Both Sides of the Table

JUNE 13, 2013

I did have the wherewithal to visit potential customers and try to understand the pain points that I thought could be solved with our solution. Steve Blank calls this “ customer development ” in which you built an initial product that is in search of “product / market fit.” This answers the question of “why buy anything?”

Sales 393

Sales Startup Resource Customer 393

TechCrunch LA

MAY 3, 2022

Upgrade’s e-commerce marketplace has two sides: one that enables consumers to choose a vetted stylist and have their wig colored or customized based on their desired look. However, although they are providing such significant value, a lot of them operate with limited funding and resources, which ultimately affects the customer experience.

Tool 179

Tool Customer Custom Marketing 179

Both Sides of the Table

JUNE 4, 2013

Since Arrested Development is back I thought I’d resurrect Gob Bluth’s answer when he was told he needed a “business model” – he quickly figured out that he was missing one so he asked Starla, the Bluth company secretary, if she would be his business model. You need product / market fit.

Startup 401

Startup Customer Custom Technical Review 401

Startup Professionals Musings

MAY 15, 2020

Traditional marketing may be adequate for linear growth, but it likely won’t catapult you to Amazon’s unicorn status , or make waves in the business world. For example, I usually hear about an aggressive marketing budget, with a plan to penetrate a few big retail chains, and some videos to catch your attention on YouTube.

Marketing 170

Marketing Startup Examples Customer 170

Startup Professionals Musings

DECEMBER 18, 2020

As a long-time business executive and adviser to entrepreneurs, I see a definitive shift away from customer trust in traditional business messages, and the executives who deliver them. I summarize the key elements of the transformation as follows: Customers are seeking control in a run-away world.

Customer 173

Customer Custom Social Media Technical Review 173

Startup Professionals Musings

JULY 10, 2021

In addition to obvious economic challenges, the emerging generation of customers is determined to radically change the rules for customer engagement. He makes a convincing argument that it’s time for every company to get prepared for the next customer generation, or your company is heading toward life support.

Customer 173

Customer Custom Social Media Outsource Development 173

Startup Professionals Musings

DECEMBER 23, 2020

Today’s customers demand more than a good product; they expect a great customer experience. A few companies are leading the way, including Apple with their iPad and iPhone, offering irresistible stores with friendly experts, elegant packaging, and customer service that never ends. Don’t assume that early input is adequate.

Customer 150

Customer Custom Design Product 150

Startup Professionals Musings

SEPTEMBER 16, 2020

For decades, efforts to satisfy customers have been built around demographics – capitalizing on race, ethnicity, gender, income, and other attributes. Customer personalities define customer experience, and sets what they love, and what they hate. There is no one set of exceptional experiences that will work for all customers.

Customer 158

Customer Custom Social Media Satisfaction 158

Berkonomics

SEPTEMBER 21, 2023

Your customers know what they want more than you do. This week’s insight came from personal experience and from a good friend who advanced the notion of the “teacher-customer” years ago. The customer would be the first to receive the new functionality in a new release. Providing feedback to your teacher customer.

Customer 156

Customer Custom Design Conference 156

Startup Professionals Musings

JULY 16, 2022

We are living in a new generation of business, where customers drive the experience, and highly engaged employees are required to keep up with customer expectations. Leaders today must always project confidence and help others develop confidence, courage, and curiosity. Kindly confident: project and inspire confidence.

Customer 152

Customer Custom Coach Satisfaction 152

Startup Professionals Musings

MAY 1, 2022

Marketing is everything these days. You can have the best technology, but if customers don’t know you exist, or they don’t know how your technology solves a real problem for them, your startup will fail. Yet I see many technology entrepreneurs that focus on the basics of marketing too little and too late.

Marketing 141

Marketing Startup Social Media Technical Review 141

TechEmpower

MARCH 4, 2024

Key Functions with High Impact Generative AI is revolutionizing sales by enabling dynamic pricing and personalized customer interactions, boosting conversion rates and customer satisfaction. Post-sale, AI analyzes customer data to improve service and loyalty, making it a cornerstone of modern sales methodologies.

Generative AI 297

Generative AI TechEmpower CTO Hire Outsource Development 297

Both Sides of the Table

APRIL 3, 2014

Whenever I heard why we didn’t feel a sales process at an important customer was going well (or if we lost) I would get involved myself. They are as good at selling you as they are at selling your product to customers. Features don’t win or lose sales – especially in nascent markets. People are buying YOU.

Sales 382

Sales Help Startup Pricing 382

Startup Professionals Musings

SEPTEMBER 22, 2022

Great marketing is required to generate revenue and grow every business, especially new businesses which have no brand recognition nor loyal customer base. Yet, as a business consultant, I still find many of you business leaders relying primarily on your technology, word-of-mouth , or location to attract necessary customers.

Marketing 133

Marketing Customer Custom Outsource Development 133

Both Sides of the Table

MARCH 19, 2013

The line of reasoning goes, “Services businesses are not scalable and the market won’t reward this revenue so make sure that third-parties do your implementation or clients do it themselves. The most important way to sell a product for an early-stage business (or frankly any stage) is to have strong referenceable customers.

Startup 403

Startup Sales Software Review Technical Review 403

TechCrunch LA

SEPTEMBER 7, 2021

But LA-based performance marketing agency MuteSix didn’t wait that long to build its business around scaling DTC brands. They also have a very smart and efficient approach to creative development that was critical to helping us scale,” she wrote. (If Why do you think that performance marketing is the right fit for DTC?

Commerce 211

Commerce Content Marketing Startup 211

Startup Professionals Musings

AUGUST 14, 2020

Many entrepreneurs are so enamored with their product vision that they believe their own hype, and are convinced that the market for their solution is so huge that no one will ask them for independent market research data. Explore municipal development resources. Conduct your own customized market research.

Marketing 157

Marketing Statistics Research Report 157

TechCrunch LA

OCTOBER 27, 2020

The Los Angeles-based operations and security management software service, Replicated has raised $25 million to ramp up its staffing and scale its sales and marketing efforts. As developers embrace Kubernetes, Replicated launches tools to manage its deployments. “Once we started building on that success.

Software 224

Software Tool SaaS Los Angeles 224

Both Sides of the Table

NOVEMBER 16, 2014

But if you level up , raise capital and grow customers, revenue and staff – life changes. Eventually you need a VP of Product to handle your product roadmap, a CTO for engineering leadership and VPs of sales, marketing & biz dev. Marketing of course often feels the opposite. More developers? Engineering?

Entrepreneur 385

Entrepreneur CTO Hire Startup Sales 385

Both Sides of the Table

JUNE 17, 2013

In my first enterprise software company we developed a methodology for sales that we called PUCCKA. Customers sometimes buy things spontaneously without thinking through what their actual need is. The goal is to get the customer speaking about their organization. These references make for great discussions with customers.

Sales 367

Sales Slides Startup Customer 367

Startup Professionals Musings

JANUARY 22, 2023

Yet many of you are telling me that we are all missing big opportunities by not recognizing the unique challenges faced by startups in developing countries , where infrastructure is lacking, and talent is not so concentrated. Target a global market rather than a local from day one. Manage risk – don’t just “move fast and break things.”

Capital 138

Capital Marketing Ideas Venture Capital 138

Startup Professionals Musings

OCTOBER 21, 2022

One of the quickest ways to become an entrepreneur these days is to develop and publish a smartphone app. According to Tim Cook at Apple, there are over 34 million registered developers in 2022. The ideal business model is to establish a direct-to-consumer service that enables you to bill the customer directly.

Develop 138

Develop Development Platform Mobile 138

Startup Professionals Musings

SEPTEMBER 9, 2023

Today’s customers demand more than a good product; they expect a great customer experience. A few companies are leading the way, including Apple with their iPad and iPhone, offering irresistible stores with friendly experts, elegant packaging, and customer service that never ends. Don’t assume that early input is adequate.

Design 105

Design Customer Custom Product 105

Both Sides of the Table

SEPTEMBER 15, 2013

Of course it’s a competitive market so MCNs competing for top talent not only compete on rev share to talent but also to services that they provide talent. Building direct customer relationships with viewers (who want to tune into your channels). Developing O&O (owned & operated) businesses (outside of YouTube).

Networking 366

Networking Media Content Customer 366

Startup Professionals Musings

MARCH 5, 2021

The best startups also see these as opportunities for brand recognition and viral marketing, to simultaneously benefit people and boost the bottom line. Customers and employees are the new stakeholders for every business. Luxury goods flood into emerging nations, and urbanization brings needs for sustainable development.

Marketing 135

Marketing Startup Entrepreneur Social Media 135

Startup Professionals Musings

AUGUST 3, 2022

The concept of “ force multipliers ” originally was developed in military science, but certainly applies equally well to business. In my role of business advisor to startups, I often recommend these to increase initial brand identity and market penetration. Get interactive with online users and customer feedback.

Marketing 119

Marketing Social Media Mentor Conference 119

Startup Professionals Musings

OCTOBER 17, 2020

In my opinion, real pain points for most people do not include a new user interface for Facebook, a new programming platform for app development, or a new size smart phone. Other countries can provide e-commerce with different business models, outsource manufacturing at low cost, and a huge market for new products.

Customer 167

Customer Custom Startup Outsource Development 167

Both Sides of the Table

APRIL 20, 2017

I pointed out that the storage market in the US alone is ~$30 billion / year and there is no dominant provider — the largest player has < 10% market share. years of software development. years of software development. Just over a year ago I wrote about how MakeSpace had raised $17.5

Technical Review 268

Technical Review Funding Software Review Artificial Inteligence 268

TechCrunch LA

APRIL 28, 2020

“ To be quite honest I never would have thought in a million years that Soros would jump into our industry so early in its development,” said Vic Shao, Amply’s founder, chairman and chief executive. Amply has more than its fair share of competitors vying to give the electric vehicle fleet management charging market a jolt.

Funding 267

Funding Pricing Los Angeles Customer 267

socalTECH

DECEMBER 9, 2021

Los Angeles-based startup, Nanotech Energy, is pitching customized, non-flammable Lithium-ion battery packs, saying it plans to deliver its products by Q4 of 2022. The company said it is developing graphene-based batteries and pouch cell battery packs, which it says can be used to power electric vehicles, bikes and scooters.

Marketing 124

Marketing Los Angeles Product Customer 124

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

Both Sides of the Table

APRIL 28, 2012

They just need you to update your marketing materials. Every extra set of features that you added that served one narrow use case end up being features you need to support in future releases adding complexity to future development, usability testing, regression testing, etc. My advice? ok, I know our product isn't yet verticalized.

Resource 415

Resource Startup Product Ideas 415

TechCrunch LA

MARCH 17, 2021

Back in December, Swell Energy said it would be raising $450 million to support the development of distributed power projects in three states. It’s a project that will create solar-powered home batteries for eligible ConEd customers. Use code “TCARTICLE at checkout to get 20% off tickets right here.

Southern California 237

Southern California Company Companies Glendale 237

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. This is not to state that the customer tests a new product before we do internally, although many of us are surely guilty of that error.

Customer 256

Customer Custom Writing Product 256

Both Sides of the Table

OCTOBER 25, 2014

Business Development - Biz Dev is hard. Enterprise Sales – The very first thing a potential customer does when you email or call to set up a meeting is Google you. So does the enemy who is fighting for the customer to choose another vendor. Customer Acquisition - I left customer acquisition for last intentionally.

Press 415

Press Google Course Writing 415

TechCrunch LA

JULY 23, 2019

Now the five-year-old firm, with newly found significant capital in the bank , is attempting to replicate its success in international markets. On Tuesday, Haptik announced it has acqui-hired Convrg, a Los Angeles-based startup that develops chatbots, to serve customers in North America. We have done some business in the U.S.

Los Angeles 209

Los Angeles Angel Startup Google 209

TechCrunch LA

MARCH 29, 2021

One customer assumed that poor usage rates at a particular station was due to a lack of EVs in the area, Terry recalled in a recent interview. Demand for ChargerHelp’s service has attracted customers and investors. It was here that she spotted a gap in the EV charging market. Terry, who co-founded ChargerHelp! ,

Incubator 287

Incubator Outsource Development Los Angeles Startup 287