Tech Zulu Event

MARCH 22, 2016

Less than a month ago, Snapchat opened custom on-demand geofilters to everyone. Industry news was excited, but for how amazing of a product they are, custom Snapchat geofilters have remained stunningly under the radar. So what’s exciting about this new product? This product is literally too good to pass up.

Customer 40

Customer Custom Snapchat Design 40

Both Sides of the Table

JANUARY 22, 2014

Of course it is super helpful if a VC can drop you in to important people for business development, recruiting, PR, sales and eventually M&A. Simply put – I’d be in search of a VC who had an intuitive sense of my product, my customers, my organizational issues, my competitors, etc. Connections? EQ and Team Leadership?

Venture Capital 364

Venture Capital Coach Writing SaaS 364

Startup Professionals Musings

APRIL 15, 2017

You might sell one of two of your widgets for $1 million each, entering profitability immediately, but then die because you can’t grow sales at that price. Design a product or service that you can sell. But some of you will surely say “What about Facebook and Snapchat, who focused on growth first and are clearly successful?”

Snapchat 55

Snapchat Startup Course Yahoo 55

socalTECH

MARCH 10, 2017

Robert Blatt: The first stage, in 2013, was really nailing product-market-fit. Not just what the product needed to look like, but how to sell it, and to make sure that the people we sold it to were really successful using it, and stayed with us. What's the biggest thing that the company has done since you came on?

Google 127

Google Paid Search Mobile Activity 127

socalTECH

MAY 7, 2018

They've really made us the cool kid on the block, which has enabled us to recruit a great team, including a great director of marketing, an amazing product and engineering team, and talent from industry, sales, and operations. The trucking industry, as you mention, isn't great about technology. We also ended up wearing multiple hats.

Startup 173

Startup Pricing Marketing Entrepreneur 173

Both Sides of the Table

JUNE 22, 2015

No carrier in their right mind wanted to cede control of the software but Apple was willing to offer its products exclusive through one carrier in exchange for not having any carrier software on the device. So often exclusivity on mega deals is of huge importance to your potential customers or business development partners.

Outsource Development 150

Outsource Development Startup Customer Custom 150

Both Sides of the Table

JULY 16, 2013

” Case in point: Facebook, Twitter, Tumblr, SnapChat. Delaying going out of business gives you way more chances at product / market fit than any other strategy I know of. The minute you try to monetize now they have metrics with which to beat you up and say you’re business has limitations.” Again, all true.

Venture Capital 412

Venture Capital Startup Funding Snapchat 412

Both Sides of the Table

JULY 26, 2015

While all of this is going on you are trying to get customers to use your product, enterprises to sign contracts that don’t leave you with unlimited liabilities and landlords to take you in with limited deposits or guarantees. What are the chances that SnapChat or WhatsApp would emerge without getting crushed like a bug?

Startup 150

Startup Google Software Review Snapchat 150

Both Sides of the Table

JULY 6, 2015

Many people are too cautious in sales processes and as a result when they present their solutions they end up sounding milquetoast and undifferentiated from anybody else in the market. I recently wrote about the three rules of sales. In sales we often call these USPs (I wrote about them here: Unique Selling Propositions ).

Sales 150

Sales SaaS Startup Venture Capital 150

Tech Zulu Event

DECEMBER 13, 2013

I have three sales guys, who are on commission only. If I had any advice to give to entrepreneurs it would be, build a minimum viable product that’s not a utility unless it’s a utility people will pay for on day one. Build a minimum viable product and test it out in the market. What about the good times?

Technical Review 87

Technical Review Mobile Startup Los Angeles 87

Tech Zulu Event

FEBRUARY 3, 2016

Whether you’re starting out on the floor like I did selling a physical product or the CEO of an agency selling the talented employees, you need to know how to make a sale. He got it with his product: Facebook. And he saw it with Snapchat too, but that deal didn’t pan out. A chip on your shoulder. Yes, I’m serious.

Entrepreneur 40

Entrepreneur Startup Snapchat Product 40

Both Sides of the Table

JANUARY 5, 2016

When we were acquired by Disney we had a product & engineering team of 55 people. We helped talent with O&O (owned & operated websites) and with ad sales. Each distribution channel you sell products in has its own unique customer base but your goal is to build a relationship with those end customers.

Content 150

Content Snapchat Platform SEO 150

Tech Zulu Event

DECEMBER 5, 2013

Luckily, he was able to talk to Steve Jobs, who offered to sell their product at an event. You get to learn everything from marketing to sales to accounting to business development to being able to make pretty websites and graphics. I am not surprised that Snapchat is LA based. It was a success and the group made payroll.

Startup 107

Startup Los Angeles USC Southern California 107

Both Sides of the Table

DECEMBER 12, 2016

(Part I, Team) Tact was founded by Chuck Ganapathi , who was formerly the SVP of Products at Salesforce.com having led initiatives like their chat product, CRM and mobile. For six years before that he was at Siebel who was the market leader in CRM before Salesforce, and he has both a masters in product design from Stanford and an MBA.

Software 105

Software Mobile Artificial Inteligence Oracle 105