Startup Professionals Musings

JUNE 21, 2013

Most leaders agree that poor customer service is a business killer today, in terms of lost customers, reduced profits, and low morale. Young entrepreneurs and startups, in particular, often remain naively unfocused, despite their passion, of what it takes to provide the high-quality service expected. Train and coach continuously.

Customer 92

Customer Custom Startup Services 92

Both Sides of the Table

MAY 27, 2016

As a starting point I have to believe the founder has the attributes of an entrepreneur that matter most to me : Tenacity, resiliency, inspiration, perspiration, attention-to-detail, competitiveness, decisiveness, risk tolerance and integrity. I am much more attracted to technical product teams than to new business concepts or commerce types.

Invest 254

Invest Writing Pricing Metrics 254

Berkonomics

OCTOBER 8, 2020

It is most often missed assumptions about the market, the competition, the speed of adoption, or other critical metrics you’ve researched, or selected, or even just guessed at to create your plan. SAM (Serviceable available market) which is is closer – the market you might be able to reach in your future and service effectively.

Company 156

Company Companies Metrics Resource 156

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. Establish and evaluate metrics at multiple levels. Proactively evaluate new technologies for impact.

Marketing 162

Marketing Social Media Metrics Customer 162

Startup Professionals Musings

JUNE 23, 2021

For example, I commonly see metrics to keep track of revenue per employee, overtime, and absenteeism, but I don’t often see measures of overall customer satisfaction with individual employees. Incentives should be a combination of metrics and recognition to highlight results. Incent and reward employees who delight customers.

Customer 147

Customer Custom Technical Review Metrics 147

Startup Professionals Musings

JANUARY 9, 2022

They randomly churn for hours a day on a couple of their favorite social media platforms, with little thought given to goals, objectives, or metrics; and ultimately give up and fall back to traditional marketing approaches. Obviously, the platforms and how you use social media would be different for lead generation versus service and support.

Social Media 135

Social Media Framework Media Metrics 135

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

Startup Professionals Musings

NOVEMBER 29, 2021

The most competitive startups do both, all the time and every time. In today’s competitive world, with its accelerating rate of change, no competitive advantage lasts long. The only sustainable competitive advantage is creativity. Creativity is the ultimate competitive advantage. Celebrate ideas.

Competition 135

Competition Netflix Ideas Metrics 135

Startup Professionals Musings

NOVEMBER 21, 2021

Decide what to measure and create metrics. Design your invisible competitive advantage. Every company has different strengths and goals, yet each can publish internally their innovation canvas of technology, leadership, people, structure, rewards, and metrics that sets them apart. You only get what you measure.

Develop 135

Develop Development Startup Metrics 135

Startup Professionals Musings

NOVEMBER 28, 2020

Of course, that’s both the good news and the bad news for aspiring entrepreneurs, since it means more competition, and the business landscape is changing faster than ever. Incorporating a business entity early through online services. Over 600,000 new businesses were created in the last year, or over one per minute of every day.

Tips 161

Tips Startup Social Media News 161

Startup Professionals Musings

JANUARY 6, 2021

It’s important to define your growth strategy, document it, communicate it to your team, and align metrics and employee rewards to target goals. Customers have no tolerance these days for multiple interactions, necessary support requests, poor customer service, or bureaucratic processes. Track competition to stay ahead of copycats.

Technical Review 160

Technical Review Technical Advisors Startup Mentor 160

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. For progress and success assessment, each of these needs some metrics defined, a training plan, and responsibility assignments within your team. Solution development and delivery.

Entrepreneur 131

Entrepreneur Outsource Development Startup Competition 131

Startup Professionals Musings

JANUARY 22, 2023

Silicon Valley is focused on disrupting established industries, but in many parts of the world, innovators must create new sectors, such as education, health care, financial services, and energy. Competition is not always a bad thing, and the real purpose is often to make the world a better place.

Capital 138

Capital Marketing Ideas Venture Capital 138

Both Sides of the Table

NOVEMBER 14, 2017

How profitable is my product or service? What sized team can I afford in order to sell, market & provide service to these customers? We have well financed competitors whom despite competing with we respect deeply and when you see your competition launching in many markets it’s tempting to follow suit.

Startup 286

Startup Technical Review Customer Custom 286

Startup Professionals Musings

AUGUST 18, 2013

They randomly churn for hours a day on a couple of their favorite social media platforms, with little thought given to goals, objectives, or metrics; and ultimately give up and fall back to traditional marketing approaches. Obviously, the platforms and how you use social media would be different for lead generation versus service and support.

Social Media 102

Social Media Media Product Metrics 102

Both Sides of the Table

MAY 27, 2013

In this period (less than 2 years) he has brought on incredibly talented senior execs is sales, marketing, product management, client services, finance, vp engineering and more. In Rob’s spare time he always seems to be going to a boxing class or some other competitive, physical activity. He fights hard for what he believes in.

Tips 365

Tips Email Venture Capital CTO Coach 365

Startup Professionals Musings

SEPTEMBER 21, 2020

You need a good cook, good marketing, and first-class service. 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. If you can’t identify customer interest, it doesn’t matter how good your product is. Don’t stand still.

Startup 156

Startup Coach Metrics Marketing 156

Startup Professionals Musings

APRIL 3, 2019

They randomly churn for hours a day on a couple of their favorite social media platforms, with little thought given to goals, objectives, or metrics; and ultimately give up and fall back to traditional marketing approaches. Obviously, the platforms and how you use social media would be different for lead generation versus service and support.

Social Media 96

Social Media Media Marketing Metrics 96

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. For progress and success assessment, each of these needs some metrics defined, a training plan, and responsibility assignments within your team. Solution development and delivery.

Outsource Development 115

Outsource Development Startup Competition Ideas 115

Startup Professionals Musings

FEBRUARY 11, 2019

Decide what to measure and create metrics. Design your invisible competitive advantage. Every company has different strengths and goals, yet each can publish internally their innovation canvas of technology, leadership, people, structure, rewards, and metrics that sets them apart. You only get what you measure.

Startup 97

Startup Metrics Competition Organization 97

Startup Professionals Musings

MAY 1, 2020

Silicon Valley is focused on disrupting established industries, but in many parts of the world, innovators must create new sectors, such as education, health care, financial services, and energy. Competition is not always a bad thing, and the real purpose is often to make the world a better place.

Ideas 124

Ideas Venture Capital Software Review Technical Review 124

Startup Professionals Musings

AUGUST 23, 2023

We all have our favorite metric and our passion, but keeping up with real-world changes and trends seems to be always just out of reach. In my experience, all business metrics are still used too often for people management and accountability, rather than business management. Accurate measurement of the wrong things is not helpful.

Metrics 81

Metrics Demand Statistics Sample 81

Startup Professionals Musings

FEBRUARY 8, 2020

Many risks can be managed or calculated to improve growth or provide a competitive edge, while others, like skipping quality checks to save money, are recipes for failure. Even non-profits need revenue to cover their costs, and continue to provide services. Use metrics to measure results of marketing initiatives.

Entrepreneur 129

Entrepreneur Resource Metrics Customer 129

Both Sides of the Table

MARCH 6, 2011

That, plus I love the space of high-customer-service, focused eCommerce for moms worried about what their kids eat & wear.&#. He has set up an office, a process & people around him that are helpful to entrepreneurs in need of hands-on skills in a mass service way. I know this guy is a money maker.

Startup 292

Startup Venture Capital Blogging Summary 292

Startup Professionals Musings

JULY 27, 2012

They randomly churn for hours a day on a couple of their favorite social media platforms, with little though given to goals, objectives, or metrics; and ultimately give up and fall back to traditional marketing approaches. Obviously, the platforms and how you use social media would be different for lead generation versus service and support.

Social Media 91

Social Media Media Metrics SEO 91

Startup Professionals Musings

JULY 14, 2012

The most competitive startups do both, all the time and every time. In today’s competitive world, with its accelerating rate of change, no competitive advantage lasts long. The only sustainable competitive advantage is creativity. Creativity is the ultimate competitive advantage. Celebrate ideas.

Startup 100

Startup Competition Netflix Ideas 100

Startup Professionals Musings

JULY 26, 2021

Well-articulated goals and metrics. Always strive to increase your lead, and while competitors scramble to catch you, unleash your next breakthrough product, service, or promotion. Maintain an intimate knowledge of the competition. Build it at the start and don’t ever lose it.

Startup 154

Startup Resource Entrepreneur Metrics 154

Both Sides of the Table

MAY 23, 2012

Yes, it’s true that FOMO (fear of missing out) is driving some irrational behavior and valuations amongst uber competitive deals and well-financed VCs. It’s not just that businesses can monetize more easily, when people like products or services they are diffused more rapidly through the population than has ever been the case.

Venture Capital 347

Venture Capital Capital Technical Review Startup 347

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. Re-evaluate processes as they are today and set metrics to better represent the new sales, operational, and service needs.

Social Media 143

Social Media Startup Framework Course 143

Both Sides of the Table

JANUARY 31, 2010

TechCrunch Europe ran an article in November of last year that European startups need to work as hard as those in Silicon Valley and I echoed the sentiment in my post about the need for entrepreneurs to be maniacal about their businesses if one wants to work in the hyper competitive tech world. Our first big institutional round was $16.5

Entrepreneur 308

Entrepreneur Startup Venture Capital Conference 308

Startup Professionals Musings

NOVEMBER 2, 2022

Many risks can be managed or calculated to improve growth or provide a competitive edge, while others, like skipping quality checks to save money, are recipes for failure. Even non-profits need revenue to cover their costs, and continue to provide services. Use metrics to measure results of marketing initiatives.

Resource 121

Resource Metrics Entrepreneur Customer 121

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 Customer Custom Outsource Development 133

Startup Professionals Musings

AUGUST 13, 2013

The most competitive startups do both, all the time and every time. In today’s competitive world, with its accelerating rate of change, no competitive advantage lasts long. The only sustainable competitive advantage is creativity. Creativity is the ultimate competitive advantage. Celebrate ideas.

Product 92

Product Competition Netflix Ideas 92

Startup Professionals Musings

APRIL 11, 2011

The most competitive startups do both, all the time and every time. In today’s competitive world, with its accelerating rate of change, no competitive advantage lasts long. The only sustainable competitive advantage is creativity. Creativity is the ultimate competitive advantage. Celebrate ideas.

Startup 92

Startup Competition Netflix Ideas 92

Startup Professionals Musings

SEPTEMBER 9, 2015

Many risks can be managed or calculated to improve growth or provide a competitive edge, while others, like skipping quality checks to save money, are recipes for failure. Even non-profits need revenue to cover their costs, and continue to provide services. Use metrics to measure results of marketing initiatives.

Startup 115

Startup Resource Metrics Entrepreneur 115

Startup Professionals Musings

DECEMBER 22, 2021

Too many businesses I know still see customer service as a burden, rather than an opportunity to gain loyalty and advocacy. Your goal must be to make every aspect of a customer interaction a joy to both you and them, starting from the shopping experience, to the sales close, to delivery and service.

Customer 114

Customer Custom Satisfaction Metrics 114

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. For progress and success assessment, each of these needs some metrics defined, a training plan, and responsibility assignments within your team. Solution development and delivery.

Outsource Development 99

Outsource Development Startup Competition Ideas 99