Startup Professionals Musings

DECEMBER 12, 2022

As a business advisor, I have too often seen technical entrepreneurs get a product or service off the ground with ease, but then struggle mightily when their business reaches a couple of million in annual sales, or the employee count grows beyond a handful. Now the experiments are over, and high productivity is the objective.

Startup 137

Startup Training Entrepreneur Organization 137

Startup Professionals Musings

SEPTEMBER 25, 2022

Most entrepreneurs assume that success is dependent on their product expertise, coupled with some knowledge of how to run a business. In fact, I have found from personal experience and mentoring that both of these are necessary, but not sufficient, for building a business.

Training 142

Training Coach Startup Entrepreneur 142

Startup Professionals Musings

FEBRUARY 24, 2020

Many entrepreneurs I have mentored make big mistakes in this area, by hiring low-cost friends and family, with minimal skills or training, and expecting them to have the same work ethic , passion, and business knowledge as the founder. You contract expertise rather than train employees. with experience. with experience.

Outsource 123

Outsource Startup Technical Review Training 123

Startup Professionals Musings

APRIL 16, 2022

Yet I find, as a mentor and outside consultant, that many of you focus only on working conditions and compensation as the key factors determining team engagement , health, and productivity. Every person requires some level of positive human interaction with co-workers and others to be satisfied and productive.

Technical Review 141

Technical Review Mentor Social Media Customer 141

Startup Professionals Musings

FEBRUARY 5, 2022

She and I both offer the following insights on how to green your own pasture by helping employees find and use their strengths, and inspiring them to be more satisfied and productive, on your side of the fence, and even happily return if they do wander in their career advancement: Provide a structured approach to mentorship.

Mentor 147

Mentor Coach Satisfaction Training 147

Startup Professionals Musings

FEBRUARY 12, 2021

There is always the next generation of workers coming of age who expect more, as well as the current generation already having the lowest engagement and productivity levels that business has ever seen. Spend more time mentoring and coaching your team. The future of work is definitely changing, accelerated by the current pandemic.

Tips 159

Tips Satisfaction Coach Mentor 159

Startup Professionals Musings

JANUARY 23, 2022

Every business needs repeatable processes to grow and thrive, but modern business processes need the right people to make them efficient and productive. The right people make productive processes, not the other way around. On the other hand, I see teams with almost no process that are tremendously productive.

Coach 128

Coach Organization Mentor Startup 128

Startup Professionals Musings

SEPTEMBER 10, 2023

Yet there is more and more evidence that jumping tasks on every alert for a new email, text, or phone call actually decreases overall productivity. Practicing these will ensure greater productivity, less stress, more job satisfaction, and an improved overall sense of well-being. Do unto others as you would have them do unto you.

Email 96

Email Activity Product Social Media 96

Both Sides of the Table

DECEMBER 11, 2022

There was no money train. Sure, we built SaaS products before the term even existed but at 31 it was hard to delineate reality from what all of the monied people around us were telling us what we were worth. In those years I learned to properly build product, price products, sell products and serve customers.

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Venture Capital Startup Marketing Pricing 466

Startup Professionals Musings

JANUARY 18, 2023

With pervasive access to social media, customers no longer differentiate poor product repair and replacement from a poor shopping experience or customer usage satisfaction. Reward team members who excel in these relationships, and provide training and processes for others. Make sure non-contact experiences match face-to-face.

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Competition Services Customer Custom 109

Startup Professionals Musings

APRIL 8, 2019

Image via Wikipedia The challenge for all of us in business is to improve competitiveness by improving employee productivity and reducing costs. According to Gartner , one of the biggest drags on productivity is employee engagement, still hovering around 30 percent, and costing our businesses over $450 billion per year.

Tips 96

Tips Satisfaction Training Mentor 96

Startup Professionals Musings

AUGUST 3, 2022

Seek mentoring from established industry leaders. The right mentors can give you timely and unbiased feedback on your business, industry trends, and emerging competitors. In some cases, the best mentor is one of your best customers. In some cases, the best mentor is one of your best customers.

Marketing 119

Marketing Social Media Mentor Conference 119

Startup Professionals Musings

APRIL 10, 2021

Entrepreneurs often have formidable technical expertise, key to developing a new product or service, but a great naïveté in management skills. It means not only hiring, but training and measuring performance. It means mentoring less experienced team members, and quickly replacing incompetent staff members.

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Startup Organization Training Entrepreneur 171

Startup Professionals Musings

MARCH 29, 2017

Leaders who are able to optimize these find multipliers of 20 percent up to nine times the average productivity. Organizational silos, limited spans of control, and too many layers of management can dramatically reduce the productivity of even your best people. As a role model, what you practice is more important than what you preach.

Product 58

Product Startup Guide Framework 58

Startup Professionals Musings

AUGUST 30, 2023

Listen to your team, mentors, and customers to recognize real successes and failures, and surround yourself with people who can fill in the gaps. Practice, train, and rehearse giving 100 percent. Poor work-life balance will leave you and your team working more hours but being less productive.

Mentor 104

Mentor Startup Coach Satisfaction 104

Startup Professionals Musings

OCTOBER 9, 2020

Freelancers and consultants have to demonstrate results, without training and mentoring, so they can help you more quickly and probably at a lower total cost. Full-time employees require considerable overhead for facilities, training, severance, and benefits for performance. Prioritize demonstrated execution versus potential.

Competition 168

Competition Startup Demand Training 168

Both Sides of the Table

OCTOBER 26, 2020

The core of the investing job of course is investing dollars into startup companies and helping as a mentor, advisor and board member on the companies in which you’ve invested. Marketing, recruiting, building data products & tools, event management, analyzing the portfolio, etc. So What Does All This Mean? Wait, What About Yves?

Venture Capital 361

Venture Capital Startup Invest CitySearch 361

Startup Professionals Musings

MARCH 25, 2022

Thus, over the years of my mentoring and consulting efforts with entrepreneurs, I have a key list of practices that I recommend to everyone starting and growing a business. Hire the best, and provide necessary training and tools. The result is low productivity, mistakes, and poor customer experiences.

Startup 134

Startup Training Tool Demand 134

Startup Professionals Musings

AUGUST 19, 2022

Even after many years mentoring entrepreneurs and advising businesses, I continue to be surprised by the primary focus on products and processes, and the often incidental attention to hiring and nurturing the right people. It’s the same for customers and products, where analytics have long proven their value.

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Tool Statistics Entrepreneur Metrics 121

Startup Professionals Musings

SEPTEMBER 15, 2023

Many people believe that new ideas are the critical element of innovation, but in my experience as a mentor and investor, long-term business success is more about implementation than ideas. Developing the ideal product the first time around is unlikely, high risk, and very expensive in today’s chaotic market.

Artificial Inteligence 114

Artificial Inteligence Ideas Satisfaction Customer 114

Startup Professionals Musings

MARCH 15, 2020

As a business advisor, I have too often seen technical entrepreneurs get a product or service off the ground with ease, but then struggle mightily when their business reaches a couple of million in annual sales, or the employee count grows beyond a handful. Now the experiments are over, and high productivity is the objective.

Startup 125

Startup Training Entrepreneur Organization 125

Startup Professionals Musings

DECEMBER 25, 2020

Yet there is more and more evidence that jumping tasks on every alert for a new email, text, or phone call actually decreases overall productivity. Practicing these will ensure greater productivity, less stress, more job satisfaction, and an improved overall sense of well-being. Do unto others as you would have them do unto you.

Email 170

Email Activity Social Media Coach 170

Startup Professionals Musings

OCTOBER 15, 2022

As a startup mentor, I’m always amazed that some entrepreneurs seem to be an immediate hit with investors, while others struggle to get any attention at all. Rather than hide seemingly non-productive gaps in your work to-date, investors look for logical actions, and iterative small steps that could be quick to market or quick to fail.

Entrepreneur 111

Entrepreneur Social Media Patents Mentor 111

Startup Professionals Musings

AUGUST 16, 2023

Every business wants and needs top performers, but most entrepreneurs and executives assume that if they hire and train the smartest and most experienced people, they will get exceptional performance. Thus paying only for sales volume, when you desire high customer satisfaction, is not productive.

Coach 93

Coach Satisfaction Resource Entrepreneur 93

Startup Professionals Musings

DECEMBER 21, 2019

Most entrepreneurs assume that success is dependent on their product expertise, coupled with some knowledge of how to run a business. In fact, I have found from personal experience and mentoring that both of these are necessary, but not sufficient, for building a business.

Training 123

Training Coach Startup Entrepreneur 123

Startup Professionals Musings

JUNE 30, 2021

Some are great product leaders and innovative technologists, others are leaders in creating new business models , a few can assemble great teams , but only the rare exception can do all three. That means accepting coaching and seeking mentoring, as well as giving it. Create innovative change from existing resources.

Coach 162

Coach Startup Resource Competition 162

socalTECH

OCTOBER 14, 2019

Most are not event addressing it, and even in the instances they are, the typical format is to have a specialist come in for a workshop, to train just small percentage of an organization. Michele Ruiz: Robin Richards and I formed the company, after he approached me, after having been a business mentor for me for fifteen years.

Content 150

Content Training Education Outsource Development 150

Startup Professionals Musings

APRIL 6, 2022

I’m convinced that the reason for the high rate of startup failures , with well over half not lasting five years, is not that the solutions are not innovative, but that the entrepreneur focuses on the product, rather than the business of attracting and managing customers. No one else can do the solution delivery like you can.

Satisfaction 92

Satisfaction Training Customer Custom 92

Startup Professionals Musings

JULY 15, 2022

While thinking about it, I realized that it’s really not that different from the toughness required and trained into America’s elite military force of Navy SEALs, who are known to be cool under fire, able to sense danger before it’s too late, and never give up on achieving their objective.

Startup 150

Startup Entrepreneur Mentor Training 150

Startup Professionals Musings

DECEMBER 17, 2021

When I started mentoring entrepreneurs and startups a few years ago, I anticipated that I would get mostly tough technical questions, but instead I more often hear things like “Where do I start?” Control in business requires teamwork, which occurs in successful companies when team members, products, and processes work in unison.

Entrepreneur 138

Entrepreneur Activity Guide Patents 138

Startup Professionals Musings

SEPTEMBER 4, 2019

Yet I soon found that knowledge is power, and a little training and determination goes a long way toward removing the qualms. Asking someone to be your mentor is not a sign of weakness, and most mentors love to help. Turn existing connections into productive relationships.

Entrepreneur 104

Entrepreneur Mentor Activity Startup 104

Startup Professionals Musings

FEBRUARY 26, 2021

The best of you train yourselves to show emotions sparingly and strategically, while the rest are convinced that emotions cannot be controlled , and are a function of culture and genetics. Optimistic business leaders see value in every new business challenge, rather than stress and risk.

Coach 137

Coach Training Satisfaction Mentor 137

Startup Professionals Musings

NOVEMBER 14, 2022

This alone will improve your productivity and effectiveness in your current role, as well as give you a head start towards a future role, including a management role or starting your own company as an entrepreneur. Work on habits and tools that improve your productivity and availability.

Tips 123

Tips Tool Activity Startup 123

Startup Professionals Musings

JANUARY 29, 2021

As a long-time business advisor and mentor to entrepreneurs, I consistently find that the most thriving businesses are people-centric, and those team members create the best processes, rather than the other way around. Engaged people are more productive than your best process. Only people can look ahead and prepare for the future.

Satisfaction 154

Satisfaction Demand Resource Competition 154

Startup Professionals Musings

AUGUST 27, 2022

Dini, tied together several threads I have often seen in my own experience of mentoring and helping aspiring entrepreneurs. Farmers are the management that comes after the hunt, to build repeatable processes, do seasonal planning, and make sure all employees are well-fed and trained.

Entrepreneur 124

Entrepreneur Marketing News Slides 124

Startup Professionals Musings

JULY 9, 2022

A common request I get while mentoring entrepreneurs is for a copy of the startup checklist they need to follow, in order to build a successful new business. Many businesses are already weaving gamification into their strategies to enhance loyalty programs, customer retention, productivity measurement, and training.

Technology 133

Technology Cloud Computing Social Media Networking 133

Startup Professionals Musings

OCTOBER 9, 2022

She is the President and CEO of EI Experience, and has years of experience training business leaders across the continent. Mentors and coaches are always willing to help you find creative ways around roadblocks, even ones you don’t even see. Barriers open up new possibilities, which themselves will likely have barriers.

Coach 140

Coach Guide Startup Mentor 140