Both Sides of the Table

FEBRUARY 28, 2018

There has always been tension between CPG (consumer packaged goods) companies and the retailers who sell their products to consumers. If a consumer will pay a fixed price for a product or service then the battle over who gets the margin in any sale is between the person who merchandises a product and the person who manufactures it.

Product

Tech.Co

JULY 12, 2017

This corporate partnership has proven well for these startups in helping them launch their products and services into another galaxy. “This year, more than ever, we are working with companies with the potential to help define the future of media and entertainment together with Disney.” Epic Games.

Artificial Inteligence

Both Sides of the Table

APRIL 3, 2014

Most technology startups seem to be funded by product people or business people. 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.

Sales

Both Sides of the Table

AUGUST 11, 2021

Photo by Vanna Phon on Unsplash Customer acquisition is the lifeblood of many startups from e-commerce to gaming to marketplace companies, among others. that’s where the customers are. But if you ask anyone in the ecosystem of customer acquisition?—?founders, no surprise?—?that’s founders, marketers, investors?—?and

Product

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. Contrast that with a VC conversation I had.

Customer

Berkonomics

AUGUST 3, 2017

First customers are critical. Your first customers for any product or service form your reference base, the important group of allies that your marketing and sales people rely upon when attempting to create buzz and make a mass market for a new product. Make your customer a partner in the process.

Customer

L.A. Business Journal

APRIL 5, 2021

has built its business around finding ways for customers to “both do well and do good,” and its latest product is aimed at consumers worried about the environmental impact of their spending. Banking services company Aspiration Partners Inc.

Help

Startup Professionals Musings

AUGUST 14, 2021

With the advent of the Internet, social media, and instant communication via texting, customer expectations for service, as part of their entire customer experience, have changed. They expect you to be there, to know their history as a customer, and to treat them with priority and respect.

Customer

Both Sides of the Table

JUNE 4, 2013

You need to first create a compelling product. Compelling in the sense that you solve a real problem a target group of potential customers has with a product that is significantly better than the alternatives on that market. You need product / market fit. Product / market fit is everything. ” True.

Startup

TechCrunch LA

APRIL 15, 2021

Scriven personally met with challenges when starting his own e-commerce business, True Glory Brands, a retailer of multicultural hair and beauty products. “We The company’s customers are typically SMB e-commerce merchants “generating anywhere from $50,000 to $10 million a year in revenue,” according to Scriven.

Commerce

Both Sides of the Table

APRIL 12, 2015

We never built our product on one partner’s data platform but on many (20 primary data sources plus 100+ smaller ones) and Twitter’s move doesn’t “shut down DataSift” it simply takes 1,000+ customers who consume Twitter data through DataSift and makes their life more difficult. billion people.

Platform

TechCrunch LA

OCTOBER 19, 2021

Locale, based in San Francisco, enables customers to order from dozens of businesses, including bakeries and restaurants, and get them delivered in one box for just a $5 delivery fee. When you move around a city, you often end up farther away from some of your favorite restaurants and bakeries.

Help

TechCrunch LA

AUGUST 9, 2022

Beauty may be in the eye of the beholder, but when it comes to getting ahold of an appointment for your hair or another treatment…that’s a different story: The bespoke nature of a lot of the work has meant that a large swathe of the professionals providing these services have stayed offline when it comes to interfacing with customers.

Help

TechEmpower

NOVEMBER 13, 2023

Leveraging LLMs to help users fill in text, whether it’s by providing starter content, samples, or highly personalized tips, makes their lives easier. So instead, we fill it with a completely custom blurb, written just for him: Hello! Now that AI is here to help, every textbox is an opportunity to help a customer through the challenge.

Generative AI

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

Startup Professionals Musings

JUNE 23, 2021

Yet, as a business consultant, I often find minimal focus on improving employee engagement and assessing their customer-facing performance. For example, I commonly see metrics to keep track of revenue per employee, overtime, and absenteeism, but I don’t often see measures of overall customer satisfaction with individual employees.

Customer

Both Sides of the Table

FEBRUARY 22, 2015

It always started the same way – a founder would ask for an intro because they figured he could help with promotion. And after one meeting they started asking for his advice about marketing, customer engagement, product design, monetization – whatever. They make a great pair.

Conference

Startup Professionals Musings

DECEMBER 25, 2021

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

Startup Professionals Musings

JUNE 26, 2020

For the rest of us, we need a business plan, as well as a product plan. Some of you may be convinced that your product specification communicates the product message even better than a business plan, so why be redundant? Use non-fuzzy terms to quantify customer value. Provide specifics on the customer business model.

Product

TechCrunch LA

OCTOBER 5, 2020

GrubMarket , which provides a B2C platform for consumers to order produce and other food and home items for delivery, and a B2B service where it supplies grocery stores, meal-kit companies and other food tech startups with products that they resell, is today announcing that it has raised $60 million in a Series D round of funding.

Technical Review

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. A hairstylist can help a woman feel better about themselves. Upgrade is empowering the stylist, on one hand, to help them grow their business,” she said.

Tool

Startup Professionals Musings

JANUARY 18, 2021

Angel investors and venture capitalists are looking for startups with real products and a proven business model, ready to scale. This early stage is often called basic research , well before any specific commercially viable products might be envisioned. Commercial product prototypes. Product verification and clinical trials.

Help

Both Sides of the Table

JANUARY 11, 2014

. ” Sean is somebody widely respected in Silicon Valley (although he now lives in SoCal) for having helped many early-stage companies go through major growth periods by quantitatively testing features with audiences to help diagnose what led to growth. If you can’t do this, nothing else really matters.

Technical Review

Both Sides of the Table

MAY 1, 2014

The second is that the retailers were constrained by their high costs of local real estate and service staff relative to the costs of centralized warehouses where goods could be stacked high, sorted by robots, managed by RFIDs and then shipped via overnight to eager, cost-conscious customers across the US. 10x the experience.

Technical Review

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

Both Sides of the Table

FEBRUARY 16, 2015

So operating at a higher level, helping to set the framework for decision making and then sitting down and watching the game be played, is certainly the way to go.” Here is where I see this really play out: Product Management. Most CEOs fancy their own product skills and like to weigh in on priorities. I did this.

Startup

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. You help them prioritize their objectives and review the results. Engineering?

Entrepreneur

TechCrunch LA

SEPTEMBER 30, 2019

The company used its overdraft protection service and money management display to shift customers’ focus away from the total balance that their account would show by giving them a sense of how much was actually left in their accounts once debits were included in their statements.

Company

Both Sides of the Table

APRIL 9, 2019

When a company raises capital it inevitably begins to look for office space in order to increase worker productivity and happiness. It can compare hours booked vs. used as well at number of people booked vs. attended with the goal of helping the enterprise better manage its limited space resources.

Product

Startup Professionals Musings

JUNE 27, 2022

The challenge in to know when and how to ask for help, and not let bravado and ego mask anxieties. The best people know when they don’t know, and know how to find the right help. Unfortunately, too many entrepreneurs I know are terrible at finding and accepting help. Seek help or get out. You start playing the blame game.

Help

Both Sides of the Table

DECEMBER 17, 2013

Clearly in an enterprise customer this is unlikely. So as much as it sucks to hear, “We don’t have budget (or interest) in your product” it’s far better to hear it early and move on to your next qualified lead. Having senior executive air cover is invaluable to help streamline these leg-breakers.

Sales

TechEmpower

JULY 31, 2023

How does it meet customers’ needs? One way to approach that last question is to use this simple model: Customer Acquisition Cost (CAC) How will your business reach prospects? Customer Lifetime Value (CLV) How much money will your business generate from each converted customer? What does the business do?

Metrics

TechCrunch LA

JULY 19, 2022

More people are focused on the beginning of the product lifecycle; very few are focused at the end.”. The end of the product lifecycle is where Murthy and Kaplan feel Ghost has “an enormous opportunity to help people be more efficient in that process,” Murthy added. That’s our vision.”.

Product

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.

Design

TechCrunch LA

FEBRUARY 3, 2021

Good Eggs says that in the past year, revenue has grown to the nine figures (more than $100 million), hired more than 400 employees and nearly doubled its customer base. We are excited to partner with their team to help drive future growth and expansion.” Image Credits: Good Eggs.

Southern California

Both Sides of the Table

NOVEMBER 14, 2017

An alternate outcome that I also unfortunately observe in some cases are companies who had extreme early success with an initial product adoption but failed in key areas that limited the growth and therefore the ultimate financial outcomes. MakeSpace (as he named it) would help you get your excess goods into low-cost warehouses.

Startup

TechCrunch LA

DECEMBER 8, 2020

The company differentiates itself from the pack by monitoring the perimeter of its customers’ networks and alerting them to security risks or vulnerabilities. In the past year, the company has tripled its headcount and now has offices in New York, Atlanta, Chicago, Portland, Los Angeles, and Dallas.

Startup