www.forentrepreneurs.com

FEBRUARY 2, 2010

Blog About Log in Register Startup Killer: the Cost of Customer Acquisition In the many thousands of articles advising entrepreneurs on what they have to focus on to build successful startups, much has been written about three key factors: team, product and market, with particular focus on the importance of product/market fit.

Acquisition 103

Acquisition Cost Customer Entrepreneur 103

ReadWriteStart

SEPTEMBER 23, 2010

First up was Brad Barrett presenting GrillGrate , a grill accessory with which Brad has built a year-to-date revenue of $400,000. Next, Umakant Soni discussed Vimagino.com , a software for Web-based Q&A support to engage customers better on sites that are trying to draw people in and convert them into customers. GrillGrate.

India 114

India Silicon Valley Incubator Bootstrapping 114

Where to Play

FEBRUARY 5, 2019

Yet, very soon he and his team discovered that their drone can perform many different jobs, for different types of customers. It begins with characterising your core technologies or unique abilities in their own right, to help you uncover different applications of these abilities, and different types of customers who may need them.

Agile 54

Agile Technical Review Sales Cycle Distribution 54

Hippoland

AUGUST 16, 2018

Especially at the early stages. But outcome-differentiation is probably lacking – people who use Mailchimp use it to increase revenue by selling more products / services via their emails. Think about it – if you’re using MailChimp and make let’s say $100 in sales for every send.

Sales Cycle 54

Sales Cycle Differentiation Early Stage Bootstrapping 54

Hippoland

AUGUST 16, 2018

Especially at the early stages. But outcome-differentiation is probably lacking – people who use Mailchimp use it to increase revenue by selling more products / services via their emails. Think about it – if you’re using MailChimp and make let’s say $100 in sales for every send.

Sales Cycle 48

Sales Cycle Differentiation Early Stage Bootstrapping 48

ConversionXL

MAY 27, 2022

Marketers raise brand awareness to capture leads that are handed to sales teams to convert into customers. DGMs see that demand is maintained throughout the sales cycle. 70% of buyers are already clued up on a product before they talk to sales, if they talk to sales at all.

Demand 95

Demand Management B2B Campaign 95

Duct Tape Marketing

FEBRUARY 22, 2017

While big ticket products might carry longer and more complex sales cycles, high-end buyers are just as lazy as the rest of us, so they use the same methods: Google, social media, and yes, their inboxes. He will track down emails, verify them to avoid bounces, and log custom fields in your spreadsheet. NOT “ACME Creative Inc.”,

Curation 44

Curation Lead Generation Technical Review Email 44

infochachkie.com

SEPTEMBER 24, 2011

For instance, if a consultant proposes to help you with public relations, pay them a commission equivalent to the greater of a flat fee per story placed or a percentage of revenue generated from the PR coverage. If a consultant claims they can enhance your marketing efforts, pay them based on their direct impact on your incremental sales.

Equity 40

Equity Silicon Valley Cofounder Technical Review 40

YoungUpstarts

SEPTEMBER 7, 2014

For most startups, one of the most exciting and frustrating phases is deciding how to price their offering for their first paying customer. Because of these nuances, startups selling to enterprise customers must be even more diligent in tracking the right growth metrics. Revenue Growth. Payback Period.

Metrics 219

Metrics Churn Rate Startup Acquisition 219

www.forentrepreneurs.com

FEBRUARY 2, 2010

The company has just missed its quarterly revenue forecast. Lets take an example, and look at how they might do this: They will be able to tell you that revenue is composed of deals. To compute revenue, you multiply average deal size by number of deals. Bookings is the pre-cursor to Revenue. Obvious, isn’t it?

Metrics 55

Metrics Design Entrepreneur Startup 55

BeyondVC

DECEMBER 15, 2005

So lesson #1 is while it is always hard to land your first financial services customer, remember not to screw it up because if you do everyone will know. On the other hand if you deliver on your promises and have a great base of early reference customers, it will pay huge dividends. This takes time but can be doable.

Advisory Board 60

Advisory Board New York Dividend Sales Cycle 60

Hippoland

FEBRUARY 12, 2018

I’ll give you an example with my own startup LaunchBit and how our understanding of the problem and the customer became more refined over time: V1: Helping online marketers get customers profitably. V2: Helping online marketers who have previously bought ads in email lists get customers profitably. But the execution is hard.

Seed Stage 48

Seed Stage Business Model B2B Email 48

Hippoland

FEBRUARY 12, 2018

I’ll give you an example with my own startup LaunchBit and how our understanding of the problem and the customer became more refined over time: V1: Helping online marketers get customers profitably. V2: Helping online marketers who have previously bought ads in email lists get customers profitably. But the execution is hard.

Seed Stage 48

Seed Stage Business Model B2B Email 48

BeyondVC

DECEMBER 10, 2003

The first will be companies selling expensive applications which will rely on extensive professional services to install and customize. Finally, there will be software companies that have a componentized product that is easy to install which can and may be packaged into an appliance to leverage the channel sales model.

Software 60

Software Harvest Sales Cycle Channel 60

BeyondVC

JANUARY 20, 2004

I was quite frustrated recently when one of my portfolio companies presented the board with a 2004 revenue forecast which was not based on reality. Average Selling Price (ASP)-in today’s market, you may see a small pilot deal followed 3 months later with a much larger sale (model this appropriately). Is the market ready for this?

Forecast 60

Forecast Sales Sales Cycle Early Stage 60

Cracking the Code

OCTOBER 10, 2008

Only after reaching $1M in CMRR should you consider hiring European sales and services execs behind customer demand. Be prepared to cross the desert - SaaS requires R&D and sales expense up front for a multi-year stream of revenue, so it demands enough investment capital to fund 4+ years of runway. 16 comments: BdH.

Software Review 48

Software Review North America Europe Metrics 48

Duct Tape Marketing

FEBRUARY 26, 2015

Firmographics —This is information you want to capture about organizations, like the company size, revenue, and locations served. Consider which behaviors and online activities tend to correlate with leads which eventually become customers. Conversely, “latent behaviors”—like early-stage content and blog posts—earn much lower scores.

Sales 28

Sales Early Stage Sales Cycle Conversion 28