Startup Professionals Musings

JANUARY 11, 2020

They forget that adapting their company and themselves as their customers evolve is the key to long-term survival. Think of Blockbuster and Toys ‘R’ Us , both of whom missed customer changes and the move to online. Create an overt strategy to react to emerging customer trends. Remember when you were a startup?

Customer 143

Customer Custom Examples IBM 143

socalTECH

FEBRUARY 4, 2013

DogVacay , the online peer-to-peer marketplace which helps pet owners find dog sitters, has been one of the favorites of local Los Angeles investors, having picked up funding from such firms as Science Inc., Rover.com, which is based in Seattle, said it raised $7M in a funding round from Foundry Group, and added Brad Feld to its board.

Competition 159

Competition Funding Los Angeles Capital 159

TechCrunch LA

SEPTEMBER 18, 2019

AOL co-founder and former chief executive officer Steve Case’s venture capital fund, Revolution , deploys capital to companies “outside of the hotbeds.” Today, Washington, DC-based Revolution is announcing its latest fund. Revolution began nearly 15 years ago as Steve Case’s balance sheet fund, in essence.

Venture Capital 211

Venture Capital Funding Seed Funding Activity 211

Both Sides of the Table

MAY 14, 2018

I Know Everybody Told You to Send Your Fund-Raising Decks as a Link. Here’s Why You Should Just Send the Deck I know you have your document sending tool to send your fund-raising deck to VCs and track who read your deck, which pages they read and how much time they spend on each page. What should not be in your deck? A deck is a deck.

Funding 239

Funding Venture Capital IP Email 239

Startup Professionals Musings

JULY 20, 2020

Contrary to popular opinion, viral marketing has not eliminated the need for old-fashioned lead generation to bring customers to a startup. Display ads on mobile devices, including video and audio, also offer a new opportunity to reach target customers. How many of these lead generation techniques are funded in your business plan?

Customer 146

Customer Custom Marketing Startup 146

Both Sides of the Table

MAY 6, 2018

Fund raising. But it’s critical for your business, for you as a leader and people who excel at fund raising have an extreme advantage over those who do not. As a VC I also have to fund raise every three years and these posts 100% apply to VCs raising money, too. It definitely has a “d” in it, as in it’s really not fun, raising.

Funding 236

Funding Venture Capital Startup Entrepreneur 236

Both Sides of the Table

OCTOBER 22, 2015

But the bigger truth is the competition is important. We will have two well-funded companies educating the market on why this market opportunity for the $24 billion US storage market is ripe for disruption. When we funded Sam , Rahul and team at MakeSpace > 2.5 Healthy competition keeps you on your toes.

Funding 150

Funding Competition Marketing Summary 150

Both Sides of the Table

JANUARY 26, 2013

Understanding “The Funding Angle” I sit at enough board meetings to hear conflicting advice given to entrepreneurs about how to handle PR and announcements at startups. Is Funding a Worthy Announcement? There are reasons you may delay funding announcement but rarely reasons not to announce.

Startup 355

Startup Funding News Press 355

Berkonomics

APRIL 19, 2012

Professional investors laugh when they hear an entrepreneur state, “We have no competition.” It could be that a larger competitor has met with its customers, promising to extend its product line into this very niche. So, do your homework especially well by putting yourself into the minds of your potential customers.

Competition 189

Competition Slides Sales Ideas 189

TechCrunch LA

FEBRUARY 3, 2021

Grocery delivery startup Good Eggs is announcing that it has raised $100 million in new funding, and that it’s planning to launch in Southern California in either the summer or fall of this year. In addition to the funding, Good Eggs is also announcing that it has hired Vineet Mehra as its chief growth and customer experience officer.

Southern California 318

Southern California Orange County San Diego Commerce 318

Startup Professionals Musings

DECEMBER 9, 2019

With the advent and popularity of crowdfunding platforms, including Kickstarter and IndieGoGo , as a winning alternative for funding your new venture, I find that many aspiring entrepreneurs are confused about the need to ever seek a professional angel investor. Consider the need for multiple rounds of funding.

Funding 119

Funding Startup Platform Examples 119

Startup Professionals Musings

MARCH 10, 2023

As a startup investor, I often see business proposals looking for funding that really look like expensive hobbies looking for donations. I still see entrepreneurs who spend money and time for months on a new business idea without any separation of personal and business funds, and any formal accounting system for their new business.

Outsource Development 115

Outsource Development Startup Competition Ideas 115

Startup Professionals Musings

MARCH 14, 2020

Getting investors to trust you with their money is always a challenge, and it’s even more difficult in the early stages, where you don’t have a significant revenue stream, a few customers, or maybe even a product yet. Here is my list of red flags that cause many investors to look elsewhere: No well-defined need or viable customer set.

Funding 123

Funding Startup Entrepreneur Invest 123

Tech.Co

FEBRUARY 16, 2024

Read on to find a financing option that suits you, whatever your business's specialism, needs, and financial profile, or jump to a specific funding type below. It's competitive though – last year 18,000 applicants competed for only 12 slots. Funding can be available as a term loan or can be used as a line of credit.

Technical Review 194

Technical Review Software Review Startup Competition 194

Startup Professionals Musings

MAY 11, 2020

Struggling entrepreneurs are often so happy to get a funding offer that they neglect the recommended reverse due diligence on the investors. Taking on equity investors to fund your company is much like getting married – it is a long-term relationship that has to work at all levels. A sample of three views is adequate.

Technical Review 124

Technical Review Funding Innocal Offshore 124

Tech Zulu Event

APRIL 30, 2014

In order to support all of these teams, there are several on-campus startup competitions every year, from the Silicon Beach USC competition to the New Venture Seed Competition, with prize funds to help build the companies. The post HipTraveler | Taking Startup Competitions by Storm appeared first on TechZulu.

Competition 104

Competition Startup USC Southern California 104

socalTECH

SEPTEMBER 25, 2012

One of the companies recognized in Qualcomm's QPrize annual business plan competition has scored a series A funding, four years after being named a finalist in the Qualcomm effort. Singapore-based Capillary Technologies , a developer of mobile customer relationship management (CRM) tools, said it has raised $15.5M

Funding 168

Funding San Diego Competition Mobile 168

Startup Professionals Musings

OCTOBER 4, 2023

Most entrepreneur that fail are quick to offer a litany of constraints that caused their demise – not enough money, time, customers, or support from the right players. Startups funded by rich uncles rarely think about productivity. Subtraction leads to simplicity, better usability, and easier education of your customers.

Resource 112

Resource Ideas Competition Entrepreneur 112

Both Sides of the Table

MAY 13, 2018

The most important advice I could give you before you set out in fund raising mode is to understand that fund-raising a sales & marketing process and needs to be managed. One of the most important aims of a fund-raising process is to keep similar firms at the same stage of your process. Why 8–10 and not just 3–4?

Venture Capital 332

Venture Capital Funding Startup Sales 332

Both Sides of the Table

DECEMBER 11, 2022

In those years I learned to properly build product, price products, sell products and serve customers. You had the entry into our ecosystem of hedge funds, cross-over funds, sovereign wealth funds, mutual funds, family offices and all other sources of capital that drove up valuations. billion fund.

Venture Capital 466

Venture Capital Startup Marketing Pricing 466

Startup Professionals Musings

APRIL 29, 2023

If your forte is a service, like consulting or web site design, it’s harder to find guidance on what will get you funded, and how you can scale your business. With services, scaling the business often implies cloning yourself, since you are the intellectual property and the competitive advantage. Practice being a good communicator.

Startup 111

Startup Training Services Writing 111

Startup Professionals Musings

JUNE 7, 2020

As a startup investor, I often see business proposals looking for funding that really look like expensive hobbies looking for donations. I still see entrepreneurs who spend money and time for months on a new business idea without any separation of personal and business funds, and any formal accounting system for their new business.

Entrepreneur 131

Entrepreneur Outsource Development Startup Competition 131

Startup Professionals Musings

MAY 29, 2023

In my view, this focus on the wrong skill set is the primary reason why over half of new businesses fail in the first five years, and only one out of a hundred startups get their requested funding from professional investors. Diagnosing and understanding the customer problem. Opening relationships and creating opportunities.

Startup 154

Startup Sales Entrepreneur Customer 154

Both Sides of the Table

SEPTEMBER 15, 2022

million, our Seed Funds mostly between $200–300 million and have delivered median ownerships of ~20% from the first check we write into a startup. We could talk with customers, meet the entire management team, review financial plans, review customer purchasing cohorts, evaluate the competition, etc.

Venture Capital 416

Venture Capital Marketing Technical Review Seed Funding 416

TechCrunch LA

MARCH 20, 2019

Postmates is launching a new feature called Postmates Party that lets customers within the same neighborhood pool their orders. In return, these customers get the food delivered for free, eliminating a major pinch point for potential Postmates users. cities in which it currently operates. and Philadelphia. billion valuation.

Orange County 200

Orange County Long Beach San Diego Los Angeles 200

socalTECH

OCTOBER 23, 2012

However, the recent surge in startup activity has attracted a lot more capital into the area, including a significant amount of capital from LA's latest fund: Karlin Ventures (www.karlinvc.com). TX Zhuo: Karlin Ventures is an early stage venture fund based in LA. We're a very new fund, but are aggressive and like to hustle.

Funding 253

Funding Startup Invest Commerce 253

Both Sides of the Table

APRIL 19, 2011

He is very hands-on and helpful – especially for any company looking into customer acquisition. His follow-on rounds & problems: • Hit funding nuclear winter, impossible to get anyone to invest in follow on, • The concept did not connect with VC’s. o Put a timeframe/money – competition in the picture.

Acquisition 304

Acquisition Startup Customer Custom 304

Both Sides of the Table

OCTOBER 26, 2020

leadership, mentorship, competitiveness, communications, relationship-building?—?and I’ve become fond of saying “if I had a dollar for every person who told me just how much they loooooved Kara Nortman, I’d have a 10x fund.” So mostly we just had to listen to customer feedback from founders, VCs and LPs. I’m only 52!

Venture Capital 361

Venture Capital Startup Invest CitySearch 361

Startup Professionals Musings

JULY 13, 2022

You may feel good when that first burst of customers arrives, but don’t assume that “ word of mouth ” and those early adopters will grow your business to match your dreams of success. In these days of global competition via multiple channels, you need continuous marketing to find more customers. They won’t find you.

Technical Review 142

Technical Review Social Media Conference Customer 142

Startup Professionals Musings

OCTOBER 1, 2022

As a mentor to many business professionals and owners, and aspiring entrepreneurs, I find a wealth of innovative ideas, but often less insight on what it really takes to transform ideas into an income stream that can excite new customers into long-term business success. Investors expect this step to be proven successful before funding.

Ideas 145

Ideas Startup Case Study Writing 145

TechCrunch LA

AUGUST 9, 2022

Beauty may be in the eye of the beholder, but when it comes to getting ahold of an appointment for your hair or another treatment…that’s a different story: The bespoke nature of a lot of the work has meant that a large swathe of the professionals providing these services have stayed offline when it comes to interfacing with customers.

Help 195

Help Startup UCLA Tool 195

Startup Professionals Musings

JANUARY 7, 2023

If you ask them for a reason, most will insist that they couldn’t get funding, or they ran out of money too early. It’s tempting to believe that one more new platform will win for crowd funding or video games, like Indiegogo and Wii. Actually, great new customer solutions lead to great platforms, not the other way around.

Entrepreneur 125

Entrepreneur Netflix Social Media Startup 125

Startup Professionals Musings

FEBRUARY 10, 2023

Struggling entrepreneurs are often so happy to get a funding offer that they neglect the recommended reverse due diligence on the investors. Taking on equity investors to fund your company is much like getting married – it is a long-term relationship that has to work at all levels. A sample of three views is adequate.

Technical Review 138

Technical Review Startup Innocal Offshore 138

Startup Professionals Musings

FEBRUARY 15, 2021

All this was done without damaging anyone’s credibility, or stealing customers. It’s very unusual for two competitors to have exactly the same strengths – in development, marketing, distribution, or customer support. Ability to up-sell customers with related products. Capitalize on shared costs and common distribution.

Startup 173

Startup Outsource Development Examples Customer 173

Both Sides of the Table

NOVEMBER 1, 2009

As organizations we have become more open and I believe this is great for businesses and their customers. We spent time out in the marketplace talking with customers, looking at their solutions, comparing ourselves with our competition and then squirreling ourselves away in our offices designing our next set of features.

Organization 280

Organization Customer Custom Tips 280

Both Sides of the Table

AUGUST 20, 2015

VC funding. With perfect information and too much competition you pay up or they walk right down the street and get it from somebody else.” It forces the founder to spend time in front of customers. How can it be that over-funding is bad, bad, bad and then the best possible outcome and what is the inflection point?

Funding 150

Funding Venture Capital Startup Marketing 150

Startup Professionals Musings

DECEMBER 2, 2022

You can’t succeed in business without an operational model that delivers value to customers at a reasonable price, with an underlying cost that allows you to make a profit. A target market is the group of customers that the startup plans to attract through marketing and sales their product or service. Competition. Production.

Sales 102

Sales Customer Custom Outsource 102