Startup Professionals Musings

AUGUST 22, 2020

Entrepreneurs have always believed that their product or service must show real value to customers, but today the smart ones are even able to make their marketing valuable. Now customers seek out people who are willing and able to add value, with expertise and insight, even before they have a product. The key is consistency.

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Startup Professionals Musings

AUGUST 11, 2021

Most of you aspiring entrepreneurs probably have long searched for that special idea that will catapult you and your startup to success. For example, most people thought Twitter was a total snoozer, when Jack Dorsey was looking for funding, especially with MySpace already owning that territory. True entrepreneurs are born, not made.

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Startup Professionals Musings

MAY 18, 2022

Here are some key insights that I and others have collected for mature company leaders, as well as serial entrepreneurs. Unfortunately, in this new age of rapid market change and harder-to-satisfy customers, you can’t assume that what worked yesterday will work tomorrow. If you like it, so will all your potential customers.

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Startup Professionals Musings

JANUARY 11, 2020

In my experience working with entrepreneurs, once they feel they have a winning formula for their business, they are often hesitant to change or update it. They forget that adapting their company and themselves as their customers evolve is the key to long-term survival. Create an overt strategy to react to emerging customer trends.

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Startup Professionals Musings

APRIL 1, 2020

Attracting the right customers is the key to success in business, whether you have a new startup or a mature enterprise. For example, Xerox tried to broaden the use of "xerox" as the standard term for "photocopying" to extend their existing customer segment into office automation and all kinds of computing.

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Startup Professionals Musings

OCTOBER 27, 2012

These days every new entrepreneur understands that an innovative product or service is necessary, but not sufficient, to start a business. You have to build a web presence with marketing content to get visibility above the 300 million other new websites created last year, and attract the customers you need. Widgets and badges.

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Startup Professionals Musings

JULY 31, 2020

As an angel investor in startups, I’m a believer that smart investors invest more in you as the entrepreneur than the next billion dollar solution you are pitching. I’m not looking for words, but examples of how your habits and attributes have produced results, even before your startup. Highlight your growth and continuous learning.

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Startup Professionals Musings

DECEMBER 18, 2020

As a long-time business executive and adviser to entrepreneurs, I see a definitive shift away from customer trust in traditional business messages, and the executives who deliver them. I believe that the sooner every entrepreneur and brand builder adapts to this emerging trend, the sooner they will find success.

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Startup Professionals Musings

MAY 20, 2020

As I was watching the investor show, Shark Tank , on TV the other night, I was struck by how quickly and how extensively the sharks focused on the background and character of the entrepreneurs, compared to time spent evaluating their products. These can be honed over time, and can’t be easily faked.

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Startup Professionals Musings

FEBRUARY 5, 2020

As a mentor to entrepreneurs, I tend to see many of the same obstacles appearing in every new startup, and since I don’t want to appear to be a downer , I’m not sure how to properly warn people ahead of time to be on the alert for these challenges. Funding is depleted before customer sales ramp up. The world today never stands still.

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Startup Professionals Musings

FEBRUARY 27, 2023

Most aspiring entrepreneurs look to their alma mater, or any university, as a source of classes that can help them, but neglect to think outside the box or take advantage of all the other resources to be found there. Access to entrepreneurs-in-residence, business mentors. Access to intellectual property and current research.

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Startup Professionals Musings

JANUARY 17, 2020

Although most people believe that being a successful entrepreneur is all about having the right idea, I’m convinced from my years of experience as a startup advisor and investor that’s it’s more about you as a person. So how do you develop that reputation such that everyone believes in you, and customers jump to try your solution first?

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Startup Professionals Musings

MAY 23, 2022

New entrepreneurs tend to focus only on getting the product right, and assume that the right culture and ethics will come later simply by hiring good people. For example, people often do not automatically know that they are facing an ethical choice. Ethical decisions are seldom simple. We’ve never broken the law so we must be ethical.

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Startup Professionals Musings

SEPTEMBER 23, 2020

A continuing question I hear from young entrepreneurs is whether a university degree is important to startup success, or just a distraction in achieving their purpose in the world. He learned quickly that several pivots were required for business, legal, and customer acceptance reasons. Learning by doing is the only way to go.

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Startup Professionals Musings

MARCH 26, 2021

As an entrepreneur mentor, my mission is to foster the attributes in you as a startup founder that I believe will lead to success. For example, I worked with an entrepreneur a while back who was clearly intelligent, had a great idea, and communicated well. Unfortunately for them, building a business is all about implementation.

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Startup Professionals Musings

SEPTEMBER 2, 2020

Out of curiosity, I often ask aspiring entrepreneurs like you, who come to me for help, what drives them to take on the workload and risk of a new startup. I ask every entrepreneur to first take a hard look inside for one or more of the following key intrinsic drivers, before they start: Satisfy a driving need to be in control of their life.

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Startup Professionals Musings

JULY 11, 2020

As a mentor to aspiring entrepreneurs, I’m always surprised by the fact that some never seem to be able to that first startup going, while many others never seem to stop, starting their second or third initiative before the first one is fully hatched. I’m now convinced that serious entrepreneurs relish the startup process more than success.

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Startup Professionals Musings

MAY 5, 2023

Technology is so key to every business these days that experienced business-smart but non-tech entrepreneurs are feeling deeper and deeper in the hole. Only one component of running a business is managing technology, but it is a critical component, so no entrepreneur can afford to ignore it or totally delegate it.

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Startup Professionals Musings

JANUARY 5, 2020

As an advisor to entrepreneurs, I find that I often have to remind them that the world of customers has changed since they started their last business. Pushing yourself on customers by touting features and price doesn’t work anymore. Use analytics to see why customers are buying, as well as what.

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Tech Coast Venture Network

AUGUST 11, 2015

Great benefits and a workplace that is fun and dedicated to making customers happy all fit in with the Zappos approach to company culture — when you get the company culture right, great customer service and a great brand will happen on its own. Portions of the budget are dedicated to employee team building and culture promotion.

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Tech Coast Venture Network

AUGUST 11, 2015

Great benefits and a workplace that is fun and dedicated to making customers happy all fit in with the Zappos approach to company culture — when you get the company culture right, great customer service and a great brand will happen on its own. Portions of the budget are dedicated to employee team building and culture promotion.

Examples 100

Examples Company Companies Google 100

Startup Professionals Musings

NOVEMBER 29, 2019

As a mentor to many aspiring entrepreneurs, I challenge them to think beyond what I call linear extensions to a current trend, such as another “easier-to-use” app for smartphones, a new dating site for pets, or another niche social network. Examples I have seen include atomic battery technology, or how marine algae could help feed the world.

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Startup Professionals Musings

JUNE 3, 2020

Most of you aspiring entrepreneurs have new ideas on a regular basis, and find it hard deciding which to pursue, or try to tackle several at the same time. In addition to personal focus, I find that the best entrepreneurs build and demand a culture of focus and excellence in their team, their investors, and even their advisors.

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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. For example, if you have no technical background, you probably can’t create or sell an enterprise software product for a low price, even today.

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Startup Professionals Musings

FEBRUARY 6, 2023

Every business professional I know, or have met in my consulting role, has given serious thought to the alternative of switching to the entrepreneur lifestyle , pursuing a long-standing dream, and controlling their own destiny. You have to cater to many different user categories. Find an idea that matches your set of values.

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Startup Professionals Musings

JANUARY 12, 2020

Every new entrepreneur has to initiate the right actions to be perceived as a leader in their chosen business domain by their team and by their customers, or the road to success and satisfaction will be lost along the way. No entrepreneur can build a business alone. Constantly strengthening your network of relationships.

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Startup Professionals Musings

SEPTEMBER 19, 2022

Every entrepreneur believes that their product or service is memorable, and that every customer will quickly see the advantage over competitors. Yet true product differentiation in the eye of the customer is rarely achieved. Quantify the difference for your customers. Trying to be all things to all people never works.

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Startup Professionals Musings

SEPTEMBER 23, 2019

The realm of an entrepreneur is all about change, but in my experience as a mentor to business founders, I hear too much about incremental change, and not enough about revolutionary change. Uber and Airbnb are examples of startups that started the sharing movement, but quickly grew to challenge large conglomerates.

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Startup Professionals Musings

JULY 1, 2020

Every entrepreneur I know finds it a challenge to balance the joys of entrepreneurship against a set of frustrations they never anticipated. Of course, most of you expect that raising money will be difficult, as well as staving off competitors, and handling that occasional toxic customer.

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Startup Professionals Musings

SEPTEMBER 30, 2019

Serious entrepreneurs know that, but too many “wannabes” still fall for that elusive get-rich-quick scheme with no risk. As an active angel investor, I still hear entrepreneurs asserting large opportunities with minimal risk and no competition. When entrepreneurs become prisoners of hope, they look for others to solve their problem.

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Startup Professionals Musings

NOVEMBER 11, 2020

The road to becoming an entrepreneur is a journey , and it’s not a short trip. I was pleased to find a new book, “ The Entrepreneur’s Faces, ” by Johnathan Littman and Susanna Camp, which outlines the key stages and provides examples of real people making the transformation from one stage to the next.

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Startup Professionals Musings

DECEMBER 7, 2019

Thus, in my consulting with entrepreneurs, I always encourage them to get more comfortable asking for help. She suspects, like me, that no self-respecting entrepreneur wants to seem weak, needy, or incompetent, and none of us like to feel indebted to someone we see as a peer or a competitor.

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Startup Professionals Musings

AUGUST 29, 2015

With the advent of social media and the pervasive move to smartphones, even customers who still prefer to purchase in brick-and-mortar stores have dramatically changed their shopping habits. If you refuse to play by their rules, they have the power to easily find alternatives, and actively pull other potential customers away.

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Startup Professionals Musings

JUNE 25, 2021

It seems like everyone wants to be an entrepreneur and get rich these days. As an example of a good resource, I enjoyed the classic book, “ Idea To Invention ,” by Patricia Nolan-Brown, that does a great job on the key steps. Ask some potential customers to see if there is real interest, and start thinking about price versus cost.

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Startup Professionals Musings

JULY 31, 2019

After working in business at all levels, and consulting to entrepreneurs for years, I’m still surprised to see so many situations where things that should be easy are painful to customers, and lead to customers hating your business. Get out and meet your customers to learn what turns them on these days.

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Startup Professionals Musings

SEPTEMBER 28, 2018

One of the big differences between an entrepreneur and an employee of a big business is that employees tend to have a very narrow focus on their job, while entrepreneurs have to keep the broader focus on business. entrepreneurs consistently claim to be happier , and have a higher net worth than employees. In fact, U.S.

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Startup Professionals Musings

DECEMBER 2, 2016

In my role as a business advisor, I often see well-meaning entrepreneurs try to be everything to everyone, which results in many things done poorly, and few totally delighted customers. People are confused by multiple messages, and employees are frustrated trying to personalize customer experiences.

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