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. It’s when the game slows. ROI studies were published.

Marketing 354

Marketing Case Study Metrics Sales 354

Startup Professionals Musings

FEBRUARY 19, 2021

An approach I suggest these days is for freelancers to contract for the actual role, probably part-time, of startup CFO, VP of Sales, or President. Another mistake many consultants make is to charge by the hour, and customers lose track and lose confidence as things change. Have "customers", not "clients."

Startup 150

Startup Slides Email Customer 150

Both Sides of the Table

MAY 14, 2018

There are a million ways to make graphics lighter or resize your file without a huge impact on the quality of the slides?—?after Summary: Send the Deck Pitch decks are sales & marketing decks and like in any sales activity, any great sales person assumes his or her competition will eventually get their deck.

Funding 239

Funding Venture Capital IP Email 239

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. But I find when you don’t assign slides that each person owns often the quiet team members get silenced.

Venture Capital 377

Venture Capital Slides Course Summary 377

Both Sides of the Table

JANUARY 13, 2011

I believe in this so much that, despite my post advising you to be prepared for the *norm* in VC, I wrote a post about a company that came in for a presentation and never even got the slides out or presented a demo. I think the norm in the industry is still to see Powerpoint slides and I wouldn’t hold this against anybody.

Venture Capital 299

Venture Capital Slides Technical Advisors Startup 299

InfoChachkie

JULY 7, 2016

Fool A Fool – I sold surgical robots from PowerPoint slides in the early 1990’s, before the robots existed. As such, I understand the degree to which hand waving and vaporware can influence investors and potential customers. An interface that is engaging can fool customers into trying a sub-par product.

Venture Capital 176

Venture Capital Product Software Review Technical Review 176

Berkonomics

APRIL 19, 2012

It could be that a larger competitor has met with its customers, promising to extend its product line into this very niche. So, do your homework especially well by putting yourself into the minds of your potential customers. If you are raising funds, list “do nothing” as a viable competitor in your slide deck.

Competition 189

Competition Slides Sales Ideas 189

Startup Professionals Musings

AUGUST 7, 2015

When pitching to investors, entrepreneurs always seem to start with a customer pitch, then add a slide or two about the business. In reality, they need a separate pitch about the business, carrying over only a slide or two about the solution. These don’t get funded, nor bought by customers.

Product 103

Product Slides Customer Custom 103

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

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. It’s the same as in any sales-oriented meeting and make no mistake raising money is sales. I need something structured like slides or a demo to orient me. Who are your key customers?

Venture Capital 238

Venture Capital Slides Startup Sales 238

Startup Professionals Musings

JUNE 26, 2020

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. 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

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

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. I was the one pointing out that we were behind on our sales targets and our “Elephant Deal&# that had been promised was 6 months late.

Entrepreneur 414

Entrepreneur Technical Review Slides CTO Coach 414

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. What's next for you?

Tech Coast Angels 124

Tech Coast Angels Startup Sales Slides 124

socalTECH

OCTOBER 14, 2013

We''ve put a spin on this, where you can use your own personalization or custom designs for your own Bluetooth headset, just like you would create a personalized case for your smartphone. Finally, I started pushing the idea, like a vacuum cleaner sales men, showing it to retailers and vendors, and it finally caught on.

Startup 241

Startup Slides Orange County Design 241

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

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. What's next for you?

Tech Coast Angels 100

Tech Coast Angels Startup Sales Slides 100

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

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. Here is how and why it works, including a customer-centric quantification of the benefits. Explain how you will make money and who pays you (real customer).

Slides 93

Slides Competition Sample Sales 93

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. If the other party asks you to send them your slides, find out why they need them. No one can tell your story better than you.

Startup 216

Startup Slides Resource Organization 216

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

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

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. While I’m a huge believer that sales bonuses should always be uncapped, I think capping PBW’s is a good idea.

Startup 298

Startup Sales Slides Metrics 298

Both Sides of the Table

DECEMBER 16, 2009

.&# They know instinctually how customers buy and how to excite them. Because they’re street smart, most great entrepreneurs tend to prefer getting out and talking with real customers rather than sitting in a cubicle all day doing beautiful PowerPoint slides. They have a sixth sense for the competitors’ weaknesses.

Entrepreneur 306

Entrepreneur Startup Outsource Development Customer 306

Startup Professionals Musings

JULY 27, 2018

Unfortunately, customers look for value in solving their problem, and new technologies alone scare them, so these solutions don’t get bought by customers, or funded. Certainly a slide or two needs to carry over describing the product and features at a high level. Customized marketing strategy and realistic sales plans. “If

Product 58

Product Slides Entrepreneur Invest 58

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

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

Tech.Co

JULY 25, 2017

But if you want to level things up, you can use a platform like OptinMonster to create popup forms, sliding forms, floating bars, and sidebars. It also takes only an hour to develop your own using a rapid development framework like CakePHP. Everything can be done via the drag-and-drop interface.

Tool 39

Tool Custom Customer Sites 39

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

Startup Professionals Musings

MAY 23, 2014

An approach I suggest these days is for freelancers to contract for the actual role, probably part-time, of startup CFO, VP of Sales, or President. Another mistake many consultants make is to charge by the hour, and customers lose track and lose confidence as things change. Have "customers", not "clients."

Startup 102

Startup Slides Email Customer 102

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

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

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

Both Sides of the Table

APRIL 20, 2010

I recently did a post for startups on understanding sales people. They care about the quality of what is build more than they care about end customers. As you head into the phase where you’ve had real customers paying real money for a period of time you’ll have a whole new set of issues.

CTO Hire 400

CTO Hire Fractional VPE Startup Outsource Development 400

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