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

Startup Professionals Musings

MAY 14, 2021

As an advisor to new business owners, I’m accustomed to seeing primarily the simple traditional product pricing strategies , usually driven by competitor prices, or cost plus a reasonable margin. I often wonder whether you as the entrepreneur have worked as hard on your pricing strategy as you have on your innovative solution.

Pricing

TechCrunch LA

JULY 9, 2019

There is an increasingly advantageous global marketplace available with highly trained practitioners offering quality healthcare solutions at affordable prices and, although medical and dental tourism is a safe and cost-efficient solution, the current market is extremely fragmented and challenging to navigate.

Custom

Berkonomics

FEBRUARY 9, 2023

The rest of the purchase price was concocted from a brew of zero-coupon bonds (where the face value is many times the invested amount until the reduced cost bonds mature thirty years later), and borrowing using the target company’s accounts receivable and other assets as collateral for a loan to purchase the company. What power!

Pricing

Berkonomics

DECEMBER 22, 2022

Repeat customers, raving fans, angry backlashers, commodity shoppers. First, negative kinds of loyalty: Here’s another way to look at the ladder to an ideal customer loyalty relationship. Customers hate this, especially when they have a complaint. Worse yet, customers attained through these sources are rarely loyal at all.

Customer

Startup Professionals Musings

FEBRUARY 21, 2021

Most startups are happy to find any customer, and will hang on for dear life to every one. Only later do they realize that some of these cost more than they are worth, or lead into commitments they can’t sustain, but no business wants to violate the golden rule that every customer needs to be treated as if they were the only customer.

Customer

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

Startup Professionals Musings

MARCH 29, 2021

New generations of customers respond better to the “ participative ” approach, where they get to provide input via social media and the Internet. Some call it a move from always “ hunting ” for new customers in the wild, to “gardening” or nurturing loyalty and value from the ones you already have.

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

APRIL 21, 2013

So he made hand-made batches in a bucket and drove it to customers in his van. He wanted to keep his prices low (apparently he has never raised his wholesale price in 30 years). Focus on the customer and provide value - ”We just do our own thing and try to keep the price low. What I learned from the article?

Entrepreneur

Startup Professionals Musings

OCTOBER 30, 2022

Today’s customers are much more in control of their buying decision, as they have more choices and more information than ever before. Bloom’s classic book, “ The New Experts: Win Today's Newly Empowered Customers.” These decisive moments, and how to respond, are outlined in Robert H. Build a relationship and trust quickly.

Customer

TechCrunch LA

APRIL 28, 2020

And despite the collapse in fossil fuel energy prices, Shao said that Amply’s value proposition still makes sense. “Raw electric energy is half the price on average as fossil fuels,” Shao said. The lowest price of extracting a barrel of oil right now is $20… and then you need to add processing and distilling.”

Funding

Both Sides of the Table

MAY 4, 2015

It wins through better distribution, logistics, inventory management, warehousing, customer support, merchandising, cross-selling and ultimately on price & scale. Most customers won’t drive more than a few miles to a self storage unit making the incumbents essentially local retail businesses. It’s a no brainer.

Ideas

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

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

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

Both Sides of the Table

JUNE 4, 2013

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. The idea of “going deep” with customers has always shaped how I think. I found myself in violent agreement with Fred’s blog post(s).

Startup

Both Sides of the Table

SEPTEMBER 15, 2022

<== Our conclusion was that this isn’t a temporary blip that will swiftly trend-back up in a V-shaped recovery of valuations but rather represented a new normal on how the market will price these companies somewhat permanently. When you look at how much median valuations were driven up in the past 5 years alone it’s bananas.

Venture Capital

Both Sides of the Table

FEBRUARY 9, 2013

I researched the pricing of the car at TrueCar – not because we’re an investor – but because it gives you complete price transparency over what other people in your area paid for a car. “Invoice price” is an equally meaningless marketing tool. As many air bags as possible. But I digress.

Conference

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

Both Sides of the Table

APRIL 1, 2014

You enter your make, model, trim & year and out pops a price curve of purchases in your area and in most states you will then be offered a fixed price to purchase that car. So what could be wrong with price transparency in the auto sector? So what could be wrong with price transparency in the auto sector?

Truecar

Both Sides of the Table

MAY 4, 2013

What price? The only way for a company to be overvalued is if there’s someone willing to pay that price. ” Therefore one goal of Y Combinator appears to be “get the highest price and best terms.” I like to debate with them how they will land customers and how they deal with the press. What stage?

Startup

Both Sides of the Table

MAY 4, 2013

What price? The only way for a company to be overvalued is if there’s someone willing to pay that price. ” Therefore one goal of Y Combinator appears to be “get the highest price and best terms.” Or maybe I’m paying the highest price? What kind of deals should I be doing? What stage?

Venture Capital

Startup Professionals Musings

FEBRUARY 25, 2022

I’m sure you have all noticed how today’s customers have changed the way they shop, but I still find, as an advisor and consultant, that many of you aren’t sure how to deal with the new mode, or are still waiting for things to get back to the old normal. Convenience is in the eye of the customer, not your company.

Demand

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

Startup Professionals Musings

OCTOBER 21, 2023

Proof of any business model starts with a finished product or solution, sold to a new customer for full price, with high satisfaction for the value received. Customer support is more than handling exceptions. Your challenge is to present a total business solution to the right customer set to build your credibility and momentum.

Customer

TechCrunch LA

MARCH 27, 2021

Rowe Price, Dragoneer Investment Group, and ICONIQ Growth. ServiceTitan now boasts more than 7,500 customers that employ more than 100,000 technicians and conduct nearly $20 billion worth of transactions providing services ranging from plumbing, air conditioning, electrical work, chimney, pest services and lawn care.

SaaS

TechCrunch LA

MARCH 14, 2019

Customers can already place an order for the Tesla Model Y, a mid-sized crossover SUV that won’t go into production until 2020. During the presentation, Musk didn’t mention that customers could order the Model Y. To get the 7-seater configuration, customers have to pay an additional $3,000.

Startup

Berkonomics

NOVEMBER 12, 2015

Quality” products and services should not be positioned as “cheap,” or your potential customers will question your message from the start, and will be more critical of the delivered product than if offered as one or the other, but not both. This one is attributed to Rod Adair, the famous oil and gas fire suppressing expert.

Resource

Startup Professionals Musings

NOVEMBER 20, 2022

As a startup advisor, I see too many entrepreneurs get distracted by technology or their favorite cause, and then wonder why they can’t find an investor, attract customers, or build a long-term business. Customers now put big value on experience, social impact, empowerment, and feedback.

Customer

Berkonomics

JULY 26, 2018

Is your product or service one that responds to a customer need, real or perceived? In general, there are three types of products or services: those a customer needs, those a customer wants, an d those a customer believes he does not want or need. An example of how not to do it.

Sales

Both Sides of the Table

FEBRUARY 24, 2016

They have high-priced property and zero innovation. In just one year we captured 2% of all new customers in NYC who wanted to store household items other than furniture. It tested our beliefs about pricing, products and marketing overall of our service. And where they see stability we saw a sitting duck. It worked perfectly.

Startup

Both Sides of the Table

FEBRUARY 7, 2013

And because I wanted Ethan to be able to attract a great team, build & iterate a product, test it with initial customers and refine his strategy before having to take the wrappers off of his company. Because I knew that Ethan was on to a powerful idea and one in which he had developed huge competence and domain knowledge in.

CTO Coach

Both Sides of the Table

FEBRUARY 16, 2015

So he would allocate say – 20% to sales, 15% to marketing, 20% to eng priorities, 10% to customer support, 10% to ops, 20% to ‘platinum customers’ and maybe 5% directly to me as the CEO. We CEOs like to be heroes and with the power to push through pricing or product we have unfair advantages over the normal process.

Startup

Both Sides of the Table

MAY 17, 2017

You begin to think about how hard it will be to fund raise, sign customers, hire employees, etc. And the giant gets disrupted precisely because its cost structure to serve its customers and its cash cow, high-priced offering makes it nearly impossible for it to try compete. The first instinct is fear, then dread, then panic.

Riot Games

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

Startup Professionals Musings

JANUARY 30, 2021

Businesses require an equally elegant business model, with the right price, messaging and delivery channel to the right target customers to keep the dream alive and growing. The founder had simply not done the work to validate a price and customer segment. Match with competitor prices and market demographics.

Product