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. People attending marquee conferences with rock bands, prominent speakers, Gartner Group prognosticators and lots of other happy customers. Poorly implemented this category was the definition of shelfware.

Marketing 354

Marketing Case Study Metrics Sales 354

Startup Professionals Musings

MAY 31, 2020

Most technical entrepreneurs I know demand the discipline of a product specification or plan, and then assume that their great product will drive a great business. These requirements must be based on market analysis, expert input, and existing customer feedback. Executives, marketing & sales, financial projections, and funding.

Entrepreneur 124

Entrepreneur Startup Summary Product 124

Startup Professionals Musings

MAY 24, 2021

Where body language is part of the message, it definitely is not. An example would be sitting down to meet with a key vendor, rather than standing to deliver demands. But most business processes, like negotiating a contract, closing a sale, customer support, or managing employees, are much more complicated than just words.

Layoffs 164

Layoffs Email Tool Study 164

Startup Professionals Musings

JULY 13, 2019

The canvas is a visual chart with elements describing your value proposition, structure, finances, and customers, to help companies identify and align business activities. I look for evidence of the nine major elements of the model canvas, as paraphrased here from the author’s key points and how they apply to teams: Customer segments.

Activity 100

Activity Customer Custom Resource 100

Startup Professionals Musings

SEPTEMBER 1, 2019

By definition, second-stage ventures generally have 10 to 99 employees and/or $750,000 to $50 million in revenue, and see that as just the beginning. Switch your attention from product development to sales. These only come with the proper training, investment in tools, and focus on customer relationships.

Startup 97

Startup Sales Metrics Guide 97

Both Sides of the Table

SEPTEMBER 16, 2009

When you start your company the very first question you need to ask yourself is which kind of customers do you want to serve. Many start-ups (and even growth firms) lack this discipline and they therefore serve customers off all sizes. These are really massive customers. We knew how to land huge corporate customers.

Startup 389

Startup Customer Custom Resource 389

Berkonomics

MAY 21, 2015

The logic in this is simple: once a company has market share, other issues can be sorted out to monetize the market, make the company profitable, scoop up wavering competitors, or even sell the company to a larger firm looking for a large customer base. Scaling a business is an art as well as a science.

Venture Capital 120

Venture Capital Social Media Invest Marketing 120

Both Sides of the Table

NOVEMBER 4, 2010

Many people bandy about the definitions of “disruptive technology&# or “the innovator’s dilemma&# without ever having read the book and almost universally misunderstand the concepts. This is important because the customers they serve (the red line) demand a product that meets their complex requirements.

Startup 376

Startup Framework Marketing Customer 376

Startup Professionals Musings

SEPTEMBER 27, 2019

A theme I often hear from the entrepreneurs and startups I advise is that once they see that first surge of traction from customers, they can relax and enjoy life for a change. In today’s world of growing competition and customer evolution , holding your own, and growing to the next level is a constant challenge that can never be ignored.

Ideas 77

Ideas Customer Custom Competition 77

Startup Professionals Musings

FEBRUARY 4, 2015

By definition, second-stage ventures generally have 10 to 99 employees and/or $750,000 to $50 million in revenue, and see that as just the beginning. Switch your attention from product development to sales. These only come with the proper training, investment in tools, and focus on customer relationships.

Startup 108

Startup Sales Metrics Entrepreneur 108

Startup Professionals Musings

AUGUST 18, 2014

Most technical entrepreneurs I know demand the discipline of a product specification or plan, and then assume that their great product will drive a great business. These requirements must be based on market analysis, expert input, and existing customer feedback. Executives, marketing & sales, financial projections, and funding.

Product 101

Product Entrepreneur Summary Activity 101

socalTECH

JUNE 13, 2019

I saw that, if you build a good product that customers love, that people love to use, how you need to market it, how you need to run that project, and so forth. That's when it clicked for me, realizing that for some reason, everything online is on-demand. That definitely applied here, and that's the way it usually works.

Startup 124

Startup Content Demand Netflix 124

Both Sides of the Table

SEPTEMBER 8, 2010

Almost by definition to be a great leader you need to be an effective psychologist. Once you’ve been around for a few years, attracted some great people, landed real, paying customers and raised venture capital you’ve likely got a talented team around you. Even three person organizations are political.

Venture Capital 319

Venture Capital Startup Sales Customer 319

Tech Zulu Event

MARCH 22, 2016

Less than a month ago, Snapchat opened custom on-demand geofilters to everyone. Industry news was excited, but for how amazing of a product they are, custom Snapchat geofilters have remained stunningly under the radar. Well, Snapchat has made it so that anyone can create and upload a custom filter to any area they want.

Customer 40

Customer Custom Snapchat Design 40

socalTECH

MAY 30, 2019

Now we have a thousand large companies into it, and if you name a big company, they're a customers of ours, from Starbucks to NASA. By definition, they liked you and thought they were a good fit for you before their applied. You've got to know best practices in demand generation. You've got to have great sales enablement.

Content 193

Content Social Network Coach Help 193

Startup Professionals Musings

JULY 9, 2017

The canvas is a visual chart with elements describing your value proposition, structure, finances, and customers, to help companies identify and align business activities. I look for evidence of the nine major elements of the model canvas, as paraphrased here from the author’s key points and how they apply to teams: Customer segments.

Funding 57

Funding Startup Activity Customer 57

Startup Professionals Musings

SEPTEMBER 13, 2017

By definition, second-stage ventures generally have 10 to 99 employees and/or $750,000 to $50 million in revenue, and see that as just the beginning. Switch your attention from product development to sales. These only come with the proper training, investment in tools, and focus on customer relationships.

Startup 56

Startup Sales Metrics Guide 56

Both Sides of the Table

NOVEMBER 14, 2017

There is nothing more pure than building a product, putting it out in the world and seeing paying customers using your product and in some cases loving it. As companies get this initial customer feedback on their product they start to have to ask harder questions about unit economics: How much does it cost us to acquire a new customer?

Startup 286

Startup Technical Review Customer Custom 286

Startup Professionals Musings

NOVEMBER 3, 2013

By definition, second-stage ventures generally have 10 to 99 employees and/or $750,000 to $50 million in revenue, and see that as just the beginning. Switch your attention from product development to sales. These only come with the proper training, investment in tools, and focus on customer relationships.

Sales 96

Sales Metrics Startup Entrepreneur 96

Startup Professionals Musings

MAY 8, 2016

Most technical entrepreneurs I know demand the discipline of a product specification or plan, and then assume that their great product will drive a great business. These requirements must be based on market analysis, expert input, and existing customer feedback. Executives, marketing & sales, financial projections, and funding.

Product 55

Product Startup Summary Entrepreneur 55

Both Sides of the Table

SEPTEMBER 17, 2013

That is the definition of Disruptive Technology. You can ask them to come and watch your videos at your owned & operated websites (O&O) where you can make higher margins as well as ask directly for more meaningful customer information such as Facebook connections, Twitter oAuths, email addresses and the like.

Company 339

Company Companies Technical Review Content 339

Tech Zulu Event

SEPTEMBER 11, 2012

CallFire today extended its position as a leading provider of text message and voice apps that help organizations grow, with the launch of a definitive next-generation platform capable of scaling to meet the exploding global demand for advanced cloud telephony features, services and capacity.

SaaS 68

SaaS Platform CTO Hire Class 68

Startup Professionals Musings

SEPTEMBER 18, 2015

In most businesses, 80 percent of the revenue comes from 20 percent of the customers. Perfection is not an affordable target in product development, sales or customer support. As the entrepreneur, you set the model for others on the team by your own actions, and by the demands you make.

Training 105

Training Entrepreneur Tool Metrics 105

Startup Professionals Musings

MARCH 3, 2013

Where body language is part of the message, it definitely is not. An example would be sitting down to meet with a key vendor, rather than standing to deliver demands. But most business processes, like negotiating a contract, closing a sale, customer support, or managing employees, are much more complicated than just words.

Layoffs 93

Layoffs Email Statistics Tool 93

Startup Professionals Musings

JANUARY 13, 2012

Where body language is part of the message, it definitely is not. An example would be sitting down to meet with a key vendor, rather than standing to deliver demands. But most business processes, like negotiating a contract, closing a sale, customer support, or managing employees, are much more complicated than just words.

Layoffs 100

Layoffs Statistics Email Tool 100

Startup Professionals Musings

DECEMBER 20, 2010

Where body language is part of the message, it definitely is not. An example would be sitting down to meet with a key vendor, rather than standing to deliver demands. But most business processes, like negotiating a contract, closing a sale, customer support, or managing employees, are much more complicated than just words.

Layoffs 94

Layoffs Email Tool Study 94

Tech Zulu Event

MAY 10, 2011

Vision-Driven (You’re definitely going to need a strong vision when those sleepless nights, crying kids, and angry spouse enter the picture). Vision-Driven (You’re definitely going to need a strong vision when those sleepless nights, crying kids, and angry spouse enter the picture). Lean Approach. Model-Focused.

Startup 86

Startup Santa Monica Los Angeles Custom Development 86

socalTECH

JULY 20, 2009

Adam also had a stint at Mission Ventures, and ran worldwide sales for open source middleware at IBM. I don't have a long sales cycle, because I'm talking to people who have already chosen Jetty. Both will stick around, but the universe is definitely working with open source in their development cycle.

IBM 100

IBM IBM Mission Ventures Venture Capital 100

Both Sides of the Table

APRIL 28, 2010

Here’s why that is important: when users are on your website you want to convert them to become paying customers. It’s true that the carrier then gets their huge slice for being the billing and payment engine but the idea is that you as a website more than make up for this in terms of customer conversion.

Venture Capital 270

Venture Capital Capital Rustic Canyon Mobile 270

SoCal CTO

NOVEMBER 11, 2009

Right now we're working on a multi-platform sales support program for Daylight Transport, a mid-sized LTL (Less Than Truckload) carrier and logistics company. We came up with a positioning strategy that helps them sell value-added when recession-pinched customers are squeezing them for low rates. What are you working on now?

Marketing 150

Marketing Social Media Blogging Media 150

Startup Professionals Musings

JUNE 26, 2020

To be clear, I define a product specification as the technical definition of your product, to be used for development and testing purposes, with a quick business summary for context. Use non-fuzzy terms to quantify customer value. Provide specifics on the customer business model. They want to see revenue to share in the return.

Product 169

Product Summary Startup Examples 169

Both Sides of the Table

FEBRUARY 23, 2010

This is part of my ongoing series on startup advice but also filed under my sales & marketing posts. The only problem is that you can’t afford all of these expensive direct sales reps to go and sell it. Sort of amortizing the costs of their sales reps over more products. You decide to go out and hire a sales rep.

Startup 293

Startup Sales Marketing Product 293

Tech Zulu Event

JUNE 9, 2011

Just like iGottaGuide, the idea was all about democratization–taking the power away from the gatekeepers and giving customers a greater range of choices at a lower price. We are posed as a nimble startup ready to shift with consumer demands. No one has all of the answers, and I definitely didn’t. Richard Branson.

Startup 63

Startup Guide Entrepreneur Ideas 63

Both Sides of the Table

JANUARY 16, 2012

Fund raising (as is much of life) is a sale – pure and simple. As with any sales campaign you need to: Qualify your buyers early so you focus your scarce resources on people likely to buy your product. . Three rules in sales: Why buy anything? Remember again that the three major steps to a sale are: Why buy anything?

Develop 366

Develop Development Funding Venture Capital 366

Both Sides of the Table

MARCH 6, 2011

That, plus I love the space of high-customer-service, focused eCommerce for moms worried about what their kids eat & wear.&#. Starting with exclusive rights to sell celebrity chef, Tyler Florence’s, line of baby food online, SproutBaby began seeing initial traction from customer interest as physical distribution spread.

Startup 292

Startup Venture Capital Blogging Summary 292

Both Sides of the Table

JANUARY 17, 2011

Creativity in our business lives – The average tech startup these days spends time talking with colleagues & investors about a multitude of things: customer acquisition, viral adoption, raising capital, hiring / firing employees, product features, technology trends, marketing / branding, and on and on. So I thought I would.

Writing 356

Writing Startup Ideas Summary 356

Startup Professionals Musings

JANUARY 13, 2021

There is no substitute for talking to customers, analyzing your competition, and honing your solution to meet a target market segment. As a counter, here are some situations where it definitely makes sense to short-circuit the traditional approach: The market won’t wait for your planning cycle.

Marketing 138

Marketing Demand IBM IBM 138