InfoChachkie

OCTOBER 13, 2010

The reference was in the form of a gold tablet that stated, “By the strength of the eternal Heaven, holy be the Khan’s name. This golden reference effectively communicated the Emperor’s sentiments in absentia. Modern-day references are effective because they rely upon a powerful principle of influence, Social Norming.

Startup 113

Startup .Net Organization Networking 113

Startup Professionals Musings

MARCH 25, 2022

You may think it’s great that demand exceeds your supply chain, but customers only remember it as a loss of your credibility, and will tell others. Proactive customer communication should be your first recourse, followed by cost and service concessions. The result is low productivity, mistakes, and poor customer experiences.

Startup 134

Startup Training Tool Demand 134

InfoChachkie

MAY 27, 2013

Last week, Divshot turned a simple April Fool''s Day joke into a marketing coup, generating nearly 6,000 Tweets and over a thousand Beta customers. The team''s ability to drive significant customer interest without spending a dime on marketing was one of the reasons Jim Andelman and I invested in the company. Don’t Over Sell It.

Customer 195

Customer Custom Template Startup 195

Both Sides of the Table

MAY 19, 2020

It’s clear things have changed for good and the need for managing remote communities of employees, customers and partners has become ever more important. In marketing materials founders often refer to their customer base as a “community”, but there’s a huge gap between having customers and creating a community.

Software 234

Software Startup Tool Platform 234

Startup Professionals Musings

JULY 31, 2020

As an angel investor in startups, I’m a believer that smart investors invest more in you as the entrepreneur than the next billion dollar solution you are pitching. These days, customers expect to hear and see social and environmental value from a new business, rather than just a new technology or profit.

Entrepreneur 124

Entrepreneur Startup Examples Metrics 124

InfoChachkie

MAY 27, 2013

Last week, Divshot turned a simple April Fool''s Day joke into a marketing coup, generating nearly 6,000 Tweets and over a thousand Beta customers. The team''s ability to drive significant customer interest without spending a dime on marketing was one of the reasons Jim Andelman and I invested in the company. Don’t Over Sell It.

Customer 153

Customer Custom Template Startup 153

Startup Professionals Musings

JUNE 26, 2020

Let me assure you that a business plan and product plan are two different things (I have personally written several of both). A business plan is the outward facing definition of the business you hope to drive with your hardware solution, with a hardware overview in the intro to highlight customer value and competitiveness.

Product 169

Product Summary Startup Examples 169

Both Sides of the Table

DECEMBER 17, 2013

Calling high means reaching the highest level appropriate person in an organization that you can reach to hear your pitch. Clearly in an enterprise customer this is unlikely. The senior person you meet is unlikely to be the person actually making the decision. The benefits of this are clear: 1.

Sales 375

Sales Technical Review Organization Case Study 375

Both Sides of the Table

JUNE 17, 2013

The point of PUCCKA was to develop a common methodology to make sure our whole team approaches sales with the same mindset and to give us a language to talk with each other about our prospects, as in, “have you identified your customers pain point yet?”. The goal is to get the customer speaking about their organization.

Sales 367

Sales Slides Startup Customer 367

Both Sides of the Table

FEBRUARY 3, 2010

They’re pitching to you. I’d like to talk about Crocodile Salesmen in 3 scenarios: 1) when YOU are selling (or someone on your team), 2) when you are trying to recruit a sales person. Let’s assume you run a Customer Support software company. My favorite was when I guy told me to beware of Crocodile Salesmen.

Sales 314

Sales Startup Venture Capital Customer 314

InfoChachkie

NOVEMBER 18, 2010

Net Promoter Scores (NPS) are the darling of many Big Dumb Company (BDC) product marketing and customer support executives. Created by consultants to generate additional fees, such scores attempt to rate a company’s overall customer satisfaction. The higher your company’s NPS, allegedly the higher your customer satisfaction.

.Net 182

.Net Satisfaction Entrepreneur Customer 182

Startup Professionals Musings

OCTOBER 29, 2018

As a long-time advisor to small businesses and startups, I still find many who think marketing is still primarily broadcasting your message to as many customers as possible, hitting them again and again, until it sticks. They don’t realize that customers today are looking for relationships, meaning two-way conversations with your business.

Marketing 91

Marketing Examples Startup Customer 91

InfoChachkie

NOVEMBER 18, 2010

Net Promoter Scores (NPS) are the darling of many Big Dumb Company (BDC) product marketing and customer support executives. Created by consultants to generate additional fees, such scores attempt to rate a company’s overall customer satisfaction. The higher your company’s NPS, allegedly the higher your customer satisfaction.

.Net 168

.Net Satisfaction Customer Custom 168

InfoChachkie

MAY 7, 2012

If you are fortunate to pitch a sophisticated investor in person, assume they already believe in the veracity of your idea, the market and the underlying technological trends. Confirmation from people whom the entrepreneur did not cite as a reference is vital. As such, communication had to be clear, open and direct.

Ideas 251

Ideas Venture Capital Education Entrepreneur 251

Startup Professionals Musings

JANUARY 17, 2015

Others schedule exhaustive training sessions for everyone on the team, including showcase customers, to make sure that everyone paints a consistent picture. The Founder needs to remember that meetings up to this point have been primarily off-site, with staged demos, and managed personally by the CEO or a small team.

Technical Review 108

Technical Review Startup Satisfaction Entrepreneur 108

Both Sides of the Table

JUNE 21, 2014

Who was willing to jump on a plan on a Sunday morning with a hang-over to make sure they were there the night before an important biz dev pitch on a Monday morning. When you’re hiring most reference checkers focus on the person’s former bosses. Who in stead said, “That’s what Skype is for?”

CTO Hire 320

CTO Hire Startup CTO Coach Venture Capital 320

Both Sides of the Table

JULY 19, 2011

And a key point is that when it comes down to “negotiations&# you need to turn up your personal heat and dial back the middle man. One thing I learned from the book is that real estate agents always sell their personal property at higher relative prices than their clients’ properties. They want to place this person.

Venture Capital 319

Venture Capital Pricing Startup Outsource 319

Tech.Co

JULY 24, 2017

Especially in the early days of your startup, when you’re often only months from running out of money, hiring the wrong person can be disastrous. But how do you go about pitching your friends? I suggest to customize your pitch for them. Next, figure out a venue for the pitch. Tap Into Your Employees’ Networks.

Networking 82

Networking Startup Software Review Conference 82

InfoChachkie

MAY 22, 2012

“One of the big misconceptions in baseball is that playing the game keeps you in shape to pitch. Major League baseball pitchers spend far more time preparing to pitch than they actually do pitching. Step 2: Get Personal & Give Freely – Once you identify a handful of potential VC partners, stealthily cyber stalk them.

Venture Capital 236

Venture Capital Capital Research Customer 236

InfoChachkie

NOVEMBER 24, 2014

Few customer pitches are too brief - fulfill your customers'' needs by saying less and listening more. Protect your personal and corporate brands by always doing what you should do, rather than what you could do. Greene: When you force the other person to act, you are the one in control. . Greene''s book.

Hollywood 227

Hollywood Santa Barbara Entrepreneur Customer 227

Startup Professionals Musings

FEBRUARY 7, 2015

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. Focus on collecting customer references.

Technical Review 108

Technical Review Pricing Startup Software Review 108

Startup Professionals Musings

DECEMBER 22, 2017

Others schedule long and exhaustive practice and coaching sessions for everyone on the team, including showcase customers, to make sure that everyone tells the most positive and consistent story. Make sure everyone accurately posts their role with your startup on social media profiles, resumes, and references.

Invest 59

Invest Startup Doc Slides 59

Both Sides of the Table

AUGUST 28, 2012

When is it appropriate for a VC to call your customers? Having been on both sides of this sensitive topic, the following is my personal advice. If you show a list of key customers or key business partners and if this list is sensitive (READ: If you don’t want VCs calling them) then you need to make it explicit with the VCs.

Technical Review 316

Technical Review Venture Capital Customer Custom 316

socalTECH

DECEMBER 6, 2019

Jon Grishpul: We realized that although there are lots of other services, and in an age of technology and automation where so many things can be automated, there are still some industries like home renovation and construction where you need to have a personal approach. We really want to take a personal approach.

Startup 100

Startup Encino Los Angeles Ventura 100

Startup Professionals Musings

JANUARY 5, 2018

In my experience with technical entrepreneurs, they work hard on creating an innovative and elegant solution, and assume that customers will flock to them (“if we build it, they will come”). The founder had simply not done the work to validate a price and the perfect customer segment. Make every pilot customer commit to be a reference.

Product 55

Product Pricing Startup Customer 55

Both Sides of the Table

OCTOBER 4, 2009

If you sell a product direct to a customer – in person or on the phone – you need to understand what their pain points are and position your product benefits against those pain points. Many, many tech companies I meet start with a set of “awesome features” and present them to me (and I suspect also to customers). Why Buy Mine?

Sales 319

Sales Startup Platform Tips 319

Both Sides of the Table

JANUARY 16, 2012

Spend time researching your buyers and not just pitching them. Meet in person. Trust doesn’t come from one 45-minute Powerpoint pitch or 30-minute demo. I never suggest that entrepreneurs just randomly pitch VCs. So interacting with you in person is paramount. Partners make investment decisions. Why buy me?

Develop 366

Develop Development Funding Venture Capital 366

Tech Zulu Event

APRIL 24, 2013

This is the most important role because this person graduates a company from startup to viable long-term business. Awesome, now you know it works, so you need a lot more customers to become an actual business. Thus, you need to enable new ways to create a scalable customer acquisition process.

Hulu 111

Hulu Startup Social Media Organization 111

Both Sides of the Table

MAY 4, 2015

It has become so synonymous with Internet companies that the French have invented a disdainful term including Amazon: “les GAFA,” which they refer to as Google-Apple-Facebook-Amazon to talk about American dominance of the Internet. It is a household name. ” Let’s start with some basics. The value prop is pretty clear.

Ideas 150

Ideas Startup Technical Review Pricing 150

Both Sides of the Table

OCTOBER 19, 2009

On December 2nd, 2006 I wrote the blog post published later in this post when I was CEO of startup Koral about my experiences in pitching VCs. I had kept a personal blog for more than a year and was new at keeping a professional blog. You have an “hour” to pitch in your first meeting. My blog was wiped out.

Venture Capital 274

Venture Capital Blogging Startup Slides 274

InfoChachkie

JANUARY 14, 2013

The show refers to the salespeople as "consultants," which reinforces each store's problem solving approach to selling. An efficient way to qualify a potential customer is to determine the size and availability of their budget. Most of them are directly applicable to selling virtually anything to anyone.

Sales 251

Sales Startup Activity RSS 251

Both Sides of the Table

FEBRUARY 26, 2016

Influencers are inundated with requests for their time and have to develop filters of whom they trust and therefore who can refer them deals. And whom you know is really just about who is willing to go to bat for you, break through filters, and vouch for the quality of your product and of you.

Mentor 150

Mentor Venture Capital Marketing Product 150

Both Sides of the Table

OCTOBER 6, 2010

This person had been introduced to me several times by angels and I was told that I’d be the perfect seed investor. Imagine the “typical&# deal – somebody comes into a VC’s office, they’ve never met, they’re highly referred by a friend and they’re pitching a product demo and a PPT.

Startup 360

Startup Venture Capital Invest Slides 360

SoCal CTO

SEPTEMBER 20, 2011

You’ll refine your sales and investor pitch. Beyond that, I want lots of conversations with experts, users, customers, VCs, partners, etc. NDAs or Other Protection So you decide you want to be able to share with experts, users, customers, VCs, partners, etc. You’ll learn about competitive products that exist or are being built.

Startup 211

Startup IP Ideas Patents 211

Both Sides of the Table

JANUARY 13, 2011

His key quote is, “there are a couple things in this particular post that don’t work for me personally (every VC is different!). And when you finish the demo you can bring in the other important components such as competition, team, customer acquisition strategy, etc. Who are your key customers? Mobile app? Bijan is right.

Venture Capital 299

Venture Capital Slides Technical Advisors Startup 299

SoCal CTO

SEPTEMBER 20, 2011

You’ll refine your sales and investor pitch. Beyond that, I want lots of conversations with experts, users, customers, VCs, partners, etc. NDAs or Other Protection So you decide you want to be able to share with experts, users, customers, VCs, partners, etc. You’ll learn about competitive products that exist or are being built.

Startup 198

Startup IP Ideas Patents 198

Both Sides of the Table

JANUARY 21, 2010

If you don’t follow the image reference above or the tag line, “ You don’t need double talk; you need Bob Loblaw “ (try saying it out loud) , and if you care! I personally like startups to work with firms based on three criteria: local, right sized and startup focused. I also am a very loyal person.

Startup 318

Startup IP Southern California Entrepreneur 318