Both Sides of the Table

JULY 4, 2013

This is part of a series that describes a sales methodology for technology companies or frankly many other types of companies, too. ” But many people get secure in their sales process with just meeting / talking to the people who are the nicest to you. Legal – The other big roadblock in sales is the legal department.

Sales 321

Sales Organization Startup Resource 321

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

Startup Professionals Musings

MARCH 3, 2023

Serious investors, on the other hand, look for a professional business plan or summary first, and hardly ever look at the product plan. It allows all members of your team, including marketing, support, and sales, to size and build the business plan processes they need to find customers, deliver, and maintain grow the business.

Product 112

Product Summary Activity Entrepreneur 112

TechEmpower

DECEMBER 11, 2023

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

Software Development 295

Software Development Software Review Development Develop 295

InfoChachkie

SEPTEMBER 4, 2012

Most sophisticated investors ignore them, focusing their attention on an entrepreneur's pitch and presentation materials, financial forecast and executive summary. As such, the primary goal of your executive summary is to open the door to an in-person meeting. Entrepreneurs routinely seek my advice regarding their executive summaries.

Venture Capital 211

Venture Capital Summary Technical Review Template 211

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. Specifically, 1.

Startup 319

Startup Sales Course Competition 319

Startup Professionals Musings

OCTOBER 23, 2021

It also starts with a good summary of the intangibles, summarized as the five rules of relevancy, by Mark Zawacki: A startup needs to be relevant and stay relevant. This is not just sales traction, but a proper balance between resources, product, and customers. Montgomery, which does a great job of laying out specifics.

Education 151

Education Customer Custom Sales 151

Startup Professionals Musings

NOVEMBER 15, 2020

Here is a summary of their key observations, with our joint specifics on what to expect, and how to overcome these obstacles: Customers don’t buy what they don’t know and understand. Multiple decision makers required to close a sale. Initial hype can generate a sales spurt, but long-term growth requires a clear fit.

Case Study 174

Case Study Startup Customer Custom 174

Startup Professionals Musings

AUGUST 9, 2023

Here is a summary of their key observations, with our joint specifics on what to expect, and how to overcome these obstacles: Customers don’t buy what they don’t know and understand. Multiple decision makers required to close a sale. Initial hype can generate a sales spurt, but long-term growth requires a clear fit.

Case Study 89

Case Study Customer Custom Study 89

Startup Professionals Musings

MAY 31, 2020

Serious investors, on the other hand, look for a professional business plan or summary first, and hardly ever look at the product plan. It allows all members of your team, including marketing, support, and sales, to size and build the business plan processes they need to find customers, deliver, and maintain grow the business.

Entrepreneur 124

Entrepreneur Startup Summary Product 124

Startup Professionals Musings

OCTOBER 14, 2023

There is no magic formula for a formal business plan format or sequence, but I would recommend the following ten sections, in this sequence, with relevant content: Executive summary Problem and solution Company description Market opportunity Business model Competition analysis Marketing and sales strategy Management team Financial projections Exit (..)

Startup 102

Startup Writing Mentor Sample 102

Startup Professionals Musings

MARCH 21, 2021

Serious investors expect founders to have their homework done before the first interaction – documented executive summary, business plan, and financial model. More customers are lost to apathy after the sale than poor service or quality. A numbing 68% of all business lost in America is lost due to lack of follow-up after the sale.

Activity 133

Activity Startup Ideas Technical Review 133

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?

Funding 239

Funding Venture Capital IP Email 239

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.

Startup 388

Startup Slides Outsource Development Sales 388

Tech.Co

JUNE 3, 2022

. “This latest data demonstrates that the SMB rent crisis has reached a new and concerning 2022 pinnacle, regarding both rent delinquency and soaring rent costs,” Alignable explains in a summary. A business' physical location is a key reason why local consumers drop by, so moving to a new spot can lead to a dip in sales.

Report 141

Report Newsletter Pricing Startup 141

Startup Professionals Musings

AUGUST 7, 2023

Foreign markets typically have less information available and more variability in sales estimates, which is a setup for failure. My summary recommendation is to quantify the context difference or institutional distance to each new market. Do more local homework and validate cautiously. Assume large and frequent economic swings.

Outsource Development 110

Outsource Development Social Media Entrepreneur Summary 110

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.

Press 341

Press Startup Email Sales 341

Startup Professionals Musings

OCTOBER 30, 2022

Almost instantly, via the Internet or on their smartphone in the store, they can find the lowest price alternative or their favorite features, without waiting for push marketing or listening to your best sales person. Bloom’s classic book, “ The New Experts: Win Today's Newly Empowered Customers.”

Customer 146

Customer Custom Startup Course 146

Startup Professionals Musings

SEPTEMBER 4, 2021

After-sales support, comfort, accessories, and brand image are as much a part of owning a Lexus as the car itself. In summary, the best product or service is a full-featured one (deep) that shows you understand customer needs (intelligent), comes with support (complete), makes customers better (empowering), and is easy to use (elegant).

Ideas 155

Ideas Startup Summary Examples 155

Startup Professionals Musings

MAY 6, 2023

Use your favorite search engine and keywords describing your solution to find online sales reports, trade association statistics, and online newsletters with the latest statistics. The wealth of data available online is already much larger than the entire Library of Congress, and much more current.

Statistics 120

Statistics Research Report Newsletter 120

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.

Startup 325

Startup Sales Technical Review Software Review 325

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.

Startup 407

Startup Framework CTO Coach Sales 407

Startup Professionals Musings

JANUARY 31, 2021

There is no magic formula for a formal business plan format or sequence, but I would recommend the following ten sections, in this sequence, with relevant content: Executive summary Problem and solution Company description Market opportunity Business model Competition analysis Marketing and sales strategy Management team Financial projections Exit (..)

Sample 137

Sample Writing Mentor Content 137

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.

Startup 150

Startup Sales CTO Coach Course 150

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.

Startup 311

Startup Sales Venture Capital Entrepreneur 311

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.

Venture Capital 332

Venture Capital Funding Startup Sales 332

Berkonomics

FEBRUARY 14, 2019

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? And great management can morph a company to adopt without destroying the culture of the company in the process. What if you see a great idea but no team to execute?

Venture Capital 120

Venture Capital Entrepreneur Ideas Summary 120

Berkonomics

FEBRUARY 14, 2019

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? And great management can morph a company to adopt without destroying the culture of the company in the process. What if you see a great idea but no team to execute?

Venture Capital 120

Venture Capital Entrepreneur Ideas Summary 120

Startup Professionals Musings

OCTOBER 6, 2023

For reference, here is a quick summary of key elements which most investors include in their due diligence process: Key personnel review. Sales and distribution channel activity will be analyzed, as well as cost of customer acquisition, to make an independent assessment of your financial projections. Traction in the marketplace.

Technical Review 118

Technical Review Startup Satisfaction Invest 118

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.

Startup 292

Startup CTO Hire Sales Email 292

Startup Professionals Musings

APRIL 16, 2023

Here is my summary of the seven most successful lead-generation vehicles he and I still recommend today, despite the popularity of viral marketing: Search-engine marketing. Scott, published a classic book that I still recommend, ” The New Rules of Lead Generation ,” highlighting the changes wrought by the internet and social media.

Marketing 114

Marketing Invest Social Media SEM 114

Startup Professionals Musings

APRIL 18, 2021

Here is a quick summary of the priorities normally covered by the due diligence process: Evaluation of key players. Sales and marketing strategy. During this time or earlier, you should also be doing your own due diligence on the investor, as suggested in a classic article on avoiding problem investors.

Technical Review 152

Technical Review Startup Satisfaction Summary 152

Startup Professionals Musings

APRIL 10, 2023

Here is my edited summary of their ten principles, which I like and may convince you that you don’t need a business plan at all, or at the very least will help you write a better one later: A new venture is a means, not an end. These include financial management, marketing and sales, and the appropriate production ability.

Startup 142

Startup Capital Resource Research 142

Startup Professionals Musings

MARCH 6, 2021

I found a good summary of the most common mistakes in a classic book by Kelly Clifford, “ Profit Rocket ,” written primarily to help you on the other side of the equation – skyrocket your profits. In business, when you lose money on every sale, it’s hard to make it up in volume and still be profitable. Marty Zwilling.

Technical Review 151

Technical Review Startup Summary Pricing 151

Startup Professionals Musings

DECEMBER 2, 2020

Foreign markets typically have less information available and more variability in sales estimates, which is a setup for failure. My summary recommendation is to quantify the context difference or institutional distance to each new market. Do more local homework and validate cautiously. Assume large and frequent economic swings.

Marketing 134

Marketing Outsource Development Social Media Entrepreneur 134

Startup Professionals Musings

SEPTEMBER 14, 2022

Most public shells ready for sale are not listed on a national securities exchange, but are instead traded in a less glamorous setting, such as the OTC Bulletin Board. In summary, a reverse merger, or going public through the “normal” IPO process should never be seen as just a way to fund your startup.

Funding 104

Funding Summary Entrepreneur Acquisition 104

Startup Professionals Musings

FEBRUARY 5, 2023

Here is a summary of the key stages along the way: Idea and seed stage. Business owners know that growth as a business versus a startup requires replicable and documented processes, a focus on marketing and sales, personnel management skills, and detailed planning.

Entrepreneur 108

Entrepreneur Startup Ideas Satisfaction 108