Startup Professionals Musings

OCTOBER 20, 2023

Highlight the competitive edge you bring to the market. Quantify the results, and avoid any fuzzy words, such as better usability, advanced technology, or more productivity. Put operational systems and metrics in place early. Keep your product focus narrow and messages clear. This is not a place for friends and family.

Marketing 116

Marketing Resource Training Startup 116

Both Sides of the Table

DECEMBER 11, 2022

There was no money train. And then in the late 90’s money crept in, swept in to town by public markets, instant wealth and an absurd sky-rocketing of valuations based on no reasonable metrics. In those years I learned to properly build product, price products, sell products and serve customers. It was 1991.

Venture Capital 466

Venture Capital Startup Marketing Pricing 466

Startup Professionals Musings

JANUARY 8, 2021

Train them fully, give them authority, make them accountable, and tie their pay to customer satisfaction. It must be understandable, written down, and verifiable, with regular measurements and metrics to make it real, benchmarked against the competition. Train and coach continuously. Know your customers intimately.

Startup 154

Startup Training Customer Custom 154

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. Show that you have a process to hire, fire, and train others as required.

Entrepreneur 131

Entrepreneur Outsource Development Startup Competition 131

Startup Professionals Musings

FEBRUARY 12, 2022

The solution is to establish and maintain a culture and processes that don’t view change as a discrete event to be spotted and managed, but as an ongoing opportunity to improve competitiveness. This contextual focus is critical to innovation and survival – the right product at the right time. Increase change agility.

Startup 116

Startup Training Statistics Summary 116

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

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. It’s the same for customers and products, where analytics have long proven their value.

Tool 121

Tool Statistics Entrepreneur Metrics 121

Startup Professionals Musings

JUNE 18, 2023

In all cases, don’t skip the basic training. If you can’t identify customer interest, it doesn’t matter how good your product is. 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. Don’t stand still. For now, get cooking!

Startup 112

Startup Coach Metrics Marketing 112

Both Sides of the Table

JULY 21, 2014

You’d imagine that companies selling tons of shelfware would quickly meet their deserved fate in the market, yet the spin around a category of software can fool buyers into thinking they “must have this product to compete.” Did they do a major training program? How frequently they’re using the product?

Marketing 354

Marketing Case Study Metrics Sales 354

Startup Professionals Musings

SEPTEMBER 21, 2020

In all cases, don’t skip the basic training. If you can’t identify customer interest, it doesn’t matter how good your product is. 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. Don’t stand still. For now, get cooking!

Startup 156

Startup Coach Metrics Marketing 156

Startup Professionals Musings

FEBRUARY 17, 2023

As a business consultant, I see many different employee cultures, from exciting and motivational, to dysfunctional and non-productive. Forestall loss of momentum by creating a long-term roadmap of activities and objectives, with metrics, to track implementation and measure results. Failure to cascade change success across all teams.

Organization 116

Organization Activity Metrics Training 116

Startup Professionals Musings

AUGUST 27, 2023

Measure progress through metrics on sales, revenue, and penetration. Look for more ways to demonstrate a competitive advantage, and partner with complementary organizations if you need strength in manufacturing, distribution, or customer support. Seek customer feedback on ways to improve value and satisfaction.

Customer 91

Customer Custom Marketing Startup 91

Startup Professionals Musings

AUGUST 18, 2018

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 kay to long-term value and a sustainable competitive advantage. Training and coaching.

Entrepreneur 64

Entrepreneur Coach Metrics Competition 64

Startup Professionals Musings

DECEMBER 22, 2021

First, you as the leader must be a role model for the actions you desire – including positive communication, active coaching, rewards for results, as well as providing required tools and training. Use metrics to assess needs and growth economics.

Customer 114

Customer Custom Satisfaction Metrics 114

Startup Professionals Musings

MAY 30, 2014

Waste in a startup is any activity that absorbs resources, but creates no value or competitive advantage in the eyes of customers. Much has been written about this subject in the world of manufacturing, stemming primarily from the 1990’s work by Taiichi Ohno, called the Toyota Production System (“Lean”). Lack of communication.

Entrepreneur 115

Entrepreneur Resource Training Product 115

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. Training and coaching.

Entrepreneur 101

Entrepreneur Startup Coach Metrics 101

Startup Professionals Musings

AUGUST 14, 2016

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 kay to long-term value and a sustainable competitive advantage. Training and coaching.

Coach 64

Coach Metrics Competition Ideas 64

Startup Professionals Musings

JULY 13, 2015

Waste in a startup is any activity that spends resources, but creates no value or competitive advantage in the eyes of customers. Much has been written about this subject in the world of manufacturing, stemming primarily from the 1990’s work by Taiichi Ohno, called the Toyota Production System (“Lean”). Defective products and services.

Resource 105

Resource Startup Entrepreneur Training 105

Startup Professionals Musings

AUGUST 7, 2020

By being proactive, and empowering and rewarding your frontline employees for improving processes, you will enhance your business productivity and growth in both the short term as well as the long term. Attract, train, and reward only the best leaders. Build and model a high-performance culture.

Technical Review 124

Technical Review Layoffs Social Media Metrics 124

Startup Professionals Musings

MAY 12, 2019

The solution is to establish and maintain a culture and processes that don’t view change as a discrete event to be spotted and managed, but as an ongoing opportunity to improve competitiveness. This contextual focus is critical to innovation and survival – the right product at the right time. Increase change agility.

Startup 94

Startup Training Statistics Summary 94

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. Show that you have a process to hire, fire, and train others as required.

Outsource Development 99

Outsource Development Startup Competition Ideas 99

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. Ongoing culture steps require tuning of measurements.

Competition 76

Competition Coach Case Study Statistics 76

Startup Professionals Musings

JANUARY 8, 2018

Waste in a startup is any activity that spends resources, but creates no value or competitive advantage in the eyes of customers. Much has been written about this subject in the world of manufacturing, stemming primarily from the 1990’s work by Taiichi Ohno, called the Toyota Production System (“Lean”). Defective products and services.

Resource 52

Resource Training Entrepreneur Activity 52

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? Are you prepared to hire and train team members required?

Metrics 58

Metrics Resource Startup Training 58

Startup Professionals Musings

MAY 28, 2016

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. Show that you have a process to hire, fire, and train others as required.

Ideas 62

Ideas Outsource Development Startup Competition 62

Startup Professionals Musings

MAY 4, 2014

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. Product development process. Here you will likely need to train others to help you, so more detail may be required in this process.

Startup 107

Startup Outsource Development Training Outsource 107

Tech Zulu Event

APRIL 23, 2013

The fitness professional network develops business tools that make it easier for fitness professionals to run their businesses and keep their clients engaged between training sessions. We knew there’s a better personal training experience to be had, so we set out to create one. We just found this hole in the fitness industry.

Social Network 92

Social Network Networking Training Summary 92

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 Customer Custom 286

Startup Professionals Musings

JUNE 21, 2013

Train them fully, give them authority, make them accountable, and tie their pay to customer satisfaction. It must be understandable, written down, and verifiable, with regular measurements and metrics to make it real, benchmarked against the competition. Train and coach continuously. Know your customers intimately.

Customer 92

Customer Custom Startup Services 92

Startup Professionals Musings

OCTOBER 8, 2018

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. Here is my prioritized list of best practices that I recommend to get you back on track: Focus on building an engaged and empowered team.

Technical Review 84

Technical Review Customer Custom Startup 84

Startup Professionals Musings

DECEMBER 8, 2018

In all cases, don’t skip the basic training. If you can’t identify customer interest, it doesn’t matter how good your product is. 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. Don’t stand still. For now, get cooking!

Startup 81

Startup Coach Metrics Marketing 81

Startup Professionals Musings

MAY 23, 2012

New product development process. Longer-term, enhanced product value begets superior company valuation through your organization’s intellectual property (IP) portfolio. Training and coaching. Make sure all team members have some connection with the product – has either used it, or sold it, or assembled it. Value creation.

Coach 98

Coach Ideas IP Sales 98

Startup Professionals Musings

MAY 7, 2017

The solution is to establish and maintain a culture and processes that don’t view change as a discrete event to be spotted and managed, but as an ongoing opportunity to improve competitiveness. This contextual focus is critical to innovation and survival – the right product at the right time. Increase change agility.

Startup 56

Startup Training Statistics Summary 56

Startup Professionals Musings

JANUARY 11, 2014

The solution is to establish and maintain a culture and processes that don’t view change as a discrete event to be spotted and managed, but as an ongoing opportunity to improve competitiveness. This contextual focus is critical to innovation and survival – the right product at the right time. Increase change agility.

Entrepreneur 110

Entrepreneur Startup Training Statistics 110

Startup Professionals Musings

NOVEMBER 4, 2016

In all cases, don’t skip the basic training. If you can’t identify customer interest, it doesn’t matter how good your product is. 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. Don’t stand still. For now, get cooking!

Entrepreneur 93

Entrepreneur Startup Coach Metrics 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

JANUARY 31, 2013

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. Product development process. Here you will likely need to train others to help you, so more detail may be required in this process.

Outsource Development 92

Outsource Development Training Outsource Metrics 92