Startup Professionals Musings

AUGUST 14, 2021

With the advent of the Internet, social media, and instant communication via texting, customer expectations for service, as part of their entire customer experience, have changed. They expect you to be there, to know their history as a customer, and to treat them with priority and respect.

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Startup Professionals Musings

JUNE 15, 2020

Most entrepreneurs spend far too much time thinking negatively about competitors, and can’t resist making derogatory statements to their own team, to investors, and even to customers. As an investor, I always listen carefully to what an entrepreneur says, and does not say, about competition.

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Competition Entrepreneur Patents Custom 125

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.

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Startup Professionals Musings

MARCH 20, 2023

Instead, they need to validate a customer problem and real market need first. Don’t create solutions looking for a problem , since investors ignore these, and customers other than early adopters will be hard to find. I say again, customers buy solutions, not technology. Look for customer willingness and ability to pay.

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Startup Professionals Musings

JUNE 23, 2021

Yet, as a business consultant, I often find minimal focus on improving employee engagement and assessing their customer-facing performance. For example, I commonly see metrics to keep track of revenue per employee, overtime, and absenteeism, but I don’t often see measures of overall customer satisfaction with individual employees.

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Startup Professionals Musings

DECEMBER 23, 2020

Today’s customers demand more than a good product; they expect a great customer experience. A few companies are leading the way, including Apple with their iPad and iPhone, offering irresistible stores with friendly experts, elegant packaging, and customer service that never ends.

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Startup Professionals Musings

DECEMBER 22, 2021

As I talk to many of you in my role as business advisor, I still often hear the concern for maximum return to the business and stakeholders, more than a passion for sustainably enriching the lives of your customers and team. This applies to your own team, as well as customers. Make every customer experience memorable.

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Custom Customer Metrics Satisfaction 114

Both Sides of the Table

APRIL 3, 2014

Whenever I heard why we didn’t feel a sales process at an important customer was going well (or if we lost) I would get involved myself. They are as good at selling you as they are at selling your product to customers. Customer also buy social proof because others are acting as strong references.

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Sales Help Startup Pricing 382

Startup Professionals Musings

DECEMBER 7, 2019

While starting a new business always involves tackling many new challenges, I’ve personally found myself reluctant to ask for help. Thus, in my consulting with entrepreneurs, I always encourage them to get more comfortable asking for help. Of course, there are good ways and bad ways to ask for help.

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Help Entrepreneur Course IBM 123

Startup Professionals Musings

AUGUST 12, 2019

Most entrepreneurs are quick to assert to potential investors that their product or solution will kill the competition, but unfortunately your opinion alone is not enough to convince most experienced investors. A competitive advantage to a non-problem or tiny niche is not interesting to investors.

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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?

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Customer Custom Examples IBM 143

Startup Professionals Musings

AUGUST 10, 2020

They are attracted to people who agree, but may not be able to help. Even if your company doesn’t sell high-tech products, like Zappos sells shoes, having and using the right technology in the business, for distribution, marketing, and customer support, can easily make the difference between winning and losing in today’s high-tech world.

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Competition High Tech Startup Social Media 174

Startup Professionals Musings

OCTOBER 9, 2020

Freelancers and consultants have to demonstrate results, without training and mentoring, so they can help you more quickly and probably at a lower total cost. You can advertise your “greener” strategy, which today will get you greater customer loyalty and advocacy. This lets you evolve your strategy with the market.

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Competition Startup Demand Training 168

socalTECH

OCTOBER 19, 2018

Earlier this month, Los Angeles-based Catalog (www.catalog.cc), a startup developing artificial intelligence software to help independent visual artists scale their content production efforts, announced it raised $1.5M To bundle all of these components requires you to have customers with similar needs. in a seed funding round.

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Help IP Content Google 133

Both Sides of the Table

AUGUST 11, 2021

Photo by Vanna Phon on Unsplash Customer acquisition is the lifeblood of many startups from e-commerce to gaming to marketplace companies, among others. that’s where the customers are. But if you ask anyone in the ecosystem of customer acquisition?—?founders, no surprise?—?that’s founders, marketers, investors?—?and

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Startup Professionals Musings

MARCH 22, 2012

You hear a lot of talk these days about the importance of customer satisfaction, but customer loyalty is the real win. A satisfied customer is necessary, but not sufficient, to be a loyal customer who will come back repeatedly, refer their friends and family to you, and be faithful even when your price is not the lowest.

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Startup Professionals Musings

MAY 19, 2019

Image via Flickr by jardenberg Your marketing launch is the most important element of startup success these days, to get customer attention in this world of information overload. To get to the core of what’s relevant to customers, you need to know them well. The eye is just as important as the mind when it comes to customers.

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Customer Custom Marketing Tips 93

Startup Professionals Musings

SEPTEMBER 13, 2014

Most entrepreneurs spend far too much time thinking negatively about competitors, and can’t resist making derogatory statements about them to their own team, investors and even to customers. As an investor, I always listen carefully to what an entrepreneur says, and does not say, about competition.

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Competition Entrepreneur Patents Custom 107

Startup Professionals Musings

AUGUST 14, 2014

They are looking for startups that have a sustainable advantage over direct and indirect competitor offerings, as well as obvious value to customers living without your product today. A narrow scope doesn’t help your case either. Non-specific terms, like better usability and low cost don’t incite customers to action these days.

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Competition Startup Patents Slides 93

Startup Professionals Musings

OCTOBER 31, 2018

The only “sustainable competitive advantage” in business is self-awareness. Effective advisors and boards are most helpful in these times, when the tough questions are less apparent but critical. Self-awareness helps you achieve balance between these tendencies, and be open to insights from others. It’s a recipe for disaster.

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Competition Startup Examples Coach 81

Tech.Co

SEPTEMBER 25, 2015

From apps to hardware, to KickStarter successes and international startups, we’re inching closer to finding out who will take home the title of Startup of the Year competition at our annual Celebrate Conference in October. Among the dozens of participants that applied for the online competitions, only a few progressed into the semifinals.

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Competition Mobile Technical Review Startup 123

socalTECH

MAY 28, 2013

You put your price into our gauge, which has the colors red, yellow, and green to help guide consumers in making the most appropriate offers. That gauge helps make sure the offers that consumers place are realistic, for example, not offering $200 for a $2000 Canon camera. Plus, they also get to acquire a new customer.

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Pricing Product Help Sales 273

socalTECH

JANUARY 2, 2014

Michael Chasin: LawKick.com is essentially a marketplace that makes it easier than ever to find legal help. How the website works, is the client goes to the website, and indicates what they need help with. Michael Chasin: The most challenging part of any startup is getting in front of people, and finding customers. READ MORE>>.

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Help Startup CTO Hire Pricing 240

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.

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Startup Professionals Musings

JULY 31, 2019

After working in business at all levels, and consulting to entrepreneurs for years, I’m still surprised to see so many situations where things that should be easy are painful to customers, and lead to customers hating your business. Accelerating worldwide competition and financial upheavals are undermining established market positions.

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Customer Custom Demand Training 83

Startup Professionals Musings

FEBRUARY 20, 2022

Your marketing launch is the most important element of startup success these days, to get customer attention in this world of information overload. To get to the core of what’s relevant to customers, you need to know them well. Helping customers discover new ways to solve common problems can quickly build you a loyal following.

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Content Newsletter Competition Writing 146

socalTECH

NOVEMBER 18, 2014

Los Angeles-based Enrou (www.enrou.co) thinks it has a way--by connecting people with products that also help support international development and causes, via its own online marketplace. I had worked along with some of these organization son the ground, who were employing people, providing microfinancing, education, and help.

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Commerce Help UCLA Organization 140

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.

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Technical Review Social Media Conference Custom 142

socalTECH

NOVEMBER 2, 2017

com) � backed by local investors Rincon Venture Partners and Bonfire Ventures�is helping to solve that problem, with its career pathing software designed for helping employees at large enterprises figure out what's next. It helps you figure out what you can do in a business, what roles are available, what might be my future here.

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Help Southern California Startup Technical Review 100

Startup Professionals Musings

FEBRUARY 14, 2021

They are looking for startups that have a sustainable advantage over direct and indirect competitor offerings, as well as obvious value to customers living without your product today. A narrow scope doesn’t help your case either. Non-specific terms, like better usability and low cost don’t incite customers to action these days.

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Competition Funding Startup Patents 166

Startup Professionals Musings

JUNE 7, 2019

I like his summary of five kinds of questions that can help you change your leadership effectiveness, and your organization’s view of reality when faced with complex new issues: Questions that highlight key roadblocks to a solution. Today’s workforce, and customers, are looking for leaders, not tyrants.

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Help Examples Summary Design 91

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., Andreessen Horowitz, Baroda Ventures, Benchmark Capital, First Round Capital, and others.

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Competition Funding Los Angeles Capital 159

Both Sides of the Table

OCTOBER 26, 2020

leadership, mentorship, competitiveness, communications, relationship-building?—?and and of course a relentless pursuit of helping founders succeed. So mostly we just had to listen to customer feedback from founders, VCs and LPs. She took an operating role helping run Citysearch and Urbanspoon. So What Does All This Mean?

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Venture Capital Startup Invest CitySearch 361

Tech.Co

FEBRUARY 16, 2024

Unlike a lot of grants on this list, the competition is open to all US small businesses, as long as they have fewer than 99 employees, have been operating for at least six months, and have a FedEx business account that's been open before September 1, 2023. It's competitive though – last year 18,000 applicants competed for only 12 slots.

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Startup Professionals Musings

MAY 14, 2021

For example, I believe that Starbucks surprised most people by proving that they could take a commodity business, a coffee shop, and make it a worldwide profit winner, just by justifying premium pricing with a quality product, the right locations, personalized service, and appealing to the professional customer personas.

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Pricing Startup Competition Examples 145

Tech.Co

MAY 22, 2018

To help you crush your next investor meeting, we asked top VCs and tech leaders to share their best pitch advice. One of the biggest turn offs for investors are founders who don’t know the basics of their business, especially their market and customer. What startup teams don’t realize is that having competition is good.

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Tips Help Slides Technical Review 70

Startup Professionals Musings

FEBRUARY 28, 2022

I’m convinced that you can’t stay competitive that way with today’s customers, and today’s employees. It’s time to push decision making down into the organization –insisting that the people closest to the customer and the markets learn and make the decisions. Define customer value as the only path to business value.

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Competition Organization Custom Customer 116