Startup Professionals Musings

DECEMBER 17, 2022

Every entrepreneur thinks he can relax a bit after his business model is proven, funding is in place, and revenues are scaling as projected up that hockey-stick curve. Unfortunately, the mainstream customers who can really drive revenue care more about price. Customer acquisition gets harder and more expensive.

Hockey Stick 265

Hockey Stick Guerilla Acquisition Startup 265

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

YoungUpstarts

AUGUST 13, 2019

This often means mergers and acquisitions, incremental innovation, marketing, and global expansion – which, over the long-term, only widen the gulf between the company and its customers. New customers are expensive to acquire, and typically produce less revenue than would current, satisfied customers. Here’s a look: 1.

Technical Review 145

Technical Review Technology Customer Qatar 145

Startup Professionals Musings

APRIL 11, 2022

Every business needs revenue to provide investor returns and offset costs. Free” is not an attractive revenue model to investors. Popular revenue models today include recurring subscription charges, licensing, as well the traditional sale or lease model. Key resources. Key activities. Key partners.

Business Model 334

Business Model Intellectual Property Angel Investor Channel 334

Startup Professionals Musings

JUNE 10, 2016

The right channel for marketing and distribution is one of the basic “four Ps” of business (product, promotion, price and placement). For growing revenue and market share, it’s a key element of your overall strategy, and one that can make or break you. Resist the channel sales pitch for exclusivity.

Channel 120

Channel Distribution Partner Acquisition 120

Austin Startup

AUGUST 9, 2021

Chargify, the leading billing platform for B2B SaaS, today announced the appointment of Matt Downs as Chief Revenue Officer (CRO) effective immediately. He will play a pivotal role as Chargify and SaaSOptics are brought together as the industry leading SaaS subscription billing and revenue platform.

Revenue 72

Revenue Georgia Texas Colorado 72

Startup Professionals Musings

APRIL 26, 2021

Provide initial and long-term sources of revenue. Every business, including non-profits, need a viable source of revenue to cover the costs of operation and sustainability. The most attractive revenue model today for services is subscriptions, and for products it is sales and support.

Intellectual Property 332

Intellectual Property Angel Investor Business Model Channel 332

A Smart Bear: Startups and Marketing for Geeks

FEBRUARY 26, 2019

Sometimes that’s defensible distribution channels. Instead, watch payback period for acquisition efficiency, watch retention for product/market fit, watch expansion revenue for long-term growth, and watch gross margin for long-term profitability. Sales” is not a dirty word. Sometimes that’s airtight product/market it.

Restful 202

Restful Founder Revenue Acquisition 202

Up and Running

JULY 26, 2016

Between January 2015 and January 2016, we grew our platform Slidebean from $1K to $20K in monthly recurring revenue. Getting the first tracks of revenue is one of the toughest processes of building a startup. Aug-15: Head of Sales (growth team). Apr-15: Head of Marketing (growth team). Jun-15: Community Manager (growth team).

Revenue 60

Revenue Acquisition Channel Campaign 60

Up and Running

OCTOBER 7, 2019

Think of them like this: If you have a critical sales milestone your company needs to meet by the end of the year, KPIs should deliver incremental evidence that you’re either headed in the right direction, or you’re not. . Sales KPIs. Revenue and wins by type: compare revenue and wins among existing and new businesses.

Founder 71

Founder Retention Metrics Technical Review 71

Startup Professionals Musings

MARCH 20, 2020

Every entrepreneur thinks he can relax a bit after his business model is proven, funding is in place, and revenues are scaling as projected up that hockey-stick curve. Unfortunately, the mainstream customers who can really drive revenue care more about price. Customer acquisition gets harder and more expensive.

Hockey Stick 307

Hockey Stick Guerilla Acquisition Revenue 307

Steve Blank

FEBRUARY 26, 2020

There are two reasons to raise money: You have a killer idea that is only partially validated, that you think can get to $50M+ of revenue in 5 years with 80%+ gross margins (if margins are lower, you need a lot more revenue)and you need money to get to product-market fit, or. Not all startups need outside investment to grow.

Cofounder 429

Cofounder Seed Stage Valuation Metrics 429

ConversionXL

MARCH 31, 2021

Agencies looking to grow have traditionally relied on fostering strategic relationships to land deals and increase sales. The same goes for your sales conversations; why did new leads seek you out, and what objections do you hear during the sales process? Select your content distribution channels.

Audience 127

Audience Non-Compete Distribution Channel 127

Steve Blank

APRIL 23, 2018

The entrepreneur who founded and grew the largest startup in the world to $10 billion in revenue and got fired is someone you have probably never heard of. 2) Provide corporate management with near real-time divisional sales reports and budgets that indicated when they deviated from plan. billion in sales in today’s dollars).

Michigan 268

Michigan Cofounder Stock Forecast 268

Seeing Both Sides

JULY 11, 2013

I''ve been thinking a lot lately about scaling sales. . Before this occurs, the sales process is a craft or an art - custom-made by the founder or evangelist sales VP. How do I build a repeatable, scalable sales process that is like an industrial machine - not a crafts project? 1) Enterprise Sales.

Sales 50

Sales Technical Review Software Review B2B 50

Startup Professionals Musings

JULY 26, 2010

Startups are usually so focused on selling more of their branded product or service to their own customer base (organic growth) that they don’t consider the more indirect methods (non-organic growth) of increasing revenue and market share. Even mergers and acquisitions (M&A) came early. Fresh customer base. New management skills.

Acquisition 214

Acquisition Merger Startup Bandwidth 214

ConversionXL

FEBRUARY 27, 2019

In consumer packaged goods, the benchmark for a “highly successful” product launch is no easy feat: $50 million in first-year sales. Successful product launch campaigns have a strong value proposition, multi-channel distribution, supporting content, and other trappings common to every marketing campaign. Image source ).

Product 110

Product Campaign Acquisition Social Media 110

ConversionXL

SEPTEMBER 10, 2019

I use a more restrictive definition: A growth team is a product tech team that’s focused on acquisition instead of core product features. Two of the teams focused on the two main sources of revenue, one team on inbound leads, and the last team on site conversion rates. Suddenly, our revenue from these campaigns dropped by 50%.

Conversion 133

Conversion Technical Review Channel Engineer 133

ReadWriteStart

OCTOBER 2, 2023

HubSpot : HubSpot provides a comprehensive user experience with marketing, sales, and customer service tools. Use load balancing: Load balancing is a technique for distributing traffic across multiple servers. Customer acquisition cost (CAC): CAC is the money a company spends to acquire a new customer.

Design 105

Design Product Churn Rate Architecture 105

Hunter Walker

JANUARY 2, 2017

The total value of these deals might look higher than when a tech company makes an acquihire but the premium tends to go to retention rather than the cap table (especially since (a) the acquirer might not be seen as an ‘attractive’ place to work and (b) there’s assumption of less equity upside post-acquisition).

Technical Review 116

Technical Review Cap Table Acquisition Startup 116

ConversionXL

OCTOBER 25, 2018

Inbound marketing increased the burden on marketing to resolve middle- and bottom-of-funnel concerns previously handled by sales departments. Leads in a demand generation strategy, we’re told, should actually generate sales. What is a lead if it doesn’t have a chance at becoming a sale?). But sales hates the “leads.”

Demand 132

Demand Vertical Campaign Channel 132

Steve Blank

NOVEMBER 2, 2009

The key contributors to an out-of-control burn rate is 1) hiring a sales force too early, 2) turning on the demand creation activities too early, 3) developing something other than the minimum feature set for first customer ship. These are great, but they are not repeatable by a sales organization. Lets see why.

Lean 244

Lean Silicon Valley Startup RSS 244

ConversionXL

MAY 8, 2019

He argues that, if factors like price and product quality are perceived as equal, the seller who’s created a relationship with a buyer will win the sale. calls to action and sales-focused product pages alone. But you can’t skip this stage simply because it’s furthest from a sale. You can build that relationship with content.

eCommerce 131

eCommerce Marketing Audience Non-Compete 131

Austin Startup

MARCH 26, 2019

25 questions that DTC entrepreneurs should ask themselves before scaling customer acquisition So you run a direct-to-consumer (DTC) brand. You just spent a few thousand dollars on advertising and your paid customer acquisition cost (CAC) numbers tested well relative to your best guess for customer lifetime value (LTV).

Technical Review 49

Technical Review Software Review China Acquisition 49

Steve Blank

OCTOBER 24, 2016

If you think the job of a CEO is to increase sales, then Ballmer did a spectacular job. He tripled Microsoft’s sales to $78 billion and profits more than doubled from $9 billion to $22 billion. The launch of the Xbox and Kinect, and the acquisitions of Skype and Yammer happened on his shift. But today very few of those remain.

Azure 120

Azure Business Model Cloud Artificial Inteligence 120

Steve Blank

OCTOBER 24, 2016

If you think the job of a CEO is to increase sales, then Ballmer did a spectacular job. He tripled Microsoft’s sales to $78 billion and profits more than doubled from $9 billion to $22 billion. The launch of the Xbox and Kinect, and the acquisitions of Skype and Yammer happened on his shift. But today very few of those remain.

Azure 120

Azure Business Model Cloud Artificial Inteligence 120

David Teten

JANUARY 19, 2021

More and more startups are pursuing Revenue-Based VCs , but “RBI” doesn’t fit everyone. Flexible VC 101: Equity Meets Revenue Share. By tying payments to actual revenues, founders and investors remain aligned around the company’s real-time performance, good or bad. Flexible VC: Revenue -based. Of the Inc.

Cofounder 78

Cofounder Technical Review Equity Dividend 78

Up and Running

NOVEMBER 12, 2018

The subscription box industry is growing rapidly thanks to a steady revenue model and tapping into people’s love for surprises. Marketing and sales plan. Financial summary : Project your revenue for the first few years. Creating a buyer persona puts you in the customer’s shoes to guide marketing and sales decisions.

Business Plan 63

Business Plan Curation Balance Sheet Intellectual Property 63

Startup Professionals Musings

JULY 13, 2019

Every business needs revenue to provide investor returns and offset costs. Free” is not an attractive revenue model to investors. Popular revenue models today include recurring subscription charges, licensing, as well the traditional sale or lease model. Key resources. Key activities. Key partners.

Intellectual Property 250

Intellectual Property Business Model Angel Investor Channel 250

Both Sides of the Table

MARCH 25, 2016

It turns out that to build a successful company you ultimately need this strange thing called “revenue” that people don’t just hand you: You need to earn it. And there’s this other thing called “gross margin,” which shows the quality of your revenue. How much ad revenue does TripAdvisor make?

Startup 150

Startup Seed Money DC Software Review 150

YoungUpstarts

SEPTEMBER 23, 2020

As a result, you can identify what’s bringing in the most revenue and where you should be focusing your efforts. That is, how much revenue you generate for each purchase regardless of how many items are in the customer’s cart. There’s a simple formula for calculating your AOV: Total revenue / number of orders = AOV.

eCommerce 246

eCommerce Revenue Conversion Advertising 246

A Smart Bear: Startups and Marketing for Geeks

OCTOBER 11, 2010

Then he'll describe his cutting-edge platform — cloud-based, scalable, distributed version control, continuous integration, one-click-deploy. Of course it's not that simple, and many business plans I've seen (unintentionally) omit many of the true costs of acquisition. Maybe you'll even get a wobbly demo. Advertising ??

Software Review 261

Software Review Technical Review Viral Software Developers 261

Version One Ventures

DECEMBER 6, 2018

Focus on distribution and understanding your business. Next, figuring out distribution is generally the most important thing to solve between Series A and Series B. Before raising your B round, you’ll need to be able to show how you can scale sales and marketing and that you are starting to really understand your business.

Acquisition 150

Acquisition Distribution Metrics Retention 150

ConversionXL

MARCH 19, 2020

Although the company created an incentive plan to boost sales, its sales growth fell from 19% before the recession to 8% after—five percentage points below Staples’ postrecession sales growth rate. This means more people behind a screen, which means more opportunity across distribution channels.

Marketing 121

Marketing Campaign Non-Compete Lean 121

Reid Hoffman

OCTOBER 21, 2019

This analysis will show that despite the company’s remarkable revenue hypergrowth, the WeWork business model as implemented always lacked some of the key growth factors required for successful blitzscaling. In any industry, you live and die by the numbers— user acquisition, margins, growth rate, and so on. Distribution.

Silicon Valley 53

Silicon Valley Software Review Technical Review United Kingdom 53

Startup Professionals Musings

DECEMBER 21, 2013

Startups are usually so focused on selling more of their branded product or service to their own customer base (organic growth) that they don’t consider the more indirect methods (non-organic growth) of increasing revenue and market share. Even mergers and acquisitions (M&A) came quickly. Fresh customer base. New management skills.

Merger 243

Merger Acquisition Startup Bandwidth 243

Steve Blank

NOVEMBER 16, 2009

In it, I got asked a question I often hear: “What if we have a web-based business that doesn’t have revenue or paying customers? And without revenue how do we know if we achieved product/market fit to exit Customer Validation?” They’re putting money into web services/business – most without early revenue. End of theory.&#

Customer Development 219

Customer Development Web Developer Customer 219