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Most Common Early Start-up Mistakes

Both Sides of the Table

This is part of my ongoing series “ Start-up Lessons. &# If you want to subscribe to my RSS feed please click here or to get my blog by email click here. Imagine you pour 5 years of your life into your next gig and it starts to become successful. Many times the answer is ‘no.&# The problem is that you’re opening yourself up to a claim by one of these people that you somehow stole their ideas. Starting with 25% is even harder.

Startup 365
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Start-ups are all Naked in the Mirror

Both Sides of the Table

This is part of my ongoing series Startup Lessons. I started my first company in 1999 in London at the height of the dot com craze. We hadn’t even thought about having a customer support line or who would staff it. Our customers were generally happy but they were pushing us hard for promised features. We kept reading about their customer wins, their product releases and their biz dev deals. It didn’t add up to me.

Startup 331
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Financing a Start-Up

Tech Coast Venture Network

Virgina Lorimor There are several options for financing a start-up business that tend to follow a natural course in a business’ development: Personal Investment. This is where all entrepreneurs have to start. With rare exception, you will need to finance personally (or with friends and family to the point of revenue and/or significant customer pre-order or commitment). If you are pre-revenue, have pre-sales, letters of intent and/or customer commitments.

Startup 124
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5 Challenges When Predicting Future Customer Behavior

Startup Professionals Musings

Businesses see this as the Holy Grail for finally being able to predict who, where, and when customers will buy their existing solutions, and what their future solutions must look like to be attractive. Marty Zwilling< Big Data Colin Strong future customer trends human data

Customer 112
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7 Business Leadership Traits Persuade Customers Today

Startup Professionals Musings

We are living in a new generation of business, where customers drive the experience, and highly engaged employees are required to keep up with customer expectations. True leaders are tenacious, determined, and self-starting. business leadership customer experience D.

Customer 148
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7 Forgotten Keys To Productive Customer Relationships

Startup Professionals Musings

Entrepreneurs and business executives seem to be even more focused on their technology than the rest of us, and less inclined to listen to the voice of the customer, even if they remember to ask. Real two-way conversations with real customers, including the all-important body language, are unheard-of these days. I doubt if any of these are really listening to their customers. It’s easy to focus first on selling, and to treat all customer input as objections to be overcome.

Customer 102
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8 Ways The Stakes Are Higher On Customer Expectations

Startup Professionals Musings

With the advent of the Internet, social media, and instant communication via texting, customer expectations for service, as part of their entire customer experience, have changed. Company finds customers based on interests. Technology must improve the customer experience.

Customer 171
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5 Tactics To Ensure Your Solution Is Customer Driven

Startup Professionals Musings

Technical entrepreneurs love their technology, and often are driven to launch a startup on the assumption that everyone will buy any solution which highlights this technology. Instead, they need to validate a customer problem and real market need first.

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6 Keys To Enchanting Your Customers With Your Service

Startup Professionals Musings

Having the best solution is a good start these days, but a solution alone is no longer enough to keep customer attention and loyalty. Your competition is global, so today’s customers are demanding world-class service. Tie customer experience to all compensation and recognition.

Customer 168
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Why Every Startup Needs To Select Customers Carefully

Startup Professionals Musings

Most startups are happy to find any customer, and will hang on for dear life to every one. Likewise, you have to rank your customers, fire the troublemakers, and eliminate unfit ones. Your top clients or customers need to know they are special, to feel special.

Customer 147
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Here Is How To Win Today With The Customer In Control

Startup Professionals Musings

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.” This new world is all about empowered customers.

Customer 142
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6 Principles For Creating Great Customer Experiences

Startup Professionals Musings

Today’s customers demand more than a good product; they expect a great customer experience. A few companies are leading the way, including Apple with their iPad and iPhone, offering irresistible stores with friendly experts, elegant packaging, and customer service that never ends.

Customer 147
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7 Strategies To Prepare For The Next Customer Change

Startup Professionals Musings

In addition to obvious economic challenges, the emerging generation of customers is determined to radically change the rules for customer engagement. I summarize here my interpretation of his key points: Take heed of serious next generation customer expectations.

Customer 173
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7 Realities Related To Customer Value Disrupt Growth

Startup Professionals Musings

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. Value to second-order customer advertisers is key.

Customer 101
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6 Ways To Make Customers Remember You As Exceptional

Startup Professionals Musings

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.

Customer 154
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8 Initiatives To Heighten Your Customer’s Experience

Startup Professionals Musings

Most leaders agree that poor customer service is a business killer today, in terms of lost customers, reduced profits, and low morale. Yet the average perception of customer experience has not improved. Know your customers intimately.

Customer 150
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6 Keys to Attracting Customers Based On Social Needs

Startup Professionals Musings

Yet, these days, I am seeing overwhelming evidence that customer buying decisions, especially with consumers, are often based on emotional and psychological factors , including passions from others, your experience, and social relationships. Highlight benevolence to customers and society.

Customer 171
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10 New Realities Drive The Customer Decision Process

Startup Professionals Musings

Today’s customers are overloaded and overwhelmed by too much information, so making a decision is a challenge. In my role as an advisor to startups, I often have to remind entrepreneurs to think more like sales people from day one, in finding a real problem to solve and designing the solution.

Customer 133
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8 Ways To Increase Worker Buy-In And Customer Service

Startup Professionals Musings

Most businesses spend big money testing their brand logo, catchy marketing phrases, and demographics, but spend little time training and validating that their employees can and do deliver exceptional experiences to their customers. Keep your team happy to create engaged customers.

Customer 120
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7 Keys To Sustainably Enriching Your Customers’ Lives

Startup Professionals Musings

As I talk to many of you in my role as business advisor, I still often hear the concern for maximum return to the business and stakeholders, more than a passion for sustainably enriching the lives of your customers and team. This applies to your own team, as well as customers.

Customer 111
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Most Startups Should be Deer Hunters

Both Sides of the Table

This post is part of my series “ Startup Lessons &#. Elephants, Deer and Rabbits – Some thoughts on start-up segmentation. I know that this advice won’t apply to every possible startup – but I think it applies to many. When you start your company the very first question you need to ask yourself is which kind of customers do you want to serve. These are really massive customers. And this is not just a problem at start-ups.

Startup 389
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8 Ways To Ensure Customer Interactions Are Memorable

Startup Professionals Musings

Yet, as a business consultant, I often find minimal focus on improving employee engagement and assessing their customer-facing performance. I assure you that even one or two employees with bad attitudes or lack of customer attention can override the best efforts of everyone else.

Customer 144
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6 Key Principles For Inducing Customers To Buy Today

Startup Professionals Musings

Many entrepreneurs think that adapting to the new technologies, like smart phones and Internet commerce, are the key to attracting new customers. High-technology product startups, without customers, don’t make a business.

Customer 119
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6 Demands Of Today’s Me-Centric Customers On Startups

Startup Professionals Musings

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.

Demand 122
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5 Ways To Focus Your Strategy On Delighting Customers

Startup Professionals Musings

The world keeps changing, and visible business strategies that worked well in the past, including being the premium brand or low price producer, simply don’t get the customer loyalty they once did. Today, customers are looking for real relationships, a memorable shopping experience, and satisfaction of a higher purpose. What you say in your mission statement means nothing unless customers see you and your team living it every day. Highly focused customer segment targeting.

Customer 133
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4 Customer Decisive Moments That Your Startup Can Win

Startup Professionals Musings

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.” This new world is all about empowered customers.

Customer 123
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How To Test Your Brand Relationship To Real Customers

Startup Professionals Musings

Customers are people too, so customers tend to take their relationship with a brand personally. But how do you know if your brand is projecting warmth and competence to your customers? Selling to loyal customers is 3 to 10 times cheaper than acquiring new customers.

Customer 106
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5 New Rules For Getting Customers To Advocate For You

Startup Professionals Musings

It started with an email survey on your last stay at their hotel, but now includes requests for online product reviews, to social media input on the design of future products. They do it because engaged customers become loyal advocates and buyers.

Customer 104
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Who Should you Hire at a Startup?

Both Sides of the Table

This is part of my ongoing posts on Startup Advice. There are people who tell startups that they should hire the most senior people that they can find. It is tempting because you not only see that they were VP Sales at 3 other startups but also that they have great access (according to their resume) to senior executives at companies you’re trying to target. Bringing in a senior person who’s “done it all before&# is often a mistake in a startup.

Startup 327
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5 Generators Of Customer Pain Conducive To Startups

Startup Professionals Musings

Maybe we haven’t seen the results yet, but there are thousands of startup opportunities to offer new alternatives and services, to replace those destroyed by the crisis. disruptive change pain level startup idea

Customer 164
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7 Keys To Active Listening For Real Customer Feedback

Startup Professionals Musings

Entrepreneurs and business executives seem to be even more focused on their technology than the rest of us, and less inclined to listen to the voice of the customer, even if they remember to ask. I doubt if any of these are really listening to their customers.

Customer 127
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6 Steps To Providing Exceptional Customer Experiences

Startup Professionals Musings

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. Even businesses with highly specialized market segments will find it more effective and simpler to focus on who customers are as people, rather than the “what” of their demographic attributes.

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Do you want to control your business destiny?

Berkonomics

There is nothing quite as thrilling in business as igniting a startup and watching it blossom. Especially when starting a company with personal savings or money from relatives and friends, early signs of success are intoxicating. Each new customer, each mention in the press or online adds to the feeling of early accomplishment. Starting up

Writing 120
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People Management: Startup Teams Should Dip but not Skip

Both Sides of the Table

We all like to think of startups as “non hierarchic&# organizations and to some extent that should be true. I see two common mistakes in companies (not just in startups, in fact). As a CEO you never stop needing to go on sales calls (or to work the phones in telesales or customer support) and ceasing to do this as your company grows because you’re focusing on investors, recruiting, PR or whatever is a mistake.

Startup 308
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Should Your Startup Give Performance-Based Warrants?

Both Sides of the Table

This is part of my ongoing series on Startup Advice. 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. Plus, we’re all allured by the false sense that our contract with BigCo is going to “make us&# because once they start using us it will spread like wildfire and the revenue will flow in.

Startup 298
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Startup Founders Should Flip Burgers

Both Sides of the Table

This is part of my ongoing series Startup Advice. When you’re an early-stage startup that hasn’t raised any institutional money you end up doing almost every job function of the company yourself. This can often happen when there is a good product built but no real customer adoption yet. When I founded my first company along with Brian Moran (whose idea it was) I had no real experience running startups. He was to head up UK operations.

Startup 299
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6 Ways To Pull In Customers Without Push Marketing

Startup Professionals Musings

Entrepreneurs have always believed that their product or service must show real value to customers, but today the smart ones are even able to make their marketing valuable. Customers don’t even see this as advertising. Customers relate to other humans and relationships.

Customer 126
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How to Improve Hiring at Startups

Both Sides of the Table

This is part of my ongoing series with Startup Advice. BEFORE YOU START. Example: Work Experience can be broken down into: has managed a team, has led direct sales efforts, has worked for a startup before, etc. 2.Create a process - Create a process that you’ll use to recuit people before you start. When I run the process without a recruiter I set up a gmail account specifically for the job. I usually say right before I start interviewing (e.g.

Startup 301
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The Fallacy of Channels: Startups Beware

Both Sides of the Table

This is part of my ongoing series on startup advice but also filed under my sales & marketing posts. No advice I give will ever apply to 100% of companies, 100% of startups or even 100% of tech startups. I just want to state that up front because while I believe that this post will apply to most startup technology companies out there, I’m sure there will be exceptions. Let me start by saying that most channel relationships don’t work.

Startup 293
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7 Key Strategies To Ensure Long-Term Customer Growth

Startup Professionals Musings

They forget that adapting their company and themselves as their customers evolve is the key to long-term survival. Think of Blockbuster and Toys ‘R’ Us , both of whom missed customer changes and the move to online. Create an overt strategy to react to emerging customer trends.

Customer 140
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How to Work with Lawyers at a Startup

Both Sides of the Table

If you’re a startup and you don’t have a close relationship with a few law firms you’re really missing one of the most important relationships that any entrepreneur can have. When to get a lawyer - If you plan to be a venture or angel backed technology company (what I mostly write about) the best time to start meeting and getting to know lawyers is long before you ever start your company. Many people start companies arse backwards.

Startup 318
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7 Ways Your Marketing Needs To Meet Today’s Customers

Startup Professionals Musings

Every business I know is intimately familiar with outbound marketing, or pushing your message out to customers through email, newspaper, and television advertising. Only a few really understand the process and value of inbound marketing, for pulling customers to your brand.

Marketing 172
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3 Sales Tips for Startups – Creating a Burning Platform

Both Sides of the Table

This is part of my ongoing series Startup Advice. Many entrepreneurs who start technology companies are product people, technologists or savvy business people who worked previously for a larger company. Most start-up entrepreneurs have little or no sales experience. But through nearly a decade of startups I learned that sales comes down to three essential elements: 1. Customers seldom like to buy unless they perceive they have options.

Tips 319