Startup Professionals Musings

FEBRUARY 14, 2021

In their passion and excitement about a new product or service, entrepreneurs tend to continually narrow the scope of potential competitors, and often claim to have no direct competitors. First to market, for example, is not normally a sustainable advantage for startups. Order-of-magnitude cost reduction or productivity increase.

Competition 166

Competition Funding Startup Patents 166

TechCrunch LA

FEBRUARY 3, 2021

Good Eggs says that in the past year, revenue has grown to the nine figures (more than $100 million), hired more than 400 employees and nearly doubled its customer base. And it sounds like he isn’t in a rush to launch in a bunch of new markets. That’s a meaningful increase in our addressable market.”

Southern California 318

Southern California Orange County San Diego Commerce 318

Startup Professionals Musings

OCTOBER 4, 2023

Ironically, as a startup investor and mentor, I have seen too many failures caused by just the opposite – too much money spent too soon, taking time to get product perfection, and assuming customers will wait. Startups funded by rich uncles rarely think about productivity. Rethink or reframe the challenge. Marty Zwilling

Resource 112

Resource Ideas Competition Entrepreneur 112

Berkonomics

NOVEMBER 24, 2022

In one industry I know well, the dominant player with 22% market share was acquired by one of the largest companies in the technology world. What if you had abandoned that market, reallocated your resources, and focused instead upon other non–competitive geographical or industry segments? Quietly abandon a niche?

Resource 156

Resource Competition Examples Customer 156

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.

Competition 122

Competition Mobile Startup Technical Review 122

Berkonomics

NOVEMBER 25, 2021

First, there is market risk. Will the marketplace accept your product? Is there a market for your class of product at all? Market risk is constant and should be of greatest concern to any executive or entrepreneur. Mitigating market risk is not easy. Second is product risk. Fourth is competitive risk.

Competition 156

Competition Marketing Class Product 156

Startup Professionals Musings

AUGUST 14, 2014

In their passion and excitement about a new product or service, entrepreneurs tend to continually narrow the scope of potential competitors, and often claim to have no direct competitors. First to market, for example, is not normally a sustainable advantage for startups. Order-of-magnitude cost reduction or productivity increase.

Competition 93

Competition Startup Patents Slides 93

Berkonomics

MAY 11, 2023

The quest for a great management team is not a fluke, but rather a result of backward looks at the failure rate from past investments by those same angel investors and venture capitalists. As a reminder of that conclusion: Great teams are flexible and have the advantage of experience in seeing the pitfalls before them from their past.

Statistics 156

Statistics Startup Ideas Entrepreneur 156

Berkonomics

AUGUST 5, 2011

Markets and competitors change. Over the years, I have often heard the complaint from CEO friends that they have become so swamped by the demands of their growing businesses that they feel themselves further and further from the center of their industry, no longer at the forefront of information and competitive development.

Marketing 191

Marketing Demand Media Resource 191

Startup Professionals Musings

AUGUST 14, 2012

One of the toughest and yet most important questions you will be asked by savvy potential startup investors is “What is your sustainable competitive advantage?” Yet many entrepreneurs, maybe in their passion for their new product, gloss over this one, or even announce that they have no competition.

Competition 97

Competition Patents Startup Social Network 97

Both Sides of the Table

SEPTEMBER 10, 2021

With the enormous changes to our economies and financial markets?—?how how on Earth could the venture capital market stand still? One of the most common questions I’m asked by people intrigued by but also scared by venture capital and technology markets is some variant of, “Aren’t technology markets way overvalued?

Venture Capital 471

Venture Capital Writing Invest Pricing 471

TechEmpower

AUGUST 21, 2023

Other common scenarios that we’ve seen: Scaling and new markets: Your company and product are established, and now you’re scaling or going after new markets. Keeping up with the competition: You’re a market leader in a fast-growing field. We then review the answers with the technical and product teams.

Technical Review 260

Technical Review Development Team Review Software Review TechEmpower 260

Startup Professionals Musings

JUNE 14, 2011

One of the toughest and yet most important questions you will be asked by savvy potential startup investors is “What is your sustainable competitive advantage?” Yet many entrepreneurs, maybe in their passion for their new product, gloss over this one, or even announce that they have no competition.

Competition 102

Competition Patents Startup Social Network 102

Tech.Co

SEPTEMBER 3, 2015

Among the participants that applied for the online competitions, only a progressed into the semi-finals. Tech.Co: Since launch, what was the most challenging part of gaining market traction? There’s a lot of work that goes into selling the product to users who are already doing something a certain way.

Competition 101

Competition Startup Ideas Conference 101

Startup Professionals Musings

MARCH 4, 2019

Is your marketing focus product-centric or customer-centric ? If you only sell products, it’s time to realize that times have changed. With a wealth of products now available, customers look for the most memorable experience , not just the best product. Status factors are more important than demographics.

Customer 85

Customer Custom Product Metrics 85

Both Sides of the Table

JULY 27, 2016

Wearables are clearly an important market but to me a much broader use case is bringing real-world objects into the computing world and there is no better mechanism than Computer Vision. A mobile marketing company could track campaigns and then measure increases in retail traffic driven into local stores.

Marketing 150

Marketing Course Startup Organization 150

Startup Professionals Musings

AUGUST 18, 2012

In the past, business cultures have been dominated by competition metaphors (sports and war being the most popular). There are many other design-thinking principles that entrepreneurs need to heed, such as the fact that products and services are bought by human beings, not target markets segmented into demographic categories.

Startup 94

Startup Design Entrepreneur Ideas 94

Both Sides of the Table

MAY 20, 2020

Her argument is that if Uber buys Grubhub (which itself once merged with Seamless) it would mean that Uber Eats / Grubhub would control half the market and that with DoorDash the two together would control 90% of the market. You lose the ability to up-sell and cross-sell products. ChowNow is simply a SaaS enablement product.

SaaS 242

SaaS Customer Custom Technical Review 242

Berkonomics

APRIL 16, 2020

Raising money during this crisis will be almost impossible, even from friends and family shocked by the stock market declines. COVID will become a word used in the past tense. Do you still need marketing costs when there is no-one out there buying new product? Everything will recover. Stocks will climb again.

Layoffs 218

Layoffs Sales News Marketing 218

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 23, 2021

Ironically, as a startup investor and mentor, I have seen too many failures caused by just the opposite – too much money spent too soon, taking time to get product perfection, and assuming customers will wait. Startups funded by rich uncles rarely think about productivity. Rethink or reframe the challenge. Marty Zwilling.

Startup 164

Startup Resource Entrepreneur Competition 164

Startup Professionals Musings

APRIL 22, 2023

You have to get past how great the product is to address clearly what your business rationale is, why it is different from the competition's, and why it will succeed. A winning product or service. Provide a simple yet complete description of your product or service and its competitive marketplace.

Equity 121

Equity Technical Advisors Funding Ideas 121

Startup Professionals Musings

OCTOBER 26, 2022

With social media and smart phone apps, real product information spreads at astounding speeds. It is required today for new innovation strategies, analyzing markets for new opportunities, and organizational changes. For a business, volatile markets are a source of great opportunities, as well as great risks.

Technical Review 151

Technical Review Organization Social Media Entrepreneur 151

TechCrunch LA

OCTOBER 28, 2020

“We’ve spent the past decade in bev-alc at the forefront of providing solutions to changing consumer shopping behaviors. What we’ve seen is a more exploratory customer than the industry recognizes, ready to try new form factors, products and categories. The liquor side of the PCH business is indeed incredibly strong.

Company 188

Company Companies Los Angeles San Diego 188

Startup Professionals Musings

MARCH 16, 2014

It’s not uncommon for me to see a startup business plan “mission” to be the “premier brand” for their product, yet their marketing budget in the financials is trivial. This combination will almost certainly get your plan tossed by potential investors, who understand all too well the need and cost for marketing in today’s environment.

Marketing 102

Marketing Funding Social Media SEM 102

Berkonomics

MARCH 16, 2017

The quest for a great management team is not a fluke, but rather a result of backward looks at the failure rate from past investments by those same angel investors and venture capitalists. As a reminder of that conclusion: Great teams are flexible and have the advantage of experience in seeing the pitfalls before them from their past.

Statistics 243

Statistics Ideas Entrepreneur Startup 243

InfoChachkie

JULY 14, 2011

Value Prop Twitter Style : “Ringrevenue’s call performance marketing platform enables ad networks, agencies, advertisers & publishers to generate more inbound sales calls.”. In today’s market, so much focus is placed on transacting business online. Who do you view as your biggest competition? You’re right.

Marketing 209

Marketing Advertising Paid Search Startup 209

Startup Professionals Musings

JANUARY 17, 2013

It’s not uncommon for me to see a startup business plan “mission” to be the “premier brand” for their product, yet their marketing budget in the financials is trivial. This combination will almost certainly get your plan tossed by potential investors, who understand all too well the need and cost for marketing in today’s environment.

Marketing 106

Marketing Startup Social Media SEM 106

Both Sides of the Table

JUNE 4, 2013

You need to first create a compelling product. Compelling in the sense that you solve a real problem a target group of potential customers has with a product that is significantly better than the alternatives on that market. You need product / market fit. Product / market fit is everything.

Startup 401

Startup Customer Custom Technical Review 401

Startup Professionals Musings

AUGUST 7, 2022

You can even give it a more elegant name, like “market-focused reinvention,” but it won’t be graceful if you don’t take the lead. It happens on the front end for startups to get traction, and then again later for every company as the economy, competition, and culture changes around them. Team, market, and cultural maintenance.

Course 127

Course IBM IBM Social Media 127

Both Sides of the Table

MAY 19, 2016

We believe that it is incrementally harder to differentiate on simple Internet products or mobile apps and while great companies are built doing this, our goal as a fund is to try and fund things that can be 100x returns if they work. In short, we’re after venture returns.

Company 207

Company Companies CTO Coach Funding 207

Startup Professionals Musings

JULY 27, 2020

You have to get past how great the product is to address clearly what your business rationale is, why it is different from the competition's, and why it will succeed. A winning product or service. Provide a simple yet complete description of your product or service and its competitive marketplace.

Technical Advisors 162

Technical Advisors Tips Startup Equity 162

Startup Professionals Musings

OCTOBER 29, 2022

Software products and apps can be quickly wire-framed with free tools such as MockFlow , or even Microsoft Powerpoint to lay out the key screens. When you wave your arms and describe your future product, everyone sees what they want to see, and it looks great. Show investors that you are committed, and past the idea stage.

Outsource Development 110

Outsource Development Ideas Tool Outsource 110

Startup Professionals Musings

NOVEMBER 12, 2021

Blogging has come a long way in the past few years, from a social release for narcissists, to today’s required vehicle for promoting your consulting business and gaining valuable online exposure. You should start blogging about your business before you have a product, to test interest and establish your credibility.

Blogging 135

Blogging Services Search Engine Optimization Web 135

InfoChachkie

JANUARY 5, 2015

A recurring entrepreneurial challenge is to determine the optimal price of a new product, especially absent a directly competitive alternative. Yet, the value of your solution will vary by customer, based on the utility each derives from your product. Anecdotally, it seems that SaaS products often behave as Giffen goods.

Pricing 100

Pricing Product Startup Customer 100

Startup Professionals Musings

AUGUST 14, 2021

With every business being global in scope and always-on, a phone-in service available in a local time zone during work hours only, is not competitive. No customer enjoys being blasted by irrelevant banner ads, and they don’t have time to sort through all the noise of products out there searching for an audience.

Customer 171

Customer Custom Social Media Design 171

Both Sides of the Table

JUNE 20, 2013

” Over the past 15 years I’ve worked with many software companies and a very common experience is teams who have a hard time articulating what is truly “unique” about them. So I often work with teams to get them to codify the key things they do well that the competition does not. They call them “user stories.”

Sales 336

Sales Startup Competition Customer 336