Berkonomics

JULY 20, 2017

A product at the concept stage contains feature-functionality that customers may not want or be willing to pay for, or which just might not work well enough for release to the public. Allow for the cost and extra time for tweaks to the product or service. Our variant of the “battle plan” truism is important to internalize.

Customer 256

Customer Custom Writing Product 256

Both Sides of the Table

SEPTEMBER 10, 2021

I’m over-paying for every check I write into the VC ecosystem and valuations are being pushed up to absurd levels and many of these valuations and companies won’t hold in the long term. We can’t wait for customers to use the product for 12–18 months and do customer interviews or look at purchase cohorts. By definition?—?I’m

Venture Capital 471

Venture Capital Writing Invest Pricing 471

Startup Professionals Musings

FEBRUARY 16, 2018

The market is changing so fast these days, and if you are not planning a solution today for tomorrow’s customers, you may be setting yourself up for failure and don’t even realize it. There are many free generalized tools, including Google Trends , which can be used to track customer behavior in looking for things that don’t exist yet.

Customer 57

Customer Custom Technical Review Software Review 57

Startup Professionals Musings

MARCH 14, 2015

This term refers to the penchant to add just one more feature to the product or service before first delivery, just because you can. The result is a bloated first product which finally collapses under its own weight, or is too late and too expensive for the intended customer. Define milestones for cost review and sign-off.

Technical Review 104

Technical Review Product Software Review High Tech 104

SoCal CTO

DECEMBER 19, 2012

I was talking with an early-stage founder who has a product vision and wants to get it built. He wanted to get input from me on what he's doing, and he wants to begin to ask developers what it would take to build his product. Me : Product definition, use cases, feature list, wireframes, comps, really whatever you have.

Develop 354

Develop Development Technical Review CTO Coach 354

Startup Professionals Musings

APRIL 13, 2020

If you have a software development background like mine, I’m sure you often get questions about when to outsource, versus building the solution in-house. If your software or your manufacturing process is your “secret sauce,” you need to keep the work in-house. Customer-facing services, like call centers, should rarely be outsourced.

Outsource Development 122

Outsource Development Outsource Software Review Technical Review 122

Both Sides of the Table

JUNE 23, 2013

I’ve been writing a series on a simple methodology that we used at my first enterprise software company. Simply, this is identifying a customer need that has economic value to them if they can solve it. This solves the customer question, “Why Buy Anything?”. The first post covered the topic of “P” or pain.

Sales 328

Sales Customer Custom Examples 328

Both Sides of the Table

JUNE 20, 2013

In my first enterprise software company we developed a methodology for sales that we called PUCCKA , which I wrote about previously. Simply, this is identifying a customer need which has economic value to them if they can solve it. Simply, this is identifying a customer need which has economic value to them if they can solve it.

Sales 336

Sales Startup Competition Custom 336

Both Sides of the Table

OCTOBER 17, 2019

I had just left Salesforce.com where I was VP, Products, after they had acquired my second startup. As I was trying to figure out the role I wanted to play in the VC world I decided I wanted to focus on businesses that were building deeply technical products to solve problems for business users. Over the past 2.5 Why does that matter?

Venture Capital 223

Venture Capital IP Startup Google 223

SoCal CTO

APRIL 2, 2013

They look at the following high level definition of Lean: and they interpret that as write up an executive summary with your ideas and hand it to developers to build. Have you conducted Problem, Solution and Feature Interviews with customers? Don't be fooled by a Common Misunderstanding in Agile Software Development.

CTO Coach 219

CTO Coach Metrics Framework Software Development 219

socalTECH

JANUARY 23, 2013

If you are a millenial entering the workforce, what would you be most comfortable with -- a tool designed to work and look like a social network, or a tool built around an old fashioned corporate enterprise software UI? PromoJam debuted its brand new, self-service version of its social promotions tool today, PromoJam 2.0,

Tool 190

Tool Services Social Network Template 190

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

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

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.

Custom 164

Custom Customer Advertising SEM 164

Startup Professionals Musings

JANUARY 23, 2019

Even if it’s only a few PowerPoint slides or typed paragraphs, writing something down is the first step toward making it real. Always write in the future tense, what you will do, and name yourself as the key person responsible. The result was a product that was bloated and late to market.

Ideas 99

Ideas Slides Writing Startup 99

InfoChachkie

JANUARY 16, 2018

Jim Semick: I’ve been launching and managing software products for 15 years now, going back to when you and I worked together at Expertcity before it was acquired by Citrix. I have always worked on early stage products. Some of the products I’ve helped validate and launch include GoToMyPC, GoToMeeting and AppFolio.

Venture Capital 115

Venture Capital Entrepreneur Santa Barbara SaaS 115

socalTECH

JUNE 8, 2011

Jimmy Hendricks: Our lead product is a white label, daily deal product. We've got three core product centers; the online contests that drive traffic, the daily deals that drive revenue, and then we are also looking at a marketplace product for online communities that want to sell deals, but don't want them as daily deals.

Platform 263

Platform Training Software Review Advertising 263

Startup Professionals Musings

APRIL 12, 2019

For example, I come from a software background, and back in the early PC days, it could easily cost half a million dollars for a team of professionals to produce a commercial product. Now, with powerful high-level tools and open source software, winning smartphone apps can be built by a good hacker for a few thousand dollars.

Startup 105

Startup Software Review Technical Review Social Media 105

Both Sides of the Table

JUNE 27, 2011

Because market is such a broad topic, I’m restricting these lessons to PR marketing (as opposed SEO, SEM, product marketing, etc.). My general rule is that it’s good to be stealth in the early days while you’re building your product and testing your market. It’s a buggy product but pretty damn cool.

Marketing 380

Marketing Startup Press Technical Advisors 380

Both Sides of the Table

JUNE 17, 2013

In my first enterprise software company we developed a methodology for sales that we called PUCCKA. It’s a reminder that unless your prospect has a need to solve a problem they are not going to buy a product. Customers sometimes buy things spontaneously without thinking through what their actual need is. Click here.

Sales 367

Sales Slides Startup Custom 367

Both Sides of the Table

JUNE 17, 2017

I want to understand how many units the company is selling, whether this is increasing over time and how well they’re doing at retaining the customers that they do acquire. Is it one product line or multiple? Do 20% of the customers make 80% of the revenue or do the top 3 customers represent 80% of the revenue.

Startup 227

Startup Venture Capital Sales Course 227

InfoChachkie

DECEMBER 15, 2015

Select the real software product from this list. Open-architected, workforce-neutral, productivity assimilator. All of these “products” were created with a few clicks of a buzzword generator. As Kevin points out, “Your prospects are busy people and they don’t care about the innards of your product.

Santa Barbara 100

Santa Barbara Writing Tips Product 100

Both Sides of the Table

JUNE 22, 2015

So that we’re speaking the same language I would define “exclusive” as a period in which your company is prohibited from doing business with certain customers or business partners, which is why many incorrectly assume this is necessarily bad. Why Exclusivity Matters to Your Customers or Business Development Partners.

Outsource Development 150

Outsource Development Startup Custom Customer 150

socalTECH

JULY 22, 2016

What's your product, and what is it used for? Our products are designed for use by warehouse workers, retail staff, employees in manufacturing plants, by airlines, any place where people are moving boxes, picking and placing, shipping products, or getting things ready for pickup. So where are you now with your product?

Technical Review 100

Technical Review Startup Software Review CTO Hire 100

socalTECH

MARCH 28, 2019

I was previously at Salesforce Ventures for almost four years, focused on investments in companies in the enterprise software space which were strategic to Salesforce. For myself, I'm largely focused on investments in enterprise software, primarily in the areas of application software and intelligence.

Capital 162

Capital Entrepreneur Invest Artificial Inteligence 162

Startup Professionals Musings

OCTOBER 19, 2013

This term refers to the penchant to add just one more feature to the product or service before first delivery, just because you can. The result is a bloated first product which finally collapses under its own weight, or is too late and too expensive for the intended customer. Define milestones for cost review and sign-off.

Technical Review 110

Technical Review Startup Software Review High Tech 110

Berkonomics

JUNE 25, 2015

Sometimes this is called a white label strategy, because your customers offer your product as their own product, writing in their brand name on the blank label in your underlying offering. Email readers, continue here…] Basically, the company created software for online forums. How much zoom?

Outsource 120

Outsource Social Media Commerce Writing 120

InfoChachkie

JANUARY 4, 2016

In November of 2015, Citrix announced that it will spin out the “GoTo” Division, of which GoToMeeting remains the flagship product, as a standalone public company. I knew that every dollar I spent to acquire a customer resulted in a 4x return. I paid them a flat fee for every trial customer they drove my way.

SaaS 100

SaaS Yahoo Advertising Customer 100

Startup Professionals Musings

AUGUST 8, 2014

If you have a software development background like mine, Im sure you often get questions about when to outsource, versus building the solution in-house. If your software or your manufacturing process is your secret sauce, you need to keep the work in-house. The same applies to manufacturing and almost any process these days.

Outsource Development 95

Outsource Development Outsource Offshore Software Review 95

socalTECH

MAY 19, 2017

Those are the companies we are building our security software for in the first place, all major enterprises. Andrew Peterson: It's all software. We're entirely born in the cloud, so it's a piece of software installed within a customer's system. Why is it that your software is so important for DevOps?

Web 138

Web Startup Southern California Software 138

socalTECH

SEPTEMBER 1, 2011

Southern California--despite the lack of huge, name brand firms-- has a significant number of enterprise software companies, of which Network Automation is just one. Our marquis customers are companies like Citibank and Lowe's Corporation, along with many others. The traditional way to handle that is to write code.

Networking 214

Networking IBM IBM Pacific Palisades 214

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

Tech Zulu Event

SEPTEMBER 19, 2012

Chander Dhall , a microsoft MP, anuthor, trainer, mentor, professional software architect/lead developer, INTETA speaker, open source contributor, community leader and organizer with years of experience in enterprise Software Development. Troy Miles , A designer and developer of software since 1979 writing games in assembly and C.

JavaScript 93

JavaScript Long Beach Java Web Design 93

Berkonomics

MARCH 3, 2010

You may recall that Microsoft planned a new file system for Vista, but pulled the file system from the product before release, and has not released the WinFS file system yet as of this writing, years later. Allow for the cost and extra time for tweaks to the product or service. But those were the days.

Startup 149

Startup Custom Customer Writing 149

InfoChachkie

FEBRUARY 20, 2012

For more than 30-years, Bill Gates has been at the pinnacle of the software industry. "The best way to prepare [to be a programmer] is to write programs, and to study great programs that other people have written. I am not suggesting you spurn product excellence. One Of The Most Important Startup Skills. "The

Tips 275

Tips Startup IP Santa Barbara 275

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

Both Sides of the Table

SEPTEMBER 28, 2014

We’re going to start aggressively spend money on marketing our product. You are particularly vulnerable if: You have revenue concentration (few customers each providing a large total of percentage of your revenue). We want a strong balance sheet (um, ok. but that’s our firm’s money on your balance sheet.

Startup 383

Startup Company Companies .Net 383