Both Sides of the Table

AUGUST 20, 2015

VC funding. We love capital efficiency until we love land grabs until we abhor over funding until we get huge payouts and ring the bell for more funding until we attract every non-VC on the planet to invest in startups until it crashes and we start the cycle all over again none the wiser. The industry did that in 2007.

Funding 150

Funding Venture Capital Startup Marketing 150

Both Sides of the Table

SEPTEMBER 10, 2021

And as a result of this there are now very robust secondary markets where founders and seed-funds alike are selling down their ownership long before an ultimate exit. If we wanted to we could have sold > 2x the fund easily in the secondary markets with significant upside remaining. of the fund.

Venture Capital 471

Venture Capital Writing Invest Pricing 471

Startup Professionals Musings

JUNE 18, 2023

Have you projected sales and marketing costs, cash flow, and capital requirements? Develop metrics with which to measure yourself and use these to incrementally expand and improve your offering as fast as the market and capital will allow. Show return on investment, growth rates, and market penetration. Don’t stand still.

Startup 112

Startup Coach Metrics Marketing 112

Startup Professionals Musings

APRIL 7, 2021

The basic alignment framework of strategy, customers, people, and processes hasn’t changed, but the pace of technological, competitive, and social change has increased at an amazing rate. If you have had to pivot from the consumer market to enterprise customers, that requires new pricing models and new sales channels.

Social Media 143

Social Media Startup Framework Course 143

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

Startup Professionals Musings

SEPTEMBER 21, 2020

Have you projected sales and marketing costs, cash flow, and capital requirements? Develop metrics with which to measure yourself and use these to incrementally expand and improve your offering as fast as the market and capital will allow. Show return on investment, growth rates, and market penetration. Don’t stand still.

Startup 156

Startup Coach Metrics Marketing 156

Startup Professionals Musings

FEBRUARY 5, 2020

Yet, in the interest of full disclosure, and an honest intent to save future entrepreneurs some grief and money, I would remind you that starting any business has key dependencies on at least five major elements, including product design and delivery, the right people on the team, adequate funding, a sizable market opportunity, and marketing.

Startup 131

Startup Entrepreneur Examples Customer 131

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. Postulate competitive reactions and your responses. Show that you have to ability to move the ball forward.

Entrepreneur 162

Entrepreneur Social Media Examples Metrics 162

Startup Professionals Musings

MAY 24, 2015

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 99

Outsource Development Startup Competition Ideas 99

Both Sides of the Table

DECEMBER 27, 2011

To grow faster businesses need resources in today’s financial period to fund growth that may not come for 6 months to a year. The most obvious way to explain this is with sales people. You may have leverage when you DO need to fund raise. “COGS” represents the amount that each sale costs you.

Startup 418

Startup Venture Capital Sales Technical Review 418

TechCrunch LA

SEPTEMBER 7, 2021

In today’s highly competitive ad environment, both content and data are kings. It’s different than working with a group like us that’s trying to optimize every small piece of the funnel, and being accountable for the entire funnel to drive as much sales or revenue. The key takeaway?

Commerce 211

Commerce Content Marketing Startup 211

Startup Professionals Musings

AUGUST 13, 2012

In fact, a business plan is needed more by you than investors, as the blueprint for your company, team communication, and progress metrics. No investor wants to wait that long for his payback, or fund the years of waiting. Competition and sustainable advantage. Asserting you have no competition is not credible.

Competition 113

Competition Metrics Startup Invest 113

Startup Professionals Musings

MAY 13, 2011

In fact, a business plan is needed more by you than investors, as the blueprint for your company, team communication, and progress metrics. No investor wants to wait that long for his payback, or fund the years of waiting. Competition and sustainable advantage. Asserting you have no competition is not credible.

Competition 116

Competition Metrics Startup Sales 116

Startup Professionals Musings

MAY 28, 2016

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.

Ideas 62

Ideas Outsource Development Startup Competition 62

Both Sides of the Table

FEBRUARY 20, 2017

They are tasked with “getting deals done” so they race around talking to tons of potential partners inking anything from channel sale deals , product integration, international distribution agreements, co-marketing arrangements, M&A discussions, etc. Here’s how it goes: You have a business development group with two people.

Activity 164

Activity Conference Press Case Study 164

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

Startup Professionals Musings

AUGUST 7, 2015

These don’t get funded, nor bought by customers. How the solution and business model work to fund the business. Competitor positioning and sustainable competitive advantage. Specific elements of your marketing and sales plans. If we build it they will come” is not a marketing and sales strategy.

Product 103

Product Slides Customer Custom 103

Startup Professionals Musings

APRIL 9, 2012

Your competitive advantage. Identify your sustainable competitive advantage, like unique benefits, cost savings, or industry ties. Don’t kill your credibility by saying you have no competition. Outline your sales and marketing strategy (direct marketing, sales channel, viral marketing, and lead generation).

Summary 97

Summary Writing Competition Sample 97

Startup Professionals Musings

JULY 31, 2017

What metrics should you use to measure success? Define both hard data and soft (anecdotal) metrics on the new solution, as well as on the productivity of you team. That means you must know the current state of competitors against the same metrics, before you can assess progress or success. Just because Google sales hit $1.5

Metrics 58

Metrics Resource Startup Training 58

Both Sides of the Table

JULY 16, 2013

I remember just a decade ago in 2003 when we all laughed at how dumb people in the 90′s were talking about the race to “capture as many eyeballs as possible” before your competition. The minute you try to monetize now they have metrics with which to beat you up and say you’re business has limitations.”

Venture Capital 412

Venture Capital Startup Funding Snapchat 412

Both Sides of the Table

JUNE 5, 2011

I have conversations with entrepreneurs and other VCs on a daily basis about fund raising, the prices of deals, how much companies should raise, etc. 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.

Startup 336

Startup Pricing Technical Review Marketing 336

Startup Professionals Musings

DECEMBER 8, 2018

Have you projected sales and marketing costs, cash flow, and capital requirements? Develop metrics with which to measure yourself and use these to incrementally expand and improve your offering as fast as the market and capital will allow. Show return on investment, growth rates, and market penetration. Don’t stand still.

Startup 81

Startup Coach Metrics Marketing 81

Startup Professionals Musings

MAY 4, 2014

Use a simple accounting tool like QuickBooks, get away from co-mingled funds, and you have the first business process you need. This will include the first version of many critical processes that can be split out later, including market opportunity, requirements, product definition, business model, sales process, and organization.

Startup 107

Startup Outsource Development Training Outsource 107

Startup Professionals Musings

FEBRUARY 3, 2011

Your competitive advantage. Identify your sustainable competitive advantage, like unique benefits, cost savings, or industry ties. Don’t kill your credibility by saying you have no competition. Outline your sales and marketing strategy (direct marketing, sales channel, viral marketing, and lead generation).

Summary 90

Summary Writing Competition Sample 90

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. I’ve been there.

Venture Capital 115

Venture Capital Entrepreneur Santa Barbara SaaS 115

Startup Professionals Musings

OCTOBER 12, 2010

That’s because a company’s value is a composite of all of the quantitative and qualitative factors that comprise a company: revenues, expenses, risks, growth prospects, quality of the management team, competitive advantages, strength of the intellectual property, and so forth.

.Net 89

.Net Metrics Competition Template 89

Startup Professionals Musings

NOVEMBER 4, 2016

Have you projected sales and marketing costs, cash flow, and capital requirements? Develop metrics with which to measure yourself and use these to incrementally expand and improve your offering as fast as the market and capital will allow. Show return on investment, growth rates, and market penetration. Don’t stand still.

Entrepreneur 93

Entrepreneur Startup Coach Metrics 93

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

Startup Professionals Musings

APRIL 22, 2010

In fact, a business plan is needed more by you than investors, as the blueprint for your company, team communication, and progress metrics. No investor wants to wait that long for his payback, or fund the years of waiting. Competition and sustainable advantage. Asserting you have no competition is not credible.

Invest 74

Invest Tips Competition Metrics 74

SoCal CTO

JUNE 9, 2010

He’d been working at a well-funded startup for about a year and had come to terms with the fact that the startup was really a pretty dumb idea. Through advertising or direct sales, these sites harvest intent. it’s about measuring online influence and I’m big on metrics as a key element of business planning; 2.) I Be specific.

Startup 248

Startup Venture Capital Conference Social Media 248

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

Tech Zulu Event

MARCH 16, 2015

Why raise funds? This seems like an obvious question but you need to be clear why you’re looking to raise in order to come up with an effective game plan and determine your best funding option. And when it comes to timing, wait until you’ve come up with a working prototype and developed your product before you seek external funding.

Startup 40

Startup Venture Capital Equity Funding 40

Startup Professionals Musings

AUGUST 21, 2013

The basic alignment framework of strategy, customers, people, and processes hasn’t changed, but the pace of technological, competitive, and social change has increased at an amazing rate. If you have had to pivot from the consumer market to enterprise customers, that requires new pricing models and new sales channels.

Startup 94

Startup Social Media Entrepreneur Framework 94

Startup Professionals Musings

JULY 24, 2012

The basic alignment framework of strategy, customers, people, and processes hasn’t changed, but the pace of technological, competitive, and social change has increased at an amazing rate. If you have had to pivot from the consumer market to enterprise customers, that requires new pricing models and new sales channels.

Entrepreneur 93

Entrepreneur Social Media Startup Framework 93

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

Startup Professionals Musings

JANUARY 31, 2013

Use a simple accounting tool like QuickBooks, get away from co-mingled funds, and you have the first business process you need. This will include the first version of many critical processes that can be split out later, including market opportunity, requirements, product definition, business model, sales process, and organization.

Outsource Development 92

Outsource Development Training Outsource Metrics 92

Startup Professionals Musings

DECEMBER 30, 2012

Have you projected sales and marketing costs, cash flow, and capital requirements? Develop metrics with which to measure yourself and use these to incrementally expand and improve your offering as fast as the market and capital will allow. Show return on investment, growth rates, and market penetration. Don’t stand still.

Startup 96

Startup Writing Metrics Marketing 96