Both Sides of the Table

NOVEMBER 1, 2009

As organizations we have become more open and I believe this is great for businesses and their customers. We spent time out in the marketplace talking with customers, looking at their solutions, comparing ourselves with our competition and then squirreling ourselves away in our offices designing our next set of features.

Organization 280

Organization Customer Custom Tips 280

Both Sides of the Table

JUNE 20, 2013

In my first enterprise software company we developed a methodology for sales that we called PUCCKA , which I wrote about previously. Having a good sales methodology can help you ensure your company runs more disciplined campaigns and focuses scarce resources on your best opportunities. It the second rule of sales, “Why Buy Me?”

Sales 336

Sales Startup Competition Customer 336

Both Sides of the Table

JULY 21, 2014

For what ever reason we’re wired to have amnesia during the run up and prescient memories of how we ‘knew it all along’ as soon as the slide begins. It’s when the noise stops and you can actually get customer attention, press articles and VC meetings. How frequently they’re using the product?

Marketing 354

Marketing Case Study Metrics Sales 354

Startup Professionals Musings

JULY 27, 2018

I’m still amazed at how many technical entrepreneurs don’t have a business pitch, and offer me their product pitch or product spec instead. I’m a technologist, so I always love to learn about the product, but every investor needs to make sure you have a business, as well as a product.

Product 58

Product Slides Entrepreneur Invest 58

Both Sides of the Table

JANUARY 13, 2011

I would argue that this mostly consists of consumer Internet companies (although not exclusively) and it is predominantly early-stage people who are product gurus and have a mildly technical bend to them. I’m a product geek more than a spreadsheet ninja. The product feedback will be invaluable. Mobile app?

Venture Capital 299

Venture Capital Slides Technical Advisors Startup 299

Berkonomics

APRIL 19, 2012

Doing nothing is the main competitor for most products and services, whether a compelling new idea or a seasoned product long proven to be effective. It could be that a larger competitor has met with its customers, promising to extend its product line into this very niche.

Competition 189

Competition Slides Sales Ideas 189

Both Sides of the Table

SEPTEMBER 3, 2013

Almost always the CEO plus members of his or her management team including tech, marketing, sales and/or product. Assign out slides: The best way to involve your team members is to assign out slides they will own. This is as true for a VC meeting as it is for a sales meeting or any group setting.

Venture Capital 377

Venture Capital Slides Course Summary 377

Startup Professionals Musings

AUGUST 27, 2022

In business, entrepreneurs hunt for new innovative solutions to problems, new ways of beating competitors, new markets, and new customers. Only a few of these slide into farming, as the company grows in employees and products. All this made more sense to me as Dini defined the types of entrepreneurs into four categories.

Entrepreneur 124

Entrepreneur Marketing News Slides 124

Both Sides of the Table

SEPTEMBER 11, 2009

Some readers have commented that in today’s world you shouldn’t even need a PowerPoint presentation – in this era you should always just demo your product. I also recently wrote a post about a company that came in for a presentation and never even got the slides out or presented a demo. Who are your key customers?

Venture Capital 238

Venture Capital Slides Startup Sales 238

socalTECH

APRIL 26, 2017

One, is an upright, traditional looking microscopes, where you look at glass slides. My background is I was a sales rep in this industry for fourteen years, with Nikon. The first thing you are trained on, is to qualify customers and figure out if they need upright or inverted microscopes. Maybe that's even 99 percent.

Tech Coast Angels 124

Tech Coast Angels Startup Sales Slides 124

Startup Professionals Musings

NOVEMBER 4, 2019

In my experience, the key steps I look for always include the following: Testing the idea against customers who have money to spend. Prepare your marketing story for customers and investors. Start by developing an “elevator pitch,” that you can deliver in thirty seconds to hook a potential customer or investor.

Ideas 94

Ideas Slides Technical Review Patents 94

socalTECH

APRIL 26, 2017

One, is an upright, traditional looking microscopes, where you look at glass slides. My background is I was a sales rep in this industry for fourteen years, with Nikon. The first thing you are trained on, is to qualify customers and figure out if they need upright or inverted microscopes. Maybe that's even 99 percent.

Tech Coast Angels 100

Tech Coast Angels Startup Sales Slides 100

Both Sides of the Table

NOVEMBER 19, 2009

Your head of sales thinks she should fire somebody. You’re sales person is getting blocked by the CTO who says she shouldn’t go above him but the CTO isn’t approving the deal. He went out and found a developer and built a product. The technology team disagrees on direction and wants resolutions.

Entrepreneur 414

Entrepreneur Technical Review Slides CTO Coach 414

Both Sides of the Table

DECEMBER 16, 2009

.&# They know instinctually how customers buy and how to excite them. They spot opportunities that aren’t being met and the design products to meet these needs. You can practically hear the “voice of the customer&# when they’re presenting their concept. Hold the phone far away from your ears.

Entrepreneur 306

Entrepreneur Startup Outsource Development Customer 306

Both Sides of the Table

DECEMBER 16, 2010

For extroverted people I recommend that entrepreneurs have an “executive summary&# slide up front that cuts to the chase. Don’t dwell on this slide for ever. If I have an hour with you I want to maximise the time we have a discussion so I want to get through the slides quickly. It’s in their personality type.

Slides 358

Slides Venture Capital Startup Summary 358

Both Sides of the Table

NOVEMBER 3, 2010

The path I went down after a few years was to hire more process driven people and devolved more daily operational ownership to people running individual functions such as product management, sales management, finance, etc. One of the most obvious places where you see this is in sales & marketing. Ditto the CFO.

Sales 296

Sales Pricing Startup Customer 296

Tech.Co

MAY 22, 2018

One of the biggest turn offs for investors are founders who don’t know the basics of their business, especially their market and customer. They have to know their industry, know their customers, and understand what it takes to make their customers happy.”. Try to keep the presentation tight, 10 slides is ideal,” Gruber said.

Tips 70

Tips Help Slides Technical Review 70

Both Sides of the Table

MAY 24, 2018

controlling your psychology ) you no doubt have heard me say that raising capital is a sales & marketing process. Building models to evaluate the deal and/or reviewing customer files, company financials, business plans, etc. This is Sales 101.

Venture Capital 314

Venture Capital Technical Review Invest Slides 314

Startup Professionals Musings

JUNE 10, 2011

A perfect round number is ten slides, with the right content, that can be covered in ten minutes. Here are the ten slides you need: Problem and market need. Solution product & technology. Here is how and why it works, including a customer-centric quantification of the benefits. Marketing, sales, and partners.

Slides 93

Slides Competition Sample Sales 93

Startup Professionals Musings

FEBRUARY 13, 2016

As a startup advisor and investor, I recommend a pitch deck with about 10 slides backed up with a written business plan of approximately 20 pages, both containing quantified answers to the following key questions. Investors want to hear about customers with money who have a painful problem that you can solve now.

Invest 108

Invest Startup Slides Equity 108

Both Sides of the Table

MARCH 21, 2010

As startup entrepreneurs we all want to work with them because having their name as reference clients makes it so much easier for marketing, PR, selling to other customers, fund raising and even recruiting. BigCo calls you to review your product and decides they want to use you. million in sales. million in sales (e.g.

Startup 298

Startup Sales Slides Metrics 298

Both Sides of the Table

OCTOBER 19, 2009

After my company was acquired by Salesforce.com I was asked to stop blogging and they took over my blog as an asset in the sale of the company. It included one firm who I asked not to call Salesforce.com as a reference (they were our largest pilot customer) and in their kindness they called Marc Benioff (the CEO) and asked his opinion.

Venture Capital 274

Venture Capital Blogging Startup Slides 274

InfoChachkie

OCTOBER 5, 2011

As noted in RIP RFPs , entrepreneurs should generally avoid RFPs because they cannot afford to expend the time and resources required to participate in such regimented and lengthy sales processes. You can effectively do so by utilizing an online meeting product, such as GoToMeeting or LogMeIn.

Startup 216

Startup Slides Resource Organization 216

Both Sides of the Table

APRIL 10, 2014

What if that time could go into thinking through the companies most important strategic issues, talking early with investors about their views and adjusting the strategic discussion slides rather than the update deck? If it’s an enterprise software company you can no longer rely on tacit knowledge to win sales campaigns.

Startup 381

Startup Resource Venture Capital Activity 381

Startup Professionals Musings

NOVEMBER 20, 2019

In business, entrepreneurs hunt for new innovative solutions to problems, new ways of beating competitors, new markets, and new customers. Only a few of these slide into farming, as the company grows in employees and products. All this made more sense to me as Dini defined the types of entrepreneurs into four categories.

Entrepreneur 95

Entrepreneur News Slides Startup 95

Both Sides of the Table

APRIL 20, 2010

I recently did a post for startups on understanding sales people. Whenever I meet a team that had a consulting firm (even a great one) build their product it’s an immediate “pass&# from me. They care about the quality of what is build more than they care about end customers. I don’t believe that one exists.

CTO Hire 400

CTO Hire Fractional VPE Startup Outsource Development 400

Both Sides of the Table

MAY 2, 2015

I love the enthusiasm, the boundless energy and the sense of possibility that comes from having an idea that hasn’t yet been beat up in the marketplace of competing ideas, customer contracts, VC skepticism, jaded journalists or fickle consumers who are on the The New, New Thing. It literally can put you out of business. Board meetings.

Outsource Development 150

Outsource Development Metrics Startup Sales 150

Startup Professionals Musings

JULY 31, 2015

Passionate entrepreneurs tend to talk on and on about their disruptive technology, their intent to change the world and free services, but if a business can’t provide quantifiable value to real customers, the dream will likely turn into a nightmare. Skip the sales pitch and avoid preaching. Build up for the punch line at the end.

Startup 104

Startup Summary Patents Examples 104

Startup Professionals Musings

AUGUST 1, 2013

Seasonal sales fluctuations eat cash. Fluctuating sales means more inventory is required to cover the ups and downs. It could be a natural disaster, like a flood or wind storm, or loss of key personnel, equipment failure, or a major customer complaint on the Internet. Even good customers don’t always pay on time.

Startup 114

Startup Sales Layoffs Slides 114

socalTECH

JULY 10, 2019

At the end of the day, we help retailers make smarter recommendations to their customers, which leads to better business. Spencer Price: The customer experience with e-commerce has become less and less human, as algorithms on digital platform replace human interaction. The customer is really struggling to regain their lost humanity.

Pricing 113

Pricing Startup North Hollywood Platform 113

Startup Professionals Musings

DECEMBER 8, 2017

Let me be quick to say that a plan doesn’t have be a book, and probably should start as a “pitch deck” of maybe a dozen slides which cover all the right bases. Since this document is outward facing, it is important to keep the terminology and tone consistent with that of your customer set, investors, and business partners.

Startup 65

Startup Writing Patents Competition 65

Startup Professionals Musings

JANUARY 17, 2016

Seasonal sales fluctuations eat cash. Fluctuating sales means more inventory is required to cover the ups and downs. It could be a natural disaster, like a flood or wind storm, or loss of key personnel, equipment failure, or a major customer complaint on the Internet. Even good customers don’t always pay on time.

Startup 64

Startup Sales Layoffs Slides 64

Startup Professionals Musings

JUNE 28, 2015

In business, entrepreneurs hunt for new innovative solutions to problems, new ways of beating competitors, new markets, and new customers. Only a few of these slide into farming, as the company grows in employees and products. All this made more sense to me as Dini defined the types of entrepreneurs into four categories.

Entrepreneur 106

Entrepreneur News Slides Startup 106

Startup Professionals Musings

MAY 12, 2014

In business, entrepreneurs hunt for new innovative solutions to problems, new ways of beating competitors, new markets, and new customers. Only a few of these slide into farming, as the company grows in employees and products. All this made more sense to me as Dini defined the types of entrepreneurs into four categories.

Entrepreneur 109

Entrepreneur Startup News Slides 109

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 169

Product Summary Startup Examples 169

Startup Professionals Musings

DECEMBER 31, 2017

In business, entrepreneurs hunt for new innovative solutions to problems, new ways of beating competitors, new markets, and new customers. Only a few of these slide into farming, as the company grows in employees and products. All this made more sense to me as Dini defined the types of entrepreneurs into four categories.

Entrepreneur 54

Entrepreneur News Slides Startup 54

Both Sides of the Table

AUGUST 25, 2009

I’ve sat through a lot of VC pitches and having been CEO of an enterprise software firm for many years I’ve also sat through many customer meetings with sales teams. After the sales meetings I would ask the exec afterward, “how do you think it went?&# We used to do this in our sales slides.

Venture Capital 275

Venture Capital Sales Slides Startup 275