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I did a presentation this week at Coloft that looked at how Non-Technical Founders can go about getting their MVP built. The second bullet, getting feedback from customers is most often not valid either. And the back-end is something that a non-technical founder can manage. It had a passionate group of 50 people attending.
If you have a software development background like mine, I’m sure you often get questions about when to outsource, versus building the solution in-house. If your software or your manufacturing process is your “secret sauce,” you need to keep the work in-house. Customer-facing services, like call centers, should rarely be outsourced.
We caution all readers to review the source code of each test when interpreting the plaintext numbers. However, in some cases due to custom core components in a framework or implementation particulars, a framework may exceed 100%. In particular, a great deal of effort was provided in reviewing the ASP.NET MVC tests.
I spend a lot of time with startups and thus hear many companies talk about their approach to sales and their interactions with customers. From these meetings you can really tell the leaders that care deeply about their customers and those the look down on them. You’d be very wrong. Contrast that with a VC conversation I had.
Part I of this series describes the 360-review that I conducted at a growing, dynamic SaaS business which has recently graduated from the startup stage and entered the early-growth phase. One of the most compelling conclusions I drew from the reviews is that both Founders need delegate more of their day-to-day tasks.
The second is that the retailers were constrained by their high costs of local real estate and service staff relative to the costs of centralized warehouses where goods could be stacked high, sorted by robots, managed by RFIDs and then shipped via overnight to eager, cost-conscious customers across the US. 10x the experience.
As organizations we have become more open and I believe this is great for businesses and their customers. 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.
deliver profitable revenue that while on gross margins of 50% vs. software at 85-95% it is still profits to help you cover fixed costs. You don’t want to run the risk that having a PS business that takes your eye of off the ball of growing a large software business. That is the software business. rollout support.
One of the largest concentrations of technical talent in Los Angeles is in Glendale, at YP -- staffed with a surprising number of Los Angeles startup vets. Our whole product and technology team is about 500 people. Talk about the technology behind your operations here? What''s your background and how did you end up at YP?
One of the largest concentrations of technical talent in Los Angeles is in Glendale, at YP (www.yp.com) -- staffed with a surprising number of Los Angeles startup vets. Our whole product and technology team is about 500 people. Talk about the technology behind your operations here? Louis and Atlanta.
The era of VCs investing in successful consumer Internet startups such as eBay led to a belief system that seemed to permeate many enterprise software startups that hiring sales or implementation people was a bad thing. We only want software revenue.” How do you get referenceable customers? I believe it’s flawed.
Los Angeles-based technology deals provider StackSocial has stacked up another technology publisher in its pile of customers, saying today that it has added tech publisher iPhoneinCanada.ca. StackSocial said it will provide apps, gadgates, and other tech-related products at a new store on the technology news site.
It got me thinking about the tech industry. Work on budgets, submit RFPs, answer customers support calls, work the bug-tracking software, and trying to meet the next sprint release schedule. Because often these Conference Hos bring back their latest idea from the hot tub cocktail session with their favorite tech superstar.
Sometime around 2003/04 my technology team turned me on to “Spolsky on Software&# a periodic newsletter served up blog style from Joel Spolsky of FogCreek Software, a maker of bug-tracking software. After leaving Juno, he founded his own software company, Fog Creek Software. Defensibility in Software.
So how did a company that provides storage grow so fast (we’ll exit 2017 with 10’s of millions in recurring revenue), why is it so defensible and is it really a tech startup? If you buy that Amazon is a tech startup then essentially you’ve already answered the question. years of software development.
In the initial phases of any new market you’re developing a product (hopefully with a minimal set of features), getting feedback from customers, refining your product based on user feedback and then re-launching your product. We technology leaders also make this mistake. Rinse & repeat. It seemed to be purely speculative.
NEOGOV , which has quietly built an enterprise software company supplying human resources software to the government and public sector. Currently, we have over a thousand customers, with customers ranging from anywhere from 100 employees to clients with more than a 100,000. In the past, we had been a one product company.
George Collado: It''s employee management software. It''s too cumbersome, and most of the products are 360 reviews, corporate management type products, which are too expensive. In an industry which has a turnover ratio of about nine months, most companies do these one year reviews which don''t make any sense. READ MORE>>.
Many of the founders of these companies are surprised to learn that I'm willing to review what they are doing (maybe an hour) and get on the phone for an hour with them and provide free advice. Who's the customer? What's you believe is your biggest technology risk, if any? What Is This? How does the product solve a pain?
Companies that have leveraged technology to make the procurement and delivery of food more accessible to more people have been seeing a big surge of business this year, as millions of consumers are encouraged (or outright mandated, due to Covid-19) to socially distance or want to avoid the crowds of physical shopping and eating excursions.
Many of the founders of these companies are surprised to learn that I'm willing to review what they are doing (maybe an hour) and get on the phone for an hour with them and provide free advice. Who's the customer? What's you believe is your biggest technology risk, if any? What Is This? How does the product solve a pain?
Focusing on generative AI applications in a select few corporate functions can contribute to a significant portion of the technology's overall impact. Key Functions with High Impact Generative AI is revolutionizing sales by enabling dynamic pricing and personalized customer interactions, boosting conversion rates and customer satisfaction.
Los Angeles-based AppOnboard , the developer of mobile app demo technology led by Jonathan Zweig, says that it now has such app developers as FoxNext Games, Game Insight, Superheart Studios, Jam City, Huuuge Games, and Simple Habit using its tools.
He noted that, " Throughout the year I review my Twitter followers looking for bots, accounts that have been abandoned, or that are tweeting links with viruses and I remove them. For instance, Yelp calls out establishments which attempt to manipulate their reviews. Correspondingly, Klout is penalizing obvious fakers.
Construction tech startups are poised to shake up a $1.3-trillion-dollar As more people spent time at home last year due to the COVID-19 pandemic, the startup saw its contract revenue spike by 5x, Wu says. Eano also works on projects like building ADUs (accessory dwelling units). trillion-dollar industry.
seems like an unlikely place to grow one of the next billion-dollar startups in the booming Los Angeles tech ecosystem. Battery isn’t the only marquee investor to find value in ServiceTitan’s business developing software managing day labor. The city of Glendale, Calif. “Silicon Beach” this ain’t.
David encourages entrepreneurs to stay away from the big tech firms (such as Google, Facebook, Microsoft, Apple) because they are hard to compete with. I believe entrepreneurs should, in David’s words, “build big businesses on the outskirts” but I don’t believe that Silicon Valley tech giants will outmaneuver startups.
Note: I invest almost exclusively in b-to-b software companies. As such, I understand the degree to which hand waving and vaporware can influence investors and potential customers. An interface that is engaging can fool customers into trying a sub-par product. Customers Are All That Matter. Don’t Demo Me Bro.
I spent nearly a decade building software for large companies and then advising companies on the same. The technology team disagrees on direction and wants resolutions. There’s a guy in Los Angeles that I met at several tech networking events. If you’re not then you’re not trying hard enough.
It really provides the most relevant reviews, because when you're looking for reviews, you want them from someone very similar to you. Johnson: It's different from a traditional white label because if you look at a normal white label, you're just taking the functionality and you're just taking the software.
James (chairman of the Althea Foundation) and appointed Adam Sroka as Senior Vice President of Technology in a move to make business transactions simple and secure. . Jackson , “This financing round, coupled with hiring Adam Sroka as our head of technology, puts CapLinked in a position to further enhance our enterprise product offerings.”.
Irvine-based cybersecurity software developer CrowdStrike said Monday that it has rolled out a new set of customer support and services options, to support the deployment of its CrowdStrike Falcon software. Pricing on its new services offerings were not announced. READ MORE>>.
The functions of an early-stage board are pretty obvious and well understood: Providing introductions to customers, biz dev partners, recruits, the press, other investors, etc. Reviewing financial & operational performance. Offering a sparring-partner function on strategic decisions. Mentorship. As You Start to Mature.
I often hear the qualms of business-smart but non-technical entrepreneurs, wondering if they really have a chance in this high-technology marketplace. I tell them that if their idea or solution is technology intensive, they clearly need technology strength on the team. Outsource your technical requirements.
Exec Summary: Most companies (98+%) in the world (even tech startups) should be very profit focused. If you had huge customer growth but just didn’t focus on revenue that’s a different story. If you spent the 3 years perfecting some hugely differentiated technology IP that may also be different.
(QuIC), which is a wholly owned subsidiary of Qualcomm, said today that it has acquired iSkoot Technologies Inc. iSkoot Technologies includes substantially all of the assets of San Francisco-based iSkoot, a developer of social networking and Skype-compatible voice-over-IP software for mobile phones. READ MORE>>.
At TechEmpower, we frequently talk to startup founders, CEOs, product leaders, and other innovators about their next big tech initiative. After all, that’s what tech innovation is all about. Who are the customers? Do you have a custom algorithm or other technology? For customer service?
Santa Barbara-based TrackStreet , a provider of internet brand protection and analytics software, said today that it has named Ryan Erickson as Vice President of Sales. TrackStreet develops technology for monitoring brand reputation, Minimum Advertised Price (MAP) agreements, customerreviews, and similar information.
We''re very much a global footprint company, and we have customers from all over the world who fit that type of description. Right now, we have around 380,000 customers, with about a third of those outside the United States. Our target market is entrepreneurs, creatives, and developers. We''ve also managed to grow quite nicely.
Nearly every successful tech startup I’ve observed over the past 20 years has gone through a similar growth pattern: Innovate, systematize then scale operations. There is nothing more pure than building a product, putting it out in the world and seeing paying customers using your product and in some cases loving it.
My initial desire to blog came from something that’s always been my approach to investing – I’m a nerd and I love to play with the technology and part of my approach has really been to understand things both at a user level and at a reasonably deep tentacle level. If you are outside internet software we are not going to invest.
Traction can simply mean showing that you’re making progress with customers, product development, channel partners, initial revenue as a proof point, attracting well-known angel investors, winning industry awards / recognition. It is code word for “I’m not ready to invest for whatever reason … I need more proof.&#.
China is indelibly an important part of the future of the global technology system. Ask your customer why you lost. Two weeks after winning the deal and well into implementation planning we released a new version of our software. They hired a consultant to help them with the review. Specifically: 1. we would support 6.0
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