Startup Professionals Musings

OCTOBER 30, 2020

Don’t forget to market yourself before, during, and after your initial idea, through social media, websites, and events. Specialized services, such as accounting, require skilled people, training, and tools, and do not scale well. Facilitate rapid growth through contracted resources. Prioritize mergers and acquisitions early.

Outsource Development 154

Outsource Development Social Media Software Review Customer 154

Startup Professionals Musings

MARCH 10, 2023

Entrepreneurs need to document a process of responding to a market need, sizing opportunity, assigning a specific business model, and planning for marketing, sales, and customer satisfaction. Solution development and delivery. Typically some production and delivery is outsourced, requiring formal contracts and documentation.

Outsource Development 115

Outsource Development Startup Competition Ideas 115

Startup Professionals Musings

FEBRUARY 17, 2021

It wasn’t so many years ago that starting a new e-commerce business on the Internet was a complex custom development project, usually costing a million dollars or more. You can now skip the mandatory office space rental, with secretary and bookkeeping staff, or outsourcing. Social media facilitates marketing and sales.

Entrepreneur 162

Entrepreneur Startup Social Media Outsource Development 162

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 29, 2022

Every entrepreneur has to deal with the realities of constant change in today’s market, and it’s much easier to pivot the pre-production prototype than to dispose of unsellable inventory. Don’t spend your whole development budget, before finding that you need another iteration. Give yourself time to pivot without dire consequences.

Outsource Development 110

Outsource Development Ideas Tool Outsource 110

Startup Professionals Musings

APRIL 17, 2022

If one of your core values is exceeding your customer expectations for quality and service, and your potential partner ascribes to the low cost, high profit mantra, a successful partnership is highly unlikely over the long-term. Look at the big picture first of development, finance, and marketing/sales. Marty Zwilling.

Software Review 154

Software Review CTO Hire Outsource Development Startup 154

Startup Professionals Musings

DECEMBER 13, 2019

Ineffective and expensive marketing campaigns. The most cost-effective marketing approaches have changed; from catalogs to web sites, and from television commercials to social media. Outsourcing services that could be done in-house. Outsourcing is an expensive solution for poor planning.

Outsource Development 122

Outsource Development Outsource Metrics Technical Review 122

Startup Professionals Musings

JUNE 7, 2020

Entrepreneurs need to document a process of responding to a market need, sizing opportunity, assigning a specific business model, and planning for marketing, sales, and customer satisfaction. Solution development and delivery. Typically some production and delivery is outsourced, requiring formal contracts and documentation.

Entrepreneur 131

Entrepreneur Outsource Development Startup Competition 131

Startup Professionals Musings

JULY 8, 2023

In my opinion, real pain points for most people do not include a new user interface for Facebook, a new programming platform for app development, or a new size smart phone. Maybe we haven’t seen the results yet, but there are thousands of startup opportunities to offer new alternatives and services, to replace those destroyed by the crisis.

Ideas 118

Ideas Outsource Development Outsource Course 118

Startup Professionals Musings

FEBRUARY 2, 2020

Every entrepreneur has to deal with the realities of constant change in today’s market, and it’s much easier to pivot the pre-production prototype than to dispose of unsellable inventory. Don’t spend your whole development budget, before finding that you need another iteration. Give yourself time to pivot without dire consequences.

Outsource Development 124

Outsource Development Ideas Tool Outsource 124

Startup Professionals Musings

OCTOBER 17, 2020

In my opinion, real pain points for most people do not include a new user interface for Facebook, a new programming platform for app development, or a new size smart phone. Maybe we haven’t seen the results yet, but there are thousands of startup opportunities to offer new alternatives and services, to replace those destroyed by the crisis.

Customer 167

Customer Custom Startup Outsource Development 167

Startup Professionals Musings

MAY 4, 2020

In my experience as an advisor to startups, the difference is almost always related to the founder and their execution strategy , more so than to the solution quality or the market. Initially, you may be able to do everything in your startup, including product development, marketing, and shipping orders.

Startup 123

Startup Outsource Development Entrepreneur Outsource 123

InfoChachkie

MAY 16, 2011

Thus, you must first create the playbook by which an independent sales rep can readily sell your product, including: identifying objections and developing strategies to overcome them, creating reference accounts and establishing meaningful customer adoption. 4) Perform China Syndrome Market Analysis. 7) Hire A Consultant.

Startup 242

Startup Outsource Development Outsource Sales 242

Tech Zulu Event

AUGUST 13, 2013

Create a Marketing Plan. Marketing is key in helping you to develop long-term, strategic plans that can stop your cash drain. Strategic marketing means finding ways to promote and sell your product so that you achieve specific goals. Marketing tactics are how you achieve this. Rethink Your Hiring Strategy.

Outsource Development 91

Outsource Development Outsource Startup Marketing 91

socalTECH

MARCH 5, 2014

We caught up with founder and CEO Grant Kirkwood --a serial entrepreneur and veteran of providing infrastructure to the enterprise markets--on the vision behind the company. Companies were saying--we want to outsource these kinds of things, because they''re not our core competency. There are lots of folks thinking about this market.

Cloud Computing 217

Cloud Computing Outsource Development Outsource Startup 217

Startup Professionals Musings

JULY 15, 2019

If one of your core values is exceeding your customer expectations for quality and service, and your potential partner ascribes to the low cost, high profit mantra, a successful partnership is highly unlikely over the long-term. Look at the big picture first of development, finance, and marketing/sales. Marty Zwilling.

Software Review 88

Software Review CTO Hire Outsource Development Startup 88

socalTECH

OCTOBER 20, 2011

Back in 2003 and 2004, we were focused on the international market, and started outsourcing to India and the Philippines for call center services. In terms of tactics, we went from 20-odd people at the company to just three people, myself and two developers. So, we slimmed down the team, and focused intently.

Outsource Development 190

Outsource Development Startup Outsource Altadena 190

Startup Professionals Musings

SEPTEMBER 20, 2010

But recently I was asked about success factors for services startups, and I quickly realized that there is very little published to help the thousands of startups that fall in this category. The distinction between product companies and services companies is easy to see. Scaling services means cloning yourself.

Product 91

Product Services Satisfaction Patents 91

Both Sides of the Table

APRIL 20, 2010

I know this will fall like a lead balloon to the many people who believe it is possible to have a [insert: startup incubator or technology accelerator or technology consultant or outsource firm] build your technology. Some CTO’s swear that it is a huge improvement in development timeframes and doesn’t cause performance issues.

CTO Hire 400

CTO Hire Fractional VPE Startup Outsource Development 400

Startup Professionals Musings

AUGUST 23, 2015

Every entrepreneur has to deal with the realities of constant change in today’s market, and it’s much easier to pivot the pre-production prototype than to dispose of unsellable inventory. Don’t spend your whole development budget, before finding that you need another iteration. Give yourself time to pivot without dire consequences.

Ideas 107

Ideas Outsource Development Startup Tool 107

Startup Professionals Musings

JULY 27, 2014

It wasn’t so many years ago that starting a new e-commerce business on the Internet was a complex custom development project, usually costing a million dollars or more. You can now skip the mandatory office space rental, with secretary and bookkeeping staff, or outsourcing. Social media facilitates marketing and sales.

Entrepreneur 104

Entrepreneur Startup Social Media Commerce 104

Startup Professionals Musings

MAY 24, 2015

Entrepreneurs need to document a process of responding to a market need, sizing opportunity, assigning a specific business model, and planning for marketing, sales, and customer satisfaction. Solution development and delivery. Typically some production and delivery is outsourced, requiring formal contracts and documentation.

Outsource Development 99

Outsource Development Startup Competition Ideas 99

socalTECH

APRIL 30, 2018

For this morning's interview, we caught up with Elizabeth Cholawsky , the new CEO of Santa Barbara-based HG Data (www.hgdata.com), which develops software which helps marketers and salespeople understand the "technology stack" of their potential customers and prospects. So, I cam on board. What were you doing before this?

Santa Barbara 113

Santa Barbara High Tech Outsource Development Startup 113

Startup Professionals Musings

JULY 16, 2014

Every entrepreneur has to deal with the realities of constant change in today’s market, and it’s much easier to pivot the pre-production prototype than to dispose of unsellable inventory. Don’t spend your whole development budget, before finding that you need another iteration. Give yourself time to pivot without dire consequences.

Outsource Development 105

Outsource Development Startup Ideas Tool 105

TechCrunch LA

MARCH 31, 2021

Tech companies have spent the past decade or more developing innovations that can be applied to old-world industries like agriculture, construction, energy, education, manufacturing and transportation and logistics. ” Climate resiliency . Given the steady drumbeat of climate disasters that hit the U.S.

Startup 229

Startup Technical Review Invest Research 229

Both Sides of the Table

MARCH 19, 2013

Many young startups are being advised not to have a professional services business and in my opinion this is a big mistake. The line of reasoning goes, “Services businesses are not scalable and the market won’t reward this revenue so make sure that third-parties do your implementation or clients do it themselves.

Startup 403

Startup Sales Software Review Technical Review 403

Startup Professionals Musings

FEBRUARY 10, 2018

Every entrepreneur has to deal with the realities of constant change in today’s market, and it’s much easier to pivot the pre-production prototype than to dispose of unsellable inventory. Don’t spend your whole development budget, before finding that you need another iteration. Give yourself time to pivot without dire consequences.

Ideas 53

Ideas Outsource Development Tool Outsource 53

socalTECH

MARCH 12, 2013

What is it about the content delivery network market which has enabled Santa Monica-based EdgeCast to go from startup to over $100M in revenues in only a few, short years? For those who don't know about EdgeCast, CDN services, who/what kind of clients you serve? One, is the businesses we service are mission critical.

CTO Hire 248

CTO Hire Content Networking Web 248

Startup Professionals Musings

MAY 4, 2014

Develop your business plan. This will include the first version of many critical processes that can be split out later, including market opportunity, requirements, product definition, business model, sales process, and organization. Product development process. If you are contracting or outsourcing, this is even more important.

Startup 107

Startup Outsource Development Training Outsource 107

Startup Professionals Musings

APRIL 22, 2014

If one of your core values is exceeding your customer expectations for quality and service, and your potential partner ascribes to the low cost, high profit mantra, a successful partnership is highly unlikely over the long-term. Look at the big picture first of development, finance, and marketing/sales. Similar values and goals.

Software Review 107

Software Review Entrepreneur CTO Hire Outsource Development 107

Tech Zulu Event

APRIL 9, 2014

Traditionally, these between a rock and hard place problems have been solved with a limited pool of expensive options – usually associated with long contracts and high billables for “MBA quality” work. What if you could combine the flexibility of outsourcing with the quality level of highly skilled strategists?

Outsource Development 105

Outsource Development Software Review Technical Review Outsource 105

Startup Professionals Musings

MAY 28, 2016

Entrepreneurs need to document a process of responding to a market need, sizing opportunity, assigning a specific business model, and planning for marketing, sales, and customer satisfaction. Solution development and delivery. Typically some production and delivery is outsourced, requiring formal contracts and documentation.

Ideas 62

Ideas Outsource Development Startup Competition 62

socalTECH

SEPTEMBER 24, 2015

The HTML5 platform that we use is also available as a self service tool to customers. At Spin Media, we tried to do that ourselves, but that really sucked up product and development resources, who really should have been working on building the user experience, rather than ads. Can you explain exactly what is different about your ads?

Buzznet 100

Buzznet Outsource Development Design HTML 100

Startup Professionals Musings

FEBRUARY 8, 2013

If one of your core values is exceeding your customer expectations for quality and service, and your potential partner ascribes to the low cost, high profit mantra, a successful partnership is highly unlikely over the long-term. Look at the big picture first of development, finance, and marketing/sales. Similar values and goals.

Software Review 103

Software Review Equity CTO Hire Outsource Development 103

socalTECH

APRIL 27, 2015

For our startup interview this morning, we caught up with Satish Varma , co-founder of Torrance-based Clorder (www.clorder.com), which is developing restaurant ordering software. We were a little early in that market, doing outsourcing, offshore, and managed crowdsourcing. We started our services in August of 2012.

Cornerstone OnDemand 100

Cornerstone OnDemand Startup Social Media Outsource Development 100

Startup Professionals Musings

AUGUST 20, 2012

I define a product plan as a detailed description of your product or service, with a bit of business thrown in at the end. The product plan tells your developers what to build, and the marketing team what to market. Enough detail is required so that someone else can build it without you (outsourcing).

Product 92

Product Outsource Development Competition High Tech 92

socalTECH

FEBRUARY 8, 2019

Futuredontics is the consumer marketing division, and inside that is Dentistry.com. We had a fine business in 1-800-DENTIST, our phone-based referral service. People are all now using their mobile devices to find products and services. To their credit, they were able to carve out an investment so we could develop this.

Startup 113

Startup CitySearch Outsource Development Organization 113