socalTECH

MAY 28, 2013

In real life, you can just about bargain a price for anything you want to buy--a car, a house, even that new stereo from your local electronics store. Joe Marrapodi: GreenToe is a name your own price marketplace for products. It''s very similar to the Priceline.com model, where you name your price for a flight or hotel.

Pricing 273

Pricing Product Help Sales 273

Berkonomics

JANUARY 26, 2017

The rest of the purchase price was concocted from a brew of zero coupon bonds (where the face value is many times the invested amount until the reduced cost bonds mature thirty years later), and borrowing using the target company’s accounts receivable and other assets as collateral for a loan to purchase the company. What power!

Pricing 120

Pricing Sales Tool Equity 120

socalTECH

APRIL 1, 2016

Santa Monica-based TrueCar has named a new executive to head up dealer sales, saying on Thursday that it has named Jim Menard as its new Senir Vice President of Dealer Sales. Menard was previously President and GM of the U.S. subsidiary of Search Optics. Menard also has served at AutoTrader and vAuto. READ MORE>>.

Truecar 100

Truecar Sales Santa Monica Competition 100

Both Sides of the Table

FEBRUARY 5, 2011

Specifically what is often not in the DNA of founders are sales skills. The result is a lack of knowledge of the process and of sales people themselves. I had never had any sales training so everything we did for the first couple of years was instinctual. I boil it down to this: sales people are sales people.

Sales 316

Sales Pricing Startup Customer 316

InfoChachkie

APRIL 13, 2015

Avoid a simple pricing mistake which could sink your startup. Because I am cheap and I know that car dealers are incentivized by the manufacturer to hit quarterly and annual sales goals. Thus, the value of a sale at the end of a quarter can be significant, if the sale contributes to obtaining a manufacturer''s incentive.

Pricing 100

Pricing Startup Sales SaaS 100

Both Sides of the Table

OCTOBER 31, 2010

This is part of my ongoing Sales & Marketing Series. In the first part of this post I talked about how sales in a startup is often evangelical , requires as consultative sale and needs constant adjustments based on customer feedback. We had 4 or 5 sales reps that had been around since the early days.

Sales 286

Sales Newsletter Technical Review Activity 286

Startup Professionals Musings

OCTOBER 16, 2023

Projecting financials is a natural extension of the homework every entrepreneur needs to do on customer opportunity size, product costs, pricing, competition and customer value. Forecast sales-volume expectations. This should always be a “bottoms-up” commitment from your sales team, not your own optimistic guess.

Startup 116

Startup Pricing Sales Statistics 116

Both Sides of the Table

JANUARY 29, 2010

Competitiveness - One attribute that I believe most VCs look for in entrepreneurs is competitiveness. If you stumble on to a really good idea believe me it will get competitive really quickly. I know that people who aren’t competitive always find competitive people slightly distasteful. I had to say it.

Competition 296

Competition Entrepreneur Startup GRP Partners 296

Berkonomics

JULY 26, 2018

These are so succinct, so well defined, so precise that everyone in sales and everyone involved in marketing must be able to answer these three questions without pause, and convincingly. It would pay you to work over this set of questions in a special session with sales, marketing and senior management in the room at once.

Sales 226

Sales Customer Custom Pricing 226

Berkonomics

FEBRUARY 23, 2023

Competitors, seeing a successful development of a niche, flock into the competitive void with products or services built with a fresh view of the current environment. Young companies have been known to outgrow the abilities of management to focus and direct them, failing to make the transition to organized, stable growth.

Pricing 156

Pricing Invest Equity Entrepreneur 156

TechCrunch LA

APRIL 9, 2020

Before the health crisis shutdown most of Italy, Energica had already seen larger demand for its high-performance e-motos, with a price range of $17,000 to $23,000. general manager ( Stefano Benatti ) — filled more orders in the first two months of 2020 than all its sales for 2019, according to Cevolini. In the U.S.,

Technical Review 277

Technical Review Competition Demand Sales 277

Berkonomics

AUGUST 3, 2023

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). Strategic investors validate a business, by their presence creating the very value they pay for with increased price per share purchased.

Venture Capital 295

Venture Capital Startup Class Invest 295

Berkonomics

MAY 16, 2019

There are five niches you can chose when defining your positioning strategy: price, quality, service, innovation, and elegance. Pricing strategies differentiate your business. First, and easiest to understand, is creating differentiation by price. Most anyone else can meet or beat your price any time they wish.

Company 120

Company Companies Pricing Competition 120

Startup Professionals Musings

DECEMBER 2, 2022

You can’t succeed in business without an operational model that delivers value to customers at a reasonable price, with an underlying cost that allows you to make a profit. A target market is the group of customers that the startup plans to attract through marketing and sales their product or service. Sales/Marketing.

Sales 102

Sales Customer Custom Outsource 102

Startup Professionals Musings

OCTOBER 9, 2023

Businesses require an equally elegant business model, with the right price, messaging and delivery channel to the right target customers to keep the dream alive and growing. The founder had simply not done the work to validate a price and customer segment. Match with competitor prices and market demographics.

Technical Review 88

Technical Review Pricing Software Review Customer 88

Berkonomics

OCTOBER 21, 2021

Salaries or hourly wages must be within reasonable limits set by the industry and matched by the competition, both regionally and for the same job classification. And there are some industries where tools such as stock options are considered mandatory for a company to be competitive. Some obvious qualifiers.

Design 156

Design Examples Competition Pricing 156

Startup Professionals Musings

JANUARY 13, 2014

The real milestone, proving the business model, is that first product sold for full price to a total stranger, leaving him happy. Of course, one sale isn’t really enough, so you need to get the first customer to recommend you to a second, and make sure the rate of sales ramps up quickly enough to keep the business alive and growing.

Sales 99

Sales Customer Custom Entrepreneur 99

TechCrunch LA

AUGUST 11, 2021

Linktree leads the space, securing a recent $45 million Series B raise to build out e-commerce features, but Beacons boasts competitive creator monetization tools with just a $6 million seed round in May. Snipfeed is free to set up, but if you make sales, the company takes 15% — this percentage is inclusive of any transaction fees.

Platform 286

Platform Commerce Startup Tool 286

Startup Professionals Musings

JANUARY 30, 2021

Businesses require an equally elegant business model, with the right price, messaging and delivery channel to the right target customers to keep the dream alive and growing. The founder had simply not done the work to validate a price and customer segment. Match with competitor prices and market demographics.

Product 159

Product Technical Review Pricing Software Review 159

TechCrunch LA

DECEMBER 8, 2020

He did note that in the four markets where the company has gone live since launching its business in January 2019 — San Diego, Los Angeles, the Inland Empire , and Sacramento — has yielded an annualized revenue run rate of over $400 million in gross merchandise value (the total value of home sales transacted on its platform).

Sales 282

Sales Demand San Diego Funding 282

Both Sides of the Table

JULY 6, 2015

Many people are too cautious in sales processes and as a result when they present their solutions they end up sounding milquetoast and undifferentiated from anybody else in the market. I recently wrote about the three rules of sales. Assume competition and assume within the buying organization you have enemies. Why Buy Me?

Sales 150

Sales SaaS Startup Venture Capital 150

Both Sides of the Table

MARCH 31, 2012

Jeff (also an HBS alum) co-teaches the LTV course with Professor Eisenmann about a student of theirs who had written a blog post about sales taking on some of my previous assertions. That student is Erin McCann who formerly worked in sales at Google, so she has some ground to stand on in her assertions.

Startup 319

Startup Sales Course Competition 319

Startup Professionals Musings

MAY 29, 2023

I recognized this as I was reading the classic book, ” The Only Sales Guide You’ll Ever Need ,” by Anthony Iannarino, who is an international sales leader and expert on optimizing results. His focus is on sales, but I see the same skills needed for entrepreneurs. Value is far more than cost versus price.

Startup 154

Startup Sales Entrepreneur Customer 154

Startup Professionals Musings

FEBRUARY 5, 2021

If you don’t have a destination, don’t waste your money trying to get there, and don’t expect anyone to support you along the way Projecting financials is a natural extension of the homework every entrepreneur needs to do on customer opportunity size, product costs, pricing, competition and customer value.

Startup 147

Startup Pricing Sales Statistics 147

Startup Professionals Musings

NOVEMBER 23, 2012

The real milestone, proving the business model, is that first product sold for full price to a total stranger, leaving him happy. Of course, one sale isn’t really enough, so you need to get the first customer to recommend you to a second, and make sure rate of sales ramps up quickly enough to keep the business alive and growing.

Sales 96

Sales Customer Custom Pricing 96

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. Marketing, sales, support, and service operations. No mention usually means no plan and not competitive.

Outsource Development 115

Outsource Development Startup Competition Ideas 115

Startup Professionals Musings

MAY 26, 2023

New offerings which build your brand will increase acceptance and sales of all solutions, not just the new one. Target audience may be limited or new due to price. The result can be a host of new competitive and price challenges which can stall growth or require excessive resources and time.

Product 141

Product Services Technical Review Artificial Inteligence 141

Startup Professionals Musings

JULY 30, 2010

In my own effort to keep up with the times, I just finished a new book by Landy Chase, titled “ Competitive Selling: Out-Plan, Out-Think, Out-Sell to Win Every Time.” Show them you are the highest value alternative, not the lowest price. Establish the competitive playing field early. Selling around tough competition.

Competition 92

Competition Entrepreneur Startup Customer 92

Startup Professionals Musings

MARCH 14, 2012

All the experts these days are talking about the increasing need for customer focus and maximizing sales. Typically entrepreneurs and even professional sales people think this means more emphasis on the customer selling process, when in fact it really means spending more time understanding the customer buying process (view from the customer).

Sales 96

Sales Customer Custom Competition 96

Tech Zulu Event

MARCH 19, 2015

Computers and the Internet have now brought in a new era that relies on data to make profitable business decisions in the competitive environment. Below is a full explanation of how small businesses can leverage technology to earn a competitive advantage in the marketplace. Cloud Services. Social Media Automation Tools.

Competition 40

Competition Technology Social Media Tips 40

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

Startup Professionals Musings

DECEMBER 5, 2020

Constant search for ways to increase sales and profitability. More sales are the only way to reach real business success. Entrepreneurs relish change and new technology, which lead to new sales. The ideal customer is one who sees so much value that price is unimportant. Maintain a meaningful competitive advantage.

Entrepreneur 117

Entrepreneur Sales Customer Custom 117

Both Sides of the Table

NOVEMBER 3, 2010

The path I went down after a few years was to hire more process driven people and devolved more daily operational ownership to people running individual functions such as product management, sales management, finance, etc. One of the most obvious places where you see this is in sales & marketing. Ditto the CFO.

Sales 296

Sales Pricing Startup Customer 296

Startup Professionals Musings

SEPTEMBER 4, 2011

The real milestone, proving the business model, is that first product sold for full price to a total stranger, leaving him happy. Of course, one sale isn’t really enough, so you need to get the first customer to recommend you to a second, and make sure rate of sales ramps up quickly enough to keep the business alive and growing.

Sales 97

Sales Customer Custom Pricing 97

Startup Professionals Musings

NOVEMBER 4, 2022

It takes a long immersion in the marketplace for someone to be a true insider, understand the subtleties of the competitive landscape, recognize the people who are true assets (independent of titles), and look through the propaganda of technical collateral and PR campaigns. The sales professional. The financial suit.

Technical Advisors 123

Technical Advisors Startup Outsource Development High Tech 123

Berkonomics

JUNE 15, 2012

One important element of positioning a company is pricing strategy. There are five niches you can chose when defining your positioning strategy: price, quality, service, innovation, and elegance. First, and easiest to understand, is creating differentiation by price. Quality can be, and is, an important differentiator.

Pricing 149

Pricing Competition Coach Sales 149

Startup Professionals Musings

JANUARY 23, 2011

All the experts these days are talking about the increasing need for customer focus and maximizing sales. Typically entrepreneurs and even professional sales people think this means more emphasis on the customer selling process, when in fact it means spending more time understanding the customer buying process (view from the customer).

Sales 93

Sales Customer Custom Competition 93