Startup Lessons Learned

APRIL 14, 2009

For a startup, having great sales DNA is a wonderful asset. This is the magic of sales: by learning about each customer in-depth, they can convince each of them that this product would solve serious problems. But here’s where a truly great sales artist comes in. They are closing orders.

Customer 167

Customer San Francisco Lean Hockey Stick 167

Ben's Blog

JULY 20, 2011

When I ran Opsware, we had the non-linear quarter problem also known affectionately as the hockey stick. The hockey stick refers to the shape of the revenue graph over the course of a quarter. Our hockey stick was so bad that one quarter, we booked 90% of our new bookings on the last day of the quarter.

Hockey Stick 75

Hockey Stick Management Employee Retention 75

Hippoland

AUGUST 8, 2018

Forget about traction and hockey stick growth. For example, if you are running affiliate ads for hotels, you might get 3-5% on a sale. You will use your fridge for a decade or more so the retention here is high. Sales cycles matter though. don’t think about at all. 2) B2B startups have high margins.

Founder 48

Founder Sales Cycle Affiliate Retention 48

Hippoland

AUGUST 8, 2018

Forget about traction and hockey stick growth. For example, if you are running affiliate ads for hotels, you might get 3-5% on a sale. You will use your fridge for a decade or more so the retention here is high. Sales cycles matter though. don’t think about at all. 2) B2B startups have high margins.

Founder 48

Founder Sales Cycle Affiliate Retention 48

Up and Running

MARCH 11, 2015

Are you landing a big sale? If you say in year one I’m going to do one hundred thousand in sales or, a million in sales or whatever it might be. How much is going to sales? Are you bringing on some investment capital? Are you doing an acquisition? What I mean, are your numbers behind your numbers? This is what we track.

Technical Review 60

Technical Review Software Review Due Diligence Exit Strategy 60

ConversionXL

APRIL 3, 2019

Go beyond standard sources of voice of customer data ; better options are: Interview founders (the original “customers”); Thank-you page surveys; Usertesting.com; Mine sales calls; Mine support tickets; Mine Facebook comments ; Mine online reviews. CRO deals with bottom of the funnel (more people converting to sales). What’s different?

Artificial Inteligence 114

Artificial Inteligence Technical Review Metrics SEO 114