Both Sides of the Table

DECEMBER 7, 2014

I spend a lot of time with startups and thus hear many companies talk about their approach to sales and their interactions with customers. From these meetings you can really tell the leaders that care deeply about their customers and those the look down on them. You’d be very wrong. You can’t.

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Customer Custom Venture Capital Software Review 341

TechCrunch LA

OCTOBER 29, 2021

Salted , a Los Angeles-based startup creating digitally native quick-service restaurant brands, brought in a new round of $16 million in Series A funding to continue its nationwide expansion. Our technology and Salted Analytics product helps us grow at the rate we want to and still maintain customer experience,” Applebaum said. “We

Funding 186

Funding Los Angeles Invest Examples 186

Startup Professionals Musings

JANUARY 11, 2020

They forget that adapting their company and themselves as their customers evolve is the key to long-term survival. Think of Blockbuster and Toys ‘R’ Us , both of whom missed customer changes and the move to online. Create an overt strategy to react to emerging customer trends. Expand into key new sales and delivery channels.

Customer 143

Customer Custom Examples IBM 143

socalTECH

JUNE 1, 2021

Playa Vista-based iLife, a startup which is developing tools to help life insurance agents set up their own, branded "digital insurance agency", has raised $4M in a seed funding round, according to the company. iLife said the funding was led by Foundation Capital, and also include AME Cloud Ventures and Cherubic Ventures.

Sales 113

Sales Seed Funding Startup Tool 113

Startup Professionals Musings

MARCH 16, 2019

Today’s customers are overloaded and overwhelmed by too much information, so making a decision is a challenge. You may think this is only important to your marketing and sales people, but in reality it doesn’t matter how great your product or technology might be, you won’t succeed if you don’t understand your target customer decision process.

Customer 107

Customer Custom Sales Social Media 107

socalTECH

MAY 23, 2018

Playa Vista-based Appetize , which develops modern, tablet- and handheld-based point of sale (POS) systems, has added a number of high profile customers, and says it has seen record growth this year. The company's point-of-sale terminals and software are a significant upgrade from legacy point-of-sale terminals.

Customer 100

Customer Custom Sales Education 100

Both Sides of the Table

FEBRUARY 5, 2011

Most technology startups seem to be funded by product people or business people. Specifically what is often not in the DNA of founders are sales skills. The result is a lack of knowledge of the process and of sales people themselves. We focused together on improving our sales methodology, our training and our comp plans.

Sales 316

Sales Startup Pricing Customer 316

TechCrunch LA

JULY 19, 2022

It also handles the back end as well by automating the posting, sale and shipment of unsold inventory while offering immediate payment to creditworthy sellers. million in new funding for its predictive inventory recommendation platform, joining other similar companies, including Zippedi and Inventa. Last week, Syrup Tech raised $6.3

Product 191

Product Funding Technical Review Equity 191

socalTECH

SEPTEMBER 16, 2020

According to YAPI, it will use the new funding to build out its account management, customer success, and R&D teams, plus bolster existing sales and marketing. Financial details of that investment were not announced. YAPI's software allows dental practices to automate administrative tasks.

North Hollywood 113

North Hollywood Software Funding Hollywood 113

Startup Professionals Musings

APRIL 26, 2021

As a long-time advisor to entrepreneurs and occasional angel investor, I often see and hear innovative product pitches that sound exciting, but are missing one or more of the key business elements that investors deem critical for funding consideration. Quantify your value proposition for customers.

Funding 132

Funding Template Resource Competition 132

Both Sides of the Table

NOVEMBER 2, 2010

This is part of a series on sales & marketing. I previously covered how early phase sales teams should be “evangelical&# and consultative in nature. The first post on scaling sales dealt with “aiming&# your sales teams – making sure they were focused on the right opportunities.

Sales 289

Sales Startup Training Pricing 289

Both Sides of the Table

OCTOBER 12, 2010

A while back I wrote a bunch of posts on Sales & Marketing and have been meaning to get back to that theme for a while. Even if you don’t have “direct&# sales I would tell you that “everything is a sale&# including fund raising, hiring, getting press and doing business development.

Sales 346

Sales Startup Technical Review Customer 346

Both Sides of the Table

JUNE 22, 2021

You can listen to the entire conversation above or via this link , but I also wanted to highlight one topic we discussed that I feel strongly about, which is how I think enterprise sales and venture fundraising are basically the same muscle. Research everyone who has raised a comparably-sized fund and find out who backed them?—?that’s

Sales 375

Sales Startup Invest Funding 375

Both Sides of the Table

MAY 13, 2018

The most important advice I could give you before you set out in fund raising mode is to understand that fund-raising a sales & marketing process and needs to be managed. Somehow many first-time founders equate “sales” with something that is beneath them. In sales there are also three rules: Qualify, qualify, qualify.

Venture Capital 332

Venture Capital Funding Startup Sales 332

Both Sides of the Table

MAY 14, 2018

I Know Everybody Told You to Send Your Fund-Raising Decks as a Link. Here’s Why You Should Just Send the Deck I know you have your document sending tool to send your fund-raising deck to VCs and track who read your deck, which pages they read and how much time they spend on each page. What should not be in your deck?

Funding 239

Funding Venture Capital IP Email 239

socalTECH

SEPTEMBER 21, 2017

Santa Monica-based Tuition.io , which helps employers offer up student loan repayment assistance as part of their employee benefits, has raised $7M in a Series B funding round, the company said today.

Funding 133

Funding Santa Monica Venture Capital Sales 133

Startup Professionals Musings

JULY 20, 2020

Contrary to popular opinion, viral marketing has not eliminated the need for old-fashioned lead generation to bring customers to a startup. Display ads on mobile devices, including video and audio, also offer a new opportunity to reach target customers. How many of these lead generation techniques are funded in your business plan?

Customer 146

Customer Custom Marketing Startup 146

Both Sides of the Table

MAY 6, 2018

Fund raising. But it’s critical for your business, for you as a leader and people who excel at fund raising have an extreme advantage over those who do not. As a VC I also have to fund raise every three years and these posts 100% apply to VCs raising money, too. It definitely has a “d” in it, as in it’s really not fun, raising.

Funding 236

Funding Venture Capital Startup Entrepreneur 236

socalTECH

JANUARY 14, 2016

San Diego-based MindTouch , a developer of software-as-a-service tools to help companies create self-service, customer support sites, has raised $12M in a Series A funding. The funding came from PeakSpan Capital, along with SK Ventures and SAP SE. READ MORE>>.

Customer 100

Customer Custom Software Services 100

Startup Professionals Musings

SEPTEMBER 25, 2021

In other words, inventions are necessary but not sufficient to create real value for investors and customers. You need a viable business model and customers. Investors expect proof that your invention can be manufactured in volume, and can justify a sales price at least double the cost, to a large customer set that has money to spend.

Technical Review 156

Technical Review Funding Patents Ideas 156

Both Sides of the Table

MAY 19, 2018

the most counter-intuitive fund-raising advice you’ll ever get I’m about to offer you some fund-raising advice that flies directly in the face of what most conventional wisdom will tell you. Let me start out with my premise: “Data rooms are where fund-raising processes go to die.”

Funding 336

Funding Venture Capital Startup Email 336

socalTECH

FEBRUARY 4, 2014

Los Angeles-based Unitas Global , a new, cloud services company founded by infrastructure veteran Grant Kirkwood, said today that it has raised a new funding round, from MK Capital and Azure Capital. Size of the funding round was not announced. enterprise infrastructure capital venture funding cloud private global unitas'

Funding 185

Funding Capital Los Angeles Sales 185

socalTECH

APRIL 25, 2018

CampusLogic, which develops software tools to help streamline the management of student financial aid for schools, said Wednesday morning that it had raised $55M in a funding round from JMI Equity. CampusLogic said it will use the new investment for product development, customer success, and sales and marketing. READ MORE>>.

Equity 100

Equity Funding Tool Sales 100

socalTECH

JULY 22, 2013

Once upon a time, when the desktop PC was king, there were two kingdoms in the world of customer relationship management: ACT! If you were in sales, you either ran ACT!, and Goldmine faded away, no longer the two kings of the sales CRM world. contatta goldmine customer relationship management nimble software saas'

Funding 222

Funding SaaS Santa Monica Customer 222

socalTECH

SEPTEMBER 30, 2014

Vonjour (www.vonjour.com), a Los Angeles startup, has developed a cloud-based customer support and phone system which, in addition to handling all of a company''s usual enterprise phone needs--also lets employers harness employee smartphones to deal with customer support issues, make calls, and interact with customers directly from a mobile app.

Customer 133

Customer Custom Startup Mobile 133

Startup Professionals Musings

FEBRUARY 27, 2017

Today’s customers are overloaded and overwhelmed by too much information, so making a decision is a challenge. You may think this is only important to your marketing and sales people, but in reality it doesn’t matter how great your product or technology might be, you won’t succeed if you don’t understand your target customer decision process.

Sales 82

Sales Entrepreneur Customer Custom 82

Startup Professionals Musings

MAY 29, 2023

In my view, this focus on the wrong skill set is the primary reason why over half of new businesses fail in the first five years, and only one out of a hundred startups get their requested funding from professional investors. His focus is on sales, but I see the same skills needed for entrepreneurs. Marty Zwilling

Startup 154

Startup Sales Entrepreneur Customer 154

socalTECH

SEPTEMBER 8, 2021

San Diego-based Tiled, which develops "no code" software to allow sales, marketing, creative, and HR teams to create interactive content without software development, has raised $13.7M in a Series A funding round. The funding was led by Signal Peak Ventures, and also included Seismic, Adobe, and University Growth Fund, among others.

Content 113

Content Software San Diego Sales 113

socalTECH

MARCH 19, 2014

Sales tax compliance is not a typical sexy startup area. So, it was a surprise when a number of smart, insider angels -- including Roy Rubin (founder of Magento, which he sold to eBay), and Dan Rose (VP of Partnerships at Facebook)--put their money behind TaxJar (www.taxjar.com), a San Diego startup developing sales tax compliance software.

Sales 149

Sales Software Startup Commerce 149

Both Sides of the Table

MAY 20, 2018

Every entrepreneur wants to hear “yes” during the fund-raising process but I would argue that being too risk averse and not pushing hard enough and be willing to hear a “no” is what holds back many people from “yes.” These are similar to the pipeline reviews I used to do with sales reps when I was a CEO. however hard to hear?—?resonated.

Funding 189

Funding Software Review Entrepreneur Venture Capital 189

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. The funding, which was led by Two Sigma Ventures and included existing investors like Plexo Capital, Amplify, and BoldStart values the company at over $100 million.

Software 224

Software Tool SaaS Los Angeles 224

Berkonomics

AUGUST 3, 2023

Some businesses require very little capital and the founder can self-finance the enterprise and retain 100% of its ownership and control from ignition through liquidity event (startup through sale). Bootstrapping: This term describes your ability to start a business with little investment and grow it using internally generated funds.

Venture Capital 295

Venture Capital Startup Class Invest 295

TechCrunch LA

DECEMBER 8, 2020

Today, a startup that is doing this in the specific area of distressed property is announcing a round of growth funding to ramp up its team and expand its business. The funding is being led by QED Investors; Founders Fund, Susa Ventures, Navitas Capital, and Prudence Holdings also participated.

Sales 282

Sales Demand San Diego Funding 282

socalTECH

APRIL 3, 2013

in a new, Series C funding, the company said this morning. According to Tealium, the new funding comes from Tenaya Capital, Battery Ventures and Presidio Ventures. The new funding brings the company's total raised to $27M. The firm did not disclose actual financial details of that increase, however.

Funding 164

Funding San Diego Commerce Entertainment 164

TechCrunch LA

JANUARY 26, 2022

In numerous interviews throughout the past two years, Weiss and other executives have emphasized the company’s focus on its direct-to-consumer online shipping model and obsession with iterating the customer experience based on feedback. billion valuation from Lone Pine Capital, Sequoia, Forerunner Ventures and others.

CTO Hire 197

CTO Hire Layoffs Commerce Email 197

TechCrunch LA

JULY 29, 2019

Los Angeles-based Ordermark , the online delivery management service for restaurants founded by the scion of the famous, family-owned Canter’s Deli, said it has raised $18 million in a new round of funding. We’ve been gratified to see positive results come in from our restaurant customers nationwide,” said Alex Canter, in a statement.

Services 195

Services Los Angeles Sales Funding 195

Startup Professionals Musings

MARCH 5, 2023

Let me be a bit more specific on how follow-up trumps ideas for success in the key challenges of a startup, or any small business: Networking with investors, partners, and customers. Passionate reiteration of the idea won’t close funding. Managing marketing metrics and the sales pipeline. Maintaining professional relationships.

Startup 155

Startup Ideas IBM IBM 155