Both Sides of the Table

JULY 23, 2013

It is simply the most important way to proactively control your career development and how the market perceives you. That was fine with me – the market is the market. That was the market. In today’s market you can prove your worth, in 1991 that was a bit harder. It is neither. She was paid 15% more.

Technical Advisors 385

Technical Advisors Marketing Startup Venture Capital 385

Both Sides of the Table

JUNE 4, 2013

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. In my opinion no amount of clever marketing or chest beating at conferences can create a market if you don’t have an amazing product to begin with.

Startup 401

Startup Customer Custom Technical Review 401

Both Sides of the Table

JUNE 20, 2013

In my first enterprise software company we developed a methodology for sales that we called PUCCKA , which I wrote about previously. Having a good sales methodology can help you ensure your company runs more disciplined campaigns and focuses scarce resources on your best opportunities. It the second rule of sales, “Why Buy Me?”

Sales 336

Sales Startup Competition Customer 336

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. “COGS” represents the amount that each sale costs you.

Startup 418

Startup Venture Capital Sales Technical Review 418

Berkonomics

NOVEMBER 21, 2024

Because the Internet has such a long memory and documents from the distant past can be found with ease, a search the “The Berkus Method” today will yield several conflicting valuations culled from the many subsequent publications of the method over the ensuing years.

Invest 306

Invest Startup Email Competition 306

Startup Professionals Musings

JUNE 2, 2021

In case you hadn’t noticed, the key elements of a competitive advantage for your business have changed as businesses move online, and your domain is instantly global. As a business advisor, I have to recommend even to established companies that they review and revamp their competitive strategy now, even if it appears to be working today.

Competition 142

Competition Software Review Social Media Customer 142

Startup Professionals Musings

OCTOBER 4, 2021

Does your business have a visible positive strategy, or do your customers and employees still see your primary focus as closing more sales and killing competitors? Market and customer positioning. Clearly focusing on the right market and customer profile sets your competitor differentiation. Competitive and leadership leverage.

Competition 110

Competition Sales Customer Custom 110

Both Sides of the Table

JANUARY 26, 2010

You can always tell during this discussion whether the entrepreneur has logged into their products, talked to their customers, read all the news stories and gotten all of the back channel info on the competition. You can tell if they have a deep-seated competitive spirit. Can’t go a mile deep on competition?

Entrepreneur 286

Entrepreneur Startup CTO Hire Competition 286

TechCrunch LA

APRIL 9, 2020

general manager ( Stefano Benatti ) — filled more orders in the first two months of 2020 than all its sales for 2019, according to Cevolini. The venture is also one of the few e-motorcycle companies drawing engineering tips from competition. Track competition is a secondary arena for Energica. Image Credits: TechCrunch.

Technical Review 277

Technical Review Competition Demand Sales 277

TechCrunch LA

SEPTEMBER 7, 2021

But LA-based performance marketing agency MuteSix didn’t wait that long to build its business around scaling DTC brands. If you have growth marketing agencies or freelancers to recommend, please fill out our survey !). In today’s highly competitive ad environment, both content and data are kings. The key takeaway?

Commerce 211

Commerce Content Marketing Startup 211

Berkonomics

APRIL 11, 2019

An entrepreneur pitches using a deck with no slide for competition. We have no competition.”. Perhaps buyers cannot obtain attractive financing in the current market. If you are training your sales staff, work especially hard on responding to emotional and factual counters to a final close of a sale.

Competition 120

Competition Slides Research Sales 120

socalTECH

SEPTEMBER 5, 2013

We caught up with M-GO''s CEO, John Batter , to hear about where M-GO fits into the streaming media market. If you look today at physical and digital transactions, it''s a $20 billion market, and more than half that market is still physical today. What''s the story behind M-GO? So, they just ave up. Stay tuned there.

Entertainment 197

Entertainment Netflix Marketing Content 197

Both Sides of the Table

NOVEMBER 3, 2010

The path I went down after a few years was to hire more process driven people and devolved more daily operational ownership to people running individual functions such as product management, sales management, finance, etc. One of the most obvious places where you see this is in sales & marketing. Ditto the CFO.

Sales 296

Sales Pricing Startup Customer 296

Both Sides of the Table

JUNE 5, 2011

2 preamble issues having read the comments on TC today: 1: I know that the prices of startup companies is much great in Silicon Valley than in smaller towns / less tech focused areas in the US and the US prices higher than many foreign markets. I can’t control the market. Private markets for stocks are the opposite.

Startup 336

Startup Pricing Technical Review Marketing 336

Berkonomics

JULY 9, 2011

These are so succinct, so well defined, so precise that everyone in sales and everyone involved in marketing must be able to answer these three questions without pause, and convincingly. It would pay you to work over this set of questions in a special session with sales, marketing and senior management in the room at once.

Sales 222

Sales Customer Custom Pricing 222

Berkonomics

JULY 26, 2018

These are so succinct, so well defined, so precise that everyone in sales and everyone involved in marketing must be able to answer these three questions without pause, and convincingly. It would pay you to work over this set of questions in a special session with sales, marketing and senior management in the room at once.

Sales 226

Sales Customer Custom Pricing 226

Startup Professionals Musings

JULY 30, 2021

While you all recognize that reacting to weak market signals is critical to staying in business and staying competitive, I find that many don’t have the skills and focus to trigger change decisions on a timely basis. When sales fall off, you need to dig deep for the “why,” rather than just assuming the price needs to go down.

Marketing 162

Marketing Social Media Metrics Customer 162

Startup Professionals Musings

MAY 1, 2022

Marketing is everything these days. Yet I see many technology entrepreneurs that focus on the basics of marketing too little and too late. I like the guidance from marketing coach David Newman’s classic book “ Do It! Don’t fall into the marketing-speak trap. Good marketing is not rocket science.

Marketing 141

Marketing Startup Social Media Technical Review 141

Both Sides of the Table

JULY 1, 2010

You’ll get sales information from your VP of Sales, marketing information from your VP Marketing, tech information from your CTO and so on. An obvious example would be in sales. You’re also learning directly about the skills of your sales staff by observing them in action.

Startup 308

Startup CTO Coach Technical Review CTO Hire 308

Both Sides of the Table

NOVEMBER 4, 2010

The framework of his book has profoundly altered how I think about the technology market and affects how I thought about building my businesses and how I think about investing in venture capital. Let’s start with the incumbents position in a market. They were serving a latent market need for mid-sized businesses to use CRM.

Startup 376

Startup Framework Marketing Customer 376

Both Sides of the Table

MARCH 30, 2011

The part of the movement that resonates the most with me (in my words) is that entrepreneurs should keep their capital expenditures really low while they’re experimenting with their product and determining whether there is a large market for what they do. Nascent startup markets are like fine wine, they take time to develop.

Development Team Review 374

Development Team Review Technical Review Startup Resource 374

TechCrunch LA

DECEMBER 8, 2020

He did note that in the four markets where the company has gone live since launching its business in January 2019 — San Diego, Los Angeles, the Inland Empire , and Sacramento — has yielded an annualized revenue run rate of over $400 million in gross merchandise value (the total value of home sales transacted on its platform).

Sales 282

Sales Demand San Diego Funding 282

Both Sides of the Table

SEPTEMBER 20, 2014

It is the bane of every startups existence because it takes up so much time, it is so competitive to sign people and it feels like unproductive time because it’s not moving the ball forward on product, engineering, sales, marketing, biz dev, fund raising. Recruiting. In fact, it’s worse than that.

Press 341

Press Startup Email Sales 341

Both Sides of the Table

MAY 14, 2018

I know all of this because every VC knows this because we’ve all either funded companies that have marketing technology or we’ve seen a pitch with a company that does this. Your pitch deck should really be your best marketing tool Your pitch deck shouldn’t contain your deepest, darkest secrets and plans. A deck is a deck.

Funding 239

Funding Venture Capital IP Email 239

socalTECH

MAY 23, 2016

Santa Monica-based TrueCar is continuing to bolster its links to automotive dealers, as it looks to improve its relationship with the auto dealer industry, saying this morning that it has named Paul Edmonds as Senior Vice President of Dealer Marketing and Opeartions. READ MORE>>.

Truecar 124

Truecar Marketing Santa Monica Pricing 124

Both Sides of the Table

MAY 13, 2018

The most important advice I could give you before you set out in fund raising mode is to understand that fund-raising a sales & marketing process and needs to be managed. Somehow many first-time founders equate “sales” with something that is beneath them. In sales there are also three rules: Qualify, qualify, qualify.

Venture Capital 332

Venture Capital Funding Startup Sales 332

Both Sides of the Table

JULY 6, 2015

Many people are too cautious in sales processes and as a result when they present their solutions they end up sounding milquetoast and undifferentiated from anybody else in the market. I recently wrote about the three rules of sales. Assume competition and assume within the buying organization you have enemies.

Sales 150

Sales SaaS Startup Venture Capital 150

Berkonomics

APRIL 16, 2020

Raising money during this crisis will be almost impossible, even from friends and family shocked by the stock market declines. Do you still need marketing costs when there is no-one out there buying new product? Are you salespeople making few if any sales because your prospective customers are distracted by their own problems?

Layoffs 218

Layoffs Sales News Marketing 218

Berkonomics

MARCH 25, 2012

Strategic relationships (reducing market risk and competitive risk) $1/2 million. Product Rollout or Sales (reducing financial or production risk) $1/2 million. Prototype (reducing technology risk) $1/2 million. Quality Management Team (reducing execution risk) $1/2 million.

Invest 321

Invest Startup Email Competition 321

Berkonomics

MAY 23, 2013

If it takes eighteen months to get a new product out the door and into the market, and if a product’s gross margin is ten dollars but the corporate overhead is a million a month, it will take the sale of 67,000 more units to break even than if it were to take only six months to market.

Competition 166

Competition Sales Email Marketing 166

Startup Professionals Musings

JANUARY 18, 2023

In this context, even “satisfied” is only a “meets-minimum,” and does not put you ahead of your competition. Even the best marketing doesn’t do it. Your challenge is to excel in all elements of a customer interaction, from pre-sales to long-term advocacy and image. Prioritize value to the customer over and above cost to you.

Competition 109

Competition Services Customer Custom 109

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. The market response model is an analytical model, which quantifies how markets respond to stimuli. Did the TV stimulate search?

Social Media 235

Social Media Demand Activity Marketing 235

Both Sides of the Table

FEBRUARY 17, 2011

A year ago I blogged about one of my most common mantras that applies to sales, biz dev & fund raising alike: “ Time is the Enemy of all Deals.&#. For many businesses you should keep your costs low & your capital raises low until you discover whether you are really on to a big idea where there is market demand.

Help 303

Help Startup Competition Framework 303

Both Sides of the Table

MAY 23, 2012

There are obvious reasons the industry has had less-than-desirable returns, including: massive over-funding of the sector, huge increases in inexperienced venture capitalists that took a decade to peter out, and the massive correction in the value of the public stock markets that closed many exit opportunities for half a decade.

Venture Capital 347

Venture Capital Capital Technical Review Startup 347

InfoChachkie

AUGUST 11, 2014

For instance, a team comprised solely of engineers is greatly handicapped, as is a team exclusively made up of sales and marketing executives. Competitive Rivalry - Constructive internal competition that does not derail a startup from achieving its strategic goals will enhance your teams overall performance.

Startup 257

Startup Santa Barbara Competition Journal 257

Both Sides of the Table

AUGUST 24, 2011

On this blog I’m often trying to combine lessons for entrepreneurs and market commentary. I said it was a great product that was well marketed.&#. What matters is that this is a great team with two really hardworking founders that have always stayed positive about their competition. Yesterday it was my turn for the lesson.

Email 270

Email Writing Blogging Competition 270

Both Sides of the Table

JANUARY 19, 2010

I’m writing this post as part of my series with Advice on Raising Venture Capital but will file it under Sales Tips as well since it applies equally to both scenarios. Or on a sales campaign you’ve finally gotten your project sponsor to take you to the “executive committee&# where decisions are made and budgets are agreed.

Venture Capital 318

Venture Capital Startup Sales Writing 318