Both Sides of the Table

JULY 23, 2013

It is simply the most important way to proactively control your career development and how the market perceives you. This started as a post in which I was going to write out tips to personal branding and became in stead an essay of my own branding journey. That was fine with me – the market is the market.

Technical Advisors 385

Technical Advisors Marketing Startup Venture Capital 385

Both Sides of the Table

JUNE 29, 2014

It’s not hard to find people willing to write the narrative that “venture capital is not an asset class” or “venture capital has performed terribly.” I hope to publish that deck and a full write up in the next 10 days in partnership with Dan Primack at Fortune (if my write up doesn’t suck, I guess ;-)).

Venture Capital 362

Venture Capital Capital Startup Writing 362

socalTECH

OCTOBER 11, 2010

Last week, the University of Southern California 's Viterbi School of Engineering announced that it had established a new, business plan competition, the Maseeh Entrepreneurship Prize Competition ([link] specifically aimed at students in the engineering school. Why a business plan competition, and why in engineering school?

Competition 154

Competition Southern California Mentor USC 154

Berkonomics

MARCH 25, 2021

Here’s important homework for your marketing effort. The momentum from an old decision that took lots of effort to implement is worth something to a marketing professional. Pull out a piece of stationery that had been sitting unused for over a decade and write in longhand? And that is a lesson for all of us in marketing.

Competition 156

Competition Customer Custom Email 156

Both Sides of the Table

MARCH 27, 2011

But should you actually write one if you’re a startup, an industry figure (lawyer, banker) or VC? This is a post to help you figure out why you should write and what you should talk about. eCommerce is an enormously competitive search term. Write out the topic and maybe even the blog title. Absofuckinglutely.

Blogging 373

Blogging Startup Writing Venture Capital 373

Both Sides of the Table

JANUARY 23, 2011

PR isn’t something that can be delegated – The other thing that tech execs often want to do is to delegate the PR to their marketing person. Obviously you should have somebody that helps you research journalists, gets you meetings, pitches stories, helps prep you for interviews & helps make sure your writing is cogent.

Startup 349

Startup Writing Press Blogging 349

Both Sides of the Table

JUNE 5, 2011

2 preamble issues having read the comments on TC today: 1: I know that the prices of startup companies is much great in Silicon Valley than in smaller towns / less tech focused areas in the US and the US prices higher than many foreign markets. I can’t control the market. Private markets for stocks are the opposite.

Startup 336

Startup Pricing Technical Review Marketing 336

InfoChachkie

JULY 14, 2011

Value Prop Twitter Style : “Ringrevenue’s call performance marketing platform enables ad networks, agencies, advertisers & publishers to generate more inbound sales calls.”. In today’s market, so much focus is placed on transacting business online. Who do you view as your biggest competition? You’re right.

Marketing 209

Marketing Advertising Paid Search Startup 209

Both Sides of the Table

JANUARY 26, 2013

I will add to this as I write more in the coming weeks on the topic. The funding rounds will also build customer confidence and they’ll help journalists feel air cover in writing your more important pieces when you brag about customers, traction, revenue or whatever. This is true on all of the major tech blogs. Funding is news.

Startup 355

Startup Funding News Press 355

Both Sides of the Table

JUNE 20, 2013

The reason for this is that the executives who founded the company have so much tacit knowledge of how to position their product relative to the competition that they can easily win campaigns when they’re involved. So I often work with teams to get them to codify the key things they do well that the competition does not.

Sales 336

Sales Startup Competition Customer 336

Startup Professionals Musings

AUGUST 30, 2019

In addition, the discipline of producing it, like writing a business plan, will help you immensely in understanding the key elements that drive you and your business. I often hear the excuse that writing a book takes precious time away from building and running your business, which you cannot afford.

Writing 19

Writing Technical Review Entrepreneur Advertising 19

Both Sides of the Table

OCTOBER 26, 2014

It’s why in this article I advise that people “market today not futures” because you don’t want your playbook in the hands of the competition. The other thing that tech execs often want to do is to delegate the PR to their marketing person. In a startup this is a mistake.

Press 319

Press Startup Writing Training 319

Both Sides of the Table

MARCH 31, 2012

The idea that the course asks students to write public blog posts is a testament to its more modern teaching style. My list of excuses includes: product, pricing, competition and lack of sales support. In my post I specifically talked about the integration of marketing and sales.

Startup 319

Startup Sales Course Competition 319

Both Sides of the Table

NOVEMBER 2, 2010

This is part of a series on sales & marketing. As a founder, when you’ve been dealing with these kinds of objections for a couple of years it becomes natural and you easily handle objections on price, product & competition without much thought. I call this “arming & aiming&# your salesforce.

Sales 289

Sales Startup Training Pricing 289

Both Sides of the Table

AUGUST 24, 2011

On this blog I’m often trying to combine lessons for entrepreneurs and market commentary. I have long wanted to write about FNAC (feature, not a company) because it’s part of my normal lexicon to push teams that present to me to think harder about where the economics in their industry is coming from. It lingered.

Email 270

Email Writing Blogging Competition 270

Both Sides of the Table

OCTOBER 11, 2011

Are you cynical about their chances in the market just because they seem to be hot in the press and that bugs you? Albert Wenger from Union Square Ventures wrote a great post the other day that reminded me I’ve been meaning to write about this topic. It’s just a fad propped up by the Silicon Valley elite marketing machine.”

Startup 313

Startup Press Writing News 313

Both Sides of the Table

OCTOBER 12, 2014

Prorata rights are one of the most important rights of a private market technology investors and yet are seldom fully understood. For starters some funds are small and thus while they put $750k into your company to own 10% of your company they might not be able to write another $2 million if you then raise a $20 million round (10%).

Guide 336

Guide Venture Capital Startup Writing 336

Both Sides of the Table

MARCH 11, 2010

there may be major competitive changes in the market that makes your next funding round hard (e.g. you might do a great job in a great market but a competitor raises $3 million when you raised $500,000 and suddenly you have to compete with them. . - you may hit unexpected bumps in the road yourself making the next round tough.

Startup 319

Startup Venture Capital Capital Competition 319

Both Sides of the Table

MAY 5, 2011

awards dinner on Thursday night I started reflected on what it would take to “change the trajectory&# for Seattle or for any regional market, really. He listed all of the product releases that were up coming, the customers that were in the pipeline and where he saw his competition moving. Are you going to do all of this?

Venture Capital 317

Venture Capital Technical Review Startup Press 317

Both Sides of the Table

DECEMBER 27, 2011

I find it amusing when a journalist writes an article about a prominent startup (either privately held or preparing for an IPO) and decries that, “They’re not even profitable!” If you have a market lead then raising capital and making investments now will help you as others enter the market.

Startup 418

Startup Venture Capital Sales Technical Review 418

Both Sides of the Table

MARCH 6, 2010

When I was running startups I felt like a horse with blinders on because I was super focused on the content management market and ignored many other markets. They outline the problems that exist in markets, their approach to the solutions, they update me on competitors and they show me their economic models.

Venture Capital 312

Venture Capital Technical Review Startup Entrepreneur 312

socalTECH

FEBRUARY 16, 2010

We talked with Noah about how the company grew out of a business plan competition at the University of Southern California, his recent funding from the Maverick Angels, as well as how the firm hopes to stand out among a crowded list of comparison shopping sites. Noah Auerhahn: We just had too much free time at USC.

USC 207

USC CPC Sites Startup 207

Both Sides of the Table

NOVEMBER 29, 2014

This week I wrote about obsessive and competitive founders and how this forms the basis of what I look for when I invest. But then you can springboard from there to your next gig and you’ll be an experienced startup employee with functional experience at sales, marketing, product or whatever roles you played.”

Startup 409

Startup Invest Venture Capital Writing 409

Both Sides of the Table

APRIL 25, 2013

Competitive sportswoman. Kara on one side of the table showing me market sizes, competitive dynamics, product roadmaps, pricing plans for physical products with COGS and gross margins. She helps write press releases. Remember, it’s about Lines, Not Dots. I first met Kara 5 years ago. Stanford MBA.

Startup 398

Startup Design Downey Activity 398

Both Sides of the Table

FEBRUARY 14, 2010

I’m writing this post to make sure you’re all on that same playing field. One of our core tasks was “market analysis,&# which consistent of: market sizing, market forecasts, competitive analysis and then instructing customers on which direction to take. So, where is this all coming from, Mark?

Statistics 415

Statistics Startup Report Research 415

Both Sides of the Table

MARCH 1, 2016

At the Upfront Summit in early February, we had a chance to have many off-the-record conversations with Limited Partners (LPs) who fund Venture Capital (VC) funds about their views of the market. I suspect those days will end soon, and 61% of LPs polled said they felt VCs were coming back to market too quickly.

Venture Capital 150

Venture Capital Capital Marketing Seed Funding 150

Both Sides of the Table

OCTOBER 30, 2011

So I’m not suggesting to startups that you define bad market positions to get noticed. A clearly defined and differentiated market position – so many company have “me, too” slogans or consulting gibberish in their taglines. Once he got the discussion going he decided to do a bit of TV marketing.

Startup 289

Startup Press Software Marketing 289

Both Sides of the Table

MARCH 3, 2013

Let me start by saying that Clayton is one of the most influential people on my thoughts about markets that led to both the concept behind my first startup and my main theses in investing. In many ways I think general purpose writing & thinking skills are as valuable as math skills. Internationalization of Technology.

Venture Capital 403

Venture Capital Education Offshore Outsource Development 403

socalTECH

DECEMBER 17, 2008

Writers can log into our site, upload their project, and select from over 4,000 markets, and send their work out to the world physically with a single click. In their case, people write their scripts on a web site, and when they're done, they can submit them to contests with a single click.

Writing 209

Writing Hollywood Startup Sites 209

Both Sides of the Table

AUGUST 2, 2009

Twitter, by contrast, started as an open platform where people let anybody see what they were writing. People write their thoughts knowing that anybody else can see them. Are people giving you feature requests, complaining about your service or comparing you to the competition? So why is this important for businesses?

Social Network 235

Social Network Writing Tool Startup 235

Both Sides of the Table

SEPTEMBER 15, 2013

For much of 2013 I watched the press write articles about how the YouTube “MCNs” (multi-channel networks) were doomed and tried to square that with the data I was watching at the one I invested in, Maker Studios, who has had one hell of a year. This revenue share comes after the YouTube split.

Networking 366

Networking Media Content Customer 366

Startup Professionals Musings

FEBRUARY 20, 2022

Your marketing launch is the most important element of startup success these days, to get customer attention in this world of information overload. Even great products need great marketing “content” to fuel the ascent of their online message. If you want to connect with customers, put aside your writing formalities.

Content 146

Content Newsletter Competition Writing 146

Both Sides of the Table

MAY 14, 2018

I know all of this because every VC knows this because we’ve all either funded companies that have marketing technology or we’ve seen a pitch with a company that does this. Your pitch deck should really be your best marketing tool Your pitch deck shouldn’t contain your deepest, darkest secrets and plans. A deck is a deck.

Funding 239

Funding Venture Capital IP Email 239

Both Sides of the Table

FEBRUARY 18, 2013

For those who still don’t know the origins, the Harlem Shake started as a small skit from a YouTuber named Filthy Frank (10 million views as of this writing) on January 30, 2013. As of this writing nearly 50,000 versions have been created and uploaded and watched by some 200,000,000 people. I repeat – free marketing.

Startup 380

Startup Media Content Platform 380

Both Sides of the Table

JANUARY 19, 2010

I’m writing this post as part of my series with Advice on Raising Venture Capital but will file it under Sales Tips as well since it applies equally to both scenarios. tip: write it down when asked / parked). Let me write that down.&#. - Congratulations. Do you mind if I answer that a little later in the presentation?

Venture Capital 318

Venture Capital Startup Sales Writing 318

Both Sides of the Table

MARCH 13, 2010

I’ve always believed that you learn a great deal when you’re presenting, teaching or writing about what you know. Part of the reason I always found presenting to people so compelling is that it forced me to put into writing (a PowerPoint deck) what I thought I knew about a topic. It’s just my writing style.

Blogging 250

Blogging Social Media Writing Startup 250

socalTECH

SEPTEMBER 20, 2016

Los Angeles-based digital marketing agency Wpromote said on Monday that it has launched a new set of scholsrships, which will go to students interested in digital marketing. According to Wpromote, the new scholarships--which will be awarded bi-annually--will total $3,000, with the first award in December of this year. READ MORE>>.

Marketing 100

Marketing Blogging Writing Los Angeles 100