Startup Professionals Musings

OCTOBER 8, 2022

In reality, a simple Excel spreadsheet model customized around your assumptions can save you hours and avoid a wasted expense in validating alternative vendor and marketing decisions. Vendor costs are subject to change, customers are fickle, competitors come out of the woodwork and the economy can take a downturn. Marty Zwilling.

Startup 147

Startup Pricing Sample Custom 147

TechCrunch LA

OCTOBER 5, 2020

“The only success criteria of my startup career is whether GrubMarket can eventually make $100 billion of annual sales,” he said to me over both email and in a phone conversation. “We had to limit our daily delivery volume in some regions, and put new customers on waiting lists.”

Technical Review 343

Technical Review Startup Marketing San Diego 343

Startup Professionals Musings

AUGUST 9, 2023

When entrepreneurs introduce new products to the market, their passion and conviction often leads them to assume that every potential customer will see the immediate need and value, and will quickly adopt the solution. The more revolutionary the solution, the more important it is to educate customers on a solution’s existence and value.

Case Study 89

Case Study Custom Customer Study 89

Both Sides of the Table

JULY 21, 2014

It’s when the noise stops and you can actually get customer attention, press articles and VC meetings. 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.”

Marketing 354

Marketing Case Study Metrics Sales 354

Startup Professionals Musings

NOVEMBER 15, 2020

When entrepreneurs introduce new products to the market, their passion and conviction often leads them to assume that every potential customer will see the immediate need and value, and will quickly adopt the solution. The more revolutionary the solution, the more important it is to educate customers on a solution’s existence and value.

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Case Study Startup Custom Customer 174

Startup Professionals Musings

MAY 26, 2023

Often, despite your passion and expectation, customers don’t immediately see the value and need that you see, and you have no idea why the initiative is stuck , and what could be the real customer issue or fix. Customers won’t buy what they can’t find or don’t understand. Solution may require new category development time.

Product 141

Product Services Technical Review Artificial Inteligence 141

Startup Professionals Musings

OCTOBER 31, 2022

It’s important to remember that your passion for a new idea needs to be supported by market research and customer feedback , before you will get the credibility and support you expect to work at this stage. Timing is important, and communication with your customer set is critical. Galvanizing: rally a team and customers for action.

Activity 108

Activity Satisfaction Metrics Startup 108

socalTECH

OCTOBER 21, 2008

Irvine-based Specific Media, a major online advertising network, has rolled out a new product geared at offline sales reporting, the firm disclosed today. The firm said it will offer its offline sales impact reports for customers in the retail, automotive, consumer packaged goods, entertainment and travel categories.

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Sales Media Report Advertising 100

Startup Professionals Musings

JULY 30, 2021

Here are some key strategies that I recommend to prompt you when changes to your business may be required: Look for a changing customer sense of value. You may be getting killed today by customer expectations you never worried about just a few years ago. Scan for unmet needs to match new products.

Marketing 162

Marketing Social Media Metrics Custom 162

SoCal Tech Calendar

JUNE 14, 2016

In the corporate world, events are more than just an event�they are opportunity to connect with your customers and turn potential customers into buyers. The most obvious, is to drive sales. However, our approach is a whole new product category, part of the marketing cloud. How do you make those events happen?

Sales 100

Sales Santa Monica Startup Orange County 100

Berkonomics

DECEMBER 31, 2020

A company like this grows in value to its customers and to prospective buyers of the business, but without any dilution of control or ownership for the founders. No dilution to shareholders or the founders. How refreshing! How grants are considered. The effort to write a grant request is not trivial. Other sources of grants.

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Equity Writing Education Research 156

Startup Professionals Musings

SEPTEMBER 11, 2021

One or more of the following parameters are viewed by most investors as traction indicators, but good entrepreneurs are often creative and define their own to supplement these: Start with sales to-date for a priced offering. As an investor, I would like to see one month of sales, and see how that compares to your projections.

Startup 121

Startup Metrics Custom Customer 121

socalTECH

MAY 28, 2013

Our current categories are electronics, photo equipment, cameras, lenses, appliances, music equipment, and baby products. Once you put your offer in, you enter your credit card, and you commit to the sale. We take a commission on the sale, and everybody is happy. However, rather than travel services, it''s for products.

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Pricing Product Help Sales 273

Both Sides of the Table

MARCH 31, 2012

Jeff (also an HBS alum) co-teaches the LTV course with Professor Eisenmann about a student of theirs who had written a blog post about sales taking on some of my previous assertions. That student is Erin McCann who formerly worked in sales at Google, so she has some ground to stand on in her assertions. Specifically, 1.

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Startup Sales Course Competition 319

Both Sides of the Table

FEBRUARY 28, 2018

If a consumer will pay a fixed price for a product or service then the battle over who gets the margin in any sale is between the person who merchandises a product and the person who manufactures it. Ariel understood her customer?—?the If you tried to shop Amazon for just one of these categories?—?where So Why Does This Matter?

Product 296

Product Course Custom Customer 296

socalTECH

MAY 21, 2013

The company said it has started with televisions, but will be integrating the Amazon product API into the rest of its categories over the next few weeks. The tie into Amazon expands the depth of information on the site, and also allows Enervee to include Amazon customer reviews and sales information.

Santa Monica 178

Santa Monica Sales Sites Product 178

socalTECH

APRIL 18, 2017

We are also launching beverages and coffee, two new categories, next month. With brands today, as you probably know, every consumer category is being massively disrupted by the long tail. Additionally, we're very sales and marketing driven. The problem is that there's no access. There's no access, for two reasons.

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Entrepreneur Services Sales Custom 124

Startup Professionals Musings

FEBRUARY 12, 2016

Having the best solution is a good start these days, but a solution alone is no longer enough to keep customer attention and loyalty. The challenge is to transform and hardwire your entire team to think in these terms, rather than the default focus on distinct towers of product quality, closing the sale, or fixing a complaint.

Custom 56

Custom Customer Startup Competition 56

Startup Professionals Musings

SEPTEMBER 25, 2021

Early-stage ideas fall in the same category. In other words, inventions are necessary but not sufficient to create real value for investors and customers. You need a viable business model and customers. Just because your technology is “cool” doesn’t mean that it solves a painful problem that customers are willing to pay for.

Technical Review 156

Technical Review Funding Patents Ideas 156

Startup Professionals Musings

MARCH 20, 2021

Entrepreneurs who are great problem solvers within any business are the best prepared to solve their customers’ needs effectively as well. In fact, every business is about solutions to customer problems – no problems, no business. Yet I’m convinced that problem solving is a learnable trait, rather than just a birthright.

Startup 156

Startup Entrepreneur Sales Course 156

TechCrunch LA

APRIL 22, 2019

Blueland’s cleaners — a bathroom cleaner, glass cleaner, and multi-purpose cleaner — are sold as tablets that customers add to the cleaning containers the company provides. The answer she came up with is Blueland, a new line of cleaning products that launches today. “These cleaners are mostly water,” says Paiji.

Design 161

Design Patents Los Angeles Ideas 161

socalTECH

AUGUST 21, 2013

According to the companies, the combined company expects to have over $400M in total sales in 2014. The companies said the combined company will help them to expand its customer base in the United States, accelerate international and category expansion, and also gain "scale and operational synergies".

Commerce 159

Commerce Sites Acquisition Los Angeles 159

Tech.Co

MAY 31, 2023

Business tools — from customer relationship management ( CRM ) platforms to accounting software — help to save startups time and money by automating key processes and maximizing efficiency. Its automation options, like automation splits, conditional content blocks, and custom workflows, help to save startups valuable time, too.

Tool 128

Tool Startup Software Review Technical Review 128

TechCrunch LA

OCTOBER 28, 2020

What we’ve seen is a more exploratory customer than the industry recognizes, ready to try new form factors, products and categories. Its sales growth has expanded 200% year-over-year even as the company maintains its profitability, according to a statement. The liquor side of the PCH business is indeed incredibly strong.

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Company Companies Los Angeles San Diego 188

TechCrunch LA

JULY 19, 2022

It also handles the back end as well by automating the posting, sale and shipment of unsold inventory while offering immediate payment to creditworthy sellers. They have the unique mix of deep apparel and commerce expertise, empathy for the customer and need set through the businesses they have run, speed, and product-first mindset.

Product 191

Product Funding Technical Review Equity 191

Startup Professionals Musings

JANUARY 6, 2020

In reality, a simple Excel spreadsheet model customized around your assumptions can save you hours and avoid a wasted expense in validating alternative vendor and marketing decisions. Vendor costs are subject to change, customers are fickle, competitors come out of the woodwork and the economy can take a downturn. Marty Zwilling.

Startup 123

Startup Pricing Sample Custom 123

TechCrunch LA

SEPTEMBER 10, 2020

So Khan set out to change the selling experience for these new companies that want to have a better way to communicate with their potential customers… a way to really tell their story online. Brands in the Verified Shops channel only pay when they make a sale ?and “We started with the big brands,” Khan said.

Commerce 173

Commerce Startup Platform Los Angeles 173

socalTECH

MAY 17, 2019

Coming out of ServiceNow around 2013, I realized that a lot of problems that we had been discussing and dealing with with customers adopting applications like ServiceNow into the enterprise, was establishing connections of that data and processes with systems in the enterprise.

SaaS 113

SaaS Startup Custom Customer 113

InfoChachkie

DECEMBER 2, 2009

As noted in Pour and Stir Part I , the key to the successful execution of this strategy is managing the following equation: The cost to acquire a customer < lifetime value of a customer. Decreasing Your Customer Acquisition Costs. This is equivalent to being handed a free customer for every ten customers you acquire.

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Custom Customer Advertising SEM 164

TechCrunch LA

APRIL 9, 2020

general manager ( Stefano Benatti ) — filled more orders in the first two months of 2020 than all its sales for 2019, according to Cevolini. Harley Davidson introduced its all electric $29K LiveWire in 2019, becoming the first of the big gas manufacturers to offer a street-legal e-moto for sale in the U.S. In the U.S.,

Technical Review 277

Technical Review Competition Demand Sales 277

Startup Professionals Musings

JUNE 20, 2022

New unmet consumer or customer needs. For example, quarterly sales on one of your most important products suddenly decreases, or your inventory across a whole category has surged. If one metric changes, it may not be significant, but someone needs to monitor whole categories for fluctuations that may be a weak signal.

eBook 111

eBook Metrics Examples Startup 111

Startup Professionals Musings

MAY 7, 2021

The tougher question is whether you are also wise, in the sense of cultivating the right relationships, understanding team dynamics, and keeping to the correct side of the ethical line to maintain the trust of team members and customers alike. This locked in engagement from his employees and customers.

Patents 138

Patents Mentor Custom Customer 138

Both Sides of the Table

JUNE 17, 2017

The most obvious way to explain this is with sales people. If you hire 6 senior sales reps in January at $120,000 / year salary then you’ve taken on an extra $60,000 per month in costs yet these sales people might not close new business 6 months. COGS” represents the amount that each sale costs you.

Startup 227

Startup Venture Capital Sales Course 227

Both Sides of the Table

MAY 24, 2021

It has historically been the case that VCs would rather fund the promise of 100x in a company with almost no revenue than the reality of a company growing at 50% but doing $20+ million in sales. Our goal is to produce a $10 billion+ winner and remain the market leader in this SaaS category of AI in Sales & Marketing.

Venture Capital 363

Venture Capital Capital Funding Startup 363

Startup Professionals Musings

NOVEMBER 18, 2016

When entrepreneurs introduce new products to the market, their passion and conviction often leads them to assume that every potential customer will see the immediate need and value, and will quickly adopt the solution. The more revolutionary the solution, the more important it is to educate customers on a solution’s existence and value.

Product 95

Product Case Study Custom Customer 95

socalTECH

FEBRUARY 4, 2013

We caught up with Dan to hear about how the firm is going beyond online sales, and making shopping online for fashion as much entertainment as e-commerce. We think there is a new category of the e-commerce and shopping sector, the entertainment sector. It's loosely based on the Japanese concept of a "lucky bag sale".

Commerce 153

Commerce Sites Entertainment Social Network 153

Tech.Co

MAY 26, 2020

Since April 21, Amazon has slashed its rates across a wide range of product categories, in some cases dropping as much as 70%. And even better still, it offers a great deal for the publications who participate in the program, offering a competitive 8% conversion rate and an impressive 10% commission on each sale (more than double Amazon’s 4.5%

Technical Review 129

Technical Review Buzzfeed News Networking 129