Both Sides of the Table

FEBRUARY 7, 2013

I acted as the occasional mentor, advisor and coach to Ethan. And because I wanted Ethan to be able to attract a great team, build & iterate a product, test it with initial customers and refine his strategy before having to take the wrappers off of his company. I think it’s a beautifully designed site and product.

CTO Coach 359

CTO Coach Google CTO Hire Yammer 359

Startup Professionals Musings

NOVEMBER 11, 2018

Anyone can build a new web site, or publish a smartphone app for a few thousand dollars, but getting market penetration requires a lot more. Customers have come to expect disruptive change, so yet another social network is not the way to get traction. Take a hard look at SpaceX or HyperLoop.

Entrepreneur 86

Entrepreneur Social Network SpaceX Ideas 86

Startup Professionals Musings

DECEMBER 10, 2018

Most entrepreneurs see their new venture as a fun adventure, until the pressures of a cash flow crisis, or a manufacturing quality problem, or a major customer satisfaction problem hits. Even with all my years of experience mentoring in business, I can’t predict how you will prepare for and react to pressure situations.

Startup 82

Startup Satisfaction Entrepreneur Mentor 82

Startup Professionals Musings

OCTOBER 19, 2016

Anyone can build a new web site, or publish a smartphone app for a few thousand dollars, but getting market penetration requires a lot more. Customers have come to expect disruptive change, so yet another social network is not the way to get traction. Take a hard look at SpaceX or HyperLoop.

Entrepreneur 103

Entrepreneur Social Network SpaceX Ideas 103

Startup Professionals Musings

NOVEMBER 7, 2014

As a startup mentor and investor, I am approached regularly by aspiring entrepreneurs who assert that business plans are a waste of time. Although the major crowd funding sites today, including Kickstarter and Indiegogo , don’t technically require a business plan, they do demand essentially the same information in a project format.

Technical Review 109

Technical Review Writing Entrepreneur Slides 109

Startup Professionals Musings

JULY 16, 2012

For angel investors, early-stage means there is a good business plan and maybe a prototype, but no customer revenue. For VCs, early-stage means customer revenue is less than $10M. Lean startups operate on minimal money, an open source environment, and assume multiple iterations, with customer feedback, to get it right.

Entrepreneur 101

Entrepreneur Startup Seed Funding Incubator 101

Both Sides of the Table

SEPTEMBER 8, 2010

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. In your case this might simply be a VP of Sales or Customer Support for multiple locations. You’re suddenly free to focus your energies elsewhere.

Venture Capital 319

Venture Capital Startup Sales Custom 319

Tech Zulu Event

APRIL 1, 2013

Learning experience includes: on-demand online video tutorial courses, live video-conference workshops, as well as individual online consultations, live workshops, and group programs. Mike’s work in sales, marketing, distribution, and business development is essential to customer acquisition, growth, and scalability. How does it work?

Web 93

Web USC Course Guide 93

Startup Professionals Musings

JANUARY 6, 2021

Every new business I know dreams of building momentum in their business, where growth continues to increase, customers become your best advocates, and employee motivation is high. Unfortunately, with limited resources, this isn’t possible, and it frustrates customers and the team. Focus first on finding more of the right customers.

Technical Review 160

Technical Review Technical Advisors Startup Mentor 160

InfoChachkie

JANUARY 23, 2012

1) Get A Mentor. "I "I started the site when I was 19. When enhancing your value proposition, ask the same question a newcomer would ask, "what is the best way for users to interact with the new features, irrespective of the existing customer experience?" Note: This is an installment in the Iconic Advice series.

Startup 268

Startup Tips CTO Coach Technical Review 268

Tech Zulu Event

DECEMBER 8, 2011

We started seeing a demand for what we were doing and from there began throwing singles parties, doing match making, and date coaching. What started as a site for women has molded into a place for both genders. However sometimes what we ignore is there’s a lot that goes into testing your product, the demand, etc.

Startup 75

Startup Technical Review Blogging Demand 75

Startup Professionals Musings

DECEMBER 13, 2015

In my years of mentoring and working with startups, I’ve seen and read about some amazing disruptions, as well as recoveries, and I’m sure each of you could add your own. Your biggest or only customer dumps you. People who haven’t thought about a Plan B often don’t survive the shock. Another disruptive technology trumps yours.

Startup 58

Startup Demand Entrepreneur Competition 58

socalTECH

JULY 13, 2016

In my case, I had a mentor at the time who helped me understand how there was a parallel between the printing press and the Renaissance, and the Internet as the next step in information and communications. From NetZero, I went to Demand Media, where I was EVP of IT. We'll also be taking our customer from the domestic, U.S.

Startup 100

Startup IP CTO Coach Allegis 100