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

Both Sides of the Table

JULY 23, 2013

I have long advised startup companies that if you don’t control your messaging somebody else will and your potential customers will form impressions of you shaped by somebody else or by nobody at all. It is simply the most important way to proactively control your career development and how the market perceives you.

Technical Advisors 385

Technical Advisors Marketing Startup Venture Capital 385

Both Sides of the Table

SEPTEMBER 5, 2012

When convertible debt first started being introduced as a “faster, cheaper way to get startups funded” they didn’t have pricing built into them. ” And some seed stage investors told me, “I prefer not to fight over price now. They’ll get priced soon enough by a VC.”

Startup 354

Startup Pricing Equity Venture Capital 354

Both Sides of the Table

JUNE 9, 2013

Why is Collaborative Consumption Becoming a Hot Trend for Startup Companies? As I outlined in my talk, I believe the greatest Internet companies created over the past 15 years have been “deflationary” meaning they are driving down the prices or goods & services. Prices down. Network Up. But what else?

Marketing 361

Marketing Course Pricing Networking 361

Both Sides of the Table

APRIL 25, 2013

She was leaving IAC to start a company. Somehow she was always on a flight up to Seattle or San Francisco. Didn’t I make myself clear about celebrities & startups ? Turns out she’s done this startup thing before. And they’re both full time committed to their startup – Moonfrye.

Startup 398

Startup Design Downey Activity 398

Both Sides of the Table

NOVEMBER 14, 2017

Nearly every successful tech startup I’ve observed over the past 20 years has gone through a similar growth pattern: Innovate, systematize then scale operations. Innovate In the early years of a startup there is a lot of kinetic energy of enthusiastic innovators looking to launch a product that changes how an industry works.

Startup 286

Startup Technical Review Customer Custom 286

Both Sides of the Table

JUNE 17, 2017

There are certain topics that even some of the smartest people I talk with who aren’t startup oriented can’t fully grok. It’s common cocktail party chatter to hear people confidently pronounce that some well known startup is sure to blow up because, “How could they succeed when they’re not even profitable!”

Startup 227

Startup Venture Capital Sales Course 227

TechCrunch LA

APRIL 22, 2019

Beyond Meat , the meat replacement company whose packages of Beyond Burgers line grocery store aisles across America, has priced its initial public offering. The meat processor and marketer invested in Beyond Meat back in 2016. Another winner from the Beyond Meat public offering is the corporate investment arm of Tyson Foods.

Pricing 236

Pricing Los Angeles Venture Capital Study 236

Both Sides of the Table

MAY 4, 2013

What price? Should I trust my instincts for founders and products or should I be more focused on the market size or business plan? Before I tell you the reasons I’m concerned about investment banking intros, I should start by saying I think bankers are enormously helpful for entrepreneurs in raising money. What stage?

Venture Capital 347

Venture Capital Startup Pricing Invest 347

TechCrunch LA

FEBRUARY 6, 2022

Last week, we talked about about the “de-stonkifying” of the market. The company’s stock tanked by more than 26 percent, representing a $230 billion reduction in market cap and a $31 billion drop in Zuckerberg’s personal net worth. Crypto startups are making it easier to build crypto clubs. other things.

Marketing 246

Marketing Newsletter Technical Review News 246

Startup Professionals Musings

MAY 14, 2021

As an advisor to new business owners, I’m accustomed to seeing primarily the simple traditional product pricing strategies , usually driven by competitor prices, or cost plus a reasonable margin. I often wonder whether you as the entrepreneur have worked as hard on your pricing strategy as you have on your innovative solution.

Pricing 145

Pricing Startup Competition Examples 145

Both Sides of the Table

APRIL 27, 2014

I started in 2007 with a thesis that my primary investment decision would be about the team (70%) and only afterward about the market opportunity (30%). I was telling him that it was much easier when I started because there were fewer deals, life was less public and somehow the world seemed to be spinning more slowly.

Venture Capital 374

Venture Capital Invest Press Startup 374

Both Sides of the Table

FEBRUARY 12, 2019

As a result of the IPO window shifting we saw a massive inflow of public-market capital into the latest stages of venture. In this post I set out to explain why the seed market emerged as its own category in the first place and why it’s declined as of late. ( The “A Round” of my startup in 1999 was $16.5

Venture Capital 328

Venture Capital Invest Seed Funding Startup 328

Both Sides of the Table

MAY 4, 2013

What price? Should I trust my instincts for founders and products or should I be more focused on the market size or business plan? I think my mentality to banker pitches was best summed up in this article about Y Combinator in which Paul Graham apparently made the following quotes. start-ups are overvalued.

Startup 361

Startup Venture Capital Pricing Technical Review 361

Both Sides of the Table

MAY 30, 2018

VC firms see thousands of deals and have a refined sense of how the market is valuing deals because they get price signals across all of these deals. As an entrepreneur it can feel as intimidating as going to buy a car where the dealer knows the price of every make & model of a car and you’re guessing at how much to pay.

Venture Capital 324

Venture Capital Pricing Startup Invest 324

Tech.Co

DECEMBER 29, 2023

2023 hasn't been an easy year to be a startup. While the market isn't short of spritely, innovative entrepreneurs, harsh economic headwinds combined with a pullback in investor spending have made it harder than ever for budding businesses to break through. Verifying Looking for regular tech news straight to your inbox?

Startup 194

Startup Generative AI Newsletter Tool 194

Startup Professionals Musings

MAY 15, 2020

As an angel investor, I see plenty of startups focusing on building an innovative product, but I’m looking for the few who are also leading with an exponential growth strategy, to put them in the category of the next Amazon or Google. Let your highly motivated customers be your best marketing advocates for new customers.

Marketing 170

Marketing Startup Examples Customer 170

Both Sides of the Table

JUNE 27, 2013

Let’s start with the fund. Santa Monica is the place where the highest concentration of early-stage startups are created if you consider also the contiguous geography of Venice Beach. What’s up with that? To start, we believe that our industry was too closed-door and secretive. So what changed?

Funding 343

Funding Santa Monica Venture Capital Startup 343

Both Sides of the Table

OCTOBER 8, 2014

If you want the full SlideShare deck with many slides not in either post it’s in this link –> The LA Tech Market. Has it begun to mature or is it just better marketed than in was say 5 years ago? Given how efficient markets are when a large market like LA starts to blossom it attracts capital pretty quickly.

Entrepreneur 376

Entrepreneur Snapchat Startup Google 376

Berkonomics

AUGUST 17, 2023

Preparing for the game… 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 296

Invest Capital Startup Entrepreneur 296

Startup Professionals Musings

OCTOBER 8, 2022

In reality, a simple Excel spreadsheet model customized around your assumptions can save you hours and avoid a wasted expense in validating alternative vendor and marketing decisions. For maximum value with the least effort, focus on only the “what ifs” that are the highest priority in your mind for your own startup.

Startup 147

Startup Pricing Sample Customer 147

Both Sides of the Table

FEBRUARY 25, 2019

This is part of a series on a Board of Directors at a Startup. High Functioning Startup Boards High-functioning boards have a tight-knit relationship between all members based on mutual trust and admiration. They are able to divide responsibilities and work to gain consensus on tough decisions that every startup inevitably faces.

Startup 269

Startup Venture Capital Layoffs Resource 269

Both Sides of the Table

JANUARY 11, 2014

I actually really enjoyed many of the points Muhammad made about marketing in general and I found myself nodding through the entirety of the article except for it’s core premise. It’s about looking out for and catching the next major marketing wave before others have grokked it. I laughed as I did at much of his rant.

Technical Review 384

Technical Review SEM SEO Marketing 384

Both Sides of the Table

OCTOBER 12, 2014

Prorata rights are one of the most important rights of a private market technology investors and yet are seldom fully understood. would you want to give up the right to invest in subsequent rounds? Do investors always take up their prorata rights in later rounds? ” Some do, some don’t. Thus begins the dance.

Guide 336

Guide Venture Capital Startup Writing 336

TechCrunch LA

SEPTEMBER 7, 2020

Reducing consumption by expanding the notion of the rental economy and giving people access to tools and equipment has been something of a startup holy grail for some time. Rodgers O’Neil came up with the concept back in 2012 when she was working as a marketing executive for General Electric out of Boston.

Startup 285

Startup Product Demand Los Angeles 285

Both Sides of the Table

JULY 16, 2013

I work with a lot of startups. I start to notice when bad behavior creeps into the system as a whole. The minute you try to monetize now they have metrics with which to beat you up and say you’re business has limitations.” They would prefer you always move up-and-to-the-right. Sorry to give away the game.

Venture Capital 412

Venture Capital Startup Funding Snapchat 412

Startup Professionals Musings

MARCH 29, 2021

As a business consultant, I often have to remind small business owners that their marketing needs to be more interactive, versus the traditional “ push ” model, where you broadcast your message to as many people as possible. Marketing must be everyone’s top priority. Market solutions as an experience or an event.

Customer 168

Customer Custom Marketing Social Media 168

Both Sides of the Table

MAY 1, 2014

It’s the company that evokes fear into more startups and venture capitalists looking to fund eCommerce businesses than any other potential competitor. He would pick up stuff from your apartment and bring it to storage for you and he could save money by having that facility be off site. And could we then compete?”

Technical Review 380

Technical Review Software Review CTO Hire Startup 380

Both Sides of the Table

MARCH 12, 2013

He had joined a young startup in LA called HauteLook and was interested in getting to know the local tech community. He shared tons of information about how how they were using marketing to quantitatively make marketing decisions at HauteLook and acquire customers for prices that were far cheaper than similar companies.

Venture Capital 360

Venture Capital GRP Partners Startup Invest 360

Both Sides of the Table

FEBRUARY 8, 2016

Much has changed in the past four months of the technology startup world and how outsiders value the business. And when prices are dropping on a VCs existing companies in market, there is a substantial reduction in FOMO (fear of missing out) for new deals, which means that investors take their time in making investment decisions.

Startup 150

Startup Pricing Venture Capital Statistics 150

Startup Professionals Musings

SEPTEMBER 21, 2020

I realized a while back that creating a new company for the first time is a lot like whipping up a great dinner entrée for the first time – you need a recipe, even though it may look simple. Yet you may not be so sure where to start, and how to put it all together. You need a good cook, good marketing, and first-class service.

Startup 156

Startup Coach Metrics Marketing 156

Startup Professionals Musings

FEBRUARY 5, 2021

Thus, financial projections for up to five years are a necessary element in every business plan. Per the words of an old country song, “if you don’t know where you’re going, you will probably end up somewhere else.” If you are losing money on every unit, it’s hard to make it up in volume. Forecast sales-volume expectations.

Startup 147

Startup Pricing Sales Statistics 147

Both Sides of the Table

JUNE 27, 2021

Shots on Goal Being great as a startup technology investor of course requires a lot of things to come together: You need to have strong insights into where technology markets are heading and where value in the future will be created and sustained You need be perfect with your market timing. On Funding?—?Shots

Funding 294

Funding Startup Writing Invest 294

Both Sides of the Table

FEBRUARY 14, 2016

There is much discussion online and also in small, private groups, about why the price of technology companies – public and private – are falling. Most are sitting on large portfolios of private companies that are raising money now or will need to do so in the future and they know that they’re up against some headwinds.

Startup 150

Startup Company Companies Venture Capital 150

Both Sides of the Table

JULY 26, 2016

Many first-time founders seek advice when thinking about what ideas would be great for a startup company and receive the wrong advice that you need to focus on a billion-dollar idea. There are very few ideas that are obviously a billion-dollar idea from the start. So what should you do? But you need to understand venture economics.

Venture Capital 150

Venture Capital Startup Capital Ideas 150

Startup Professionals Musings

APRIL 11, 2020

In fact, there are a host of reasons why a non-focused startup business is more likely to struggle for survival, lose market and investor attention, and miss out on the opportunity to capitalize on their scope: Time to market is tied to the size of your offering. Ongoing market leadership requires continuous innovation.

Startup 169

Startup IBM IBM Social Media 169

Both Sides of the Table

FEBRUARY 6, 2019

If you want the whole deck you can find it on SlideShare but I’ve written up a short summary with commentary below. Yes, VC / Startup Funding is up Massively If you look at how much VC firms have raised from Limited Partners (LPs) over the past 2 decades you’ll see that we’ve returned to a level that we haven’t seen since 1999.

Venture Capital 292

Venture Capital Capital Startup Funding 292