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 Custom 160

Startup Professionals Musings

MAY 1, 2019

Don’t get me wrong, it’s always great to see that first surge of customers, but that’s just the beginning of your work. With the real data from that surge, you need to take a hard look at business model realities, cost of customer acquisition, inventory costs, and other key metrics.

Metrics 86

Metrics Startup Training Customer 86

Startup Professionals Musings

JANUARY 25, 2016

If you can’t provide a memorable customer experience, your startup won’t survive very long these days. You now need more than loyalty from your customers -- they need to be your best advocates. The days of pushing new and marginal performers into customer service are gone. Every job on your team drives your customer experience.

Customer 55

Customer Custom Startup Coach 55

Startup Professionals Musings

AUGUST 10, 2022

Balance of passion with reality and customer feedback. A strong vision and deep insight may get your business off the ground, but long-term success requires constant data analysis, metrics, and attention to your customer feedback. The competition will improve, the market will change, and your customers will demand more.

Mentor 133

Mentor Startup Custom Customer 133

Startup Professionals Musings

JUNE 21, 2013

Most leaders agree that poor customer service is a business killer today, in terms of lost customers, reduced profits, and low morale. Yet the average perception of customer experience continues to decline. You have to start with hiring only people who are willing and able to make serious customer service happen.

Customer 92

Customer Custom Startup Services 92

Startup Professionals Musings

DECEMBER 27, 2019

My simple answer is that they keep their focus on customers, rather than technology. Jeff Bezos has kept his focus on customers. In my view, every startup in today’s world would do well to adopt a management system with the same key objectives: Start with a customer-obsessed business model.

Marketing 123

Marketing Technical Review Custom Customer 123

Startup Professionals Musings

APRIL 28, 2021

I recommend a trial run with an experiment or MVP (minimum viable product), at full price and cost, before the big bang launch, risking your investment money and a major time commitment. Look for validation from your mainstream customers. Paul Allen was the technical visionary, Test the viability of your business parameters.

Technical Review 131

Technical Review Case Study Mentor Software Review 131

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 Custom Customer 286

Startup Professionals Musings

AUGUST 7, 2020

In the short term you need customers to find you at any price, and in the longer term you need revenue, profit, and return loyalty. Although his focus is naturally on bigger companies, I contend that his recommended strategies apply equally well to entrepreneurs and startups: Demand a mindset of deep thinking for the long term.

Technical Review 124

Technical Review Layoffs Social Media Organization 124

SoCal CTO

MARCH 11, 2013

If you do build the MVP and show it to them, they will ask you about your metrics. They really want metrics, not a product. The real question you should be asking is "When I've built this product and show you the following metrics, would you invest?" Investors demand more than that.

Metrics 264

Metrics Venture Capital News Product 264

Startup Professionals Musings

MAY 10, 2019

They don’t realize that they are missing out on a great opportunity for “free” promotion, as well as taking a great risk by not listening to what customers are saying, and not monitoring or responding to undeserved challenges to their reputation. Use business metrics and tools to tune your efforts.

Social Media 99

Social Media Media Tool Startup 99

Startup Professionals Musings

SEPTEMBER 1, 2019

Second-stage growth usually requires a formal sales model, an experienced and disciplined sales team, and a well-defined process to meet your new goals and demands. These only come with the proper training, investment in tools, and focus on customer relationships. Managing business growth is more than metrics.

Startup 97

Startup Sales Metrics Guide 97

Startup Professionals Musings

OCTOBER 8, 2018

As a long-time advisor to entrepreneurs and business owners, I rarely find someone who doesn’t proclaim that the business world is changing rapidly, with new technology, new customer expectations, and new cultures. Others still routinely have phone hold queues for customer contact that can last up to an hour, with no alternative options.

Technical Review 84

Technical Review Customer Custom Startup 84

InfoChachkie

NOVEMBER 5, 2012

Steve's first question was, “Who are our customers?" I) took the 300 latest cards, personally wrote a questionnaire and called 300 customers. SuperMac's main customer base were color desktop professionals. All of a sudden I now had customers telling what market, how to reach them and what applications are important.

Marketing 271

Marketing Startup Sales Custom 271

Startup Professionals Musings

FEBRUARY 24, 2017

Many are reluctant to really “market” themselves, and have trouble differentiating their offerings to clients, except by price. From his own successes and failures in this domain, he explains how the rules and customer expectations have changed in today’s world, and he offers some practical guidance on how to survive in this new world.

Social Media 56

Social Media Pricing Technical Review Statistics 56

Both Sides of the Table

DECEMBER 27, 2011

When they look at buying your company they often think in terms of “how long will it take until I earn back the profits to pay for my acquisition price?” If you had huge customer growth but just didn’t focus on revenue that’s a different story. million in revenue three years later is, “So effing what?”

Startup 418

Startup Venture Capital Sales Technical Review 418

Startup Professionals Musings

NOVEMBER 4, 2019

In my experience, the key steps I look for always include the following: Testing the idea against customers who have money to spend. I suggest you use social media, blogging, crowdfunding, or documented research to quantify a real demand from people who can afford it, and don’t have a better alternative already out there.

Ideas 94

Ideas Slides Technical Review Patents 94

InfoChachkie

JUNE 2, 2014

The result of her efforts is an online service that allows brides to select their bridesmaids'' gowns, within a broad range of colors, styles and price points. The gowns are then dry cleaned and readied for the next customer, in the spirit of the emerging sharing economy in which goods are communally used multiple times.

Design 208

Design Custom Customer Ideas 208

Startup Professionals Musings

FEBRUARY 4, 2015

Second-stage growth usually requires a formal sales model, an experienced and disciplined sales team, and a well-defined process to meet your new goals and demands. These only come with the proper training, investment in tools, and focus on customer relationships. Managing business growth is more than metrics.

Startup 108

Startup Sales Metrics Entrepreneur 108

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.

Custom 40

Custom Customer Snapchat Design 40

Startup Professionals Musings

AUGUST 8, 2016

By profit, I simply mean offering a product or service to customers for a price that exceeds the total costs associated with the solution, thus providing some basis for recovering sunk costs and generating a return for stakeholders. Solve a painful problem for customers who have money to spend.

Entrepreneur 58

Entrepreneur Ideas Pricing Customer 58

Both Sides of the Table

MARCH 25, 2016

So when Sam Rosen came to me with the idea of disrupting storage with a product that is priced cheaper than existing incumbents and he could build a product that is a better service I was intrigued. The metrics were good but we wondered how much better they would be when we expanded our product. That is how great businesses are built.

Startup 150

Startup Marketing Study SEO 150

Startup Professionals Musings

SEPTEMBER 13, 2017

Second-stage growth usually requires a formal sales model, an experienced and disciplined sales team, and a well-defined process to meet your new goals and demands. These only come with the proper training, investment in tools, and focus on customer relationships. Managing business growth is more than metrics.

Startup 56

Startup Sales Metrics Guide 56

Startup Professionals Musings

NOVEMBER 3, 2013

Second-stage growth usually requires a formal sales model, an experienced and disciplined sales team, and a well-defined process to meet your new goals and demands. These only come with the proper training, investment in tools, and focus on customer relationships. Managing business growth is more than metrics.

Sales 96

Sales Metrics Startup Guide 96

InfoChachkie

MARCH 2, 2010

There were no price guides, standardized rating systems or baseball card stores. This dramatically increased the value of the highest graded cards and depressed the prices of all other cards which did not meet the exacting standards of the grading services. Eventually, card buying speculation drove prices ever higher.

Pricing 138

Pricing Advertising Marketing Startup 138