Startup Professionals Musings

SEPTEMBER 22, 2022

For example, many investors I know tell me they look for business plans that allocate the largest portion of a requested investment to marketing, but most often see the top “ use of funds ” to be further product or service development. Of course, you can’t possibly brand yourself if you don’t know who you really are.

Marketing 133

Marketing Customer Custom Outsource Development 133

Both Sides of the Table

JULY 21, 2014

An impressive number of new VCs have been created – most of them with new seed funds. Of course back then it literally was sold in a package and stored on a shelf! Create company measures for success that go beyond financial metrics. And importantly we’ve had revenue. Most importantly – YOU need to care.

Marketing 354

Marketing Case Study Metrics Sales 354

TechCrunch LA

FEBRUARY 20, 2019

Capitalism is fundamentally about timing, since market competition is about finding opportunities before others. It’s obvious that we can be too late to these decisions of course. If — and it’s a big if of course — they can do that on the cheap, then why should an LP care at all? When should you start a company?

Venture Capital 202

Venture Capital Startup Technical Review Invest 202

Startup Professionals Musings

FEBRUARY 5, 2020

Yet, in the interest of full disclosure, and an honest intent to save future entrepreneurs some grief and money, I would remind you that starting any business has key dependencies on at least five major elements, including product design and delivery, the right people on the team, adequate funding, a sizable market opportunity, and marketing.

Startup 131

Startup Entrepreneur Examples Customer 131

Both Sides of the Table

NOVEMBER 2, 2010

As a founder, when you’ve been dealing with these kinds of objections for a couple of years it becomes natural and you easily handle objections on price, product & competition without much thought. You’re more expensive than competitors – “Of course we are. It is tacit knowledge.

Sales 289

Sales Startup Training Pricing 289

Both Sides of the Table

FEBRUARY 20, 2019

Of course it happens all the time?—?especially Why you should set up a board at the seed round of funding I know these days with SAFE documents and rolling convertible notes many founders prefer not to set up a board early on. This is the norm and unless you have a hugely competitive round it’s not worth fighting.

Startup 236

Startup Venture Capital Tips Capital 236

Both Sides of the Table

JANUARY 16, 2014

Competition is fierce. His fund is > $500 million and I guaranfuckingtee he ain’t calling me if that company is crushing it. Of course I ask more politely that than. You have a big fund. I offered to fund the seed round of a guy I’ve known for years. ” That’s precisely it. Fair enough.

Venture Capital 333

Venture Capital Startup Technical Review Email 333

Startup Professionals Musings

NOVEMBER 9, 2019

For example, if you are working on a great social networking idea to replace Facebook, and need funding, you probably won’t find any interested and focused VCs or Angel investors in Arizona, where I live. Of course, there are always exceptions, but how much added risk do you need for your startup? Exposure is another key ingredient.

Startup 97

Startup Technical Review Oracle Software Review 97

SoCal CTO

JANUARY 26, 2010

Most often at the earliest point in the life of a startup, the dominant need is certainly to produce product to get something in the market, get funding, etc. Of course, I have an advantage because I organize the LA CTO Forum. How do we need to structure the systems to get ahead and stay ahead of the competition? Probably not.

Fractional CTO 225

Fractional CTO CTO CTO Hire CTO Coach 225

Both Sides of the Table

JUNE 5, 2011

I have conversations with entrepreneurs and other VCs on a daily basis about fund raising, the prices of deals, how much companies should raise, etc. For example: If you were to invest $41 million into a company (and one could assume that you owned between 33-50%) then the company is worth $82-123 million at funding.

Startup 336

Startup Pricing Technical Review Marketing 336

Startup Professionals Musings

APRIL 9, 2012

They all offer a list of requirements that might take 50 pages to address, but of course they ask you to write concisely. Your competitive advantage. Identify your sustainable competitive advantage, like unique benefits, cost savings, or industry ties. Don’t kill your credibility by saying you have no competition.

Summary 97

Summary Writing Competition Sample 97

Startup Professionals Musings

AUGUST 7, 2015

These don’t get funded, nor bought by customers. How the solution and business model work to fund the business. Competitor positioning and sustainable competitive advantage. Of course, these should never be in a customer pitch, but investors expect an overall strategy with specific budgets, milestones and metrics.

Product 103

Product Slides Customer Custom 103

Startup Professionals Musings

MAY 16, 2015

For example, if you are working on a great social networking idea to replace Facebook, and need funding, you probably won’t find any interested and focused VCs or Angel investors in Phoenix, Arizona, where I live. Of course, there are always exceptions, but how much added risk do you need for your startup?

Startup 109

Startup Technical Review Oracle Software Review 109

Both Sides of the Table

DECEMBER 27, 2011

To grow faster businesses need resources in today’s financial period to fund growth that may not come for 6 months to a year. You have to understand whether they’re likely to yield revenue growth in the near term OR whether you have access to cheap enough capital to fund your losses until your investments pay off.

Startup 418

Startup Venture Capital Sales Technical Review 418

Startup Professionals Musings

FEBRUARY 3, 2011

They all offer a list of requirements that might take 50 pages to address, but of course they ask you to write concisely. Your competitive advantage. Identify your sustainable competitive advantage, like unique benefits, cost savings, or industry ties. Don’t kill your credibility by saying you have no competition.

Summary 90

Summary Writing Competition Sample 90

Startup Professionals Musings

AUGUST 21, 2013

The basic alignment framework of strategy, customers, people, and processes hasn’t changed, but the pace of technological, competitive, and social change has increased at an amazing rate. Make sure the inspiration that launched your vision isn’t lost in the course of a pivot or market change. Revisit your startup vision and values.

Startup 94

Startup Social Media Entrepreneur Framework 94

Startup Professionals Musings

MAY 4, 2016

Of course, that’s both the good news and the bad news for aspiring entrepreneurs, since it means more competition, and the business landscape is changing faster than ever. You don’t have to be a heavily funded later stage startup to get access to “big data,” customer analytics, and metrics dashboards. Marty Zwilling.

Startup 61

Startup Social Media News Tool 61

Startup Professionals Musings

DECEMBER 2, 2017

For example, if you are working on a great social networking idea to replace Facebook, and need funding, you probably won’t find any interested and focused VCs or Angel investors in Arizona, where I live. Of course, there are always exceptions, but how much added risk do you need for your startup? Exposure is another key ingredient.

Sites 59

Sites Startup Technical Review Oracle 59

Startup Professionals Musings

JULY 24, 2012

The basic alignment framework of strategy, customers, people, and processes hasn’t changed, but the pace of technological, competitive, and social change has increased at an amazing rate. Make sure the inspiration that launched your vision isn’t lost in the course of a pivot or market change. Revisit your startup vision and values.

Entrepreneur 93

Entrepreneur Social Media Startup Framework 93

Both Sides of the Table

JULY 19, 2015

Of course that’s true. Every $10 million financing only puts more pressure on the founders to figure out how to hit the metrics to get to the next milestone and every company that raises $25 million puts a ton of pressure on their 10 competitors who haven’t. Mark Suster (@msuster) July 19, 2015. Every founder knows this.

Press 150

Press Venture Capital Startup Entrepreneur 150

Startup Professionals Musings

DECEMBER 7, 2013

For example, if you are working on a great social networking idea to replace Facebook, and need funding, you probably won’t find any interested and focused VCs or Angel investors in Phoenix, Arizona, where I live. Of course, there are always exceptions, but how much added risk do you need for your startup?

Startup 102

Startup Technical Review Oracle Entrepreneur 102

socalTECH

FEBRUARY 18, 2014

MuckerLab is one of a number of accelerators who have managed to scoop up venture funding for its companies, with such portfolio companies Surf Air, Retention Science, Wallaby, Chromatik, and others. That is, once you invest in a company, you''re a shareholder, and you help that company for the course of its life.

Incubator 187

Incubator Southern California Startup Ideas 187

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. Semick: In the beginning, many of our conversations were about whether we wanted funding from angel investors and eventually VCs. I’ve been there.

Venture Capital 115

Venture Capital Entrepreneur Santa Barbara SaaS 115

Both Sides of the Table

MARCH 25, 2016

If you look at the structure of the travel industry above – of course we know that the hotel industry is fragmented while the airline industry is reasonable consolidated. The metrics were good but we wondered how much better they would be when we expanded our product. Competition.

Startup 150

Startup Marketing Study SEO 150

Startup Professionals Musings

FEBRUARY 11, 2010

They all offer a list of requirements that might take 50 pages to address, but of course they ask you to write concisely. Your competitive advantage. Identify your sustainable competitive advantage, like unique benefits, cost savings, or industry ties. Don’t kill your credibility by saying you have no competition.

Summary 55

Summary Writing Competition Metrics 55

socalTECH

SEPTEMBER 27, 2013

There''s tons of activity, and lots of companies getting funded. There have been a lot of new angel investors coming out of the woodwork, and lots of companies getting pretty good funding and valuation. We invest globally, with 20 percent of our funds outside the U.S., I think the incubators have a lot to do with it.

Southern California 124

Southern California SoCal Commerce Invest 124

Tech Zulu Event

MARCH 25, 2014

To cap off our 6th year at SXSW and follow up on last year’s amazingly successful Trend Lounge , we knew this year had to be bigger, better, more engaging, and of course, even more fun. Alex Taub – Social Rank , Twitter metrics and engagement tool. Setting the Stage : The Indiegogo/TechZulu Tech Cafe. Big ups to the Twitch.TV

Entertainment 99

Entertainment Google Entrepreneur Course 99

Both Sides of the Table

MARCH 3, 2013

Today’s higher education is responding by making more courses online and available to people outside of physical boundaries. ” But I pointed out a professor at HBS ( Tom Eisenmann ) who teaches a course where blogs are a part of the classroom reading material. We spoke about the disruption of VC through crowd funding.

Venture Capital 403

Venture Capital Education Offshore Outsource Development 403

Startup Professionals Musings

MAY 20, 2023

But not many of us have enough savings to live for a year or more without a salary, fund the startup, and still feed the family. It’s easy for part-timers to make excuses that other priorities caused you to miss milestones, but predictable results and metrics in this mode are even more critical than for full-time members.

Startup 110

Startup Ideas Entrepreneur Metrics 110

Both Sides of the Table

MAY 23, 2012

There are obvious reasons the industry has had less-than-desirable returns, including: massive over-funding of the sector, huge increases in inexperienced venture capitalists that took a decade to peter out, and the massive correction in the value of the public stock markets that closed many exit opportunities for half a decade.

Venture Capital 347

Venture Capital Capital Technical Review Startup 347

Startup Professionals Musings

AUGUST 24, 2020

But not many of us have enough savings to live for a year or more without a salary, fund the startup, and still feed the family. It’s easy for part-timers to make excuses that other priorities caused you to miss milestones, but predictable results and metrics in this mode are even more critical than for full-time members.

Startup 150

Startup Entrepreneur Ideas Metrics 150

Both Sides of the Table

JUNE 12, 2010

Content, of course, is the same!]. Company grew by more than “400% each year” for past few years [assume growth metric = revenues]. Metrics: 2.5mm members, 1,000 brands, 2,500 sale events to-date. New funding will be applied toward user acquisition and to expand into new product categories (gourmet food, wine and new services).

Venture Capital 217

Venture Capital Capital Metrics Competition 217

Startup Professionals Musings

OCTOBER 12, 2018

But not many of us have enough savings to live for a year or more without a salary, fund the startup, and still feed the family. It’s easy for part-timers to make excuses that other priorities caused you to miss milestones, but predictable results and metrics in this mode are even more critical than for full-time members.

Ideas 102

Ideas Entrepreneur Tips Startup 102

Both Sides of the Table

MARCH 6, 2011

Jody didn’t exactly have an easy time fund raising because he’s not one of the prototypical Silicon Valley funded entrepreneurs. Oh, and of course I shoot all of my videos at the ThisWeekIn studios which are located in the Mahalo offices. EcoMom Makes a Breakthrough in its Search for Funding.

Startup 292

Startup Venture Capital Blogging Summary 292

Startup Professionals Musings

OCTOBER 2, 2016

But not many of us have enough savings to live for a year or more without a salary, fund the startup, and still feed the family. It’s easy for part-timers to make excuses that other priorities caused you to miss milestones, but predictable results and metrics in this mode are even more critical than for full-time members.

Startup 100

Startup Entrepreneur Ideas Metrics 100

Startup Professionals Musings

OCTOBER 18, 2014

But not many of us have enough savings to live for a year or more without a salary, fund the startup, and still feed the family. It’s easy for part-timers to make excuses that other priorities caused you to miss milestones, but predictable results and metrics in this mode are even more critical than for full-time members.

Startup 109

Startup Ideas Entrepreneur Metrics 109

SoCal CTO

AUGUST 3, 2010

Welcome to the Lost Decade (for Entrepreneurs, IPO’s and VC’s) - Steve Blank , July 15, 2010 If you take funding from a venture capital firm or angel investor and want to build a large, enduring company (rather than sell it to the highest bidder), this isn’t the decade to do it. Metrics availability. Make it unique. Not so bad.

Startup 217

Startup Venture Capital Blogging Software Review 217