Startup Professionals Musings

JUNE 27, 2014

If your forte is a service, like consulting or web site design, it’s harder to find guidance on what will get you funded, and how you can scale your business. On the product side, once you have a proven product and business model, all you need is money to build inventory, and a sales and marketing operation to drive the business.

Services 105

Services Startup Training Writing 105

Startup Professionals Musings

FEBRUARY 20, 2022

Every entrepreneur assumes their product or service is so great that “word-of-mouth” will carry the day for them. If you want to connect with customers, put aside your writing formalities. Then write it down. Lacks a sales angle. Yet it is the one element that too many entrepreneurs focus on only as an afterthought.

Content 146

Content Newsletter Competition Writing 146

Both Sides of the Table

SEPTEMBER 10, 2021

I’m over-paying for every check I write into the VC ecosystem and valuations are being pushed up to absurd levels and many of these valuations and companies won’t hold in the long term. If you’re going to play in the big leagues you need to be writing checks from a $700 million?—?$1 Are we in a bubble?” By definition?—?I’m of the fund.

Venture Capital 471

Venture Capital Writing Invest Pricing 471

Startup Professionals Musings

AUGUST 17, 2016

If your forte is a service, like consulting or web site design, it’s harder to find guidance on what will get you funded, and how you can scale your business. On the product side, once you have a proven product and business model, all you need is money to build inventory, and a sales and marketing operation to drive the business.

Services 61

Services Startup Training Writing 61

Startup Professionals Musings

MAY 30, 2021

At first this was limited to news sites that concentrated on a segment of a community, like West Seattle, but the concept is now being applied to advertising and promotion sites, blogging sites, and even legal services sites. Watch out for local sales force requirements. It also shows how such a website can scale by adding new cities.

Startup 144

Startup Sites Content Sales 144

socalTECH

MARCH 1, 2016

Wrike said the new jobs in the location will be in sales and customer service. Write said it selected San Diego over several other cities, including Austin, Raleigh, and Phoenix, citing the city's "rich talent pool" and startup environment.

San Diego 100

San Diego Writing Software Sales 100

TechCrunch LA

JULY 19, 2022

The process for retailers and brands to liquidate excess inventory hasn’t changed very much, if at all, and while some retailers were able to build operational infrastructure to service the off-price channels, it continues to be a constant pain point. She went on to write, “Dee and Josh are the exact right team to tackle it.

Product 191

Product Funding Technical Review Equity 191

Startup Professionals Musings

FEBRUARY 19, 2021

An approach I suggest these days is for freelancers to contract for the actual role, probably part-time, of startup CFO, VP of Sales, or President. Small groups of consultants have now become groups of specialists – CFO Services, Marketing Services, or Management Services. All aspects of customer service apply.

Startup 150

Startup Slides Email Customer 150

Berkonomics

JUNE 29, 2017

If you have been following our recent insights, you’ll be up to speed knowing that professional investors negotiate tough terms, from provisions of control over asset acquisition, eventual sale of the company, future investments, forced co-sale when others attempt to sell their shares and more.

Invest 243

Invest Entrepreneur Sales Startup 243

Berkonomics

MAY 8, 2014

I am chairman of a company that, as I write this, is twelve years old and has not yet taken a dollar of outside investment. Grant writing takes skill and immense amounts of time. The company has been funded entirely by grants from the National Institute of Health, amounting to millions of non-dilutive dollars in all.

Company 166

Company Companies Writing Education 166

Berkonomics

OCTOBER 20, 2016

A Channel partner is a person or a company with a complementary service, who is knocking on the same doors as you, and who is connected. With a little bit of structure and ingenuity, you can supplement your sales efforts by leveraging channel partnerships. Compensation doesn’t have to be complicated, either. My response was: FANTASTIC!

Writing 120

Writing Sales Networking Conference 120

Startup Professionals Musings

MAY 19, 2019

Everyone assumes their product or service is so great that “word-of-mouth” will carry the day for them. If you want to connect with customers, put aside your writing formalities. Then write it down. Lacks a sales angle. Great content shouldn’t have any obvious marketing messages or sales pitches embedded inside of it.

Customer 93

Customer Custom Marketing Tips 93

Berkonomics

FEBRUARY 25, 2016

Looking for an entrance into a VC, an angel group, a bank, a CxO for a sales opportunity, or any other entity? Every sales person with a bit of street history will resonate with this question. So, after all, do consider the gate keeper as a potential partner whose “commission” on the sale is social and political approval from above.

Ideas 120

Ideas Sales Competition Venture Capital 120

Both Sides of the Table

SEPTEMBER 13, 2011

So I know I’m getting myself into a bit of trouble by writing this. They will often run all of the daily reports into them covering off for finance, sales, marketing, biz dev & HR. Similarly I talk to CEOs who can’t do a sales pipeline review with me. I think usually a COO title at a startup is an ego thing.

Startup 325

Startup Technical Review Sales Report 325

Both Sides of the Table

FEBRUARY 17, 2019

I don’t feel like canceling LinkedIn just because occasionally a well-meaning but slightly not-clued-in person from a faraway place wants me to be their personal mentor, answer 3-questions for their high-school entrepreneurship project or take a sales pitch for their recruiting services. In Adam’s world, I’m rude.

Email 250

Email Writing Conference Mobile 250

SoCal Tech Calendar

FEBRUARY 10, 2012

ebsites are becoming more interactive and mobile applications are impacting brand awareness and sales. Should you pay someone to write the code for you or should you use an app-generating and hosting alternative? Should you pay someone to write the code for you or should you use an app-generating and hosting alternative?

Social Media 100

Social Media Mobile Media Technology 100

Startup Professionals Musings

AUGUST 14, 2023

In the name of this cause, the company donates time, services, and at least one percent of their sales to hundreds of grassroots environmental groups around the world. Write it down, make it specific, expressive, yet succinct and jargon-free. Purpose must not be perceived as just a gimmick.

Framework 95

Framework Customer Custom Tips 95

Startup Professionals Musings

NOVEMBER 28, 2022

Hiring requirements must be anticipated and implemented with the same precision and tracking as manufacturing volumes, sales leads, and customer service. I recommend a thirty to ninety-day trial period, defined in writing, where either party can terminate the relationship without recourse.

Organization 104

Organization Satisfaction Entrepreneur Screening 104

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

Berkonomics

JUNE 11, 2015

I was fortunate that I could write software and doubly fortunate that my despair at working for ‘the Man’ – and feeling compelled to strike out on my own – coincided with the dawn of the personal computer era. And I would learn customer service. I became an entrepreneur by default.

Customer 120

Customer Custom Writing Southern California 120

Both Sides of the Table

OCTOBER 17, 2019

We not only have our Series A funds that can write $500k?—?$15 If you invest early and then pull back in the next 3 rounds your multiples on cash invested are much higher than if you keep writing checks. As I tell our LPs, “if I’m not making you slightly uncomfortable when I’m writing my first check I’m not doing my job.

Venture Capital 223

Venture Capital IP Startup Google 223

Startup Professionals Musings

NOVEMBER 21, 2020

In the name of this cause, the company donates time, services, and at least one percent of their sales to hundreds of grassroots environmental groups around the world. Write it down, make it specific, expressive, yet succinct and jargon-free. Purpose must not be perceived as just a gimmick.

Tips 174

Tips Framework Customer Custom 174

Startup Professionals Musings

JUNE 4, 2021

With PPC, the goal is for the search user to not only see your ad, but to click on it to get to your website (click-through), and buy your widget (conversion to sale). Campaign setup and ad copy writing. Both have the same end goal of getting people to your website. Popular keywords have higher costs.

PPC 154

PPC SEO Paid Search Search Engine Optimization 154

Startup Professionals Musings

FEBRUARY 5, 2020

Each of these can go astray as follows: Your product or service hits unexpected snags. Funding is depleted before customer sales ramp up. Keep control by writing every check personally, and manage receivable and payables tightly. Marketing and sales take more time and effort than anticipated.

Startup 131

Startup Entrepreneur Examples Customer 131

socalTECH

JANUARY 18, 2011

What that did, is it helped us to expand the service to help publishers do the following: identify what content to write, how to distribute that content to various mediums, and how to monetize that content. Right now, news organizations write off the news cycle. In the process of doing that, we discovered some things.

Marketing 232

Marketing Funding Content Writing 232

Startup Professionals Musings

MARCH 4, 2020

Hiring requirements must be anticipated and implemented with the same precision and tracking as manufacturing volumes, sales leads, and customer service. I recommend a thirty to ninety-day trial period, defined in writing, where either party can terminate the relationship without recourse.

Organization 135

Organization Satisfaction Entrepreneur Screening 135

Both Sides of the Table

MARCH 8, 2010

I guess let’s file this under sales & marketing advice. If you’re a financial services firm blog about personal finance. Don’t just write a carbon copy of what somebody else is doing. OK, well, actually the first thing I did is come up with a list of 50 posts that I wanted to write. Be authentic.

Blogging 286

Blogging Startup Writing Summary 286

Both Sides of the Table

MAY 6, 2018

Let’s say you have built a SaaS company where a large part of the early revenue comes from a few big customers or a large part of the revenue is services based vs. software based. How to get your Series A mojo back The rest of the outline I’ll write as a series to come back to this blog if you want to read more. …

Funding 236

Funding Venture Capital Startup Entrepreneur 236

Both Sides of the Table

JULY 1, 2010

You’ll get sales information from your VP of Sales, marketing information from your VP Marketing, tech information from your CTO and so on. An obvious example would be in sales. By going on sales calls you pick up directly the feedback of what customers want and also what they’re telling you about competition.

Startup 308

Startup CTO Coach Technical Review CTO Hire 308

Startup Professionals Musings

MAY 14, 2017

Everyone assumes their product or service is so great that “word-of-mouth” will carry the day for them. If you want to connect with customers, put aside your writing formalities. Then write it down. Lacks a sales angle. Great content shouldn’t have any obvious marketing messages or sales pitches embedded inside of it.

Content 67

Content Marketing Newsletter Writing 67

Both Sides of the Table

JUNE 22, 2018

I fought with landlords (when the real estate market crashed), venture debt providers (who wouldn’t take a hair cut when everybody else had to), the board (over compensation), our competitors (over everything) and any service provider who didn’t live up to our perceived contract (recruiters, accountants, sales lead companies, web hosting companies).

Startup 199

Startup Writing Demand Equity 199

Startup Professionals Musings

JANUARY 26, 2014

Everyone assumes their product or service is so great that “word-of-mouth” will carry the day for them. If you want to connect with customers, put aside your writing formalities. Then write it down. Lacks a sales angle. Great content shouldn’t have any obvious marketing messages or sales pitches embedded inside of it.

Startup 103

Startup Content Newsletter Writing 103

Both Sides of the Table

MARCH 2, 2011

I’m sitting at my computer now at 9.00pm writing this – which is an hour earlier than I normally write (there are about 8 women at my kitchen table having a book club (aka excuse to drink wine & gossip so I’m locked in another room writing. We know that many angels love the service. I enjoy that.

Email 287

Email Blogging Venture Capital Writing 287

socalTECH

NOVEMBER 7, 2011

The other thing that struck me, is because it is only men, they tend to write with lots of testosterone. Their writing style, even for a mainstream publication, is they write with lots of testosterone. They write about the transmission, the brakes, and the suspension, and that creeps into all of their evaluations of cars.

Truecar 204

Truecar Writing Edmunds Sites 204

Both Sides of the Table

SEPTEMBER 28, 2011

You’re writing a freaking blog post! But it’s mostly customer service. I never get grumpy that people write. If you do randomly write me I have advice. But what kind of business person would I be if I allocated 100% of my time to customer service and zero to marketing? “But WAIT !!!

Email 314

Email Product Startup Writing 314

Startup Professionals Musings

APRIL 12, 2019

Even in your early days, before you break even and have to pay taxes on profits, various governmental organizations will be after you for payroll taxes, sales taxes, unemployment, and a host of fees, licenses, and permits. Unanticipated pivots, quality write-offs, and shrinkage. Staffing and people-management costs.

Startup 105

Startup Software Review Technical Review Social Media 105

Both Sides of the Table

JANUARY 14, 2014

All the data actually suggests with the growth of mobile, inbound sales calls will double from 30 billion to 60 billion in 3 years (source: Kelsey). The three largest webmail services had over 1 billion global users at the end of 2011. In the US alone there are 30 billion inbound sales calls every year. There are 2.9

Email 339

Email SaaS Venture Capital Google 339