View from Seed

MARCH 3, 2015

NVV: Lots of marketers are under pressure to come in and generate demand right away, whether because sales is asking for leads or founders are demanding PR or user growth. EM: My rule of thumb is to look at the length of the sales cycle. Some startups have really long sales cycles. Should you do that at all?

Marketing 120

Marketing Sales Cycle Startup CTO Hire 120

ReadWriteStart

JUNE 16, 2011

The company already has paying customers and a validated business model. The founders, Sunil Guttula and Abinasha Karana, are experienced IT professional with 15 years of experience between them solving various enterprise IT problems. You can read more about Freshdesk on the 1M/1M Incubation Radar today.

India 123

India Bootstrapping Non-Compete Entrepreneur 123

Startup Lessons Learned

MAY 9, 2012

From Lean Startup Machine , Lean LA and San Diego Tech Founders , to countless speeches and workshops, I have seen the impact that their leadership has had first hand. Market segments drive your business model. The market segment you pursue is inextricably linked to the other aspects of your business model.

Entrepreneur 167

Entrepreneur Lean Southern California San Diego 167

Duct Tape Marketing

APRIL 18, 2024

Key Takeaways Mandi Ellefson, founder of Hands-off CEO, shares her journey from overwhelming debt to multimillionaire status by transforming consulting agencies into self-sustaining enterprises. She stresses the importance of building systems that allow businesses to thrive without the constant presence of the CEO.

Framework 64

Framework Sales Cycle Sales Hiring 64

Cracking the Code

OCTOBER 1, 2020

Earlier this year, I was on a panel with Guy Podjarny, Snyk’s founder, at SaaStock Remote to discuss how the team’s community-driven freemium approach led to the company’s stellar growth. Here’s a short summary of the discussion: Guy, you launched Snyk in 2015, and a large part of your success was driven by your freemium model.

Early Stage 62

Early Stage Open Source Development Team Review Security 62

Hippoland

AUGUST 8, 2018

At Hustle Fund, we back both first time founders as well as repeat founders. One thing I’ve noticed is that almost every repeat, previously-successful-founder focuses on the same thing for their respective startups: customer acquisition. Sales cycles matter though. Marketing first. Product second.

Founder 48

Founder Sales Cycle Affiliate Retention 48

Hippoland

AUGUST 8, 2018

At Hustle Fund, we back both first time founders as well as repeat founders. One thing I’ve noticed is that almost every repeat, previously-successful-founder focuses on the same thing for their respective startups: customer acquisition. Sales cycles matter though. Marketing first. Product second.

Founder 48

Founder Sales Cycle Affiliate Retention 48

View from Seed

JUNE 11, 2019

At this point, founders find themselves in a luxurious situation of being able to build the best possible syndicate. Some founders may end up getting a little paralyzed at this stage because they are trying to optimize too many things at once. It’s not necessary to nail down every element of your syndicate simultaneously.

Syndicate 202

Syndicate Syndication Seed Stage Lead Investor 202

Austin Startup

NOVEMBER 12, 2017

A frequent metaphor I use in customer acquisition, fundraising, or any kind of deal making is that you as the founder and promoter should present the finished meal on the dining table and not drag your counterparts into the kitchen. The decision is yours as to how you package up your offering in a way that matches your goals.

Term Sheet 48

Term Sheet Technical Review Due Diligence Merger 48

NZ Entrepreneur

SEPTEMBER 16, 2020

The statistics show that even though most founders bet their time and resources that their startups will be the best in the world, 90% of those new startups won’t be in operation in 10-15 years. Key Variables to Consider: Sales units. Founders are typically ambitious when projecting sales volumes.

Startup 69

Startup Sales Cycle Down Round Revenue 69

Both Sides of the Table

OCTOBER 19, 2009

Another called Parker Harris, the co-founder and CTO. Distributed version control model – first in the industry like ours and we are filing patents. Page 4: Business Model. I had planned a balance of large companies and SMB/divisional sales but have changed my thinking. Page 3: Competition.

Venture Capital 274

Venture Capital Term Sheet San Diego Viral 274

Hippoland

AUGUST 16, 2018

Many of these investors mean “series A” or “post seed” when they say “early stage” even though they will do a handful of pre-seed deals in founders they already know / successful serial entrepreneurs we’ve all heard of. This is why I don’t care to ask founders about their market size.

Sales Cycle 54

Sales Cycle Differentiation Early Stage Bootstrapping 54

Hippoland

AUGUST 16, 2018

Many of these investors mean “series A” or “post seed” when they say “early stage” even though they will do a handful of pre-seed deals in founders they already know / successful serial entrepreneurs we’ve all heard of. This is why I don’t care to ask founders about their market size.

Sales Cycle 48

Sales Cycle Differentiation Early Stage Bootstrapping 48

K9 Ventures

AUGUST 13, 2010

So the departments either didn’t have the capacity to pay or it would be an endless sales-cycle, where we would spend lots of time on the sales, but it still wouldn’t close. In my mind, there are two main facets to Revenue Development: a) Business model iteration, and, b) Pricing iteration.

Revenue 72

Revenue Developer Java Customer Development 72

This is going to be BIG.

NOVEMBER 10, 2011

Slow sales cycles. Business Insider wrote about our investment in the company yesterday. There is a lot of talk about needing to be a technical founder. The company sells to local governments, real estate management companies, educational institutions--anyone responsible for public or private infrastructure. Ugh, right?

Sales Cycle 121

Sales Cycle Government Revenue Sales 121

Startup Lessons Learned

APRIL 14, 2009

What matters is proving the viability of the company’s business model, what investors call “traction.&# It should be even more important to the founders themselves, because it demonstrates that their business hypothesis is grounded in reality. They are busy too, but they are not creating value for the company.

Customer 167

Customer San Francisco Lean Hockey Stick 167

ReadWriteStart

MAY 4, 2011

Manoj is experiencing a long sales cycle of close to 12 months, but he has already created a sustainable company that has revenues and profits. He is exploring outside financing, but my concern is that unless the growth rate accelerates, this particular business may not fit the venture model.

India 116

India Entrepreneur Silicon Valley Massachusetts 116

Hearpreneur

MAY 8, 2022

connections and benefit from quicker sales cycles and more opportunities. The problem with trying to serve everyone is that in the end, you don’t end up serving anyone, which is especially relevant for service-based businesses like ours. Ultimately, you can help your company succeed by understanding how people think and behave.

Entrepreneur 130

Entrepreneur Audience Social Media Channel 130

infochachkie.com

SEPTEMBER 24, 2011

There is an inherent conflict in a consultant’s business model and the needs of a startup. To fully appreciate why consultants often do not fulfill a startup’s needs, it is important to understand the typical consulting engagement sales cycle. Yet, it does nothing to help you execute your business model.

Equity 40

Equity Silicon Valley Cofounder Technical Review 40

YoungUpstarts

AUGUST 19, 2016

WeVue co-founder Taylor Wallace told me he doesn’t have a lot of time for training in the competitive software development industry, so he hires the “naturally curious” to fit with the company’s product-oriented business model. Depending on your startup’s needs, it can be a toss-up on whether to hire for attitude or skill.

Startup 100

Startup Burn Rate Cofounder Salary 100

Duct Tape Marketing

MARCH 23, 2017

How to Use Facebook Ads to Drive Sustainable Traffic & Boost Sales written by Guest Post read more at Duct Tape Marketing. Regardless of your business model, incorporating Facebook ads into your marketing funnel can be a dependable way to drive customers to your site and, ultimately, boost sales. About the Author.

Sales 50

Sales eCommerce Campaign Audience 50

www.forentrepreneurs.com

FEBRUARY 2, 2010

I've been driving the implementation of systems to track these types of metrics at our company (fast growing, recently public), and also have spent some time on the phone with one of your early stage founders (Ellen) discussing the metrics we track and how we think about them at our company.

Metrics 55

Metrics Design Entrepreneur Startup 55

conversionxl.com

SEPTEMBER 10, 2013

Startups rarely survive by guessing, and can only create products and business models based on facts about their target market. As Pebble evolves from a startup to a legitimate competitor against the likes of Apple or Sony, much of their success will hinge on how attentive the founders are to their enthusiastic early adopters.

Customer Development 60

Customer Development Conversion Developer Customer 60

The Next Web

MAY 12, 2013

Xeround was founded in 2005 by Sharon Barkai – founder of Sheer networks, which was eventually sold to Cisco , and Dr. Gilad Zlotkin – founder of Class Data, also sold to Cisco. Sales cycles were long and unpredictable. You don’t need an MBA to realize that this sort of business model wasn’t going to work.”.

Database 126

Database United States Cloud 126

Both Sides of the Table

MAY 7, 2011

Blogs weren’t popularized yet so it was an oddity for me to read the founder of a software company spewing out advice. It helps with sales cycles because customers know that they can switch away if they so choose. Joel met his co-founder for Fog Creek software and learned a valuable management lesson.

Software Review 285

Software Review Software St. Louis API 285