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. I had seen many cycles and decided that since I was going to do it all over again I should write about it. I decided to write about my experience and to be blunt. And covered we did.

Venture Capital 274

Venture Capital Blogging Startup Slides 274

Both Sides of the Table

APRIL 10, 2014

If you’re an early investor like I am that often means writing the first $2-3 million check into a business that previously had either survived on fumes or on a $500,000 angel round. The best ones bring in more executive leadership so you can appropriate allocate resources across sales, marketing, product, engineering and support.

Startup 381

Startup Resource Venture Capital Activity 381

Both Sides of the Table

MARCH 8, 2010

I guess let’s file this under sales & marketing advice. I started with the hosted version and then migrated to an installed version so I could use Google Analytics and some other products. Don’t just write a carbon copy of what somebody else is doing. Since there are 10-12 slides this gave me my first few weeks.

Blogging 286

Blogging Startup Writing Summary 286

Startup Professionals Musings

DECEMBER 8, 2017

Let me be quick to say that a plan doesn’t have be a book, and probably should start as a “pitch deck” of maybe a dozen slides which cover all the right bases. Providing your product or service free to customers may sound attractive in marketing materials, but you need revenue sources to survive. The details can be added later.

Startup 65

Startup Writing Patents Competition 65

Both Sides of the Table

NOVEMBER 3, 2010

The path I went down after a few years was to hire more process driven people and devolved more daily operational ownership to people running individual functions such as product management, sales management, finance, etc. One of the most obvious places where you see this is in sales & marketing. Ditto the CFO.

Sales 296

Sales Pricing Startup Customer 296

Both Sides of the Table

DECEMBER 16, 2009

They spot opportunities that aren’t being met and the design products to meet these needs. Because they’re street smart, most great entrepreneurs tend to prefer getting out and talking with real customers rather than sitting in a cubicle all day doing beautiful PowerPoint slides. Hold the phone far away from your ears.

Entrepreneur 306

Entrepreneur Startup Outsource Development Customer 306

Both Sides of the Table

FEBRUARY 12, 2010

We then walked through our sales pipeline and discussed major campaigns. We then talked about our product roadmap. You put some update slides on things like key hires or biz dev deals being negotiated and you didn’t plan to talk about them. You’re goal is to have all of the board members be super productive.

Startup 331

Startup Slides Guide Writing 331

Startup Professionals Musings

AUGUST 1, 2013

Of course, you can’t predict everything, but writing down what you know will identify existing problems sooner, and allow other team members to help. Seasonal sales fluctuations eat cash. Fluctuating sales means more inventory is required to cover the ups and downs. They pay just the smallest bills and let the rest slide.

Startup 114

Startup Sales Layoffs Slides 114

Startup Professionals Musings

JANUARY 17, 2016

Of course, you can’t predict everything, but writing down what you know will identify existing problems sooner, and allow other team members to help. Seasonal sales fluctuations eat cash. Fluctuating sales means more inventory is required to cover the ups and downs. They pay just the smallest bills and let the rest slide.

Startup 64

Startup Sales Layoffs Slides 64

SoCal CTO

MARCH 12, 2012

I promised I would write this post with some thoughts and ideas on the topic. A great post by Elizabeth Knopf , FounderDating: How I Found My Co-Founder where she breaks down the process much like how you think about a sales process. I'm focusing on the sourcing ("lead gen" on her slide) aspect.

CTO Hire 211

CTO Hire CTO Coach Startup Equity 211

Both Sides of the Table

JULY 25, 2010

I’ve been meaning to write about this for a while and was going to use AngelList by Nivi & Naval as the basis for my example and the perfect prompt came yesterday when I read Fred Wilson’s blog post on AngelList. Obviously I’m assuming that you have a great product and/or strategy.

Guide 293

Guide Funding Venture Capital Technical Review 293

Startup Professionals Musings

JUNE 26, 2020

For the rest of us, we need a business plan, as well as a product plan. Some of you may be convinced that your product specification communicates the product message even better than a business plan, so why be redundant? Professional investors and even customers invest in people, rather than just a product.

Product 169

Product Summary Startup Examples 169

Both Sides of the Table

JULY 24, 2016

If you have board members you respect you owe it to yourself to run more productive sessions where board members contribute. If you provide these slides in advance you give board members a chance to reflect and come prepared for a real discussion. It shouldn’t be the place where they ask why you have 8 sales reps and not 6.

Guide 196

Guide Startup Metrics Conference 196

Both Sides of the Table

JULY 23, 2013

This started as a post in which I was going to write out tips to personal branding and became in stead an essay of my own branding journey. Send me in a corner to work on slides, graphs, spreadsheets and charts. I told her I wasn’t yet convinced that she’d make a good: product manager, designer, sales person, leader, CEO.

Technical Advisors 385

Technical Advisors Marketing Startup Venture Capital 385

Both Sides of the Table

FEBRUARY 27, 2019

If you buy into the argument that a strong board can actually help you then this post will lay out how to help you have more productive meetings by preparing properly in advance. The deck itself was produced by a committee of functional team lead who were asked to do 5–7 slides each for an update. There are too many pages.

Startup 226

Startup Slides Metrics News 226

Both Sides of the Table

MAY 22, 2019

We had met previously when Trevor was a product manager at YouTube and Upfront had funded the largest video producer on YouTube, Maker Studios. They had worked together as senior product manager and senior engineering leads at Twitter and identified a problem they saw in visual communication of information.

Startup 191

Startup Social Media Slides Design 191

Both Sides of the Table

JANUARY 17, 2011

So I thought I’d write a post about how I drive my personal creativity. (A The need for creativity extends well beyond product design. The key is channeling what you learn when you drive onto paper for retention purposes so you have to write it down soon afterward. Many people are visual thinkers.

Writing 356

Writing Startup Ideas Summary 356

Both Sides of the Table

JANUARY 19, 2010

I’m writing this post as part of my series with Advice on Raising Venture Capital but will file it under Sales Tips as well since it applies equally to both scenarios. Every 1:1 meeting you’ve had to date has been collegiate and productive. This is true whether your at a sales meeting or at a VC firm.

Venture Capital 318

Venture Capital Startup Sales Writing 318

Both Sides of the Table

FEBRUARY 24, 2019

I have been writing a series on how startup boards get selected, who sits on them and what to avoid. If I see tons of “update slides” and know that we don’t have an important board decision I might just bite my tongue. I promise you that electronics are the single biggest drag on board productivity. The thing is?—?no

Startup 251

Startup Help Technical Review Writing 251

Both Sides of the Table

JUNE 12, 2010

We both felt that the critical reasoning skills and writing skills were critical to our career development. Private, flash sales site focused on apparel goods (women, men and children). Metrics: 2.5mm members, 1,000 brands, 2,500 sale events to-date. Metrics: 2.5mm members, 1,000 brands, 2,500 sale events to-date.

Venture Capital 217

Venture Capital Capital Metrics Competition 217

SoCal CTO

JANUARY 5, 2011

Some really great stuff in 2010 that aims to help startups around product, technology, business models, etc.

Startup 378

Startup Venture Capital Blogging CTO Coach 378

Both Sides of the Table

AUGUST 30, 2010

It eventually closed at 11,204 in April ’10 before sliding back around 10,000 as I sit here and type. VCs have also gone back to writing checks because as an industry we can’t be seen as “sitting on the sidelines” for years at a time. The housing market is not recovered : Sales in existing homes in the US fell 27.2% We took $2.3

Entrepreneur 298

Entrepreneur Venture Capital Technical Review Startup 298