You played around with various traction verticals and you identified a few promising ones that brought in your early customers. Now you just need $x to experiment more heavily with those channels. Trouble is, even if your startup has those things (and most don't), you still have to convince each investor. Traction is real customers. MORE >>

Additionally, the rise of specialty vertical networks like the community sites BuzzLogic, Six Apart, Lotame and BlogHer has further fragmented this category and put a refocus on testing the emergent opportunities. Home About Lightspeed Team jump to navigation More ad networks or less? few things contributed to this change in direction. MORE >>

“Yeah, but I’m just going to execute this [channel sales deal, international license of my product, new industry, new operating system, biz dev deal] and then it will pretty much run itself.” That channel deal that you thought would take no times ends up burning scarce calories. Let me explain. Trust me. My advice? MORE >>

I'd much rather see initial use of funds around figuring out distribution, i.e. testing out different traction verticals. And then once one or more customer acquisition channels are flowing, then hire. You've just added lots of meetings and other communication channels. Hiring is hard. Needless to say, I'm an outlier. Really? MORE >>

Can you turn some of the competition to partners/channel/OEM relationships, so not to go head-to-head? Sales Cycle & Messaging: • What are the top target segments (verticals, size, geography)? Lead Generation & Qualification: • What are the top target segments (verticals, size, geography)? Are there channel conflicts? MORE >>