Startup Professionals Musings

MARCH 10, 2023

Products and services for a business need to be attuned to customer requirements, cost and quality tradeoffs, with milestones for pricing and completion. Typically some production and delivery is outsourced, requiring formal contracts and documentation. No mention usually means no plan and not competitive.

Outsource Development 115

Outsource Development Startup Ideas Competition 115

Both Sides of the Table

SEPTEMBER 10, 2021

On the one hand, you’re over paying for every investment and valuations aren’t rational. We back very early stage companies and work alongside executive teams as their build their teams, launch their products, announce their companies and raise their first downstream capital rounds. That used to be called A-round investing.

Venture Capital 471

Venture Capital Writing Invest Pricing 471

Startup Professionals Musings

NOVEMBER 30, 2022

As an investor in startups, I most often see entrepreneurs who are technologists, or at least have a real passion for a specific product. They rarely highlight their marketing and relationship skills , even though, in my experience, these are more often the key to success in business than product skills.

Startup 113

Startup Customer Custom Technical Review 113

Startup Professionals Musings

JANUARY 9, 2022

Most startups, and many big businesses, still don’t have a clue on how to use social media productively for marketing their business. Create an action plan with metrics. Good action plans include a listening plan, channel plan, SEO plan, and a content creation plan, with activities and metrics. Marty Zwilling.

Social Media 135

Social Media Framework Media Metrics 135

Startup Professionals Musings

JUNE 18, 2023

If you can’t identify customer interest, it doesn’t matter how good your product is. All the investment money in the world won’t make your company succeed, if you have the wrong team. investors invest in people, not ideas) Effective and timely go-to-market. Show return on investment, growth rates, and market penetration.

Startup 112

Startup Metrics Coach Marketing 112

Startup Professionals Musings

AUGUST 7, 2015

Remember, investors are buying into the business, not the product. Investors are business experts, while the entrepreneur is more likely the product expert. Competitor positioning and sustainable competitive advantage. In my experience, the team's credentials are more important than the product.

Product 103

Product Slides Customer Custom 103

Startup Professionals Musings

JUNE 7, 2020

Products and services for a business need to be attuned to customer requirements, cost and quality tradeoffs, with milestones for pricing and completion. Typically some production and delivery is outsourced, requiring formal contracts and documentation. No mention usually means no plan and not competitive.

Entrepreneur 131

Entrepreneur Outsource Development Startup Competition 131

Startup Professionals Musings

AUGUST 19, 2022

Even after many years mentoring entrepreneurs and advising businesses, I continue to be surprised by the primary focus on products and processes, and the often incidental attention to hiring and nurturing the right people. Bigger organizations should invest in the new “big data” tools. Working on the wrong problem or assumption.

Tool 121

Tool Statistics Entrepreneur Metrics 121

Startup Professionals Musings

AUGUST 18, 2013

Most startups, and many big businesses, still don’t have a clue on how to use social media productively for marketing their business. Create an action plan with metrics. Good action plans include a listening plan, channel plan, SEO plan, and a content creation plan, with activities and metrics. Marty Zwilling.

Social Media 102

Social Media Media Product Metrics 102

Both Sides of the Table

NOVEMBER 2, 2010

Some objections are real and they end up becoming changes to your product, your service plan or your pricing / bundling. As a founder, when you’ve been dealing with these kinds of objections for a couple of years it becomes natural and you easily handle objections on price, product & competition without much thought.

Sales 289

Sales Startup Training Pricing 289

Startup Professionals Musings

SEPTEMBER 21, 2020

If you can’t identify customer interest, it doesn’t matter how good your product is. All the investment money in the world won’t make your company succeed, if you have the wrong team. investors invest in people, not ideas) Effective and timely go-to-market. Show return on investment, growth rates, and market penetration.

Startup 156

Startup Metrics Coach Marketing 156

Startup Professionals Musings

SEPTEMBER 22, 2022

For example, many investors I know tell me they look for business plans that allocate the largest portion of a requested investment to marketing, but most often see the top “ use of funds ” to be further product or service development. The smart ones were already working on new features, and able to counter competition quickly.

Marketing 133

Marketing Custom Customer Outsource Development 133

Startup Professionals Musings

APRIL 27, 2022

How does any entrepreneur define the right balance, and then measure their performance against real metrics? The real opportunity for entrepreneurs is to provide solutions that solve a problem better than the competition, while also providing sustainability and social responsibility. The whole can be greater than the sum of the parts.

Startup 110

Startup Entrepreneur Capital Examples 110

TechCrunch LA

FEBRUARY 20, 2019

Capitalism is fundamentally about timing, since market competition is about finding opportunities before others. When should a VC invest? Anyone who has worked in a large company further knows that timing a product launch or a new marketing strategy has more to do with internal politics than reading market forces.

Venture Capital 202

Venture Capital Startup Technical Review Invest 202

Startup Professionals Musings

APRIL 3, 2019

Image via Pixabay Most startups, and many big businesses, still don’t have a clue on how to use social media productively for marketing their business. Create an action plan with metrics. Good action plans include a listening plan, channel plan, SEO plan, and a content creation plan, with activities and metrics.

Social Media 96

Social Media Media Marketing Metrics 96

Startup Professionals Musings

AUGUST 12, 2015

New product process. It starts with a vision, but benefits quickly from a structured process of idea generation, evaluation, prototyping, customer feedback, and success metrics. Creating intellectual property, including patents, is the key to long-term value and a sustainable competitive advantage. Set milestones and meet them.

Entrepreneur 101

Entrepreneur Startup Coach Metrics 101

Startup Professionals Musings

DECEMBER 22, 2021

Use metrics to assess needs and growth economics. Business and customer satisfaction data measurements are required, in addition to subjective assessments of team progress, tradeoffs, and investment decisions. A popular set of metrics for customer views is the New Promoter System ( NPS ), available from Bain & Company.

Custom 114

Custom Customer Metrics Satisfaction 114

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 Custom Customer 286

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. Things that make it investment-grade for outside investors will also benefit you, since you are the ultimate investor. Competition and sustainable advantage. Solution and benefits.

Invest 74

Invest Tips Competition Metrics 74

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. Don’t forget to focus on the value of you and your team.

Entrepreneur 162

Entrepreneur Social Media Examples Metrics 162

Startup Professionals Musings

AUGUST 7, 2020

In a larger public company, it’s all about making your quarterly numbers, versus investing in strategic growth alternatives that may not pay off until several quarters later. It’s your job as a leader to be the model high performer, quantify the team view with metrics, and expand awareness to the best outside competition and new tools.

Technical Review 124

Technical Review Layoffs Social Media Organization 124

Startup Professionals Musings

AUGUST 27, 2018

Apple needs a product that jumps to the next curve. I will suggest to you as a business owner and entrepreneur that focus on certain key behaviors will drive innovation without waiting for the next competitive crisis: Be outspoken in communicating proactive required change. Isolate new product teams from decimation by daily crises.

Metrics 58

Metrics IBM IBM Competition 58

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. Things that make it investment-grade for outside investors will also benefit you, since you are the ultimate investor. Competition and sustainable advantage. Solution and benefits.

Competition 113

Competition Metrics Startup Invest 113

Startup Professionals Musings

JULY 17, 2019

You are so engaged in building and selling your product or service, that you “don’t have time” to focus on strategy and the next round of changes for the business to survive and grow. Highlight your competitive value, not your technology. before developing new products or carving out a new and untested space for your business.

Technical Review 87

Technical Review Customer Custom Competition 87

Both Sides of the Table

JUNE 5, 2011

If you invested in the first angel round of a startup company it is usually very hard to sell your stock – usually for many years if ever at all. The earlier you invest the higher the chances the company won’t work out and thus you pay a lower price than later-stage investors. Private markets for stocks are the opposite.

Startup 336

Startup Pricing Technical Review Marketing 336

Startup Professionals Musings

DECEMBER 8, 2018

If you can’t identify customer interest, it doesn’t matter how good your product is. All the investment money in the world won’t make your company succeed, if you have the wrong team. investors invest in people, not ideas) Effective and timely go-to-market. Show return on investment, growth rates, and market penetration.

Startup 81

Startup Coach Metrics Marketing 81

Startup Professionals Musings

MAY 24, 2015

Products and services for a business need to be attuned to customer requirements, cost and quality tradeoffs, with milestones for pricing and completion. Typically some production and delivery is outsourced, requiring formal contracts and documentation. No mention usually means no plan and not competitive.

Outsource Development 99

Outsource Development Startup Competition Training 99

Both Sides of the Table

DECEMBER 27, 2011

You have to understand whether they’re likely to yield revenue growth in the near term OR whether you have access to cheap enough capital to fund your losses until your investments pay off. If you have a market lead then raising capital and making investments now will help you as others enter the market. ” The Details.

Startup 418

Startup Venture Capital Sales Technical Review 418

Startup Professionals Musings

JANUARY 30, 2017

Normally the goal is to make enough money to be sustainable and provide a return on the investment of constituents. Most experts agree that a great team is more important than a great product. New business owners are often quick to spend outside investment funding, and quick to delegate money management to accountants in the business.

Ideas 72

Ideas Startup Metrics Entrepreneur 72

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

APRIL 1, 2017

Most startups, and many big businesses, still don’t have a clue on how to use social media productively for marketing their business. Create an action plan with metrics. Good action plans include a listening plan, channel plan, SEO plan, and a content creation plan, with activities and metrics. Marty Zwilling.

Social Media 62

Social Media Media Metrics SEO 62

Startup Professionals Musings

JULY 28, 2019

How does any entrepreneur define the right balance, and then measure their performance against real metrics? The real opportunity for entrepreneurs is to provide solutions that solve a problem better than the competition, while also providing sustainability and social responsibility. The whole can be greater than the sum of the parts.

Startup 93

Startup Entrepreneur Capital Examples 93

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. I have always worked on early stage products. Some of the products I’ve helped validate and launch include GoToMyPC, GoToMeeting and AppFolio.

Venture Capital 115

Venture Capital Entrepreneur Santa Barbara SaaS 115

Startup Professionals Musings

NOVEMBER 4, 2016

If you can’t identify customer interest, it doesn’t matter how good your product is. All the investment money in the world won’t make your company succeed, if you have the wrong team. investors invest in people, not ideas) Effective and timely go-to-market. Show return on investment, growth rates, and market penetration.

Entrepreneur 93

Entrepreneur Startup Coach Metrics 93

SoCal CTO

APRIL 8, 2010

Death By Competitive Analysis - Steve Blank , March 1, 2010 Trading emails with a startup CEO building an iPhone app, I asked him why potential customers would buy his product. In response he sent me a competitive analysis. It looked like every competitive analysis I had done for 20 years, (ok maybe better.)

Startup 150

Startup Software Review Competition SoCal 150

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. Things that make it investment-grade for outside investors will also benefit you, since you are the ultimate investor. Competition and sustainable advantage. Solution and benefits.

Competition 116

Competition Metrics Startup Sales 116

Berkonomics

NOVEMBER 4, 2016

So how do you use financial projections as valuation metrics when you know the odds of those being accurate predictors of the future are so very unreliable? For example, in Silicon Valley, a “big data” startup might competitively call for a $1.5 And he added the cohort responsible for each, a nice touch.

Startup 120

Startup Examples Metrics Marketing 120