Startup Professionals Musings

JULY 1, 2017

The “valley of death” is a common term in the startup world, referring to the difficulty of covering the negative cash flow in the early stages of a startup, before their new product or service is bringing in revenue from real customers. Consider licensing your product or intellectual property, and “white labeling.”

Develop 70

Develop Development Product Startup 70

Both Sides of the Table

JANUARY 6, 2014

Reviewing financial & operational performance. Over time you start to figure out who you customers are and how to sell to them or how to get them to adopt your products if you’re a consumer-oriented startup. how much energy to put into channel partners vs. direct sales. how to build an initial sales organization.

Startup 325

Startup Sales Technical Review Software Review 325

Startup Professionals Musings

APRIL 4, 2022

The “valley of death” is a common term in the startup world, referring to the difficulty of covering the negative cash flow in the early stages of a startup, before their new product or service is bringing in revenue from real customers. Consider licensing your product or intellectual property, and “white labeling.”

Tips 104

Tips Startup Technical Review Equity 104

Startup Professionals Musings

DECEMBER 6, 2019

The “valley of death” is a common term in the startup world, referring to the difficulty of covering the negative cash flow in the early stages of a startup, before their new product or service is bringing in revenue from real customers. Consider licensing your product or intellectual property, and “white labeling.”

Startup 128

Startup Technical Review Equity Incubator 128

socalTECH

JULY 31, 2013

Kevin Hell: We''re going all the way down to the chip design and production, which is coming out of Asia. We also operate the network software than runs and manages the entire network layer, from access point to end point. It''s very resistant to interference, due to the way the technology was designed.

Technical Review 213

Technical Review Software Review Networking Technology 213

Startup Professionals Musings

JUNE 30, 2019

The “valley of death” is a common term in the startup world, referring to the difficulty of covering the negative cash flow in the early stages of a startup, before their new product or service is bringing in revenue from real customers. Consider licensing your product or intellectual property, and “white labeling.”

Startup 87

Startup Technical Review Equity Incubator 87

Both Sides of the Table

NOVEMBER 25, 2010

I keep my competitors as friends and those that didn’t choose me or my product as friends, too. Looong Appendix (only for those interested in reading another story about losing a sale & key lessons): A personal story of losing a sale that haunted me for years. I later learned one of my biggest lesson in sales.

Outsource Development 333

Outsource Development Software Review Technical Review News 333

Both Sides of the Table

NOVEMBER 25, 2010

I keep my competitors as friends and those that didn’t choose me or my product as friends, too. Looong Appendix (only for those interested in reading another story about losing a sale & key lessons): A personal story of losing a sale that haunted me for years. I later learned one of my biggest lesson in sales.

Outsource Development 328

Outsource Development Software Review Technical Review News 328

Startup Professionals Musings

JULY 8, 2015

The “valley of death” is a common term in the startup world, referring to the difficulty of covering the negative cash flow in the early stages of a startup, before their new product or service is bringing in revenue from real customers. Consider licensing your product or intellectual property, and “white labeling.”

Entrepreneur 105

Entrepreneur Startup Technical Review Equity 105

Startup Professionals Musings

JULY 14, 2014

The “valley of death” is a common term in the startup world, referring to the difficulty of covering the negative cash flow in the early stages of a startup, before their new product or service is bringing in revenue from real customers. Consider licensing your product or intellectual property, and “white labeling.”

Entrepreneur 113

Entrepreneur Funding Startup Technical Review 113

Startup Professionals Musings

JANUARY 12, 2018

The “valley of death” is a common term in the startup world, referring to the difficulty of covering the negative cash flow in the early stages of a startup, before their new product or service is bringing in revenue from real customers. Consider licensing your product or intellectual property, and “white labeling.”

Startup 53

Startup Technical Review Equity Incubator 53

Startup Professionals Musings

FEBRUARY 19, 2013

The “valley of death” is a common term in the startup world, referring to the difficulty of covering the negative cash flow in the early stages of a startup, before their new product or service is bringing in revenue from real customers. Consider licensing your product or intellectual property, and “white labeling.”

Startup 123

Startup Technical Review Equity Incubator 123

Both Sides of the Table

AUGUST 15, 2009

I keep my competitors as friends and those that didn’t choose me or my product as friends, too. I was working hand-in-hand with my close friend and associate Stuart Lander who was running our UK office and with one of our local sales reps. I later learned one of my biggest lesson in sales. Quite the opposite. I move on.

Startup 151

Startup Outsource Development Software Review Technical Review 151

InfoChachkie

DECEMBER 2, 2009

No one wakes up and says to themselves, “I need to buy that product I have never heard of before.” However, you are only paid for ads that generate sales. Instead of billboards, affiliates own websites, many of which contain meaningful content associated with the products they advertise. It does not happen.

Customer 164

Customer Custom Advertising SEM 164

Startup Professionals Musings

JANUARY 30, 2021

Most technical entrepreneurs focus hard on building an innovative product, but forget that an elegant solution doesn’t automatically translate into a successful business. Defining the right business model requires the same diligence as designing the right product, but the approach and skills required are different.

Product 159

Product Technical Review Pricing Software Review 159

Both Sides of the Table

OCTOBER 19, 2009

After my company was acquired by Salesforce.com I was asked to stop blogging and they took over my blog as an asset in the sale of the company. It included one firm who I asked not to call Salesforce.com as a reference (they were our largest pilot customer) and in their kindness they called Marc Benioff (the CEO) and asked his opinion.

Venture Capital 274

Venture Capital Blogging Startup Slides 274

Tech Zulu Event

JANUARY 19, 2012

“The object is to exploit the convergence of people, information, products, services and places with today’s smartphones and tablets, which drive online orders in addition to purchases from brick-and-mortar stores.”. Paul Breummer, Search Engine Land.

Mobile 85

Mobile Software Review Statistics Technical Review 85

Tech Zulu Event

OCTOBER 11, 2012

As we know, developers always give their product a code name. We are in the process of integrating into various point of sales and providing prefunded vouchers for the unbanked. We restrict money transfer to South Africa while we conclude our due diligence on international money transfer partners. Why the name?

Software Review 92

Software Review Social Network Platform Technical Review 92

Startup Professionals Musings

JUNE 5, 2012

As an example, a few years ago I worked for small software company selling an expensive enterprise workflow product. It was heavy on visual development capability but light on modeling and simulation, and we kept battling a competitor in the marketplace who had essentially the inverse strengths in a similar product.

Company 96

Company Companies Startup Examples 96

Startup Professionals Musings

MAY 4, 2011

As an example, a few years ago I worked for small software company selling an expensive enterprise workflow product. It was heavy on visual development capability but light on modeling and simulation, and we kept battling a competitor in the marketplace who had essentially the inverse strengths in a similar product.

Startup 90

Startup Examples Customer Custom 90

Both Sides of the Table

APRIL 2, 2010

Some wait 5-7 years but usually this is because it’s proving more difficult to raise a new fund due to market conditions or the lack of returns in their current fund. Understanding the fund vintage – “Vintage&# of a fund refers to when the fund was raised. So VCs often raise money every 3-5 years if they can.

Venture Capital 269

Venture Capital Funding Invest GRP Partners 269

Both Sides of the Table

AUGUST 14, 2009

Product : You should build a product or a prototype. I’m a software guy so I’m sure there are cases where building isn’t feasible. You cannot be just a biz dev type, salesperson, marketing genius or whatever and divorce yourself from product. Great companies are built by having great products.

Angel 291

Angel Funding Venture Capital Startup 291

Startup Professionals Musings

OCTOBER 9, 2023

Most technical entrepreneurs focus hard on building an innovative product, but forget that an elegant solution doesn’t automatically translate into a successful business. Defining the right business model requires the same diligence as designing the right product, but the approach and skills required are different.

Technical Review 88

Technical Review Pricing Software Review Customer 88

Startup Professionals Musings

FEBRUARY 7, 2015

Most technical entrepreneurs focus hard on building an innovative product, but forget that an elegant solution doesn’t automatically translate into a successful business. Defining the right business model requires the same diligence as designing the right product, but the approach and skills required are different.

Technical Review 108

Technical Review Pricing Startup Software Review 108

Both Sides of the Table

APRIL 27, 2010

They come in the form of personal references. But in these years I learned how to sell software – necessity is the mother of all invention. I learned how to better run a product management process. I learned how to integrate customers into our product development process. I never built Google. We were family.

Startup 285

Startup Venture Capital Sales Software Review 285

SoCal CTO

AUGUST 3, 2010

5 Lessons from 150 startup pitches - A Smart Bear: Startups and Marketing for Geeks , July 11, 2010 I just reviewed several hundred startup pitches for Capital Factory. Graphs - Chris Dixon , July 22, 2010 It has become customary to use “ graph &# to refer to the underlying data structures at social networks like Facebook.

Startup 217

Startup Venture Capital Blogging Software Review 217