Startup Professionals Musings

JUNE 22, 2016

That should make you wonder - how do you measure traction in a metric? While thinking about the parameters of traction, and how to measure it, I was impressed with a new book, “ Scaling Lean: Mastering the Key Metrics for Startup Growth ” by Ash Maurya, a serial entrepreneur, and creator of the one-page business modelling tool Lean Canvas.

Metrics 143

Metrics Advisory Board Startup Lean 143

Startup Professionals Musings

MARCH 18, 2020

It’s important to note slippage indicators, including less internal feedback on requirements to fight competitors, and more focus inward than outward on customers needs and trends. Assess many change initiatives have come to fruition from your team, visit a couple of key customers and listen for future needs, and study your newest competitor.

Agile 307

Agile Advisory Board Metrics Asia 307

YoungUpstarts

JUNE 4, 2019

A well-developed product architecture helps a startup to achieve rapid market/product fit by successfully appealing to customers (users). Vitally, startup teams must be absolutely certain that both customer and market validation have been achieved before declaring market/product fit. This is quite the balancing act.

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Framework Architecture Cleveland Early Stage 127

YoungUpstarts

MAY 24, 2019

A well-developed product architecture helps a startup to achieve rapid market/product fit by successfully appealing to customers (users). Vitally, startup teams must be absolutely certain that both customer and market validation have been achieved before declaring market/product fit. This is quite the balancing act.

Framework 113

Framework Architecture Cleveland Early Stage 113

The Startup Magazine

OCTOBER 25, 2017

They identify and support high impact startups that need access to customers, mentors, training, and capital. Startups struggle to establish their value proposition , create and launch their pilots, and get first customers. Customer, staff, and operation growth present new challenges and require even greater amounts of capital.

Miami 61

Miami Technical Review Software Review Artificial Inteligence 61

Startup Professionals Musings

MAY 4, 2020

Define success metrics, and measure progress regularly. As you move from development to rollout, a team effort is required, including marketing, sales, funding, and customers. Every startup should have at least quarterly meetings with an Advisory Board or key investors to bring a new perspective to what is working and what is not.

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Advisory Board Agile Social Media Metrics 308

Startup Professionals Musings

JUNE 10, 2020

You can and must fix this by communicating business goals and objectives, and establishing personal metrics which only reward success. It’s easy for you to blame someone else in the organization, economic conditions outside, or even overly demanding customers, when things are not going well.

Advisory Board 283

Advisory Board Due Diligence Retention Agile 283

Startup Lessons Learned

SEPTEMBER 14, 2008

Lessons Learned by Eric Ries Sunday, September 14, 2008 How to listen to customers, and not just the loud people Frequency is more important than talking to the "right" customers, especially early on. Youll know when the person youre talking to is not a potential customer - they just wont understand what youre saying.

San Francisco 131

San Francisco Customer Lean Continuous Deployment 131

thebarefootvc

AUGUST 13, 2013

These vertical solutions would focus on specific pain pain points in the enterprise, such as logistics or customer relationship management. Slice and dice this landscape according to different features/metrics that you think are important to your CUSTOMER. Or at least get some of them on your advisory board.

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Advisory Board Cloud Venture Capital Vertical 70

Startup Professionals Musings

JANUARY 6, 2021

Every new business I know dreams of building momentum in their business, where growth continues to increase, customers become your best advocates, and employee motivation is high. Unfortunately, with limited resources, this isn’t possible, and it frustrates customers and the team. Focus first on finding more of the right customers.

Technical Review 400

Technical Review Technical Cofounder Advisory Board Cofounder 400

Startup Lessons Learned

FEBRUARY 9, 2009

The Lean Startup is a practical approach for creating and managing a new breed of company that excels in low-cost experimentation, rapid iteration, and true customer insight. If youre interested in being part of my "customer advisory board" for this presentation, please get in touch. I am extending it to all start-ups.

Lean 68

Lean San Francisco Web Advisory Board 68

Up and Running

MAY 20, 2014

In an industry that lauds performance metrics to constantly track progress, there’s something fluffy about a professional degree that is not a prerequisite for anything. Data is changing the way that businesses operate, and most of the start-ups that I see achieving success are highly reliant on customer analytics.

Entrepreneur 88

Entrepreneur Advisory Board Silicon Valley New York 88

OnlyOnce

JULY 9, 2013

The book is part of the Startup Revolution series that Brad has been working on for a couple years now, including Do More (Even) Faster , Venture Deals , Startup Communities , and Startup Life (with two more to come, Startup Boards and Startup Metrics). Writing a book is a LOT harder than I expected!

Startup 95

Startup Advisory Board Elevator Pitch Forecast 95

Startup Professionals Musings

JULY 22, 2016

You need to quantify measurable criteria for success, using business metrics. These could include customer penetration, revenue growth, budget guidelines, and industry visibility. Team members begin by working with industry experts, advisors, and customers to validate assumptions, implementation plans, and financial parameters.

Intellectual Property 120

Intellectual Property Advisory Board Metrics Leadership 120

ConversionXL

AUGUST 11, 2021

To uncover audience problems and motivations, call on your brand market research or customer service data. The more you know about your audience, the better you can customize your offer to appeal to the right kind of sponsors. Sponsors will be happy to know that you’re capable of producing converting pages that may house their content.

Audience 139

Audience Social Media Email Ruby 139

YoungUpstarts

APRIL 7, 2013

They’re using metrics that are often unworkable in the current business environment, causing growing businesses to look elsewhere for capital and increasingly towards alternative forms of financing. It’s the paradox of the modern startup. Big companies that invest in small businesses play an important role in creating jobs.

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Advisory Board Entrepreneur Portland Oregon 249

Startup Professionals Musings

AUGUST 19, 2016

In my role as an advisory board member for several startups, I’m always excited to see that initial surge of revenue from a great rollout campaign. An initial revenue surge, or a major cash advance from investors often leads to a mentality of building a large customer base at any cost.

Advisory Board 120

Advisory Board Startup Revenue Finance 120

Startup Professionals Musings

AUGUST 13, 2012

In fact, a business plan is needed more by you than investors, as the blueprint for your company, team communication, and progress metrics. Terms like “every customer needs this” and “next generation platform” are far too soft, and should be avoided. Clearly define the customer, channel, and revenue model associated with this solution.

Business Plan 283

Business Plan Sweat Equity Exit Strategy Intellectual Property 283

Startup Professionals Musings

MAY 13, 2011

In fact, a business plan is needed more by you than investors, as the blueprint for your company, team communication, and progress metrics. Terms like “every customer needs this” and “next generation platform” are far too soft, and should be avoided. Clearly define the customer, channel, and revenue model associated with this solution.

Business Plan 290

Business Plan Sweat Equity Exit Strategy Intellectual Property 290

Startup Lessons Learned

OCTOBER 4, 2008

Maybe youd like to start with The lean startup , How to listen to customers , or What does a startup CTO actually do? ) He serves on the advisory board of a number of technology startups, and has worked as a consultant to a number of startups, companies, and venture capital firms. November 25, 2009 9:54 AM Danny Wong said.

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San Francisco Technical Cofounder Fractional CTO CTO 155

Startup Professionals Musings

OCTOBER 17, 2018

According to most investors I know, traction is some clear evidence that the “dogs are eating the dog food” – usually meaning that you have at least one customer paying full price for your solution. Another term often mentioned is “momentum,” or growing visibility and advocacy within your customer set.

Advisory Board 199

Advisory Board Technical Review Metrics Business Model 199

Steve Blank

JUNE 15, 2010

Do they “get&# Customer Development ? Do They Get Customer Development? For a founder there’s nothing worse than searching for a business model day after day and then sitting in a board meeting with a VC who asks about some detail of year 5 of your revenue plan. Have they heard about Customer Development ?

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Founder Vesting Later Stage Early Stage 231

Gust

AUGUST 5, 2012

In fact, a business plan is needed more by you than investors, as the blueprint for your company, team communication, and progress metrics. Terms like “every customer needs this” and “next generation platform” are far too soft, and should be avoided. Clearly define the customer, channel, and revenue model associated with this solution.

Business Plan 182

Business Plan Sweat Equity Exit Strategy Intellectual Property 182

David Teten

JANUARY 23, 2021

The next best move is to build your core team, e.g., recruit an Advisory Board, Venture Partners, and EIRs. For example, one LP told me she prefers customized emails from fund principals, as opposed to a bulk-mailed quarterly update. For ideas, see How Executives Can Work from Home with Private Equity and Venture Capital Funds.

Private Equity 78

Private Equity Venture Capital Technical Review Software Review 78

Startup Professionals Musings

APRIL 22, 2010

In fact, a business plan is needed more by you than investors, as the blueprint for your company, team communication, and progress metrics. Terms like “every customer needs this” and “next generation platform” are far too soft, and should be avoided. Clearly define the customer, channel, and revenue model associated with this solution.

Business Plan 186

Business Plan Exit Strategy Sweat Equity Intellectual Property 186

Occam's Razor

JANUARY 20, 2010

End of a minor web analytics lesson on going beyond obvious metrics and never, ever, never forgetting context. Is the customer intent contained in the keywords telling you how to change / improve the page? This results in not speaking the same language (say keywords) as their customers. Back to our story.

Analytics 90

Analytics Search SEO Metrics 90

Startup Lessons Learned

OCTOBER 6, 2009

pbWorks (formerly pbWiki) was one of the first companies that ever invited me to join their advisory board. pbWorks (formerly pbWiki) was one of the first companies that ever invited me to join their advisory board. The Entrepreneur’s Guide to Customer Development ► June (3) What is a startup?

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Audio San Francisco Video Continuous Deployment 118

Startup Lessons Learned

JULY 29, 2009

Unfortunately, customers hated that initial product. Unfortunately, we made two critically flawed assumptions: that customers would primarily consume first-party assets that we shipped to them on CD and that they would tend to congregate in a relatively uniform way. How likely will customers ultimately use that feature?

Technical Review 168

Technical Review Software Review San Francisco Lean 168

Steve Blank

OCTOBER 11, 2016

Brian Zuercher is the CEO and co-founder of Seen , a marketing software platform that is helping marketers tell the story of their brand and build relationships with their customers through consumer generated photos and videos. Filed under: Customer Development , SiriusXM Radio Show. If you can’t hear the clip, click here.

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Columbus Entrepreneur Ohio Cofounder 245

SoCal CTO

MARCH 4, 2010

Other labels: Consultant – Take bits and pieces, possibly coach Advisor / Advisory Board Member – Often a periodic responsibility and some ad hoc activities. Some weeks might end up being pretty much full-time on a single startup (e.g., important planning meetings or partner meetings). But it generally works out well in the end.

Technical Review 170

Technical Review Fractional CTO Technology CTO Hire 170

Austin Startup

MARCH 2, 2019

Speak with potential customers, speak with industry experts, speak with potential partners?—?validate Editor’s note: Since I wrote this, Compare Metrics was renamed Edgecase and was acquired by GroupBy in Canada. And Dean became our first Advisory Board member of many. I’m also a product of bootstrapped entrepreneurs?—?my

Advisory Board 51

Advisory Board Cofounder Greece Bootstrapping 51

Steve Blank

OCTOBER 11, 2016

Brian Zuercher is the CEO and co-founder of Seen , a marketing software platform that is helping marketers tell the story of their brand and build relationships with their customers through consumer generated photos and videos. Filed under: Customer Development , SiriusXM Radio Show. If you can’t hear the clip, click here.

Columbus 120

Columbus Entrepreneur Ohio Cofounder 120

Startup Lessons Learned

JUNE 22, 2009

Each has its own iterative process: customer development and agile development respectively. Some startups avoid getting customer feedback for precisely this reason: they are afraid that if early reactions are negative, theyll be "forced" to abandon their vision. One such practice is to pivot from one vision to the next.

San Francisco 167

San Francisco Lean Continuous Deployment Agile 167

Startup Lessons Learned

OCTOBER 19, 2009

Unfortunately, after months or even years of development, many companies discover that customers arent willing to buy their new wares. It isnt until a customer actually clicks or calls to place an order that TPGTEXs developers will build the software. "We The biggest is the confusion over why this tactic is useful.

San Francisco 137

San Francisco Product Lean Continuous Deployment 137

Startup Lessons Learned

OCTOBER 11, 2009

The larger-account division wanted to move the pricing in just the other direction – making the low-end products more expensive, so their large customers would have an increased incentive to upgrade. Many custom reports had been created for this meeting, and the data warehouse team was in the meeting, too.

San Francisco 133

San Francisco Lean Metrics Continuous Deployment 133

The Next Web

JULY 8, 2013

My startup reached product market fit, meaning that customers love our product and we are actually producing value for them. 8 are in R&D, 1 product, 1 customer support, 1 biz dev, 1 marketing and 1 administrative. More customers means more requests: The more customers we get the more requests for features, customization and so on.

Advisory Board 128

Advisory Board API Cofounder PPC 128

www.rocketwatcher.com

NOVEMBER 8, 2010

Rocket Watcher Product Marketing for Startups Product Marketing for Startups About Speaking Contact Email Posts Startups Product Marketing Messaging Social Media Commentary Uncategorized Marketing Metrics 101 for B2B Startups 13. Rocket watcher b2b marketing metrics View more presentations from April Dunford.

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B2B Metrics Marketing Startup 42