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. Innovative technologies have no value until they are turned into solutions to real customer problems. Training and coaching. People are your best innovation resource.

Coach 144

Coach Metrics Social Network Competition 144

Startup Professionals Musings

MAY 1, 2022

You can have the best technology, but if customers don’t know you exist, or they don’t know how your technology solves a real problem for them, your startup will fail. How many customers will have any idea what this means to them? I like the guidance from marketing coach David Newman’s classic book “ Do It!

Marketing 141

Marketing Startup Social Media Technical Review 141

Startup Professionals Musings

DECEMBER 7, 2020

I saw the key ones outlined well in the classic book, “ Creating High Performers ,” by William Dann, a leading coach to experienced CEOs. Your standards for product quality, sales growth, and customer satisfaction must be documented and reviewed prior to results and performance reviews.

Entrepreneur 120

Entrepreneur Coach Satisfaction Resource 120

Startup Professionals Musings

JANUARY 29, 2021

Here are the key reasons that I recommend that aspiring leaders focus on people before process: Customers judge the business by the people quality. Whether it be in person, on the phone, or implied in your marketing, your people and their engagement level is the key driver of customer loyalty, advocacy, and sales growth.

Satisfaction 154

Satisfaction Demand Resource Competition 154

Startup Professionals Musings

AUGUST 30, 2023

In this context, I was impressed with the insights provided in a new book, “ Stay Sane In An Insane World ,” by peak performance coach Greg Harden. In business, these cover the gamut from vision, creativity, innovation, to sales, financial management, and negotiation. We all have strengths and weaknesses.

Mentor 104

Mentor Startup Coach Satisfaction 104

Berkonomics

JUNE 8, 2017

Some businesses require very little capital and the founder can self-finance the enterprise and retain 100% of its ownership and control from ignition through liquidity event (startup through sale). For you who fit that description, nice work. There is a lot to say about retaining control. It’s an option, even though an expensive one.

Venture Capital 266

Venture Capital Class Invest Equity 266

Startup Professionals Musings

AUGUST 27, 2022

The classic book, “ Hunting in a Farmer's World: Celebrating the Mind of an Entrepreneur ,” by serial entrepreneur and business coach John F. In business, entrepreneurs hunt for new innovative solutions to problems, new ways of beating competitors, new markets, and new customers. These are the ultimate hunters.

Entrepreneur 124

Entrepreneur Marketing News Slides 124

Startup Professionals Musings

AUGUST 4, 2019

You can have the best technology, but if customers don’t know you exist, or they don’t know how your technology solves a real problem for them, your startup will fail. How many customers will have any idea what this means to them? I like the guidance from marketing coach David Newman’s classic book “ Do It!

Marketing 97

Marketing Entrepreneur Startup Technical Review 97

Both Sides of the Table

APRIL 10, 2014

Moving from a company that had less resources (and presumably by the time their raising depleted resources) to a company with newfound resources can be telling. I have seen many companies raise their first $3 million and still act like a company that has no resources at all. You’re the coach, mentor, cheerleader.

Startup 381

Startup Resource Venture Capital Activity 381

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. Innovative technologies have no value until they are turned into solutions to real customer problems. Training and coaching. People are your best innovation resource.

Entrepreneur 64

Entrepreneur Coach Metrics Competition 64

Startup Professionals Musings

JULY 15, 2020

For the business to prosper, every employee, and your customers, must know and relate to your core values, such as product excellence, care for the environment, and personal integrity. These will almost always be related to sales and marketing, since they must tie back to cash flow. Build a business culture to match your core values.

Metrics 140

Metrics Entrepreneur Coach Satisfaction 140

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. Innovative technologies have no value until they are turned into solutions to real customer problems. Training and coaching. People are your best innovation resource.

Coach 64

Coach Metrics Competition Ideas 64

Startup Professionals Musings

MAY 30, 2014

Every entrepreneur I know is short on resources, including time, money, and skills. 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. Then always measure customer results, not work. Recovery efforts are wasted resource which rarely succeeds.

Entrepreneur 115

Entrepreneur Resource Training Product 115

socalTECH

MAY 30, 2019

Now we have a thousand large companies into it, and if you name a big company, they're a customers of ours, from Starbucks to NASA. The minute a customer hired us to deal with their transitioning employees, the first thing we could do is sayhey, it's not all bad, there are over 150 companies looking for someone just like you in your area.

Content 193

Content Social Network Coach Help 193

Startup Professionals Musings

MARCH 30, 2022

I believe these same mindsets are equally applicable to the entrepreneurs I mentor, and all of you small business leaders, so I offer you my summary of the authors’ conclusions, paraphrased here, with my own insights: Be bold in vision, strategy, and resource allocation. Get organization alignment through culture and talent.

Template 109

Template Demand Social Media Summary 109

Both Sides of the Table

MAY 20, 2018

This is true of any buying process where a customer has to make a large investment decision on your software or when an investor must decide whether to give you $5 million. I spend a lot of time coaching entrepreneurs through their fund-raising processes by doing “pipeline reviews” of all of the firms with whom they are speaking.

Funding 189

Funding Software Review Entrepreneur Venture Capital 189

Startup Professionals Musings

AUGUST 12, 2017

You can have the best technology, but if customers don’t know you exist, or they don’t know how your technology solves a real problem for them, your startup will fail. How many customers will have any idea what this means to them? I like the guidance from marketing coach David Newman’s classic book “ Do It!

Tips 75

Tips Marketing Technical Review Startup 75

Startup Professionals Musings

MARCH 6, 2016

I saw the key ones outlined well in a recent book, “ Creating High Performers ,” by William Dann, a leading coach to experienced CEOs. Your standards for product quality, sales growth, and customer satisfaction must be documented and reviewed prior to results and performance reviews.

Coach 52

Coach Satisfaction Entrepreneur Resource 52

Startup Professionals Musings

DECEMBER 5, 2014

You can have the best technology, but if customers don’t know you exist, or they don’t know how your technology solves a real problem for them, your startup will fail. How many customers will have any idea what this means to them? I like the guidance from marketing coach David Newman’s recent book “ Do It!

Technical Review 103

Technical Review Tips Marketing Entrepreneur 103

Startup Professionals Musings

MAY 23, 2012

Successful innovation turns ideas into money, to enhance customer value, and thus shareholder value. Training and coaching. Ongoing coaching from the top is essential to maintain the attitude and spirit. From time to time, include customers and sales members in ideation sessions. Value creation. Accountability.

Coach 98

Coach Ideas IP Sales 98

Both Sides of the Table

SEPTEMBER 8, 2010

Once you’ve been around for a few years, attracted some great people, landed real, paying customers and raised venture capital you’ve likely got a talented team around you. This is akin in the US to having sales staff in NY, SF & LA with your HQ in one of these locations.

Venture Capital 319

Venture Capital Startup Sales Customer 319

Startup Professionals Musings

NOVEMBER 20, 2019

The classic book, “ Hunting in a Farmer's World: Celebrating the Mind of an Entrepreneur ,” by serial entrepreneur and business coach John F. In business, entrepreneurs hunt for new innovative solutions to problems, new ways of beating competitors, new markets, and new customers. These are the ultimate hunters.

Entrepreneur 95

Entrepreneur News Slides Startup 95

Both Sides of the Table

OCTOBER 11, 2016

We help founders through difficult moments, we help coach, we act as sparring partners, we help them resolve conflicts when they’re fighting with co-founders and we help them deal with adversity as well as successes. We then help surround founders with other talent who want to join important causes but don’t have the startup idea themselves.

Venture Capital 150

Venture Capital Capital CTO Coach Startup 150

socalTECH

NOVEMBER 2, 2017

We're a disruptor, the third wave in human resources technology. You can find a mentor, a coach, a project, or experience, to help you prepare for the role you are looking for. We were originally operating as a coaching company, and we built out this assessment technology for our own clients. What is Fuel50? READ MORE>>.

Help 100

Help Southern California Startup Technical Review 100

Startup Professionals Musings

JUNE 19, 2013

You can have the best technology, but if customers don’t know you exist, or they don’t know how your technology solves a real problem for them, your startup will fail. How many customers will have any idea what this means to them? I found some help from marketing coach David Newman’s new book “ Do It! Give yourself the “So-what?”

Startup 103

Startup Marketing Social Media Technical Review 103

Startup Professionals Musings

MARCH 9, 2011

Successful innovation turns ideas into money, to enhance customer value, and thus shareholder value. Training and coaching. Ongoing coaching from the top is essential to maintain the attitude and spirit. From time to time, include customers and sales members in ideation sessions. Value creation. Accountability.

Coach 93

Coach Ideas IP Sales 93

socalTECH

MARCH 28, 2019

The last thing, is understanding how open and receptive all of these CEOs were to feedback, coaching, and improvement. I'm particularly interested in looking at the productivity gains we can see from AI in the back office, looking at human resources, finance, and operations in general, and how we can help streamline and improve processes.

Capital 162

Capital Entrepreneur Invest Artificial Inteligence 162

Startup Professionals Musings

JUNE 28, 2015

The classic book, “ Hunting in a Farmer's World: Celebrating the Mind of an Entrepreneur ,” by serial entrepreneur and business coach John F. In business, entrepreneurs hunt for new innovative solutions to problems, new ways of beating competitors, new markets, and new customers. These are the ultimate hunters.

Entrepreneur 106

Entrepreneur News Slides Startup 106

Startup Professionals Musings

MAY 9, 2016

Most begin by doing the product development, marketing and sales alone, but struggle making the transition to hiring and coaching others, defining repeatable processes and focusing on future strategy. Now you have real customers who can quickly turn off hundreds of potential customers if you ignore their feedback.

Social Network 59

Social Network Startup Demand Entrepreneur 59

Startup Professionals Musings

JULY 13, 2018

Practice process coaching, but not edicting decisions. No one can be a top performer without the resources necessary to get the job done. Your responsibility is to anticipate these requirements, listen carefully to feedback from team members, and provide resources on a timely basis. Yet in the long run, you get what you pay for.

Technical Review 51

Technical Review Startup Training Netflix 51

Both Sides of the Table

JANUARY 3, 2016

Examples of VC platform services include: recruiting, marketing, design support, inside sales reps, consulting, accounting services and so forth. Other firms like Google bring massive resources to design or engineering and as as corporate VC can offer things normal VC firms can’t offer. Partner Leverage.

Venture Capital 150

Venture Capital Platform Startup Resource 150

Startup Professionals Musings

MAY 12, 2014

A recent book, “ Hunting in a Farmer''s World: Celebrating the Mind of an Entrepreneur ,” by serial entrepreneur and business coach John F. In business, entrepreneurs hunt for new innovative solutions to problems, new ways of beating competitors, new markets, and new customers. These are the ultimate hunters.

Entrepreneur 109

Entrepreneur Startup News Slides 109

Both Sides of the Table

NOVEMBER 25, 2010

It is never as rewarding when you’re the coach (but coaching has many other benefits. Ask your customer why you lost. Looong Appendix (only for those interested in reading another story about losing a sale & key lessons): A personal story of losing a sale that haunted me for years. Specifically: 1.

Outsource Development 333

Outsource Development Software Review Technical Review News 333

Both Sides of the Table

NOVEMBER 25, 2010

It is never as rewarding when you’re the coach (but coaching has many other benefits. Ask your customer why you lost. Looong Appendix (only for those interested in reading another story about losing a sale & key lessons): A personal story of losing a sale that haunted me for years. Specifically: 1.

Outsource Development 328

Outsource Development Software Review Technical Review News 328

Both Sides of the Table

JANUARY 1, 2016

But putting no time into anchoring your beliefs because you’re too busy executing sales, marketing, support, product & engineering is an easy recipe for leadership drift. As a leader you live in a world with limited resources. A great leader knows customers and has direct relationships with them. Conviction.

Startup 150

Startup Coach Course Invest 150

Startup Professionals Musings

DECEMBER 31, 2017

The classic book, “ Hunting in a Farmer's World: Celebrating the Mind of an Entrepreneur ,” by serial entrepreneur and business coach John F. In business, entrepreneurs hunt for new innovative solutions to problems, new ways of beating competitors, new markets, and new customers. These are the ultimate hunters.

Entrepreneur 54

Entrepreneur News Slides Startup 54

Startup Professionals Musings

AUGUST 14, 2010

Common channel strategies include direct to customer, distributor, and joint venture arrangements. You may also want to consider establishing joint ventures or even wholly owned sales channels, but proceed slowly because it is difficult to unwind joint ventures. Channel conflict is inevitable as you add additional sales channels.

Startup 85

Startup Outsource Development Training Resource 85