS 115

Tech Zulu Event

MARCH 7, 2013

Jackson, CapLinked CEO, “CapLinked’s rapid innovation gives companies and funds a much-needed option to using a virtual data room.”. Business intelligence analyst IBIS World estimates that VDR industry sales will grow by 16% this year to nearly $730 million. The innovation is in line with the industry trends. Challenge the status quo.

Mobile 91

Mobile Report Pricing Tool 91

Startup Professionals Musings

FEBRUARY 13, 2016

As a startup advisor and investor, I recommend a pitch deck with about 10 slides backed up with a written business plan of approximately 20 pages, both containing quantified answers to the following key questions. What are your specific marketing and sales plans? What is the business problem you are solving?

Invest 108

Invest Startup Slides Equity 108

Both Sides of the Table

NOVEMBER 19, 2009

I had a picture in the office of my first company with the logo above and the capital letters JFDI. (In I spent nearly a decade building software for large companies and then advising companies on the same. Your head of sales thinks she should fire somebody. He went out and found a developer and built a product.

Entrepreneur 414

Entrepreneur Technical Review Slides CTO Coach 414

InfoChachkie

AUGUST 18, 2011

3) How has your role as the senior Tech Leader at the Rubicon Project and eHarmony influenced SteelHouse’s product roadmap and go-to-market strategy? I didn’t have that appreciation when I was with companies in Silicon Valley. 1) Most of the company’s employees work at a huge table in a large, former warehouse space.

eHarmony 204

eHarmony Media Oracle Commerce 204

Tech Zulu Event

JANUARY 27, 2015

Retail lives by the point-of-sales (POS) systems. Bindo is a point-of-sales and integrated local marketplace for local retail stores. Companies such as Bindo are developing POS systems for tablets (mainly for the iPad) and other mobile devices and the use of tablets are becoming more commonplace in the small business world.

Sales 40

Sales Pricing Training Tool 40

InfoChachkie

JUNE 23, 2011

Messenger : Jason Lehmbeck , Co-Founder and CEO of DataPop , former VP of Emerging Ad Products at Overture Services and Yahoo! We started the company (because) …if you asked the average consumer what they think of the ads they see, if they see them at all, they are largely irrelevant and in many cases annoying. You guys never broke up.

Yahoo 210

Yahoo Startup Advertising Summary 210

Tech Zulu Event

MAY 9, 2013

Jackson said, “We’re using the proceeds from our financing round to invest in our technology, build new features, and increase sales and support.”. Jackson added that the firm was proud of its product, and even uses its own software to manage their capital raised from investors. Speaking of the new investment, CapLinked CEO Eric M.

Draper 68

Draper Google Software Engineering Invest 68

Eric Greenspan

MAY 29, 2010

Using social media to increase your company’s touch and reach with each of your customers may be the most important reason to jump in to this game changing strategy. Social media can help bridge a long standing gap between customers and the companies they trust with their hard earned cash. Eric Greenspan. Sincerely, Brian P.

Social Media 214

Social Media Customer Custom Media 214

Both Sides of the Table

NOVEMBER 29, 2010

.&# I took it to mean, “making decisions with small amounts of money (pennies) that end up making bad sense for affecting larger amounts of money (pounds, as in Great British Pounds).&# I thought of it as people who cut corners on small costs but paid dearly in terms of lost productivity on expensive staff. I Love Scrappy.

Startup 333

Startup Class Conference Product 333

Startup Professionals Musings

AUGUST 13, 2012

In fact, a business plan is needed more by you than investors, as the blueprint for your company, team communication, and progress metrics. Every plan must start with the problem you are solving, not a description of your company and product. Usually the reason the big companies are no threat is because the market is too small.

Competition 113

Competition Metrics Startup Invest 113

Both Sides of the Table

SEPTEMBER 8, 2009

I say this as somebody who recruited several Harvard, Wharton and similar MBAs at my first company (the one where I acknowledge that I made every mistake in the book). And I feel that this skill is invaluable in both building a start-up company and in being a VC. I paid up for the diploma but can’t say that I saw better results.

Startup 337

Startup Venture Capital Study Course 337

Startup Professionals Musings

MAY 29, 2012

Try something like, “the product costs $X, and we sell it for $Y.” This model only works once you have exceeded about one million page-views per month, and spent maybe $50 million to get there. It’s the electronic version of a catalog and shopping cart, and today rarely involves any stock of product. eCommerce model.

Startup 95

Startup Customer Custom Summary 95

Xconomy

JULY 1, 2016

At the gathering, Biden took verbal shots at scofflaw cancer researchers and at drug prices, while the FDA said it would take a shot at restructuring the way it evaluates oncology products. Gilead Sciences has been a target of drug-price criticism for its hepatitis C treatments, but it dialed back the price of its new one.

Buzzfeed 59

Buzzfeed News Pricing IBM 59

Jason Nazar

MAY 2, 2016

Pick a company name and check any potential trademark infringements on Trademarkia or KnowEm. If you are inventing or creating a product, understand patents and register for one at the USPTO. Check Google , Yellow Pages , and local directories to ensure your business name is not taken. Open your company bank account.

Outsource Development 40

Outsource Development Startup Google Mentor 40

Startup Professionals Musings

MAY 13, 2011

In fact, a business plan is needed more by you than investors, as the blueprint for your company, team communication, and progress metrics. Every plan must start with the problem you are solving, not a description of your company and product. Usually the reason the big companies are no threat is because the market is too small.

Competition 116

Competition Metrics Startup Sales 116

Startup Professionals Musings

FEBRUARY 28, 2011

Try something like, “the product costs $X, and we sell it for $Y.” This model only works once you have exceeded about one million page-views per month, and spent maybe $50 million to get there. It’s the electronic version of a catalog and shopping cart, and today rarely involves any stock of product. eCommerce model.

Ideas 92

Ideas Startup Customer Custom 92

Startup Professionals Musings

JULY 3, 2013

I hear many ideas that sound more like dreams, rather than products. Rather than starting with a full business plan, I recommend that you start with an executive summary of a couple of pages, or an executive level presentation of maybe ten charts. Make sure the idea is technically viable. Prepare 5-year financial projections.

Ideas 106

Ideas Startup Summary CalTech 106

Startup Professionals Musings

JANUARY 17, 2015

Use this opportunity to validate their satisfaction and support for your company and your solution. Here investors are looking for feature problems or quality issues on the current product. A hard look will be taken at the technology maturity, the current development progress, and customer satisfaction with early product shipments.

Technical Review 108

Technical Review Startup Satisfaction Entrepreneur 108

Startup Professionals Musings

JUNE 2, 2012

I hear many ideas that sound more like dreams, rather than products. Rather than starting with a full business plan, I recommend that you start with an executive summary of a couple of pages, or an executive level presentation of maybe ten charts. Make sure the idea is technically viable. Prepare 5-year financial projections.

Ideas 97

Ideas Summary Startup CalTech 97

SoCal CTO

NOVEMBER 11, 2009

landing pages, etc. Right now we're working on a multi-platform sales support program for Daylight Transport, a mid-sized LTL (Less Than Truckload) carrier and logistics company. I'd be curious what you are doing with social media for a logistics company. Clients use our templates for things like sales sheets.

Marketing 150

Marketing Social Media Blogging Media 150

Startup Professionals Musings

MARCH 7, 2011

I hear many ideas that sound more like dreams, rather than products. Rather than starting with a full business plan, I recommend that you start with an executive summary of a couple of pages, or an executive level presentation of maybe ten charts. Make sure the idea is technically viable. Prepare 5-year financial projections.

Ideas 104

Ideas Entrepreneur Summary Startup 104

Tech Zulu Event

APRIL 18, 2016

Many retailers report $100,000 is the minimum price of entry. The price of a retail app varies depending on the developer and features; nevertheless, it’s a big number. The report notes that in general, the companies that prioritize mobile had modest budgets. This is certainly on the high end of the spectrum.

Mobile 40

Mobile Sites Customer Custom 40

Both Sides of the Table

APRIL 28, 2010

Other players such as Obopay have set out to focus on mobile person-to-person cash transfers, mFoundry (a GRP portfolio company) has focused on mobile banking and a mobile wallet and one of my favorite companies m-via is focusing on mobile remittances (right now between the US and Mexico). Wildfire Interactive.

Venture Capital 270

Venture Capital Capital Rustic Canyon Mobile 270

Tech Zulu Event

JANUARY 19, 2012

“The object is to exploit the convergence of people, information, products, services and places with today’s smartphones and tablets, which drive online orders in addition to purchases from brick-and-mortar stores.”. The benefits “digital interactions” have and continue to offer coupon companies are vast. Getting Mobile-Ready.

Mobile 85

Mobile Software Review Statistics Technical Review 85