Both Sides of the Table

DECEMBER 11, 2022

In those years I learned to properly build product, price products, sell products and serve customers. I am enjoying more discussions with startups about the ROI benefits for customers who use our products rather than the coolness of our products. Steve Jobs still walked from his house on Waverly to the Apple Store on University Ave.

Valuation 466

Valuation San Francisco Ratchet Liquidation Preference 466

Both Sides of the Table

NOVEMBER 14, 2017

There is nothing more pure than building a product, putting it out in the world and seeing paying customers using your product and in some cases loving it. As companies get this initial customer feedback on their product they start to have to ask harder questions about unit economics: How much does it cost us to acquire a new customer?

Operations 286

Operations New York City Technical Review Startup 286

Both Sides of the Table

MARCH 19, 2013

The most important way to sell a product for an early-stage business (or frankly any stage) is to have strong referenceable customers. How do you get referenceable customers? Your project is forked without a rollout organization, communications, measurement, integration and without turning sales into referenceable customers.

Technical Review 403

Technical Review Software Review Startup API 403

Both Sides of the Table

APRIL 20, 2017

In the early days this is expensive because the logistics & warehouses are amortized over a small customer base but with scale this infrastructure and the technology that drives it becomes a powerful moat and hard for new entrants to compete. MakeSpace is building the exact same systems but in reverse. years of software development.

Technical Review 268

Technical Review Los Angeles Software Review Artificial Inteligence 268

Both Sides of the Table

SEPTEMBER 15, 2022

We could talk with customers, meet the entire management team, review financial plans, review customer purchasing cohorts, evaluate the competition, etc. Of course our execution against the strategy has had to change but the strategy has remained constant. In 2009 we could take a long time to review a deal.

Technical Review 416

Technical Review Pre-Money Valuation San Francisco Valuation 416

Both Sides of the Table

APRIL 3, 2014

Whenever I heard why we didn’t feel a sales process at an important customer was going well (or if we lost) I would get involved myself. They are as good at selling you as they are at selling your product to customers. Customer also buy social proof because others are acting as strong references.

Sales 382

Sales Startup Technical Review Matching 382

Both Sides of the Table

MARCH 21, 2013

This might mean helping customers buy traffic, arb’ing deals, helping with RTB pricing or trading, etc. Minimize Any Custom Work That Will Not Feed Back Into Your R&D. While I’d like to say that you should never do custom work that changes the scope of your product that’s not wholly realistic.

Software Review 321

Software Review Software IP Technical Review 321

Both Sides of the Table

APRIL 26, 2016

Perhaps the most misused terms I see these days from entrepreneurs involve CAC (customer acquisition costs) and LTV (life time value) and a lack of understanding these critical components is driving many companies to premature failure. Customer acquisition cost. This is how much you spend to get a new customer. That bit is easy.

Metrics 150

Metrics Cost Acquisition Startup 150

Both Sides of the Table

JUNE 17, 2013

The point of PUCCKA was to develop a common methodology to make sure our whole team approaches sales with the same mindset and to give us a language to talk with each other about our prospects, as in, “have you identified your customers pain point yet?”. The goal is to get the customer speaking about their organization.

Sales 367

Sales Software Review Social Media Customer 367

Both Sides of the Table

JANUARY 6, 2014

The functions of an early-stage board are pretty obvious and well understood: Providing introductions to customers, biz dev partners, recruits, the press, other investors, etc. Over time you start to figure out who you customers are and how to sell to them or how to get them to adopt your products if you’re a consumer-oriented startup.

Technical Review 325

Technical Review Early Stage Software Review Los Angeles 325

Both Sides of the Table

NOVEMBER 16, 2014

But if you level up , raise capital and grow customers, revenue and staff – life changes. They talk to customers, operations, sales, marketing and engineering to determine the company product roadmap. You just assign out tasks to all of us. And then there’s product management. Whose side are you on? Engineering?

CTO Hire 385

CTO Hire Entrepreneur Technical Review Leadership 385

Both Sides of the Table

JUNE 20, 2013

Simply, this is identifying a customer need which has economic value to them if they can solve it. ” and if you can’t persuade enough potential customers they have some pain that needs fixing you probably should stick to your day job. Teams usually start with terminology that is very insular and less relevant to customers.

Campaign 336

Campaign Sales Software Customer 336

Both Sides of the Table

SEPTEMBER 17, 2013

You can ask them to come and watch your videos at your owned & operated websites (O&O) where you can make higher margins as well as ask directly for more meaningful customer information such as Facebook connections, Twitter oAuths, email addresses and the like. Build Direct Relationships with Customers. And production matters.

Video 339

Video Technical Review Distribution Aggregator 339

Both Sides of the Table

FEBRUARY 7, 2013

And because I wanted Ethan to be able to attract a great team, build & iterate a product, test it with initial customers and refine his strategy before having to take the wrappers off of his company. Because I knew that Ethan was on to a powerful idea and one in which he had developed huge competence and domain knowledge in.

Southern California 359

Southern California San Francisco CTO Hire SEM 359

Both Sides of the Table

FEBRUARY 5, 2011

Whenever I heard why we didn’t feel a sales process at an important customer was going well (or if we lost) I would get involved myself. They are as good at selling you as they are at selling your product to customers. Customer also buy social proof because others are acting as strong references. They’re in beta).

Sales 316

Sales Technical Review Matching Hiring 316

Both Sides of the Table

OCTOBER 31, 2010

In the first part of this post I talked about how sales in a startup is often evangelical , requires as consultative sale and needs constant adjustments based on customer feedback. Or the sales decks will all be customized by your “feet on the street&# and won’t resemble the way you THINK your company is being positioned.

Sales 286

Sales PR Forecast Technical Review 286

Both Sides of the Table

APRIL 4, 2011

4 times / 100 means if a customer uses your app frequently (say 10-20 times / day) then they are crashing nearly every day. Customer Acquisition. At the highest level you’ll obviously want to track how many customers your adding every month (and for some businesses that have hit scale this is measured on a daily basis).

Metrics 346

Metrics Startup Acquisition SEM 346

Both Sides of the Table

AUGUST 11, 2021

Photo by Vanna Phon on Unsplash Customer acquisition is the lifeblood of many startups from e-commerce to gaming to marketplace companies, among others. that’s where the customers are. But if you ask anyone in the ecosystem of customer acquisition?—?founders, no surprise?—?that’s founders, marketers, investors?—?and

Founder 424

Founder Product Cofounder Acquisition 424

Both Sides of the Table

OCTOBER 12, 2010

I see way too many startup founders who don’t have experience in selling and probably don’t feel that comfortable going to customers and asking for orders. Spending time selling to customers is the best way to find out what their problems are and how good your solution currently is at mapping to their needs.

Hiring 346

Hiring Sales Startup Early Stage 346

Both Sides of the Table

APRIL 20, 2010

They care about the quality of what is build more than they care about end customers. As you head into the phase where you’ve had real customers paying real money for a period of time you’ll have a whole new set of issues. You still have some leeway to hire above them if need be.

Fractional CTO 400

Fractional CTO CTO Hire Fractional VPE Part-Time VPE 400

Both Sides of the Table

NOVEMBER 3, 2009

It should talk about how many customers you think you will acquire and how much you’ll charge for your product. Do you really want to spent $100k building a product to discover through Customer Development that the market is too small? I care about the thought that you’ve given to the customer problem.

Business Plan 334

Business Plan AJAX Venture Capital Technical Review 334

Both Sides of the Table

JANUARY 11, 2014

I tell people that they need to blog about their industry to drive customers and not blog to their egos to drive their peer group to their blogs. If you are early in a platform (Zynga to Facebook, AngryBirds to iOS, Maker Studios to YouTube) you catch a major marketing wave where acquiring customers and growing revenue is exponential.

Technical Review 384

Technical Review Hockey Stick SEM Channel 384

Both Sides of the Table

JULY 1, 2010

As a CEO you never stop needing to go on sales calls (or to work the phones in telesales or customer support) and ceasing to do this as your company grows because you’re focusing on investors, recruiting, PR or whatever is a mistake. I also make visits to senior level customers of portfolio companies with which I’m involved.

CTO Hire 308

CTO Hire Management Technical Review Part-Time VPE 308

Both Sides of the Table

DECEMBER 27, 2011

If you had huge customer growth but just didn’t focus on revenue that’s a different story. And when you’re looking at even earlier-stage companies (as VCs do) you might be even more focused on customer growth than revenue growth. But the customer may be paying me quarterly in arrears (at the end of the quarter).

Startup 418

Startup Revenue Technical Review Flash 418

Both Sides of the Table

MARCH 25, 2016

After a year in the market, MakeSpace was growing rapidly and our biggest issue was CAC (customer acquisition costs) relative to payback period (when we get our marketing investment back) and relative to LTV (lifetime value). We need to market to that customer to make them aware of our product or service. Choose that market.

Startup 150

Startup Seed Money DC Software Review 150

Both Sides of the Table

MAY 27, 2013

Partly out of the fact that in 1 week I depart for England to speak at LeWeb, attend our DataSift board meeting and generally make myself available to the DataSift team to meet their customers, partners and employees. He sets goals for revenue diversification (can’t get all revenue from few customers or few partners).

Advisory Board 365

Advisory Board CTO Hire Fractional CTO Los Angeles 365

Both Sides of the Table

JUNE 22, 2015

So that we’re speaking the same language I would define “exclusive” as a period in which your company is prohibited from doing business with certain customers or business partners, which is why many incorrectly assume this is necessarily bad. Why Exclusivity Matters to Your Customers or Business Development Partners.

PR 150

PR Early Stage Software Naming 150

Both Sides of the Table

DECEMBER 16, 2009

.&# They know instinctually how customers buy and how to excite them. Because they’re street smart, most great entrepreneurs tend to prefer getting out and talking with real customers rather than sitting in a cubicle all day doing beautiful PowerPoint slides. Help me understand which you prefer.&# I lost zero customers.

Entrepreneur 306

Entrepreneur Burn Rate Cofounder Sales 306

Both Sides of the Table

AUGUST 28, 2012

When is it appropriate for a VC to call your customers? If you show a list of key customers or key business partners and if this list is sensitive (READ: If you don’t want VCs calling them) then you need to make it explicit with the VCs. “We are sharing with you our list of key customers / biz dev partners.

Technical Review 316

Technical Review Due Diligence Term Sheet Cap Table 316

Both Sides of the Table

MARCH 30, 2011

In the initial phases of any new market you’re developing a product (hopefully with a minimal set of features), getting feedback from customers, refining your product based on user feedback and then re-launching your product. Rinse & repeat. It seemed to be purely speculative. I was a victim of this kind of thinking.

Development Team Review 374

Development Team Review Technical Review Bulgaria Lean 374

Both Sides of the Table

AUGUST 28, 2009

We hadn’t even thought about having a customer support line or who would staff it. Our customers were generally happy but they were pushing us hard for promised features. We kept reading about their customer wins, their product releases and their biz dev deals. Let your compass be based on your customers.

PR 331

PR Software Review Ireland Germany 331

Both Sides of the Table

JUNE 21, 2014

Neither is very strategic nor in the best interest of either set of customers that VCs have (portfolio companies & LPs). Writing a book will be fun. Stuart is well worth following on Twitter & now that’s he’s a VC he is likely to share his wisdom more freely.

CTO Hire 320

CTO Hire Cofounder San Francisco Silicon Valley 320

Both Sides of the Table

FEBRUARY 9, 2013

Work on budgets, submit RFPs, answer customers support calls, work the bug-tracking software, and trying to meet the next sprint release schedule. Your 2am coding session is more important than their 2am cocktails on the redeye back from Japan where they have no customers. Sell stuff. Your 8-year-old Toyota is just fine.

Software Review 398

Software Review Technical Review China Mexico 398

Both Sides of the Table

SEPTEMBER 13, 2011

Of course they “need&# the title to convince customers, biz dev partners and VCs that they’re to be taken seriously. I think when the company has the complexity of large customers, customer service & SLA management, well established sales processes, continual recruiting because you’re growing, constant press, etc.

Technical Review 325

Technical Review Startup Cofounder Due Diligence 325

Both Sides of the Table

SEPTEMBER 8, 2010

Once you’ve been around for a few years, attracted some great people, landed real, paying customers and raised venture capital you’ve likely got a talented team around you. In your case this might simply be a VP of Sales or Customer Support for multiple locations. You’re suddenly free to focus your energies elsewhere.

Ireland 319

Ireland Sales Bankruptcy Germany 319

Both Sides of the Table

MAY 24, 2018

The role of these investment staff varies firm-to-firm but they often entail: Sourcing deals for partners Helping with initial deal screening with a partner Helping with due diligence (competitive assessments, customer calls, reference checking, market sizing, technology reviews, etc.)

Technical Review 314

Technical Review Due Diligence Partner Term Sheet 314

Both Sides of the Table

FEBRUARY 16, 2015

So he would allocate say – 20% to sales, 15% to marketing, 20% to eng priorities, 10% to customer support, 10% to ops, 20% to ‘platinum customers’ and maybe 5% directly to me as the CEO. So I would get ANYTHING I wanted within the confines of my budget. ” Those were the rules.

Startup 150

Startup CTO Hire Sales Leadership 150