Startup Professionals Musings

SEPTEMBER 13, 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.”

Startup 136

Startup Technical Review Equity Incubator 136

Startup Professionals Musings

OCTOBER 19, 2013

This term refers to the penchant to add just one more feature to the product or service before first delivery, just because you can. The result is a bloated first product which finally collapses under its own weight, or is too late and too expensive for the intended customer. Define milestones for cost review and sign-off.

Technical Review 110

Technical Review Startup Software Review High Tech 110

SoCal CTO

APRIL 9, 2013

I just got an email asking about exactly this: I''m with a new company that needs some software built, but doesn''t need (or have the resources for) a large staff of software developers. And you will want to make sure you see what the particular designers have done, samples of their work product, their process, etc. References.

Web Development 204

Web Development Web Develop Development 204

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

Both Sides of the Table

JUNE 17, 2013

In my first enterprise software company we developed a methodology for sales that we called PUCCKA. It’s a reminder that unless your prospect has a need to solve a problem they are not going to buy a product. These references make for great discussions with customers. This article initially appeared on Inc. Click here.

Sales 367

Sales Slides Startup Customer 367

Startup Professionals Musings

MARCH 16, 2016

This term refers to an initial venture-capital investment, often wrongly sought to seed early product development. These terms refer to a class of professional investors who invest their own money, like angels, but have the larger resources and scope of venture capitalists with other people’s money. Seed-round investment.

Startup 57

Startup Software Review Equity Invest 57

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 to market our products and company. Defections of large swaths of talented employees due to low morale.

Startup 325

Startup Sales Technical Review Software Review 325

Startup Professionals Musings

JULY 6, 2011

This term refers to the penchant to add just one more feature to the product or service before first delivery, just because you can. The result is a bloated first product which finally collapses under its own weight, or is too late and too expensive for the intended customer. Define milestones for cost review and sign-off.

Technical Review 96

Technical Review Startup Software Review High Tech 96

Startup Professionals Musings

SEPTEMBER 14, 2012

This term refers to the penchant to add just one more feature to the product or service before first delivery, just because you can. The result is a bloated first product which finally collapses under its own weight, or is too late and too expensive for the intended customer. Define milestones for cost review and sign-off.

Technical Review 75

Technical Review Startup Software Review High Tech 75

InfoChachkie

NOVEMBER 23, 2015

Tech Diligence - Consider The Source. Rather, we value entrepreneurs' time and thus our diligence generally includes introducing them to potential customers and partners. Our approach is often additive to all parties, resulting in ongoing, productive relationships. Subject: Reference for Twilio. Forwarded message -.

Venture Capital 100

Venture Capital Technical Review Software Review Southern California 100

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

InfoChachkie

JUNE 20, 2011

Due to their lack of practical experience, this delegation/efficiency tradeoff is especially acute with respect to hiring Interns. In several cases, we eventually productized summer Intern projects, including a mobile version of GoToMyPC which we called PocketView. I discuss specific tactics to facilitate such delegation HERE.

Startup 244

Startup Software Review Technical Review Class 244

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

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. We had every reference client we worked with call their senior team members (we had already won a major project at Scottish Water, Anglian Water and another at a large water company in Paris, France). Quite the opposite. I move on.

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. We had every reference client we worked with call their senior team members (we had already won a major project at Scottish Water, Anglian Water and another at a large water company in Paris, France). Quite the opposite. I move on.

Outsource Development 328

Outsource Development Software Review Technical Review News 328

Tech Zulu Event

FEBRUARY 1, 2013

In this talk I will review how developers can easily change their applications to be more functional in a mobile, touch first world and provide an engaging user experience. He’ll also shed some light on how your server side code (and mindset) needs to change to better support clients written in dynamic/prototypical languages.

Training 65

Training Technical Review Technology Software Review 65

Tech.Co

JULY 24, 2017

Companies such as Microsoft, Facebook and Google have all established employee referral programs that give employees monetary rewards for referring friends who get hired. If you hired an outstanding front-end software engineer, chances are they are friends with other outstanding software developers.

Networking 83

Networking Startup Software Review Conference 83

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

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

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

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

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

Startup Professionals Musings

JUNE 1, 2010

Feature creep” (or scope creep) refers to the penchant to add just one more feature to the product before first delivery. The result is a bloated first product which finally collapses under its own weight, or is too late and too expensive for the intended customer. Define milestones for cost review and sign-off.

Technical Review 51

Technical Review Software Review High Tech Writing 51

Tech Zulu Event

OCTOBER 11, 2012

As we know, developers always give their product a code name. We restrict money transfer to South Africa while we conclude our due diligence on international money transfer partners. We don’t offer banking services, but we do refer our users to banks that work with us. Why the name? The name just stuck!

Software Review 92

Software Review Social Network Platform Technical Review 92

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. We had every reference client we worked with call their senior team members (we had already won a major project at Scottish Water, Anglian Water and another at a large water company in Paris, France). Quite the opposite. I move on.

Startup 151

Startup Outsource Development Software Review Technical Review 151

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

InfoChachkie

DECEMBER 2, 2009

No one wakes up and says to themselves, “I need to buy that product I have never heard of before.” Instead of billboards, affiliates own websites, many of which contain meaningful content associated with the products they advertise. Note: be sure to always disclose your association with any products included in such lists.

Customer 164

Customer Custom Advertising SEM 164

Both Sides of the Table

OCTOBER 19, 2009

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. There was no viral social networking products back then like Twitter where people could easily discover your content. I wasn’t feeling it.

Venture Capital 274

Venture Capital Blogging Startup Slides 274

InfoChachkie

APRIL 28, 2011

Perhaps in part due to its dominant market share, WebEx adopted telecom-style pricing, which effectively penalized their users. Although such service businesses can be highly profitably from the start, they are difficult to scale, hence they are often referred to by the derisive term “body shop.” Graph The Effect.

Entrepreneur 225

Entrepreneur SaaS Pricing Cloud Computing 225

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

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

InfoChachkie

JUNE 25, 2009

Yet, despite his exceptional courtroom theatrics, you would be foolhardy to hire good old Johnnie to review your software cross-licensing agreement. The reference may be well-intentioned, but the lawyer’s allegiance may be divided between the investor and you. They make mistakes. Sometimes You Do Get What You Pay For.

Technical Advisors 124

Technical Advisors Technical Review IP Patents 124

Tech Zulu Event

FEBRUARY 4, 2015

Today, that oh-my-god moment refers to a mobile app. 83% of respondents said that the common use for mobile apps was to communicate with customers, 79% use it as a provision for customer service support, 74% for product information, 69% for facilitations of transactions like payments, and 67% for brand management.

Mobile 40

Mobile Social Media Google Software Review 40

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