Startup Professionals Musings

MARCH 18, 2020

These must be countered by a focus on changes and training that benefit your people, as well as your business. Set up training courses that highlight agility, and adopt agile working practices. They grew sales by 28% in 2009, while most companies were hunkered down and losing share.

Metrics 122

Metrics Training Satisfaction IBM 122

Startup Professionals Musings

AUGUST 21, 2021

Switch your focus from product development to sales. Explosive growth to an enterprise normally requires a scalable sales model, a well-documented process with incentives, training, and metrics for tracking and management. Isolate marketing from sales for maximum customer focus.

Startup 151

Startup Course Sales Entrepreneur 151

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. Show that you have a process to hire, fire, and train others as required. Marketing, sales, support, and service operations.

Entrepreneur 131

Entrepreneur Outsource Development Startup Competition 131

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. Implement metrics and set objectives for every organization.

Startup 137

Startup Training Entrepreneur Organization 137

Both Sides of the Table

JUNE 5, 2011

Then you can do a little bit of research and find out that very few companies ever achieve this valuation in a trade sale so you’re clearly gunning for an IPO. It’s hard to stop a train. Another firm we saw tried to raise $15 million at a $60 million pre-money with similar metrics. Here’s the problem.

Startup 336

Startup Pricing Technical Review Marketing 336

Startup Professionals Musings

SEPTEMBER 21, 2020

In all cases, don’t skip the basic training. Have you projected sales and marketing costs, cash flow, and capital requirements? Develop metrics with which to measure yourself and use these to incrementally expand and improve your offering as fast as the market and capital will allow. Don’t stand still.

Startup 156

Startup Coach Metrics Marketing 156

Startup Professionals Musings

FEBRUARY 28, 2020

In business vernacular, targets are usually called metrics. A good metric has to be easily measurable, and directly correlated to results, rather than hours worked. For example, for a sales person, this metric number would likely measure new revenue or new customers. Evaluate where technology and training can help.

Metrics 124

Metrics Entrepreneur Satisfaction Study 124

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. Implement metrics and set objectives for every organization.

Startup 125

Startup Training Entrepreneur Organization 125

Both Sides of the Table

JANUARY 31, 2010

I stayed up late every night after a day of meetings doing email until 3am so that I didn’t feel out of touch with our product and sales pipelines. I took the night train that night to London to try and hold investors firm. Dinners were consumed with customers or in hotels and often past 10pm. Somehow this is more honest.

Entrepreneur 308

Entrepreneur Startup Venture Capital Conference 308

Startup Professionals Musings

OCTOBER 25, 2014

In both cases, it’s easy for them to become frustrated and give up, since most have never been trained in change management, and don’t even know what questions to ask. Define hard (data) and soft (anecdotal) metrics on the change, as well as on the quality of your leadership. Just because Google sales hit $1.5

Startup 108

Startup Resource Metrics Technical Review 108

Startup Professionals Musings

JULY 15, 2020

Implement the key business metrices you will live by. Identify the three most important metrics your business must hit every week to achieve growth goals. These will almost always be related to sales and marketing, since they must tie back to cash flow. Increase you focus on coaching, training, and mentoring.

Metrics 140

Metrics Entrepreneur Satisfaction Coach 140

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. Show that you have a process to hire, fire, and train others as required. Marketing, sales, support, and service operations.

Outsource Development 115

Outsource Development Startup Competition Ideas 115

Startup Professionals Musings

OCTOBER 21, 2023

Decide early where and when money will come from, set some milestones and metrics, and work to a plan, or be caught short. Word of mouth is not adequate for marketing and sales. Even though the Internet is pervasive and free, you should not assume that a website is all you need for sales and marketing.

Customer 109

Customer Custom Satisfaction Sales 109

Startup Professionals Musings

APRIL 20, 2013

In both cases, it’s easy for them to become frustrated and give up, since most have never been trained in change management, and don’t even know what questions to ask. Define hard (data) and soft (anecdotal) metrics on the change, as well as on the quality of your leadership. Just because Google sales hit $1.5

Startup 101

Startup Resource Metrics Technical Review 101

Startup Professionals Musings

APRIL 20, 2015

Decide early where and when money will come from, set some milestones and metrics, and work to a plan, or be caught short. Word of mouth is not adequate for marketing and sales. Even though the Internet is pervasive and free, you should not assume that a website is all you need for sales and marketing.

Startup 107

Startup Sales Custom Customer 107

Startup Professionals Musings

AUGUST 12, 2015

It starts with a vision, but benefits quickly from a structured process of idea generation, evaluation, prototyping, customer feedback, and success metrics. Training and coaching. They benchmark their ideas against competition, use metrics to track acceptance, sales growth, and return on investment. Ownership.

Entrepreneur 101

Entrepreneur Startup Coach Metrics 101

InfoChachkie

JANUARY 16, 2018

The problem is that stakeholders, like marketing and sales, don’t know what the latest version of the roadmap is. Greathouse: Having run these groups, I know all about the inherent friction between sales and marketing with regard to lead quality, volume, etc., Metrics related to customer acquisition, lifetime value and churn.

Venture Capital 115

Venture Capital Entrepreneur Santa Barbara Startup 115

Startup Professionals Musings

MAY 1, 2019

With the real data from that surge, you need to take a hard look at business model realities, cost of customer acquisition, inventory costs, and other key metrics. Document processes and metrics for economies of scale. As your business grows, you need employees who can execute quickly and consistently, with minimal training.

Metrics 86

Metrics Startup Training Custom 86

Startup Professionals Musings

MAY 23, 2012

Training and coaching. From time to time, include customers and sales members in ideation sessions. Once a new product is launched, a key metric is the ratio of new product sales to overall sales. This is a critical component of the trust equation, even when the process is akin to “herding cats.” Idea management.

Coach 98

Coach Ideas IP Sales 98

Startup Professionals Musings

DECEMBER 22, 2021

Your goal must be to make every aspect of a customer interaction a joy to both you and them, starting from the shopping experience, to the sales close, to delivery and service. Use metrics to assess needs and growth economics. Really listen to feedback from the team, and empower them with the ability to make customers happy.

Customer 114

Customer Custom Satisfaction Metrics 114

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. Show that you have a process to hire, fire, and train others as required. Marketing, sales, support, and service operations.

Outsource Development 99

Outsource Development Startup Competition Ideas 99

Startup Professionals Musings

MAY 4, 2014

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. Even if you are doing the work yourself, you need to document requirements, features, metrics, and milestones.

Startup 107

Startup Outsource Development Training Outsource 107

Startup Professionals Musings

MARCH 9, 2011

Training and coaching. From time to time, include customers and sales members in ideation sessions. Once a new product is launched, a key metric is the ratio of new product sales to overall sales. This is a critical component of the trust equation, even when the process is akin to “herding cats.” Idea management.

Coach 93

Coach Ideas IP Sales 93

Startup Professionals Musings

SEPTEMBER 18, 2015

Based on my own many years of experience as both an employee and an executive, here are my key recommendations to improve your business productivity, traction and momentum: Implement business metrics, and tie incentives to results. Perfection is not an affordable target in product development, sales or customer support.

Training 105

Training Entrepreneur Tool Metrics 105

Both Sides of the Table

JULY 24, 2016

What you Before Sets the Course for How Well the Day Goes Make sure you send your financial and operating metrics no less than 72 hours before the board meeting — even better if it can be a week in advance. It shouldn’t be the place where they ask why you have 8 sales reps and not 6. So here’s a short guide to achieving that.

Guide 196

Guide Startup Metrics Conference 196

Tech Zulu Event

APRIL 23, 2013

The fitness professional network develops business tools that make it easier for fitness professionals to run their businesses and keep their clients engaged between training sessions. We knew there’s a better personal training experience to be had, so we set out to create one. We just found this hole in the fitness industry.

Social Network 92

Social Network Networking Training Summary 92

Startup Professionals Musings

SEPTEMBER 7, 2011

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. Even if you are doing the work yourself, you need to document requirements, features, metrics, and milestones.

Startup 102

Startup Outsource Development Writing Training 102

Startup Professionals Musings

JUNE 18, 2023

In all cases, don’t skip the basic training. Have you projected sales and marketing costs, cash flow, and capital requirements? Develop metrics with which to measure yourself and use these to incrementally expand and improve your offering as fast as the market and capital will allow. Don’t stand still.

Startup 112

Startup Coach Metrics Marketing 112

Both Sides of the Table

NOVEMBER 14, 2017

We hired Chang Paik who had previously worked at Goldman Sachs and had already been CFO for a startup so he had both the “academy training” of a world-class organization as well as the scrappiness of startup life. Building more process around our economic decisions was an important part of systematizing the business.

Startup 286

Startup Technical Review Custom Customer 286

Startup Professionals Musings

NOVEMBER 2, 2015

Make sure there are metrics for problem counts, resolution time and revenue impact. Usually it pays to dig deeper on lost sales opportunities and negative customer reviews to resolve a deep-seated product deficiency or delivery channel issue. Analyze issues to prevent similar problems.

Startup 100

Startup Entrepreneur Satisfaction Metrics 100

Startup Professionals Musings

AUGUST 1, 2010

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. Even if you are doing the work yourself, you need to document requirements, features, metrics, and milestones.

Startup 95

Startup Outsource Development Writing Training 95

Startup Professionals Musings

JUNE 5, 2019

Too many business owners still think of “ customer support ” as an after-sale process to rectify customer problems with completed transactions. Customers expect you to provide access via their mobile devices, as well as being responsive to sales and support questions on social media and multiple Internet channels and partners at their whim.

Customer 84

Customer Custom Companies Company 84

Startup Professionals Musings

JANUARY 31, 2013

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. Even if you are doing the work yourself, you need to document requirements, features, metrics, and milestones.

Outsource Development 92

Outsource Development Training Outsource Metrics 92

Startup Professionals Musings

SEPTEMBER 28, 2015

Long-term value propositions to society, or paradigm shifts in technology, generate interest but don’t close sales in the time frame your startup needs to survive and prosper. In all cases, you need customer support, formal processes and training in place. Sustainable competitive advantage. Product distribution or service delivery.

Technical Review 100

Technical Review Pricing Entrepreneur Startup 100

Startup Professionals Musings

AUGUST 14, 2016

It starts with a vision, but benefits quickly from a structured process of idea generation, evaluation, prototyping, customer feedback, and success metrics. Training and coaching. From time to time, include customers and sales members in ideation sessions. Innovation is not a random walk into the unknown. Ownership.

Coach 64

Coach Metrics Competition Ideas 64

Startup Professionals Musings

AUGUST 18, 2018

It starts with a vision, but benefits quickly from a structured process of idea generation, evaluation, prototyping, customer feedback, and success metrics. Training and coaching. From time to time, include customers and sales members in ideation sessions. Innovation is not a random walk into the unknown. Ownership.

Entrepreneur 64

Entrepreneur Coach Metrics Competition 64

Startup Professionals Musings

DECEMBER 30, 2012

In all cases, don’t skip the basic training. Have you projected sales and marketing costs, cash flow, and capital requirements? Develop metrics with which to measure yourself and use these to incrementally expand and improve your offering as fast as the market and capital will allow. then you can start writing a recipe.

Startup 96

Startup Writing Metrics Marketing 96