Startup Professionals Musings

DECEMBER 18, 2020

As a long-time business executive and adviser to entrepreneurs, I see a definitive shift away from customer trust in traditional business messages, and the executives who deliver them. I summarize the key elements of the transformation as follows: Customers are seeking control in a run-away world.

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Startup Professionals Musings

JULY 16, 2022

We are living in a new generation of business, where customers drive the experience, and highly engaged employees are required to keep up with customer expectations. As a business advisor, I’m always looking for guidance on leadership practices that work, and I was impressed with the classic book, “ The Leadership Mind Switch ,” by D.

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Startup Professionals Musings

MAY 27, 2023

With interactive social media and video everywhere, everyone needs to feel they have a relationship with their leaders, and every brand needs leader personification for customers to relate. Interact with employees and customers on a regular basis. Never be too busy to talk to real customers. by Steven D.

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Startup Professionals Musings

DECEMBER 25, 2021

Today’s customers are overloaded and overwhelmed by too much information, so making a decision is a challenge. You may think this is only important to your marketing and sales people, but in reality it doesn’t matter how great your product or technology might be, you won’t succeed if you don’t understand your target customer decision process.

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Startup Professionals Musings

OCTOBER 30, 2022

Today’s customers are much more in control of their buying decision, as they have more choices and more information than ever before. Bloom’s classic book, “ The New Experts: Win Today's Newly Empowered Customers.” This is a key moment where your customer acquisition costs go way down, and your profits go way up.

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TechCrunch LA

NOVEMBER 23, 2020

Founded four years ago by Matt Danna and Sean Stavropoulos, Boulevard was inspired by Stavropoulos’ inability to book a haircut and Danna’s hunch that the inability of salons and spas to cater to customers like the busy programmer could be indicative of a bigger problem.

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Startup Professionals Musings

SEPTEMBER 9, 2023

Today’s customers demand more than a good product; they expect a great customer experience. A few companies are leading the way, including Apple with their iPad and iPhone, offering irresistible stores with friendly experts, elegant packaging, and customer service that never ends.

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Startup Professionals Musings

SEPTEMBER 1, 2023

Having the best solution is a good start these days, but a solution alone is no longer enough to keep customer attention and loyalty. I remember the classic book, “ Driven to Delight ,” by Joseph A. Your competition is global, so today’s customers are demanding world-class service. Set the expectation for continuous improvement.

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Startup Professionals Musings

FEBRUARY 4, 2023

Businesses see this as the Holy Grail for finally being able to predict who, where, and when customers will buy their existing solutions, and what their future solutions must look like to be attractive. I found some help in this regard from a classic book, “ Humanizing Big Data ,” by leading consumer researcher Colin Strong.

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Both Sides of the Table

APRIL 21, 2013

If you ever want to read the great American generational immigrant business story read American Pastoral by Philip Roth, which won the Pulitzer Prize and was voted by Time Magazine as one of the best 100 books of all time. So he made hand-made batches in a bucket and drove it to customers in his van.

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Both Sides of the Table

APRIL 3, 2014

Whenever I heard why we didn’t feel a sales process at an important customer was going well (or if we lost) I would get involved myself. They are as good at selling you as they are at selling your product to customers. Customer also buy social proof because others are acting as strong references.

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Startup Professionals Musings

MAY 15, 2023

Entrepreneurs have always believed that their product or service must show real value to customers, but today the smart ones are even able to make their marketing valuable. Now customers seek out people who are willing and able to add value, with expertise and insight, even before they have a product. The key is consistency.

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Both Sides of the Table

JANUARY 12, 2014

If you publish a book, how do you get on the NY Times best seller list? Simply write a great book? But can you be rich and simply buy enough books to be on the list? So there are consultants who have armies of contractors around the country who can go and buy small batches of your book at many locations – all for a fee.

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Both Sides of the Table

APRIL 20, 2017

Amazon took a consumer value proposition (buying books, then all retail products) and made the consumer experience significantly better, faster & cheaper. They didn’t do this by selling better books or electronics, they did it by building a logistics & warehouse powerhouse. years of software development.

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Both Sides of the Table

MAY 1, 2014

The second is that the retailers were constrained by their high costs of local real estate and service staff relative to the costs of centralized warehouses where goods could be stacked high, sorted by robots, managed by RFIDs and then shipped via overnight to eager, cost-conscious customers across the US. 10x the experience.

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Technical Review Software Review CTO Hire Startup 380

Both Sides of the Table

MAY 19, 2020

It’s clear things have changed for good and the need for managing remote communities of employees, customers and partners has become ever more important. In marketing materials founders often refer to their customer base as a “community”, but there’s a huge gap between having customers and creating a community.

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Berkonomics

MAY 4, 2017

Yesterday’s sales and returns compared to same day last week and last year for retail businesses; Units produced and units shipped compared to plan and same period last month for manufacturers; Yesterday’s overtime hours by department; Ratio of hours worked to units produced; Backorders unshipped; Customer service calls in cue or unresolved.

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Startup Professionals Musings

OCTOBER 21, 2020

Donna Fenn, in her book from the last decade, “ Upstarts! But the insights I see from her book and elsewhere are equally applicable to startup founders of all ages, and businesses of all ages. It's far less expensive to nail down repeat business from your existing customers than it is to land new ones.

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Startup Professionals Musings

DECEMBER 20, 2020

Whether you are an entrepreneur starting a new business, or a corporate executive seeking to revitalize a mature business, the challenge is the same – to become the obvious choice within the hearts and minds of your customers, your employees, and your chosen communities. Seek out only the best potential partners and customer leaders.

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TechCrunch LA

AUGUST 11, 2021

In addition to a standard tipping tool, Snipfeed allows users to sell digital goods, like on-demand video, e-books, access to livestreams and one-on-one consultations. Meanwhile, Beacons takes 9% of sales from its free version , and 5% from its $10 per month version, which offers more customization, integrations and analytics.

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Startup Professionals Musings

JANUARY 30, 2022

In fact, it’s all about the “focus” required to get early stage technology products across the deadly chasm from early adopters to mainstream customers. Missions and products that are too broad confuse your team, your customers, and potential investors. Customer support chasm. Product development chasm.

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Startup Professionals Musings

SEPTEMBER 19, 2021

One of the reasons it’s so tough is that the rules are constantly changing on what it takes to win over customers, as customer attitudes and cultures change, and competitors continually strive to “raise the bar” on product and support. Existing customers can’t envision a new concept, or new behaviors.

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Berkonomics

SEPTEMBER 19, 2024

We negotiate with our suppliers, customers, investors, and even our auditors. The book, You Can Negotiate Anything , by Herb Cohn was first published in 1980 and is available today as the best and easiest to read of all the books on the subject. As we grow, we negotiate constantly with our parents, then with our peers.

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Pricing Sales Tool Entrepreneur 156

Startup Professionals Musings

JULY 4, 2021

Waste in a startup is any activity that burns resources, but creates no value or competitive advantage in the eyes of customers. More recently, the concepts have been applied to the general business management context, in a classic book by Certified Turnaround Professional, Thomas H. Then always measure customer results, not work.

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Startup Professionals Musings

OCTOBER 19, 2020

A few years ago, I enjoyed one of Guy Kawasaki’s first books, “ Reality Check: The Irreverent Guide to Outsmarting, Outmanaging, and Outmarketing Your Competition.” Here is a sampling of ten themes from the book that I think are just as relevant today as they were then: The reality of starting. The reality of innovating.

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Entrepreneur Sample Guide Ideas 174

Both Sides of the Table

NOVEMBER 14, 2017

There is nothing more pure than building a product, putting it out in the world and seeing paying customers using your product and in some cases loving it. As companies get this initial customer feedback on their product they start to have to ask harder questions about unit economics: How much does it cost us to acquire a new customer?

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Startup Professionals Musings

NOVEMBER 15, 2020

When entrepreneurs introduce new products to the market, their passion and conviction often leads them to assume that every potential customer will see the immediate need and value, and will quickly adopt the solution. The more revolutionary the solution, the more important it is to educate customers on a solution’s existence and value.

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Startup Professionals Musings

JUNE 11, 2023

For decades, efforts to satisfy customers have been built around demographics – capitalizing on race, ethnicity, gender, income, and other attributes. Customer personalities define customer experience, and sets what they love, and what they hate. There is no one set of exceptional experiences that will work for all customers.

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Startup Professionals Musings

NOVEMBER 6, 2022

Unfortunately, in mature companies, a larger and larger percentage of employees forget company survival and customers as the objectives, and focus only on their own personal gain. Every startup team member is close to the customer front lines, so they see how every function does or does not add value to the service they give to the customer.

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Startup Professionals Musings

MARCH 20, 2021

Some people are good at it and some are not – independent of their IQ or their book smarts (there may even be an inverse relationship here). Entrepreneurs who are great problem solvers within any business are the best prepared to solve their customers’ needs effectively as well. The best entrepreneurs have both. Marty Zwilling.

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Berkonomics

JULY 5, 2018

Dave’s book on exits. Even small community service-providers can be sold to buyers hungry to get into a business already in revenue with a steady customer base. Or if you’re an employee with stock options, are you aware of the increases in value you can make with your efforts? See [link] or amazon for this and more from Dave.

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Startup Professionals Musings

NOVEMBER 14, 2021

I was happy to see my own view reinforced in the classic book, “ Innovation Thinking Methods for the Modern Entrepreneur ,” by long-time entrepreneur and innovation expert Osama A. Here are ten key lessons from his book that we can all learn from: Utilize first principles thinking. Outsource services back to the customer.

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Startup Professionals Musings

JULY 23, 2021

The specifics of these shortcomings are hard to nail down, but I was impressed with the good summary provided in a new book, “ Make It, Don’t Fake It ,” by Sabrina Horn. For example, a few years ago Wells Fargo seriously damaged its brand trying to grow the business by creating accounts without proper customer consent.

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Startup Professionals Musings

NOVEMBER 21, 2020

I remember a classic book, “ The Purpose Effect ,” by renowned author Dan Pontefract, that provides a good framework and background or doing just that. The challenge of every business is to create a win-win relationship between business owners, partners, team members, customers, and the community at large.

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Tips Framework Customer Custom 174

TechCrunch LA

AUGUST 1, 2019

His upcoming book, The Trust Manifesto, about trust in the era of big data, will be released on October 4th. In his 1990 book, City of Quartz , Mike Davis envisioned another enclave of exclusion and elitism: Fortress LA. Drum circles, mariachi bands, block parties — these neighborhoods have histories, customs and rituals.

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Boyle Heights Los Angeles Design Training 237

Startup Professionals Musings

JANUARY 3, 2021

I also enjoyed the classic book, “ 63 Innovation Nuggets for Aspiring Innovators ,” by George E. In reality, the best business process innovations usually come from regular employees on the front line of your business, just trying to do a better job and better serve customers. Innovation must be driven top down by visionary leaders.

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Organization Ideas Technical Review Research 172

Both Sides of the Table

FEBRUARY 14, 2018

Inclusion I recently read Dan Rather’s book “ What Unites Us ,” which is a book I highly recommend, in anticipation of interviewing him at the Upfront Summit. In Dan Rather’s book he talks about Ruth Bader Ginsberg who was appointed the the Supreme Court in 1993. It’s a very sensitive age for a girl.

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