Startup Professionals Musings

APRIL 9, 2012

Modern investors love to first read a two-page summary of your business plan, formatted like a glossy marketing collateral sheet, with text well laid out in columns and sidebars, and a couple of relevant graphics. You may have already found several articles, web pages, or books about writing the perfect executive summary.

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Summary Writing Competition Sample 97

Startup Professionals Musings

FEBRUARY 3, 2011

Modern investors love to first read a two-page summary of your business plan, formatted like a glossy marketing collateral sheet, with text well laid out in columns and sidebars, and a couple of relevant graphics. You may have already found several articles, web pages, or books about writing the perfect executive summary.

Summary 90

Summary Writing Competition Sample 90

Both Sides of the Table

FEBRUARY 6, 2013

Quick summary: Be careful not to have too many co-founders. Your first sales people should be consultative sellers who can fuel evangelical sales. Don’t hire “relationship management” sales people too early. There are no “right” answers – just opinions.

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Startup Slides Outsource Development Sales 388

Both Sides of the Table

APRIL 16, 2011

After college Joanne worked for 4 years in retail apparel at Macy’s where she initially managed sales reps on the floor and then worked as a buyer of clothing. This is where she first developed sales skills. She doubled her salary by going into sales. to $12m in sales. “A lot of sales is innate.

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Startup Sales Venture Capital Entrepreneur 311

InfoChachkie

JULY 21, 2011

Paige is a gifted communicator and my summary does not do him justice. He offers a number of worthwhile tips and tricks that I was not able to capture in the textual summary, so the 14-minute audio file is well worth your time. What follows is a summary which paraphrases Paige’s responses. Click here to listen to the Audio File.

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Summary Tips Sales Entrepreneur 246

Both Sides of the Table

AUGUST 30, 2014

On sales I often talk about “ Why Buy Anything, Why Buy Now, Why Buy Me ” as a tool to think about a sales process. On teams I have a framework for tech teams “ CTO vs. VP Eng ” or on sales I have “ Journeymen, Mavericks & Superstars ” 5. You’ll have to make the hard judgment call.

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Startup Framework CTO Coach Sales 407

Both Sides of the Table

DECEMBER 27, 2011

The most obvious way to explain this is with sales people. If you hire 6 sales reps in January at $120,000 / year salary then you’ve taken on an extra $60,000 per month in costs yet these sales people might not close new business for 4-6 months. “COGS” represents the amount that each sale costs you.

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Startup Venture Capital Sales Technical Review 418

Both Sides of the Table

SEPTEMBER 20, 2014

It is the bane of every startups existence because it takes up so much time, it is so competitive to sign people and it feels like unproductive time because it’s not moving the ball forward on product, engineering, sales, marketing, biz dev, fund raising. It consumes time and energy and the payoff doesn’t come for a long time.

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Press Startup Email Sales 341

Both Sides of the Table

SEPTEMBER 17, 2011

Still, I’ll bet that functionally you divide areas of competence like sales & marketing, product, engineering, biz dev, etc. “I need a COO to focus on the business while I focus on M&A and strategic discussions.&# The company that wrote me this told me they were doing $4 million in sales.

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Startup CTO Hire Sales Email 292

Both Sides of the Table

JANUARY 6, 2014

By now you have many smart people around your board but probably people who don’t totally understand the nuances of your employees, customers, sales reps, marketing messages, technology challenges, competitors and strategic choices. how much energy to put into channel partners vs. direct sales. how to evolve our management team.

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Startup Sales Technical Review Software Review 325

Both Sides of the Table

MAY 15, 2013

And a natural sales person. I’ve sat through so many meetings where sales reps didn’t ask for the order. Any great sales person will ask you at the end of the meeting, “So, how’d I do? ” Great sales people are trained to “ask for the order.” Even today. She was a hustler.

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Sales Class Training Technical Review 416

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. In sales we often call these USPs (I wrote about them here: Unique Selling Propositions ).

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Sales SaaS Startup Venture Capital 150

Both Sides of the Table

JULY 1, 2010

You’ll get sales information from your VP of Sales, marketing information from your VP Marketing, tech information from your CTO and so on. An obvious example would be in sales. By going on sales calls you pick up directly the feedback of what customers want and also what they’re telling you about competition.

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Startup CTO Coach Technical Review CTO Hire 308

Startup Professionals Musings

FEBRUARY 11, 2010

Modern investors love to first read a two-page summary of your business plan, formatted like a glossy marketing collateral sheet, with text well laid out in columns and sidebars, and a couple of relevant graphics. You may have already found several articles, web pages, or books about writing the perfect executive summary.

Summary 55

Summary Writing Competition Metrics 55

Both Sides of the Table

SEPTEMBER 3, 2013

Almost always the CEO plus members of his or her management team including tech, marketing, sales and/or product. This is as true for a VC meeting as it is for a sales meeting or any group setting. Summary : Teams matter. These range from companies pitching me to portfolio companies presenting at board meetings.

Venture Capital 377

Venture Capital Slides Course Summary 377

Both Sides of the Table

APRIL 25, 2011

Early in a services business there is usually no profits as the company reinvests in hiring people to grow, but by $20 million in sales the company should at least be pulling in 10% profits (if not more) depending on how much is reinvested. Who are your competitors – how much do they charge?&#. It’s pure irony. interest?

Services 332

Services Venture Capital IP Startup 332

Both Sides of the Table

JANUARY 22, 2014

Of course it is super helpful if a VC can drop you in to important people for business development, recruiting, PR, sales and eventually M&A. Summary: Team Leadership skills, operating knowhow and industry knowledge are all tremendously important. Connections?

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Venture Capital Coach Writing SaaS 364

Berkonomics

FEBRUARY 10, 2012

And great management is able to morph a company to adopt without destroying the culture of the company in the process. What if you were the investor and someone walked into your office handing you a business plan executive summary that floored you with its brilliance?

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Venture Capital Summary Entrepreneur Incubator 240

Both Sides of the Table

MAY 13, 2018

The most important advice I could give you before you set out in fund raising mode is to understand that fund-raising a sales & marketing process and needs to be managed. Somehow many first-time founders equate “sales” with something that is beneath them. In sales there are also three rules: Qualify, qualify, qualify.

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Venture Capital Funding Startup Sales 332

Both Sides of the Table

OCTOBER 13, 2011

Let’s say it’s for biz dev purposes, or you’re pitching investors, recruiting, or it’s a sales meeting – whatever. It’s great for sales meetings where you can show your prospects what kind of organization you have. In summary: By all means “lunch.”

Venture Capital 397

Venture Capital Startup Email Networking 397

Both Sides of the Table

AUGUST 9, 2011

tl;dr summary. If you want a comprehensive summary of the industry in this era it’s worth a read: VC Ice Age Part 1 – What Happens When a Market Comes to a Standstill? Summary version? My year-over-year summary sounds very similar upon re-reading them. VCs were very active in this period. No chart was good.

Marketing 305

Marketing Venture Capital Funding Technical Review 305

Both Sides of the Table

APRIL 13, 2013

Just as with sales, if you have a strong champion as a partner you will likely be OK. In summary, VC partnerships are like any organization. You would never sell to one department and then trust them to manage all of the relationships with other departments who have to use your software. Is your partner senior or junior?

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Venture Capital Summary Organization Entrepreneur 309

Both Sides of the Table

APRIL 20, 2010

I recently did a post for startups on understanding sales people. new features need to go into the sale people’s slides so that they know the latest and greatest about how to differentiate from the competition. In summary. A few people have asked me to try and define the perfect startup organization chart.

CTO Hire 400

CTO Hire Fractional VPE Startup Outsource Development 400

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. What should not be in your deck? Competition isn’t won or lost by your marketing decks?

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Funding Venture Capital IP Email 239

Both Sides of the Table

MARCH 22, 2012

Your entrée to sales meetings. Helping with a Sales Lead. In Summary. Intros.They’re the lifeblood of networking – the currency of mavens. They are your route to angel money. We couldn’t live without them. I would like to make the case for being judicious with your introductions. I do this often.

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Email Venture Capital Startup Technical Review 359

TechEmpower

DECEMBER 11, 2023

It's a strategic choice that extends beyond a one-time development process and into anticipating future needs.

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Software Development Software Review Develop Development 297

Both Sides of the Table

MARCH 3, 2013

Watch the 30-minute interview to hear why but summary notes below. The numerator (return) encourages more sales, which is fine. .” Such was the quote of Clayton Christensen followed by, “… in the end I’m excited to see that happen. So pray for Harvard Business School if you wouldn’t mind.”

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Venture Capital Education Offshore Outsource Development 403

Both Sides of the Table

DECEMBER 16, 2010

For extroverted people I recommend that entrepreneurs have an “executive summary&# slide up front that cuts to the chase. If it’s preparing for a sales, biz dev or other type of meeting it’s so easy these days using LinkedIn, Facebook & Twitter to find out who knows that individual. Drain in quickly.

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Slides Venture Capital Startup Summary 358

socalTECH

JANUARY 21, 2010

For today's Insights and Opinions piece, we have an article from Dave Berkus , an angel investor and blogger at Berkonomics , who gives a good summary and rundown of the various different places you can raise money for your business. For you who fit that description, nice work.

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Southern California High Tech Summary Capital 145

Startup Professionals Musings

JUNE 26, 2020

To be clear, I define a product specification as the technical definition of your product, to be used for development and testing purposes, with a quick business summary for context. Include marketing, sales, and customer rollout plans. Summarize all of the above in an executive summary. You need both to survive.

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Product Summary Startup Examples 169

Both Sides of the Table

APRIL 19, 2011

Or read the quick, informative summary below the image! Here’s a summary of our interview. o Everything is for sale but it’s the price that moves the timing. Matt is one of the most transparent, focused & honest startup guys you’ll meet. Big thank you to Darius Vasefi , of EyeOnJewels for the write up.

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Acquisition Startup Customer Custom 304

Both Sides of the Table

JANUARY 17, 2011

EXECUTIVE SUMMARY: This is a long post, so I put an executive summary here if you want to get the point without reading all the detail. If you plan to read the post you can skip the summary if you want. Underpinning it all I wrote: sales, asset management, analytics & talent management.

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Writing Startup Ideas Summary 356

Both Sides of the Table

MARCH 10, 2010

It might be a VP of Sales, Marketing or Technology. Or it may just be a junior programmer, sales rep or accountant. Sales people are normally tossed out the door when they quit their jobs. Summary Recruiting is a very time-consuming and expensive exercise. You just made an offer to a new employee to join your company.

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Startup Press Course Writing 294

Both Sides of the Table

APRIL 15, 2013

I would personally attend the summary sessions to hear directly what their major requests were. Importantly we were also able to use the “platinum customer club” as a sales tool as we were trying to land larger accounts. For buyers who want a more hands-on approach some of the key buyer values are access and leverage.

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Customer Custom Pricing Startup 297

Both Sides of the Table

SEPTEMBER 20, 2009

This is not unlike a major biz dev deal you’re trying to sign or a big sales campaign into the VP of a major company. I like to tell entrepreneurs to treat it like a sales campaign. EXACTLY like a sales campaign. It is much easier to follow up by calling the junior staff (again, just as you would in a sales campaign).

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Venture Capital Startup Email News 277

Both Sides of the Table

FEBRUARY 16, 2015

At times I wanted the engineering team to produce features to support our sales efforts to I occasionally leaned on them a bit. So he would allocate say – 20% to sales, 15% to marketing, 20% to eng priorities, 10% to customer support, 10% to ops, 20% to ‘platinum customers’ and maybe 5% directly to me as the CEO.

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Startup Sales CTO Coach Course 150

InfoChachkie

JUNE 16, 2011

What follows is a summary which paraphrases Arnie’s responses. If you can’t show ROI, you are competing on sales and service. Value Prop Twitter Style : Ad.ly helps brands start conversations with target audiences on Twitter. Our celebrity influencers drive awareness and inspire engagement. For exact quotes, watch the videos.

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Social Media Platform Media Networking 252