Startup Professionals Musings

MAY 30, 2022

Early-stage entrepreneurs rightly keep their focus on creating an innovative product or service. Growth is more than simply repackaging existing products, and adding bells and whistles or slick incentives. Switch your attention from product development to sales. Managing business growth is more than metrics.

Sales 147

Sales Metrics Guide Startup 147

SoCal CTO

MARCH 11, 2013

Yesterday, I was talking to a startup founder about their MVP and they said something that finally got me to write this post: "I have a few investors interested but they want to see a product." It is almost never the case that you are building an MVP to "show" to an investor the product itself.

Metrics 264

Metrics Venture Capital News Product 264

Startup Professionals Musings

MARCH 10, 2023

Solution development and delivery. Products and services for a business need to be attuned to customer requirements, cost and quality tradeoffs, with milestones for pricing and completion. Typically some production and delivery is outsourced, requiring formal contracts and documentation. Marty Zwilling

Outsource Development 115

Outsource Development Startup Competition Ideas 115

Berkonomics

NOVEMBER 7, 2019

What metrics will you use to fairly evaluate each direct report? Many companies do not take the time to perform such reviews and end up paying the price in adverse rulings by courts or commissioners based upon verbal statements alone. In terms of time, this can be expensive and disruptive to you and your direct reports. Our conclusion.

Metrics 120

Metrics Report Email Pricing 120

Startup Professionals Musings

AUGUST 21, 2021

Many entrepreneurs never get past their first-stage focus on their innovative product, to scaling the business globally, organizing a structure to handle thousands of employees, and concentrating their focus “on the business” rather than working “in the business.” Switch your focus from product development to sales.

Startup 151

Startup Course Sales Entrepreneur 151

Startup Professionals Musings

AUGUST 7, 2015

Remember, investors are buying into the business, not the product. Investors are business experts, while the entrepreneur is more likely the product expert. In my experience, the team's credentials are more important than the product. Partnerships, distribution channels and pricing models should be included.

Product 103

Product Slides Customer Custom 103

SoCal CTO

FEBRUARY 17, 2007

skip to main | skip to sidebar SoCal CTO Saturday, February 17, 2007 Finding Good Developers in Los Angeles? About 18 months ago, the entire group began to mention that they were having more difficulty finding good developers. Technology Advisor Technology Roles in Startups Pricing Customer Acquisition Sunk Costs and More -.

Los Angeles 150

Los Angeles CTO Hire CTO Coach Develop 150

Startup Professionals Musings

JUNE 18, 2023

If you can’t identify customer interest, it doesn’t matter how good your product is. Have you set the right price for your entree, and correctly included all costs? Develop metrics with which to measure yourself and use these to incrementally expand and improve your offering as fast as the market and capital will allow.

Startup 112

Startup Coach Metrics Marketing 112

Startup Professionals Musings

NOVEMBER 30, 2022

As an investor in startups, I most often see entrepreneurs who are technologists, or at least have a real passion for a specific product. They rarely highlight their marketing and relationship skills , even though, in my experience, these are more often the key to success in business than product skills.

Startup 113

Startup Customer Custom Technical Review 113

Startup Professionals Musings

SEPTEMBER 22, 2022

For example, many investors I know tell me they look for business plans that allocate the largest portion of a requested investment to marketing, but most often see the top “ use of funds ” to be further product or service development. Of course, you can’t possibly brand yourself if you don’t know who you really are.

Marketing 133

Marketing Customer Custom Outsource Development 133

Both Sides of the Table

NOVEMBER 2, 2010

As a tech startup grows it needs to develop more process & management if it is to scale. Some objections are real and they end up becoming changes to your product, your service plan or your pricing / bundling. More experienced sales leaders seldom compete on price. We’re a premium product.

Sales 289

Sales Startup Training Pricing 289

Startup Professionals Musings

JUNE 7, 2020

Solution development and delivery. Products and services for a business need to be attuned to customer requirements, cost and quality tradeoffs, with milestones for pricing and completion. Typically some production and delivery is outsourced, requiring formal contracts and documentation. Marty Zwilling.

Entrepreneur 131

Entrepreneur Outsource Development Startup Competition 131

Both Sides of the Table

NOVEMBER 14, 2017

An alternate outcome that I also unfortunately observe in some cases are companies who had extreme early success with an initial product adoption but failed in key areas that limited the growth and therefore the ultimate financial outcomes. How profitable is my product or service? As an early-stage VC I love this phase.

Startup 286

Startup Technical Review Customer Custom 286

Startup Professionals Musings

SEPTEMBER 21, 2020

If you can’t identify customer interest, it doesn’t matter how good your product is. Have you set the right price for your entree, and correctly included all costs? Develop metrics with which to measure yourself and use these to incrementally expand and improve your offering as fast as the market and capital will allow.

Startup 156

Startup Coach Metrics Marketing 156

Startup Professionals Musings

APRIL 28, 2021

I recommend a trial run with an experiment or MVP (minimum viable product), at full price and cost, before the big bang launch, risking your investment money and a major time commitment. I once met with an entrepreneur who had developed a new algae strain to cure world hunger and make him rich.

Technical Review 131

Technical Review Case Study Mentor Software Review 131

Berkonomics

NOVEMBER 6, 2014

Enterprise time, as opposed to personal time management, is defined as the sum total of resources available to a company expressed in terms of time – time to develop, to debug, to produce, to deploy, to respond to issues, and to make changes in plans that are not working. Extending the Runway book available at www.berkus.com.

Resource 176

Resource Outsource Development Metrics Customer 176

Startup Professionals Musings

SEPTEMBER 1, 2019

Early-stage entrepreneurs rightly keep their focus on creating an innovative product or service. Growth is more than simply repackaging existing products, and adding bells and whistles or slick incentives. Switch your attention from product development to sales. Managing business growth is more than metrics.

Startup 97

Startup Sales Metrics Guide 97

Startup Professionals Musings

AUGUST 7, 2020

In the short term you need customers to find you at any price, and in the longer term you need revenue, profit, and return loyalty. That keeps people from pushing themselves to develop the kind of new solutions that will permanently change the business for the better, versus short-term band-aids.

Technical Review 124

Technical Review Layoffs Social Media Metrics 124

InfoChachkie

NOVEMBER 5, 2012

And then they said one thing that most marketers go their whole career never hearing, 'Listen Steve, price is irrelevant, it is speed that matters.' We had been pricing our graphics cards to be a low-cost provider. The first thing I did was raise our prices.". We repackaged them and branded them as different products.

Marketing 271

Marketing Startup Sales Customer 271

Berkonomics

DECEMBER 6, 2012

Many companies do not take the time to perform such reviews, and end up paying the price in adverse rulings by courts or commissioners based upon verbal statements alone. With such a comprehensive view of CEO performance, it is much easier to sit with the CEO and provide valuable input that is useful for CEO development.

Metrics 153

Metrics Email Pricing Tool 153

Startup Professionals Musings

FEBRUARY 5, 2020

Yet, in the interest of full disclosure, and an honest intent to save future entrepreneurs some grief and money, I would remind you that starting any business has key dependencies on at least five major elements, including product design and delivery, the right people on the team, adequate funding, a sizable market opportunity, and marketing.

Startup 131

Startup Entrepreneur Examples Customer 131

Startup Professionals Musings

JUNE 2, 2021

Features, availability, and brand are just the price of entry. As a simple example, the Wal-Mart website now shows shoppers more products that they may like, based on previous purchases. Simple metrics and your personal knowledge of the industry can’t keep up with all the relevant competitive forces.

Competition 142

Competition Software Review Social Media Customer 142

Both Sides of the Table

MAY 2, 2015

What I love about my job is getting to see teams of super-early-stage companies develop ideas that while raw have potential to make an impact on the market. I can’t tell you how many people have thanked me for this advice and say their productivity increased exponentially. They can help you with pricing.

Outsource Development 150

Outsource Development Metrics Startup Sales 150

Both Sides of the Table

DECEMBER 27, 2011

When they look at buying your company they often think in terms of “how long will it take until I earn back the profits to pay for my acquisition price?” They have have raised $2-3 million, built a product that has some amount of market traction and got to annualized revenues of around $1 million. ” The Details.

Startup 418

Startup Venture Capital Sales Technical Review 418

Startup Professionals Musings

JANUARY 30, 2017

Yet, in my experience as a mentor to entrepreneurs, the majority of failures I see are related to starting and growing the business, not developing the solution. A successful business requires focus – define the customer need with a specific solution for a specific price and cost. Manage the business with metrics and goals.

Ideas 72

Ideas Startup Metrics Entrepreneur 72

Startup Professionals Musings

FEBRUARY 4, 2015

Early-stage entrepreneurs rightly keep their focus on creating an innovative product or service. Growth is more than simply repackaging existing products, and adding bells and whistles or slick incentives. Switch your attention from product development to sales. Managing business growth is more than metrics.

Startup 108

Startup Sales Metrics Entrepreneur 108

Startup Professionals Musings

NOVEMBER 4, 2019

I love good causes and social entrepreneurs, but a recent pitch to me about eliminating world hunger with a new product (harvesting algae at low cost) seemed to forget that really hungry people don’t have any money. 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

Startup Professionals Musings

OCTOBER 2, 2015

Five major elements of every business include your people, product, opportunity, money and marketing. Innovative products and services always take longer to develop than anticipated, and quality problems pop up where least expected. Written product specifications and business plans pay big dividends.

Startup 105

Startup Entrepreneur Marketing Satisfaction 105

socalTECH

MARCH 6, 2017

Los Angeles-based Maple Media (maplemedia.io) recently announced a big, $30M funding from Shamrock Capital, to assemble a collection of mobile applications in the utility, productivity, games and entertainment verticals. A lot of what we've been looking at are the metrics. What's the idea behind Maple Media?

Media 153

Media Mobile Startup Acquisition 153

InfoChachkie

JANUARY 16, 2018

Jim Semick: I’ve been launching and managing software products for 15 years now, going back to when you and I worked together at Expertcity before it was acquired by Citrix. I have always worked on early stage products. Some of the products I’ve helped validate and launch include GoToMyPC, GoToMeeting and AppFolio.

Venture Capital 115

Venture Capital Entrepreneur Santa Barbara SaaS 115

Both Sides of the Table

MARCH 25, 2016

So when Sam Rosen came to me with the idea of disrupting storage with a product that is priced cheaper than existing incumbents and he could build a product that is a better service I was intrigued. The metrics were good but we wondered how much better they would be when we expanded our product.

Startup 150

Startup Marketing Study SEO 150

Startup Professionals Musings

SEPTEMBER 13, 2017

Early-stage entrepreneurs rightly keep their focus on creating an innovative product or service. Growth is more than simply repackaging existing products, and adding bells and whistles or slick incentives. Switch your attention from product development to sales. Managing business growth is more than metrics.

Startup 56

Startup Sales Metrics Guide 56

Startup Professionals Musings

MAY 24, 2015

Solution development and delivery. Products and services for a business need to be attuned to customer requirements, cost and quality tradeoffs, with milestones for pricing and completion. Typically some production and delivery is outsourced, requiring formal contracts and documentation. Marty Zwilling.

Outsource Development 99

Outsource Development Startup Competition Ideas 99

Both Sides of the Table

JULY 1, 2010

He eventually applied his lessons learned in these experiences when he founded Zag, a company that helps consumers buy cars over the Internet at pre-negotiated prices with nearly 4,000 dealers across the country [disclosure: my firm GRP Partners is an investor in Zag]. The consumer product they’ve created is called TrueCar.

Zag 248

Zag Truecar Venture Capital CarsDirect 248

Startup Professionals Musings

DECEMBER 8, 2018

If you can’t identify customer interest, it doesn’t matter how good your product is. Have you set the right price for your entrée, and correctly included all costs? Develop metrics with which to measure yourself and use these to incrementally expand and improve your offering as fast as the market and capital will allow.

Startup 81

Startup Coach Metrics Marketing 81

Startup Professionals Musings

NOVEMBER 3, 2013

Early-stage entrepreneurs rightly keep their focus on creating an innovative product or service. Growth is more than simply repackaging existing products, and adding bells and whistles or slick incentives. Switch your attention from product development to sales. Managing business growth is more than metrics.

Sales 96

Sales Metrics Startup Entrepreneur 96

SoCal CTO

MARCH 20, 2007

Technology Advisor Technology Roles in Startups Pricing Customer Acquisition Sunk Costs and More -. Mobile Internet Apple Facebook ► 2009 (32) ► December (3) Startup Software Developers Startup Software Development – Do Your Homework Be. He has twenty years’ experience as a CTO.

Venture Capital 150

Venture Capital Guide CTO Coach Southern California 150