Startup Professionals Musings

AUGUST 23, 2023

Every business owner and entrepreneur like you I work with wishes they could better predict product demand and sales, for managing inventory and long-term business planning. 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.

Metrics 81

Metrics Demand Statistics Sample 81

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

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. When sales fall off, you need to dig deep for the “why,” rather than just assuming the price needs to go down.

Marketing 162

Marketing Social Media Metrics Customer 162

Both Sides of the Table

JULY 21, 2014

The problem with shelfware is that if you have great sales people, you have raised tons of VC money from prominent investors, you have some marquee clients and you thus likely have some great press about you it can be hard to tell true success from that which is ephemeral. Create company measures for success that go beyond financial metrics.

Marketing 354

Marketing Case Study Metrics Sales 354

Startup Professionals Musings

MARCH 10, 2023

Entrepreneurs need to document a process of responding to a market need, sizing opportunity, assigning a specific business model, and planning for marketing, sales, and customer satisfaction. For progress and success assessment, each of these needs some metrics defined, a training plan, and responsibility assignments within your team.

Outsource Development 115

Outsource Development Startup Competition Ideas 115

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

Startup Professionals Musings

OCTOBER 31, 2022

In my experience, competition is the biggest challenge here. This work requires market feedback, managing trials, and working with the sales team as well as developers. Some people are very good as defining metrics, roll-out programs, and reward systems for marketing and sales programs.

Activity 108

Activity Satisfaction Metrics Startup 108

Startup Professionals Musings

AUGUST 15, 2022

There is still infinite room for new startup sales modes and models. 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.

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

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.

Funding 239

Funding Venture Capital IP Email 239

Startup Professionals Musings

JANUARY 6, 2021

Your focus for momentum could be sales, profitability, or number of customers, but trying to keep all possible parameters growing is simply not practical. It’s important to define your growth strategy, document it, communicate it to your team, and align metrics and employee rewards to target goals.

Technical Review 160

Technical Review Technical Advisors Startup Mentor 160

Startup Professionals Musings

JUNE 7, 2020

Entrepreneurs need to document a process of responding to a market need, sizing opportunity, assigning a specific business model, and planning for marketing, sales, and customer satisfaction. For progress and success assessment, each of these needs some metrics defined, a training plan, and responsibility assignments within your team.

Entrepreneur 131

Entrepreneur Outsource Development Startup Competition 131

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. That’s a deadly waste you can’t afford.

Startup 161

Startup Resource Training Entrepreneur 161

Startup Professionals Musings

APRIL 7, 2021

The basic alignment framework of strategy, customers, people, and processes hasn’t changed, but the pace of technological, competitive, and social change has increased at an amazing rate. If you have had to pivot from the consumer market to enterprise customers, that requires new pricing models and new sales channels.

Social Media 143

Social Media Startup Framework Course 143

Startup Professionals Musings

JUNE 18, 2023

Have you projected sales and marketing costs, cash flow, and capital requirements? Develop metrics with which to measure yourself and use these to incrementally expand and improve your offering as fast as the market and capital will allow. Show return on investment, growth rates, and market penetration. Don’t stand still.

Startup 112

Startup Coach Metrics Marketing 112

Startup Professionals Musings

JUNE 20, 2022

Changes in your organization’s core performance metrics. For example, quarterly sales on one of your most important products suddenly decreases, or your inventory across a whole category has surged. 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

Both Sides of the Table

JUNE 12, 2010

Company grew by more than “400% each year” for past few years [assume growth metric = revenues]. Competition: Chegg (has raised $144 in debt and equity)—estimated by Steven Carpenter ( TechCrunch ) to be 10x more unique visitors than BookRenter (during peak book renting seasons) with nearly $140mm in revenues for 2010.

Venture Capital 217

Venture Capital Capital Metrics Competition 217

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. 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.

Entrepreneur 64

Entrepreneur Coach Metrics Competition 64

Startup Professionals Musings

AUGUST 27, 2023

Measure progress through metrics on sales, revenue, and penetration. These start with your brand image, search visibility and process, and extend to the actual sales transaction. Seek customer feedback on ways to improve value and satisfaction. Seek to dominate your market over competitors.

Customer 91

Customer Custom Marketing Startup 91

Startup Professionals Musings

NOVEMBER 11, 2019

There is still infinite room for new startup sales modes and models. 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.

Technology 97

Technology Social Media Startup Entertainment 97

Startup Professionals Musings

SEPTEMBER 21, 2020

Have you projected sales and marketing costs, cash flow, and capital requirements? Develop metrics with which to measure yourself and use these to incrementally expand and improve your offering as fast as the market and capital will allow. Show return on investment, growth rates, and market penetration. Don’t stand still.

Startup 156

Startup Coach Metrics Marketing 156

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. 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 64

Coach Metrics Competition Ideas 64

Startup Professionals Musings

SEPTEMBER 22, 2021

These show a focus on the business elements required for success, and metrics for ensuring accountability, management control, and feedback along the way. You need to show that you have a powerful team, and can attract and lead people with strong skills complimentary to yours for marketing, finance, sales, and operations.

Ideas 140

Ideas Entrepreneur Equity Resource 140

Startup Professionals Musings

DECEMBER 22, 2021

Your goal must be to make every aspect of a customer interaction a joy to both you and them, starting from the shopping experience, to the sales close, to delivery and service. Use metrics to assess needs and growth economics.

Custom 114

Custom Customer Satisfaction Metrics 114

Startup Professionals Musings

SEPTEMBER 30, 2023

He also still gets excited to donate one percent of sales to environmental groups around the world. You may be comfortable driving your future based on vision and emotion, or have long been a stickler for details and metrics. Document and communicate a solid business plan. Devise a strategy for your long-term role or exit.

Startup 94

Startup Ideas Metrics Entrepreneur 94

Startup Professionals Musings

AUGUST 12, 2015

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 key to long-term value and a sustainable competitive advantage. Innovation is not a random walk into the unknown.

Entrepreneur 101

Entrepreneur Startup Coach Metrics 101

socalTECH

DECEMBER 20, 2017

It means competition is more fierce because formidable new competitors can arrive overnight. from sales to marketing, product, to ops and finance?—?centers Why has product management be so slow to adapt? Read more… ?? Now everything our company does?—?from centers on the core user needs we’re addressing.” Read more… ?? Read more… ??

Technical Review 100

Technical Review Metrics Ideas Product 100

Startup Professionals Musings

MARCH 3, 2021

To keep you on a positive track with potential investors, I recommend the following logic principles, to balance your passion in presenting your vision of a new business: Make sure your plan includes some business metrics. Postulate competitive reactions and your responses. Present a viable exit strategy for investors to cash out.

Entrepreneur 162

Entrepreneur Social Media Examples Metrics 162

Startup Professionals Musings

FEBRUARY 5, 2020

Funding is depleted before customer sales ramp up. Your customers and competition make unexpected moves. Smarter entrepreneurs don’t wait for a crisis to drive change, by defining key milestones and metrics for tracking progress. Marketing and sales take more time and effort than anticipated.

Startup 131

Startup Entrepreneur Examples Customer 131

TechCrunch LA

SEPTEMBER 7, 2021

In today’s highly competitive ad environment, both content and data are kings. It’s different than working with a group like us that’s trying to optimize every small piece of the funnel, and being accountable for the entire funnel to drive as much sales or revenue. The key takeaway?

Commerce 211

Commerce Content Marketing Startup 211

Startup Professionals Musings

AUGUST 13, 2022

billion dollar sale to Oracle from Bozeman, Montana. Exposure instills the fear and urgency you need to deliver the right competitive solution. But it is an important metric for firms in pursuit of explosive growth. Exposure is another key ingredient. Exposure to customers, incumbents, and competitors all drive success.

Technical Review 123

Technical Review Oracle Software Review Ideas 123

Both Sides of the Table

FEBRUARY 27, 2019

Often board members themselves don’t do the work to say “what metrics would we like to see.” Any great board member should tell you, “please don’t create any performance metrics or materials that analyze the business that you’re not already creating for your own management’s use.” Sometimes they don’t even know.

Startup 226

Startup Slides Metrics News 226

Startup Professionals Musings

JUNE 28, 2019

These things are clearly good for morale, but its not so clear that they translate into a competitive advantage. These authors present 20+ years of research, including case studies and metrics, showing how culture really makes or breaks your business. A positive culture of trust is required to neutralize uncertain feelings.

Competition 76

Competition Coach Case Study Statistics 76

Both Sides of the Table

JUNE 4, 2013

Put simply – you need enough users in a segment who care about what you’re doing to dictate investing further in the product or in sales & marketing resources. One of the things I have observed over the years is that a hard charging sales oriented founder/CEO can often hide the defects in a product. The money quote.

Startup 401

Startup Customer Custom Technical Review 401

Startup Professionals Musings

JULY 25, 2018

It’s easy to see how cultures go astray, for example, when you pay only for sales volume, but expect a high focus on customer satisfaction. Establish metrics on the culture, as well as the product. These metrics need the same top management attention as customer retention and sales metrics. Place shapes culture.

Metrics 57

Metrics Startup Netflix Customer 57

Startup Professionals Musings

SEPTEMBER 20, 2019

Changes in your organization’s core performance metrics. For example, quarterly sales on one of your most important products suddenly decreases, or your inventory across a whole category has surged. All weak signals need to be treated with a continuous innovation mindset and urgency, to stay competitive and current.

Entrepreneur 93

Entrepreneur eBook Metrics Examples 93

Startup Professionals Musings

MAY 31, 2015

There is still infinite room for new startup sales modes and models. 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.

Startup 106

Startup Social Media Entertainment Metrics 106