Growthink Blog

MAY 20, 2011

you have customers). This post by Brad Feld, which references a Guy Kawasaki post, explains why VCs don't sign NDAs - [link] Note that Brad and Guy are two of the most widely respected VCs in the world. Like getting customer traction. Like building an advisory board. Maybe you have your first customer.

Venture Capital 109

Venture Capital Valuation NDA Non-disclosure Agreement 109

Up and Running

AUGUST 30, 2017

What are the details of your ownership structure, board of directors, investor list, partners, and so on? List an advisory board if you have one, list all employee salaries, incentives, referral bonuses for recruiting, and all such details. Reference letters. Reach your target market. Business partnerships.

Business Plan 93

Business Plan SBA Software Review Advisory Board 93

Duct Tape Marketing

JANUARY 31, 2013

Most small businesses will tell you their new customers come through word of mouth, but very few can tell you how those referrals happen or where they come from. Have you asked your happy customers to tell their friends about you? Happy customers would be glad to talk about you. Happy customers would be glad to talk about you.

Small Business 78

Small Business Advisory Board Software Review New York 78

Startup Professionals Musings

AUGUST 4, 2013

In other words, once they are convinced that the product works, they assume their price, sales channel, and marketing will bring in the customers. For example, one CEO I know gave away his software product to the first ten customers. Iterate and improve the fit until your test customers are delighted, not just tolerant.

Business Model 235

Business Model Product Advisory Board Angel Investor 235

Startup Professionals Musings

JUNE 30, 2012

In other words, once they are convinced that the product works, they assume their price, sales channel, and marketing will bring in the customers. For example, one CEO I know gave away his software product to the first ten customers. Iterate and improve the fit until your test customers are delighted, not just tolerant.

Business Model 248

Business Model Advisory Board Entrepreneur Angel Investor 248

Startup Professionals Musings

DECEMBER 25, 2022

In the rush of a startup, it’s tempting to start spending the money you expect any day from a rich uncle or a major new customer. Many entrepreneurs have destroyed a strategic alliance, an investor relationship, or lost a key customer by jumping in with harsh words after a bad day at home or at the office.

Technical Review 250

Technical Review Advisory Board Due Diligence Silicon Valley 250

ConversionXL

AUGUST 11, 2021

To uncover audience problems and motivations, call on your brand market research or customer service data. The more you know about your audience, the better you can customize your offer to appeal to the right kind of sponsors. Sponsors will be happy to know that you’re capable of producing converting pages that may house their content.

Audience 139

Audience Social Media Email Ruby 139

Duct Tape Marketing

NOVEMBER 11, 2021

14:43] Getting your best customers who already evangelize your business even more engaged. [16:25] 16:25] Having special, exclusive offers for your best customers. They may have the opportunity to refer somebody to you every day, or they may just, it may just happen once or twice in a year.

Affiliate 96

Affiliate Advisory Board Networking Programming 96

Startup Professionals Musings

APRIL 15, 2011

In other words, once they are convinced that the product works, they assume their price, sales channel, and marketing will bring in the customers. For example, one CEO I know gave away his software product to the first ten customers. Iterate and improve the fit until your test customers are delighted, not just tolerant.

Business Model 234

Business Model Advisory Board Startup Angel Investor 234

crowdSPRING Blog

FEBRUARY 28, 2019

Make sure you build your business to meet the needs of a specific niche to avoid overspending and underwhelming all of your potential customers. That passion will come through in everything you do, and your customers will appreciate and embrace the authenticity of your brand. How to identfy your brand's audience, and more! Real Estate.

Business Plan 64

Business Plan Small Business Administration Hiring Social Media 64

crowdSPRING Blog

FEBRUARY 14, 2019

Make sure you build your business to meet the needs of a specific niche to avoid overspending and underwhelming all of your potential customers. That passion will come through in everything you do, and your customers will appreciate and embrace the authenticity of your brand. NOT SATISFIED WITH THE GROWTH OF YOUR BUSINESS?

Angel Investor 85

Angel Investor Small Business Business Plan Intellectual Property 85

Startup Professionals Musings

MARCH 30, 2020

In the rush of a startup, it’s tempting to start spending the money you expect any day from a rich uncle or a major new customer. Many entrepreneurs have destroyed a strategic alliance, an investor relationship, or lost a key customer by jumping in with harsh words after a bad day at home or at the office.

Technical Review 314

Technical Review Advisory Board Due Diligence Silicon Valley 314

Startup Lessons Learned

JULY 29, 2009

Unfortunately, customers hated that initial product. Unfortunately, we made two critically flawed assumptions: that customers would primarily consume first-party assets that we shipped to them on CD and that they would tend to congregate in a relatively uniform way. How likely will customers ultimately use that feature?

Technical Review 168

Technical Review Software Review San Francisco Lean 168

Startup Professionals Musings

APRIL 5, 2010

In other words, once they are convinced that the product works, they assume their price, sales channel, and marketing will bring in the customers. For example, one CEO I know gave away his software product to the first ten customers. Iterate and improve the fit until your test customers are delighted, not just tolerant.

Business Model 120

Business Model Advisory Board Angel Investor Channel 120

David Teten

JANUARY 23, 2021

The next best move is to build your core team, e.g., recruit an Advisory Board, Venture Partners, and EIRs. For example, one LP told me she prefers customized emails from fund principals, as opposed to a bulk-mailed quarterly update. For your reference, here is our current deck (link).” Lastly, gather feedback.

Private Equity 78

Private Equity Venture Capital Technical Review Software Review 78

Startup Professionals Musings

NOVEMBER 5, 2014

In the rush of a startup, it’s tempting to start spending the money you expect any day from a rich uncle or a major new customer. Many entrepreneurs have destroyed a strategic alliance, an investor relationship, or lost a key customer by jumping in with harsh words after a bad day at home or at the office.

Technical Review 274

Technical Review Entrepreneur Advisory Board Due Diligence 274

Startup Professionals Musings

MARCH 14, 2018

In the rush of a startup, it’s tempting to start spending the money you expect any day from a rich uncle or a major new customer. Many entrepreneurs have destroyed a strategic alliance, an investor relationship, or lost a key customer by jumping in with harsh words after a bad day at home or at the office.

Technical Review 158

Technical Review Advisory Board Due Diligence Silicon Valley 158

Hearpreneur

MARCH 15, 2016

But to put it more in concrete words and referring back to our core product; We want to be the Golden Standard of mouthguards globally, where we can take great pride and comfort in that we are saving teeth globally. Sometimes a great advisory board can be just as useful. The answer isn’t always VC’s or angels.

Advisory Board 48

Advisory Board Michigan SBIR Revenue 48

Startup Professionals Musings

FEBRUARY 7, 2015

Businesses require an equally elegant business model, with the right price, messaging and delivery channel to the right target customers to keep the dream alive and growing. The founder had simply not done the work to validate a price and customer segment. Focus on collecting customer references.

Business Model 120

Business Model Technical Review Advisory Board Software Review 120

Startup Professionals Musings

DECEMBER 6, 2015

In the rush of a startup, it’s tempting to start spending the money you expect any day from a rich uncle or a major new customer. Many entrepreneurs have destroyed a strategic alliance, an investor relationship, or lost a key customer by jumping in with harsh words after a bad day at home or at the office.

Technical Review 120

Technical Review Advisory Board Due Diligence Silicon Valley 120

Hearpreneur

FEBRUARY 8, 2023

As an entrepreneur, joining organizations or networking groups can allow you to connect with like-minded people who can provide you with information and support, and refer customers to you. Many business owners are members of associations that focus on a specific set of customer needs. Thanks to Gerrid Smith, Joy Organics ! #28-

Community 92

Community Architecture Entrepreneur Networking 92

Tim Keane

JANUARY 14, 2009

One big example of this is boards of advisers, a real important concept for almost every entrepreneurial business.    I am constantly impressed by the high quality of members of advisory boards on opportunities I get to see.  Listed below are links to weblogs that reference Two Rules: No Ask, No Get.

Advisory Board 60

Advisory Board Wisconsin Bootstrapping Angel Investor 60

Austin Startup

MARCH 2, 2019

Speak with potential customers, speak with industry experts, speak with potential partners?—?validate In other words, as I write in my Lucky7 post on capital efficiency , you may be able to make your businesses mostly customer funded. And Dean became our first Advisory Board member of many. Have we gotten it all right?

Advisory Board 51

Advisory Board Cofounder Greece Bootstrapping 51

Small Business Force

JANUARY 1, 2012

You live and breathe the business, day in and day out, dealing with customers, employees and suppliers. Or, it could be something more formal like an advisory board made up of individuals who bring to your business both small business experience and/or functional expertise that you lack.

Advisory Board 33

Advisory Board Stock Options Small Business Stock 33

crowdSPRING Blog

MARCH 14, 2019

Make sure you set up your real estate business to meet the needs of a specific niche to avoid overspending and underwhelming all of your potential customers. That passion will come through in everything you do, and your customers will appreciate and embrace the authenticity of your brand. NOT SATISFIED WITH THE GROWTH OF YOUR BUSINESS?

Business Plan 79

Business Plan Limited Liability Company Small Business Sales 79

BeyondVC

DECEMBER 15, 2005

So lesson #1 is while it is always hard to land your first financial services customer, remember not to screw it up because if you do everyone will know. On the other hand if you deliver on your promises and have a great base of early reference customers, it will pay huge dividends.

Advisory Board 60

Advisory Board New York Dividend Sales Cycle 60

Austin Startup

MAY 19, 2018

Don’t do reference checks … until you are actually ready to write a check. This one comes from personal experience, months into conversations and after reference checks (which went well) one particular VC decided he didn’t have commitment to the space. Wow us with your consistency and follow through and you’ll win our hearts.

Founder 75

Founder Early Stage Software Review Deal Flow 75

Occam's Razor

JANUARY 20, 2010

Apply the Organic Search segment to that report (in Google Analytics segments are on the top right, in other tools please refer to user manual). Click on Referring Keywords and now you are looking just at the keywords bringing traffic to this page. This results in not speaking the same language (say keywords) as their customers.

Analytics 90

Analytics Search SEO Metrics 90

Duct Tape Marketing

SEPTEMBER 9, 2022

Talked about the, the idea of getting your customers, your prospects in the habit of buying from you or listening to you or following you habit based marketing, download, nudge, wherever you get your podcasts. (00:47): John Jantsch (13:45): So what should a board, I guess this could go either way, what should a board member expect to bring?

Startup 86

Startup Cofounder Early Stage Founder 86

Startup Professionals Musings

JANUARY 5, 2018

In my experience with technical entrepreneurs, they work hard on creating an innovative and elegant solution, and assume that customers will flock to them (“if we build it, they will come”). The founder had simply not done the work to validate a price and the perfect customer segment. Make every pilot customer commit to be a reference.

Product 137

Product Advisory Board Business Model Cofounder 137

Austin Startup

FEBRUARY 24, 2019

As I’ve helped entrepreneurs find their own product-market fit and connected them to potential clients, investors, and Advisory Board members, I’ve spent a lot of time telling them about the “cool kids”. and build a lifetime profile of all of their customers’ interactions. it isn’t easy. They helped us cross the chasm.

Software Review 48

Software Review Sales Cofounder Analytics 48

Startup Professionals Musings

OCTOBER 26, 2010

The article also refers to government data showing that those 55 to 64 and older represent one of the fastest growing groups of self-employed workers. Advisory Board. Customer Service. News & World Report , people over 40 were key players in 86.6% of startup businesses as far back as 2005.

Advisory Board 189

Advisory Board Angel Investor Equity Salary 189

Startup Professionals Musings

MAY 9, 2011

I also spend close to half my time teaching, and in addition to serving on the entrepreneurship advisory boards at Columbia, Yale and NYU, I am Chair of the Finance, Entrepreneurship and Economics program at Singularity University in Silicon Valley. Marty: Were your own first investment ventures a positive and learning experience?

New York 221

New York Accredited Investor Advisory Board IRR 221

mashable.com

AUGUST 20, 2011

Whether that’s a funny ringtone or an impromptu blast of Rebecca Black’s “Friday,&# coworking can be a great way to network, make friends and have a built-in advisory board of people from many different industries. Plus, a lot of coworking spaces offer classes and seminars on new technology and tools.

Cofounder 81

Cofounder San Francisco Social Media Startup 81

www.rocketwatcher.com

NOVEMBER 8, 2010

Pipeline Measurements # of Targets - sometimes referred to as “suspects&# this is anyone in the universe who is on the receiving end of your marketing. A good set of metrics will also give you a feel for inside and outside sales effectiveness and overall sales pipeline velocity as well.

B2B 42

B2B Metrics Marketing Startup 42

Startup Lessons Learned

OCTOBER 19, 2009

Three reasons: change the world, make customers’ lives better and create an organization of lasting value. Take this fictional example of a Seedcamp attendee (actually a composite), which I will refer to as Hairbrush 2.0. The Entrepreneur’s Guide to Customer Development ► June (3) What is a startup?

San Francisco 111

San Francisco Lean Continuous Deployment DC 111

www.rocketwatcher.com

DECEMBER 5, 2011

7 Startup Customer Discovery Questions. You will either get references to whatever video game is rockin, or some unintelligible string of letters and numbers. When you are dealing with literally hundreds of products it gets pretty hard for customers to find what they are looking for. « How To Get a Better Customer Quote.

Naming 41

Naming Startup Product Name Framework 41