VC Cafe

FEBRUARY 21, 2023

This is a question startup founders ask themselves multiple times a week. It’s not just the competition against the incumbents and the large tech platforms that founders has to worry about, but most importantly is the company’s performance and product market fit. How are we doing? You can get a downloadable version here.

Retention 109

Retention Conversion Churn Rate B2C 109

View from Seed

APRIL 27, 2020

Founders do not have this luxury. Most founders are going through hell right now, and that is not going away any time soon. For investors and founders, the next several years are going to be very different. Pre-seeds will be tougher as investors gravitate more towards proven founders or folks within their existing networks.

Cofounder 194

Cofounder Software Review Portfolio Technical Review 194

View from Seed

JULY 31, 2014

Two weeks ago, my partners and I here at NextView Ventures announced our second fund. As my partner Rob Go has written , our goal is to invest half in consumer web and mobile and half in business-focused ventures. BUSINESS-FOCUSED (B2B). Network Effect B2B. Step-Function Ad Tech.

Seed Stage 272

Seed Stage B2C Technical Review Disintermediation 272

Both Sides of the Table

NOVEMBER 3, 2015

It’s true that we also fund more mundane stuff like B2B software aimed at productivity improvements but we want some big bets in every fund where we feel we can contribute to “making our own little dent in the universe” as the saying goes – by backing ambitious entrepreneurs with that same goal.

Technical Review 150

Technical Review Software Review Founder Boston 150

Austin Startup

MARCH 13, 2020

Since then, we’ve served 500+ unique customers, worked with 10+ space partners, pivoted our business model from B2C to B2B, signed on advisers, and have raised money from outside investors. Your partner matters To all those solo-founders out there?—?kudos Our biggest example of this was our pivot from B2C to B2B.

B2C 62

B2C Austin B2B Cofounder 62

David Teten

AUGUST 19, 2019

RBI normally requires founders to pay back their investors with a fixed percentage of revenue until they have finished providing the investor with a fixed return on capital, which they agree upon in advance. For background, see Revenue-Based Investing: A New Option for Founders who Care About Control. Bigfoot Capital.

Revenue 60

Revenue Technical Review Software Review Equity 60

View from Seed

SEPTEMBER 4, 2018

Most of these rhyme with what we’ve said in the past, but some have also evolved to fit the changing landscape and our own convictions about what really matters for founders and their investors at the seed stage. Instead, it’s more of a Manifesto about the core beliefs that shape our strategy. Belief #1: The best time to invest is early.

North America 120

North America Seed Stage Early Stage Lead Investor 120

David Teten

SEPTEMBER 23, 2017

PEVCTech is partnering with Blue Future Partners to run the first large-scale survey of VCs’ technology stack. Johann Kratzer of Blue Future Partners , a fund of funds, observed, “The majority of the hundreds of funds we’ve diligenced rely predominantly on their relationships to source deals. Greylock Partners.

Private Equity 60

Private Equity Venture Capital Equity Technical Review 60

ReadWriteStart

AUGUST 19, 2019

A startups seeds are sown and sprouted either because the founder(s) have come up with a unique solution with a product (like a software or a physical product) or service. Failures, on the other hand, occur majorly due to the following reasons: Quitting too early in the process; lack of persistence. Running out of money.

India 131

India Startup Cofounder Software Review 131

ConversionXL

JUNE 2, 2022

If ABM gives your ideal customer everything they want and need to become a long-term partner, is there actually a need for lead generation? For example, recently I was in the market for some transcription software. I headed to Google to search for “best transcription software” and read some blog posts that reviewed the best options.

Lead Generation 94

Lead Generation Marketing Sales Cycle Campaign 94

Hearpreneur

JUNE 4, 2021

9- Providing Legitimate B2B Customer Data in the Era of Mistrust. That's when I was struck by the idea: Why not provide a legit B2B customer database that is neither dodgy and nor a bad fit for a business? Thus, I started my B2B customer data-mining firm. Thanks to Nikita Chen, LegitGrails ! #9- Photo Credit: William Cannon.

Entrepreneur 134

Entrepreneur B2B Database Technical Review 134

ConversionXL

FEBRUARY 3, 2022

GrowthHackers founder and former Head of Growth at Dropbox, Sean Ellis , coined the term: “A growth hacker is a person whose true north is growth. In his course on Growth Mindset (part of CXL’s Growth Marketing Minidegree ), WeTheFuture.org founder John McBride describes three key components of a successful growth marketer: 1.

Retention 113

Retention Marketing Acquisition Channel 113

ConversionXL

JANUARY 18, 2022

In 2018, after two short years and $3 million raised in startup funds, recruitment AI company Ansaro shut down due to bad market fit. It partners with sales to close more revenue, informs product teams to deliver better products, and in some cases, co-owns demand generation activities with marketing teams.

Marketing 110

Marketing Product Audience Equity 110

Duct Tape Marketing

MAY 25, 2022

Paul is the founder and CEO of Marketing AI Institute, and the founder of PR 20/20, HubSpot’s first partner agency. Click on over and give us a review on iTunes, please! He's the founder and CEO of marketing AI Institute, founder of PR 2020 HubSpot's first partner, agency HubSpots and sponsor of this show.

Artificial Inteligence 89

Artificial Inteligence Marketing Cofounder SMS 89

David Teten

DECEMBER 3, 2019

But in business, you want a lot of partners. However, in private markets, there is more room to optimize across all 11 steps of the investing process: firm management , marketing, fundraising , origination , manage relationships, due diligence, negotiation, monitoring, portfolio acceleration , reporting, and. 2) Market .

Technical Review 78

Technical Review Software Review Analytics Private Equity 78

ConversionXL

MAY 27, 2022

However, due to B2B market saturation, customer acquisition costs are rising ; this digital marketing strategy of giving a little and getting a lot no longer works. Attribution software will tell you if your website visitors come to you through direct traffic or organic. Alternatively, founder of contentlift.io

Demand 124

Demand B2B Distribution Channel 124

crowdSPRING Blog

SEPTEMBER 11, 2015

How much do startup founders pay themselves—and other questions you were too afraid to ask crowdspring.co/1LMkRhy. Why It’s Safe for Founders to Be Nice crowdspring.co/1ECx3Sm. The Power of Partnering Up … Instead of Down crowdspring.co/1ECxIDo. Open source typeface “Hack” brings design to source code crowdspring.co/1JPW7C3.

Small Business 48

Small Business Design Syria Social Media 48

Startup Lessons Learned

JULY 5, 2010

I have personally sold many copies of his book, and continue to recommend it as one of the most important books a startup founder can read. Four Steps primarily centers its stories and case studies on B2B hardware and software startups. You can imagine how well that worked. Make the effort to test your assumptions.

Customer Development 166

Customer Development Developer San Francisco Customer 166

Rob Go

SEPTEMBER 4, 2018

Most of these rhyme with what we’ve said in the past, but some have also evolved to fit the changing landscape and our own convictions about what really matters for founders and their investors at the seed stage. Instead, it’s more of a Manifesto about the core beliefs that shape our strategy. Belief #1: The best time to invest is early.

North America 36

North America Seed Stage Early Stage Lead Investor 36

Duct Tape Marketing

DECEMBER 7, 2022

” Melanie is also the Co-Founder of The Convoy and GroupUps, B2B marketplaces that help small businesses save money so they can invest more in themselves and their communities. Click on over and give us a review on iTunes, please! That's true in like the B2B space. Key Takeaway: You say your company is amazing.

Marketing 79

Marketing Audience B2B Framework 79

ConversionXL

JUNE 8, 2017

According to a recent academic study, “a typical Netflix member loses interest after perhaps 60 to 90 seconds of choosing, having reviewed 10 to 20 titles (perhaps 3 in detail) on one or two screens.” If you are in B2B, you’ve certainly heard of account-based marketing by now. Image Source. The solution? Firmographics.

Programming 97

Programming Revenue Analytics Software Review 97

Duct Tape Marketing

APRIL 14, 2022

Bob is the Founder and Chairman of the Board of Acceleration Partners, a global partner marketing agency. He is also the Co-founder and Chairman of BrandCycle. 9:14] How do I find partners? [12:58] 12:58] Is there an example case on finding partners that you’d like to go through with us? [15:43]

Marketing 89

Marketing Affiliate Channel Software Review 89

Rob Go

OCTOBER 14, 2012

One of the earliest things we did at NextView when my partners and I started working together was go away as a team to the New Hampshire mountains. I’m thrilled by the companies we are investors in, as well as the founders that lead them. 9 that are B2B. At the time, I think we didn’t even had a name for the fund.

New Hampshire 50

New Hampshire Croatia Omaha Portfolio 50

Seeing Both Sides

JULY 11, 2013

Before this occurs, the sales process is a craft or an art - custom-made by the founder or evangelist sales VP. Across our portfolio and in my own entrepreneurial experience, I have seen three main sales models work successfully in scaling B2B sales: 1) Enterprise; 2) Telephone; and 3) Developer-driven. I''ll discuss each one below.

Sales 50

Sales Technical Review Software Review B2B 50

ConversionXL

MAY 27, 2022

B2B demand generation focuses on ROI. Elevate your founder and employee personal brand. Take SparkToro founder Rand Fishkin. Its founder Steli Efti explains in a blog post why this approach is beneficial: “Out-teaching your competition is one of the best ways to build your brand, especially in the SaaS world. The metrics.

Demand 115

Demand Affiliate Audience Leadership 115

ConversionXL

NOVEMBER 11, 2015

Vlad Malik from www.goodui.org gave a review of A/B Tasty: Vlad Malik : “The things I like about ABTasty I like a lot. You can add a custom goal right in the code, and it automatically shows up on the report – you don’t need to create the goal first. The dashboard is just a plain list of tests on a white background.

Software Review 48

Software Review Technical Review Development Team Review Conversion 48

ConversionXL

JANUARY 18, 2022

It’s one of many ecommerce software platforms on the market but only the fifth most popular by market share. Studies show that only 5% of B2B customers are ready to buy. It’s the reason that 69% of people buy from a brand they know over one that gets better reviews. Take Shopify. Image source.

Equity 94

Equity Marketing Social Media Software Review 94

ConversionXL

NOVEMBER 5, 2020

Back in 2016, I read a book called Sprint by Jake Knapp, founder of Google Ventures. Today, Grizzle is a full-service content marketing and SEO agency that provides B2B and SaaS companies end-to-end services. Most B2B buyers know this. A dramatic example of this is a software development agency offering UX and UI services.

PR 120

PR B2B Lean Audience 120

Duct Tape Marketing

MAY 17, 2011

Janine Popick Janine Popick is the CEO and co-founder of VerticalResponse (Inc. She is a columnist for Inc.com “Women in Business” and has been published in DM News as well featured in Entrepreneur Magazine, ClickZ, and B2B Magazine. 5000 2006-2010), a leading self-service direct marketing provider to over 100,000 small businesses.

Small Business 41

Small Business Social Media Engineer Matching 41

Duct Tape Marketing

APRIL 7, 2022

Marcel is the CEO & Co-Founder of Parakeeto, a company dedicated to helping agencies measure and improve their profitability by streamlining their operations and reporting systems. 20:05] Why wouldn’t you use a resource plan with your white label partners to some degree? [20:52] Marketing Podcast with Marcel Petitpas.

Cofounder 75

Cofounder Hosting Networking Software Review 75

Steve Blank

NOVEMBER 9, 2009

This required convincing software vendors to move their applications to our unique machine architecture. I had hired the VP of marketing from a potential software partner who was responsible to get all this 3 rd party software on our computer. Oh, and we had no installed customer base. – was his job.

Silicon Valley 331

Silicon Valley Software Review RSS Technical Review 331

Austin Startup

JUNE 26, 2019

Many people have reached out sharing knowing and kind words about our journey and choice to wind down our venture, as well as their appreciation for my choice to pull back the curtain on what is statistically a common road for many founders. It details a landscape founders like me are excited to sink their teeth into? Of course not!

Silicon Valley 54

Silicon Valley Startup B2C Sweat Equity 54

Up and Running

OCTOBER 21, 2014

For example, Palo Alto Software focuses primarily on helping small businesses realize their dreams of starting a business. Many people reading this guide will already have an idea of what that is – perhaps a tutoring agency, or a restaurant, or a software company. Week 1 – Get the ball rolling.

Elevator Pitch 166

Elevator Pitch Software Review SBA Business Plan 166

Austin Startup

MARCH 2, 2019

Speak with potential customers, speak with industry experts, speak with potential partners?—?validate The first post was sent to me by Josh McClure, the co-founder and CEO of Real Massive, who I first referenced in my Lucky7 post about Lola Savannah. If the founder doesn’t know what the company is doing, the company won’t either.

Advisory Board 51

Advisory Board Cofounder Greece Bootstrapping 51

online.wsj.com

SEPTEMBER 23, 2012

Computer Software. Media & Marketing. Small Business. More Industries. Accounting. Advertising. Broadcasting & Entertainment. Computer Hardware. Consumer Products. Defense & Aerospace. Financial Services & Insurance. Food & Tobacco. Hospitality. Industrial Goods & Services. Marketing & Strategy. Media Agencies. Metals & Mining. NAME Comcast.

Venture Capital 107

Venture Capital Software Review Rhode Island North Dakota 107

mashable.com

NOVEMBER 4, 2010

Android Advertise Network Blippr iPhone App Mashable France MashDeck Twitter App Mobile Site Social Media Events Twitter Guide Book Facebook Guide Book Partners App Development WordPress Experts MaxCDN Content Delivery Dynect Managed DNS Rackspace Hosting Intridea About Us Submit a Tip! Some Code-Free A/B Testing Resources 1.

Developer 73

Developer Software Review PHP Social Media 73

Occam's Razor

MARCH 10, 2015

No standard reports you can just go grab once you update your site code to analytics.js. Not since we started parsing weblog files have we had to take these many code showers. and then you can shift to tracking customers (Adobe can now understand my behavior in the real world and, possibly, their multitude of real world partners!).

Analytics 60

Analytics Technical Review Software Review Web 60