Both Sides of the Table

JANUARY 22, 2014

So I thought I’d write about out with what I would look for in a VC knowing what I know now and why. It’s insanely competitive to get into our industry so most have degrees from institutions like Stanford, Harvard, Wharton and University of Chicago (blatant plug ;-). VCs, how to select a VC, etc.) Most VCs are book smart.

Venture Capital 364

Venture Capital Coach Writing SaaS 364

Both Sides of the Table

JUNE 20, 2013

The reason for this is that the executives who founded the company have so much tacit knowledge of how to position their product relative to the competition that they can easily win campaigns when they’re involved. So I often work with teams to get them to codify the key things they do well that the competition does not.

Sales 336

Sales Startup Competition Customer 336

socalTECH

DECEMBER 11, 2018

Those references drive trillions of dollars of commerce. We're really latching onto the growing trend of building products that detect product references in social messaging. We automatically add tracking and point those product references to e-commerce merchants. They're doing that billions of times a day.

San Diego 159

San Diego Social Media Commerce Snapchat 159

Startup Professionals Musings

SEPTEMBER 2, 2018

With services, scaling the business often implies cloning yourself, since you are the intellectual property and the competitive advantage. For example, both need to provide exemplary customer service, build customer loyalty, and provide real value for a competitive price. You have no shelf life, so you can’t make money while you sleep.

Services 72

Services Startup Training Writing 72

Both Sides of the Table

JANUARY 18, 2014

Sometimes those motives are positive (they really want the chance to work with you, they think you have unique skills) and sometimes they are less positive (their first-tier of “go to” referrals passed on the deal, they don’t want to write another check themselves, etc.). I wrote here about why I avoid party rounds.

Venture Capital 337

Venture Capital Invest Ideas Entrepreneur 337

Startup Professionals Musings

JUNE 27, 2014

With services, scaling the business often implies cloning yourself, since you are the intellectual property and the competitive advantage. For example, both need to provide exemplary customer service, build customer loyalty, and provide real value for a competitive price. You have no shelf life, so you can’t make money while you sleep.

Services 105

Services Startup Training Writing 105

Startup Professionals Musings

AUGUST 17, 2016

With services, scaling the business often implies cloning yourself, since you are the intellectual property and the competitive advantage. For example, both need to provide exemplary customer service, build customer loyalty, and provide real value for a competitive price. You have no shelf life, so you can’t make money while you sleep.

Services 61

Services Startup Training Writing 61

Both Sides of the Table

JULY 9, 2012

I told him only 2 weeks ago when we were in London together that I wanted to write a blog post that has been in my head for 2 years. These engagements went well and he came highly referred by my friend Gary Swart who runs oDesk. When he writes them online his Tourette’s comes out and sometimes the substance gets lost in the style.

Startup 309

Startup Venture Capital Email Writing 309

Tech Zulu Event

JUNE 24, 2016

The Affordable Care Act, often referred to as “Obamacare,” has enacted major changes for healthcare providers since it was enacted at the start of President Obama’s first term. Even so, employers will need to keep their plans competitive in order to discourage marketplace health plan shopping.

Startup 49

Startup Competition Study Writing 49

Startup Professionals Musings

FEBRUARY 4, 2012

After you have successfully attracted angels or venture capital with your business case, your million dollar product idea, and you have a signed term sheet, there is still one more hurdle to overcome before investors write the check. Sustainable competitive advantage. This is the dreaded “due diligence” process.

Technical Review 94

Technical Review Startup Writing Competition 94

socalTECH

DECEMBER 17, 2008

In their case, people write their scripts on a web site, and when they're done, they can submit them to contests with a single click. If you're doing freelance writing, have a story you're trying to sell, there's a whole process of finding out where you're doing well, not doing well, and what responses you have received.

Writing 209

Writing Hollywood Startup Sites 209

InfoChachkie

MAY 16, 2011

Thus, you must first create the playbook by which an independent sales rep can readily sell your product, including: identifying objections and developing strategies to overcome them, creating reference accounts and establishing meaningful customer adoption. 5) Allow Partners To Write Your Agreements. Fallacy: Yes.

Startup 242

Startup Outsource Development Outsource Sales 242

Startup Professionals Musings

OCTOBER 22, 2010

After you have successfully attracted angels or venture capital with your business case, your million dollar product idea, and you have a signed term sheet, there is still one more hurdle to overcome before investors write the check. Sustainable competitive advantage. This is the dreaded “due diligence” process.

Technical Review 90

Technical Review Writing Competition Tips 90

Both Sides of the Table

FEBRUARY 5, 2011

I’ve started writing up some of those sales & marketing lessons and I plan to continue to build that section out over time. They like a solid product, well defined pricing, good references to sell against, a clear quota and well defined competitors. Sure, you need to be competitive on price. Please call our references.

Sales 316

Sales Startup Pricing Customer 316

Both Sides of the Table

SEPTEMBER 23, 2010

Have you reference them? Have you looked at competition? How well financed is the competition? It’s called competition. It’s healthy competition. update] Is Ron Conway a great guy with good intentions in writing the letter he did? Typical questions: What do you think of management? I think so.

Pricing 292

Pricing Entrepreneur Technical Review Venture Capital 292

Both Sides of the Table

JANUARY 21, 2010

If you don’t follow the image reference above or the tag line, “ You don’t need double talk; you need Bob Loblaw “ (try saying it out loud) , and if you care! I write about some of the lessons in my post on Startup Mistakes. Shame about not getting it in legal writing that you owned the original IP.

Startup 318

Startup IP Southern California Entrepreneur 318

Startup Professionals Musings

JULY 8, 2016

Your gut-feelings are important, but need to be validated by normal background and reference checks. I recommend a thirty to ninety-day trial period, defined in writing, where either party can terminate the relationship without recourse. Candidates with few credentials on paper may be your best growth candidates.

Organization 57

Organization Entrepreneur Satisfaction Screening 57

Startup Professionals Musings

JULY 8, 2013

Be visible online and to traditional media, volunteer to lead, write guest posts for others, be responsive, give stuff away, and provide many ways to communicate. Soon you will find that they are re-tweeting your messages, referring their friends to your products, and becoming your biggest evangelists.

Platform 105

Platform Entrepreneur Startup Social Media 105

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. Write things down. We helped the write out their requirements for a system. They decided to re-open the competition for 3-4 more weeks. Be gracious.

Outsource Development 333

Outsource Development Software Review Technical Review News 333

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. Write things down. We helped the write out their requirements for a system. They decided to re-open the competition for 3-4 more weeks. Be gracious.

Outsource Development 328

Outsource Development Software Review Technical Review News 328

InfoChachkie

JUNE 20, 2011

Competition – Make it clear that only the best Interns will be granted offers for full-time positions. This explicit competitive element will cause the high-achievers to excel. . It was not possible to replicate this strategy at Expertcity, as a tour of an office in which people were writing software code did not have the same allure.

Startup 244

Startup Software Review Technical Review Class 244

Both Sides of the Table

OCTOBER 19, 2009

I had seen many cycles and decided that since I was going to do it all over again I should write about it. It included one firm who I asked not to call Salesforce.com as a reference (they were our largest pilot customer) and in their kindness they called Marc Benioff (the CEO) and asked his opinion. That changed very quickly.

Venture Capital 274

Venture Capital Blogging Startup Slides 274

Startup Professionals Musings

MAY 31, 2012

Be visible online and to traditional media, volunteer to lead, write guest posts for others, be responsive, give stuff away, and provide many ways to communicate. Soon you will find that they are re-tweeting your messages, referring their friends to your products, and becoming your biggest evangelists.

Startup 104

Startup Social Media Platform Blogging 104

Startup Professionals Musings

APRIL 15, 2010

Let me be clear – a product or consulting startup today without a blog, even with a static website, risks not being competitive in cost and time to reach and hold that critical mass of online customers. An informal writing style is generally recommended. Add outgoing links. To be successful, you have to get your message out there.

Blogging 48

Blogging Search Engine Optimization Startup Writing 48

Both Sides of the Table

AUGUST 15, 2009

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. We helped the write out their requirements for a system. They decided to re-open the competition for 3-4 more weeks. Write things down. Be gracious.

Startup 151

Startup Outsource Development Software Review Technical Review 151

Both Sides of the Table

JULY 1, 2010

By going on sales calls you pick up directly the feedback of what customers want and also what they’re telling you about competition. By the time of my second company MySQL was a much more robust solution and worked well when you had to read a lot of information but was less performant on “write&# activities.

Startup 308

Startup CTO Coach Technical Review CTO Hire 308

Both Sides of the Table

JUNE 22, 2015

I must admit I discuss this very frequently with portfolio companies but hadn’t thought to write about it. And often these contracts don’t prohibit you from marketing to competitors so you can often start to build your future pipeline while not immediately selling to the competition.

Outsource Development 150

Outsource Development Startup Customer Custom 150

InfoChachkie

MAY 23, 2011

Once you establish a non-exclusive partnership, you can reference it when other BDCs ask for excludesivity. Write this number down. In contrast, relationships which seemed tangential at the outset can become company-changing partnerships as markets and competitive landscapes shift over time.

Technical Review 183

Technical Review Marketing Sales Competition 183

Both Sides of the Table

JANUARY 13, 2011

I talked about this in the TWiVC video but I didn’t do a good enough job of writing it up in the summary notes in the post. And when you finish the demo you can bring in the other important components such as competition, team, customer acquisition strategy, etc. I’m usually itching to just see what you’ve built.

Venture Capital 299

Venture Capital Slides Technical Advisors Startup 299

Both Sides of the Table

MAY 23, 2010

So by offering convertible debt you can avoid a price discussion in the same way that angel investors sometimes do in order to win competitive early-stage deals. But I used to jokingly refer to bridge loans as “pier&# loans. He had already given things his best effort.&#.

Startup 290

Startup Funding Venture Capital Pricing 290

InfoChachkie

NOVEMBER 23, 2015

Subject: Reference for Twilio. Although larger VC firms routinely invest in competitive offerings, it is less prudent for a small firm to do so, as it can be difficult to avoid inadvertent information transfers within an intimate partnership. Most importantly, it just doesn't feel right to us to hold positions in competitive companies.

Venture Capital 100

Venture Capital Technical Review Software Review Southern California 100

InfoChachkie

APRIL 3, 2012

Did you just meet the shy boy who spent his High School years writing in his journal or the boisterous verbal bully who used her wit to hide her insecurities? When I say “get personal,” I am referring to non-typical questions designed to determine who the candidate really is. Did you play any team or individual sports competitively?

Entrepreneur 219

Entrepreneur Startup Equity Journal 219

Tech Zulu Event

JUNE 6, 2012

“Competition for the future is about what you are doing today,” Vijay Govindarajan preaches passionately from the stage at the front of the Metro Toronto Convention center on June 5th, 2012 at the Art of Leadership Conference. In the boxes he writes: 1. Manage the present. Selectively forget the past. Create the future.

Pricing 80

Pricing Statistics Examples Design 80

Both Sides of the Table

SEPTEMBER 27, 2010

A new group of investors have clustered around writing earlier-stage, smaller checks. It was obviously a joke and a reference to the supposed Bin 38 meeting. There is no way for people to keep prices down – it’s a competitive market. So in the past we needed VC to really get a startup going. That’s awesome.

Venture Capital 308

Venture Capital Training Startup Entrepreneur 308

Both Sides of the Table

MARCH 27, 2011

But should you actually write one if you’re a startup, an industry figure (lawyer, banker) or VC? This is a post to help you figure out why you should write and what you should talk about. eCommerce is an enormously competitive search term. Write out the topic and maybe even the blog title. Absofuckinglutely.

Blogging 373

Blogging Startup Writing Venture Capital 373

Both Sides of the Table

OCTOBER 29, 2009

See Fred Wilson’s post on Twitter referring traffic. And if they can monetize their follower base then they have an incentive to grow their base, Tweet more, engage more and write better quality Tweets. If we continue our success we will have strong competition. The initial data we are seeing at Ad.ly Everybody gains.

Ideas 286

Ideas Advertising Google Technical Review 286

Startup Professionals Musings

JUNE 26, 2020

A business plan is the outward facing definition of the business you hope to drive with your hardware solution, with a hardware overview in the intro to highlight customer value and competitiveness. Call out your top competitors, highlighting your sustainable competitive advantage, including patents, trade secrets. and trademarks.

Product 169

Product Summary Startup Examples 169