YoungUpstarts

JANUARY 10, 2018

How could you position your company in the sales pitch to make the growth potential visible and appealing to prospective buyers? Profile Your Customer Base. Another element that affects a business’s sellability is the state of its customer base. Another important metric is churn. Track Media Perception & Presence.

Valuation 145

Valuation Technical Review Exit Strategy Metrics 145

Startup Professionals Musings

JUNE 7, 2020

Entrepreneurs need to document a process of responding to a market need, sizing opportunity, assigning a specific business model, and planning for marketing, sales, and customer satisfaction. Productivity and repeatability is the hallmark of a good business, whereas a hobby usually assumes everything is custom built and personal.

Entrepreneur 328

Entrepreneur Exit Strategy Metrics Operations 328

Up and Running

AUGUST 28, 2018

Then you’ll think through your ideal customer , your competition , and your opportunities for growth. Components of this section include: Your marketing and sales plan. Milestones and metrics that you’ll need to hit to be viable. Your funding ask and exit strategy, if applicable. Marketing and sales plan.

Business Plan 72

Business Plan Technical Review Exit Strategy Oregon 72

Reid Hoffman

JULY 23, 2020

This week, I’d like to turn to the question of how current market conditions affect the approach entrepreneurs should take towards their exit strategy. The larger company has to decide, “What you do is key to one of my strategies, so I’ll buy you.” That focus on short-term financial metrics is shortsighted.

IPO 36

IPO Exit Strategy Acquisition Technical Review 36

Startup Professionals Musings

AUGUST 13, 2012

In fact, a business plan is needed more by you than investors, as the blueprint for your company, team communication, and progress metrics. Terms like “every customer needs this” and “next generation platform” are far too soft, and should be avoided. Clearly define the customer, channel, and revenue model associated with this solution.

Business Plan 283

Business Plan Sweat Equity Exit Strategy Intellectual Property 283

Up and Running

FEBRUARY 10, 2021

When you put together a business plan, you have to spend time thinking about things like your target market , your sales, and marketing strategy , the problem you solve for your customers, and who your key competitors are. Who will your customers be and what problems will you solve for them? An exit strategy.

Business Plan 138

Business Plan Forecast Balance Sheet Exit Strategy 138

Up and Running

SEPTEMBER 3, 2015

Define your ideal customer. How easy is it to acquire a customer, and how much will it cost? Estimate your basic expenses and forecast sales to ensure that you can make a profit with your business. Interview potential customers to ensure that they have the problem you are trying to solve. Sales forecast.

Elevator Pitch 60

Elevator Pitch Startup Balance Sheet Forecast 60

Startup Professionals Musings

SEPTEMBER 30, 2015

In addition, current investors want to see every startup go public or be acquired, as an exit event, so they can get their due return for that investment which has been tied up for the last few years. For these reasons, I always look for an overt exit strategy in every startup I might consider for an angel investment.

Exit Strategy 120

Exit Strategy Startup Valuation Acquisition 120

Startup Professionals Musings

MAY 13, 2011

In fact, a business plan is needed more by you than investors, as the blueprint for your company, team communication, and progress metrics. Terms like “every customer needs this” and “next generation platform” are far too soft, and should be avoided. Clearly define the customer, channel, and revenue model associated with this solution.

Business Plan 290

Business Plan Sweat Equity Exit Strategy Intellectual Property 290

Startup Professionals Musings

MAY 28, 2016

Entrepreneurs need to document a process of responding to a market need, sizing opportunity, assigning a specific business model, and planning for marketing, sales, and customer satisfaction. Productivity and repeatability is the hallmark of a good business, whereas a hobby usually assumes everything is custom built and personal.

Exit Strategy 155

Exit Strategy Metrics Operations Cost 155

David Teten

SEPTEMBER 23, 2017

An investor had few hard metrics other than the actual financials, and little technology to make the process scaleable. Over the past few decades, better metrics became available, and investors could take a more analytical, data-driven approach. is an AI bot which helps companies refine their sales pitch to VCs. Pitchbot.vc

Private Equity 60

Private Equity Venture Capital Equity Technical Review 60

Startup Professionals Musings

AUGUST 7, 2015

When pitching to investors, entrepreneurs always seem to start with a customer pitch, then add a slide or two about the business. In every case, the relevant pitch needs to start by highlighting a real customer problem, then outlining a new solution, with all the features and disruptive technology.

Product 120

Product Intellectual Property Liquidity Event Burn Rate 120

Startup Professionals Musings

AUGUST 8, 2016

By profit, I simply mean offering a product or service to customers for a price that exceeds the total costs associated with the solution, thus providing some basis for recovering sunk costs and generating a return for stakeholders. Solve a painful problem for customers who have money to spend.

Intellectual Property 120

Intellectual Property Entrepreneur Elevator Pitch Exit Strategy 120

Gust

AUGUST 5, 2012

In fact, a business plan is needed more by you than investors, as the blueprint for your company, team communication, and progress metrics. Terms like “every customer needs this” and “next generation platform” are far too soft, and should be avoided. Clearly define the customer, channel, and revenue model associated with this solution.

Business Plan 182

Business Plan Sweat Equity Exit Strategy Intellectual Property 182

Startup Professionals Musings

APRIL 22, 2010

In fact, a business plan is needed more by you than investors, as the blueprint for your company, team communication, and progress metrics. Terms like “every customer needs this” and “next generation platform” are far too soft, and should be avoided. Clearly define the customer, channel, and revenue model associated with this solution.

Business Plan 186

Business Plan Exit Strategy Sweat Equity Intellectual Property 186

Startup Professionals Musings

MAY 24, 2015

Entrepreneurs need to document a process of responding to a market need, sizing opportunity, assigning a specific business model, and planning for marketing, sales, and customer satisfaction. Productivity and repeatability is the hallmark of a good business, whereas a hobby usually assumes everything is custom built and personal.

Exit Strategy 120

Exit Strategy Metrics Operations Cost 120

Up and Running

FEBRUARY 12, 2022

Just don’t invest the time in creating a lengthy version of your business plan with overly detailed metrics and milestones for the next five-plus years. They have to have some degree of faith and certainty about what customers are going to want in the future. What kinds of high-level sales targets do you hope to achieve?

Business Plan 83

Business Plan Lean Forecast Exit Strategy 83

Steve Blank

SEPTEMBER 14, 2009

In this time, building a successful business meant building a company that had paying customers quarter after quarter. It did not mean building a startup into a company to flip or hype on the market with no earnings or revenue, but building a company that had paying customers. They taught you about customers, markets and profits.

Silicon Valley 217

Silicon Valley IPO Technical Review Venture Capital 217

Up and Running

MAY 1, 2014

Marketing and Sales Plan. What marketing and sales tactics will you be using? Milestones and Metrics. Every business is solving a problem for its customers and filling a need in the market. Who is your ideal customer? Start this chapter by describing the problem that you are solving for your customers.

Business Plan 163

Business Plan Forecast Balance Sheet Distribution 163

Up and Running

OCTOBER 1, 2014

Statdragon is a Saas platform that allows businesses to access and analyze metrics about their existing videos and optimize their video marketing strategy. Keep customers at the forefront, and listen to them. If a taking on a customer means changing too many things, that client just might not be the right fit, Nelson says.

Bootstrapping 107

Bootstrapping Cofounder Portland Burn Rate 107

Up and Running

AUGUST 20, 2018

Every business has long-term and short-term goals, sales targets, and expense budgets—a business plan encompasses all of those things and is as useful to a startup trying to raise funds as it is to a 10-year-old business that’s looking to grow. And of course they use a plan to set the schedule for regular review and revision.

Business Plan 119

Business Plan Technical Review Lean Forecast 119

Up and Running

NOVEMBER 12, 2018

Lots of new box companies have trouble ironing out the kinks in their process: their customer can’t easily unsubscribe, their boxes just aren’t exciting or well-curated, and more. Target market (intended customers). Marketing and sales plan. You can see what your customer needs out of your subscription box, and why they need it.

Business Plan 63

Business Plan Curation Balance Sheet Intellectual Property 63

David Teten

DECEMBER 3, 2019

This provides us more time to develop meaningful relationships with prospects and customers. I previously posted a detailed presentation with sales technology tools useful for B2B sales. Many VC funds rely on general-purpose CRM and sales funnel solutions like Copper , Pipedrive, Salesforce , Streak , and ZenDesk.

Technical Review 78

Technical Review Software Review Analytics Private Equity 78

Startup Professionals Musings

SEPTEMBER 28, 2015

Instead, find and quantify the specific demographics of the subset that your solution best fits, and target all your features and messaging to those customers. A near-term customer value proposition. In all cases, you need customer support, formal processes and training in place. Sustainable competitive advantage.

Exit Strategy 120

Exit Strategy Technical Review Distribution Viral 120

Up and Running

OCTOBER 3, 2018

Then you’ll think through your ideal customer, your competition, and your opportunities for growth. This section of your business plan describes what services you provide and how they benefit your customers. Your target market is your ideal prospective customers. The idea here is that not everyone will be an ideal customer.

El Paso 61

El Paso Business Plan Technical Review Forecast 61

Up and Running

AUGUST 19, 2015

Yet, in our haste to make a sale, we often fail to ask ourselves this question at the outset. In my business, I always tell my clients that they are going to get increased revenue and profitability opportunities, enhanced prestige in their markets, and the chance to significantly reduce their sales cycles.

Small Business 60

Small Business Audience Exit Strategy Sales Cycle 60

Hearpreneur

JULY 20, 2018

I was at a crossroads in my career and debating about starting my own sales and marketing consulting business. In my refreshed state, I reviewed what others said I had accomplished which was; empowering businesses with the ability to manifest sales results. NorthSide Metrics is a digital marketing agency based in the Chicagoland area.

Naming 71

Naming OTC Entrepreneur PPC 71

Berkonomics

JANUARY 16, 2014

Create roles and guidelines in the potential partnership: What role and responsibility will each of the partners have including operation, financial, sales, marketing, etc.? Perform preliminary due diligence: Review the business plan including marketing, sales strategies and financial needs. Is it by committee?

Technical Review 81

Technical Review Due Diligence Exit Strategy Partner 81

BeyondVC

DECEMBER 23, 2003

As with any smart executive who cares about the value of equity, the question I am often asked is, “What is your exit strategy.” However, if you try to force it and shop your company, that shows a sign of weakness and more often than not will result in a fire sale. Remember, companies are bought and not sold.

Exit Strategy 68

Exit Strategy Balance Sheet IPO Valuation 68

The Next Web

MAY 26, 2013

Many ideas sound good on paper but fail spectacularly when put in front of customers. There’s no magic metric in software startups (so don’t let anyone convince you there is). There’s no magic metric in software startups (so don’t let anyone convince you there is). Understand your sales funnel.

Software 151

Software Forecast Startup Exit Strategy 151

Up and Running

MARCH 11, 2015

If you don’t have any existing customers yet talk about perspective customers. That moves into the customer acquisition strategy. This includes again another acronym I’m going to share, CAC, the cost to acquire a customer, the customer acquisition cost. Are you landing a big sale?

Technical Review 60

Technical Review Software Review Due Diligence Exit Strategy 60

Up and Running

MAY 22, 2018

What is this one thing that keeps your customers coming back to you (that your competitors don’t have)? When you tell investors about your target market, use a customer persona (if not a real, anecdotal) to illustrate the details. Say what your customer is experiencing to set the stage for how your solution can help.

Exit Strategy 90

Exit Strategy Angel Investor Search Elevator Pitch 90

Duct Tape Marketing

DECEMBER 3, 2019

So we bring together business phone service and a number of other ways to communicate all together so businesses can prospect, engage, and manage their customer relationships in one place. If we wanted customer service, it was an extra $110,000 a year for annual support. John Jantsch: So when did you join the firm? Yaniv Masjedi: Yeah.

SMS 40

SMS Metrics SEO Cloud 40

Entrepreneurs-Journey.com by Yaro Starak

JUNE 19, 2010

I have a few contractors to do the technical side of my work and a customer support person, but that’s it. I didn’t have that contractor doing customer support. The biggest deal I’ve ever done was a sale of a $100,000 website. I don’t actually have any employees. I’m the content creator. It doesn’t go any further than that.

Technical Review 76

Technical Review Software Review Prospectus Audience 76

market-by-numbers.com

DECEMBER 7, 2009

Market By Numbers on Twitter | Entries RSS | Comments RSS Market By Numbers High-Tech Marketing and Customer Development Home What is Customer Development? The driving force helps shape technology choices, importance of design, market segment, and business model as well as company culture, growth plan and exit strategy.

San Diego 40

San Diego RSS Lean Elevator Pitch 40

Up and Running

OCTOBER 29, 2015

With historical financials, corporate organization charts, and general industry and customer information, a business plan (especially a current plan) will help in the preparation of an investment banker’s pitchbook or other confidential marketing materials. The best time to prepare for the sale of a business is from the beginning.

Business Plan 60

Business Plan Due Diligence Intellectual Property Valuation 60