Startup Professionals Musings

FEBRUARY 17, 2021

With the appearance of do-it-yourself services on the Internet, entrepreneur curriculums at every university, and a wealth of new books on the subject, the need for expensive consultants and business advisors has also been mitigated. Social media facilitates marketing and sales.

Entrepreneur 162

Entrepreneur Startup Social Media Outsource Development 162

Startup Professionals Musings

JUNE 7, 2020

I recognize that entrepreneurs tend to substitute vision and passion for formal processes, but using no discipline or process in building something new is a sure way to spend money, rather than see any return and build a self-sustaining business. Marketing, sales, support, and service operations. Team building status and plan.

Entrepreneur 131

Entrepreneur Outsource Development Startup Competition 131

Startup Professionals Musings

DECEMBER 13, 2020

The challenge is to transform and hardwire your entire team to think in these terms, rather than the default focus on distinct towers of product quality, closing the sale, or fixing a complaint. Your competition is global, so today’s customers are demanding world-class service. Set the expectation for continuous improvement.

Customer 168

Customer Custom Services Startup 168

Both Sides of the Table

APRIL 25, 2011

There’s a line of thinking in Silicon Valley that you should build product businesses rather than services businesses. It’s nearly impossible to get a services company financed by VCs. It is advice I give entrepreneurs often as I have written here on why most businesses should never raise VC.

Services 332

Services Venture Capital IP Startup 332

Berkonomics

AUGUST 3, 2023

Some businesses require very little capital and the founder can self-finance the enterprise and retain 100% of its ownership and control from ignition through liquidity event (startup through sale). And even with the significant cost of credit card debt, many entrepreneurs aggressively use existing cards to finance a startup.

Venture Capital 295

Venture Capital Startup Class Invest 295

Both Sides of the Table

NOVEMBER 19, 2009

(In case it’s not obvious it’s a play on the Nike slogan, “Just Do It.&# ) I believe that being successful as an entrepreneur requires you to get lots of things done. Entrepreneurs make fast decisions and move forward knowing that at best 70% of their decisions are going to be right. This paralyzes most people.

Entrepreneur 414

Entrepreneur Technical Review Slides CTO Coach 414

Startup Professionals Musings

JUNE 25, 2021

It seems like everyone wants to be an entrepreneur and get rich these days. This is the point where you work on the specifics of being able to deliver your product or service. Relevant questions include the type of business entity (LLC or C-Corp), licensing or manufacturing, sales and marketing, and staffing.

Ideas 136

Ideas Entrepreneur Mentor Resource 136

Startup Professionals Musings

MAY 29, 2023

I recognized this as I was reading the classic book, ” The Only Sales Guide You’ll Ever Need ,” by Anthony Iannarino, who is an international sales leader and expert on optimizing results. His focus is on sales, but I see the same skills needed for entrepreneurs. Diagnosing and understanding the customer problem.

Startup 154

Startup Sales Entrepreneur Customer 154

Startup Professionals Musings

MAY 30, 2022

Early-stage entrepreneurs rightly keep their focus on creating an innovative product or service. That’s where I see too much entrepreneur burnout, growth plateaus, and founders being replaced, to their chagrin. Of course, not every entrepreneur wants to tackle this challenge. There is no free lunch.

Sales 147

Sales Metrics Guide Startup 147

socalTECH

MARCH 28, 2019

Earlier this month, the annual Montgomery Summit conference was held in Santa Monica, including a special portion of the conference dedicated to the Rise of the Female Entrepreneur. I see you were involved in the Rise of the Female Entrepreneur effort at the Montgomery Summit this year, tell me a little about what that is all about?

Capital 162

Capital Entrepreneur Invest Artificial Inteligence 162

Startup Professionals Musings

OCTOBER 5, 2016

I recognized this as I was reading a new book, ” The Only Sales Guide You’ll Ever Need ,” by Anthony Iannarino, who is an international sales leader and expert on optimizing results. His focus is on sales, but I see the same skills needed for entrepreneurs. Diagnosing and understanding the customer problem.

Entrepreneur 106

Entrepreneur Sales Startup Customer 106

Both Sides of the Table

JANUARY 26, 2010

This is part of my series on what makes an entrepreneur successful. I originally posted it on VentureHacks , one of my favorite websites for entrepreneurs. I started the series talking about what I consider the most important attribute of an entrepreneur : Tenacity. The best entrepreneurs focus on details.

Entrepreneur 286

Entrepreneur Startup CTO Hire Sales 286

Startup Professionals Musings

SEPTEMBER 21, 2019

If an entrepreneur doesn’t find themselves in over their head at least 20% of the time, they are probably not pushing the limits, not taking enough risk, and probably not working on an idea that’s worth doing. Unfortunately, too many entrepreneurs I know are terrible at finding and accepting help.

Entrepreneur 99

Entrepreneur Startup Help Mentor 99

Startup Professionals Musings

AUGUST 4, 2019

Yet I see many technology entrepreneurs that focus on the basics of marketing too little and too late. Parroting a generic message that you have great service, great value, and a great selection says you have nothing unique. Instead of asking themselves “How and when will this generate sales?” Give yourself the “So-what?”

Marketing 97

Marketing Entrepreneur Startup Technical Review 97

Startup Professionals Musings

JUNE 6, 2011

A good entrepreneur is not necessarily born a good salesman. In my view, every entrepreneur has to be a great salesman to succeed (among the many other required skills), so you should take a hard look at these points: Dust off your moxie. Don’t hope that a miracle will happen and your products and services will sell themselves.

Sales 93

Sales Entrepreneur Mentor Customer 93

InfoChachkie

OCTOBER 27, 2011

Reasonable people will attempt to make the best of the status quo – unreasonable entrepreneurs with the proper dose of Confidence, Courage and Conviction will shape the status quo to facilitate your adVenture’s ultimate success. As made clear in Optimistically Pessimistic , most entrepreneurs’ experiences are not linear.

Entrepreneur 252

Entrepreneur Paramount Startup Organization 252

socalTECH

MARCH 1, 2018

As part of the lead in to the conference, and as a part of our sponsor relationship with the conference, we're running a series of interviews with speakers from the conference about their experience in the area of recurring revenues, customer service, and similar topics. It sounds like you actually do all your customer service in house?

Customer 113

Customer Custom Services Conference 113

Startup Professionals Musings

OCTOBER 16, 2023

Most aspiring entrepreneurs understand that you can’t build a business if you won’t commit to delivering a product or service, but many are hesitant or refuse to commit to any financial forecasts. Forecast sales-volume expectations. Yet every business requires revenue and volumes, as certainly as it requires a product to sell.

Startup 116

Startup Pricing Sales Statistics 116

Startup Professionals Musings

SEPTEMBER 2, 2018

If your forte is a service, like consulting or web site design, it’s harder to find guidance on what will get you funded, and how you can scale your business. On the product side, once you have a proven product and business model, all you need is money to build inventory, and a sales and marketing operation to drive the business.

Services 72

Services Startup Training Writing 72

Startup Professionals Musings

JANUARY 13, 2014

Of course, one sale isn’t really enough, so you need to get the first customer to recommend you to a second, and make sure the rate of sales ramps up quickly enough to keep the business alive and growing. I still see too many entrepreneurs who build a product and spend lots of money because THEY are in love with the idea or technology.

Sales 99

Sales Customer Custom Entrepreneur 99

Startup Professionals Musings

DECEMBER 2, 2022

I expect that should seem intuitive to all entrepreneurs, but every investor I know has many stories about startup funding requests with major business model elements missing. A target market is the group of customers that the startup plans to attract through marketing and sales their product or service. Sales/Marketing.

Sales 102

Sales Customer Custom Outsource 102

Both Sides of the Table

FEBRUARY 7, 2010

I originally conceived it as the Top 11 things that I believe “all entrepreneurs need to succeed.&# If it stuck to this theme then I would stand by my top 11. I’ll publish the final post in this series this week and then move on to my next series – sales & marketing. It will be controversial – I know.

Entrepreneur 267

Entrepreneur Startup SaaS San Diego 267

socalTECH

MARCH 14, 2018

As part of our sponsor relationship with the conference, we're running a series of interviews with speakers from the conference about their experience in the area of recurring revenues, customer service, and similar topics. Today's interview is with Jon Ferrara of Nimble (www.nimble.com), the maker of contact management software-as-a-service.

Customer 166

Customer Custom Conference Social Media 166

Startup Professionals Musings

APRIL 29, 2023

If your forte is a service, like consulting or web site design, it’s harder to find guidance on what will get you funded, and how you can scale your business. On the product side, once you have a proven product and business model, all you need is money to build inventory, and a sales and marketing operation to drive the business.

Startup 111

Startup Training Services Writing 111

Startup Professionals Musings

JUNE 27, 2014

If your forte is a service, like consulting or web site design, it’s harder to find guidance on what will get you funded, and how you can scale your business. On the product side, once you have a proven product and business model, all you need is money to build inventory, and a sales and marketing operation to drive the business.

Services 105

Services Startup Training Writing 105

Both Sides of the Table

NOVEMBER 5, 2012

I use George Bush vs. Al Gore as allegory and I’ve been using it with entrepreneurs for years to sink in a simple point about how to communicate with the market. Most Silicon Valley tech entrepreneurs I know are more like Al Gore. Or what about your sales team? It is election season. But here’s the thing.

Entrepreneur 370

Entrepreneur Startup Press Venture Capital 370

Berkonomics

FEBRUARY 3, 2022

I also recall vividly one of my first investments where the entrepreneur backed out of a sale to a well-known investment company at the last second, declaring his intention not to sell “his” company. A personal experience that relates. I was able to negotiate a “put” of my shares back to the company at 5x my investment.

Equity 156

Equity Course Sales Invest 156

Startup Professionals Musings

DECEMBER 5, 2020

For best results, my advice is to think like an entrepreneur, even if you are a corporate employee. According to many studies, entrepreneurs tend to be happier , and over 80 percent of self-made millionaires are entrepreneurs. Constant search for ways to increase sales and profitability. Marty Zwilling.

Entrepreneur 117

Entrepreneur Sales Customer Custom 117

Both Sides of the Table

DECEMBER 16, 2009

This is part of my new series on what makes an entrepreneur successful. I originally posted it on VentureHacks , one of my favorite websites for entrepreneurs. Thinking out loud – I’m sure that’s important for entrepreneurs as well. If you haven’t spent time over there you should. We were SMOKING cash.

Entrepreneur 306

Entrepreneur Startup Outsource Development Customer 306

Startup Professionals Musings

JULY 14, 2014

The “valley of death” is a common term in the startup world, referring to the difficulty of covering the negative cash flow in the early stages of a startup, before their new product or service is bringing in revenue from real customers. Barter your services for their services. Joint venture with distributor or beneficiary.

Entrepreneur 113

Entrepreneur Funding Startup Technical Review 113

Startup Professionals Musings

MARCH 3, 2023

Most technical entrepreneurs I know demand the discipline of a product specification or plan, and then assume that their great product will drive a great business. Is it any wonder why so few entrepreneurs ever find the professional investors they seek? Executives, marketing & sales, financial projections, and funding.

Product 112

Product Summary Activity Entrepreneur 112

Startup Professionals Musings

AUGUST 3, 2020

If your forte is a service, like consulting or web site design, it’s harder to find guidance on what will get you funded, and how you can scale your business. On the product side, once you have a proven product and business model, all you need is money to build inventory, and a sales and marketing operation to drive the business.

Startup 174

Startup Training Services Writing 174

Startup Professionals Musings

MARCH 10, 2023

I recognize that entrepreneurs tend to substitute vision and passion for formal processes, but using no discipline or process in building something new is a sure way to spend money, rather than see any return and build a self-sustaining business. Marketing, sales, support, and service operations. Team building status and plan.

Outsource Development 115

Outsource Development Startup Competition Ideas 115

Startup Professionals Musings

JANUARY 4, 2015

Most aspiring entrepreneurs understand that you can’t build a business if you won’t commit to delivering a product or service, but many are hesitant or refuse to commit to any financial forecasts. Forecast sales-volume expectations. entrepreneur financial forecast investor startup' Calculate investment amounts and timing.

Entrepreneur 102

Entrepreneur Startup Pricing Sales 102

Both Sides of the Table

DECEMBER 7, 2014

I spend a lot of time with startups and thus hear many companies talk about their approach to sales and their interactions with customers. Given customers & sales are the lifeblood of any organization you’d imagine everybody would respect their customers. Contrast that with a VC conversation I had.

Customer 341

Customer Custom Venture Capital Software Review 341

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

Startup Professionals Musings

AUGUST 18, 2014

Most technical entrepreneurs I know demand the discipline of a product specification or plan, and then assume that their great product will drive a great business. Is it any wonder why so few entrepreneurs ever find the professional investors they seek? Executives, marketing & sales, financial projections, and funding.

Product 101

Product Entrepreneur Summary Activity 101