Startup Professionals Musings

FEBRUARY 17, 2021

It wasn’t so many years ago that starting a new e-commerce business on the Internet was a complex custom development project, usually costing a million dollars or more. Social media facilitates marketing and sales. A programmer can build a new smartphone app for a few thousand dollars.

Entrepreneur 162

Entrepreneur Startup Social Media Outsource Development 162

TechCrunch LA

APRIL 12, 2018

Both programmers, the two reconnected after doing stints as custom developers during and after college, and then when they were developing tools for their families’ businesses as residential contractors in the Los Angeles suburb of Glendale.

Glendale 271

Glendale Los Angeles Startup Technical Review 271

Startup Professionals Musings

APRIL 28, 2014

Chief Sales Officer (VP Sales). What you really need is a VP of Marketing and Customer Development, who can help with lead generation and honing the message, rather than an executive to manage a sales team and existing customers. Chief Brand Officer.

CTO Hire 100

CTO Hire Funding Cloud Computing CIO 100

SoCal CTO

JANUARY 5, 2011

- SoCal CTO , January 13, 2010 5 Lessons from 150 startup pitches - A Smart Bear: Startups and Marketing for Geeks , July 11, 2010 9 Reasons Why Many Smart People Go Nowhere - Life Beyond Code , March 29, 2010 No Accounting For Startups - Steve Blank , February 22, 2010 Startup Advice In Exactly Three Words - #StartupTriplets - OnStartups , January (..)

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Startup Venture Capital Blogging CTO Coach 378

Startup Professionals Musings

FEBRUARY 22, 2013

Chief Sales Officer (VP Sales). What you really need is a VP of Marketing and Customer Development, who can help with lead generation and honing the message, rather than an executive to manage a sales team and existing customers. Chief Brand Officer.

Startup 97

Startup Invest CTO Hire Cloud Computing 97

Both Sides of the Table

NOVEMBER 1, 2009

We spent time out in the marketplace talking with customers, looking at their solutions, comparing ourselves with our competition and then squirreling ourselves away in our offices designing our next set of features. Our sales guys were on the front line and heard what they needed to win deals. Tim started to change our processes.

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Organization Customer Custom Tips 280

Both Sides of the Table

FEBRUARY 7, 2010

I’ll publish the final post in this series this week and then move on to my next series – sales & marketing. I’ll be covering my PUCCKA sales methodology. The exact same team had worked on 2 previous customer service startups (and 1 non-CS product). It will be controversial – I know.

Entrepreneur 267

Entrepreneur Startup SaaS San Diego 267

Tech Zulu Event

JUNE 23, 2016

Fenero is a provider of cloud-based contact center solutions for sales and customer service operations worldwide. The company currently has over 4,500 users worldwide and recently brought in Charles Callari, a former Global VP of Marketing and Strategy at Sykes Enterprises’, as its new Vice President (VP) of Customer Development.

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SaaS Artificial Inteligence Netflix Platform 49

Startup Professionals Musings

DECEMBER 1, 2010

Chief Sales Officer (VP Sales). What you really need is a VP of Marketing and Customer Development, who can help with lead generation and honing the message, rather than an executive to manage a sales team and existing customers. Chief Brand Officer.

Startup 90

Startup CTO Hire Cloud Computing CIO 90

SoCal CTO

JUNE 9, 2010

Through advertising or direct sales, these sites harvest intent. Instead of making a few dollars per sale and hoping for thousands of sales, you sell to only a few customers, and charge much higher rates. They’re deep into Customer Development ,” he said. Tech support is sales. Here’s why.

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Startup Venture Capital Conference Social Media 248

socalTECH

OCTOBER 6, 2017

The platform approach we took allows teams and companies and venues to access the best functionality, at a subcription price, rather than a custom development price. Beta customers are key, and listening close to make sure you have product-market-fit with that beta, before you expand lots of sales and marketing effort.

Mobile 162

Mobile Platform El Segundo UCLA 162

Tech Zulu Event

MAY 10, 2011

He went on to explain a bit about the customer development model from Blanks: State business model assumptions. Iterate until validated (through sales or tangible exchange). Vision-Driven (You’re definitely going to need a strong vision when those sleepless nights, crying kids, and angry spouse enter the picture).

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Startup Santa Monica Los Angeles Custom Development 86

Startup Professionals Musings

JULY 27, 2014

It wasn’t so many years ago that starting a new e-commerce business on the Internet was a complex custom development project, usually costing a million dollars or more. Social media facilitates marketing and sales. A programmer can build a new smartphone app for a few thousand dollars.

Entrepreneur 104

Entrepreneur Startup Social Media Commerce 104

Tech Zulu Event

NOVEMBER 6, 2012

Both companies were spending big bucks to advertise yet the offer left me cold and I must not be alone in this as both companies have slumping sales. These two ads showed how disconnected from their customers these once industry leaders have become. What IMVU thought was game changing technology was not why customers used the software.

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Customer Custom Blogging Startup 72

Tech Zulu Event

AUGUST 21, 2011

A senior marketing director that will run online marketing, customer acquisition, and customer development efforts, 2. Several junior sales associates to handle online customer acquisition and orientation; and, 3. Senior and junior Rails and mobile (javascript) developers familiar with b2b software.

Santa Monica 90

Santa Monica Startup PHP HTML 90

Both Sides of the Table

NOVEMBER 3, 2009

Do you really want to spent $100k building a product to discover through Customer Development that the market is too small? Let’s start with how much value you think you’ll create for your customer if they use your product in terms of hours saved, costs avoided, extra sales, better conversion rates or whatever.

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Web 2.0 Venture Capital Web Technical Review 334

Tech Zulu Event

MARCH 5, 2012

Saturday evening came to a “closing” with the Coloft tradition of the famous scene from Glengarry Glen Ross where Alec Baldwin defines the meaning of “closing” while he gives a nearly Oscar winning sales talk to motivate his staff. As Avesta Rasouli, SWLA Co-organizer and Founder of Coloft says, “Go sell something! Coffee is for closers!”

Startup 66

Startup Mahalo Technical Review Idealab 66

SoCal CTO

SEPTEMBER 8, 2010

" Solving the Innovator’s Dilemma – Customer Development in a Big Company - Steve Blank , August 23, 2010 One of the ways I learn is to teach. While I sit here and rule. m king of a cow. And I’m king of a mule”. Yertle the Turtle. In my last post, I mentioned that you should strive to hire people with the right kind of ambition.

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Startup Venture Capital Blogging CTO Hire 191

SoCal CTO

AUGUST 3, 2010

The Phantom Sales Forecast – Failing at Customer Validation - Steve Blank , July 22, 2010 Startup CEO’s can’t delegate sales and expect it to happen. Customer Validation needs to have the CEO actively involved. Here’s an example in a direct sales channel. Customer Development Diagnostics over Lunch.

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Startup Venture Capital Blogging Software Review 217