A Smart Bear: Startups and Marketing for Geeks

MARCH 22, 2010

It's relevant for marketing and sales because it's an inside scoop about how to manipulate strangers on the sly. For me the most compelling evidence comes from cognitive psychology where studies abound with astounding tales of subtle environmental changes radically and systematically affecting people's behavior.

Madagascar 227

Madagascar Sales Viral Argentina 227

A Smart Bear: Startups and Marketing for Geeks

DECEMBER 21, 2009

What one thing is most responsible for preventing sales? people not knowing you exist, pricing, not enough product features, unorganized sales strategy, look-and-feel of website, haven't identified pain points,). What's one thing you could do to get more feedback from customers, potential customers, or sales you've lost?

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Startup Revenue Cofounder Sales 315

A Smart Bear: Startups and Marketing for Geeks

JANUARY 10, 2011

Here’s a simple question, often asked when designing software but more useful when you’re designing your marketing and sales pitch: How are people doing this today without you? Your power users are the mavens to whom non-power users look for advice, so they become your sales force. World domination! Launching Doggie Cards.

Software Review 232

Software Review Technical Review .Net Design 232

A Smart Bear: Startups and Marketing for Geeks

AUGUST 9, 2010

I suck at sales/marketing; I need to build a product so compelling it sells itself.". Tags: Essays customers feedback finance investment pricing sales. Even if I concede that some folks can't grok mock-ups, remember that your first customers will by definition be early-adopters who are OK with alpha software. You know this!

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Software Review Part-Time VPE Houston Cofounder 312

A Smart Bear: Startups and Marketing for Geeks

FEBRUARY 26, 2013

” Almost all startup founders experience a deep and prolonged sadness after selling their company , even when the sale is an outrageous success. A startup founder lacks this distinction between personal identity and work identity , and this is the key to the “sale-blues” phenomonon and other behavior.

Software Review 295

Software Review Startup Cofounder Search 295

A Smart Bear: Startups and Marketing for Geeks

JANUARY 4, 2018

The next sale isn’t quite as sweet.). And now, with Silver Lake’s investment and support, we can accelerate our growth investing even more into our strategic roadmap, and placing some new bets on ideas we’ve had but haven’t been able to find the space to explore. It’s the heroin-hit that hooks the entrepreneur. (The

Engineer 152

Engineer Revenue San Francisco Security 152

A Smart Bear: Startups and Marketing for Geeks

MAY 3, 2010

My favorite way to start a sales pitch is to make fun of typical sales pitches. Quick: Come up with a compelling new philosophy for human interaction and global communication, marketing, sales, and relationships! Instead of a bullet-list of benefits, quote actual customers describing your impact on their lives.

Software Review 279

Software Review Technical Review Security Advertising 279

A Smart Bear: Startups and Marketing for Geeks

JANUARY 18, 2010

I would orchestrate purchases, but should I be handling large sums of money with no knowledge of accounting, cash-flow, invoicing, purchase orders, or "enterprise sales" process? Don't I need an MBA or at least some sales training? And sales isn't as mystical and unknowable as I feared. Aren't I too young?

Software Review 335

Software Review Reputation Software Sales 335

A Smart Bear: Startups and Marketing for Geeks

NOVEMBER 14, 2011

He was on full sales alert. I didn’t close 100% to sales, but those relationships have yielded a lot more than a simple close. If I could, I would dive in there. One guy was extremely skeptical on the phone and told me so. He asked exactly what I was getting out of all this. I just explained the truth.

Campaign 272

Campaign Software Review Brazil Conversion 272

A Smart Bear: Startups and Marketing for Geeks

FEBRUARY 26, 2019

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. Selling to the mid-market is hard. If you do it, expand into it later, after you’ve already mastered a different segment. HT Tom Tunguz ).

Restful 202

Restful Founder Revenue Acquisition 202

A Smart Bear: Startups and Marketing for Geeks

SEPTEMBER 29, 2015

On his startup’s sale to a larger company, he then laments that the “youthful energy that created so much value was siphoned off.” The other fallacy of the article is that his sale was a failure because the founder didn’t like being an employee at a larger company.

Acquisition 120

Acquisition Technical Review Stock Options Employee 120

A Smart Bear: Startups and Marketing for Geeks

AUGUST 29, 2011

We did learn from the experience — we did a post-mortem and decided what evidence should have stopped us from accepting the account, and now we build that into our sales cycle. If you liked that, you'll probably like these too: Tech Support *is* sales. Tweet. -->. Accounting for Startups: Cash-basis or Accrual-basis?

Technical Review 236

Technical Review Software Review Reputation Sales Cycle 236

A Smart Bear: Startups and Marketing for Geeks

NOVEMBER 29, 2014

At the low end, maybe there really isn’t a market, or the market really doesn’t want that product, at a profitable price, so you can squeeze out some early sales but it can’t get substantially bigger. At the high end, you hit market size limits (Facebook has 1.3B You get 2x by assumption but 10x you have to prove.

Software Review 300

Software Review Technical Review Startup Channel 300

A Smart Bear: Startups and Marketing for Geeks

DECEMBER 12, 2011

Remember, tech support is sales ! You’re not hiring a Systems Engineer III for IBM or a Senior Regional Sales Manager for Dell. Be funny, reflect your personality, reflect the uniqueness of your company. You can’t have your company represented by someone who can’t be trusted with a customer.

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Hiring Employee Ruby Java 282

A Smart Bear: Startups and Marketing for Geeks

FEBRUARY 24, 2015

It’s relatively easy for a technical founder to agree that she isn’t the best person to build a global sales organization, but is she ready to agree that even where she is excellent , it’s still her job to find people who are even more excellent, not just at individual tasks but at building entire teams?

Warrant 120

Warrant Founder Engineer Matching 120

A Smart Bear: Startups and Marketing for Geeks

SEPTEMBER 5, 2018

The benefit is that we work together for a common goal, taking care of the needs of support, sales, marketing, engineering, product, and even finance, rather than solving for one department’s goals at the expense of another. Decision requires multiple teams who haven’t worked together before.

Engineer 264

Engineer Framework Social Media Acquisition 264

A Smart Bear: Startups and Marketing for Geeks

MAY 31, 2010

As another example, IBM requires expensive infrastructure, development teams, and sales channels to command multi-million dollar consulting deals, but that also means it's not profitable to do a small deal, which means small consulting shops never worry about competing with IBM. so they cannot create Mint.

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Software Review Development Team Review Technical Review Software Developers 243

A Smart Bear: Startups and Marketing for Geeks

AUGUST 23, 2010

Of course you're going to position your company with a unique offering: exclusive features, a distinctive culture, a refreshing pricing plan, an innovative sales strategy, etc. If they don't already know they have the pain, the sales process is going to be excruciating. "No one is doing it like we are.".

Software Review 275

Software Review Technical Review Software Advertising 275

A Smart Bear: Startups and Marketing for Geeks

FEBRUARY 14, 2012

product that barely worked, no sales organization (except tech support, which often works better anyway ), and I just hoped they’d run a credit card. I had a $39.95 You have a more fundamental issue which, if remedied, will lead to the answers you seek.

Customer 231

Customer Software Review IP Technical Review 231

A Smart Bear: Startups and Marketing for Geeks

OCTOBER 10, 2012

In any case, rarely is a simple “cost savings” equation the way you’re going to win sales or set price-points. The value proposition and the pricing are similarly disjoint and need to be solved independently. Let’s widen the perspective: add your ideas and questions on value-pricing and value-selling to the comments.

Software Review 256

Software Review Product Software Developers Software Development 256

A Smart Bear: Startups and Marketing for Geeks

OCTOBER 8, 2019

You could get your first few hundred customers through GoogleAds, or Facebook ads, or affiliate sales, or targeted outbound sales, or partnering with a high-profile reseller, or great press about your unique brand and message, or other ways. Consider marketing channels. Only one of these needs to work!

Affiliate 245

Affiliate Stock Channel Portfolio 245

A Smart Bear: Startups and Marketing for Geeks

FEBRUARY 11, 2014

Your company spends money on sales and marketing to acquire new customers (aka – new logos). CAC – Generally defined as sales and marketing costs divided by the number of new customers acquired over the same period of time (sales + marketing / new customers). Now let’s cover those nuances I mentioned.

Churn Rate 288

Churn Rate .Net Metrics Hosting 288

A Smart Bear: Startups and Marketing for Geeks

OCTOBER 22, 2013

Even in sales, which is tempting for Vulcan engineers to think of as revenue-acquisition-robots with zombie-like drive to make phone calls, in which a slew of barely productive “closers” may not be financially efficient but will still get the job done. At WP Engine, we’re living proof of this.)

Engineer 257

Engineer Social Media Acquisition Sales 257

A Smart Bear: Startups and Marketing for Geeks

JULY 12, 2010

You live in the era of the flat world where millions of people have access to technology, education, and a powerful sales, marketing, and communication platform (the Internet). Innovative design and intellectual property are no longer long-term competitive advantages.

Intellectual Property 319

Intellectual Property Bootstrapping Software Review Open Source 319

A Smart Bear: Startups and Marketing for Geeks

JULY 23, 2013

of revenue, force-feeding sales pipelines with an unprofitable product. I know the argument: The pay-back period on sales, marketing, and up-start costs is long, but there’s a profitable result at the end of the tunnel. Marketing, sales, legal, account management, on-boarding, technical guidance, training.

Business Model 335

Business Model .Net Revenue IPO 335

A Smart Bear: Startups and Marketing for Geeks

MAY 10, 2010

These companies typically make money either by charging sellers for listing (akin to the yellow pages) or by charging a sales commission (akin to a "finder's fee"). These are distinct operations — different clients, different technology, different sales process — almost like two separate companies. So what's the problem?

Business Model 310

Business Model Finder SEO Bootstrapping 310

A Smart Bear: Startups and Marketing for Geeks

AUGUST 18, 2015

They have everything: money, brand, momentum, existing customers, press, product teams, distribution channels, expertise, market insight, analysts, sales offices, product features, and, by definition, a working business model. A big, profitable company seems like the hardest thing for a small company to compete against.

Technical Review 120

Technical Review Valuation Flash Revenue 120

A Smart Bear: Startups and Marketing for Geeks

AUGUST 29, 2011

Use that rolodex to set up meetings and sales calls, but don’t assume you know what they’re going to say. Of course if you can fuse your special knowledge with an open mind , that could very well be an unbeatable combination. Use that experience to come up with plausible theories, not to make decisions.

Lean 269

Lean Software Software Developers Software Development 269

A Smart Bear: Startups and Marketing for Geeks

FEBRUARY 28, 2011

I was working on my first true “enterprise sale.&# (If you aren’t familiar with the professional mosh-pit that is enterprise sales, here’s a primer.). But mostly it’s because of the traditional enterprise sales dance, reminiscent of the lumbering mating dance of the great blue whale.

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Bootstrapping Sales Texas Salary 312

A Smart Bear: Startups and Marketing for Geeks

OCTOBER 4, 2016

past product/market fit and into tens of millions in revenue), you realize that cancellation scales with total customers whereas growth scales with sales and marketing costs, which means cancellation necessarily and always outgrows inbound activity, thus growth ceases. Once you’re scaling (i.e.

Metrics 270

Metrics Retention Revenue Equity 270

A Smart Bear: Startups and Marketing for Geeks

JANUARY 7, 2014

You still signed that 5-year office lease, hired support, sales, and engineering, and brought in training, a comptroller, and a business operations person. You scramble to hire ahead in support, sales, and the additional demands on engineering. Marketing is over-spending to compensate. So, you’ll need more money than you planned.

Revenue 270

Revenue Finance Equity Engineer 270

A Smart Bear: Startups and Marketing for Geeks

APRIL 3, 2012

This is a guest post by Jarrod Drysdale — a web designer and bootstrapper who recently broke five figure sales for his ebook that teaches bootstrappers do-it-yourself design principles and strategies. Sacha just wrote about his pricing strategy last week on this blog, and shared that he earned $6,663 for 1,476 sales in 48 hours.

Sales 261

Sales Bootstrapping Design Audience 261

A Smart Bear: Startups and Marketing for Geeks

FEBRUARY 19, 2013

They told me I couldn’t sell to The Enterprise without a human sales force using Salesforce. Unless you can’t bear to hire a traditional “enterprise sales guy.” They told me I couldn’t sell to The Enterprise with a silly company name like Smart Bear. Nothing wrong with “tried and true.”

Founder 244

Founder Revenue Sales Naming 244

A Smart Bear: Startups and Marketing for Geeks

FEBRUARY 21, 2012

(Probably technical with no sales or business experience, so they need someone for that role.) Probably defense, a place where you have to “know someone” and “know how the game is played” to participate at all, where the founders aren’t those people, so they’re dead unless someone like you runs sales.)

Hiring 230

Hiring Washington Startup Matching 230

A Smart Bear: Startups and Marketing for Geeks

APRIL 28, 2014

Large company should send a few emails to the customer base, generating easy sales at no cost, and the revenues are split. Let’s also assume that WP Engine will receive $50 per sale, which is higher than the typical offer. Free money for all, thus good deal for all. But now let’s look at the economics.

Startup 293

Startup Hosting Distribution Revenue 293

A Smart Bear: Startups and Marketing for Geeks

SEPTEMBER 19, 2018

Nothing is exempt: teams, processes, products, sales motions, branding, interviewing, culture, office space, customer interactions, architecture, security, finance, governance, hiring, … It is certainly difficult to jerk around.

Architecture 236

Architecture Government Finance Security 236

A Smart Bear: Startups and Marketing for Geeks

JUNE 14, 2010

Bringing it home to marketing and sales data? But when you're "seeking interesting results" instead of performing an experiment, highly unlikely events will necessarily happen, yet still you conclude something systematic is at work. Let's apply the general lesson of the coin-flipping experiment to Google Analytics. Take Google Analytics.

Software Review 254

Software Review Analytics Conversion Metrics 254