ReadWriteStart

DECEMBER 2, 2010

Well, 1M/1M is focused on helping businesses generate $1M in annual revenue, whatever be the nature of the business. But our goal is to make sure that these businesses are sustainable, have customers, revenues, and profits. Nor will she or he get any assistance with dispute resolution, for example.

India 116

India Green Silicon Valley Massachusetts 116

ReadWriteStart

MARCH 24, 2011

Monetization models, while not yet validated, can come from charging the customer base that is already acquainted with the service, as well as selling the white label solutions to colleges. Chris is primarily trying to assess his customer acquisition strategy, which requires that people see the game being played. Photo by nazreth.

Illinois 114

Illinois Entrepreneur Silicon Valley Chicago 114

ReadWriteStart

SEPTEMBER 22, 2011

The bulk of our discussion today was around scaling and customer acquisition strategies. Then Gerard McDonald from Dublin, Ireland, discussed CustomerDiscovery, a concept-stage venture around online marketing services using social media mechanisms for customer acquisition. CustomerDiscovery. Discuss.

Silicon Valley 124

Silicon Valley Ireland India Entrepreneur 124

ReadWriteStart

JUNE 23, 2011

The idea is interesting, but needs positioning and validation with the right set of target customers. Sramana Mitra is the founder of the One Million by One Million (1M/1M) initiative, an educational, business development and incubation program that aims to help one million entrepreneurs globally to reach $1 million in revenue and beyond.

Spain 115

Spain Entrepreneur India San Francisco 115

ReadWriteStart

APRIL 1, 2011

Our discussion today was around prioritization of the next few critical steps around customer acquisition and validation. Report Bee has two paying customers, and we discussed segmentation issues around where to focus for the early market penetration strategy. Report Bee. Then Balaganesh S., Discuss.

India 119

India Guerilla Entrepreneur New Zealand 119

ReadWriteStart

JANUARY 13, 2011

We started this week's One Million by One Million roundtable with a discussion of online advertising trends, looking at them from the perspective of cost-effective customer acquisition and brand building, as well as entrepreneurial opportunities. You can find more on the topic on my blog at Top 10 Online Advertising Trends For The Decade.

Advertising 116

Advertising SMS Entrepreneur Silicon Valley 116

ReadWriteStart

MARCH 17, 2011

Marcial proposes to use friends living in the United States to transport products on behalf of consumers in Costa Rica who are regular customers of products from the US e-commerce vendors. She has a master's degree in electrical engineering and computer science from the Massachusetts Institute of Technology. Words To Live By.

Costa Rica 114

Costa Rica America Silicon Valley Entrepreneur 114

ReadWriteStart

APRIL 14, 2011

First up, Girish Mathrubootham from Chennai, India, presented Freshdesk , a SaaS solution for multi-channel customer support including knowledge base and social CRM support. She has a master's degree in electrical engineering and computer science from the Massachusetts Institute of Technology. Quantum Arc. ET Interactive. Discuss.

India 126

India Technical Review Entrepreneur Silicon Valley 126

ReadWriteStart

FEBRUARY 3, 2011

Then Praful Thachery pitched Delyver Retail Network , a home delivery solution through which Praful is already delivering food, flowers and a variety of other products and services (like dry cleaning) to over 5,000 customers in Bangalore. The value proposition is sound. Saagam.com. Next Kiran Reddy presented Saagam.com. Photo by barunpatro.

Entrepreneur 118

Entrepreneur India Technical Review Los Angeles 118

ReadWriteStart

OCTOBER 27, 2011

It is also an excellent platform to address the questions from prospects and help clarify issues and objections for any sales process, which is one of the primary ways Voluble is seeing some of its major early customers using it. The next event will be on Tuesday, November 22, 2011, at 8:00 AM (PDT), register to attend here. Discuss.

Entrepreneur 116

Entrepreneur San Francisco Technical Review New Jersey 116

ReadWriteStart

JANUARY 27, 2011

This partnership speaks to a core philosophy of the program where we encourage entrepreneurs to get as much customer validation as possible before raising too much money, use other people's channels if you can get to them, don't burn too much cash, and all that good fiscal conservative stuff. million in revenue. Brainscape.

Dilution 114

Dilution Revenue Finance Entrepreneur 114

ReadWriteStart

MAY 3, 2011

and SEO as two of the most effective and affordable customer acquisition strategies. Groupon China happens to be a customer of Recruiterbox, and found them through organic search. and an affiliate program would also help with customer acquisition. At last week's roundtable, we had five entrepreneurs pitching. Guerrilla p.r.

Acquisition 115

Acquisition SEO San Francisco India 115

YoungUpstarts

DECEMBER 5, 2013

The revenue in 2012 was $16.4 Most of the customer service staff is able to work from home for 30 hours a week. Sramana Mitra is the founder of One Million by One Million (1M/1M), a global virtual incubator that aims to help one million entrepreneurs globally to reach $1 million in revenue and beyond.

Silicon Valley 266

Silicon Valley Utah India Massachusetts 266

ReadWriteStart

SEPTEMBER 3, 2010

I asked her not to assume that investors will be investing in this business idea, at least not until she can acquire some level of validation, which means tens, if not hundreds of thousands of customers, and several partnerships with daily deal sites. Venture capitalists today don't exactly practice venture capital.

Channel 115

Channel India Bootstrapping Silicon Valley 115

ReadWriteStart

OCTOBER 28, 2010

At today's roundtable we saw three very nice businesses, each with pilot customers, and each working on real problems. Antonio has 100 trial customers at the moment, and is looking to figure out exactly what his company positioning is going to be. At the end of the session, each left with specific action items. If possible, of course.

Partner 117

Partner Belgium Portugal Bootstrapping 117

ReadWriteStart

OCTOBER 20, 2011

I reminded him that commercial open source is a classic freemium model, where the free software comes with paid customer support and training. She has a master's degree in electrical engineering and computer science from the Massachusetts Institute of Technology. So, which one are you, I asked. SolSolution. Photo by svilen001.

Massachusetts 113

Massachusetts Entrepreneur Open Source Silicon Valley 113

ReadWriteStart

OCTOBER 13, 2011

for the app and has 30,000 customers. He asked me if he should offer the app for free to get more customers. It is much better to grow organically with revenue. In 1M/1M premium, we do invest in certain companies on a revenue sharing basis and create channel partnerships with one or more of our partners. I said, no.

Business Model 122

Business Model New Hampshire Dallas Entrepreneur 122

ReadWriteStart

APRIL 7, 2011

At present, ISA has a set of pilot clients and is toying with the idea of going global. Well, you can't really go "global" without a go-to-market strategy that evaluates different markets, and assesses the competitive positioning in each of them. The good news, again, is that this business is generating revenues. Math-Quest.

Malaysia 114

Malaysia Incubator Silicon Valley Entrepreneur 114

ReadWriteStart

FEBRUARY 10, 2011

Google PPC is a key channel for customer acquisition for many e-commerce and online businesses, yet keywords have become quite competitive, and the costs of campaigns for certain keywords tend to be extremely high. Also, Kimbra Orr with Kimbra Studios presented an interesting business selling photo jewelry that is already at $750k revenue.

PPC 114

PPC Entrepreneur Silicon Valley Incubator 114

YoungUpstarts

OCTOBER 27, 2011

The Coffee Bean & Tea Leaf, also known as “The Bean” to loyal customers, is a Los Angeles based, family-run coffee and tea company that’s owned and operated by International Coffee & Tea, LLC. Kittredge started making candles in his Massachusetts home and started selling them to interested neighbors.

Southern California 162

Southern California Las Vegas Honolulu Massachusetts 162

ReadWriteStart

MAY 12, 2011

She has, thus far, not done any other formal customer acquisition initiative. In February, he had about 200 customers. Happy Grasshopper has incredible testimonials and a host of satisfied customers who are now helping build word of mouth buzz. Today, he has over a thousand, and he has chosen to focus on the realtor vertical.

San Francisco 125

San Francisco Entrepreneur Silicon Valley India 125

ReadWriteStart

JUNE 2, 2011

Eddie has already invested $350,000 in building the solution, but has done an inadequate job of validating with customers. I pointed him to specific modules within the 1M/1M curriculum to beef up his customer acquisition strategy, Value Proposition and Positioning description, etc. From 2008 to 2010, Mitra was a columnist for Forbes.

Incubator 114

Incubator San Jose Silicon Valley India 114

ReadWriteStart

JULY 21, 2011

Some recent trend posts on my blog include There's a Trend To Spot In Groupon's Growth Rate , Customer Service and the Social Web , SaaS Enabled BPO and Near-shoring and U.S. The 1M/1M affiliate program will create additional revenues for some, and for some, this could be their first decent revenue option. efforts to get them.

Affiliate 130

Affiliate San Francisco Entrepreneur India 130

ReadWriteStart

JUNE 9, 2011

Next, we went to a discussion on a scenario that a 1M/1M premium company is facing where they offer an innovative customer support solution to large enterprises like Telecom and Consumer Electronics players and are going to market through a channel partner in the U.S. To train a channel, understanding the use cases is crucial. Discuss.

Silicon Valley 113

Silicon Valley New Jersey Entrepreneur Massachusetts 113

ReadWriteStart

JANUARY 20, 2011

Mike's customer acquisition strategy is weak at this point, and he also has a rather broad strategy in approaching this market. Kelly's business has already done about $150,000 in revenue in 2010, which tells me that she has successfully validated at least some of her assumptions. Photo by Bessarro. Discuss.

Entrepreneur 114

Entrepreneur Silicon Valley Vertical Massachusetts 114

ReadWriteStart

JANUARY 6, 2011

This curriculum is based on the various questions entrepreneurs have asked me over these 64 sessions, spanning financing, positioning, customer acquisition, marketing, sales, channel, and various other early stage, startup-related issues. John already has a couple of customers, and needs about 50 customers to get to $1M in annual revenue.

Vertical 115

Vertical Web San Francisco Entrepreneur 115

ReadWriteStart

FEBRUARY 17, 2011

OrangeScape positions itself as an Application Platform As A Service (APaaS) provider, and has some marquee customers in India including Unilever, Citibank, Pfizer, AstraZeneca, and Sterlite. Next, Paul Croskrey with OBM Global pitched the Multi Angular Force Generator (MAFG), an alternative energy startup aiming to provide off-grid power.

Entrepreneur 114

Entrepreneur India Silicon Valley Massachusetts 114

ReadWriteStart

MARCH 3, 2011

Then Greg Snead, also from Tacoma, discussed Orbiter , an RFID venture that is moving along quite nicely, having clocked more than $700,000 in revenue last year. Orbiter expects to give its investors a 15 times return on investment based on their current pipeline and revenue forecast. Happy Grasshopper. Social Pulse.

San Jose 115

San Jose Entrepreneur United States Washington 115

ReadWriteStart

SEPTEMBER 30, 2011

Joel has one anchor customer right now and has validated his assumptions based on that case study. As a market entry strategy, Ashwin proposed taking LinkedIn customers and setting up personal profiles for them, an idea that did not sound convincing to me at all. He also has raised one round of seed funding and is ready for another.

Poland 126

Poland Argentina Oakland Entrepreneur 126

ReadWriteStart

FEBRUARY 24, 2011

A sustainable business = (customer + revenue + profits). Who are my most profitable customers?) Taariq can use the relationship to better understand the situations of various real customers and have the vendor partner bring him into, let's say, a dozen customer situations. Investors are optional in this equation.

Incubator 116

Incubator Silicon Valley Idaho Entrepreneur 116

ReadWriteStart

OCTOBER 14, 2010

These are areas that may be gaps in the portfolio of large companies, and are perfect for M&A deals in three to five years after building enough validation and $10-$20 million in revenue. Raymond has built a nice business through efficient distribution deals and will do about $250,000 in revenue this year.

Bootstrapping 114

Bootstrapping Marketing Angel Investor Silicon Valley 114

ReadWriteStart

MAY 26, 2011

I have advised her to course-correct and validate with the potential customers how much they are willing to pay and in what framework. She has a master's degree in electrical engineering and computer science from the Massachusetts Institute of Technology. Priyanka Bhatnagar Jewellery & Accessories. Photo by ilco. Discuss.

Affiliate 117

Affiliate India Nevada Silicon Valley 117

ReadWriteStart

NOVEMBER 4, 2010

The premium lounge includes an online curriculum addressing the common topics specific to very early stage entrepreneurship; private roundtables that many of you have requested; customer, channel partners, and investor introductions; media and analyst access; and a variety of other value-added services to make our entrepreneurs successful.

Startup 113

Startup India Silicon Valley Incubator 113

ReadWriteStart

OCTOBER 21, 2010

Justin is looking for a more efficient customer acquisition model, and my suggestion to him was to look into using distributors, instead of trying to do all the development and then also all the distribution himself. She has a master's degree in electrical engineering and computer science from the Massachusetts Institute of Technology.

Bootstrapping 113

Bootstrapping IP India Silicon Valley 113

ReadWriteStart

MARCH 10, 2011

It would be much cheaper to acquire customers this way. I advised Manivel to reposition his company to cater to institutes that want to develop private funding exchanges and conduct a thorough customer validation process based on that assumption. Edward has a medical tourism portal customer for whom he is building such a solution.

India 116

India Entrepreneur Silicon Valley Vertical 116

ReadWriteStart

SEPTEMBER 30, 2010

All I could assess that he is bound to face a chicken-and-egg problem - not having enough scale to attract product vendors to use their channel, versus not having products with which to build a customer base. Detailed segmentation analysis and target customer definition at a fairly granular level. How does he mitigate that?

India 115

India Silicon Valley Incubator Bootstrapping 115

ReadWriteStart

NOVEMBER 17, 2011

In addition, the customers best served by the SPOTS solution are those who do not keep inventory, but rather have to manage multiple suppliers after an order comes in. In addition, I had the feeling that the product is being scoped out without input from a critical mass of customers. From 2008 to 2010, Mitra was a columnist for Forbes.

Early Stage 116

Early Stage India Entrepreneur Silicon Valley 116