Berkonomics

OCTOBER 4, 2018

And finally, there are the thirty-plus sad exits that were complete write-offs for the investors, sometimes regaining some portion of note-holder or creditor money in the process. I cannot recall ever attending a closing dinner for a sale in which we returned only a portion of the investor group’s money.

Sales 136

Sales Entrepreneur Writing Invest 136

Berkonomics

NOVEMBER 17, 2016

Everyone who manages a company or its sales force wants to write as many new deals as possible, and is usually warry about doing anything that might threaten the positive outcome of a pending sale. Deadlines are an important sales tool. The most powerful tool you have in a sales environment is a deadline.

Sales 120

Sales Tool Writing Custom 120

Both Sides of the Table

FEBRUARY 17, 2019

Having read his latest op-ed on email I know why I erred towards the side of of not loving his book as much as some did. Apparently he’s an “organizational psychologist professor and thinks that it’s rude not to answer email. I also surmise that perhaps organizational psychologists don’t get as much unsolicited emails as some of us do.

Email 250

Email Writing Conference Mobile 250

Both Sides of the Table

FEBRUARY 3, 2010

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. But how to apply “listening&# in a sales meeting? They don’t handle Twitter feedback, emails or IM. I still do this sometimes, too.

Sales 314

Sales Startup Venture Capital Customer 314

Berkonomics

DECEMBER 31, 2020

The effort to write a grant request is not trivial. Email readers, continue here…] Grant writing takes skill and immense amounts of time. Often, grants require that you partner with other organizations to deliver the results or measure the effectiveness of your special project. Other sources of grants.

Equity 156

Equity Writing Education Research 156

Berkonomics

JANUARY 13, 2022

Email readers, continue here…] But what about the pause to celebrate? Not many founders or entrepreneurs do experience the success of a favorable sale of the business they dreamed would make them rich. Others are diluted by subsequent investors to the point where there was nothing for them to celebrate at all in a sale.

Writing 156

Writing Entrepreneur .Net Sales 156

InfoChachkie

JUNE 3, 2013

You can watch/listen to how John and Kyle turned their email newsletter into an international bestseller in the following 9-minute excerpt from John''s recent talk at UC Santa Barbara. an email) to about 35 people. If you want to be kept informed just send me an email and let me know that you''re in, and that was it.

Newsletter 233

Newsletter Startup Entrepreneur Writing 233

Both Sides of the Table

MAY 14, 2018

I know that you can use an email system with this to track my open rate, whether I forwarded the email, the IP address where I read it, whether I was on a mobile device or a wired computer and you can tell who else read the document. What should not be in your deck?

Funding 239

Funding Venture Capital IP Competition 239

Both Sides of the Table

MARCH 29, 2014

They get pissed off if a senior executive at Google doesn’t take a meeting with them, if people are late to their meetings or if they have emails that are unreturned. The 70% of entrepreneurs that simply can’t get past an un-responded-to email. You need to know how to write good & action oriented emails.

Venture Capital 389

Venture Capital Email Startup Conference 389

TechCrunch LA

JULY 19, 2022

It also handles the back end as well by automating the posting, sale and shipment of unsold inventory while offering immediate payment to creditworthy sellers. She went on to write, “Dee and Josh are the exact right team to tackle it. The equity will go toward hiring more talent to join Ghost’s 25-person team.

Product 191

Product Funding Technical Review Equity 191

Both Sides of the Table

APRIL 12, 2017

As executives we’re all seemingly accessible at any moment to anybody via email, Twitter, Facebook, LinkedIn or Text. We’re expected to be at conferences, events, sales meetings and be publicly visible. It’s why sometimes I respond to emails in 5 minutes at other times I go dark for a week at a time.

Activity 297

Activity Blogging Email Startup 297

Berkonomics

MAY 8, 2014

I am chairman of a company that, as I write this, is twelve years old and has not yet taken a dollar of outside investment. email readers, continue here.] In general, grants are made to individuals, companies, businesses, organizations or institutions that are working toward serving the greater good or a greater cause.

Company 166

Company Companies Writing Education 166

Berkonomics

JUNE 29, 2017

If you have been following our recent insights, you’ll be up to speed knowing that professional investors negotiate tough terms, from provisions of control over asset acquisition, eventual sale of the company, future investments, forced co-sale when others attempt to sell their shares and more.

Invest 243

Invest Entrepreneur Sales Startup 243

Both Sides of the Table

MARCH 2, 2011

It’s apropos because there is so much noise these days with email, Twitter, Facebook, blogs, web shows, etc. If I check Twitter it’s usually because I’m waiting for a meeting to start and I never write posts during the day. He’s committed to getting through every email. I read 95% of my email.

Email 287

Email Blogging Venture Capital Writing 287

Both Sides of the Table

JANUARY 14, 2014

If you follow the tech media you would be subject to a lot of narrative biases that are completely off base – and this includes the value of email and phone calls. All the data actually suggests with the growth of mobile, inbound sales calls will double from 30 billion to 60 billion in 3 years (source: Kelsey). THE FULL STORY.

Email 339

Email SaaS Venture Capital Google 339

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. Speak to people, rather than write a document every time you want a change. There are a myriad of ways to make this happen in the world of startups. Specialist versus consultant.

Startup 150

Startup Slides Email Custom 150

Both Sides of the Table

MARCH 31, 2012

I got an email recently from my friend & fellow VC, Jeff Bussgang from Flybridge Capital Partners in Boston. Jeff (also an HBS alum) co-teaches the LTV course with Professor Eisenmann about a student of theirs who had written a blog post about sales taking on some of my previous assertions. Specifically, 1.

Startup 319

Startup Sales Course Competition 319

Both Sides of the Table

MAY 19, 2018

For starters you have to realize that fund-raising is a sales process. A brochure is an easy out for you in the sales process without being rude. We did some outbound sales & marketing, we responded to some inbound enquiries that came “over the transom” from marketing activities and we responded to RFPs (requests for proposal).

Funding 336

Funding Venture Capital Startup Email 336

Both Sides of the Table

MAY 13, 2018

The most important advice I could give you before you set out in fund raising mode is to understand that fund-raising a sales & marketing process and needs to be managed. Somehow many first-time founders equate “sales” with something that is beneath them. In sales there are also three rules: Qualify, qualify, qualify.

Venture Capital 332

Venture Capital Funding Startup Sales 332

InfoChachkie

JUNE 3, 2013

You can watch/listen to how John and Kyle turned their email newsletter into an international bestseller in the following 9-minute excerpt from John''s recent talk at UC Santa Barbara. an email) to about 35 people. If you want to be kept informed just send me an email and let me know that you''re in, and that was it.

Newsletter 133

Newsletter Startup Entrepreneur Writing 133

Both Sides of the Table

JUNE 13, 2018

Remember that the goal of an email to a VC or an introduction from a trusted mutual connection is simply to get you the meeting. You want to send just enough to get the meeting (and of course a great deck sells better than a long email) and not so long that you don’t leave a chance to wow the person in your actual meeting. Poppycock.

Venture Capital 261

Venture Capital Slides Email Funding 261

Both Sides of the Table

MAY 27, 2013

In this period (less than 2 years) he has brought on incredibly talented senior execs is sales, marketing, product management, client services, finance, vp engineering and more. Email updates frequently. Key point – if your emails are as long as my blog posts you’re forked. Make your emails actionable.

Tips 365

Tips Email Venture Capital Blogging 365

Berkonomics

FEBRUARY 25, 2016

Looking for an entrance into a VC, an angel group, a bank, a CxO for a sales opportunity, or any other entity? Every sales person with a bit of street history will resonate with this question. Email readers, continue here…] Using your attorney or accountant to find who is close to the decision maker sometimes works.

Ideas 120

Ideas Sales Competition Venture Capital 120

Berkonomics

OCTOBER 20, 2016

With a little bit of structure and ingenuity, you can supplement your sales efforts by leveraging channel partnerships. Just take what you would normally spend on a sales lead, and give that to the Channel partner in the form of a revenue share. Compensation doesn’t have to be complicated, either. My response was: FANTASTIC!

Writing 120

Writing Sales Networking Conference 120

Both Sides of the Table

AUGUST 24, 2011

I have long wanted to write about FNAC (feature, not a company) because it’s part of my normal lexicon to push teams that present to me to think harder about where the economics in their industry is coming from. I received a couple of emails from my friends and colleagues vigorously defending GroupMe. It lingered.

Email 270

Email Writing Blogging Competition 270

Berkonomics

FEBRUARY 27, 2014

Email readers, continue here.] My sales tax payments were due in the next few days, and I didn’t have the money. But I did have an appointment, a sales opportunity the next morning. I made the sale, and paid my debts. Frank Peters made his money writing software for Wall Street. And it wasn’t easy.

Startup 204

Startup Software Review UCLA Sales 204

Both Sides of the Table

MAY 9, 2018

I raced home to put my kids to bed, say hello to my wife and then spend a grueling administrative hour doing email. I know you emailed me and I emailed you back. I always tell people that fund raising is a sales process. But it’s only Tuesday. Wednesday I have 4 companies coming in to talk about their companies.

Software Review 381

Software Review Startup Email Conference 381

Startup Professionals Musings

JUNE 4, 2021

Probably every one of you who has a business and a website have been approached through email or personal contact, and asked to spend money on paid search results (appear on the first page of search results, despite low SEO rank). Campaign setup and ad copy writing. Both have the same end goal of getting people to your website.

PPC 154

PPC SEO Paid Search Search Engine Optimization 154

Both Sides of the Table

AUGUST 16, 2011

Talented brand sales people? You send them update emails. Help them write other stories. One day they’ll write yours. Are you looking for great engineers? A smart young marketing exec? If you wait until you need to fill somebody in a roll you’re losing valuable time as an entrepreneur. 50 coffee meetings.

Startup 410

Startup Writing Press Venture Capital 410

Both Sides of the Table

MARCH 8, 2010

I guess let’s file this under sales & marketing advice. Don’t just write a carbon copy of what somebody else is doing. OK, well, actually the first thing I did is come up with a list of 50 posts that I wanted to write. I didn’t want to run out of things to write about in the first 6 months.

Blogging 286

Blogging Startup Writing Summary 286

Berkonomics

MAY 22, 2014

The sale of equity in private companies is regulated by the Securities Act of 1933, which requires that the company either register with the SEC or meet one of several exemptions (Regulation D). Bill Payne has been actively involved in angel investing since 1980, funding over 50 companies and mentoring over 100 more. Sounds simple, huh?

Writing 199

Writing Entrepreneur Invest Equity 199

Berkonomics

SEPTEMBER 23, 2011

In fact, I don’t recall any formal post-sale meeting at all; even to digest the lessons learned from the entire experience, a missed opportunity for all. I’ve been involved with well over a dozen successful exits and four initial public offerings over the years, some of them with monstrous gains, some more modest.

Writing 159

Writing Sales Entrepreneur Invest 159

Berkonomics

OCTOBER 8, 2015

Email readers, continue here…] First there comes a sense of relief, knowing that you no longer need to worry over daily cash or threats to your net worth. Not many founders or entrepreneurs do experience the success of a favorable sale of the business they dreamed would make them rich. Write a book; I did.

Entrepreneur 120

Entrepreneur Writing .Net Sales 120

Startup Professionals Musings

APRIL 17, 2020

Even in this age of videos and text messages, the quickest way to kill your startup dream with investors, business partners, or even customers, is embarrassingly poor writing. You have to be able to communicate effectively in all the common forms, including business writing, as well as talking, presenting, and producing videos.

Writing 125

Writing Entrepreneur Summary Email 125

Both Sides of the Table

JUNE 1, 2011

That was back when VCs weren’t so quick to respond to emails. I started by writing 3-4 times / week. I didn’t have any grand ambitions other than to write, share ideas and try to build awareness of who I am through my thoughts. Just like a sales person at the end of a quarter. I did that? Here we go.

Startup 391

Startup Blogging Venture Capital Writing 391

Startup Professionals Musings

FEBRUARY 5, 2020

Funding is depleted before customer sales ramp up. Keep control by writing every check personally, and manage receivable and payables tightly. Examples abound of startups who had to pivot for success, including Twitter moving from podcasts to social commentating, and Yelp moving from email to online.

Startup 131

Startup Entrepreneur Customer Custom 131

InfoChachkie

JULY 22, 2013

Brad is in the midst of writing a series of startup-oriented books. When writing Startup Life , Brad noted that he and Amy''s primary goal was to avoid a YARB (Yet Another Relationship Book). The writing in the book and the boundaries and the context of that were interesting. Share and Enjoy.

Startup 248

Startup Writing Santa Barbara RSS 248