Startup Professionals Musings

FEBRUARY 12, 2023

It’s important to learn from your own mistakes, but it’s even smarter to learn from someone else’s mistakes, without paying their high price in time lost, cost, and pain. I believe the old adage that you don’t know what you don’t know until you try to write it down. Finish the product before marketing begins.

Startup 124

Startup Writing Entrepreneur Ideas 124

Both Sides of the Table

MAY 27, 2016

I answered in the same way I always do so I thought I’d just write it publicly. “I I spend hours thinking about the products, competitors, market opportunities, recruiting and financing of these businesses. I am much more attracted to technical product teams than to new business concepts or commerce types. I fall in love.”

Invest 254

Invest Writing Pricing Metrics 254

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 20, 2012

Why is it that most of the business plans I see are really product plans? I define a product plan as a detailed description of your product or service, with a bit of business thrown in at the end. A business plan is a detailed description of your business, with a bit of product description thrown in near the front.

Product 92

Product Outsource Development Competition Outsource 92

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. You can be pissed off, but I don’t set prices. That’s stupid.

Startup 336

Startup Pricing Technical Review Marketing 336

Startup Professionals Musings

MAY 17, 2020

It’s important to learn from your own mistakes, but it’s even smarter to learn from someone else’s mistakes, without paying their high price in time lost, cost, and pain. I believe the old adage that you don’t know what you don’t know until you try to write it down. Finish the product before marketing begins.

Startup 174

Startup Writing Entrepreneur Ideas 174

Startup Professionals Musings

MAY 29, 2011

Why is it that most of the business plans I see are really product plans? I define a product plan as a detailed description of your product or service, with a bit of business thrown in at the end. A business plan is a detailed description of your business, with a bit of product description thrown in near the front.

Product 93

Product Entrepreneur Outsource Development Competition 93

Xconomy

SEPTEMBER 19, 2016

Amid the hue and cry over the Mylan EpiPen pricing debacle , Hillary Clinton unveiled her “ Plan to Respond to Unjustified Price Hikes for Long-Available Drugs. ” Clinton’s plan calls for “dedicated oversight to protect consumers.” That dependence on price increases won’t change any time soon. It has started.”

Pricing 40

Pricing Competition Blogging Journal 40

Berkonomics

MARCH 14, 2019

First: Product risk. . Is the product or service possible to produce at all, let alone economically enough to compete in the marketplace? Email readers, continue here…] Are you ahead or behind the market with your product or service? And fifth: Competitive risk. . Third: Management risk. .

Outsource Development 120

Outsource Development Ideas Resource Patents 120

Both Sides of the Table

JANUARY 12, 2014

If you’re a technology startup you need to excel at product, of course. The starting point of product IS marketing, which is what a lot of young entrepreneurs that never studied business don’t realize. But being best-in-class at online marketing is also a sine qua non to standout from your peer group.

Marketing 379

Marketing Startup SEM SEO 379

Both Sides of the Table

APRIL 25, 2013

Competitive sportswoman. She learns how to ship product, how to deal with merchants, how to hire product managers. Always meeting her product ship dates. She was always able to get into the weeds on product or biz dev discussions. She speaks about ethical sourcing of eco-friendly products. Stanford MBA.

Startup 398

Startup Design Downey Activity 398

Both Sides of the Table

JULY 15, 2010

I give a sneak peek at a blog post I’m writing on the topic next week. I spoke about the need of the CEO, CTO and head of Products to be in the same location. If you’re an entrepreneur, all else equal you prefer convertible debt because the deal is priced at a later stage when you’re worth more.

Venture Capital 210

Venture Capital Seed Funding Pricing Southern California 210

Both Sides of the Table

FEBRUARY 5, 2011

Most technology startups seem to be funded by product people or business people. I’ve started writing up some of those sales & marketing lessons and I plan to continue to build that section out over time. They are as good at selling you as they are at selling your product to customers. Here’s what I learned.

Sales 316

Sales Startup Pricing Custom 316

Berkonomics

MARCH 15, 2012

First: Product risk. Is the product or service possible to produce at all, let alone economically enough to compete in the marketplace? Are you ahead or behind the market with your product or service? And fifth: Competitive risk. Second: Market risk.

Outsource Development 200

Outsource Development Ideas Resource Patents 200

Both Sides of the Table

MARCH 31, 2012

The idea that the course asks students to write public blog posts is a testament to its more modern teaching style. My list of excuses includes: product, pricing, competition and lack of sales support. However, I advocate a more nuanced approach for early-stage startup teams” 1.

Startup 319

Startup Sales Course Competition 319

Startup Professionals Musings

SEPTEMBER 2, 2018

The critical success factors for a product business are well known, starting with selling every unit with a gross margin of 50 percent or more, building a patent and other intellectual property, and continuous product improvement. Low cost and low margin products can be winners, if the volume is high enough.

Services 72

Services Startup Training Writing 72

Startup Professionals Musings

FEBRUARY 5, 2020

Yet, in the interest of full disclosure, and an honest intent to save future entrepreneurs some grief and money, I would remind you that starting any business has key dependencies on at least five major elements, including product design and delivery, the right people on the team, adequate funding, a sizable market opportunity, and marketing.

Startup 131

Startup Entrepreneur Customer Custom 131

socalTECH

FEBRUARY 16, 2010

We talked with Noah about how the company grew out of a business plan competition at the University of Southern California, his recent funding from the Maverick Angels, as well as how the firm hopes to stand out among a crowded list of comparison shopping sites. Noah, thanks for the interview. How did the company start?

USC 207

USC CPC Sites Startup 207

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. Over time I realized I was a bit of a bottleneck in pricing and I didn’t add significant value.

Pricing 296

Pricing Sales Startup Customer 296

TechCrunch LA

MARCH 31, 2021

The sweeping infrastructure package put forward today by President Joe Biden comes with a price tag of roughly $2 trillion (and hefty tax hikes) but gives startups and the broader tech industry about $1 trillion worth of reasons to support it. ” Climate resiliency . Given the steady drumbeat of climate disasters that hit the U.S.

Startup 229

Startup Technical Review Invest Research 229

Startup Professionals Musings

MAY 9, 2010

Why is it that most of the business plans I see are really product plans? I define a product plan as a detailed description of your product or service, with a bit of business thrown in at the end. A business plan is a detailed description of your business, with a bit of product description thrown in near the front.

Product 48

Product Outsource Development Competition High Tech 48

Startup Professionals Musings

JUNE 27, 2014

The critical success factors for a product business are well known, starting with selling every unit with a gross margin of 50 percent or more, building a patent and other intellectual property, and continuous product improvement. Low cost and low margin products can be winners, if the volume is high enough.

Services 105

Services Startup Training Writing 105

Both Sides of the Table

DECEMBER 27, 2011

I find it amusing when a journalist writes an article about a prominent startup (either privately held or preparing for an IPO) and decries that, “They’re not even profitable!” They have have raised $2-3 million, built a product that has some amount of market traction and got to annualized revenues of around $1 million.

Startup 418

Startup Venture Capital Sales Technical Review 418

Startup Professionals Musings

AUGUST 17, 2016

The critical success factors for a product business are well known, starting with selling every unit with a gross margin of 50 percent or more, building a patent and other intellectual property, and continuous product improvement. Low cost and low margin products can be winners, if the volume is high enough.

Services 61

Services Startup Training Writing 61

Tech.Co

MAY 26, 2020

Jeff Bezos didn't get to be the world's richest man by writing a lot of checks, and one recent way to keep Amazon's profits healthy has been to cut its affiliate commissions scheme. Since April 21, Amazon has slashed its rates across a wide range of product categories, in some cases dropping as much as 70%. The impact? commission).

Buzzfeed 130

Buzzfeed Technical Review News Networking 130

socalTECH

APRIL 29, 2014

A number of teams have recently been looking to turn that vision into reality, as a result of the Qualcomm Tricorder Prize , a $10M competition being run by the X Prize Foundation to create a real life Tricorder. That''s essentially how the Tricoder competition was formed--it''s time for this to happen. It was announced in the 90''s.

Startup 262

Startup Competition Software Review UCLA 262

Startup Professionals Musings

FEBRUARY 4, 2019

Investor and customer attention spans are short, and both will write you off quickly. This statement leaves no confusion in the minds of investors, or customers, of what the company does and how it is different (and better) than the competition. Building a product is not the same as building a business.

.Net 73

.Net Examples Custom Customer 73

Both Sides of the Table

MARCH 25, 2016

The questions that a VC mulls before writing a check are precisely the questions you should be asking yourself. So when Sam Rosen came to me with the idea of disrupting storage with a product that is priced cheaper than existing incumbents and he could build a product that is a better service I was intrigued. Market Size.

Startup 150

Startup Marketing Study SEO 150

socalTECH

MARCH 22, 2012

The company also made quite an impression with its viral video --which you have to watch to appreciate--of CEO Michael Dubin extolling the virtues of the company's products, and panning overpriced, expensive razor brands. We somehow got on a conversation about shaving, and he mentioned the price of brand name razors.

Dollar Shave Club 210

Dollar Shave Club Startup Pricing Sample 210

Startup Professionals Musings

APRIL 1, 2015

It’s important to learn from your own mistakes, but it’s even smarter to learn from someone else’s mistakes, without paying their high price in time lost, cost, and pain. I believe the old adage that you don’t know what you don’t know until you try to write it down. Finish the product before marketing begins.

Startup 105

Startup Entrepreneur Writing Ideas 105

Both Sides of the Table

JUNE 22, 2011

I will write more about this in the next 2 weeks. But that doesn’t mean that people are paying rational prices as investors based on intrinsic value. Rational people can disagree and some may argue that today’s prices are rational and under-pinned by economic drivers. I believe that. That’s fine.

Pricing 309

Pricing Marketing Startup Venture Capital 309

Both Sides of the Table

MAY 13, 2013

Many buying companies price these deals on the basis of $1 million per engineer on the team for an early-stage deal. Get yourself in a big demo day competition. I’m supposed to believe that my best innovation can only come from scores of startup founders who just made millions and have now become CVOs at my company?

Press 357

Press Startup Yahoo Venture Capital 357

Both Sides of the Table

MAY 23, 2010

If a round of funding does happen then this debt is converted into equity at the price that a new external investor pays with a “bonus&# to the inside investor for having taken the risk of the loan. They also trust VC’s to determine the right price to pay for the company securities that they buy.

Startup 290

Startup Funding Venture Capital Pricing 290

InfoChachkie

MAY 16, 2011

Thus, I will recruit independent distributors and they will sell my new and innovative products on my behalf. Once you prove that a substantial, addressible market segment is willing to pay a price for your solution that exceeds your costs, you can consider a licensing strategy. 5) Allow Partners To Write Your Agreements.

Startup 242

Startup Outsource Development Outsource Writing 242

Both Sides of the Table

NOVEMBER 25, 2010

I believe that it is part of the DNA of an entrepreneur – being so competitive that you’re practically sick when you lose. They’re competitive. I keep my competitors as friends and those that didn’t choose me or my product as friends, too. Write things down. I don’t want to lose next time.

Outsource Development 333

Outsource Development Software Review Technical Review News 333

Both Sides of the Table

JULY 22, 2010

Due to competitive markets we ended up with a pretty good term sheet until we needed to raise money in April 2001 and then we got completely screwed. I’m not sure I really even need to write this at length because Nivi absolutely nailed the topic in his article “ The Option Pool Shuffle.&#.

Venture Capital 405

Venture Capital Pricing Startup Funding 405

Both Sides of the Table

NOVEMBER 25, 2010

I believe that it is part of the DNA of an entrepreneur – being so competitive that you’re practically sick when you lose. They’re competitive. I keep my competitors as friends and those that didn’t choose me or my product as friends, too. Write things down. I don’t want to lose next time.

Outsource Development 328

Outsource Development Software Review Technical Review News 328