Both Sides of the Table

OCTOBER 6, 2010

But in my experience as an entrepreneur and now spending my time amongst investors I can generalize that almost all VC investments in early stage technology & Internet investments come down to just four key factors. This post was prompted by an email exchange I had with a young entrepreneur. And VC’s are tough customers.

Startup 360

Startup Venture Capital Invest Slides 360

SoCal CTO

MARCH 13, 2007

skip to main | skip to sidebar SoCal CTO Tuesday, March 13, 2007 8 Ways the Internet has Changed Software Marketing Great post - 8 Ways The Internet Changed Software Marketing - is an interesting take on how different it is these days to market software. Early Stage Marketing and Branding – Farida Fotouh.

CTO Coach 150

CTO Coach Southern California CTO Hire Software 150

socalTECH

MAY 10, 2013

We caught up with CEO Walter Delph to hear how the promise of social media advertising has measured up to reality, and what that means for brands and marketers today trying to leverage the new reality of social conversations. Walter Delph: Marketers are still figuring this out. It''s so business marketers can justify their spending.

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Social Media Advertising Media Metrics 237

Startup Professionals Musings

JUNE 24, 2020

As a frequent advisor to new entrepreneurs and startups, I often hear your frustration with being treated differently from other startups by investors, on expectations for valuation , traction, and market size. On the other hand, if the market is super-hot, many will be willing to jump in to make your case.

Marketing 174

Marketing Startup Artificial Inteligence Technical Review 174

Berkonomics

FEBRUARY 20, 2014

The ‘punch in the face’ is analogous to dealing with the business plan when it intersects with the realities of the market. I can’t recall any of my companies hanging onto its original plan after some level of consumer feedback. Some label this as “Bet on the jockey, not the horse.”.

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Startup Summary Metrics Class 245

Both Sides of the Table

DECEMBER 27, 2011

You have to understand whether they’re likely to yield revenue growth in the near term OR whether you have access to cheap enough capital to fund your losses until your investments pay off. If you have a market lead then raising capital and making investments now will help you as others enter the market.

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Startup Venture Capital Sales Technical Review 418

Both Sides of the Table

MARCH 3, 2013

Let me start by saying that Clayton is one of the most influential people on my thoughts about markets that led to both the concept behind my first startup and my main theses in investing. We spoke about what succeeds early in technology market evolutions. As markets grow, the more open and modular systems win.

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Venture Capital Education Offshore Outsource Development 403

Both Sides of the Table

JUNE 4, 2013

Compelling in the sense that you solve a real problem a target group of potential customers has with a product that is significantly better than the alternatives on that market. In my opinion no amount of clever marketing or chest beating at conferences can create a market if you don’t have an amazing product to begin with.

Startup 401

Startup Customer Custom Technical Review 401

Berkonomics

NOVEMBER 19, 2020

Back when we were all trying to figure out the real value of traffic on the web, investors – and acquiring companies – got a bit crazy with metrics used to value acquisitions and investments. Did the eyeballs suddenly disappear? But, when the bubble burst in 2000, most of us quickly grew up.

Metrics 296

Metrics Sites Advertising Web 296

Both Sides of the Table

JUNE 5, 2011

2 preamble issues having read the comments on TC today: 1: I know that the prices of startup companies is much great in Silicon Valley than in smaller towns / less tech focused areas in the US and the US prices higher than many foreign markets. I can’t control the market. Private markets for stocks are the opposite.

Startup 336

Startup Pricing Technical Review Marketing 336

SoCal CTO

FEBRUARY 13, 2013

Once you build it, they will now ask you about the key metrics that they need proven in order to see if you really are a good investment. The real reason to build an MVP is to do early tests of key Startup Metrics for the business. " Once you have the metrics defined, it focuses your effort.

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Technical Review CTO Hire CTO Coach Software Review 338

Both Sides of the Table

NOVEMBER 9, 2014

We all know that funding markets have changed for startups. In a funding round with 1 or 2 VCs and 15-20 angels or 4-6 seed funds if you gave every investor you financial information and performance metrics your proprietary information would increase in its probability of leaking out. There is a reason for this.

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Venture Capital Seed Funding Email Blogging 352

Both Sides of the Table

SEPTEMBER 27, 2010

The VC industry has different segments in it that have different fund sizes, different investment amounts and different risk / return expectations. We need venture debt, factoring companies and public markets. If you’re an angel you invest your own money and you have nobody to answer to except your spouse. VC is different.

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Venture Capital Training Startup Entrepreneur 308

Startup Professionals Musings

SEPTEMBER 22, 2022

Great marketing is required to generate revenue and grow every business, especially new businesses which have no brand recognition nor loyal customer base. I also look for a commensurate portion of the plan describing the specific innovative marketing deliverables, beyond the traditional marketing items.

Marketing 133

Marketing Customer Custom Outsource Development 133

Both Sides of the Table

NOVEMBER 2, 2010

This is part of a series on sales & marketing. And the only way to do that is to help them calculate the ROI (return on investment) of using your product. As a company you need to invest in ROI calculators (spreadsheets) that are easy for sales reps to plug in basic customer metrics and pop out with an expected benefit.

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Sales Startup Training Pricing 289

Both Sides of the Table

JULY 15, 2011

Most web publishers measure where their traffic is coming from using an analytics package such as Google Analytics, Omniture or Core Metrics. And figuring out who is referring your traffic is a very important part of determining how you allocate your marketing budgets. This happens with other marketing campaigns, too.

Social Media 292

Social Media Google Media Marketing 292

socalTECH

JANUARY 14, 2011

We have a very sophisticated, analytics and software platform that over half the Fortune 50 are now using, to help guide how they invest in marketing and sales activities and investments. Dominique Hanssens, who is a prominent UCLA professor and specialist in the area of market response models.

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Social Media Demand Activity Marketing 235

Both Sides of the Table

MAY 23, 2012

There are obvious reasons the industry has had less-than-desirable returns, including: massive over-funding of the sector, huge increases in inexperienced venture capitalists that took a decade to peter out, and the massive correction in the value of the public stock markets that closed many exit opportunities for half a decade.

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Venture Capital Capital Technical Review Startup 347

Startup Professionals Musings

JULY 9, 2018

Every entrepreneur knows that good demand generation marketing is the key to growth these days, but very few have the discipline or know-how to measure return in a world of a thousand tools and techniques. In fact, we now live in a buyer-led digital age, where the traditional media push-marketing efforts just don’t work.

Metrics 57

Metrics Demand Marketing Paramount 57

socalTECH

JUNE 25, 2013

Convertro said it has been working with Media Design Group , a direct response TV advertising agency, to help measure the efficacy of broadcast marketing. dollar shave club convertro dollarshave media buying content measurement analytics attribution marketing' READ MORE>>.

Dollar Shave Club 171

Dollar Shave Club Advertising Media Design 171

Startup Professionals Musings

APRIL 3, 2019

Image via Pixabay Most startups, and many big businesses, still don’t have a clue on how to use social media productively for marketing their business. Ric Dragon, an expert in online marketing, in his classic book. Due to the information overload felt by consumers today, marketing at the generic segment level no longer works.

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Social Media Media Marketing Metrics 96

Berkonomics

FEBRUARY 13, 2014

Back when we were all trying to figure out the real value of traffic on the web, we investors – and acquiring companies – got a bit crazy with metrics used to value acquisitions and investments. But, when the bubble burst in 2000, most of us quickly grew up. Email readers, continue here.]

Metrics 207

Metrics Sites Advertising Web 207

Both Sides of the Table

JUNE 12, 2010

Spark Capital is relatively new to VC (founded in 2005) yet has become one of the hottest new VCs having invested in Twitter, Tumblr, AdMeld, Boxee, KickApps and many more companies. BookRenter – plus a discussion about Chegg … what is going on in the university book market? Our guest was Mo Koyfman of Spark Capital.

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Venture Capital Capital Metrics Competition 217

Both Sides of the Table

JULY 16, 2013

The minute you try to monetize now they have metrics with which to beat you up and say you’re business has limitations.” Delaying going out of business gives you way more chances at product / market fit than any other strategy I know of. In your market conditions knowing what I know I would tend to go for it.

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Venture Capital Startup Funding Snapchat 412

Both Sides of the Table

NOVEMBER 14, 2017

What sized team can I afford in order to sell, market & provide service to these customers? But expanding beyond our core customers was going to take more effort than simply launching in new markets. We realized that operating a business in distributed markets presented multi-city coordination efforts that we weren’t prepared for.

Startup 286

Startup Technical Review Customer Custom 286

Berkonomics

NOVEMBER 27, 2020

Tyson’s insight into the realities of the market. The ‘punch in the face’ is analogous to dealing with the business plan when it intersects with the realities of the market. I can’t recall any of my companies hanging onto its original plan after some level of market feedback. Tyson’s statement also addresses change.

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Summary Metrics Class Email 156

Both Sides of the Table

MAY 14, 2018

I know all of this because every VC knows this because we’ve all either funded companies that have marketing technology or we’ve seen a pitch with a company that does this. Your pitch deck should really be your best marketing tool Your pitch deck shouldn’t contain your deepest, darkest secrets and plans. Many of my colleagues do, too.

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Funding Venture Capital IP Email 239

Startup Professionals Musings

DECEMBER 12, 2021

But very few are talking about how to measure your results and return on investment (ROI), and the right metrics for optimizing your marketing environment. Measuring message delivery in social media is a lot like measuring it in classic advertising, so classic metrics apply. Get attention and reach your audience.

Social Media 127

Social Media Media Metrics Satisfaction 127

socalTECH

SEPTEMBER 20, 2010

It connects companies with investors, allows investors to forward on referrals to other investors, and once an investment has been made, allows a company to post updates to the site. For investors, it gives them a dash board of key metrics, and ensures those investors stay in the loop. Who would find this most useful? READ MORE>>.

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Southern California Entrepreneur Software Review Yammer 243

TechCrunch LA

DECEMBER 5, 2018

The former President of ExactTarget and later chief executive of Salesforce Marketing Cloud has made billions of dollars building products to help support customer service and now he’s back at it again with his latest venture MetaCX. “It is API embeddable and we have a full user experience layer.”

Chief Technology Officer 145

Chief Technology Officer SaaS Metrics Customer 145

Startup Professionals Musings

JULY 9, 2011

I suggested that he add some social network marketing initiatives, and his answer was he is “too busy.” He is not alone, according to a recent study , which concludes that only 47% of companies use social media today for marketing, despite the fact that 78% of executives polled feel it’s critical for success. What’s the problem?

Social Media 104

Social Media Media Marketing Social Network 104

socalTECH

JUNE 1, 2012

We had gone our ways, and after we left UpSellit and were golfing, we decided that instead of being part of a lifestyle business we wanted to start our own, and help local businesses market themselves. There's an awful lot of check-in sites out there. Why would someone want to use your site? Michael Wong: The big reason is really cash.

CTO Coach 223

CTO Coach Startup Mobile Artificial Inteligence 223

Startup Professionals Musings

JANUARY 9, 2022

Most startups, and many big businesses, still don’t have a clue on how to use social media productively for marketing their business. The next thing that entrepreneurs need to realize is that the process and framework for making social media marketing work are different from traditional marketing, and trial and error certainly doesn’t work.

Social Media 135

Social Media Framework Media Metrics 135

SoCal CTO

MARCH 20, 2007

His work in social media, e-Learning and Performance Support has won awards and has led him into engagements at many Fortune 500 companies including Credit Suisse, Royal Bank of Canada, Citibank, Lexus, Microsoft, Nissan, Universal, IBM, Hewlett-Packard, Sun Microsystems, Fidelity Investments, Symbol Technologies and SHL Systemhouse.

Venture Capital 150

Venture Capital Guide CTO Coach Southern California 150

Both Sides of the Table

MARCH 6, 2011

When I described to people why I initially invested my calls went something like this, “He’s taken kicks to the face for nearly 2 years and is still standing. He noticed their extremely social tendencies and the potential of a very large market. It soon became difficult to manage the many new investment leads.

Startup 292

Startup Venture Capital Blogging Summary 292

SoCal CTO

MARCH 20, 2007

His work in social media, e-Learning and Performance Support has won awards and has led him into engagements at many Fortune 500 companies including Credit Suisse, Royal Bank of Canada, Citibank, Lexus, Microsoft, Nissan, Universal, IBM, Hewlett-Packard, Sun Microsystems, Fidelity Investments, Symbol Technologies and SHL Systemhouse.

CTO Coach 150

CTO Coach Southern California CTO Hire Social Media 150

Startup Professionals Musings

SEPTEMBER 21, 2020

For a new business, you can provide unique ingredients, but the preparation steps in your business plan must follow a tried and true recipe for startup success: Identify a market with a real need. You need a good cook, good marketing, and first-class service. investors invest in people, not ideas) Effective and timely go-to-market.

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Startup Coach Metrics Marketing 156