Startup Professionals Musings

OCTOBER 5, 2014

Deferred payments start with stretching the payables period but, more importantly, include giving employee equity in lieu of a higher salaries and negotiating vendor deferred payments out of future revenues. Waiting until you have something to sell before bringing on a sales and operations staff. Use social media for early marketing.

Burn Rate 262

Burn Rate Hockey Stick Entrepreneur Salary 262

The Startup Magazine

OCTOBER 19, 2020

Similarly, customers are more knowledgeable, aware, and conscious to choose from the variety out there, which slows down the company’s revenue and growth. Most industries have touched their peak, matured, and there is little room to improve in the world of homogenous products, similar marketing, and standardized, efficient processes.

Technical Review 152

Technical Review Forecast Analytics Social Media 152

Small Business Force

AUGUST 27, 2017

In fact, three key elements have to be in sync for your sales to succeed – the right product, the right sales team, and the right sales process. "I They were selling a new product, in a relatively new space, with little training. Not even close. "I coached good; They played bad."

Sales 30

Sales Sales Cycle Product Technical Review 30

Steve Blank

AUGUST 31, 2009

After 20 years of working in startups, I decided to take a step back and look at the product development model I had been following and see why it usually failed to provide useful guidance in activities outside the building – sales, marketing and business development. So what’s wrong the product development model?

Customer Development 238

Customer Development Developer Customer Silicon Valley 238

Startup Professionals Musings

SEPTEMBER 14, 2016

Deferred payments start with stretching the payables period but, more importantly, include giving employee equity in lieu of a higher salaries and negotiating vendor deferred payments out of future revenues. Waiting until you have something to sell before bringing on a sales and operations staff. Use social media for early marketing.

Burn Rate 120

Burn Rate Hockey Stick Startup Salary 120

Startup Professionals Musings

MAY 30, 2022

By definition, second-stage ventures generally have 10 to 99 employees and/or $750,000 to $50 million in revenue, and see that as just the beginning. Growth is more than simply repackaging existing products, and adding bells and whistles or slick incentives. Hire more help than helpers. Keep delivering something new and fresh.

Mezzanine 368

Mezzanine Private Equity Bandwidth Metrics 368

Startup Professionals Musings

DECEMBER 7, 2022

Others do far too little, assuming the viral effect and word-of-mouth will soon kick in, and sales will suddenly grow exponentially. Ask every employee to focus on sales. Openly reward employees who make the extra effort, champion cost-cutting issues, and enhance the sales process. Increase the pipeline and the conversion rate.

Startup 335

Startup Social Media Metrics Viral 335

Steve Blank

SEPTEMBER 7, 2009

This post describes how following the traditional product development can lead to a “startup death spiral.&# In the next posts that follow, I’ll describe how this model’s failures led to the Customer Development Model – offering a new way to approach startup sales and marketing activities.

Customer Development 224

Customer Development Developer Customer Silicon Valley 224

YoungUpstarts

MARCH 5, 2018

by Keith Johnstone, Head of Marketing of Peak Sales Recruiting. From smart cities and driverless cars to artificial intelligence, big data, CRM and SaaS, 2018 is ripe for technology companies to achieve record revenue and profits. That is, if they have the right sales team in place…. Scientific Interviewing and Hiring.

Sales 113

Sales Artificial Inteligence Retention Startup 113

Gust

APRIL 27, 2014

This will include the first version of many critical processes that can be split out later, including market opportunity, requirements, product definition, business model, sales process, and organization. Product development process. Billing and revenue collection. Manage human resources.

Startup 187

Startup Institutional Investors Angel Investor Bootstrapping 187

YoungUpstarts

MAY 3, 2017

From product development to market research, many startups are one-person operations in their early days. Even as their teams grow, entrepreneurs often feel that they must tend to every aspect of the business, including low-level tasks that distract from revenue-generating activity. The result?

Technical Review 113

Technical Review Management Arizona Software Review 113

Startup Professionals Musings

NOVEMBER 25, 2016

For a startup, find an international partner, or hire a new team member who has done it before. In addition this person should report, dotted line, to product development or engineering. Ensure that the localization person is a good and patient communicator and is fully accepted by the engineering/development group.

Software 120

Software Europe Database Engineer 120

Both Sides of the Table

APRIL 27, 2010

My original post was directed at hiring managers. It said that I didn’t believe it was a good idea to hire job hoppers. My view still stands – for many hiring managers a large factor in looking through resumes of somebody who is 30+ and has never worked somewhere for more than 18 months will be the job hopping element.

Venture Capital 285

Venture Capital Hiring Software Review Stock Options 285

Up and Running

JULY 26, 2016

Between January 2015 and January 2016, we grew our platform Slidebean from $1K to $20K in monthly recurring revenue. Getting the first tracks of revenue is one of the toughest processes of building a startup. 1x hacker in charge of product/development. 1x hipster working with both product and growth.

Revenue 60

Revenue Acquisition Channel Campaign 60

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. Hiring the right people at the right time is key.

Part-Time VPE 79

Part-Time VPE Fractional VPE Cofounder CTO Hire 79

Steve Blank

NOVEMBER 2, 2009

The key contributors to an out-of-control burn rate is 1) hiring a sales force too early, 2) turning on the demand creation activities too early, 3) developing something other than the minimum feature set for first customer ship. The Customer Development process (and the Lean Startup) is one way to do that. Lets see why.

Lean 244

Lean Silicon Valley Startup RSS 244

Steve Blank

MAY 9, 2017

The second thing that’s changed is that we’re now Compressing the Product Development Cycle. In the 20 th century startups I was part of, the time to build a first product release was measured in years as we turned out the founder’s vision of what customers wanted. That’s no longer the case. We now understand that’s wrong.

Restful 222

Restful Silicon Valley Puerto Rico San Jose 222

Both Sides of the Table

AUGUST 8, 2009

Your friends and advisers tell you that this means you need revenue because in this economy VC’s will only fund businesses with revenue. So if it’s not necessarily revenue that’s preventing an investment, then WTF is traction? They tell you they’re going to ship product and they do.

Technical Review 309

Technical Review Term Sheet Venture Capital Revenue 309

Startup Professionals Musings

MARCH 9, 2020

Others do far too little, assuming the viral effect and word-of-mouth will soon kick in, and sales will suddenly grow exponentially. Ask every employee to focus on sales. Openly reward employees who make the extra effort, champion cost-cutting issues, and enhance the sales process. Increase the pipeline and the conversion rate.

Social Media 329

Social Media Metrics Viral Channel 329

Both Sides of the Table

DECEMBER 16, 2009

They had wasted a lot of money because they had raised a lot of money and therefore hired a large staff. The CEO helped identify the one key product that had huge value as confirmed via customer feedback and he built the organization around this. I just knew that our sales sucked wind and we were burning through tons of cash.

Entrepreneur 306

Entrepreneur Burn Rate Cofounder Sales 306

Austin Startup

NOVEMBER 16, 2010

Exactly three months after its $48 Million funding announcement, Smooth-Stone today detailed its company momentum, including significant new executive hires, new office space and renaming the company. Bob Baughman, previously with Polycom and Marvell, as Vice President of Business Development and Sales.

Naming 59

Naming Hiring Technical Review Virginia 59

YoungUpstarts

MAY 6, 2019

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. Initial product development usually consists of prototyping and MVP. Prototyping usually means the initial working draft of the product idea.

Startup 113

Startup Technical Cofounder Merger Early Stage 113

Startup Lessons Learned

APRIL 14, 2009

Lessons Learned by Eric Ries Tuesday, April 14, 2009 Validated learning about customers Would you rather have $30,000 or $1 million in revenues for your startup? All things being equal, of course, you’d rather have more revenue rather than less. And yet revenue alone is not a sufficient goal.

Customer 167

Customer San Francisco Lean Hockey Stick 167

YoungUpstarts

OCTOBER 24, 2012

Think about it: Companies hire people who come from outside the buyer’s world and don’t share his interests — employees, agencies, consultants, and the like — and expect them to persuade buyers to hand over their money. Cultivate customer sales and marketing people. Build strong customer communities.

Marketing 234

Marketing Software Review Technical Review Social Network 234

Startup Professionals Musings

SEPTEMBER 1, 2019

By definition, second-stage ventures generally have 10 to 99 employees and/or $750,000 to $50 million in revenue, and see that as just the beginning. Growth is more than simply repackaging existing products, and adding bells and whistles or slick incentives. Hire more help than helpers. Keep delivering something new and fresh.

Mezzanine 244

Mezzanine Private Equity Startup Bandwidth 244

Startup Professionals Musings

SEPTEMBER 4, 2010

For a startup, find an international partner, or hire a new team member who has don it before. In addition this person should report, dotted line, to product development or engineering. Ensure that the localization person is a good and patient communicator and is fully accepted by the engineering/development group.

Software 200

Software Distribution Europe Database 200

The Next Web

MARCH 6, 2014

Successful collaboration between a company’s business development and product development requires mutual understanding and purpose. Hire T-Shaped People. Make sure to hire T-shaped individuals. Tech teams also need to understand that without business development, there is no revenue to pay their salaries.

Technical Review 129

Technical Review Development Team Review Developer Agile 129

This is going to be BIG.

AUGUST 22, 2012

Who should you hire? Let’s start out with the basic functions of a tech company: 1) Engineering 2) Marketing 3) Sales 4) Business development 5) PR 6) Design 7) Product Management 8) HR 9) Operations 10) Finance Ok, that's just overwhelming. Let’s take sales and business development.

PR 144

PR Technical Review Seed Stage Design 144

Hearpreneur

SEPTEMBER 25, 2022

Besides the general focus on customer and product development, an entrepreneur should foresee the next moves that will serve to guide him on the right path. Maintaining that growth would result in a 200% revenue increase. We will also hire a marketing person to help grow the digital presence. Photo Cedit: Guney Ozberk.

Forecast 125

Forecast Artificial Inteligence Entrepreneur Technical Review 125

ConversionXL

APRIL 3, 2018

Amazon has hired more people for their Alexa division than Google has for the entire company – it’s not hunch, this is going to be the focus. Facts don’t change minds – true for both sales and customers. Hire & fire – tools to do a job. mobile is ~50% of revenue, shorter form works better.

Retention 106

Retention Artificial Inteligence Channel Email 106

Hearpreneur

DECEMBER 24, 2017

4- Hiring amazing team. At Cave, our biggest accomplishment this year was hiring impressive new people. We pride ourselves on offering our clients the best marketing services possible, and our most recent hires are a perfect fit for our mission. Thanks to Chenell Tull, Hustle to Startup ! #4- Photo Credit: Justin Kerby.

Las Vegas 85

Las Vegas Entrepreneur Software Review Community 85

Steve Blank

MAY 14, 2012

These founders specify, design, and build a fully featured product using classic product development methods without ever leaving their building. Traditionally, engineering, sales, and marketing have all focused on the immovable launch date. Executing on a sales and marketing plan. Focusing on the launch date.

Balance Sheet 335

Balance Sheet Business Model Customer Development Metrics 335

Austin Startup

APRIL 8, 2019

Team morale is high, we are exceeding the [REDACTED] KPI by several months, burn went up faster than expected, and product development is ticking along well except for one hiccup. Maybe we’re the first company in history whose zero cash date keeps getting extended without any revenue. ?? Hopefully, it is helpful. REDACTED]?

San Francisco 48

San Francisco Balance Sheet Startup Austin 48

YoungUpstarts

OCTOBER 10, 2012

Talented product developers. When 3M brought “lead users” into its innovation process, they improved revenues by a factor of eight times over innovations from internal product developers. And engaging customers in such ways is generally much less expensive than hiring costly employees or agencies.

Customer 154

Customer Fractional CTO Canada Technical Review 154

ConversionXL

MAY 1, 2017

Reporting in the Harvard Business Review on a major study of growth stalls they conducted, Olson and his colleagues cite the case of the iconic brand Levi Strauss, which hit a historic high mark of sales in 1995, reaching revenue of $7 billion, but then, starting in 1996, saw a decline in sales so precipitous that by 2000, revenue was down to $4.6

Technical Review 127

Technical Review Algorithm Channel Analytics 127

Hearpreneur

DECEMBER 31, 2016

It could be more revenue, hiring clients or launching a new product or service, but every new year is an exciting time because it’s ripe with opportunity. 1 – Developing Software. #2 2 – $9M in Sales Volume. My goal is to sell over 9 Million in sales volume. Goal #2: hire more employees.

Entrepreneur 67

Entrepreneur Software Review New Zealand Mobile 67

Up and Running

JANUARY 24, 2023

To create a good personnel forecast, you’ll need to have thought about a few things: Your team makeup You’ll need to know your current team, if you’re already up and running, and the positions that you plan on hiring for. Think about your business, who will help you operate it, and when you’ll likely hire them.

Forecast 84

Forecast Cost Salary Employee 84