Startup Professionals Musings

NOVEMBER 25, 2019

The new era of highly connected and interactive technology is changing not only how business employees interact with customers, but also how they interact with each other, and with their company. Both are required to stay competitive. Explore benefits of employing “mature” workers. They are now actively recruited for many roles.

Competition 127

Competition Case Study Platform Yahoo 127

Berkonomics

APRIL 19, 2012

Professional investors laugh when they hear an entrepreneur state, “We have no competition.” Maybe there is advance knowledge of new technologies around the corner that makes any decision today a risky one. That statement has killed more investment deals than almost any other.

Competition 189

Competition Slides Sales Ideas 189

Startup Professionals Musings

OCTOBER 6, 2019

While thinking about it, I realized that it’s really not that different from the toughness required and trained into America’s elite military force of Navy SEALs, who are known to be cool under fire, able to sense danger before it’s too late, and never give up on achieving their objective. Never be thrown off-guard by chaotic conditions.

Training 87

Training Startup Entrepreneur Mentor 87

Startup Professionals Musings

SEPTEMBER 13, 2014

As an investor, I always listen carefully to what an entrepreneur says, and does not say, about competition. Every business area has competition and every customer has alternatives, so a smart entrepreneur needs to acknowledge these as a positive in defining a big market, and position the features of a new solution in this context.

Competition 107

Competition Entrepreneur Patents Customer 107

Startup Professionals Musings

AUGUST 14, 2014

Competition for your new hydrogen fuel auto engine is not limited to other hydrogen auto engine offerings, or even other autos. Remember the transportation transitions from horses to autos to trains to airplanes. Investors are looking for technology, process, or business model breakthroughs, to move costs to a new level.

Competition 93

Competition Startup Patents Slides 93

Startup Professionals Musings

OCTOBER 31, 2018

The only “sustainable competitive advantage” in business is self-awareness. I was struck by this assertion in a new book, “ The Messy Middle ,” by Scott Belsky, who has spent more than a decade leading in the worlds of technology, design, and startups. It’s a recipe for disaster.

Competition 81

Competition Startup Examples Coach 81

socalTECH

OCTOBER 11, 2010

Last week, the University of Southern California 's Viterbi School of Engineering announced that it had established a new, business plan competition, the Maseeh Entrepreneurship Prize Competition ([link] specifically aimed at students in the engineering school. Why a business plan competition, and why in engineering school?

Competition 154

Competition Southern California Mentor USC 154

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. Train and coach continuously.

Startup 154

Startup Training Customer Custom 154

Startup Professionals Musings

APRIL 29, 2023

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.

Startup 111

Startup Training Services Writing 111

Startup Professionals Musings

AUGUST 14, 2012

One of the toughest and yet most important questions you will be asked by savvy potential startup investors is “What is your sustainable competitive advantage?” Yet many entrepreneurs, maybe in their passion for their new product, gloss over this one, or even announce that they have no competition. Dramatic cost improvement for cause.

Competition 97

Competition Patents Startup Social Network 97

Startup Professionals Musings

APRIL 21, 2023

Innovative technologies have no value until they are turned into solutions to real customer problems. Creating intellectual property, including patents, is the kay to long-term value and a sustainable competitive advantage. Training and coaching. Sustainable innovation is really the only sustainable competitive advantage.

Coach 137

Coach Metrics Competition Ideas 137

Tech Zulu Event

FEBRUARY 1, 2013

The event is a 2-day training in.Net, HTML5, Windows 8, Asp.NET MVC and other Microsoft technologies. In addition, world renowned speakers are invited to discuss the latest trends in technology. Leveraging these techniques should put you on an even playing field or ahead of the native app competition.

Training 65

Training Technical Review Technology Software Review 65

Startup Professionals Musings

JUNE 14, 2011

One of the toughest and yet most important questions you will be asked by savvy potential startup investors is “What is your sustainable competitive advantage?” Yet many entrepreneurs, maybe in their passion for their new product, gloss over this one, or even announce that they have no competition. Dramatic cost improvement for cause.

Competition 102

Competition Patents Startup Social Network 102

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. Proactively provide training and team member rotation. This is not a place for friends and family.

Marketing 116

Marketing Resource Training Startup 116

Startup Professionals Musings

MARCH 10, 2023

Show that you have a process to hire, fire, and train others as required. Formalize the use of tools and information technology. For progress and success assessment, each of these needs some metrics defined, a training plan, and responsibility assignments within your team. No mention usually means no plan and not competitive.

Outsource Development 115

Outsource Development Startup Competition Ideas 115

Startup Professionals Musings

FEBRUARY 14, 2021

Competition for your new hydrogen fuel auto engine is not limited to other hydrogen auto engine offerings, or even other autos. Remember the transportation transitions from horses to autos to trains to airplanes. Investors are looking for technology, process, or business model breakthroughs, to move costs to a new level.

Competition 166

Competition Funding Startup Patents 166

Startup Professionals Musings

NOVEMBER 9, 2018

In fact, in the greater scheme of things, it’s the best way to gain a real competitive advantage, and maximize economic value. Big technology breakthroughs don’t always correlate directly to the mind of customers, so your challenge is the translation. Make that a way to bridge a big technology change to customers and employees.

Marketing 89

Marketing Technology Customer Custom 89

TechCrunch LA

APRIL 9, 2020

The venture is also one of the few e-motorcycle companies drawing engineering tips from competition. Technology from the track is transferring to production models, according to Cevolini. Track competition is a secondary arena for Energica. But the competition is closing in on some of the Italian EV maker’s numbers.

Technical Review 277

Technical Review Competition Demand Sales 277

Startup Professionals Musings

JANUARY 12, 2022

I’ve learned over the years that you need to start with specific goals, a focused strategy , and a motivated and prepared team in order to penetrate competitive defenses. They assume their innovation will overwhelm any competition, anywhere. Capitalize on territory the competition has not penetrated.

Marketing 125

Marketing Technical Review Startup Resource 125

Startup Professionals Musings

OCTOBER 29, 2010

One of the most important questions you will be asked by potential investors is how your solutions beats the competition, not just today, but over the three to five year life of their investment. The concept is called “sustainable competitive advantage.” That implies competitive now, and the potential to stay in the lead.

Competition 89

Competition Patents IBM IBM 89

Startup Professionals Musings

AUGUST 3, 2020

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.

Startup 174

Startup Training Services Writing 174

Startup Professionals Musings

JULY 4, 2021

Waste in a startup is any activity that burns resources, but creates no value or competitive advantage in the eyes of customers. Trying to do too many things with too few resources, usually means the startup will not shine at anything, and will not survive the competition. In the startup world, this is often seen as a lack of focus.

Startup 161

Startup Resource Training Entrepreneur 161

Startup Professionals Musings

DECEMBER 5, 2022

As an introvert and a techy, I know well the challenges of building relationships in today’s competitive world. Startups don’t come with formal training courses. New entrepreneurs quickly find that what they learned in business school is no substitute for real-world business experience and training.

Training 117

Training Entrepreneur IBM IBM 117

Startup Professionals Musings

JULY 27, 2022

I call this linear thinking , and it’s a sure way to be ultimately overrun by your competition. Plus you can challenge yourself to keep abreast of technology advancements in related industries, looking for a fit in your own. You need to see these as opportunities for growth and a chance to get ahead of competition.

Competition 139

Competition Examples Customer Custom 139

Startup Professionals Musings

NOVEMBER 5, 2022

Office jobs and communication technology have evolved. In today’s knowledge-based and highly competitive environment, strategic leadership and company direction can still most quickly be decided and executed in a hierarchical organization. Giving them a feeling of self-empowered decisions with fewer managers is key to this move.

Outsource 133

Outsource Training Organization Social Media 133

Startup Professionals Musings

SEPTEMBER 16, 2022

Hire and train your own managers for internal and external work projects. Adapting to culture goes both ways, and training is the key. You will need to invest more in training your own team, and increase your capital budget for new hardware and software. With the high-speed Internet, our workers can be anywhere in the world.”

Outsource Development 138

Outsource Development Outsource Summary Training 138

Startup Professionals Musings

JULY 10, 2021

As a backdrop, he defines the evolution already in progress from current Gen Y customers to a more demanding and less tolerant state (Gen D) that will make them even quicker and more technologically able to demonize and destroy your business, if it won’t meet their norms of interaction, personalization, and purpose.

Customer 173

Customer Custom Social Media Outsource Development 173

Startup Professionals Musings

JUNE 7, 2020

Show that you have a process to hire, fire, and train others as required. Formalize the use of tools and information technology. For progress and success assessment, each of these needs some metrics defined, a training plan, and responsibility assignments within your team. No mention usually means no plan and not competitive.

Entrepreneur 131

Entrepreneur Outsource Development Startup Competition 131

Startup Professionals Musings

APRIL 15, 2023

They want to be on the cutting-edge of all the people, places and things that technology is going to propel next. Encourage team-members to play to their own strengths so that the entire team and organization leads the competition. Become their sponsor – onboarding with training and tools is essential. Spend time listening.

Organization 113

Organization Competition Entrepreneur Writing 113

Startup Professionals Musings

JANUARY 2, 2021

He later closed more than 8,000 of his stores for a day to provide employee racial-bias training. In today’s world, every organization needs to be in a constant state of change to stay competitive. You are in the best position to take the initiative to address growth, emerging technologies, and changing customer needs.

Training 173

Training Examples Startup Social Media 173

Startup Professionals Musings

JULY 25, 2020

Innovative technologies have no value until they are turned into solutions to real customer problems. Creating intellectual property, including patents, is the kay to long-term value and a sustainable competitive advantage. Training and coaching. Sustainable innovation is really the only sustainable competitive advantage.

Coach 144

Coach Metrics Social Network Competition 144

Startup Professionals Musings

AUGUST 31, 2022

With the multiple technologies of team videos, smartphones, email, and the pervasive Internet facilitating total communication, there is no need for the delay and information loss of multiple hierarchy levels in business. Discourage internal team competition and silos. Be a role model for leadership integrity and trust.

Organization 105

Organization Mentor Startup Training 105

Startup Professionals Musings

JULY 26, 2023

I see this happening in smaller ways often, where there is minimal focus on competition. Here are some key initiatives that I recommend to every business owner and leader to stave off new competitors before they seriously impact or cause a competitive crisis in your business: Continually compare yourself to known competitors.

Metrics 71

Metrics Training Netflix Resource 71

Startup Professionals Musings

MAY 28, 2021

No formal training courses. Larger enterprises are always sending their “high fliers” to leadership refreshers, new technology updates, and training on employee performance management. The result is a sinking feeling after some time that you are no longer vital and competitive in your own domain.

Startup 152

Startup Training Entrepreneur Course 152

socalTECH

JANUARY 28, 2019

However, there is already the technology out therefrom San Luis Obispo-based Whitefox Defense (www.whitefoxdefense.com)  to both detect, and neutralize those drones. We spoke with founder and CEO Luke Fox to learn more about the company, and its technology. Explain how your technology works?

Startup 187

Startup Technical Review Technology Competition 187

Startup Professionals Musings

DECEMBER 2, 2022

There are no “overrides” – for example, businesses don’t thrive just because they offer the latest technology, or because everyone wants to be “green,” or because their goal is to reduce world hunger. Competition. Think broadly here, like planes versus trains. How many competitors do you have? Customers always have alternatives.

Sales 102

Sales Customer Custom Outsource 102

Startup Professionals Musings

JANUARY 8, 2023

So before you decide to move your manufacturing, software development, or call center out of town, make sure you understand the following considerations: Don’t give someone else control of your competitive advantage. Saving cost won’t help you if you can’t make the daily innovations required to stay competitive.

Software Review 114

Software Review Technical Review Outsource Development Outsource 114