Both Sides of the Table

SEPTEMBER 10, 2021

We have global opportunities from these trends but of course also big challenges. Of course we can’t. There are of course many Seed VCs who take board seats, don’t over-commit to too many deals and try to help with “company building” activities to help at a company’s vulnerable foundations. Hot, Flat & Crowded.”

Venture Capital 471

Venture Capital Writing Invest Pricing 471

Startup Professionals Musings

APRIL 7, 2021

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.

Social Media 143

Social Media Startup Framework Course 143

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

Startup Professionals Musings

NOVEMBER 28, 2020

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. Incorporating a business entity early through online services. Over 600,000 new businesses were created in the last year, or over one per minute of every day.

Tips 161

Tips Startup Social Media News 161

Startup Professionals Musings

APRIL 3, 2019

They randomly churn for hours a day on a couple of their favorite social media platforms, with little thought given to goals, objectives, or metrics; and ultimately give up and fall back to traditional marketing approaches. Obviously, the platforms and how you use social media would be different for lead generation versus service and support.

Social Media 96

Social Media Media Marketing Metrics 96

Both Sides of the Table

JULY 21, 2014

Of course back then it literally was sold in a package and stored on a shelf! Have an in-house professional services team that implements your software. I wrote about The Importance of Professional Services here. Create company measures for success that go beyond financial metrics. What to do to Avoid Shelfware?

Marketing 354

Marketing Case Study Metrics Sales 354

Startup Professionals Musings

AUGUST 27, 2023

Of course, margin and profitability are important, but must be committed to adding more value to the lives of your clients, and making the world a better place. Measure progress through metrics on sales, revenue, and penetration. Define and focus on a mission to add value. Seek to dominate your market over competitors.

Customer 91

Customer Custom Marketing Startup 91

Both Sides of the Table

JUNE 12, 2010

Content, of course, is the same!]. How could it be when they always have “schlocky” ads or PSAs (public service announcements). Online text book rental service. Offers a private label service that allows campus book retailers to offer an online rental model; serves 1.3mm to-date. Online radio music service.

Venture Capital 217

Venture Capital Capital Metrics Competition 217

Both Sides of the Table

MAY 27, 2016

As a starting point I have to believe the founder has the attributes of an entrepreneur that matter most to me : Tenacity, resiliency, inspiration, perspiration, attention-to-detail, competitiveness, decisiveness, risk tolerance and integrity. Of course I also have to the concept. It’s not enough to love the founding team.

Invest 254

Invest Writing Pricing Metrics 254

Both Sides of the Table

NOVEMBER 2, 2010

Some objections are real and they end up becoming changes to your product, your service plan or your pricing / bundling. 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.

Sales 289

Sales Startup Training Pricing 289

Startup Professionals Musings

FEBRUARY 5, 2020

Each of these can go astray as follows: Your product or service hits unexpected snags. Of course, there are no guarantees, but I still see otherwise smart entrepreneurs taking shortcuts in their hiring, or jumping into business relationships based on emotion or low cost. Your customers and competition make unexpected moves.

Startup 131

Startup Entrepreneur Examples Customer 131

Startup Professionals Musings

APRIL 1, 2017

They randomly churn for hours a day on a couple of their favorite social media platforms, with little thought given to goals, objectives, or metrics; and ultimately give up and fall back to traditional marketing approaches. Obviously, the platforms and how you use social media would be different for lead generation versus service and support.

Social Media 62

Social Media Media Metrics SEO 62

Startup Professionals Musings

AUGUST 18, 2013

They randomly churn for hours a day on a couple of their favorite social media platforms, with little thought given to goals, objectives, or metrics; and ultimately give up and fall back to traditional marketing approaches. Obviously, the platforms and how you use social media would be different for lead generation versus service and support.

Social Media 102

Social Media Media Product Metrics 102

Startup Professionals Musings

JULY 27, 2012

They randomly churn for hours a day on a couple of their favorite social media platforms, with little though given to goals, objectives, or metrics; and ultimately give up and fall back to traditional marketing approaches. Obviously, the platforms and how you use social media would be different for lead generation versus service and support.

Social Media 91

Social Media Media Metrics SEO 91

Both Sides of the Table

JANUARY 13, 2021

So far I have written about the psychology of food and separately about the food services I use and today I am going to talk about how I gamified my sports routines to increase consistent performance every month. Then I found my next set of metrics to take me to the next level. On May 31st the competition ended.

Startup 302

Startup Screening Competition Training 302

Both Sides of the Table

MARCH 25, 2016

So when Sam Rosen came to me with the idea of disrupting storage with a product that is priced cheaper than existing incumbents and he could build a product that is a better service I was intrigued. The metrics were good but we wondered how much better they would be when we expanded our product.

Startup 150

Startup Marketing Study SEO 150

Startup Professionals Musings

AUGUST 7, 2015

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. Investors will impatiently expect a winning business model, customer segment definitions and volume projections.

Product 103

Product Slides Customer Custom 103

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. Incorporating a business entity early through online services. Over 500,000 new businesses were created last year, or about one per minute of every day.

Startup 61

Startup Social Media News Tool 61

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

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. It’s usually a spreadsheet or PowerPoint (deck) of the upcoming changes to a product or service. Of course there are risks.

Venture Capital 115

Venture Capital Entrepreneur Santa Barbara SaaS 115

Both Sides of the Table

MAY 23, 2012

Yes, it’s true that FOMO (fear of missing out) is driving some irrational behavior and valuations amongst uber competitive deals and well-financed VCs. And of course the funding problem coincided with the stock market correction that took away most exit options for years to come. The Exit Problem. Today’s Normalization.

Venture Capital 347

Venture Capital Capital Technical Review Startup 347

Both Sides of the Table

MARCH 6, 2011

That, plus I love the space of high-customer-service, focused eCommerce for moms worried about what their kids eat & wear.&#. He has set up an office, a process & people around him that are helpful to entrepreneurs in need of hands-on skills in a mass service way. I know this guy is a money maker.

Startup 292

Startup Venture Capital Blogging Summary 292

Both Sides of the Table

JANUARY 31, 2010

TechCrunch Europe ran an article in November of last year that European startups need to work as hard as those in Silicon Valley and I echoed the sentiment in my post about the need for entrepreneurs to be maniacal about their businesses if one wants to work in the hyper competitive tech world. Our first big institutional round was $16.5

Entrepreneur 308

Entrepreneur Startup Venture Capital Conference 308

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

SoCal CTO

AUGUST 3, 2010

No, that IS NOT a competitive advantage - A Smart Bear: Startups and Marketing for Geeks , July 12, 2010 This is part 1 of the series: 5 Lessons from 150 startup pitches. Listening to first-time entrepreneurs talk about their competitive advantages is as predictably invalid as the local weatherman's 10-day forecast. Make it unique.

Startup 217

Startup Venture Capital Blogging Software Review 217