Both Sides of the Table

AUGUST 3, 2010

500k had come through the last acquisition. For some reason the industry of bankers who try to buy or sell businesses work in what is called the “M&A (mergers & acquisitions) Industry.&# I’ve never understood this. There’s really no such thing as a merger – only acquisitions. million uniques.

Merger 276

Merger Technical Review Early Stage Dilution 276

www.forentrepreneurs.com

FEBRUARY 2, 2010

Blog About Log in Register Startup Killer: the Cost of Customer Acquisition In the many thousands of articles advising entrepreneurs on what they have to focus on to build successful startups, much has been written about three key factors: team, product and market, with particular focus on the importance of product/market fit.

Acquisition 103

Acquisition Cost Customer Entrepreneur 103

Version One Ventures

SEPTEMBER 19, 2012

So most early-stage VCs have started to evaluate investment opportunities with an imaginary benchmark in mind: can this company become a $100 million opportunity? Early users of a product are often strong advocates and company ambassadors, while those users acquired through paid marketing channels down the road show far less loyalty.

Churn Rate 168

Churn Rate Viral Acquisition Cofounder 168

ConversionXL

MARCH 31, 2021

Using a tool like SparkToro , you can uncover the channels and influencers that your audience is most engaged with. Interviewing them will provide you with their wants and needs from a messaging perspective and uncover topic ideas and distribution channels. This sets the intention for your early-stage priorities.

Audience 127

Audience Non-Compete Distribution Channel 127

Both Sides of the Table

APRIL 4, 2011

Because it can be hard to define or agree company objectives at an early stage I believe most people avoid them. Customer Acquisition. If you can break this down by channel that you’ve acquired them from this is obviously better. Those two things together would lower your acquisition costs nearly in half to $6.11.

Metrics 346

Metrics Startup Acquisition SEM 346

Startup Professionals Musings

SEPTEMBER 11, 2021

Almost every early-stage startup who has approached investors for funding has heard the innocuous sounding rejection “I love your idea, but come back when you have more traction.” Percentages may be difficult at this early stage, but you need to get creative about slicing and dicing the market, sector, demographic, and sub-categories.

Hockey Stick 304

Hockey Stick Early Stage Metrics Acquisition 304

ReadWriteStart

NOVEMBER 19, 2010

Well, I have coached early stage entrepreneurs for a couple of years now - diligently, patiently - and have learned a few things. The first step is to develop some reference customers, something all early-stage startups should do. Yelp, ChowHound, and even Zagat come to mind as other channels worth exploring.

Silicon Valley 114

Silicon Valley Technical Review Startup Early Stage 114

Up and Running

FEBRUARY 18, 2021

Especially in the early stages of growth, standing up to competition means that your business also needs to minimize the cost of acquiring new customers. Customer acquisition drives sales and profit margins and it needs to be measured and balanced together with the customers’ lifetime value (LTV). Automated processes.

Acquisition 127

Acquisition Cost Affiliate Customer 127

View from Seed

MARCH 3, 2015

Then there were also certain social channels that worked for awhile but didn’t stick. In the early days, StumbleUpon was a key part of the playbook. For awhile, that channel was a share option on all our blog posts, and we tried paying for stumbles for some campaigns. But HubSpot doesn’t even talk about that now.

Marketing 120

Marketing Sales Cycle Startup CTO Hire 120

Up and Running

JULY 26, 2016

Your customer acquisition cost and lifetime value are the two magical numbers you need to calculate for each one of your campaigns. Cost of Acquisition (CAC): The total cost of acquiring a user through a given channel. If the CAC is above the LTV, but not too much—there’s some potential in this channel.

Revenue 60

Revenue Acquisition Channel Campaign 60

A Crowded Space

AUGUST 12, 2011

By this, I really just mean what I look for in entrepreneurs and companies at early stages. Social media / word-of-mouth will dwarf every other channel of acquisition. But I wanted to organize my thoughts on this primarily for my own purposes. It’s helpful to force yourself to write down your principles.

Early Stage 60

Early Stage Vertical Social Media Acquisition 60

NZ Entrepreneur

NOVEMBER 14, 2018

Niesh worked with ecentre, the startup business incubator at Massey University, as part of the Sprint Launch programme, focusing on growth through customer acquisition. It’s not always the right approach,” said Yoo. New Zealand startups need to know that the local market is limited by the relatively small population of 4.8

Global 50

Global New Zealand Incubator Startup 50

ConversionXL

JANUARY 18, 2022

When a company is in a growth stage, focus product marketing in your marketing department. Product marketing can partner with marketers to: Find channels; Decide on content ; Refine messaging; and, Remove friction to signing up and booking demo calls. In the early stages: Use product marketing to execute the GTM strategy.

Marketing 110

Marketing Product Audience Equity 110

View from Seed

MARCH 16, 2016

The next big consumer company could be BookBub , with millions of users, a ravenous fan base on social channels, and global reach. Additionally, few legacy companies have been as successful in innovating through younger channels like YouTube, Vine, Snapchat, podcasting, and more. Much more funding.

Boston 215

Boston Early Stage Artificial Inteligence Semantic 215

VC Cafe

JULY 15, 2021

What are the main channels for app marketing and distribution today? App discovery today: Word of mouth – family and friends remain the #1 channel for new app discovery. Ads – targeted advertising is perhaps THE most reliable channel to market and distribute a consumer app. Several startups, like Copy.ai

Mobile 190

Mobile Social Media Distribution PR 190

SoCal CTO

OCTOBER 8, 2009

This is a great presentation and one that I'm going to point out to startup / early stage company CEOs. We'll need to look at different customer acquisition channels, figure out how they are converting, and the expected lifetime value of customers acquired through those channels, and apply cost to those channels.

Metrics 225

Metrics Startup Retention Acquisition 225

Startup Professionals Musings

FEBRUARY 26, 2013

Almost every early-stage startup who has approached investors for funding has heard the innocuous sounding rejection “I love your idea, but come back when you have more traction.” Percentages may be difficult at this early stage, but you need to get creative about slicing and dicing the market, sector, demographic, and sub-categories.

Hockey Stick 266

Hockey Stick Early Stage Metrics Acquisition 266

Version One Ventures

DECEMBER 11, 2013

Finding the right balance between investing in growth and focusing on capital efficiency is one of the toughest challenges for entrepreneurs and early-stage start-ups. But if you’re operating in e-commerce or other non winner-takes-it-all markets, then you don’t have to be overly aggressive in the early stages.

Early Stage 162

Early Stage Venture Capital Acquisition Bootstrapping 162

YoungUpstarts

FEBRUARY 6, 2020

Some of the best events you may find prudent attending for your early-stage company include WebSummit, Money2020, TechCrunch Disrupt and Collision. As for social media, below are popular channels you can take advantage of. Find social media handles of potential investors and try connecting with them one on one.

Social Media 162

Social Media Startup Matching Early Stage 162

The Equity Kicker

JUNE 6, 2017

A common mistake founders make at the early stages of a company is to put too much detail into their business plan. Sometimes we see a level of detail which amounts to spurious accuracy given the stage the company is at and the attendant uncertainty. Based on [insert justification here] we believe that X and Y are achievable.”

Acquisition 75

Acquisition Early Stage eCommerce Channel 75

ConversionXL

MAY 27, 2022

Only around 10–15% of B2B leads turn into paying customers, and it’s because tactics optimizing for the early stages of the funnel only cater to early-stage goals. It’s their job to implement a holistic approach to growth that encompasses both marketing and sales and looks at every stage of the buyer’s journey.

Demand 95

Demand Management B2B Campaign 95

YoungUpstarts

MAY 16, 2016

The good news is that there are also a ton of online resources that can help you get started and (hopefully) steer clear of common early-stage missteps. No matter how you choose to brand your business , you will need to keep a consistent tone and aesthetic across every marketing channel you use. Don’t muffle your message.

Entrepreneur 124

Entrepreneur Early Stage Social Network Acquisition 124

Up and Running

JULY 22, 2019

A telling success factor for new businesses looking to make an impact in their industries is whether they can attract investment at an early stage of development. . Well Health Technologies, for instance, was able to continue expanding through a scalable acquisition model.

Canada 78

Canada Early Stage Valuation Finance 78

Early Growth Financial Services

NOVEMBER 13, 2014

Stay tuned for the recording of the presentation on our YouTube channel. And when it comes down to it, founders should focus their greatest energy on product development and customer acquisition efforts — not on compliance and administrative tasks. Instead, he advises outsourcing non-core functions early.

Early Stage 52

Early Stage Acquisition Channel Product Development 52

The Next Web

JANUARY 26, 2014

Getting your app’s content posted through a major distribution channel exposes more people to your app and results in more users trying your app out. PayPal famously offered a $20 2-way reward in their early stages of growth. Why does it work? Incentivise users to invite their friends by offering a 2-way reward.

Thailand 167

Thailand Social Network PPC Singapore 167

ConversionXL

SEPTEMBER 28, 2017

3) Customer Acquisition Cost. Your budgetary number for how much you spend to acquire a customer is known as the “ customer acquisition cost ” (CAC). If you are entrepreneur planning your next business, you can’t afford to ignore the cost of customer acquisition. Customer Acquisition Cost. 4) Customer Lifetime Value.

Metrics 121

Metrics Acquisition Conversion Revenue 121

Occam's Razor

MAY 2, 2017

#tearsofpain One way of removing silos and focusing on the entire business is to leverage Acquisition, Behavior and Outcome metrics. A small change I’ll make in this post is that when I recommend the metrics, I’ll follow the Outcomes | Behavior | Acquisition structure throughout this post. Hence that’s the macro-outcome.

Metrics 141

Metrics Acquisition eCommerce Analytics 141

VC Cafe

NOVEMBER 2, 2019

One question that keeps coming up when speaking with early stage entrepreneurs when it comes to funding, is what metrics the company needs to hit to raise seed/series A/B etc: What’s a good conversion rate? Deep tech is harder to measure/compare, especially in the early stage. What should our MRR growth be?

B2C 141

B2C Technical Review Startup Retention 141

The Equity Kicker

MAY 14, 2012

demonstrating a repeatable sales model (typically telephone sales, direct sales, or channel sales). identifying a scalable customer acquisition channel. demonstrating profitable customer acquisition (usually by analysis of unit economics). achieving first revenues. signing distribution deals.

Finance 118

Finance Valuation Venture Capital Dilution 118

Version One Ventures

JULY 13, 2015

Now, inspired by our friend Christoph Janz at Point Nine Capital who created a KPI dashboard for early-stage SaaS , we have put together a KPI template for marketplaces. A few months ago, I wrote about the questions that we typically ask when evaluating a marketplace opportunity. Seller/Supplier Metrics.

Due Diligence 60

Due Diligence Retention Metrics Revenue 60

Startup Lessons Learned

APRIL 14, 2009

In an early-stage startup especially, revenue is not an important goal in and of itself. Let’s start with a simple question: why do early-stage startups want revenue? Because they have no presence in the market, they have to find distribution channels to bring in customers. But all things are never equal.

Customer 167

Customer San Francisco Lean Hockey Stick 167

ConversionXL

JUNE 25, 2021

This plan is your go-to-market (GtM) strategy , which should be informed by: Market conditions and competitive positioning Ideal customers and target audience Product offer and pricing Lead generation and customer acquisition process. Your brand (and product) should be easily recognizable no matter the channel you’re promoting it on.

Product 96

Product Social Media Audience Software Review 96

Rob Go

MAY 28, 2015

There were a couple interesting tidbits that I learned from our conversation that is particularly relevant to early stage companies, and I thought I’d try to crystallize a few learnings on my blog as a companion to the podcast. Learning #1 was how to think about non-performance channels. Two tidbits.

Early Stage 28

Early Stage Marketing Channel PR 28

Rob Go

MAY 28, 2015

There were a couple interesting tidbits that I learned from our conversation that is particularly relevant to early stage companies, and I thought I’d try to crystallize a few learnings on my blog as a companion to the podcast. Learning #1 was how to think about non-performance channels. Two tidbits.

Early Stage 28

Early Stage Marketing Channel PR 28

This is going to be BIG.

JUNE 13, 2011

When people ask me what areas I’m interested in, I often say “early” Taking meetings with entrepreneurs at these early stages means that you have to view these meetings in the right context. Sometimes, technology changes and old ideas that were before their time can be successful.

Viral 110

Viral Social Network Startup Early Stage 110

ReadWriteStart

SEPTEMBER 30, 2010

To replace them, employers spend $11,500 average per healthcare employee acquisition cost (20% of the annualized salary plus hiring incentives is considered customary for acquisition cost). Distribution Channel for Product Companies. A customer acquisition strategy that is pragmatic, and. How does he mitigate that?

India 115

India Silicon Valley Incubator Bootstrapping 115

View from Seed

JANUARY 24, 2018

But whether you are trying to build daily, habitual products for business users like Slack or InVision or trying to reach truly mass market consumers like Wayfair, Jet, or Chewy, there is someone in the Guild who has faced this challenge at the early stages of a business and at scale. by Valore) and founder of Viximo (acq. by Tapjoy).

Operations 176

Operations Cofounder Technical Review Angel Investor 176