Startup Professionals Musings

JANUARY 8, 2021

It must be understandable, written down, and verifiable, with regular measurements and metrics to make it real, benchmarked against the competition. Leaders have found that keeping everyone on top of changes in technology, competition, and customer demands is critical to success. Involve, empower, and inspire.

Startup 154

Startup Training Customer Custom 154

Both Sides of the Table

JULY 21, 2014

You’d imagine that companies selling tons of shelfware would quickly meet their deserved fate in the market, yet the spin around a category of software can fool buyers into thinking they “must have this product to compete.” How frequently they’re using the product? ROI studies were published.

Marketing 354

Marketing Case Study Metrics Sales 354

Startup Professionals Musings

JANUARY 25, 2020

Stroh, which details the principles and metrics to follow for fostering innovation in any organization. People pay for a great user experience, in finding the right product, buying it, using it, and getting support. Today they demand it or walk to competitors, who are not far away. by Patrick J.

Startup 138

Startup Organization Demand Customer 138

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. This contextual focus is critical to innovation and survival – the right product at the right time. Increase change agility.

Startup 116

Startup Training Statistics Summary 116

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. Every startup demands logical changes along the way. Postulate competitive reactions and your responses.

Entrepreneur 162

Entrepreneur Social Media Examples Metrics 162

Startup Professionals Musings

AUGUST 10, 2022

For example, I’m an introverted product guy who doesn’t care so much about building the personnel relationships needed to keep a motivated team. 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.

Mentor 133

Mentor Startup Customer Custom 133

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

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. Cote, former Chairman and CEO of Honeywell. Don’t wait for a short-term crisis, or a long-term one, to force process improvements.

Technical Review 124

Technical Review Layoffs Social Media Metrics 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. This contextual focus is critical to innovation and survival – the right product at the right time. Increase change agility.

Startup 94

Startup Training Statistics Summary 94

Both Sides of the Table

NOVEMBER 14, 2017

An alternate outcome that I also unfortunately observe in some cases are companies who had extreme early success with an initial product adoption but failed in key areas that limited the growth and therefore the ultimate financial outcomes. How profitable is my product or service? As an early-stage VC I love this phase.

Startup 286

Startup Technical Review Customer Custom 286

Startup Professionals Musings

OCTOBER 8, 2018

It takes a well-rounded and motivated team to run a competitive business today. They have to be energized and able to adapt as the market and competitors demand. You need to communicate quantified and updates goals quarterly, including the metrics to assess progress and success. Traditional mission statements are not enough.

Technical Review 84

Technical Review Customer Custom Startup 84

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

FEBRUARY 24, 2017

Most of the guidance you see for entrepreneurs is aimed at those who are selling a product (Apple, Tesla, Xiaomi), or selling a service (Uber, Airbnb, Snapchat). The “product” value is difficult to quantify, the costs are nebulous, and entrepreneurs have to clone themselves to scale the business. Don’t forget seminars and events.

Social Media 56

Social Media Pricing Technical Review Demand 56

Both Sides of the Table

DECEMBER 27, 2011

They have have raised $2-3 million, built a product that has some amount of market traction and got to annualized revenues of around $1 million. 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

Startup 418

Startup Venture Capital Sales Technical Review 418

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

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

JANUARY 22, 2016

Stroh, which details the principles and metrics to follow for fostering innovation in any organization. People pay for a great user experience, in finding the right product, buying it, using it, and getting support. Today they demand it or walk to competitors, who are not far away. by Patrick J.

Startup 58

Startup Organization Demand Customer 58

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. This contextual focus is critical to innovation and survival – the right product at the right time. Increase change agility.

Startup 56

Startup Training Statistics Summary 56

Both Sides of the Table

JUNE 5, 2011

You’re unlikely to want to make this sort of investment with the product or the market not yet validated. while acknowledging that San Fran deals are often higher valuations due to increased competition amongst investors. I should also point out that while they had built their products they had limited market traction.

Startup 336

Startup Pricing Technical Review Marketing 336

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. This contextual focus is critical to innovation and survival – the right product at the right time. Increase change agility.

Entrepreneur 110

Entrepreneur Startup Training Statistics 110

Startup Professionals Musings

JUNE 21, 2013

It must be understandable, written down, and verifiable, with regular measurements and metrics to make it real, benchmarked against the competition. Leaders have found that keeping everyone on top of changes in technology, competition, and customer demands is critical to success. Involve, empower, and inspire.

Customer 92

Customer Custom Startup Services 92

Both Sides of the Table

JULY 19, 2015

They suffered in trying to live up to public perceptions and the demands to continue their successes. 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.

Press 150

Press Venture Capital Startup Entrepreneur 150

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. This contextual focus is critical to innovation and survival – the right product at the right time. Increase change agility.

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. This contextual focus is critical to innovation and survival – the right product at the right time. Increase change agility.

Startup 94

Startup Marketing Training Statistics 94

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. This contextual focus is critical to innovation and survival – the right product at the right time. Increase change agility.

Startup 78

Startup Training Statistics Summary 78

socalTECH

SEPTEMBER 27, 2013

I think that the market was, however, hotter two years ago, when companies were buying more aggressively, and there was lots of pent-up demand. For a similar company, with the same metrics and stage, valuations had been tiny. We were involved in the Gradient X deal, and that was a nice one.

Southern California 124

Southern California SoCal Commerce Invest 124

Startup Professionals Musings

JANUARY 6, 2021

In reality, too many choices actually dilutes customer interest in your existing market, and makes your job of production, marketing, and support much more complex. New entrepreneurs, especially technical ones, are excited by early adopters, and tend to focus on their feedback, which will always suggest more product features and options.

Technical Review 160

Technical Review Technical Advisors Startup Mentor 160

Both Sides of the Table

JUNE 12, 2010

Company grew by more than “400% each year” for past few years [assume growth metric = revenues]. Competition: Chegg (has raised $144 in debt and equity)—estimated by Steven Carpenter ( TechCrunch ) to be 10x more unique visitors than BookRenter (during peak book renting seasons) with nearly $140mm in revenues for 2010.

Venture Capital 217

Venture Capital Capital Metrics Competition 217

Both Sides of the Table

MARCH 6, 2011

It was created to provide peace of mind to moms looking for safe, healthy products for their kids. They dropped their number one selling product and switched to a competitor’s product while managing not to lose a single sale. EcoMom’s metrics improved throughout this process and that’s when I decided to invest.

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. In other parts of the world, innovators often need to develop both the ultimate product or service, as well as the enabling infrastructure that underpins it. Even consumers here in the US are demanding a more responsible approach.

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. In other parts of the world, innovators often need to develop both the ultimate product or service, as well as the enabling infrastructure that underpins it. Even consumers here in the US are demanding a more responsible approach.

Ideas 124

Ideas Venture Capital Software Review Technical Review 124

Startup Professionals Musings

JANUARY 13, 2021

Yet even I have been known to recommend that approach, in cases where you have a highly innovative product, speed is of the essence, and no clear existing market is available. There is no substitute for talking to customers, analyzing your competition, and honing your solution to meet a target market segment.

Marketing 138

Marketing Demand IBM IBM 138