Startup Professionals Musings

MARCH 18, 2020

You need to maintain explicit C-suite and Board buy-in for constant transformation through effective communication, highlighting the struggles of peer businesses, and establishing the right metrics.

Agile 307

Agile Advisory Board Metrics Asia 307

YoungUpstarts

JUNE 4, 2019

Other times, the founding team may pull together a good core management team, but lack a comprehensive strategy to address the extended team: the board of directors, customer advisory board, products council, employee advisory group and so on. This is quite the balancing act.

Framework 118

Framework Architecture Cleveland Early Stage 118

The Startup Magazine

OCTOBER 25, 2017

Led by former Apple project manager Brian Brackeen, Kairos set up an Endeavor-facilitated advisory board. A key impact metric for Kairos is the number of faces processed. The Endeavor network provided Brian access to several high-quality enterprise connections. The Endeavor connections catapulted Kairos’ customer reach.

Miami 61

Miami Technical Review Software Review Artificial Inteligence 61

YoungUpstarts

MAY 24, 2019

Other times, the founding team may pull together a good core management team, but lack a comprehensive strategy to address the extended team: the board of directors, customer advisory board, products council, employee advisory group and so on. This is quite the balancing act.

Framework 104

Framework Architecture Cleveland Early Stage 104

Startup Professionals Musings

MAY 4, 2020

Define success metrics, and measure progress regularly. 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. If you have completed four out of five milestones, we can both see success in your future.

Advisory Board 308

Advisory Board Agile Social Media Metrics 308

Duct Tape Marketing

JUNE 7, 2023

So if your frontline team doesn't have what they need, it shows itself in those experience metrics on the customer side. My ask would be the next time you do or say something on behalf of the customer, like I've got a customer advisory board. Do you have an employee advisory board?

Employee 76

Employee Technical Review Advisory Board Sales 76

Jeff Hilimire

APRIL 8, 2015

Outline the goals and metrics both parties care about. Advisory Boards. When it comes to advisory boards, I’m a big fan. But, I think an entrepreneur needs to be careful about how and when they create an advisory board. Choosing an advisory board is the first step.

Advisory Board 28

Advisory Board Cofounder Metrics Community 28

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. I believe that every business, whether public or private, needs to engage an advisory board or outside directors for a regular review. Unclear, misaligned, or overlapping job responsibilities.

Advisory Board 283

Advisory Board Due Diligence Retention Agile 283

Steve Blank

NOVEMBER 16, 2009

What metrics do we use to see if we learned enough in Customer Discovery ? I gave my boilerplate answer, “I’m a product guy and I tend to invest and look at deals that have measurable revenue metrics. Dave McClure has some great metrics…” It was an honest but vaguely unsatisfying answer. As for #3. I agree completely.

Customer Development 219

Customer Development Web Developer Customer 219

David Teten

JANUARY 19, 2021

This structure allows for alignment on the front end, and real-time flexibility for performance metrics,” says Samira Salman , a family office investor and advisor. . Flexible VCs have created structures based on other company performance metrics than revenues, such as profits or founder salaries. Flexible VC 102: Variations.

Cofounder 78

Cofounder Technical Review Dividend Equity 78

thebarefootvc

AUGUST 13, 2013

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. A competitive landscape (particularly when laid out in a visual way) will identify gaps and opportunities in the market.

Advisory Board 70

Advisory Board Cloud Venture Capital Software 70

Startup Professionals Musings

JANUARY 6, 2021

It’s important to define your growth strategy, document it, communicate it to your team, and align metrics and employee rewards to target goals. No matter how much energy, experience, and passion you have, there is always more you can learn from an Advisory Board of external experts or a mentor.

Technical Review 400

Technical Review Technical Cofounder Advisory Board Cofounder 400

Startup Lessons Learned

FEBRUARY 9, 2009

If youre interested in being part of my "customer advisory board" for this presentation, please get in touch. Eric, if youre looking for any help as a "customer advisory board", Id love to do anything I can to help. I would love to be on your advisory board. And thats where the call for help comes in.

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. That’s why companies have advisory boards that get compensated — you usually have to pay for that kind of support and knowledge.

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. It’s time for the executive team and advisory board to commit the necessary funds and people resources to complete the plan. It takes the right people to make a breakthrough happen. Clearly define and issue the challenge. A dream is not enough.

Intellectual Property 120

Intellectual Property Advisory Board Metrics Leadership 120

ConversionXL

AUGUST 11, 2021

It contains the story of your property, mission statement, sponsor benefits, demographics, marketing plan, goals, media opportunities, advisory board, and the sponsor fees.”. An inventory of metrics: Click-through rates, newsletter subscribers, downloads, social engagement, revenue figures, etc. Source ).

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.

Advisory Board 229

Advisory Board Entrepreneur Portland Oregon 229

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. As the business grows, it pays to learn how to use automated financial tools, and review the key financial metrics daily.

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. Include Advisory Board members and key industry people connections. Financial forecast and metrics. Investors invest in people - not just ideas. See where your cashflow bottoms out.

Business Plan 283

Business Plan Sweat Equity Exit Strategy Intellectual Property 283

Startup Professionals Musings

OCTOBER 17, 2018

Unfortunately, your personal assessment that you have traction probably won’t be convincing to potential investors and partners, so it’s important that you create and track your progress against some metrics. Define metrics on customer feedback and user counts. Assemble a credible inside advisory board and partners.

Advisory Board 199

Advisory Board Technical Review Metrics Business Model 199

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. Include Advisory Board members and key industry people connections. Financial forecast and metrics. Investors invest in people - not just ideas. See where your cashflow bottoms out.

Business Plan 290

Business Plan Sweat Equity Exit Strategy Intellectual Property 290

Startup Lessons Learned

OCTOBER 4, 2008

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. In 2007, BusinessWeek named Ries one of the Best Young Entrepreneurs of Tech and in 2009 he was honored with a TechFellow award in the category of Engineering Leadership.

San Francisco 155

San Francisco Technical Cofounder Fractional CTO CTO 155

Steve Blank

JUNE 15, 2010

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. Do they have metrics and a methodology they use for early stage companies that differs from companies that have already found a business model?

Founder 231

Founder Vesting Later Stage Early Stage 231

Startup Lessons Learned

SEPTEMBER 14, 2008

Establish a customer advisory board. Startup Visa update ► February (5) Kiwi lean startup + Australia next Why diversity matters (the meritocracy business) Beware of Vanity Metrics (for Harvard Business Rev. Create a members-only forum where only qualified customers (perhaps, paying customers) can post.

San Francisco 131

San Francisco Customer Lean Continuous Deployment 131

Occam's Razor

JANUARY 20, 2010

End of a minor web analytics lesson on going beyond obvious metrics and never, ever, never forgetting context. Of course look at our favorite metric bounce rate by keyword (that tells you if you can get people to give you one solitary click , the most primitive measure of SEO success). Back to our story.

Analytics 90

Analytics SEO Search Metrics 90

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. Include Advisory Board members and key industry people connections. Financial forecast and metrics. Investors invest in people – not just ideas.

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. In particular, highlight the metrics by which you measured your past activities: size of exit, number of people you managed, $ budget you were responsible for, etc. Lastly, gather feedback. Further reading: .

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. Include Advisory Board members and key industry people connections. Financial forecast and metrics. Investors invest in people - not just ideas. See where your cashflow bottoms out.

Business Plan 186

Business Plan Exit Strategy Sweat Equity Intellectual Property 186

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. With accompanying slides: Continuous Deployment View more presentations from TimothyFitz.

Audio 118

Audio San Francisco Video Continuous Deployment 118

Growthink Blog

JANUARY 16, 2012

I experienced this first hand at my company’s quarterly advisory board meeting this past week. And as the company’s CEO, I was unluckily (or luckily, depending on one's perspective), the focal point of the debate.

Advisory Board 76

Advisory Board Leadership Metrics Business Model 76

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. see When to Use Facebook Connect – Twitter Oauth – Google Friend Connect for Authentication? Some weeks might end up being pretty much full-time on a single startup (e.g.,

Technical Review 170

Technical Review Fractional CTO Technology CTO Hire 170

Steve Blank

OCTOBER 11, 2016

We did three iterations of the product in less than 12 months, each one progressively going off of different consumer metrics that we found and then partner feedback. They still thought we were building what we had presented in a PowerPoint slide as the product, but that didn’t work out in our case. .

Columbus 245

Columbus Entrepreneur Ohio Cofounder 245

Austin Startup

MARCH 2, 2019

Both Bazaarvoice and Coremetrics started from scratch, and I’ve also angel-backed companies recently that have started from scratch, like Compare Metrics , where I serve as the Chairman of the Board (note that Compare Metrics also recently completed their Series A with Austin Ventures as the lead).

Advisory Board 51

Advisory Board Cofounder Greece IPO 51

Startup Lessons Learned

JULY 29, 2009

should the test subjects be part of the customer advisory board? Startup Visa update ► February (5) Kiwi lean startup + Australia next Why diversity matters (the meritocracy business) Beware of Vanity Metrics (for Harvard Business Rev. what would be the profile of these engineers?

Technical Review 168

Technical Review Software Review San Francisco Lean 168

Steve Blank

OCTOBER 11, 2016

We did three iterations of the product in less than 12 months, each one progressively going off of different consumer metrics that we found and then partner feedback. They still thought we were building what we had presented in a PowerPoint slide as the product, but that didn’t work out in our case. .

Columbus 120

Columbus Entrepreneur Cofounder Ohio 120

Both Sides of the Table

DECEMBER 9, 2013

Let board members know that you’re not walking through this in the actual meeting. Schedule 1:1 calls 1 week before the meeting to walk each board member through the key issues / performance metrics in the business. Between Board Meetings. Communicating Between Board Meetings. The Agile Board.

Advisory Board 337

Advisory Board Valuation Stock Options Seed Money 337