Startup Professionals Musings

MAY 26, 2023

The cost of any new product these days must include education and rollout marketing, perhaps equal or greater than the development costs. Don’t forget to address the risks and cost of doing nothing. Marketing costs will continue to increase. Customers won’t buy what they can’t find or don’t understand.

Product 354

Product Technical Review Artificial Inteligence Dividend 354

Startup Professionals Musings

MAY 14, 2023

Things will cost more than you expect. Waiting until you have something to sell before bringing on a sales and operations staff. For example, a software development startup raising $250,000 from angel investors better be able to operate on $25,000 per month. Buffer your projected resource requirements. You will make mistakes.

Burn Rate 258

Burn Rate Hockey Stick Management Salary 258

Startup Professionals Musings

DECEMBER 5, 2021

Every time I challenge a business plan with little or no budget for marketing, I get the answer that they will be using “viral” marketing, which costs nothing. At any rate, “buzz-worthy” and “viral” are marketing illusions that cost big money to create, and these are only the beginning. That’s a double death wish. Marty Zwilling.

Viral 348

Viral Marketing SEM Campaign 348

Startup Professionals Musings

FEBRUARY 12, 2023

It’s important to learn from your own mistakes, but it’s even smarter to learn from someone else’s mistakes, without paying their high price in time lost, cost, and pain. Viral marketing costs real money, and your support staff and hosting systems cost even more. Bypasses intellectual property as not worth the cost.

Intellectual Property 312

Intellectual Property Startup Angel Investor Viral 312

Startup Professionals Musings

DECEMBER 13, 2019

The problem is that more SKUs dramatically increases complexity and cost, when you can least afford it. Buy too much inventory too soon to get unit costs down. Unit costs are important, but don’t forget about the cash flow hit, extra storage costs, and the probability of obsolete inventory due to necessary updates or pivots.

Technical Review 306

Technical Review Metrics Social Media Channel 306

Startup Professionals Musings

MAY 1, 2023

Cofounders only able to work part-time, with responsibility and major income sources elsewhere, don’t carry the same risk as others with more operational responsibility. Investors may not be called cofounders, but they always get equity, commensurate with their share of the total costs anticipated, or share of the current valuation.

Technical Cofounder 247

Technical Cofounder Equity Distribution Cofounder 247

Startup Professionals Musings

MAY 17, 2020

It’s important to learn from your own mistakes, but it’s even smarter to learn from someone else’s mistakes, without paying their high price in time lost, cost, and pain. Viral marketing costs real money, and your support staff and hosting systems cost even more. Bypasses intellectual property as not worth the cost.

Intellectual Property 436

Intellectual Property Angel Investor Viral Distribution 436

Startup Professionals Musings

OCTOBER 30, 2020

This reduces the cost of customer acquisition, allows easy upgrades for service and new features, and improves customer loyalty in the face of new competitors in the market. Minimize permanent hiring and customized operational facilities. Take advantage of low-cost modern tools and automation.

Merger 386

Merger Acquisition Software Review Social Media 386

Startup Professionals Musings

OCTOBER 10, 2021

The bad news is that they are not a good test of basic usability and ease of operation, which are always a key to the much larger market of regular customers. At some point, this becomes compulsive engineering, and the tradeoffs in time to market, cost, and user friendliness move the product out of the intended market.

Technical Review 294

Technical Review Product Customer Restful 294

Startup Professionals Musings

AUGUST 9, 2020

Co-founders only able to work part-time, with responsibility and major income sources elsewhere, don’t carry the same risk as others with more operational responsibility. Investors may not be called co-founders, but they always get equity, commensurate with their share of the total costs anticipated, or share of the current valuation.

Cofounder 435

Cofounder Technical Cofounder Equity Intellectual Property 435

Startup Professionals Musings

FEBRUARY 8, 2021

Especially if you are a first-time business owner, the payback for this initiative is well worth the effort and cost. Unfortunately, I see too many new entrepreneurs who let their passion for a new idea or invention blind them to the stark realities of customer need, opportunity size, or pricing and cost implications.

Advisory Board 356

Advisory Board Bandwidth Cofounder Technical Review 356

Startup Professionals Musings

AUGUST 19, 2020

Things will cost more than you expect. Waiting until you have something to sell before bringing on a sales and operations staff. For example, a software development startup raising $250,000 from angel investors better be able to operate on $25,000 per month. Buffer your projected resource requirements. You will make mistakes.

Burn Rate 310

Burn Rate Hockey Stick Salary Angel Investor 310

Startup Professionals Musings

JULY 15, 2019

Very few entrepreneurs have the range of skills and experience to be the solution creator as well as business creator, or operational as well as sales leader. The challenge is to recognize and recruit that ideal partner match early with minimal cost and risk. Operate with a comparable level of integrity.

Cofounder 221

Cofounder Software Review CTO Hire Founder 221

Startup Professionals Musings

FEBRUARY 24, 2019

Every time I challenge a business plan with little or no budget for marketing, I get the answer that they will be using “viral” marketing, which costs nothing. At any rate, “buzz-worthy” and “viral” are marketing illusions that cost big money to create, and these are only the beginning. That’s a double death wish. Marty Zwilling.

Viral 268

Viral Marketing SEM Campaign 268

Startup Professionals Musings

DECEMBER 24, 2018

Based on my experience, creating a new business is at least as difficult as creating an innovative solution, and it takes a knowledge of finance, operations, customers and the marketplace. Building and running a business is not a solo operation. Calculate your projected costs, and double the amount.

Angel Investor 249

Angel Investor Cofounder Finance Operations 249

Startup Professionals Musings

AUGUST 8, 2014

This alternative has been around for several decades, with the generally accepted advantage of reducing costs. Saving cost wont help you if you cant make the daily innovations required to stay competitive. Results on commodities, including mature software maintenance, adapt well to low-cost contracting.

Intellectual Property 238

Intellectual Property Non-disclosure Agreement Software Review Offshore 238

Startup Professionals Musings

JULY 28, 2017

In the heat of scaling the business, it’s tempting to skip the cost and time of finding qualified job candidates, and enlist those close at hand, without paying them a competitive wage for the hard work and commitment you need. Very few people are experts in all facets of a new business, including finance, sales, marketing, and operations.

Cost 180

Cost Advisory Board Entrepreneur Angel Investor 180

Startup Professionals Musings

SEPTEMBER 29, 2018

Things will cost more than you expect. Waiting until you have something to sell before bringing on a sales and operations staff. For example, a software development startup raising $250,000 from angel investors better be able to operate on $25,000 per month. Buffer your projected resource requirements. You will make mistakes.

Burn Rate 223

Burn Rate Hockey Stick Startup Salary 223

Startup Professionals Musings

NOVEMBER 10, 2018

The bad news is that they are not a good test of basic usability and ease of operation, which are always a key to the much larger market of regular customers. At some point, this becomes compulsive engineering, and the tradeoffs in time to market, cost, and user friendliness move the product out of the intended market.

Technical Review 240

Technical Review Restful Engineer Technology 240

Startup Professionals Musings

DECEMBER 17, 2013

Sales is simply defined as income from customer purchases of goods and services, minus the cost associated with things like returned or undeliverable merchandise. Sales data needs to be correlated to advertising campaigns, price changes, seasonal forces, competitive actions, and other costs of sales. Cost of customer acquisition.

Metrics 252

Metrics Technical Review Retention Acquisition 252

Startup Professionals Musings

JULY 11, 2012

On the other hand, if it is maintenance and testing on non-core software, use the lowest cost solution. Cost factors. Companies in Asia and Eastern Europe can still provide direct cost reductions of up to 75%. The net may be less cost reduction than you thought. Creative or operational.

Intellectual Property 222

Intellectual Property Non-disclosure Agreement Non-Compete Vietnam 222

Startup Professionals Musings

AUGUST 25, 2018

The cost of rolling out a business has never been lower – it only takes a few hundred dollars to incorporate a Limited Liability Corp (LLC) online, create your own website, use social media to get attention, and you are in business. In the early Internet days, it would cost a million dollars to get this far.

Technical Cofounder 184

Technical Cofounder Intellectual Property Silicon Valley LLC 184

Startup Professionals Musings

NOVEMBER 4, 2019

I love good causes and social entrepreneurs, but a recent pitch to me about eliminating world hunger with a new product (harvesting algae at low cost) seemed to forget that really hungry people don’t have any money. Even a non-profit needs income to operate. Build a credible business implementation plan to quantify costs.

Intellectual Property 235

Intellectual Property Elevator Pitch Harvest Technical Review 235

Startup Professionals Musings

JANUARY 20, 2016

This alternative has been around for several decades, with the generally accepted advantage of reducing costs. Saving cost won’t help you if you can’t make the daily innovations required to stay competitive. Results on commodities, including mature software maintenance, adapt well to low-cost contracting.

Intellectual Property 120

Intellectual Property Non-disclosure Agreement Software Review Technical Review 120

Startup Professionals Musings

AUGUST 8, 2018

Strategic decisions set the overall direction for your business, whereas operational decisions set day-to-day operations. It’s a bit late when strategy becomes operational. Working on the business should not be done in the same ad-hoc crisis style as operational decisions. Where are you on this split?

Metrics 129

Metrics Technical Review Operations Distribution 129

Startup Professionals Musings

SEPTEMBER 10, 2018

Co-founders only able to work part-time, with responsibility and major income sources elsewhere, don’t carry the same risk as others with more operational responsibility. Investors may not be called co-founders, but they always get equity, commensurate with their share of the total costs anticipated, or share of the current valuation.

Equity 238

Equity Cofounder Technical Cofounder Intellectual Property 238

Startup Professionals Musings

APRIL 17, 2011

On the other hand, if it is maintenance and testing on non-core software, use the lowest cost solution. Cost factors. Companies in Asia and Eastern Europe can still provide direct cost reductions of up to 75%. The net may be less cost reduction than you thought. Creative or operational.

Intellectual Property 225

Intellectual Property Non-disclosure Agreement Non-Compete Vietnam 225

Startup Professionals Musings

JULY 29, 2019

For example, a “quality first” message is negated if you minimize testing to reduce product costs. The solution is to always be hiring and developing people, including diversity of thought, background, and operating style. Trying to operate with too much or not enough process. Increasing evidence of organizational silos.

Leadership 217

Leadership Analytics Hiring Operations 217

Startup Professionals Musings

JULY 16, 2017

Very few entrepreneurs have the range of skills and experience to be the solution creator as well as business creator, or operational as well as sales leader. The challenge is to recognize and recruit that ideal partner match early with minimal cost and risk. Operate with a comparable level of integrity.

Partner 140

Partner Software Review CTO Hire Cofounder 140

Startup Professionals Musings

JUNE 18, 2012

I come from a high-tech software background, and only a few years ago, it would cost at least a million dollars ($1M) for a team of professionals to produce any commercial software product. Now, with open source software components, and low-cost development tools, the same job can be done by one good hacker for a few thousand dollars.

Cost 255

Cost Burn Rate SEM Startup 255

Startup Professionals Musings

OCTOBER 25, 2019

Shipping costs increased, but membership fees from 100 million new Prime members more than made up for it. To make personalization affordable, leaders must use available technologies but not market them, create flexible operations, and reduce waste. Memorable personalization doesn’t always have to include fancy technology or high cost.

Customer 136

Customer Indiana Technical Review Revenue 136

Startup Professionals Musings

FEBRUARY 18, 2019

In my own consulting career, I have observed examples of each of her five key signs that your business work culture is not operating in a state of brilliance: People are punished for telling the truth. It’s time to look at the indirect costs, including lost clients, other worker turnover, and overall productivity.

Technical Review 229

Technical Review .Net Employee Cost 229

Startup Professionals Musings

OCTOBER 5, 2014

Things will cost more than you expect. Waiting until you have something to sell before bringing on a sales and operations staff. For example, a software development startup raising $250,000 from angel investors better be able to operate on $25,000 per month. Buffer your projected resource requirements. You will make mistakes.

Burn Rate 262

Burn Rate Hockey Stick Entrepreneur Salary 262

Startup Professionals Musings

OCTOBER 16, 2023

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. Per-unit cost less cost of goods sold is your gross profit or margin. Quantify overhead costs. It’s amazing how fasts costs escalate as you grow.

Forecast 290

Forecast Burn Rate Widget Business Plan 290

Startup Professionals Musings

AUGUST 31, 2019

Typical costs for startups today range from $250,000 to $1 million, even if the offering does not go through. In addition, huge amounts of executive time are required, as well as hits to key operational, accounting, and communication processes. In addition, most ordinary investors are convinced that IPO rewards only go to insiders.

IPO 210

IPO SEC Prospectus Startup 210

Startup Professionals Musings

NOVEMBER 23, 2014

The bad news is that they are not a good test of basic usability and ease of operation, which are always a key to the much larger market of regular customers. At some point, this becomes compulsive engineering, and the tradeoffs in time to market, cost, and user friendliness move the product out of the intended market.

Technical Review 259

Technical Review Entrepreneur Restful Engineer 259

Startup Professionals Musings

MARCH 10, 2023

Products and services for a business need to be attuned to customer requirements, cost and quality tradeoffs, with milestones for pricing and completion. Marketing, sales, support, and service operations. Yet I continue to get funding requests that never mention any specific plans or costs to be associated with these elements.

Exit Strategy 288

Exit Strategy Metrics Operations Cost 288