Startup Professionals Musings

JUNE 22, 2016

That should make you wonder - how do you measure traction in a metric? While thinking about the parameters of traction, and how to measure it, I was impressed with a new book, “ Scaling Lean: Mastering the Key Metrics for Startup Growth ” by Ash Maurya, a serial entrepreneur, and creator of the one-page business modelling tool Lean Canvas.

Metrics 57

Metrics Funding Startup Customer 57

Startup Professionals Musings

SEPTEMBER 11, 2021

Obviously this definition is generic, so my first recommendation is that you take the lead in defining traction metrics for your startup, and then selling your results convincingly to investors. As an investor, I would like to see one month of sales, and see how that compares to your projections. Customer acquisition cost.

Startup 121

Startup Metrics Customer Custom 121

Startup Professionals Musings

JULY 25, 2020

It starts with a vision, but benefits quickly from a structured process of idea generation, evaluation, prototyping, customer feedback, and success metrics. From time to time, include customers and sales members in ideation sessions. Once a new product is launched, a key metric is the ratio of new product sales to overall sales.

Coach 144

Coach Metrics Social Network Competition 144

Startup Professionals Musings

AUGUST 21, 2021

Switch your focus from product development to sales. Explosive growth to an enterprise normally requires a scalable sales model, a well-documented process with incentives, training, and metrics for tracking and management. Isolate marketing from sales for maximum customer focus.

Startup 151

Startup Course Sales Entrepreneur 151

Startup Professionals Musings

OCTOBER 18, 2023

New startup founders keep all the operating metrics they need in their head. The best sale or acquisition is a gradual one, where the acquirer gets to know you through formal and informal relationships. At minimum, you need to get an exit advisor to keep you on course. Set your startup health gauges and use them.

Startup 99

Startup Entrepreneur Metrics Acquisition 99

Startup Professionals Musings

JANUARY 9, 2021

New startup founders keep all the operating metrics they need in their head. The best sale or acquisition is a gradual one, where the acquirer gets to know you through formal and informal relationships. At minimum, you need to get an exit advisor to keep you on course. Set your startup health gauges and use them.

Startup 173

Startup Entrepreneur Metrics Acquisition 173

Both Sides of the Table

JULY 17, 2018

." Revenue doesn't pay your bills, GM does  —  @msuster 2/ Founders obsess with revenue as a vanity metric. Payback periods on customer acquisition way more important to you in the near-term. Some even grow "bad" revenue just to show growth. Ultimately it matters a great deal.

Software Review 242

Software Review Technical Review Pricing Metrics 242

Startup Professionals Musings

OCTOBER 13, 2021

Yahoo has been an example of a company which expanded in all directions through 53 acquisitions, to the point where most customers were confused, and it was overtaken by Google as your main search engine. Obsessive sales – must meet revenue goals. Hypermetricemia – metrics for everything.

Metrics 133

Metrics Product Yahoo Examples 133

Startup Professionals Musings

DECEMBER 13, 2019

It’s always tempting to think that more product variations will satisfy more customers and lead to new sales. Some chaos is normal in every new business, but many wait far too long before they install metrics based on “best practices,” and fail to attack obvious bottlenecks with a vengeance. Use multiple small orders at first.

Outsource Development 122

Outsource Development Outsource Metrics Technical Review 122

Startup Professionals Musings

JANUARY 6, 2021

Your focus for momentum could be sales, profitability, or number of customers, but trying to keep all possible parameters growing is simply not practical. It’s important to define your growth strategy, document it, communicate it to your team, and align metrics and employee rewards to target goals.

Technical Review 160

Technical Review Technical Advisors Startup Mentor 160

Startup Professionals Musings

DECEMBER 22, 2021

Happy customers quickly become your biggest advocates, today reaching far beyond friends and family, and they make traditional marketing efforts pale in comparison for growth, loyalty, and new customer acquisition costs. Use metrics to assess needs and growth economics.

Customer 114

Customer Custom Satisfaction Metrics 114

Startup Professionals Musings

OCTOBER 17, 2018

Unfortunately, your personal assessment that you have traction probably won’t be convincing to potential investors and partners, so it’s important that you create and track your progress against some metrics. Define metrics on customer feedback and user counts. Count connections with experts, media, and influencers.

Tips 79

Tips Metrics Technical Review Customer 79

Startup Professionals Musings

APRIL 28, 2021

No matter how passionately you believe that everyone needs one, and positive feedback from friends and early adopters (false positives), before you invest in scaling the business, make sure you set and meet good metrics in cost of customer acquisition, recurring sales, and margin. Needed help can be your biggest burden.

Technical Review 131

Technical Review Case Study Mentor Software Review 131

Both Sides of the Table

JUNE 12, 2010

Company grew by more than “400% each year” for past few years [assume growth metric = revenues]. 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

Startup Professionals Musings

MAY 1, 2019

With the real data from that surge, you need to take a hard look at business model realities, cost of customer acquisition, inventory costs, and other key metrics. Document processes and metrics for economies of scale. Key metrics for scaling, such as customer loyalty, are very important after initial rollout.

Metrics 86

Metrics Startup Training Customer 86

Startup Professionals Musings

AUGUST 18, 2018

It starts with a vision, but benefits quickly from a structured process of idea generation, evaluation, prototyping, customer feedback, and success metrics. From time to time, include customers and sales members in ideation sessions. Once a new product is launched, a key metric is the ratio of new product sales to overall sales.

Entrepreneur 64

Entrepreneur Coach Metrics Competition 64

Startup Professionals Musings

MARCH 3, 2021

To keep you on a positive track with potential investors, I recommend the following logic principles, to balance your passion in presenting your vision of a new business: Make sure your plan includes some business metrics. For example, if you have ever watched the Shark Tank show on TV, they always ask about the cost of customer acquisition.

Entrepreneur 162

Entrepreneur Social Media Examples Metrics 162

InfoChachkie

SEPTEMBER 29, 2014

Sometimes we measure things and see that in the short term they actually hurt sales. But we do it anyway, because we believe that the short-term metrics probably aren''t indicative of the long term.”. If you haven''t already subscribed yet, subscribe now for free weekly JohnGreathouse.com articles!

Tips 223

Tips Framework Metrics Cloud Computing 223

Startup Professionals Musings

AUGUST 13, 2022

billion dollar sale to Oracle from Bozeman, Montana. But it is an important metric for firms in pursuit of explosive growth. Wessel measures a 39% acquisition advantage to being in-state. Raising capital isn’t the be-all and end-all of startup success. It decreases your odds of being bought.

Technical Review 123

Technical Review Oracle Software Review Ideas 123

Startup Professionals Musings

AUGUST 14, 2016

It starts with a vision, but benefits quickly from a structured process of idea generation, evaluation, prototyping, customer feedback, and success metrics. From time to time, include customers and sales members in ideation sessions. Once a new product is launched, a key metric is the ratio of new product sales to overall sales.

Coach 64

Coach Metrics Competition Ideas 64

Jason Nazar

MAY 1, 2016

I’ve been a part of dozens (maybe hundreds) of product launches And in each of these cases I ask my team to put together a simple dashboard of a small set of metrics for our paid and free products that let me know the success of our efforts. For startup entrepreneurs, you can also track these metrics with Google analytics.

Marketing 40

Marketing CPC Metrics .Net 40

Both Sides of the Table

FEBRUARY 27, 2019

Often board members themselves don’t do the work to say “what metrics would we like to see.” Any great board member should tell you, “please don’t create any performance metrics or materials that analyze the business that you’re not already creating for your own management’s use.” Sometimes they don’t even know.

Startup 226

Startup Slides Metrics News 226

Startup Professionals Musings

AUGUST 12, 2015

It starts with a vision, but benefits quickly from a structured process of idea generation, evaluation, prototyping, customer feedback, and success metrics. They benchmark their ideas against competition, use metrics to track acceptance, sales growth, and return on investment. Set milestones and meet them. Ownership.

Entrepreneur 101

Entrepreneur Startup Coach Metrics 101

Jason Nazar

NOVEMBER 1, 2015

I’ve been a part of dozens (maybe hundreds) of product launches And in each of these cases I ask my team to put together a simple dashboard of a small set of metrics for our paid and free products that let me know the success of our efforts. For startup entrepreneurs, you can also track these metrics with Google analytics.

Marketing 40

Marketing CPC Metrics .Net 40

socalTECH

JANUARY 14, 2011

We have a very sophisticated, analytics and software platform that over half the Fortune 50 are now using, to help guide how they invest in marketing and sales activities and investments. You mentioned that you've been growing the company recently, and made a recent acquisition? Did the TV stimulate search?

Social Media 235

Social Media Demand Activity Marketing 235

InfoChachkie

JANUARY 16, 2018

The problem is that stakeholders, like marketing and sales, don’t know what the latest version of the roadmap is. Greathouse: Having run these groups, I know all about the inherent friction between sales and marketing with regard to lead quality, volume, etc., Metrics related to customer acquisition, lifetime value and churn.

Venture Capital 115

Venture Capital Entrepreneur Santa Barbara SaaS 115

Both Sides of the Table

DECEMBER 27, 2011

The most obvious way to explain this is with sales people. If you hire 6 sales reps in January at $120,000 / year salary then you’ve taken on an extra $60,000 per month in costs yet these sales people might not close new business for 4-6 months. “COGS” represents the amount that each sale costs you.

Startup 418

Startup Venture Capital Sales Technical Review 418

Startup Professionals Musings

AUGUST 14, 2015

Define metrics to keep on track for the journey. Common financial metrics include burn rate, gross margin, revenue growth and net profit. You also need a sales pipeline, customer acquisition costs and marketing costs as a percent of revenue. These measurements should be driven by your values and your company culture.

Startup 101

Startup Metrics Resource Mentor 101

socalTECH

DECEMBER 11, 2017

Really, we're the sales and marketing arm of those companies. You have to make sure your cost of acquisition, retention rates, and conversion metrics are all in place. Scott Cannon: I had to go back, and really get operating metrics in place to know how to look at the business. You cannot grow your problems.

Startup 174

Startup Metrics Customer Custom 174

Startup Professionals Musings

FEBRUARY 26, 2013

Obviously this definition is generic, so my first recommendation is that you take the lead in defining traction metrics for your startup, and then selling your results convincingly to investors. As an investor, I would like to see one month of sales, and see how that compares to your projections. Customer acquisition cost.

Startup 106

Startup Metrics Customer Custom 106

Startup Professionals Musings

AUGUST 7, 2015

Customers may be attracted to your marketing message, but investors look harder at the startup team, seeking superior expertise in the key areas of growing a business, product domain, financial, marketing and sales. Specific elements of your marketing and sales plans. Projected revenues and expenses over the strategic period.

Product 103

Product Slides Customer Custom 103

TechCrunch LA

SEPTEMBER 7, 2021

It’s different than working with a group like us that’s trying to optimize every small piece of the funnel, and being accountable for the entire funnel to drive as much sales or revenue. I oversee sales, marketing and partnerships, and my role is really trying to figure out which brands make most sense to partner with MuteSix.

Commerce 211

Commerce Content Marketing Startup 211

Startup Professionals Musings

SEPTEMBER 30, 2015

New startup founders keep all the operating metrics they need in their head. The best sale or acquisition is a gradual one, where the acquirer gets to know you through formal and informal relationships. At minimum, you need to get an exit advisor to keep you on course. Set your startup health gauges and use them.

Startup 98

Startup Entrepreneur Metrics Acquisition 98

Startup Professionals Musings

NOVEMBER 9, 2019

billion dollar sale to Oracle from Bozeman, Montana. But it is an important metric for firms in pursuit of explosive growth. Wessel measures a 39% acquisition advantage to being in-state. Raising capital isn’t the be-all and end-all of startup success. It decreases your odds of being bought.

Startup 97

Startup Technical Review Oracle Software Review 97

Both Sides of the Table

NOVEMBER 14, 2017

How long does it take me to pay back my original customer acquisition costs? It wasn’t just front-end processes like sales tools, marketing funnels, dynamic pricing, driver routes and so forth but we also had to build comprehensive systems to manage numerous warehouses across four different cities.

Startup 286

Startup Technical Review Customer Custom 286

InfoChachkie

SEPTEMBER 15, 2011

Sometimes we measure things and see that in the short term they actually hurt sales. But we do it anyway, because we believe that the short-term metrics probably aren’t indicative of the long term.”. Analysts predict that AWS revenues will eventually exceed Amazon’s retail sales. Don’t Chase The Quick Buck.

Tips 279

Tips Startup Framework Customer 279

InfoChachkie

JULY 20, 2015

billion dollar acquisition by LinkedIn to Bessemer’s substantial investment in ProCore , AppFolio ’s recent IPO filing and Sonos ’ $130 million secondary, the Santa Barbara tech scene is unquestionably on fire. From Lynda.com ’s recent $1.5 If you haven't already subscribed yet, subscribe now for free weekly JohnGreathouse.com articles!

Santa Barbara 100

Santa Barbara Startup Sales Entrepreneur 100