Startup Professionals Musings

JULY 30, 2021

While you all recognize that reacting to weak market signals is critical to staying in business and staying competitive, I find that many don’t have the skills and focus to trigger change decisions on a timely basis. Establish and evaluate metrics at multiple levels. Investigate broader implications of disruptive events.

Marketing 162

Marketing Social Media Metrics Customer 162

Startup Professionals Musings

MAY 27, 2023

In the same way, great entrepreneurs and company leaders should no longer rely on faceless and nameless processes to drive business strategy and innovation to stay competitive. You need to look at everything through fresh eyes, continually ask questions not usually asked, and actively listen to contrary views.

Customer 140

Customer Custom Social Media Metrics 140

Startup Professionals Musings

JANUARY 17, 2022

Pick a single metric that is the focus for all growth. Today’s world is full of metrics leading to business growth, including customer logins, revenue per customer, retention, and average solution price. Facebook’s winning strategy was a laser focus on increasing active user counts and time spent online. Less is more.

Startup 144

Startup Social Media Metrics Customer 144

Startup Professionals Musings

MARCH 10, 2023

I’m not suggesting that you model your startup after the complex corporate organizations you hated in your last job, but there are at least eight key functions and activities that every investor expects to find in a startup proposal with any real potential to change the world. No mention usually means no plan and not competitive.

Outsource Development 115

Outsource Development Startup Competition Ideas 115

Startup Professionals Musings

SEPTEMBER 16, 2023

Of course, that’s both the good news and the bad news for aspiring entrepreneurs, since it means more competition, and the business landscape is changing faster than ever. Networking no longer is primarily a face-to-face serial activity. The cost of social media done well is low. Using new tools for recruiting key players and advisors.

Entrepreneur 104

Entrepreneur Startup Social Media News 104

Startup Professionals Musings

FEBRUARY 17, 2023

I recommend you start with team building activities to strengthen trust and communicate the objectives to everyone on a regular basis. Take the necessary time to identify the most promising activities that will have the greatest impact on where your organization is right now. Use personal relationships to test buy-in.

Organization 116

Organization Activity Metrics Training 116

Startup Professionals Musings

NOVEMBER 2, 2022

Many risks can be managed or calculated to improve growth or provide a competitive edge, while others, like skipping quality checks to save money, are recipes for failure. The challenge is to avoid the bad risks, while actively seeking and managing the smart risks. Use metrics to measure results of marketing initiatives.

Resource 121

Resource Metrics Entrepreneur Customer 121

Startup Professionals Musings

JANUARY 1, 2021

For example, in a conflict over the right branding logo , it may help to understand who and how the ultimate decision will be made, including key elements driving the decision, such as targeted customers and competition. Demonstrate active listening in a neutral location. Don’t let it be just a conflict over graphic design.

Activity 145

Activity Organization Examples Satisfaction 145

Startup Professionals Musings

OCTOBER 20, 2023

Highlight the competitive edge you bring to the market. Put operational systems and metrics in place early. Keep up with new technology for internal processes, actively hire people with new skills, and provide industry training for exposure to new techniques and competition. This is not a place for friends and family.

Marketing 116

Marketing Resource Training Startup 116

Startup Professionals Musings

NOVEMBER 30, 2022

All businesses these days are too complex to be one-person shows, so you need all the complementary held you can find to keep up with customers and competition, fill your expertise gaps, and scale the market. Using metrics to measure results and commitments. Marketing your personal brand and your vision.

Startup 113

Startup Customer Custom Technical Review 113

Startup Professionals Musings

NOVEMBER 28, 2020

Of course, that’s both the good news and the bad news for aspiring entrepreneurs, since it means more competition, and the business landscape is changing faster than ever. Networking no longer is primarily a face-to-face serial activity. Over 600,000 new businesses were created in the last year, or over one per minute of every day.

Tips 161

Tips Startup Social Media News 161

Startup Professionals Musings

APRIL 3, 2019

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. Marty Zwilling.

Social Media 96

Social Media Media Marketing Metrics 96

Both Sides of the Table

FEBRUARY 20, 2017

And measuring activities or output can mislead you into thinking you’re doing a great job. So they create a task list of all the marketing activities an organization can do: press releases, web site updates, customer case studies, blog posts, daily Tweets, Facebook fan page, attending conferences, etc.

Activity 164

Activity Conference Press Case Study 164

Startup Professionals Musings

JUNE 7, 2020

I’m not suggesting that you model your startup after the complex corporate organizations you hated in your last job, but there are at least eight key functions and activities that every investor expects to find in a startup proposal with any real potential to change the world. No mention usually means no plan and not competitive.

Entrepreneur 131

Entrepreneur Outsource Development Startup Competition 131

Startup Professionals Musings

AUGUST 31, 2020

In the same way, great entrepreneurs and company leaders should no longer rely on faceless and nameless processes to drive business strategy and innovation to stay competitive. You need to look at everything through fresh eyes, continually ask questions not usually asked, and actively listen to contrary views.

Social Media 128

Social Media Metrics Customer Custom 128

Startup Professionals Musings

AUGUST 10, 2022

A strong vision and deep insight may get your business off the ground, but long-term success requires constant data analysis, metrics, and attention to your customer feedback. The competition will improve, the market will change, and your customers will demand more. Balance of passion with reality and customer feedback.

Mentor 133

Mentor Startup Customer Custom 133

Startup Professionals Musings

FEBRUARY 12, 2022

The solution is to establish and maintain a culture and processes that don’t view change as a discrete event to be spotted and managed, but as an ongoing opportunity to improve competitiveness. Relevant skills include continuous improvement of existing methods, processes and devices against a set of quality metrics.

Startup 116

Startup Training Statistics Summary 116

Both Sides of the Table

MAY 14, 2018

Summary: Send the Deck Pitch decks are sales & marketing decks and like in any sales activity, any great sales person assumes his or her competition will eventually get their deck. Competition isn’t won or lost by your marketing decks?—?it’s it’s won by how you innovate and by how you execute. A deck is a deck.

Funding 239

Funding Venture Capital IP Email 239

Startup Professionals Musings

SEPTEMBER 30, 2018

No human or paper tracking systems are a competitive alternative. Businesses must capture every business decision activity, including customer relations, in digital software so that decisions affecting the activities can be automated and optimized through machine learning. Configure every decision step into real-time software.

Artificial Inteligence 84

Artificial Inteligence Metrics Commerce Software 84

Startup Professionals Musings

FEBRUARY 8, 2020

Many risks can be managed or calculated to improve growth or provide a competitive edge, while others, like skipping quality checks to save money, are recipes for failure. The challenge is to avoid the bad risks, while actively seeking and managing the smart risks. Use metrics to measure results of marketing initiatives.

Entrepreneur 129

Entrepreneur Resource Metrics Customer 129

TechEmpower

JUNE 6, 2018

Not just in measured results per second (several metric crap tonne), but in number of tests measured (~1830), number of framework permutations tested (~464), number of languages included (26), and total execution time of the test suite (67 hours, or 241 billion microseconds to make that sound properly enormous). More on that later.

Framework 377

Framework TechEmpower Platform Metrics 377

Startup Professionals Musings

DECEMBER 22, 2021

First, you as the leader must be a role model for the actions you desire – including positive communication, active coaching, rewards for results, as well as providing required tools and training. Use metrics to assess needs and growth economics. Inspire your teams with love and affirmation.

Customer 114

Customer Custom Satisfaction Metrics 114

Startup Professionals Musings

AUGUST 12, 2015

The most common proposals I hear are for yet another social networking site ( over 200 active ), or another dating site (now over 2500 in the US alone). It starts with a vision, but benefits quickly from a structured process of idea generation, evaluation, prototyping, customer feedback, and success metrics. Ownership. Accountability.

Entrepreneur 101

Entrepreneur Startup Coach Metrics 101

Startup Professionals Musings

APRIL 15, 2019

Pick a single metric that is the focus for all growth. Today’s world is full of metrics leading to business growth, including customer logins, revenue per customer, retention, and average solution price. Facebook’s winning strategy was a laser focus on increasing active user counts and time spent online. Less is more.

Social Media 87

Social Media Metrics Customer Custom 87

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. Marty Zwilling.

Social Media 62

Social Media Media Metrics SEO 62

Startup Professionals Musings

AUGUST 14, 2016

The most common proposals I hear are for yet another social networking site ( over 200 active ), or another dating site (over 2500 in the US alone). It starts with a vision, but benefits quickly from a structured process of idea generation, evaluation, prototyping, customer feedback, and success metrics. Set milestones and meet them.

Coach 64

Coach Metrics Competition Ideas 64

Startup Professionals Musings

OCTOBER 14, 2018

In the same way, great entrepreneurs and company leaders should no longer rely on faceless and nameless processes to drive business strategy and innovation to stay competitive. You need to look at everything through fresh eyes, continually ask questions not usually asked, and actively listen to contrary views.

Social Media 96

Social Media Metrics Customer Custom 96

Startup Professionals Musings

AUGUST 18, 2013

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. Marty Zwilling.

Social Media 102

Social Media Media Product Metrics 102

Startup Professionals Musings

JULY 13, 2015

The last thing they can afford is to waste any of these, but in my mentoring and coaching activities, I see it happening all too often. Waste in a startup is any activity that spends resources, but creates no value or competitive advantage in the eyes of customers. Focus on activities rather than results.

Resource 105

Resource Startup Entrepreneur Training 105

Startup Professionals Musings

MAY 30, 2014

The last thing they can afford is to waste any of these, but in my mentoring and coaching activities, I see it happening all too often. Waste in a startup is any activity that absorbs resources, but creates no value or competitive advantage in the eyes of customers. Focus on activities rather than results.

Entrepreneur 115

Entrepreneur Resource Training Product 115

Startup Professionals Musings

AUGUST 27, 2018

I will suggest to you as a business owner and entrepreneur that focus on certain key behaviors will drive innovation without waiting for the next competitive crisis: Be outspoken in communicating proactive required change. If your business hires only to fill existing openings, it is falling behind, and ripe for competitive crisis.

Metrics 58

Metrics IBM IBM Competition 58

Startup Professionals Musings

NOVEMBER 14, 2016

After reviewing her day-by-day recommendations to improve productivity in a single week, I have extrapolated her guidance to ten productivity tips specifically for entrepreneurs to regain that competitive edge: Focus on managing yourself rather than managing others. Get enough sleep so you can remain active throughout the day and evening.

Tips 100

Tips Activity Startup Product 100

Both Sides of the Table

SEPTEMBER 10, 2021

There are of course many Seed VCs who take board seats, don’t over-commit to too many deals and try to help with “company building” activities to help at a company’s vulnerable foundations. And the truth is that several entrepreneurs prefer it this way. So in a way it’s self selecting. We aren’t going to win every great deal in LA?—?there

Venture Capital 471

Venture Capital Writing Invest Pricing 471

Startup Professionals Musings

SEPTEMBER 21, 2016

In the same way, great entrepreneurs and company leaders should no longer rely on faceless and nameless processes to drive business strategy and innovation to stay competitive. You need to look at everything through fresh eyes, continually ask questions not usually asked, and actively listen to contrary views.

Social Media 99

Social Media Metrics Customer Custom 99

TechCrunch LA

FEBRUARY 20, 2019

Capitalism is fundamentally about timing, since market competition is about finding opportunities before others. Mithril is struggling to compete against ferocious competition in the growth-stage equity market. If there was a process or bidding war or something resembling a competition, he would just walk,” the employee said.

Venture Capital 202

Venture Capital Startup Technical Review Invest 202

Startup Professionals Musings

MAY 12, 2019

The solution is to establish and maintain a culture and processes that don’t view change as a discrete event to be spotted and managed, but as an ongoing opportunity to improve competitiveness. Relevant skills include continuous improvement of existing methods, processes and devices against a set of quality metrics.

Startup 94

Startup Training Statistics Summary 94

Startup Professionals Musings

JULY 27, 2012

They randomly churn for hours a day on a couple of their favorite social media platforms, with little though 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. Marty Zwilling.

Social Media 91

Social Media Media Metrics SEO 91