Startup Professionals Musings

OCTOBER 31, 2022

If you are a genius at invention, for example, then that is the role you should seek to keep you motivated and productive. I like his model and examples from the field to help you identify the type of work that is your forte, and will likely bring you joy and energy, rather than frustration and burnout.

Activity 108

Activity Satisfaction Metrics Startup 108

Both Sides of the Table

JULY 21, 2014

I remember, for example, when business intelligence swept through companies globally. Create company measures for success that go beyond financial metrics. You manage what you measure so be careful about having too narrowly defined of performance metrics. Have sales bonus plans based on more than just sales targets.

Marketing 354

Marketing Case Study Metrics Sales 354

Startup Professionals Musings

JUNE 20, 2022

For example, if it’s getting harder to charge a price premium for the product you’re marketing, or others are offering your subscription service for free, it may be time to start thinking in a new box. Another example is seeing substitute versions of a product, like eBooks, for a low price displacing hardcover books.

eBook 111

eBook Metrics Examples Startup 111

Startup Professionals Musings

JANUARY 6, 2021

Your focus for momentum could be sales, profitability, or number of customers, but trying to keep all possible parameters growing is simply not practical. It’s important to define your growth strategy, document it, communicate it to your team, and align metrics and employee rewards to target goals.

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Technical Review Technical Advisors Startup Mentor 160

Startup Professionals Musings

SEPTEMBER 22, 2021

For example, Blake Mycoskie of TOMS Shoes attributes his ability to raise a seed round and build a $400M company to his commitment to provide a free pair of shoes to the underprivileged for every pair sold. You need to show you have a “Plan B,” and a never-give-up mindset, in handling any competitive threat or customer reaction.

Ideas 140

Ideas Entrepreneur Equity Resource 140

Startup Professionals Musings

AUGUST 27, 2023

Measure progress through metrics on sales, revenue, and penetration. For example, Toms shoes achieved success by donating a pair of shoes for every pair sold. These start with your brand image, search visibility and process, and extend to the actual sales transaction. Seek to dominate your market over competitors.

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Customer Custom Marketing Startup 91

Startup Professionals Musings

DECEMBER 22, 2021

A winning linked focus example is to choose a higher purpose common to all cultures, such as protecting the environment, or helping the underprivileged. Your goal must be to make every aspect of a customer interaction a joy to both you and them, starting from the shopping experience, to the sales close, to delivery and service.

Customer 114

Customer Custom Satisfaction Metrics 114

Startup Professionals Musings

MARCH 3, 2021

For example, it’s great to pursue a higher purpose, like feeding the hungry, but don’t forget that running any business is a hungry mouth you have to feed. For example, if you have ever watched the Shark Tank show on TV, they always ask about the cost of customer acquisition. Postulate competitive reactions and your responses.

Entrepreneur 162

Entrepreneur Social Media Examples Metrics 162

Startup Professionals Musings

SEPTEMBER 30, 2023

For example , when Yvon Chouinard founded Patagonia , a successful outdoor products company, his real goal was building safe products to help the environment. He also still gets excited to donate one percent of sales to environmental groups around the world. Document and communicate a solid business plan.

Startup 94

Startup Ideas Metrics Entrepreneur 94

Startup Professionals Musings

FEBRUARY 5, 2020

See the story of Elizabeth Holmes and Theranos for an example of product snags leading to a disaster. Funding is depleted before customer sales ramp up. Your customers and competition make unexpected moves. Marketing and sales take more time and effort than anticipated. The world today never stands still.

Startup 131

Startup Entrepreneur Examples Customer 131

Startup Professionals Musings

SEPTEMBER 20, 2019

For example, if it’s getting harder to charge a price premium for the product you’re marketing, or others are offering your subscription service for free, it may be time to start thinking in a new box. Another example is seeing substitute versions of a product, like eBooks, for a low price displacing hardcover books.

Entrepreneur 93

Entrepreneur eBook Metrics Examples 93

Both Sides of the Table

FEBRUARY 27, 2019

Often board members themselves don’t do the work to say “what metrics would we like to see.” Any great board member should tell you, “please don’t create any performance metrics or materials that analyze the business that you’re not already creating for your own management’s use.” Sometimes they don’t even know.

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Startup Slides Metrics News 226

Startup Professionals Musings

AUGUST 13, 2022

For example, if you are working on a great social networking idea to replace Facebook, and need funding, you probably won’t find any interested and focused VCs or angel investors in Arizona, where I live. billion dollar sale to Oracle from Bozeman, Montana. But it is an important metric for firms in pursuit of explosive growth.

Technical Review 123

Technical Review Oracle Software Review Ideas 123

Both Sides of the Table

DECEMBER 27, 2011

The most obvious way to explain this is with sales people. If you hire 6 sales reps in January at $120,000 / year salary then you’ve taken on an extra $60,000 per month in costs yet these sales people might not close new business for 4-6 months. For example, look at the following graph. Investors value growth.

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Startup Venture Capital Sales Technical Review 418

Startup Professionals Musings

JUNE 28, 2019

These things are clearly good for morale, but its not so clear that they translate into a competitive advantage. These authors present 20+ years of research, including case studies and metrics, showing how culture really makes or breaks your business. A positive culture of trust is required to neutralize uncertain feelings.

Competition 76

Competition Coach Case Study Statistics 76

Startup Professionals Musings

JULY 25, 2018

It’s easy to see how cultures go astray, for example, when you pay only for sales volume, but expect a high focus on customer satisfaction. Establish metrics on the culture, as well as the product. These metrics need the same top management attention as customer retention and sales metrics. Start today.

Metrics 57

Metrics Startup Netflix Customer 57

Startup Professionals Musings

JULY 17, 2019

As a business advisor, when I bring this up, at best I will hear the defense that you are focused on the strategy of the moment, such as such as how to increase sales, or reach a new market. Highlight your competitive value, not your technology. The result is a business plateau that hits you like a ton of bricks.

Technical Review 87

Technical Review Customer Custom Competition 87

Startup Professionals Musings

MARCH 18, 2015

For example, if it’s getting harder to charge a price premium for the product you’re marketing, or others are offering your subscription service for free, it may be time to start thinking in a new box. Another example is seeing substitute versions of a product, like eBooks, for a low price displacing hardcover books.

Entrepreneur 106

Entrepreneur eBook Metrics Startup 106

Startup Professionals Musings

OCTOBER 11, 2019

Define metrics to measure what you want to achieve. For example, measuring marketing team members on sales leads may not get you the revenue growth or trust you expected. Granting trust is a strong signal that motivates returning the favor. Marty Zwilling First published on Inc.com on 09/25/2019.

Mentor 98

Mentor News Summary Coach 98

Startup Professionals Musings

OCTOBER 8, 2018

For example, I still find businesses asking you to print, sign, and return documents by mail in lieu of digital signatures or email. It takes a well-rounded and motivated team to run a competitive business today. You need to communicate quantified and updates goals quarterly, including the metrics to assess progress and success.

Technical Review 84

Technical Review Customer Custom Startup 84

Startup Professionals Musings

OCTOBER 8, 2017

For example, if it’s getting harder to charge a price premium for the product you’re marketing, or others are offering your subscription service for free, it may be time to start thinking in a new box. Another example is seeing substitute versions of a product, like eBooks, for a low price displacing hardcover books.

eBook 52

eBook Metrics Examples Startup 52

Startup Professionals Musings

DECEMBER 15, 2013

For example, if it’s getting harder to charge a price premium for the product you’re marketing, or others are offering your subscription service for free, it may be time to start thinking in a new box. Another example is seeing substitute versions of a product, like eBooks, for a low price displacing hardcover books.

eBook 95

eBook Metrics Startup Examples 95

Startup Professionals Musings

JULY 31, 2017

For example, early adopters may be easily sold online, but new technology product success really hinges on adoption by mass demographics, more likely associated with distributors and brand name retailers. What metrics should you use to measure success? Just because Google sales hit $1.5

Metrics 58

Metrics Resource Startup Training 58

Startup Professionals Musings

NOVEMBER 9, 2019

For example, if you are working on a great social networking idea to replace Facebook, and need funding, you probably won’t find any interested and focused VCs or Angel investors in Arizona, where I live. billion dollar sale to Oracle from Bozeman, Montana. But it is an important metric for firms in pursuit of explosive growth.

Startup 97

Startup Technical Review Oracle Software Review 97

socalTECH

JANUARY 14, 2011

We have a very sophisticated, analytics and software platform that over half the Fortune 50 are now using, to help guide how they invest in marketing and sales activities and investments. Its primary goal is to focus on identifying what is truly driving demand, analytically, so that our customers can optimize their activities.

Social Media 235

Social Media Demand Activity Marketing 235

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. The problem is that stakeholders, like marketing and sales, don’t know what the latest version of the roadmap is.

Venture Capital 115

Venture Capital Entrepreneur Santa Barbara SaaS 115

Both Sides of the Table

JUNE 5, 2011

For example: If you were to invest $41 million into a company (and one could assume that you owned between 33-50%) then the company is worth $82-123 million at funding. Then you can do a little bit of research and find out that very few companies ever achieve this valuation in a trade sale so you’re clearly gunning for an IPO.

Startup 336

Startup Pricing Technical Review Marketing 336

Both Sides of the Table

NOVEMBER 14, 2017

In the case of MakeSpace we had huge initial successes in New York City as Rahul led the scaling of our drivers, our trucks and our warehouses and we figured out the right price points to beat the local competition. An example of the systems companies build are pricing & revenue management tools to best help to optimize yield.

Startup 286

Startup Technical Review Customer Custom 286

SoCal CTO

JUNE 9, 2010

Through advertising or direct sales, these sites harvest intent. Instead of making a few dollars per sale and hoping for thousands of sales, you sell to only a few customers, and charge much higher rates. it’s about measuring online influence and I’m big on metrics as a key element of business planning; 2.)

Startup 248

Startup Venture Capital Conference Social Media 248

Startup Professionals Musings

MAY 16, 2015

For example, if you are working on a great social networking idea to replace Facebook, and need funding, you probably won’t find any interested and focused VCs or Angel investors in Phoenix, Arizona, where I live. billion dollar sale to Oracle from Bozeman, Montana. get the attention of the market they choose.

Startup 109

Startup Technical Review Oracle Software Review 109

Tech.Co

DECEMBER 12, 2017

Or their sales pitch?! For instance, we ask what makes your solution special and, in another question, ask you to specifically drill down into your competition and how you are better. You don’t need to list your competition in both places. Check out these examples: Q: What is your solution? with actual data and metrics.

Tips 70

Tips Startup Statistics Metrics 70

Startup Professionals Musings

MARCH 25, 2016

For example, Starbucks found initial success with professionals aged 25 to 40 in urban areas and with moderately high income but later looked to a new market of millennials who wanted a place to sit and chat, study or work. That’s the right place to start, but real growth and scale requires attracting customers who are not like you.

Customer 55

Customer Custom Marketing Social Media 55

Startup Professionals Musings

AUGUST 19, 2016

For example, early social media startup Friendster was so enamored with their early acceptance that they turned down a $30 million offer from Google, then quickly ran into money woes and tough competition. As the business grows, it pays to learn how to use automated financial tools, and review the key financial metrics daily.

Startup 57

Startup Training Entrepreneur Customer 57

Tech Zulu Event

APRIL 23, 2013

As an employee of the NBA’s Brooklyn Nets from 1999-2003 and of the Indianapolis Pacers from 2003-2008, I learned first-hand from the likes of Rod Thorn, Byron Scott, Jason Kidd and Larry Bird about the importance of leading by example and keys to assembling a championship-caliber team. Any competition in LA? Events pay a listing fee.

Social Network 92

Social Network Networking Training Summary 92

Startup Professionals Musings

DECEMBER 2, 2017

For example, if you are working on a great social networking idea to replace Facebook, and need funding, you probably won’t find any interested and focused VCs or Angel investors in Arizona, where I live. billion dollar sale to Oracle from Bozeman, Montana. But it is an important metric for firms in pursuit of explosive growth.

Sites 59

Sites Startup Technical Review Oracle 59

Startup Professionals Musings

DECEMBER 7, 2013

For example, if you are working on a great social networking idea to replace Facebook, and need funding, you probably won’t find any interested and focused VCs or Angel investors in Phoenix, Arizona, where I live. billion dollar sale to Oracle from Bozeman, Montana. get the attention of the market they choose.

Startup 102

Startup Technical Review Oracle Entrepreneur 102

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.

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Startup Venture Capital Blogging Software Review 217