Startup Professionals Musings

NOVEMBER 14, 2016

Every entrepreneur I know feels the pressure of the thousands of things that need to get done, all seemingly at the same time. I recommend that entrepreneurs test the market with a minimum viable product (MVP), before burning resources on the ultimate solution, only to find the market has changed. There is just not enough time!

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Startup Professionals Musings

DECEMBER 12, 2016

Why is it that only the most successful entrepreneurs , including Mark Zuckerberg, Bill Gates, and Richard Branson, admit to having a mentor and actually use them? Yet many entrepreneurs I know are too proud or too shy to even ask for advice. Marty Zwilling First published on Inc.com on 11/24/2016.

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Startup Professionals Musings

DECEMBER 23, 2016

Things change so fast these days in business that your first priority as an entrepreneur is to stay current, by talking to customers, peers, and experts. Smart entrepreneurs overtly plan every month to re-sync their vision and objectives with newly-learned market realities. Define and use market metrics to tune your plan.

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Startup Professionals Musings

APRIL 1, 2017

They randomly churn for hours a day on a couple of their favorite social media platforms, with little thought given to goals, objectives, or metrics; and ultimately give up and fall back to traditional marketing approaches. Create an action plan with metrics. You spend the months influencing the influencers.

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Startup Professionals Musings

JULY 22, 2016

In reality, that’s the definition of a successful startup these days, so every aspiring entrepreneur should take note, as well as every existing corporate executive. I like their seven step approach, which I have paraphrased here for entrepreneurs as follows: Pull together a great multi-functional team. A dream is not enough.

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Startup Professionals Musings

JULY 29, 2016

Too many entrepreneurs don’t know what to do at this point, largely accounting for that disappointing 50 percent of startups that fail in the first five years, according to Gallup. There is no magic lever for growth, so several initiatives are required, with metrics to assess value returned. Ask every employee to focus on sales.

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Startup Professionals Musings

JANUARY 30, 2016

It’s easy to declare yourself an entrepreneur, but it’s not so easy to convince investors, your team and customers that you are that special one to fund and follow. If you don’t consistently display the right entrepreneur mindset traits, people won’t follow and business success will likely elude you.

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Startup Professionals Musings

JANUARY 2, 2017

People who are good at solving problems for other people make great entrepreneurs. Entrepreneurs are often too passionate and impatient. The best entrepreneurs drive responsibility down to the relevant person, rather than trying to orchestrate all activities and tracking personally. That’s what a business gets paid to do.

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Startup Professionals Musings

MAY 9, 2016

Good entrepreneurs are all about managing change, but too many forget that they have to change themselves as their dream evolves from a startup to a scalable business. Many entrepreneurs gave grown to prefer the relative quiet and isolation of their garage, and their ability to set their own schedule.

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Startup Professionals Musings

DECEMBER 30, 2016

Entrepreneurs don’t realize that Facebook spent over $100 million, before revenues from advertising turned cash positive. You need metrics to show dominant penetration of the relevant customer demographic, added value over existing media, and real customer testimonials of value. Business founders need deep pockets for this model.

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Startup Professionals Musings

AUGUST 19, 2016

Unfortunately, many passionate entrepreneurs read this initial surge as success, and charge ahead with more of the same passion, leading to a series of potential pitfalls that can quickly jeopardize the health of the entire business. Marty Zwilling First published on Forbes on 08/13/2016. That’s a win-win combination for everyone.

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Startup Professionals Musings

MARCH 7, 2016

Investors have also learned not to invest in ideas but only in entrepreneurs and teams who can deliver solutions. Smart entrepreneurs architect a value chain that includes customers, partners and vendors, based on market dynamics. Set business goals and milestones, and use metrics to track performance.

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Startup Professionals Musings

DECEMBER 6, 2017

exabytes per month at the end of 2016, of which half was video. As an entrepreneur, what steps can you take to help your business not only survive the data hurricane, but to thrive under these new and challenging conditions? Data enable: use metrics and measurements. Accelerate: speed is life in this new world.

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Startup Professionals Musings

JUNE 15, 2016

Too many entrepreneurs still believe that “if we build it, they will come.” Every entrepreneur needs a strategy, and some metrics to measure what’s working and how much it costs. Every entrepreneur needs to market a brand with something to say, something that stands out and ignites everything the brand does.

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Startup Professionals Musings

JANUARY 25, 2016

The bar is being raised, so every entrepreneur needs new initiatives just to stay in the ballgame. Some entrepreneurs are so focused on their technology, they assume their customers think the same way. It must be written down, with measurable team objectives, validated by metrics and compared against competition.

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Startup Professionals Musings

MARCH 25, 2016

Many entrepreneurs assume that everyone will love their solution as much as they do, so they tune their marketing focus based on their own needs and wants. Marty Zwilling First published on Entrepreneur.com on 03/16/2016. That’s the right place to start, but real growth and scale requires attracting customers who are not like you.

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socalTECH

JANUARY 30, 2017

Jay Goss: I got involved around April of 2016, as the company was putting the final pieces together on the app. As a serial entrepreneur, what has been the biggest lesson you have learned from your experience with startups, that you are applying here? Our tagline, is where strangers become friends.

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Both Sides of the Table

MARCH 25, 2016

In our industry we applaud the efforts for entrepreneurs to have tried and we know that today’s failure can bring the experience for tomorrow’s success. The metrics were good but we wondered how much better they would be when we expanded our product. But that’s harder to build in 2016 than it was in say 2005.

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Startup Professionals Musings

SEPTEMBER 19, 2016

As an entrepreneur looking for an idea, it makes sense to explore problem areas within your knowledge comfort zone, but when you are building a business with the solution, you have to stretch your comfort zone to keep up with the market and stay ahead of competitors. Define and use metrics to measure your progress.

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