Startup Professionals Musings

APRIL 21, 2023

It starts with a vision, but benefits quickly from a structured process of idea generation, evaluation, prototyping, customer feedback, and success metrics. Creating intellectual property, including patents, is the kay to long-term value and a sustainable competitive advantage. Innovation is not a random walk into the unknown.

Coach 137

Coach Metrics Competition Ideas 137

Startup Professionals Musings

NOVEMBER 14, 2012

What I’m talking about here is a level of discipline and skill necessary to collect and analyze the relevant business data, known as metrics. Here is my selection of ten key metrics that every six-sigma joint like GE tracks without thinking, but too many small businesses only monitor haphazardly, if at all: Sales revenue.

Metrics 106

Metrics Startup Sales Statistics 106

SoCal Tech Calendar

MAY 1, 2010

Friday, May 7, 2010 -- California Clean Innovations Fast Pitch Competition. Part business plan, part live presentation, Clean Tech startups will compete in this exciting event by presenting their case to a panel of Venture Capitalist judges who rank the business attractiveness using a variety of performance metrics.

Competition 100

Competition Metrics Startup 100

Startup Professionals Musings

AUGUST 23, 2023

We all have our favorite metric and our passion, but keeping up with real-world changes and trends seems to be always just out of reach. In my experience, all business metrics are still used too often for people management and accountability, rather than business management. Accurate measurement of the wrong things is not helpful.

Metrics 81

Metrics Demand Statistics Sample 81

Berkonomics

AUGUST 1, 2019

From experience and from information about the competition, a coach creates a playbook that contains detailed plans for actions or plays that the entire team must know without question and execute without pause in order to win games and advance toward the playoffs. This one comes straight from football. But you know that of course.

Coach 120

Coach Metrics Training Course 120

Startup Professionals Musings

APRIL 14, 2017

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. Revenue and competitive position followed. Less is more.

Competition 65

Competition Social Media Metrics Customer 65

Berkonomics

NOVEMBER 19, 2020

Back when we were all trying to figure out the real value of traffic on the web, investors – and acquiring companies – got a bit crazy with metrics used to value acquisitions and investments. And yet, users rave about the service, and spend long durations of time on the site. Revenue experiments (and failures).

Metrics 296

Metrics Sites Advertising Web 296

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. Creating intellectual property, including patents, is the kay to long-term value and a sustainable competitive advantage. Innovation is not a random walk into the unknown.

Coach 144

Coach Metrics Social Network Competition 144

Berkonomics

NOVEMBER 15, 2012

Most of us are driven by the competitive spirit, the desire or need to win. It provides a short competitive experience with a measurable outcome in which the players know who won and by how much. Create small but meaningful competitions between groups or individuals for which recognition or small rewards are published in advance.

Metrics 176

Metrics Competition Coach Email 176

Berkonomics

JUNE 16, 2022

We can invent lots of metrics to measure progress for a leader, including revenue, profit, employee satisfaction, cost containment, percentage of available market, and more. There are many roads to Rio, so they say. But there is one overwhelming method of appraising the effectiveness of a business leader.

Resource 156

Resource Satisfaction Metrics Course 156

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. Now is the time to take a hard look at your own operation.

Marketing 162

Marketing Social Media Metrics Customer 162

Startup Professionals Musings

NOVEMBER 29, 2021

The most competitive startups do both, all the time and every time. In today’s competitive world, with its accelerating rate of change, no competitive advantage lasts long. The only sustainable competitive advantage is creativity. Creativity is the ultimate competitive advantage.

Competition 135

Competition Netflix Ideas Metrics 135

Berkonomics

OCTOBER 8, 2020

It is most often missed assumptions about the market, the competition, the speed of adoption, or other critical metrics you’ve researched, or selected, or even just guessed at to create your plan. No-one challenged this number, and it became an unattributed source of the metric for market size for years. Or cost estimation.

Company 156

Company Companies Metrics Resource 156

Startup Professionals Musings

AUGUST 15, 2022

Surdak emphasizes that the goal is to either mitigate some of the pressure caused by data growth or to put that pressure to work for you in growing your startup and remaining competitive: Focus: play to your strengths. Data enable: use metrics and measurements. Determine your core business strategy and resolve to remain true to it.

Startup 126

Startup Social Media Entertainment Metrics 126

Startup Professionals Musings

JUNE 23, 2021

For example, I commonly see metrics to keep track of revenue per employee, overtime, and absenteeism, but I don’t often see measures of overall customer satisfaction with individual employees. Incentives should be a combination of metrics and recognition to highlight results. Incent and reward employees who delight customers.

Custom 147

Custom Customer Technical Review Metrics 147

Startup Professionals Musings

JANUARY 9, 2022

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 135

Social Media Framework Media Metrics 135

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. Focus on two or three pertinent metrics in any situation. Unbundle projects into smaller elements, and personalize the top couple of metrics for each team.

Customer 140

Customer Custom Social Media Metrics 140

Startup Professionals Musings

NOVEMBER 21, 2021

Decide what to measure and create metrics. Design your invisible competitive advantage. Every company has different strengths and goals, yet each can publish internally their innovation canvas of technology, leadership, people, structure, rewards, and metrics that sets them apart. You only get what you measure.

Develop 135

Develop Development Startup Metrics 135

Berkonomics

SEPTEMBER 6, 2012

From experience and from information about the competition, a coach creates a playbook that contains detailed plans for actions or plays that the entire team must know without question and execute without pause in order to win games and advance toward the playoffs. This one comes straight from football.

Coach 192

Coach Metrics Training Guide 192

Startup Professionals Musings

FEBRUARY 1, 2023

In my experience advising businesses, large and small, I have often been surprised by the level of complacency and general malaise I find in the ranks, with a resultant direct loss of productivity and competitiveness. Develop metrics to monitor work intensity. Let that be part of their job satisfaction.

Satisfaction 108

Satisfaction Metrics Competition Examples 108

Startup Professionals Musings

OCTOBER 31, 2022

In my experience, competition is the biggest challenge here. Even the best solutions require marketing and motivating advocates these days, with the rise of instant global competition, and flood of alternatives available via the Internet. Timing is important, and communication with your customer set is critical.

Activity 108

Activity Satisfaction Metrics Startup 108

Startup Professionals Musings

MARCH 10, 2023

For progress and success assessment, each of these needs some metrics defined, a training plan, and responsibility assignments within your team. No mention usually means no plan and not competitive. It’s a myth in the startup world that not having processes makes you more competitive.

Outsource Development 115

Outsource Development Startup Competition Ideas 115

Both Sides of the Table

SEPTEMBER 15, 2022

But it will be patiently deployed, waiting for a cohort of founders who aren’t artificially clinging to 2021 valuation metrics. We could talk with customers, meet the entire management team, review financial plans, review customer purchasing cohorts, evaluate the competition, etc. In 2009 we could take a long time to review a deal.

Venture Capital 416

Venture Capital Marketing Technical Review Seed Funding 416

Startup Professionals Musings

JULY 26, 2023

I see this happening in smaller ways often, where there is minimal focus on competition. Here are some key initiatives that I recommend to every business owner and leader to stave off new competitors before they seriously impact or cause a competitive crisis in your business: Continually compare yourself to known competitors.

Metrics 71

Metrics Training Netflix Resource 71

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. Revenue and competitive position followed. Less is more.

Startup 144

Startup Social Media Metrics Customer 144

Berkonomics

DECEMBER 5, 2013

It is most often missed assumptions about the market, the competition, the speed of adoption, or other critical metrics you’ve researched, or selected, or even just guessed at to create your plan. No-one challenged this number, and it became an unattributed source of the metric for market size for years. Or cost estimation.

Metrics 239

Metrics Startup Marketing Demand 239

Startup Professionals Musings

JANUARY 8, 2021

It must be understandable, written down, and verifiable, with regular measurements and metrics to make it real, benchmarked against the competition. Leaders have found that keeping everyone on top of changes in technology, competition, and customer demands is critical to success. Make your service deliver process “happy.”

Startup 154

Startup Training Customer Custom 154

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. You don’t have to be a heavily funded later stage startup to get access to “big data,” customer analytics, and metrics dashboards. Marty Zwilling

Entrepreneur 104

Entrepreneur Startup Social Media News 104

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. Use metrics to measure results of marketing initiatives. There is an old saying that good lawyers run away from risk, while good businessmen run towards risk.

Resource 121

Resource Metrics Entrepreneur Customer 121

Both Sides of the Table

DECEMBER 11, 2022

And then in the late 90’s money crept in, swept in to town by public markets, instant wealth and an absurd sky-rocketing of valuations based on no reasonable metrics. It was a way to make it hard for your competition to compete. We wanted new things to exist and to solve new problems and to see our creations come to life.

Venture Capital 466

Venture Capital Startup Marketing Pricing 466

Startup Professionals Musings

JANUARY 22, 2023

Competition is not always a bad thing, and the real purpose is often to make the world a better place. With a singular focus on building unicorns, very rapid growth has been a key metric. It’s also a good defensive move, to preempt competition, which is bound to come world-wide.

Capital 138

Capital Marketing Ideas Venture Capital 138

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. Trying to do too many things with too few resources, usually means the startup will not shine at anything, and will not survive the competition. In the startup world, this is often seen as a lack of focus.

Startup 161

Startup Resource Training Entrepreneur 161

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

socalTECH

JULY 23, 2013

Think that the only metric that matters nowdays is the number of users you have or downloads of your mobile app? I remember just a decade ago in 2003 when we all laughed at how dumb people in the 90′s were talking about the race to capture as many eyeballs as possible before your competition. I work with a lot of startups.

Metrics 157

Metrics Venture Capital Competition Mobile 157

Startup Professionals Musings

FEBRUARY 11, 2019

Decide what to measure and create metrics. Design your invisible competitive advantage. Every company has different strengths and goals, yet each can publish internally their innovation canvas of technology, leadership, people, structure, rewards, and metrics that sets them apart. You only get what you measure.

Startup 97

Startup Metrics Competition Organization 97

Startup Professionals Musings

JUNE 20, 2022

Changes in your organization’s core performance metrics. If one metric changes, it may not be significant, but someone needs to monitor whole categories for fluctuations that may be a weak signal. All weak signals need to be treated with a continuous innovation mindset and urgency, to stay competitive and current.

eBook 111

eBook Metrics Examples Startup 111