Startup Professionals Musings

SEPTEMBER 11, 2015

Yet in this age when customers have a thousand alternatives, and are overwhelmed by a multitude of messages, sales efforts can make or break a business. In fact, I believe modern entrepreneurs need to be super sales people, in the most positive sense, to their team as well as customers. No pain usually means no sales.

Sales 120

Sales Entrepreneur Bootstrapping Technical Review 120

Startup Professionals Musings

JUNE 30, 2019

The “valley of death” is a common term in the startup world, referring to the difficulty of covering the negative cash flow in the early stages of a startup, before their new product or service is bringing in revenue from real customers. After bootstrapping, friends and family are the most common funding sources for early-stage startups.

Intellectual Property 219

Intellectual Property Technical Review Startup Incubator 219

Startup Professionals Musings

JANUARY 11, 2020

They forget that adapting their company and themselves as their customers evolve is the key to long-term survival. Think of Blockbuster and Toys ‘R’ Us , both of whom missed customer changes and the move to online. Create an overt strategy to react to emerging customer trends. Expand into key new sales and delivery channels.

Customer 359

Customer Institutional Investors Channel Acquisition 359

A Smart Bear: Startups and Marketing for Geeks

NOVEMBER 5, 2014

It’s often said that you shouldn’t talk about price during customer development interviews. This is often B2C because the value is in quantity of customers, and there’s 100x more consumers than businesses. $1/mo Even bootstrapped businesses can make this work (e.g. simple enough to be self-service).

Bootstrapping 294

Bootstrapping Technical Review B2C Sales Cycle 294

Startup Professionals Musings

JULY 14, 2014

The “valley of death” is a common term in the startup world, referring to the difficulty of covering the negative cash flow in the early stages of a startup, before their new product or service is bringing in revenue from real customers. After bootstrapping, friends and family are the most common funding sources for early-stage startups.

Entrepreneur 283

Entrepreneur Intellectual Property Technical Review Incubator 283

Startup Professionals Musings

JULY 1, 2017

The “valley of death” is a common term in the startup world, referring to the difficulty of covering the negative cash flow in the early stages of a startup, before their new product or service is bringing in revenue from real customers. After bootstrapping, friends and family are the most common funding sources for early-stage startups.

Product Development 177

Product Development Cost Developer Product 177

Startup Professionals Musings

NOVEMBER 3, 2014

When someone asks me for the best way to fund a startup, I always say bootstrap it, meaning fund it yourself and grow organically. Bootstrapping avoids all the cost, pain, and distractions of finding angels or VCs, and allows you to keep control and all your hard-earned equity for yourself. Act big, behave small. Do it yourself.

Bootstrapping 278

Bootstrapping Startup Merger Salary 278

Startup Professionals Musings

FEBRUARY 19, 2013

The “valley of death” is a common term in the startup world, referring to the difficulty of covering the negative cash flow in the early stages of a startup, before their new product or service is bringing in revenue from real customers. After bootstrapping, friends and family are the most common funding sources for early-stage startups.

Intellectual Property 309

Intellectual Property Technical Review Venture Capital Startup 309

Startup Professionals Musings

JANUARY 12, 2018

The “valley of death” is a common term in the startup world, referring to the difficulty of covering the negative cash flow in the early stages of a startup, before their new product or service is bringing in revenue from real customers. After bootstrapping, friends and family are the most common funding sources for early-stage startups.

Intellectual Property 134

Intellectual Property Technical Review Startup Incubator 134

A Smart Bear: Startups and Marketing for Geeks

APRIL 29, 2013

Even after the first hundred customers, half of those were serendipitous one-offs, not representative of repeatable, controllable customer acquisition, and the scale of the data isn’t statistically significant. The answer for a funded startup is “Bid as much as possible, to get as many customers — and data!

Bootstrapping 285

Bootstrapping Affiliate Cofounder Channel 285

Up and Running

SEPTEMBER 29, 2022

It can be the idea, the customers, the mission, the grind—whatever it is; there’s something that keeps you going. Sure, your friends and family say they love it, but that doesn’t guarantee that actual customers will. Take the time to conduct market research and identify your target customers. That’s completely fine.

Forecast 154

Forecast Software Review Bootstrapping Finance 154

Version One Ventures

FEBRUARY 11, 2020

We often see one category filled with dozens of start-ups competing with a similar product for the same customers. Of course, they don’t have the engineering team to build the technology on their own – and this means that the number of enterprise software customers keeps growing. Buying cloud applications has become the norm.

Technical Review 196

Technical Review Vertical Software Review Portfolio 196

Startup Professionals Musings

OCTOBER 16, 2023

External investors will demand a financial forecast, but it’s equally valuable to you, even if bootstrapping. Projecting financials is a natural extension of the homework every entrepreneur needs to do on customer opportunity size, product costs, pricing, competition and customer value. Forecast sales-volume expectations.

Forecast 290

Forecast Burn Rate Widget Business Plan 290

The Startup Magazine

NOVEMBER 28, 2018

Balodana provides store hosting and marketing as well as support services such as concierge customer service and style advice to ensure a superb customer experience. The market for men’s custom tailored garments exceeds $650M, and we believe there’s a significant untapped potential in the women’s market.

Technical Review 153

Technical Review Software Review Illinois Due Diligence 153

YoungUpstarts

AUGUST 24, 2015

By bootstrapping, bartering, reducing overheads (rental and manpower), and leveraging technology (especially the web), one can start one’s own business almost on a dime without being beholden to creditors or venture capitalists. c) Selling more to existing customers. In other words, we should give them “the fish”. 4 Compelling offer.

Technical Review 100

Technical Review Software Review South Carolina Startup 100

ReadWriteStart

JUNE 1, 2020

The primary source of your funds should be your paying customers, i.e., your business should generate enough revenues and profits to fund the growth and expansion. Any custom manufactured IoT device would require software development as well as hardware customization. Bootstrapping. Royalty based investment. Seed stage.

Startup 150

Startup Entrepreneur Elevator Pitch Seed Stage 150

YoungUpstarts

DECEMBER 29, 2016

When you are bootstrapping a small business, you are not only the boss, you are also the person that cleans, greets customers, makes sales and, depending on your business, provides the service offered. I’ll expand on that last bit along with other lessons I learned along the way: Lack of Energy.

Bootstrapping 189

Bootstrapping New York City New Jersey New York 189

Gust

OCTOBER 26, 2014

When someone asks me for the best way to fund a startup, I always say bootstrap it, meaning fund it yourself and grow organically. Bootstrapping avoids all the cost, pain, and distractions of finding angels or VCs, and allows you to keep control and all your hard-earned equity for yourself. Image via Flickr from Food For Thought album.

Bootstrapping 176

Bootstrapping Startup Merger Salary 176

Startup Professionals Musings

SEPTEMBER 7, 2016

Yet in this age when customers have a thousand alternatives, and are overwhelmed by a multitude of messages, sales efforts can make or break a business. In fact, I believe modern entrepreneurs need to be super sales people, in the most positive sense, to their team as well as customers. No pain usually means no sales.

Bootstrapping 120

Bootstrapping Sales Technical Review Social Media 120

Startup Professionals Musings

JUNE 25, 2012

For example, with any outside investment, you give up some ownership and control, and with bootstrapping your growth curve will likely be longer and more organic. Following is my prioritized larger list of sources, with some “rules of thumb” which may save you a lot of time and energy: Bootstrapping. Commit to a major customer.

Technical Review 257

Technical Review Bootstrapping Venture Capital Incubator 257

Startup Professionals Musings

JULY 8, 2015

The “valley of death” is a common term in the startup world, referring to the difficulty of covering the negative cash flow in the early stages of a startup, before their new product or service is bringing in revenue from real customers. After bootstrapping, friends and family are the most common funding sources for early-stage startups.

Entrepreneur 120

Entrepreneur Intellectual Property Technical Review Incubator 120

YoungUpstarts

FEBRUARY 9, 2016

Bootstrap was term coined from the computer lingo ‘booting’ which means starting a computer or starting a chain of processes which eventually starts up the operating system. In the startup world, bootstrapping essentially means funding your own venture and not being too dependent on external sources. Spend Wisely. Experiment.

Bootstrapping 100

Bootstrapping Cofounder Startup Sales Cycle 100

Startup Professionals Musings

NOVEMBER 13, 2012

There is so much written these days about how to attract investors that most entrepreneurs “assume” they need funding, and don’t even consider a plan for “bootstrapping,” or self-financing their startup. Even in these cases, all other options should be explored first: Sales are strong – too strong. You need a prototype.

Sweat Equity 239

Sweat Equity Technical Review Bootstrapping Equity 239

Startup Professionals Musings

JANUARY 22, 2021

Even if you are bootstrapping your business, and you are the only investor, you should be asking yourself the same question. Proof of any business model starts with a finished product or solution, sold to a new customer for full price, with high satisfaction for the value received. Customer support is more than handling exceptions.

Business Model 414

Business Model Angel Investor Bootstrapping Revenue 414

YoungUpstarts

OCTOBER 21, 2012

Bootstrap, bootstrap, bootstrap. Moules is not (really) suggesting that the entrepreneur himself should totally delegate sales to someone else. His advice? Don’t innovate, imitate. Failure is not failure if you learn.

Technical Review 184

Technical Review Entrepreneur Bootstrapping Acquisition 184

Startup Professionals Musings

JANUARY 4, 2016

Starting a new business on a limited budget without investor involvement is called bootstrapping, and it’s the only way to go if you don’t want to spend months on the investment pitch preparation and delivery circuit. Defer your urge to find office space until you have customers. Practice your sales skills early.

Bootstrapping 120

Bootstrapping Social Media Equity eCommerce 120

Startup Professionals Musings

APRIL 14, 2014

Customize your website using one of the tools above, selecting one of the standard templates for design and layout. Obviously, commercial e-commerce sites handling thousands of products and back-office functions are more expensive, and usually require professional help to do the custom programming and special site navigation features.

Startup 252

Startup eCommerce Hosting Bootstrapping 252

Startup Professionals Musings

SEPTEMBER 26, 2010

When someone asks me for the best way to fund a startup, I always say bootstrap it, meaning fund it yourself and grow organically. Bootstrapping avoids all the cost, pain, and distractions of finding angels or VCs, and allows you to keep control and all your hard-earned equity for yourself. Act big, behave small. Do it yourself.

Bootstrapping 240

Bootstrapping Merger Salary .Net 240

YoungUpstarts

OCTOBER 13, 2014

All of the above costs can be completely avoided or drastically minimized by a bit of creative bootstrapping with minimal investment to launch courtesy of the world wide web. With Global eCommerce sales topping $1.25 Below is a list of the key components necessary to begin your business venture. Website & Hosting. trillion it?s

eCommerce 229

eCommerce Bootstrapping Social Media Hosting 229

Startup Lessons Learned

APRIL 14, 2009

Lessons Learned by Eric Ries Tuesday, April 14, 2009 Validated learning about customers Would you rather have $30,000 or $1 million in revenues for your startup? This may sound crazy, coming as it does from an advocate of c harging customers for your product from day one. For a startup, having great sales DNA is a wonderful asset.

Customer 167

Customer San Francisco Lean Hockey Stick 167

Startup Professionals Musings

MARCH 16, 2011

For example, with any outside investment, you give up some ownership and control, and with bootstrapping your growth curve will likely be longer and more organic. Following is my prioritized larger list of sources, with some “rules of thumb” which may save you a lot of time and energy: Bootstrapping. Commit to a major customer.

Technical Review 233

Technical Review Bootstrapping Startup Venture Capital 233

A Smart Bear: Startups and Marketing for Geeks

JULY 12, 2010

Trouble is, customers don't want more features, they want the right features. As the competition also adds features, they reach a critical mass where they have all the features 80% of your customers want, and then just having "more" is no longer an interesting selling point. We're patenting our features. So where does that leave us?

Intellectual Property 319

Intellectual Property Bootstrapping Software Review Open Source 319

The Startup Magazine

MARCH 29, 2024

This isn’t just about having a eureka moment; it’s about understanding the problem you’re solving and why it matters to your potential customers. Then, consider how you’ll reach your customers and what kind of relationship you want to build with them.

Intellectual Property 132

Intellectual Property Angel Investor Business Model Bootstrapping 132

Hearpreneur

JANUARY 25, 2023

In addition to providing customer care and assistance, a virtual assistant may also develop web pages or compose blog entries, administer email newsletters, carry out sales and marketing chores, generate sales leads, and conduct a variety of other jobs. Thanks to Carter Seuthe, Credit Summit ! #4-

Software Review 110

Software Review Technical Review Artificial Inteligence Entrepreneur 110

Hearpreneur

AUGUST 11, 2021

With their affordability, you can invest in several and gain more return by earning customer trust before a sale occurs. They’ve built more trust with their followers, so customers might be more willing and trusting when they check out your website after the micro-influencer recommends you. Photo Credit: Jeanine Duval.

Entrepreneur 126

Entrepreneur Technical Review Social Media Bootstrapping 126

Startup Professionals Musings

SEPTEMBER 22, 2011

There is so much written these days about how to attract investors that most entrepreneurs “assume” they need funding, and don’t even consider a plan for “bootstrapping,” or self-financing their startup. Even in these cases, all other options should be explored first: Sales are strong – too strong. You need a prototype.

Sweat Equity 255

Sweat Equity Technical Review Entrepreneur Bootstrapping 255

Startup Professionals Musings

NOVEMBER 18, 2011

This costs nothing, and allows you to safely collect money from customers all around the world. Customize your website using one of the tools above, selecting one of the standard templates for design and layout. The next step in complexity is building a software product that you can offer as a service to your customers.

Hosting 248

Hosting Bootstrapping .Net Social Network 248