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. Work out of your home, and keep your own books.

Entrepreneur 162

Entrepreneur Startup Social Media Outsource Development 162

Berkonomics

MAY 20, 2021

Enterprise time, as opposed to personal time management, is the sum total of resources available to a company expressed in terms of time – time to develop, to debug, to produce, to deploy, to respond to issues, and to make changes in plans that are not working. The relationship between time and money. And yet another way to make that mistake.

Resource 156

Resource Outsource Development Metrics Customer 156

Startup Professionals Musings

FEBRUARY 15, 2021

It provided an industry-leading graphic development interface, but was not so strong on modeling and simulation. As a result, we shared in capturing a new high-end market, without major new marketing or development. All this was done without damaging anyone’s credibility, or stealing customers. You can do the same.

Startup 173

Startup Outsource Development Examples Customer 173

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

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 like a solid product, well defined pricing, good references to sell against, a clear quota and well defined competitors. Customers buy solutions to solve their problems.

Sales 382

Sales Help Startup Pricing 382

Berkonomics

MARCH 5, 2020

One way to mitigate this is by using early money to create a prototype, to perform market research, to complete the first generation of the product, or to deliver the service to a satisfied customer. Second: Market risk. . Are you ahead or behind the market with your product or service? Third: Management risk. . And fifth: Competitive risk.

Outsource Development 156

Outsource Development Ideas Resource Patents 156

Both Sides of the Table

JUNE 22, 2015

So that we’re speaking the same language I would define “exclusive” as a period in which your company is prohibited from doing business with certain customers or business partners, which is why many incorrectly assume this is necessarily bad. Why Exclusivity Matters to Your Customers or Business Development Partners.

Outsource Development 150

Outsource Development Startup Customer Custom 150

InfoChachkie

MAY 5, 2011

Agree to Bundling Without a Minimum Price. If you allow your prospective partner or customer to milk the cow for free , they will resist paying for it. If you enter into a development or trial partnership for free, you are allowing the BDC to forestall its ultimate determination of the value of the partnership.

Outsource Development 244

Outsource Development Entrepreneur Resource Press 244

TechCrunch LA

SEPTEMBER 24, 2019

Remarkably, Canoo has completed the design and engineering of its first model in just 19 months and is preparing its vehicles for production through a contract manufacturer. The company intends to go to market with an entirely new business model by providing customers with its cars for a monthly subscription fee.

Chief Technology Officer 237

Chief Technology Officer Los Angeles Design Outsource Development 237

Startup Professionals Musings

FEBRUARY 12, 2023

It’s important to learn from your own mistakes, but it’s even smarter to learn from someone else’s mistakes, without paying their high price in time lost, cost, and pain. Offer free solutions to bring in more customers. Don’t get caught in the myth that you shouldn’t worry about monetization until after you have a large customer base.

Startup 124

Startup Writing Entrepreneur Ideas 124

Both Sides of the Table

MARCH 21, 2013

This might mean helping customers buy traffic, arb’ing deals, helping with RTB pricing or trading, etc. Minimize Any Custom Work That Will Not Feed Back Into Your R&D. While I’d like to say that you should never do custom work that changes the scope of your product that’s not wholly realistic.

Software Review 321

Software Review Software Services Company 321

InfoChachkie

MAY 9, 2011

In many cases, agreements crafted by BDC lawyers resemble ConTraps rather than mutually beneficial contracts. This series describes how entrepreneurs can craft company-changing agreements with BDCs, while avoiding Kiss of Death contract provisions. Agree to Bundling Without a Minimum Price. Serve up World-wide Distribution.

Outsource Development 170

Outsource Development Entrepreneur Press Technical Review 170

Berkonomics

MARCH 14, 2019

One way to mitigate this is by using early money to create a prototype, to perform market research, to complete the first generation of the product, or to deliver the service to a satisfied customer. Second: Market risk. . Email readers, continue here…] Are you ahead or behind the market with your product or service?

Outsource Development 120

Outsource Development Ideas Resource Patents 120

Startup Professionals Musings

MAY 17, 2020

It’s important to learn from your own mistakes, but it’s even smarter to learn from someone else’s mistakes, without paying their high price in time lost, cost, and pain. Offer free solutions to bring in more customers. Don’t get caught in the myth that you shouldn’t worry about monetization until after you have a large customer base.

Startup 174

Startup Writing Entrepreneur Ideas 174

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

Both Sides of the Table

FEBRUARY 5, 2011

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 like a solid product, well defined pricing, good references to sell against, a clear quota and well defined competitors. Customers buy solutions to solve their problems.

Sales 316

Sales Startup Pricing Customer 316

InfoChachkie

MAY 9, 2011

In many cases, agreements crafted by BDC lawyers resemble ConTraps rather than mutually beneficial contracts. This series describes how entrepreneurs can craft company-changing agreements with BDCs, while avoiding Kiss of Death contract provisions. Agree to Bundling Without a Minimum Price. Serve up World-wide Distribution.

Outsource Development 124

Outsource Development Entrepreneur Press Technical Review 124

InfoChachkie

MAY 16, 2011

Thus, you must first create the playbook by which an independent sales rep can readily sell your product, including: identifying objections and developing strategies to overcome them, creating reference accounts and establishing meaningful customer adoption. 2) Secure Your Intellectual Property Too Early. 3) Attempt To License An Idea.

Startup 242

Startup Outsource Development Outsource Sales 242

InfoChachkie

NOVEMBER 15, 2011

Now, more than ever, government agencies in the US and abroad are lousy startup customers. I am not a government contracting expert. Some startups opt to partner with larger companies which have pre-established relationships with government customers. The Downside Of Government Contracting.

Startup 207

Startup Outsource Development Software Review Sales 207

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. Typically some production and delivery is outsourced, requiring formal contracts and documentation.

Outsource Development 99

Outsource Development Startup Competition Ideas 99

Berkonomics

NOVEMBER 6, 2014

Enterprise time, as opposed to personal time management, is defined as the sum total of resources available to a company expressed in terms of time – time to develop, to debug, to produce, to deploy, to respond to issues, and to make changes in plans that are not working. Extending the Runway book available at www.berkus.com.

Resource 176

Resource Outsource Development Metrics Customer 176

Berkonomics

MARCH 15, 2012

One way to mitigate this is by using early money to create a prototype, to perform market research, to complete the first generation of the product, or to deliver the service to a satisfied customer. Second: Market risk. Are you ahead or behind the market with your product or service? And fifth: Competitive risk.

Outsource Development 200

Outsource Development Ideas Resource Patents 200

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. Using your service or owning your product isn’t why a person buys, it’s the experience your customer will have. Second, how to get leads.

Customer 85

Customer Custom Marketing SEO 85

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. Typically some production and delivery is outsourced, requiring formal contracts and documentation.

Ideas 62

Ideas Outsource Development Startup Competition 62

Startup Professionals Musings

FEBRUARY 27, 2019

A big trend in business these days is hiring freelancers or contract personnel for the duration of a project, rather than permanent staff. In essence, as a contractor, you are a consultant who is competing regularly for new work, and you constantly have to differentiate your offering from other candidates, including price.

Startup 98

Startup Outsource Development Competition Social Media 98

Both Sides of the Table

SEPTEMBER 16, 2009

When you start your company the very first question you need to ask yourself is which kind of customers do you want to serve. Many start-ups (and even growth firms) lack this discipline and they therefore serve customers off all sizes. These are really massive customers. We knew how to land huge corporate customers.

Startup 389

Startup Customer Custom Resource 389

socalTECH

OCTOBER 19, 2018

Earlier this month, Los Angeles-based Catalog (www.catalog.cc), a startup developing artificial intelligence software to help independent visual artists scale their content production efforts, announced it raised $1.5M That system allows us to arrange shoots and coordinate with contracted talent to produce that content.

Help 133

Help IP Content Google 133

socalTECH

NOVEMBER 13, 2012

If you're an application developer, sending emails through your application can be a chore. If you think of Pinterest, one of our customers, every time content is pinned or re-pinned, an email is generated to let users know that is happening. We now send over six billion emails per month on behalf of those customers.

Email 157

Email Startup IP Newsletter 157

Tech Zulu Event

APRIL 9, 2014

Traditionally, these between a rock and hard place problems have been solved with a limited pool of expensive options – usually associated with long contracts and high billables for “MBA quality” work. What if you could combine the flexibility of outsourcing with the quality level of highly skilled strategists?

Outsource Development 105

Outsource Development Software Review Technical Review Outsource 105

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

Both Sides of the Table

MAY 2, 2015

What I love about my job is getting to see teams of super-early-stage companies develop ideas that while raw have potential to make an impact on the market. This happens because many CEOs are passionate, market-driven people who are constantly trying to launch new products, win contracts, get press, hire staff and woo VCs.

Outsource Development 150

Outsource Development Metrics Startup Sales 150

socalTECH

DECEMBER 10, 2012

But, how do you do that in a way that doesn't cannibalize your full price tickets and screw up your brand? On the flip side, over the last several decades, ticket prices have appreciated every year. An example of that is in travel and hotel chains, where there is full dynamic pricing. That's your retail channel.

Entertainment 219

Entertainment Pricing Ticketmaster Startup 219

InfoChachkie

OCTOBER 13, 2009

For children with a proclivity toward business, a newspaper route provided an invaluable opportunity to develop the following entrepreneurial skills: Punctuality – Newspapers had to be delivered on time, irrespective of the weather, the fact that Sunday papers can weigh several pounds each or the requirement to wake up at the crack of dawn.

Web 2.0 222

Web 2.0 Web Sales Outsource Development 222

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. Work out of your home, and keep your own books.

Entrepreneur 104

Entrepreneur Startup Social Media Commerce 104

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. Marketing is key in helping you to develop long-term, strategic plans that can stop your cash drain. Create a Marketing Plan. Your sales forecast is an essential variable for cash and profit planning.

Outsource Development 91

Outsource Development Outsource Startup Marketing 91

Xconomy

OCTOBER 3, 2016

“It’s the same performance at one-twentieth the price,” Morris says. His San Leandro, CA-based company, TerrAvion , relies on a network of contract pilots to capture weekly shots of his customers’ vineyards, corn fields, and strawberry rows. The company doesn’t disclose its total fundraising or revenues.

San Diego 107

San Diego Outsource Development Startup Resource 107

Startup Professionals Musings

AUGUST 1, 2014

It provided an industry-leading graphic development interface, but was not so strong on modeling and simulation. As a result, we shared in capturing a new high-end market, without major new marketing or development. All this was done without damaging anyone’s credibility, or stealing customers. You can do the same.

Startup 103

Startup Outsource Development Examples Customer 103