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.

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Marketing Startup Artificial Inteligence Technical Review 174

TechEmpower

AUGUST 14, 2023

Startup founders make decisions on a daily basis – significant decisions that will have lasting impact on their business. Actually, many startups need two kinds of technical advisors. This is especially important with outsourced development teams. No good innovator turns down advice! And Maybe You Need Two!

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Technical Review CTO Coach CTO Hire Software Review 260

Both Sides of the Table

AUGUST 11, 2021

Photo by Vanna Phon on Unsplash Customer acquisition is the lifeblood of many startups from e-commerce to gaming to marketplace companies, among others. Most of these startups spend the lion’s share of their marketing budget in today’s social media channels: Facebook, Twitter, Reddit, Snap, TikTok and so on because?—?no

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Startup Professionals Musings

OCTOBER 20, 2021

As I “grew up” in business in big companies, including IBM, I always wondered why the real innovations seemed to come from startups, while we had more resources and more experience. Yet we never even dreamed of a new potential for personal use of computers , until startups like Apple and Microsoft stepped into the fray.

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Marketing IBM IBM Resource 117

Startup Professionals Musings

DECEMBER 5, 2021

Every time I challenge a business plan with little or no budget for marketing, I get the answer that they will be using “viral” marketing, which costs nothing. First of all, Seth Godin pointed out a long time ago that viral marketing does not equal word-of-mouth. Seed viral activity.

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Both Sides of the Table

APRIL 21, 2020

Harry was gracious enough to invite me back so this past week we recorded an episode discussing the current market environment. We talked about what startup CEOs should do in these situations and how to think about these renegotiations. If you’re a clear “market winner” like Stripe, Robinhood or Airbnb. Raise when you can.

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TechEmpower

JULY 24, 2023

At TechEmpower, we frequently talk to startup founders, CEOs, product leaders, and other innovators about their next big tech initiative. How will you be taking this to market? What are your key Startup Metrics ? eCommerce Does your startup run on a subscription model? Often this ties to marketing support.

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Startup Professionals Musings

JULY 3, 2020

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.

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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. This requires a sense of urgency on the part of your team, and a culture of accountability and focus on the customer.

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Startup Professionals Musings

JUNE 11, 2021

Over my years as an advisor to new businesses and startups, I have learned that the only certainty that I can offer entrepreneurs is the fact they will face many uncertainties. Your team members, despite what you may think is reasonable, often suffer more than you as a founder from uncertainty in the workplace.

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TechEmpower

AUGUST 21, 2023

Many CEOs of software-enabled businesses call us with a similar concern: Are we getting the right results from our software team? Technical Review Defined A technical review is a deep-dive assessment of your software, infrastructure, team and processes. These are classic inflection points for a development team.

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Technical Review Development Team Review Software Review TechEmpower 260

Both Sides of the Table

JUNE 27, 2011

I made every textbook mistake at my first startup, which is why I believe I was much more effective at my second one. The following are some lessons I learned about early-stage startup marketing. I worked with an entrepreneur who was to appear at a startup networking event where he was to talk about his company’s plans.

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Startup Professionals Musings

AUGUST 3, 2022

In my role of business advisor to startups, I often recommend these to increase initial brand identity and market penetration. With the rate of market change today, and the advent of worldwide competitors, you need every strategy you can muster to keep up, and respond quickly to new threats.

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Both Sides of the Table

MARCH 14, 2013

Creating awareness for your brand and products is one of the lifebloods of technology startups yet in a world where so many companies are being created it becomes difficult to rise above the noise. Mostly it’s because your marketing campaigns suck. One of the masters of this in the startup technology world is Flurry.

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Marketing Press Blogging Startup 389

Both Sides of the Table

JULY 1, 2010

We all like to think of startups as “non hierarchic&# organizations and to some extent that should be true. I see two common mistakes in companies (not just in startups, in fact). You’ll get sales information from your VP of Sales, marketing information from your VP Marketing, tech information from your CTO and so on.

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Startup Professionals Musings

JUNE 11, 2014

In my years of advising startups and occasional investing, I’ve seen many great ideas start and fail, but the right team always seems to make good things happen, even without the ultimate idea. Yet every entrepreneur I meet wants to talk about the idea, and rarely mentions the team. The sales professional. The financial suit.

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Technical Advisors Startup Outsource Development High Tech 98

InfoChachkie

JUNE 1, 2015

It sounds crazy to offer unlimited vacation time to your startup employees. He surprised me during a recent Local Market Launch Board meeting by suggesting that the company stop accruing vacation and allow employees to take as much time off as they need. Follow my startup-oriented Twitter feed here: @johngreathouse.

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Startup Professionals Musings

JUNE 22, 2015

The good news is that recent big company financial woes and layoffs have generated a flood of candidates with real experience seeking positions at startups. They are not the ones you need in the few key team positions to drive your startup. Back in 1968, Dr. Laurence J. Nothing could be further from the truth.

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Startup Professionals Musings

FEBRUARY 18, 2018

In my years of advising startups and occasional investing, I’ve seen many great ideas start and fail, but the right team always seems to make good things happen, even without the ultimate idea. Yet every entrepreneur I meet wants to talk about the idea, and rarely mentions the team. The sales professional. The financial suit.

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Technical Advisors Startup Outsource Development High Tech 57

Startup Professionals Musings

JANUARY 31, 2022

Beyond the fear, many really don’t get the value of being willing and able to communicate effectively with team members, investors, customers, and a myriad of other support people, both one-on-one and one-to-many. As an investor, I sometimes see CEOs who negotiate to send their VP of Marketing to talk.

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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?

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Startup Generative AI Newsletter Tool 212

socalTECH

MARCH 24, 2016

Los Angeles-based Crexi (www.crexi.com) has taken two, very experienced teams�one from Auction.com, the other from Burstly (acquired by Apple)�and created a �dream team� completely focused on enabling the transaction side of the commercial real estate market online. How are things done now in the market?

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Startup Professionals Musings

APRIL 27, 2015

If you are like most entrepreneurs I know, there just aren’t enough hours in a day to get all your own work done, as well as run the many one-hour meetings each team member seems to demand for decisions and mentoring. But it only works if you observe the following principles: Never hide from your team.

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Startup Professionals Musings

JUNE 20, 2016

There is a common belief in the angel and venture capital community that you put your money on the best team, rather than the best idea. Thus the top priority of every entrepreneur who wants funding should be to build and highlight their “dream team” of co-founders, executives and advisers, to attract the biggest and best investors.

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Startup Entrepreneur Software Review Technical Review 60

Berkonomics

NOVEMBER 7, 2013

The basic concept has to make some kind of sense given the technical, market and competitive environment, otherwise nothing else matters. Coding, design, production, sales, finance, operations, marketing, and the like are all execution skills; and without great execution, success will be very hard to come by.

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InfoChachkie

NOVEMBER 5, 2012

In addition to being a thought leader within the Lean Startup Movement , Steve is also a professor at Stanford and Berkley. However, many people are not aware that prior to entering academia, Steve was a wily and creative marketing entrepreneur. 11% To 68% Market Share. I always walk away smarter after speaking with Steve Blank.

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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.

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Both Sides of the Table

JUNE 9, 2013

I spoke this past week at the LeWeb conference in London, which was a superbly well run event with a very quality production team. Why is Collaborative Consumption Becoming a Hot Trend for Startup Companies? Declining prices & margins in a small market is much less interesting. I described that phenomenon in this post.

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Marketing Course Pricing Networking 361

Both Sides of the Table

JULY 21, 2014

Since 2009 we’ve been in an unequivocal bull market. You’d imagine that companies selling tons of shelfware would quickly meet their deserved fate in the market, yet the spin around a category of software can fool buyers into thinking they “must have this product to compete.” What to do to Avoid Shelfware?

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Marketing Case Study Metrics Sales 354

socalTECH

JUNE 16, 2017

San Diego- and Beijing-based TuSimple , a startup developing autonomous driving technology, says it has received a permit from the California Department of Motor Vehicles to test autonomous driving vehicles on the road. The startup says it hopes to run a test this month taking an autonomous vehicle 420 miles from San Diego to Tucson.

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Startup Professionals Musings

FEBRUARY 24, 2019

Every time I challenge a business plan with little or no budget for marketing, I get the answer that they will be using “viral” marketing, which costs nothing. First of all, Seth Godin pointed out a long time ago that viral marketing does not equal word-of-mouth. Seed viral activity.

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Marketing Invest SEM Startup 107

socalTECH

SEPTEMBER 27, 2021

A new program, run by the Alliance for Southern California Innovation, is looking to connect startups with Series A funding, according to the group. According to the two, the program recruits and selects top SoCal-based startups that have demonstrated clear market traction and provides introductions to leading venture funds.

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socalTECH

APRIL 21, 2016

The United Talent Agency (UTA) is one of the backers in a new, software-driven influencer marketing startup called Captiv8 , which announced a funding round this morning. The United Talent Agency is based in Los Angeles, where it also has its venture investing team. READ MORE>>.

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Artificial Inteligence Marketing Los Angeles Invest 100

InfoChachkie

OCTOBER 20, 2011

Note: This is the fourth installment of an ongoing Guerilla Marketing series. Before it became a monolithic, multi-billion dollar organization, DoubleClick was a wily, nimble startup. Guerilla marketing is especially effective when the attention getting tactic underscores the company’s vision and value proposition.

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Startup Professionals Musings

JUNE 8, 2020

I still hear too many excuses for not working early on the elevator pitch, like wanting to fly under the radar, don’t have the team together yet, or can’t afford an agency. There is real value in doing the key things yourself, before your startup is even started: Demonstrate thought leadership before selling a product.

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Tech.Co

MAY 31, 2023

Launching and growing a startup is one of the biggest missions an entrepreneur can undertake. But while competition remains fierce, the advancement and accessibility of smart solutions are making it easy than ever for startups to find their feet. VPN Startup tool: VPN Price: Free Hide.me While Hide.me

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Tool Startup Software Review Technical Review 131

Startup Professionals Musings

NOVEMBER 24, 2018

The author outlines eight necessary steps for every business and entrepreneur to capitalize on this movement to on-demand project teams, versus permanent hires. These steps are the new keys to driving business innovation, controlling costs, staying nimble, and getting better results: Build teams to meet goals rather than organization charts.

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