Business Plan Blog

OCTOBER 4, 2013

Don’t hire people with skills and qualifications similar to yours. If you have a technical background and you are focused on product development, consider a co-founder with a sales and marketing background that can focus on selling your world class product. Hire based on functionality and avoid having too many C’s.

Part-Time VPE 79

Part-Time VPE Fractional VPE Cofounder CTO Hire 79

YoungUpstarts

MAY 6, 2019

According to Lee M Von Kraus, PHD and a mentor at Clarity.fm, “Early stage startups are usually pre-money startup that are bootstrapping the early development of a product.”. Product development. Now that you have a refined product idea and a team that can turn this idea into reality, the product development stage will start.

Startup 113

Startup Technical Cofounder Merger Early Stage 113

Both Sides of the Table

SEPTEMBER 5, 2012

In a standard VC term sheet there is a standard term called an “anti dilution provision” and they are in nearly 100% of deals. It has nowhere near the same dilutive effects as a full ratchet except in extreme edge cases. But my $500k, while only buying 10% of the company (and now diluted down to 7.5%

Ratchet 354

Ratchet Liquidation Preference Equity Stock 354

Both Sides of the Table

AUGUST 3, 2010

I can save tons of development time and I think I can buy it for all equity. How much dilution should I take for it?&# My friend’s company was pre-revenue. Me: “Zero dilution. It is best not to buy your competitors – they’ll always want an unreasonable price and think of the sale as failure.

Merger 276

Merger Technical Review Early Stage Dilution 276

Hearpreneur

JANUARY 30, 2022

Face-to-face engagement is important, especially at vital points in the sales cycle or while creating relationships. I think e-commerce and brick-and-mortar businesses will have to pivot towards developing or optimizing social commerce strategies. . 15- Study supply chains and hiring trends. 21- Make more money from sales.

Entrepreneur 122

Entrepreneur Green Technical Review Social Media 122

Both Sides of the Table

MAY 7, 2016

From Aspiration to Hero For companies that do have that moment of success where everything seems to come together: funding, hiring, customers, PR, product releases and so forth — you have a “hero” moment where you feel invincible. Your lead developer quit to join the new, new thing. Your app isn’t getting enough repeat visitors.

Churn Rate 150

Churn Rate Vesting Dilution Europe 150

A Smart Bear: Startups and Marketing for Geeks

FEBRUARY 26, 2019

Find and focus on one reliable distribution mechanism before diluting your time diversifying. Or you can start selling to enterprise — nothing wrong with that — but then your high cost-basis of marketing, sales, and service will not scale downward. Sales” is not a dirty word. Your values are defined by what you tolerate.

Restful 202

Restful Founder Revenue Acquisition 202

David Teten

AUGUST 19, 2019

We have a special program if you are pre-seed and need product development. Benefits: Non-dilutive, flexible credit offerings that fit SMB or enterprise SaaS. We have developed a proprietary machine learning algorithm that assesses the risk and return profile of the business and determines whether to invest in the business.

Revenue 60

Revenue Technical Review Software Review Equity 60

The Next Web

JUNE 15, 2012

After all, cash may be in short supply, but there’s a virtually endless amount of work to be done, from coding and web development, to PR, sales, general operations, or sage advice from an industry veteran. Not to mention the fact that every time you compensate with equity, you dilute your own ownership of the business.

Equity 116

Equity Stock Options Vesting Stock 116

The Next Web

AUGUST 19, 2013

Sales are the bloodstream for most businesses, and tech startups are no exception. It’s always better to be earn money, not just raise it, as money you earn doesn’t dilute your ownership and reassures your investors. This post is about choosing the right sales strategy and channels for your startup from the start.

Belarus 137

Belarus Viral Channel Startup 137

YoungUpstarts

MAY 31, 2016

Develop and evolve your company’s product brands through your customer’s eyes. Hire smart, ambitious, get-it-done employees and lead them with emotionally intelligent innovation leadership skills. Oliver is the Senior Director of Research & Development at Medtronic. The fastest path between two points is a straight line.

Technical Review 100

Technical Review Leadership Early Stage Initial Public Offering 100

YoungUpstarts

OCTOBER 16, 2016

But entrepreneurs face other concerns that compete with this growth focus, including hiring, maintaining current revenue sources and distinguishing themselves from the competition. You’ll be inundated with sales pitches, lame template emails, unsolicited voicemails and more. Know when to say “no.”.

Cofounder 100

Cofounder Balance Sheet Small Business Administration Technical Review 100

Both Sides of the Table

SEPTEMBER 10, 2021

A-Rounds used to be $3–7 million with the best companies able to skip this smaller amount and raise $10 million on a $40 million pre-money valuation (20% dilution). In fact, we just announced that we hired a new head of our Growth Platform, (follow him on Twitter here ? So in a way it’s self selecting. Seksom Suriyapa ?—?he

Pre-Money Valuation 471

Pre-Money Valuation Valuation Venture Capital Early Stage 471

The Startup Magazine

JULY 1, 2022

The three main components of a company are production or service, marketing and sales, and finance. Marketing and sales are how you reach and sell to your target market. Equity financing can give you a lot of cash upfront, but it can also dilute your ownership stake in your company. How To Manage And Grow Your Company.

Technology 138

Technology Venture Capital Finance Startup 138

www.avc.com

SEPTEMBER 22, 2011

The most common comment in this long and complicated MBA Mondays series on Employee Equity is the question of how much equity should you grant when you make a hire. For your first key hires, three, five, maybe as much as ten, you will probably not be able to use any kind of formula. First, a caveat. x $125k which is equal to $31.25k.

Equity 64

Equity Employee CTO Hire Fractional CTO 64

Both Sides of the Table

OCTOBER 11, 2009

Many startup companies hire advisory boards. But I would argue that you can develop relationships with many advisers, mentors and VCs that will help with introductions for no equity. You can go as high as 1% because they’re going to get diluted when you bring in VC. This is part of my ongoing series Startup Advice.

Advisory Board 306

Advisory Board Startup Equity Valuation 306

View from Seed

APRIL 30, 2015

In many instances, you raise an institutional round to either fulfill a product strategy or go-to-market strategy or you’re increasing sales and marketing hires, so you have better visibility into what needs to happen in the next six, 12, 18 months. NVV: Is there any dilution? Any equity the venture debt lender gets?

Term Sheet 120

Term Sheet Equity Startup Seed Stage 120

The Startup Magazine

JULY 15, 2023

Most firms hire staff prepared to deal with the challenges of two years ago, but fewer have individuals who can respond to those occurring in real-time, let alone ones coming down the pike. Develop A Strong Security Culture Another way to keep your firm ahead of the security industry competition is to develop a strong security culture.

Security 138

Security Artificial Inteligence Differentiation Dilution 138

Both Sides of the Table

FEBRUARY 17, 2011

A year ago I blogged about one of my most common mantras that applies to sales, biz dev & fund raising alike: “ Time is the Enemy of all Deals.&#. If you are able to raise money from credible sources at a reasonable dilution percentage then I personally favor getting the round done now and building your business.

Pre-Money Valuation 303

Pre-Money Valuation Dilution Valuation PR 303

JANUARY 9, 2014

I recently developed a more human framework for early-stage startups to define their startup DNA and lay some foundations for a sustainable business. By trying to appeal to everyone and adding features left, right and centre, you will actually dilute your message and could end up with a complex, bloated product. growth hacking.

Early Stage 102

Early Stage Startup Cofounder Design 102

Austin Startup

MARCH 26, 2019

You’ll usually get assigned a contact in the ad sales organization at Facebook or Google once you start spending big bucks. When is the right time to diversify your sales channel mix? Discounts too early can also have the adverse effect of diluting a brand when targeting a more affluent customer segment.

Technical Review 49

Technical Review Software Review China Acquisition 49

betashop.com

OCTOBER 8, 2012

million registered users, 7500 supplier partners, 600 team members, and a run-rate of more than $150M in sales in just 15 months. I firmly believe that in this age where the product development life-cycle is so short and user feedback comes so quickly, you will know within a year whether you are focusing on a worthwhile one thing.

Technical Review 108

Technical Review Technology Software Review Valuation 108

ReadWriteStart

OCTOBER 28, 2010

Common areas to address are decisions around capitalization, executive hiring and firing, share issuance (dilution), and acquisitions. At a minimum, all founders should be willing to assign whatever they develop to the company. You'll need to decide what kinds of decisions the board makes, and which ones it won't.

Cofounder 128

Cofounder Founder Equity Dilution 128

www.inc.com

SEPTEMBER 24, 2011

Sales & Marketing | Wednesdays. SALES & MARKETING. Research & Development. Back in 1997, Randy Parker was staring at a blank whiteboard, wondering where hed find the money to hire the employees and consultants he needed to build his new product. "We The Goods: Your Business Toolbox | Thursdays. Finance | Tuesdays.

Fractional CTO 40

Fractional CTO Equity Iowa Technical Cofounder 40

Duct Tape Marketing

APRIL 7, 2022

Look, if you work in sales, wanna learn how to sell, and frankly who doesn't check out the sales podcast, where host Will Barron helps sales professionals learn how to find buyers and win big business ineffective and ethical ways. I'm gonna lease you this, you know, cross-functional development team.

Cofounder 76

Cofounder Hosting Networking Software Review 76

ReadWriteStart

OCTOBER 7, 2020

Content marketing builds brand, engages new audiences, inspires trust, and respect… but does it increase sales? Create a Robust Sales Pipeline. First, we must distinguish between a sales pipeline and a sales funnel if you truly want to grow your business. Let’s look at the stats.

B2C 78

B2C B2B Architecture Dilution 78

Austin Startup

JANUARY 11, 2020

With extensive industry knowledge and experience serving hundreds of Certified Public Accountant (CPA) firms and clients nationwide, TaxTaker can provide your firm or startup with a reliable research and development (R&D) Tax Credit program. Also, mentors that have insight on sales and marketing strategies— that always helps.

CPA 62

CPA Startup Non-Compete Cofounder 62

Duct Tape Marketing

DECEMBER 17, 2015

But with fast growth, that promise can be diluted. They actually developed the first digital camera, but buried the idea, fearing that I would hurt their film business. Typically they’ll be working long hours while the company struggles to hire and train enough staff. Kodak was a classic case of this.

Canada 28

Canada Dilution America Employee 28

www.paulgraham.com

OCTOBER 23, 2010

One of the best tricks I learned during our startup was a rule for deciding who to hire. The woman in charge of sales was so tenacious that I used to feelsorry for potential customers on the phone with her. And when businesspeople try to hire hackers, they cant tell which ones are good.Even other hackers have a hard time doing that.

Startup 105

Startup Cofounder Software Stock 105

Lightspeed Venture Partners

NOVEMBER 19, 2012

They talked about a referral program, as well as direct sales. The company did $250,000 in sales last year and is profitable. He developed the product out of necessity. But given that the development has been done, the growth of the company comes down to distribution and marketing. They had three stages to their plan.

Pre-Money Valuation 166

Pre-Money Valuation Alabama Valuation Churn Rate 166

maplebutter.com

JANUARY 8, 2013

You are here: Home » Hiring » Crazy! Written By Dan Martell on February 2nd, 2012 | Category: Hiring LeanStartup Marketing Metrics Startup Life | 6 Comments. Do that – nothing else but one product / company / focus and get to $1M in sales with atleast $15% net profit. Ability to hire top talent (A+ talent).

Technical Review 44

Technical Review Startup Cofounder Software Review 44

blog.nahurst.com

JULY 19, 2010

I assume both cofounders will be diluted equally as more employees and investors get involved. Domain specific experience within the target market are helpful as are more broad experiences in sales, marketing, product development, or business development (probably on the order of 5+ years outside of undergrad, grad, or MBA school). [4]

Technical Cofounder 43

Technical Cofounder Cofounder Equity Salary 43

YoungUpstarts

SEPTEMBER 29, 2014

Your identity and your marketing messages get so diluted that they don’t resonate with anyone. In my book “ The One Week Marketing Plan “, I explain the way to identify your ideal prospect and to develop your strategy to appeal to them is through a series of questions.

Dilution 168

Dilution Green SEO Search 168

Up and Running

NOVEMBER 5, 2018

And it interferes with the estimates and dilutes their value. The rows cover the basic inputs to cash flow analysis: First, payments to be received from cash sales and sales on credit (which is called payments received here). That’s nice in concept, and would be great for peace of mind, but it’s rarely practical.

Cost 150

Cost Balance Sheet Startup Intellectual Property 150

Up and Running

APRIL 24, 2018

For example, having flexible work hours means you can hire talented candidates from different time zones, which will increase your productivity while keeping the costs down. At first, you need to focus on developing your business model and validating it. Have a comprehensive growth strategy. Get your end-users involved.

SBIR 73

SBIR Startup Artificial Inteligence Intellectual Property 73

discuss.joelonsoftware.com

NOVEMBER 1, 2010

In particular, I want to bring on a full-time marketing person, and a full-time developer. Mark Walsen Mark Walsen Thursday, October 09, 2008 Deleting … Approving … I think you would be better off hiring people, rather than trying to convince them to work for free in exchange for equity. The key here is motivation.

Sweat Equity 40

Sweat Equity Equity Angel Investor Affiliate 40

Startup Lessons Learned

AUGUST 24, 2009

All successful media companies had at their heart a series of editors, producers, and agents tasked with discovering and developing new talent. When I reviewed a recent product development book, it immediately shot up to Amazon sales rank 300. Look at the stories of the current generation of aging superstars in any industry.

San Francisco 113

San Francisco Lean Technical Review Distribution 113