Startup Professionals Musings

FEBRUARY 3, 2011

Modern investors love to first read a two-page summary of your business plan, formatted like a glossy marketing collateral sheet, with text well laid out in columns and sidebars, and a couple of relevant graphics. You may have already found several articles, web pages, or books about writing the perfect executive summary.

Summary 90

Summary Writing Competition Sample 90

Tech Zulu Event

FEBRUARY 12, 2015

I get questions from startup founders about executive summaries all the time. to “where can I get help writing one?” I answered some of those questions in a previous post, Crafting Your Executive Summary , so I won’t rehash them here. Here’s what not to do when crafting your executive summary. to “how long should it be?”

Summary 40

Summary Outsource Development Writing Outsource 40

Startup Professionals Musings

FEBRUARY 11, 2010

Modern investors love to first read a two-page summary of your business plan, formatted like a glossy marketing collateral sheet, with text well laid out in columns and sidebars, and a couple of relevant graphics. You may have already found several articles, web pages, or books about writing the perfect executive summary.

Summary 55

Summary Writing Competition Metrics 55

Startup Professionals Musings

JUNE 26, 2020

To be clear, I define a product specification as the technical definition of your product, to be used for development and testing purposes, with a quick business summary for context. Use non-fuzzy terms to quantify customer value. Provide specifics on the customer business model. They want to see revenue to share in the return.

Product 169

Product Summary Startup Examples 169

Both Sides of the Table

APRIL 19, 2011

Or read the quick, informative summary below the image! He is very hands-on and helpful – especially for any company looking into customer acquisition. Here’s a summary of our interview. Big thank you to Darius Vasefi , of EyeOnJewels for the write up. we both love Jason).

Acquisition 304

Acquisition Startup Customer Custom 304

Startup Professionals Musings

JULY 15, 2023

Everyone agrees that successful business partnerships can provide cash for growth, reduce costs, provide new geographic markets, or bring whole new customer sets to the table. Both sides should write down the shared objectives and vision. If there is nothing to write down, or the results are quite different, that’s a big red flag.

eHarmony 100

eHarmony Writing Sites Summary 100

Startup Professionals Musings

NOVEMBER 15, 2013

Here is my edited summary of their ten principles, which I like and may convince you that you don’t need a business plan at all, or at the very least will help you write a better one later: A new venture is a means, not an end. So keep your eyes open and respond to new customers, new markets, and new partnerships.

Writing 102

Writing Startup Entrepreneur Capital 102

InfoChachkie

SEPTEMBER 4, 2012

Most sophisticated investors ignore them, focusing their attention on an entrepreneur's pitch and presentation materials, financial forecast and executive summary. As such, the primary goal of your executive summary is to open the door to an in-person meeting. Entrepreneurs routinely seek my advice regarding their executive summaries.

Venture Capital 211

Venture Capital Summary Technical Review Template 211

Startup Professionals Musings

OCTOBER 25, 2020

Everyone agrees that successful business partnerships can provide cash for growth, reduce costs, provide new geographic markets, or bring whole new customer sets to the table. Both sides should write down the shared objectives and vision. If there is nothing to write down, or the results are quite different, that’s a big red flag.

Sites 155

Sites eHarmony Writing Summary 155

Startup Professionals Musings

JULY 9, 2021

In a two-minute video clip, you can introduce yourself, show your passion and the engaging personality you need to win over customers, partners, and employees. Executive summary glossy. Disciplining yourself to write down the plan is actually the best way to make sure you actually understand it yourself. Written business plan.

Entrepreneur 156

Entrepreneur Tips Funding Startup 156

SoCal CTO

APRIL 2, 2013

They look at the following high level definition of Lean: and they interpret that as write up an executive summary with your ideas and hand it to developers to build. Have you conducted Problem, Solution and Feature Interviews with customers? What's going to go wrong? See Investors, MVPs and Evidence of Traction.

CTO Coach 219

CTO Coach Metrics Framework Software Development 219

Both Sides of the Table

OCTOBER 17, 2019

But like the company Kyriba, where we recently sold our position at above $1 billion, it took time until the revenue exceeded $100 million recurring and then the industry really competed to back this amazing company since it had scale, defensible technology and long-term, committed customers. VCs have different views and strategies on this.

Venture Capital 223

Venture Capital IP Startup Google 223

SoCal CTO

DECEMBER 19, 2012

You likely are writing your first one of these. This should be an iterative process with advisors and customers providing feedback on the product. Customer Development Notes I'm assuming founders are having customer development conversations. It would be great to get notes and summaries from these.

Develop 354

Develop Development Technical Review CTO Coach 354

Startup Professionals Musings

APRIL 10, 2023

Here is my edited summary of their ten principles, which I like and may convince you that you don’t need a business plan at all, or at the very least will help you write a better one later: A new venture is a means, not an end. So keep your eyes open and respond to new customers, new markets, and new partnerships.

Startup 142

Startup Capital Resource Research 142

Startup Professionals Musings

JULY 30, 2022

If you can explain the problem to a mentor, or even write it down, you will more likely get to the root cause quickly, and avoid emotional and blame-infused responses. Listen to your customers to arrive at acceptable and marketable solutions. Verbalize the problem to fully understand it and why it’s occurring.

Startup 135

Startup Mentor Entrepreneur Technical Review 135

Both Sides of the Table

MAY 14, 2018

Whenever you write your deck and send it out I think you should actually think to yourself, “my competitors are probably going to read this one day and this will be forwarded widely” and if your response isn’t “so what!” What should not be in your deck?

Funding 239

Funding Venture Capital IP Email 239

Both Sides of the Table

MARCH 8, 2010

Since it’s already written (and since I promised not to republish on my blog other than a summary) if you’re interested please have a read over there. Summary notes and then I’ll extend: Should you blog? Define your customers, partners and other relevant people to your organization (e.g. Mostly, have fun.

Blogging 286

Blogging Startup Writing Summary 286

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

JUNE 23, 2013

I’ve been writing a series on a simple methodology that we used at my first enterprise software company. Simply, this is identifying a customer need that has economic value to them if they can solve it. This solves the customer question, “Why Buy Anything?”. There are many out there and many books have been written on the topic.

Sales 328

Sales Customer Custom Examples 328

Both Sides of the Table

JANUARY 17, 2011

So I thought I’d write a post about how I drive my personal creativity. (A EXECUTIVE SUMMARY: This is a long post, so I put an executive summary here if you want to get the point without reading all the detail. If you plan to read the post you can skip the summary if you want. These are all creative processes.

Writing 356

Writing Startup Ideas Summary 356

Startup Professionals Musings

AUGUST 5, 2017

Writing a business plan is hard work, so I get lots of pushback from prospective new venture founders that it’s just a waste of their valuable time in this rapidly changing environment. They all claim to have the plan in their head, and writing it down will only slow down their success.

Writing 71

Writing Startup Slides Entrepreneur 71

Startup Professionals Musings

DECEMBER 30, 2019

Most people will be engaged by a single-page double-sided glossy executive summary, and offer support or the right people to move forward. Whether you are looking for partners, investors, or future customers, you need to show a level of professionalism and leadership very early that will draw people to your idea.

Ideas 126

Ideas Slides Sample Examples 126

Both Sides of the Table

FEBRUARY 22, 2015

And after one meeting they started asking for his advice about marketing, customer engagement, product design, monetization – whatever. Chamillionaire has a way more refined sense of what customer behavior is like than most ivy league graduates with nice Powerpoint slides that I meet.

Conference 150

Conference Slides Social Media Summary 150

Startup Professionals Musings

AUGUST 19, 2013

This is sad, since “how to write a business plan” is a frequent topic found in every business journal, and a common title in the business section of every book store. Forcing yourself to write down a plan is actually the only way to make sure you actually understand it yourself. What is the definition of a good business plan?

Sample 92

Sample Writing Startup Summary 92

InfoChachkie

JULY 21, 2011

Paige is a gifted communicator and my summary does not do him justice. He offers a number of worthwhile tips and tricks that I was not able to capture in the textual summary, so the 14-minute audio file is well worth your time. What follows is a summary which paraphrases Paige’s responses. Click here to listen to the Audio File.

Summary 246

Summary Tips Sales Entrepreneur 246

Startup Professionals Musings

JULY 21, 2012

This is sad, since “how to write a business plan” is a frequent topic found in every business journal, and a common title in the business section of every book store. Forcing yourself to write down a plan is actually the only way to make sure you actually understand it yourself. What is the definition of a good business plan?

Sample 96

Sample Writing Summary Startup 96

Startup Professionals Musings

JULY 17, 2020

Here is my edited summary of their ten principles, which I like and may convince you that you don’t need a business plan at all, or at the very least will help you write a better one later: A new venture is a means, not an end. So keep your eyes open and respond to new customers, new markets, and new partnerships.

Startup 143

Startup Capital Resource Research 143

Both Sides of the Table

NOVEMBER 13, 2012

They were about to write a blog post defending the privacy issue and calling out why that journalist misunderstood the story. “If you write a blog post then every one of your customers will read it and question the privacy issue and you yourself know that the article was a red herring. .” Summary Lessons?

Press 336

Press Blogging Journal News 336

Startup Professionals Musings

JULY 15, 2015

People cite sources like this BusinessWeek story a while back “ Real Entrepreneurs Don’t Write Business Plans ,” or even my own article on this subject, “ 10 Reasons Not To Write A Business Plan First.” Executive summary glossy. Net out the problem and your solution in the first 30 seconds. Pitch your company, not your product.

Startup 104

Startup Writing Entrepreneur Slides 104

Both Sides of the Table

JULY 12, 2011

Chris Dixon is one of my favorite people in tech and writes one of the few blogs I read religiously. I think you’ll really enjoy this video , but as always I have summary notes for those with less time. If you like the quick summary notes, please check out Adam’s blog on tech, entrepreneurship & VC as a thank you.

Technical Review 281

Technical Review Venture Capital Startup Artificial Inteligence 281

Startup Professionals Musings

JULY 24, 2015

Thus I recommend that every entrepreneur start blogging in parallel with solution development for the following benefits: Get customer idea feedback before you commit resources. Develop an efficient and effective writing style. Start building your customer community early. Establish visibility and attract funding sources.

Blogging 110

Blogging Startup Search Engine Optimization Social Media 110

Both Sides of the Table

OCTOBER 20, 2013

It’s a shame because the ability to nail these presentations at key conferences can be once-in-a-lifetime opportunities to influence journalists, business partners, potential employees, customers and VCs. So I thought I’d write a piece on how not to suck when you give a presentation. Show some energy!

Slides 399

Slides Startup Conference Writing 399

Startup Professionals Musings

DECEMBER 8, 2010

This is sad, since “how to write a business plan” is a frequent topic found in every business journal, and a common title in the business section of every book store. Forcing yourself to write down a plan is actually the only way to make sure you actually understand it yourself. What is the definition of a good business plan?

Startup 91

Startup Funding Sample Writing 91

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 150

Outsource Development Startup Customer Custom 150

Both Sides of the Table

MARCH 31, 2012

The idea that the course asks students to write public blog posts is a testament to its more modern teaching style. I think it works well for startups because in startups there are inherently less rules and with customers there is less clarity about your product category. In Summary. As you grow you need process-driven people.

Startup 319

Startup Sales Course Competition 319

Startup Professionals Musings

MAY 18, 2014

People cite sources like this BusinessWeek story last year “ Real Entrepreneurs Don’t Write Business Plans ,” or even my own article a while back, “ 10 Reasons Not To Write A Business Plan First.” Executive summary glossy. Net out the problem and your solution in the first 30 seconds. Pitch your company, not your product.

Entrepreneur 108

Entrepreneur Startup Writing Slides 108

Startup Professionals Musings

MARCH 17, 2017

I found a good summary of these attributes in a recent book, “ The Old School Advantage ,” by an expert on interpersonal communication, J. In today’s customer context, you can foster rapport by dressing like them, making every effort to look attractive, offering compliments, and listening intensely. Now customers look for more.

Social Media 58

Social Media Customer Custom Entrepreneur 58