Startup Professionals Musings

DECEMBER 6, 2019

The “valley of death” is a common term in the startup world, referring to the difficulty of covering the negative cash flow in the early stages of a startup, before their new product or service is bringing in revenue from real customers. It always reduces risk to plan your business first. Joint venture with distributor or beneficiary.

Finance 320

Finance Intellectual Property Technical Review Incubator 320

Startup Professionals Musings

OCTOBER 16, 2022

Often the Boomer is more willing to work for equity, and easily convinced to step aside when revenues reach that next threshold. On the other hand, there are some roles in a startup where Boomers are probably not the best candidates: Constantly-on-the-road sales territory management roles. Marketing and sales to Gen-Y customers.

Advisory Board 368

Advisory Board Dividend Angel Investor Cofounder 368

Startup Professionals Musings

OCTOBER 22, 2021

Generate revenue around the clock. Focus on recurring revenues. A great way to make more money more easily online is to replace one-time sales with automatically renewing subscriptions. With a stable base of subscribers, this can mean a continuing revenue stream from newsletters, support, or advice on demand.

Technical Review 312

Technical Review Software Review Internet Revenue 312

Startup Professionals Musings

SEPTEMBER 11, 2015

Yet in this age when customers have a thousand alternatives, and are overwhelmed by a multitude of messages, sales efforts can make or break a business. In fact, I believe modern entrepreneurs need to be super sales people, in the most positive sense, to their team as well as customers. No pain usually means no sales.

Sales 120

Sales Entrepreneur Bootstrapping Technical Review 120

Startup Professionals Musings

AUGUST 19, 2020

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. Social media is not rocket science.

Burn Rate 310

Burn Rate Hockey Stick Salary Angel Investor 310

Startup Professionals Musings

JUNE 30, 2019

The “valley of death” is a common term in the startup world, referring to the difficulty of covering the negative cash flow in the early stages of a startup, before their new product or service is bringing in revenue from real customers. It always reduces risk to plan your business first. Joint venture with distributor or beneficiary.

Intellectual Property 219

Intellectual Property Technical Review Startup Incubator 219

Startup Professionals Musings

MAY 26, 2023

New offerings which build your brand will increase acceptance and sales of all solutions, not just the new one. Even more important than solution marketing is building your brand. Make sure new solutions offered actually build your brand, rather than dilute it. Solution may require new category development time.

Product 354

Product Technical Review Artificial Inteligence Dividend 354

Startup Professionals Musings

JUNE 2, 2021

Customers today quickly get beyond these, and put a competitive priority on the experience of others, reflected in reviews and social media, and their own total experience with your sales process, delivery, returns, and support on their schedule. Short-term earnings per share may be low, even as revenues and cash burned are high.

Software Review 355

Software Review Algorithm Global IPO 355

Startup Professionals Musings

JANUARY 18, 2020

Often the Boomer is more willing to work for equity, and easily convinced to step aside when revenues reach that next threshold. On the other hand, there are some roles in a startup where Boomers are probably not the best candidates: Constantly-on-the-road sales territory management roles. Marketing and sales to Gen-Y customers.

Advisory Board 312

Advisory Board Startup Dividend Angel Investor 312

Startup Professionals Musings

OCTOBER 30, 2020

Minimize one-time sales in your business model. You need a stable customer base with an automatically renewing revenue stream, such as the subscription model. New channels, such as adding brick-and-mortar distributors to supplement your online sales, also can multiply your rate of growth.

Merger 386

Merger Acquisition Software Review Social Media 386

Startup Professionals Musings

SEPTEMBER 29, 2018

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. Social media is not rocket science.

Burn Rate 223

Burn Rate Hockey Stick Startup Salary 223

Startup Professionals Musings

JANUARY 5, 2019

Generate revenue around the clock. Focus on recurring revenues. A great way to make more money more easily online is to replace one-time sales with automatically renewing subscriptions. With a stable base of subscribers, this can mean a continuing revenue stream from newsletters, support, or advice on demand.

Technical Review 243

Technical Review Software Review Internet Revenue 243

Startup Professionals Musings

DECEMBER 1, 2017

Every business needs to develop a revenue model even before a product. The alternatives range from giving the product away for free (revenue from ads), to pricing based on costs, to charging what the market will bear (premium pricing). Revenue is a percentage of every transaction. Facebook spent $150 million getting started.

Revenue 166

Revenue Affiliate Advertising Retention 166

Startup Professionals Musings

JUNE 23, 2021

For example, I commonly see metrics to keep track of revenue per employee, overtime, and absenteeism, but I don’t often see measures of overall customer satisfaction with individual employees. Relationships also build loyalty, get referrals, and drive more sales. Under-promise and over-deliver on customer requests.

Customer 369

Customer Technical Review Metrics Employee 369

Startup Professionals Musings

JULY 14, 2014

The “valley of death” is a common term in the startup world, referring to the difficulty of covering the negative cash flow in the early stages of a startup, before their new product or service is bringing in revenue from real customers. It always reduces risk to plan your business first. Joint venture with distributor or beneficiary.

Entrepreneur 283

Entrepreneur Intellectual Property Technical Review Incubator 283

Startup Professionals Musings

JULY 1, 2017

The “valley of death” is a common term in the startup world, referring to the difficulty of covering the negative cash flow in the early stages of a startup, before their new product or service is bringing in revenue from real customers. It always reduces risk to plan your business first. Joint venture with distributor or beneficiary.

Product Development 177

Product Development Cost Developer Product 177

Startup Professionals Musings

MARCH 6, 2021

Many startups see initial revenue from customers, and love the fast growth, but fail to anticipate the cost of early vendor payments, monthly overhead costs, and later taxes. In business, when you lose money on every sale, it’s hard to make it up in volume and still be profitable. Marty Zwilling.

Technical Review 379

Technical Review Finance Startup Salary 379

Startup Professionals Musings

OCTOBER 16, 2023

Yet every business requires revenue and volumes, as certainly as it requires a product to sell. There is no black magic involved in predicting the future, if you use these four simple steps, with my basic rules of thumb to keep you on the right track: Determine your margin on sales. Forecast sales-volume expectations.

Forecast 290

Forecast Burn Rate Widget Business Plan 290

Startup Professionals Musings

DECEMBER 18, 2022

It’s always impressive to have stand-alone supporting documents for product specifications, sales plan details, and backup financial reports. Real contracts, testimonials, and even statements of intent are much more effective, if not real revenue and growth statistics. I really can’t find any worthy competitors in this space.”

Business Plan 273

Business Plan Technical Review Angel Investor Social Media 273

Startup Professionals Musings

FEBRUARY 19, 2013

The “valley of death” is a common term in the startup world, referring to the difficulty of covering the negative cash flow in the early stages of a startup, before their new product or service is bringing in revenue from real customers. It always reduces risk to plan your business first. Joint venture with distributor or beneficiary.

Intellectual Property 309

Intellectual Property Technical Review Venture Capital Startup 309

Startup Professionals Musings

JANUARY 12, 2018

The “valley of death” is a common term in the startup world, referring to the difficulty of covering the negative cash flow in the early stages of a startup, before their new product or service is bringing in revenue from real customers. It always reduces risk to plan your business first. Joint venture with distributor or beneficiary.

Intellectual Property 134

Intellectual Property Technical Review Startup Incubator 134

Startup Professionals Musings

OCTOBER 21, 2023

How do you convince investors that your business model will really work, before you have a revenue stream that exceeds your expenses? Of course, that has be a repeatable event, with enough revenue to sustain the business. Plan for a real revenue model. Word of mouth is not adequate for marketing and sales.

Business Model 273

Business Model Customer Angel Investor Bootstrapping 273

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. Social media is not rocket science.

Burn Rate 262

Burn Rate Hockey Stick Entrepreneur Salary 262

Startup Professionals Musings

DECEMBER 17, 2013

For starters, here is my selection of some key metrics that every six-sigma joint like GE tracks without thinking, but that too many small businesses haven’t yet formalized: Sales revenue. Sales data needs to be correlated to advertising campaigns, price changes, seasonal forces, competitive actions, and other costs of sales.

Metrics 252

Metrics Technical Review Retention Acquisition 252

Startup Professionals Musings

MARCH 31, 2023

Selecting the right sales channels is one of the first strategic decisions that every startup faces. Hidalgo recommends a focus on engagement stage indicators including customers by channel, conversion ratio, and cost per revenue. Demand generation revenue performance. Lead-stage content performance.

Demand 256

Demand Metrics NPV Net Present Value 256

Startup Professionals Musings

JANUARY 13, 2014

Of course, one sale isn’t really enough, so you need to get the first customer to recommend you to a second, and make sure the rate of sales ramps up quickly enough to keep the business alive and growing. Your revenue model has to make sense. If you lose money on every sale, it’s hard to make it up in volume.

Business Model 248

Business Model Sales Customer Distribution 248

Startup Professionals Musings

OCTOBER 25, 2019

New customers are more expensive to acquire, and typically produce less revenue than would current, satisfied customers. Yet, when faced with declining revenues, most companies focus on finding new customers. Nordstrom “remembers” the sizes of customers, and Chanel follows up sales with handwritten notes from associates.

Customer 136

Customer Indiana Technical Review Revenue 136

Startup Professionals Musings

JULY 3, 2020

Selecting the right sales channels is one of the first strategic decisions that every startup faces. Hidalgo recommends a focus on engagement stage indicators including customers by channel, conversion ratio, and cost per revenue. Demand generation revenue performance. Lead-stage content performance.

NPV 436

NPV Net Present Value Conversion Ratio Marketing 436

Startup Professionals Musings

OCTOBER 8, 2022

Another alternative is to build one yourself, starting with a few formulas to extrapolate early revenues and expenses into the five-year projections normally requested by banks and investors. Most entrepreneurs realize that doubling their revenue each year puts them in a premium category with investors, so that may be your first target.

Conversion Ratio 368

Conversion Ratio Startup Business Model eCommerce 368

Startup Professionals Musings

APRIL 7, 2017

Entrepreneurs always work hard to create an innovative product or service, but often count on standard seller marketing for sales. Kristin Zhivago, in her classic book “ Roadmap to Revenue ,” makes the point that the selling system is broken, since sellers no longer sell the way customers are buying. Their perception is your reality.

Small Business 147

Small Business Revenue Technical Review Business Model 147

Startup Professionals Musings

DECEMBER 2, 2022

The most common failures are solutions looking for a problem, lack of a defined market, or an inadequate revenue model. A target market is the group of customers that the startup plans to attract through marketing and sales their product or service. Sales/Marketing. Be specific on sales channels and marketing initiatives.

Business Model 256

Business Model Distribution Viral Green 256

Startup Professionals Musings

MARCH 21, 2020

It’s always impressive to have stand-alone supporting documents for product specifications, sales plan details, and backup financial reports. Real contracts, testimonials, and even statements of intent are much more effective, if not real revenue and growth statistics. I really can’t find any worthy competitors in this space.”

Technical Review 310

Technical Review Angel Investor Business Plan Social Media 310

Startup Professionals Musings

JANUARY 22, 2021

How do you convince investors that your business model will really work, before you have a revenue stream that exceeds your expenses? Of course, that has be a repeatable event, with enough revenue to sustain the business. Plan for a real revenue model. Word of mouth is not adequate for marketing and sales.

Business Model 414

Business Model Angel Investor Bootstrapping Revenue 414

Startup Professionals Musings

NOVEMBER 23, 2012

Of course, one sale isn’t really enough, so you need to get the first customer to recommend you to a second, and make sure rate of sales ramps up quickly enough to keep the business alive and growing. Your revenue model has to make sense. If you lose money on every sale, it’s hard to make it up in volume.

Sales 240

Sales Customer Business Model Distribution 240

Startup Professionals Musings

JULY 17, 2019

As a business advisor, when I bring this up, at best I will hear the defense that you are focused on the strategy of the moment, such as such as how to increase sales, or reach a new market. Turn value creation (revenue) into value capture (profit). Focus on user counts, or revenue alone, won’t make a long-term business.

Technical Review 218

Technical Review Revenue Analytics Metrics 218

Startup Professionals Musings

FEBRUARY 5, 2021

Yet every business requires revenue and volumes, as certainly as it requires a product to sell. There is no black magic involved in predicting the future, if you use these four simple steps, with my basic rules of thumb to keep you on the right track: Determine your margin on sales. Forecast sales-volume expectations.

Forecast 369

Forecast Burn Rate Startup Widget 369

Startup Professionals Musings

FEBRUARY 2, 2013

Technically speaking, in the United States, a non-profit corporation or association is one which has been exempted from Federal income taxes by meeting the criteria set out Section 501(c) of the Internal Revenue Code, most notably religious, educational, and charitable entities. unless it relies wholly on donations.

Revenue 262

Revenue Startup Africa United States 262