Startup Professionals Musings

FEBRUARY 12, 2022

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. How good are you and everyone on your team at proactively scanning the environment for opportunities, emerging trends, and customer feedback?

Startup 116

Startup Training Statistics Summary 116

Startup Professionals Musings

NOVEMBER 7, 2022

Even with advantages that independent startups can never hope to match, including brand recognition, customers, financial capital, and distribution, I don’t often see the entrepreneurial passion for innovation, agility, and team perseverance exhibited by new startups. Get prepared for the accelerate and scaling phase.

Incubator 143

Incubator Seed Funding Metrics Customer 143

Startup Professionals Musings

JANUARY 25, 2016

If you can’t provide a memorable customer experience, your startup won’t survive very long these days. You now need more than loyalty from your customers -- they need to be your best advocates. The days of pushing new and marginal performers into customer service are gone. Every job on your team drives your customer experience.

Customer 55

Customer Custom Startup Coach 55

Startup Professionals Musings

JUNE 21, 2013

Most leaders agree that poor customer service is a business killer today, in terms of lost customers, reduced profits, and low morale. Yet the average perception of customer experience continues to decline. You have to start with hiring only people who are willing and able to make serious customer service happen.

Customer 92

Customer Custom Startup Services 92

Startup Professionals Musings

JANUARY 25, 2020

By default, innovation in every business decreases over time, and continuous innovation requires ongoing initiatives and measures of customer perceived value. Stroh, which details the principles and metrics to follow for fostering innovation in any organization. Recognize that customers care about the whole experience.

Startup 138

Startup Organization Customer Demand 138

Startup Professionals Musings

AUGUST 10, 2022

Balance of passion with reality and customer feedback. A strong vision and deep insight may get your business off the ground, but long-term success requires constant data analysis, metrics, and attention to your customer feedback. The competition will improve, the market will change, and your customers will demand more.

Mentor 133

Mentor Startup Custom Customer 133

Both Sides of the Table

JULY 21, 2014

It’s when the noise stops and you can actually get customer attention, press articles and VC meetings. People attending marquee conferences with rock bands, prominent speakers, Gartner Group prognosticators and lots of other happy customers. Create company measures for success that go beyond financial metrics.

Marketing 354

Marketing Case Study Metrics Sales 354

Startup Professionals Musings

MARCH 3, 2021

To keep you on a positive track with potential investors, I recommend the following logic principles, to balance your passion in presenting your vision of a new business: Make sure your plan includes some business metrics. For example, if you have ever watched the Shark Tank show on TV, they always ask about the cost of customer acquisition.

Entrepreneur 162

Entrepreneur Social Media Examples Metrics 162

Startup Professionals Musings

MAY 29, 2019

A platform is a business model and capability that can be accessed and customized by external users. Create and practice an obsession over customers. Make sure everyone knows it’s their job to maintain empathy and exceed customer expectations. Institute deep metrics measuring all aspects of the customer experience.

Commerce 89

Commerce Artificial Inteligence Cloud Computing Platform 89

Startup Professionals Musings

SEPTEMBER 30, 2018

For example, most e-commerce platforms today offer millions of products, with a changing mix daily and a changing market, such that it’s virtually impossible to manually predict a strategy for mapping customer demographics to products displayed online. No human or paper tracking systems are a competitive alternative.

Artificial Inteligence 84

Artificial Inteligence Metrics Commerce Software 84

Startup Professionals Musings

AUGUST 7, 2020

In the short term you need customers to find you at any price, and in the longer term you need revenue, profit, and return loyalty. Although his focus is naturally on bigger companies, I contend that his recommended strategies apply equally well to entrepreneurs and startups: Demand a mindset of deep thinking for the long term.

Technical Review 124

Technical Review Layoffs Social Media Organization 124

Startup Professionals Musings

MAY 12, 2019

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. How good are you and everyone on your team at proactively scanning the environment for opportunities, emerging trends, and customer feedback?

Startup 94

Startup Training Statistics Summary 94

Startup Professionals Musings

OCTOBER 8, 2018

As a long-time advisor to entrepreneurs and business owners, I rarely find someone who doesn’t proclaim that the business world is changing rapidly, with new technology, new customer expectations, and new cultures. Others still routinely have phone hold queues for customer contact that can last up to an hour, with no alternative options.

Technical Review 84

Technical Review Customer Custom Startup 84

Both Sides of the Table

NOVEMBER 14, 2017

There is nothing more pure than building a product, putting it out in the world and seeing paying customers using your product and in some cases loving it. As companies get this initial customer feedback on their product they start to have to ask harder questions about unit economics: How much does it cost us to acquire a new customer?

Startup 286

Startup Technical Review Custom Customer 286

Both Sides of the Table

FEBRUARY 20, 2019

seed and they are writing $1.25m of it you can expect them to require a board seat) The competitive landscape (If you have several sources of capital you can likely politely decline the board request or can grant them a seat but ask for it to be “common appointed” and those revokable if you need in the future). But it’s quite rare.

Startup 236

Startup Venture Capital Tips Capital 236

Startup Professionals Musings

MAY 7, 2017

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. How good are you and everyone on your team at proactively scanning the environment for opportunities, emerging trends, and customer feedback?

Startup 56

Startup Training Statistics Summary 56

Startup Professionals Musings

JANUARY 11, 2014

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. How good are you and everyone on your team at proactively scanning the environment for opportunities, emerging trends, and customer feedback?

Entrepreneur 110

Entrepreneur Startup Training Statistics 110

socalTECH

JANUARY 14, 2011

Its primary goal is to focus on identifying what is truly driving demand, analytically, so that our customers can optimize their activities. The client demand we are seeing as we have married our analytics with Jovian's engineering is staggering. Do your customers understand the need for your product, and has that been an issue?

Social Media 235

Social Media Demand Activity Marketing 235

Startup Professionals Musings

JANUARY 22, 2016

By default, innovation in every business decreases over time, and continuous innovation requires ongoing initiatives and measures of customer perceived value. Stroh, which details the principles and metrics to follow for fostering innovation in any organization. Recognize that customers care about the whole experience.

Startup 58

Startup Organization Demand Custom 58

Startup Professionals Musings

FEBRUARY 24, 2017

From his own successes and failures in this domain, he explains how the rules and customer expectations have changed in today’s world, and he offers some practical guidance on how to survive in this new world. Announcing that you are a consultant, and hoping demand will set your focus, is not a good strategy.

Social Media 56

Social Media Pricing Technical Review Statistics 56

Both Sides of the Table

DECEMBER 27, 2011

If you had huge customer growth but just didn’t focus on revenue that’s a different story. So while the simplest way that people often evaluate stocks is by P/E ratios (price-to-earnings), one also needs to look at other metrics such as the PEG (price-to-earnings-growth). [of ” Harsh, but reality.

Startup 418

Startup Venture Capital Sales Technical Review 418

Startup Professionals Musings

NOVEMBER 29, 2012

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. How good are you and everyone on your team at proactively scanning the environment for opportunities, emerging trends, and customer feedback?

Startup 93

Startup Training Statistics Summary 93

Startup Professionals Musings

SEPTEMBER 14, 2011

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. How good are you and everyone on your team at proactively scanning the environment for opportunities, emerging trends, and customer feedback?

Startup 94

Startup Marketing Training Statistics 94

Both Sides of the Table

MARCH 25, 2016

After a year in the market, MakeSpace was growing rapidly and our biggest issue was CAC (customer acquisition costs) relative to payback period (when we get our marketing investment back) and relative to LTV (lifetime value). The metrics were good but we wondered how much better they would be when we expanded our product. Efficiency?

Startup 150

Startup Marketing Study SEO 150

Startup Professionals Musings

AUGUST 6, 2010

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. How good are you and everyone on your team at proactively scanning the environment for opportunities, emerging trends, and customer feedback?

Startup 78

Startup Training Statistics Summary 78

Startup Professionals Musings

JANUARY 6, 2021

Every new business I know dreams of building momentum in their business, where growth continues to increase, customers become your best advocates, and employee motivation is high. Unfortunately, with limited resources, this isn’t possible, and it frustrates customers and the team. Focus first on finding more of the right customers.

Technical Review 160

Technical Review Technical Advisors Startup Custom 160

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.&#. Starting with exclusive rights to sell celebrity chef, Tyler Florence’s, line of baby food online, SproutBaby began seeing initial traction from customer interest as physical distribution spread.

Startup 292

Startup Venture Capital Blogging Summary 292

Startup Professionals Musings

JANUARY 22, 2023

Competition is not always a bad thing, and the real purpose is often to make the world a better place. With a singular focus on building unicorns, very rapid growth has been a key metric. It’s also a good defensive move, to preempt competition, which is bound to come world-wide. Develop new venture models for tougher ecosystems.

Capital 138

Capital Marketing Ideas Venture Capital 138

Startup Professionals Musings

MAY 1, 2020

Competition is not always a bad thing, and the real purpose is often to make the world a better place. With a singular focus on building unicorns, very rapid growth has been a key metric. It’s also a good defensive move, to preempt competition, which is bound to come world-wide. Develop new venture models for tougher ecosystems.

Ideas 124

Ideas Venture Capital Software Review Technical Review 124

Startup Professionals Musings

JANUARY 13, 2021

There is no substitute for talking to customers, analyzing your competition, and honing your solution to meet a target market segment. The ready-fire-aim approach makes sense here, but it should be combined with metrics to learn from feedback, and make pivots as required. You already have a large and loyal customer base.

Marketing 138

Marketing Demand IBM IBM 138