Both Sides of the Table

NOVEMBER 4, 2010

Many people bandy about the definitions of “disruptive technology&# or “the innovator’s dilemma&# without ever having read the book and almost universally misunderstand the concepts. Let’s start with the incumbents position in a market. I cannot recommend it enough for people in the technology or media sectors.

Startup 376

Startup Framework Marketing Custom 376

InfoChachkie

AUGUST 18, 2011

In this interview, Mark discusses how his experiences at Oracle, eHarmony and the Rubicon Project contributed to the creation of his latest venture, SteelHouse Media. Well the people who really care about us are Internet retailers (because) we help them figure out what incentive they should offer each of the shoppers on their site.

eHarmony 204

eHarmony Media Oracle Commerce 204

Startup Professionals Musings

AUGUST 13, 2022

get the attention of the market they choose. Having a great idea in the wrong place won’t get you the funding you need, the experienced domain experts you want, or the pilot market results you need for survival. billion dollar sale to Oracle from Bozeman, Montana. It’s very important. Personal relationships do count.

Technical Review 123

Technical Review Oracle Software Review Ideas 123

Both Sides of the Table

OCTOBER 1, 2009

In my previous post, The VC Ice Age is Thawing (for now) I wrote about the reasons why the VC market came to a screeching halt in September 2008 and remained largely shut until at least April 2009. There are now signs the VC market has gathered pace meaning it’s a great time to be fund raising.

Venture Capital 255

Venture Capital Marketing Startup Social Network 255

Both Sides of the Table

DECEMBER 27, 2010

Yesterday I wrote about how to talk to investors about your competitors. In short, acknowledge they exist, be transparent about strengths & weaknesses and use your differences to talk about how you want to position yourself in the market. When Enemies are Good. Software, software, software. Them vs. Us.

Cloud Computing 320

Cloud Computing Competition Press Startup 320

Both Sides of the Table

MARCH 19, 2013

While I have some sympathy with not investing too heavily in sales people until the product has properly been tested and commercialized in the enterprise environment, in the end it’s a fact that it takes sales people to move product through large organizations. We only want software revenue.” Let me explain why: 1.

Startup 403

Startup Sales Software Review Technical Review 403

socalTECH

DECEMBER 3, 2012

We caught up with Damir Davidovic, CEO of NEOGOV, to hear about the rapidly growing (and hiring) company. How did you come across the market? There are lots of checks and balances, and they're very accountable about how they hire. The government and public sector is a fairly large market. What is Neogov?

Software Review 243

Software Review SaaS Startup Technical Review 243

Both Sides of the Table

JUNE 8, 2014

I have never been more optimistic about the impact that the tech startup community is having on cities in America or about the role that cities outside of San Francisco / Silicon Valley can play in our future. Not all of these products & companies came from Silicon Valley but the overwhelming majority did.

Startup 390

Startup Venture Capital Capital Funding 390

Both Sides of the Table

JULY 1, 2010

You’ll get sales information from your VP of Sales, marketing information from your VP Marketing, tech information from your CTO and so on. By going on sales calls you pick up directly the feedback of what customers want and also what they’re telling you about competition. An obvious example would be in sales.

Startup 308

Startup CTO Coach Technical Review CTO Hire 308

socalTECH

APRIL 18, 2014

When you think about hot sectors for startups, the construction industry is not typically the first place you''d expect. So, we were surprised to learn about the backing that Los Angeles-based mobile app provider TRUCKAST (www.truckast.com) has from investor Gary Winnick (who co-founded Global Crossing).

Mobile 133

Mobile Startup Oracle Los Angeles 133

Both Sides of the Table

OCTOBER 12, 2010

A while back I wrote a bunch of posts on Sales & Marketing and have been meaning to get back to that theme for a while. OK, I’m still self conscious about whether a comma goes there but you get the point. This is probably because many founders are product or technology people.

Sales 346

Sales Startup Technical Review Custom 346

socalTECH

FEBRUARY 14, 2013

However, mobile devices have not only revolutionized the world of the consumer--they've also made inroads into the corporate market, changing how companies provide access to important information and data to their partners and employees. For those not familiar with Roambi, can you tell us about the product?

Mobile 170

Mobile Oracle Startup Content 170

Both Sides of the Table

JUNE 28, 2011

Venture capital is in the process of its own creative destruction with new market entrants and new models of innovation at the precise moment that our industry itself is contracting. million in team costs to code, launch, manage, market & sell our software. When I built my first company starting in 1999 it cost $2.5

Venture Capital 334

Venture Capital Software Capital Startup 334

Both Sides of the Table

APRIL 3, 2014

Most technology startups seem to be funded by product people or business people. They like a solid product, well defined pricing, good references to sell against, a clear quota and well defined competitors. They are as good at selling you as they are at selling your product to customers. Sales people often blame the product.

Sales 382

Sales Help Startup Pricing 382

socalTECH

FEBRUARY 28, 2014

What is Thaeres about? Thaeres is a SaaS-based, dashboard solution for mid-market enterprises. Effectively, when an organization uses our product, the can scale any subscription service with ease. Talk about your background? I built the software on my own, initially, and brought it to market.

Startup 159

Startup Oracle Custom Customer 159

Both Sides of the Table

SEPTEMBER 22, 2012

Growth will slow, partly due to internal limits and partly because the company is starting to bump up against the limits of the markets it serves.” He also talks about the rate of growth and the need to pick targets, measure and question assumptions when you aren’t achieving your objectives. So I like that bit, too.

Startup 390

Startup Venture Capital Entrepreneur Technical Review 390

SoCal Tech Calendar

JUNE 14, 2016

We spoke with co-founder Ryan Costello about Santa Monica-based Event Farm (www.eventfarm.com), on how its software technology is being used to power high end, VIP events for large companies. We provide an event and experiential marketing platform. However, our approach is a whole new product category, part of the marketing cloud.

Sales 100

Sales Santa Monica Startup Orange County 100

Frank Addante

MAY 23, 2012

A good product is always more valuable than the free alternative, even when you sell yo-yo upgrades. When prompted by his dad, the boy--let's call him Andrew--told me about the yo-yo business he had founded with a classmate. The biggest lesson I learned here was about competing with "free." Many markets have free alternatives.

Oracle 111

Oracle Google Competition Marketing 111

socalTECH

NOVEMBER 21, 2014

We sat down and spoke with Patrick about the business and its pivot. Tell us about what your business is nowadays? At the time, when we were an agency, it was quite a crowded market. That part of the market is primarily driven by companies in what is referred to as lead generation.

Media 162

Media Advertising Startup Platform 162

Both Sides of the Table

APRIL 10, 2010

and listening for about 90 seconds. for two minutes talking about why I think people wrongly obsess about their number of Twitter followers and had a nice little debate about it with Guy. Think about the creative tension. (If you’re interested you can watch my comments by fast forwarding to minute 31.25

Acquisition 287

Acquisition Develop Development Conference 287

Both Sides of the Table

DECEMBER 12, 2016

Part I, Team) Tact was founded by Chuck Ganapathi , who was formerly the SVP of Products at Salesforce.com having led initiatives like their chat product, CRM and mobile. For six years before that he was at Siebel who was the market leader in CRM before Salesforce, and he has both a masters in product design from Stanford and an MBA.

Software 105

Software Mobile Artificial Inteligence Oracle 105

Startup Professionals Musings

AUGUST 24, 2014

Unfocused entrepreneurs boast that their new technology will generate multiple disruptive products for consumers as well as enterprises around the world. Narrow the scope more realistically to people with specific age, income, and education demographics, that you can realistically reach with your marketing plan. Simplify product scope.

Entrepreneur 103

Entrepreneur Competition Technical Review Oracle 103

Both Sides of the Table

MAY 4, 2013

Should I trust my instincts for founders and products or should I be more focused on the market size or business plan? I’m not saying that lawyers were my screening process – simply that they knew about deals early on and they had voted with their time and pocketbooks so I knew I had a degree of filtering.

Venture Capital 347

Venture Capital Startup Pricing Invest 347

Both Sides of the Table

FEBRUARY 5, 2011

Most technology startups seem to be funded by product people or business people. I’ve started writing up some of those sales & marketing lessons and I plan to continue to build that section out over time. They are as good at selling you as they are at selling your product to customers. People are buying YOU.

Sales 316

Sales Startup Pricing Custom 316

socalTECH

SEPTEMBER 28, 2016

We caught up with Ken Button , the co-founder and CEO of the company, to learn more about why the startup already has signed up such customers as California Pizza Kitchen, Obvious Ventures, Fandango, Greenspire, and others to the service. We've been really happy with the product itself. For a still, pretty young product, we're pleased.

Doc 100

Doc Software Review Help Startup 100

Startup Professionals Musings

NOVEMBER 9, 2019

get the attention of the market they choose. Having a great idea in the wrong place won’t get you the funding you need, the experienced domain experts you want, or the pilot market results you need for survival. billion dollar sale to Oracle from Bozeman, Montana. It’s very important. Personal relationships do count.

Startup 97

Startup Technical Review Oracle Software Review 97

Startup Professionals Musings

MAY 27, 2013

Unfocused entrepreneurs boast that their new technology will generate multiple disruptive products for consumers as well as enterprises around the world. Narrow the scope more realistically to people with specific age, income, and education demographics, that you can realistically reach with your marketing plan. Simplify product scope.

Startup 103

Startup Competition Technical Review Oracle 103

Both Sides of the Table

JUNE 25, 2015

In it he talks about the skills of willing an idea into existence and whether those are the same skills to take the company to the next level. I asked him about his thought process because Jason has already built a very successful business that has become the clear market leader in Marketing Automation for Phone Calls.

Demand 150

Demand SaaS Startup Sales 150

Both Sides of the Table

OCTOBER 22, 2009

I’m talking about what most of you are tempted to do. Shouldn’t you just hire the most senior guy you can out of Oracle, Salesforce.com, Microsoft, EA or whatever your relevant industry is? One such meeting that he set up was with the CIO of the largest consumer products company in Europe. You’re stressed.

Startup 327

Startup Sales Class CIO 327

Both Sides of the Table

MAY 5, 2011

I’m an entrepreneur at heart so I’m always inspired when I hear stories about innovation. awards dinner on Thursday night I started reflected on what it would take to “change the trajectory&# for Seattle or for any regional market, really. People keep asking me if I’ve “seen anything interesting.&#

Venture Capital 317

Venture Capital Technical Review Startup Press 317

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. You learn much more about how other people think when you’re asking. They are seldom productive. Nobody likes that. And you get to better results.&#.

Sales 314

Sales Startup Venture Capital Custom 314

Both Sides of the Table

DECEMBER 9, 2010

I’m just listed who I perceive as the market leaders. When I started my first company in 1999 we spent more than $2 million on technology infrastructure including Sun servers & Solaris operating system, Oracle databases, EMC storage, load balancers, app servers, back-up devices, disk mirrors and on and on. Think about it.

Startup 343

Startup Technical Review S3 Services 343

Frank Addante

MAY 23, 2012

A good product is always more valuable than the free alternative, even when you sell yo-yo upgrades. When prompted by his dad, the boy told me about the yo-yo business he had founded with a classmate. When prompted by his dad, the boy —Andrew —told me about the yo-yo business he had founded with a classmate.

Oracle 63

Oracle Google Competition Marketing 63

socalTECH

AUGUST 24, 2009

One of the local firms attacking that market is Los Angeles-based FunnelSource (www.funnelsource.com), a developer of software-as-a-service tools that provide analytics to sales teams. We spoke with the firm's CEO and co-founder, John Hanna : How'd you end up starting the company, and what is FunnelSource all about?

Oracle 145

Oracle Sales Startup Screening 145

Both Sides of the Table

MARCH 17, 2010

First, I’d like to quote (paraphrase) Brad Feld speaking at Twiistup in LA in 2009, “I keep hearing people in LA talking with a chip on their shoulders about building a tech business here relative to Silicon Valley. But it’s more atypical for investors located in this market. I’m sure others have, too.

Company 290

Company Companies Technology Startup 290

Startup Professionals Musings

MAY 16, 2015

get the attention of the market they choose. Having a great idea in the wrong place won’t get you the funding you need, the experienced domain experts you want, or the pilot market results you need for survival. billion dollar sale to Oracle from Bozeman, Montana. It’s very important. Personal relationships do count.

Startup 109

Startup Technical Review Oracle Software Review 109

Tech Zulu Event

AUGUST 13, 2012

A 2011 McKinsey Global report says Big Data is the next frontier for innovation,competition and productivity, this could be reason the seasoned investors and executives believe these are big data days. Big Data Shift. Strong Network, Operational Experience and Technical Background. Doors open.

Technical Review 74

Technical Review Entrepreneur Oracle Software Review 74