Startup Professionals Musings

JANUARY 25, 2023

Outsourcing the entirety of building a new system. Outsourcing may look like a quick and easy solution, but you can’t let a partner or supplier drive your business strategy and direction, and it will never absolve you of the responsibility of providing business success. Not having a means to measure holistic impact.

Outsource Development 140

Outsource Development Outsource Startup Metrics 140

Startup Professionals Musings

OCTOBER 30, 2020

I suggest looking for painful problems to solve, rather than “easier to use” or “nice to have” solutions, for customers with money. Customers line up to believe and buy from people who are viewed as leaders or experts relative to a specific solution. Collaborate with customers to tune your solution.

Outsource Development 154

Outsource Development Social Media Software Review Customer 154

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

Startup Professionals Musings

MARCH 10, 2023

Entrepreneurs need to document a process of responding to a market need, sizing opportunity, assigning a specific business model, and planning for marketing, sales, and customer satisfaction. Solution development and delivery. Hobbies are developed ad-hoc, driven by personal needs.

Outsource Development 115

Outsource Development Startup Competition Ideas 115

socalTECH

MARCH 1, 2018

As part of the lead in to the conference, and as a part of our sponsor relationship with the conference, we're running a series of interviews with speakers from the conference about their experience in the area of recurring revenues, customer service, and similar topics. We respond very quickly to all of our customers. Kevin Anderson.

Customer 113

Customer Custom Services Conference 113

Startup Professionals Musings

FEBRUARY 17, 2021

It wasn’t so many years ago that starting a new e-commerce business on the Internet was a complex custom development project, usually costing a million dollars or more. You can now skip the mandatory office space rental, with secretary and bookkeeping staff, or outsourcing. Social media facilitates marketing and sales.

Entrepreneur 162

Entrepreneur Startup Social Media Outsource Development 162

Startup Professionals Musings

APRIL 17, 2022

If one of your core values is exceeding your customer expectations for quality and service, and your potential partner ascribes to the low cost, high profit mantra, a successful partnership is highly unlikely over the long-term. Look at the big picture first of development, finance, and marketing/sales. Marty Zwilling.

Software Review 154

Software Review CTO Hire Outsource Development Startup 154

Startup Professionals Musings

OCTOBER 29, 2022

With a realistic prototype, you can get more accurate feedback from customers on their real need and what they might pay, before you invest millions on the final product. Don’t spend your whole development budget, before finding that you need another iteration. You should never outsource the management of your core technology.

Outsource Development 110

Outsource Development Ideas Tool Outsource 110

Startup Professionals Musings

DECEMBER 13, 2019

It’s always tempting to think that more product variations will satisfy more customers and lead to new sales. Ineffective and expensive marketing campaigns. The most cost-effective marketing approaches have changed; from catalogs to web sites, and from television commercials to social media.

Outsource Development 122

Outsource Development Outsource Metrics Technical Review 122

socalTECH

SEPTEMBER 10, 2013

Irvine-based document capture and automation systems developer Kofax announced this morning that it hs products are now being used to process more than 1.1 million mortgages--or approximately 375 million pages--in the U.S. READ MORE>>. kofax mortgage document processing mobile capture'

Outsource Development 138

Outsource Development Outsource Mobile Software 138

Startup Professionals Musings

JUNE 7, 2020

Entrepreneurs need to document a process of responding to a market need, sizing opportunity, assigning a specific business model, and planning for marketing, sales, and customer satisfaction. Solution development and delivery. Hobbies are developed ad-hoc, driven by personal needs.

Entrepreneur 131

Entrepreneur Outsource Development Startup Competition 131

Startup Professionals Musings

SEPTEMBER 13, 2023

Based on my years of experience as a business executive and consultant, I am convinced that most companies gradually lose their ability to be creative as they mature, and over time are overcome by new competitors and market changes. Your people on the customer front lines have the input you need on institutional changes required.

Case Study 117

Case Study Outsource Development Outsource Customer 117

Startup Professionals Musings

FEBRUARY 2, 2020

With a realistic prototype, you can get more accurate feedback from customers on their real need and what they might pay, before you invest millions on the final product. Don’t spend your whole development budget, before finding that you need another iteration. You should never outsource the management of your core technology.

Outsource Development 124

Outsource Development Ideas Tool Outsource 124

Tech Zulu Event

NOVEMBER 26, 2012

At Silicon Beach Fest Hollywood 2012 Kevin Winston organized a panel called “How to Find and Hire a Developer”. Always have a developer do a test project before hiring them to make sure they deliver quality work. This means selling at least 5-10 customers in advance, before it is even built. Ask for is code samples.

CTO Hire 81

CTO Hire Outsource Development Develop Development 81

socalTECH

MARCH 5, 2014

So, how do you help ease enterprise customers into the cloud--or at least, help them use cloud technology to help them with their business goals? We caught up with founder and CEO Grant Kirkwood --a serial entrepreneur and veteran of providing infrastructure to the enterprise markets--on the vision behind the company.

Cloud Computing 217

Cloud Computing Outsource Development Outsource Startup 217

Startup Professionals Musings

MAY 4, 2020

In my experience as an advisor to startups, the difference is almost always related to the founder and their execution strategy , more so than to the solution quality or the market. Initially, you may be able to do everything in your startup, including product development, marketing, and shipping orders.

Startup 123

Startup Outsource Development Entrepreneur Outsource 123

Both Sides of the Table

APRIL 20, 2010

I know this will fall like a lead balloon to the many people who believe it is possible to have a [insert: startup incubator or technology accelerator or technology consultant or outsource firm] build your technology. Some CTO’s swear that it is a huge improvement in development timeframes and doesn’t cause performance issues.

CTO Hire 400

CTO Hire Fractional VPE Startup Outsource Development 400

Startup Professionals Musings

JULY 15, 2019

If one of your core values is exceeding your customer expectations for quality and service, and your potential partner ascribes to the low cost, high profit mantra, a successful partnership is highly unlikely over the long-term. Look at the big picture first of development, finance, and marketing/sales. Marty Zwilling.

Software Review 88

Software Review CTO Hire Outsource Development Startup 88

Tech Zulu Event

MAY 22, 2014

Outsourcing can be an extremely cost-effective solution here. Not only will you avoid adding to overhead costs at this early stage, but you’ll save management time — and free yourself to focus on developing your business. At a minimum, you should engage a lawyer to draft and/or review every contract you enter into.

Startup 97

Startup Outsource Development Software Review Sales 97

Tech Zulu Event

NOVEMBER 18, 2011

Having paying “Customers” is what makes the cash register roar. An entrepreneur having low self worth is the number one deterrent for a potential customer not buying into what you are selling. An entrepreneur having low self worth is the number one deterrent for a potential customer not buying into what you are selling.

Customer 85

Customer Custom Marketing SEO 85

socalTECH

OCTOBER 20, 2011

Back in 2003 and 2004, we were focused on the international market, and started outsourcing to India and the Philippines for call center services. In terms of tactics, we went from 20-odd people at the company to just three people, myself and two developers. Dan Tamkin: Veolia had been a customer of ours for awhile.

Outsource Development 190

Outsource Development Startup Outsource Altadena 190

Tech Zulu Event

AUGUST 13, 2013

There are several symptoms of a small business in trouble: running out of cash , not enough customers , staffing issues. Create a Marketing Plan. Marketing is key in helping you to develop long-term, strategic plans that can stop your cash drain. Marketing tactics are how you achieve this.

Outsource Development 91

Outsource Development Outsource Startup Marketing 91

InfoChachkie

DECEMBER 2, 2009

As noted in Pour and Stir Part I , the key to the successful execution of this strategy is managing the following equation: The cost to acquire a customer < lifetime value of a customer. Decreasing Your Customer Acquisition Costs. This is equivalent to being handed a free customer for every ten customers you acquire.

Customer 164

Customer Custom Advertising SEM 164

Startup Professionals Musings

MAY 24, 2015

Entrepreneurs need to document a process of responding to a market need, sizing opportunity, assigning a specific business model, and planning for marketing, sales, and customer satisfaction. Solution development and delivery. Hobbies are developed ad-hoc, driven by personal needs.

Outsource Development 99

Outsource Development Startup Competition Ideas 99

Startup Professionals Musings

AUGUST 23, 2015

With a realistic prototype, you can get more accurate feedback from customers on their real need and what they might pay, before you invest millions on the final product. Don’t spend your whole development budget, before finding that you need another iteration. You should never outsource the management of your core technology.

Ideas 107

Ideas Outsource Development Startup Tool 107

socalTECH

APRIL 30, 2018

For this morning's interview, we caught up with Elizabeth Cholawsky , the new CEO of Santa Barbara-based HG Data (www.hgdata.com), which develops software which helps marketers and salespeople understand the "technology stack" of their potential customers and prospects. So, I cam on board.

Santa Barbara 113

Santa Barbara High Tech Outsource Development Startup 113

Startup Professionals Musings

JULY 27, 2014

It wasn’t so many years ago that starting a new e-commerce business on the Internet was a complex custom development project, usually costing a million dollars or more. You can now skip the mandatory office space rental, with secretary and bookkeeping staff, or outsourcing. Social media facilitates marketing and sales.

Entrepreneur 104

Entrepreneur Startup Social Media Commerce 104

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

Startup Professionals Musings

APRIL 22, 2014

If one of your core values is exceeding your customer expectations for quality and service, and your potential partner ascribes to the low cost, high profit mantra, a successful partnership is highly unlikely over the long-term. Look at the big picture first of development, finance, and marketing/sales. No historical baggage.

Software Review 107

Software Review Entrepreneur CTO Hire Outsource Development 107

Startup Professionals Musings

MAY 28, 2016

Entrepreneurs need to document a process of responding to a market need, sizing opportunity, assigning a specific business model, and planning for marketing, sales, and customer satisfaction. Solution development and delivery. Hobbies are developed ad-hoc, driven by personal needs.

Ideas 62

Ideas Outsource Development Startup Competition 62

Both Sides of the Table

MARCH 30, 2011

The part of the movement that resonates the most with me (in my words) is that entrepreneurs should keep their capital expenditures really low while they’re experimenting with their product and determining whether there is a large market for what they do. Nascent startup markets are like fine wine, they take time to develop.

Development Team Review 374

Development Team Review Technical Review Startup Resource 374

Startup Professionals Musings

JULY 16, 2014

With a realistic prototype, you can get more accurate feedback from customers on their real need and what they might pay, before you invest millions on the final product. Don’t spend your whole development budget, before finding that you need another iteration. You should never outsource the management of your core technology.

Outsource Development 105

Outsource Development Startup Ideas Tool 105

socalTECH

SEPTEMBER 24, 2015

The HTML5 platform that we use is also available as a self service tool to customers. We offer up customers a high impact creative which is not bounded by the box. As a result, our customers see a much higher percentage of engagement, more than 5 percent, versus the standard ad creative, which is a very small percentage of that.

Buzznet 100

Buzznet Outsource Development Design HTML 100

socalTECH

MARCH 26, 2014

Most of the solutions in our market are for lots of doctors, and are on-premise solutions, and are really designed for bigger physician groups and hospitals. We use a recurring revenue model, where a customer pays us a few hundred dollars on average. How did you determine this was the market to tackle, and how did you get into this?

Startup 160

Startup El Segundo CTO Hire Outsource Development 160

Startup Professionals Musings

FEBRUARY 10, 2018

With a realistic prototype, you can get more accurate feedback from customers on their real need and what they might pay, before you invest millions on the final product. Don’t spend your whole development budget, before finding that you need another iteration. You should never outsource the management of your core technology.

Ideas 53

Ideas Outsource Development Tool Outsource 53

Startup Professionals Musings

FEBRUARY 8, 2013

If one of your core values is exceeding your customer expectations for quality and service, and your potential partner ascribes to the low cost, high profit mantra, a successful partnership is highly unlikely over the long-term. Look at the big picture first of development, finance, and marketing/sales. No historical baggage.

Software Review 103

Software Review Equity CTO Hire Outsource Development 103

Startup Professionals Musings

JULY 16, 2017

If one of your core values is exceeding your customer expectations for quality and service, and your potential partner ascribes to the low cost, high profit mantra, a successful partnership is highly unlikely over the long-term. Look at the big picture first of development, finance, and marketing/sales.

Software Review 56

Software Review CTO Hire Outsource Development CTO Coach 56