Startup Professionals Musings

NOVEMBER 9, 2019

Also, investors from the super-hubs (Silicon Valley, New York, or Boston), probably won’t assume anyone outside their domain has the savvy and resources to make it happen. Exposure to customers, incumbents, and competitors all drive success. Finding talent and financing isn’t the only hurdle to overcome on the road to startup success.

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Las Vegas Silicon Valley Arizona Montana 243

Startup Professionals Musings

JANUARY 21, 2019

Image via Wikipedia From the advice I hear these days, if you want to be a successful entrepreneur, you need to be in Silicon Valley, Boston, New York, or one of the few other financial hubs around the world. Work to build memorable customer experiences today, or the store may be empty tomorrow. All businesses require collaboration.

Silicon Valley 269

Silicon Valley Missouri Technical Review Boston 269

View from Seed

JULY 24, 2015

On Tuesday, July 21, we hosted the first-ever Boston Consumer Tech Summit. But a large majority of our investments are in our backyard of Boston — and, aside from our work as investors, this city is near and dear to our hearts. Here’s Mike’s comment: Boston’s B2C problem is one of values.

Boston 120

Boston Cofounder B2C PR 120

Steve Blank

FEBRUARY 11, 2010

The Customer Development process is the way startups quickly iterate and test each element of their business model , reducing customer and market risk. The first step of Customer Development is called Customer Discovery. outside the building and test them in front of customers. Is there a salesperson in Boston?”

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Burn Rate Silicon Valley Marketing Boston 248

View from Seed

OCTOBER 5, 2016

Beyond (potential) customers, publicly visible analysts, and consultants, consider placing industry leaders who are a “reach” on your list. As a VC myself, at a New York- and Boston-focused firm, I frequently point entrepreneurs to the same resources. The next step is then to prioritize and customize your outreach.

Angel Investor 332

Angel Investor Boston Seed Stage Syndicate 332

Startup Lessons Learned

SEPTEMBER 7, 2008

Lessons Learned by Eric Ries Sunday, September 7, 2008 Customer Development Engineering Yesterday, I had the opportunity to guest lecture again in Steve Blank s entrepreneurship class at the Berkeley-Columbia executive MBA program. Its a nice complement on the product engineering side to his customer development methodology.

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Startup Professionals Musings

OCTOBER 15, 2018

His focus is primarily on improving the results for traditional sales professionals, but I’m convinced that the same principles are equally critical for entrepreneurs selling their startup to investors, strategic partners, and customers. A memorable story needs to start with location specifics to make it real.

Elevator Pitch 211

Elevator Pitch Technical Review Boston Sales 211

Startup Lessons Learned

NOVEMBER 8, 2008

Lessons Learned by Eric Ries Saturday, November 8, 2008 What is customer development? But too often when its time to think about customers, marketing, positioning, or PR, we delegate it to "marketroids" or "suits." Many of us are not accustomed to thinking about markets or customers in a disciplined way.

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Customer Development Developer San Francisco Customer 168

Startup Lessons Learned

JULY 5, 2010

I believe it is the best introduction to Customer Development you can buy. As all of you know, Steve Blank is the progenitor of Customer Development and author of The Four Steps to the Epiphany. I have personally sold many copies of his book, and continue to recommend it as one of the most important books a startup founder can read.

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Customer Development Developer San Francisco Customer 166

YoungUpstarts

FEBRUARY 21, 2018

Banks gauged risk using first-hand, day-to-day knowledge – they understood how their clients’ businesses worked, knew who their customers were, and had a front-row seat from which they observed the ebb and flow of their businesses. Long ago, those insights came from frequent chats with customers, neighbors and friends.

Small Business 140

Small Business Boston Georgia Technical Review 140

YoungUpstarts

MAY 16, 2018

From entertainment to healthcare, companies use big data to track user interaction and customize life experiences. For example, Beantown looks to data analytics jobs Boston police can rely upon to determine where in the city crime occurs for officer distribution. Safety is another advantage of data analytics.

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Analytics Software Engineering Russia Software Developers 124

Startup Professionals Musings

SEPTEMBER 19, 2021

One of the reasons it’s so tough is that the rules are constantly changing on what it takes to win over customers, as customer attitudes and cultures change, and competitors continually strive to “raise the bar” on product and support. Existing customers can’t envision a new concept, or new behaviors.

Boston 381

Boston Social Media Demand Security 381

View from Seed

JULY 31, 2014

Lastly, given our Boston location, it isn’t surprising that seven investments were Boston-based. The former trend helped lead us to invest in TripleLift , while our recent investment in TapCommerce hit a sweet spot for customers on mobile that was anything but incrementally beneficial. What’s on the Horizon?

Seed Stage 272

Seed Stage B2C Technical Review Disintermediation 272

Startup Lessons Learned

OCTOBER 26, 2009

Lessons Learned by Eric Ries Monday, October 26, 2009 A real Customer Advisory Board A reader recently asked on a previous post about the technique of having customers periodically produce a “state of the company&# progress report. Many companies seek to involve customers directly in the creation of their products.

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Advisory Board Customer San Francisco Lean 151

YoungUpstarts

OCTOBER 21, 2016

For these reasons, more and more companies are choosing to stay online and help their customers and clients remotely. Boston, Massachusetts. Boston has recently been announced as the best American city in which to launch a new company. Boston has recently been announced as the best American city in which to launch a new company.

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Boston Romania Silicon Valley Finland 100

SiliconHills

JUNE 4, 2019

Apps Associates, based in Boston, announced Tuesday that it has acquired Austin-based SmartDog Services. SmartDog Services, founded in 1990, is a service provider to customers that use Oracle products. The post Austin-based SmartDog Services Acquired by Apps Associates of Boston appeared first on SiliconHills.

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Boston Austin Cloud Management 60

Startup Lessons Learned

MARCH 16, 2009

Lessons Learned by Eric Ries Monday, March 16, 2009 Combining agile development with customer development Today I read an excellent blog post that I just had to share. The breakthrough idea of agile is that software should be built iteratively, with the pieces that customers value most created first. Enter Jims post.

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Agile Customer Development Developer San Francisco 111

View from Seed

FEBRUARY 8, 2017

When Jay joined our team back in 2014, we were the first early-stage VC in Boston to have a dedicated head of platform and one of the first handful in the country to do so. Getting lots of customers in a profitable way. This is also an opportunity to take a step back and think about what the Platform role means for us overall.

Seed Stage 120

Seed Stage Boston Early Stage Portfolio 120

View from Seed

FEBRUARY 8, 2017

When Jay joined our team back in 2014, we were the first early-stage VC in Boston to have a dedicated head of platform and one of the first handful in the country to do so. Getting lots of customers in a profitable way. This is also an opportunity to take a step back and think about what the Platform role means for us overall.

Seed Stage 120

Seed Stage Boston Early Stage Portfolio 120

View from Seed

SEPTEMBER 4, 2018

This is why we actually have one of the lowest # of investments/partner among all institutional seed funds, and have invested in developing a platform of resources to support founders around team building, product, customers acquisition, and capital planning.

North America 120

North America Seed Stage Early Stage Lead Investor 120

Startup Lessons Learned

APRIL 14, 2009

Lessons Learned by Eric Ries Tuesday, April 14, 2009 Validated learning about customers Would you rather have $30,000 or $1 million in revenues for your startup? This may sound crazy, coming as it does from an advocate of c harging customers for your product from day one. They are gaining valuable customer data.

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Customer San Francisco Lean Hockey Stick 167

Startup Professionals Musings

DECEMBER 2, 2017

Also, investors from the super-hubs (Silicon Valley, New York, or Boston), won’t assume anyone outside their domain has the savvy and resources to make it happen. Exposure to customers, incumbents, and competitors all drive success. Being close to your customers, your vendors, or even your competitors can make all the difference.

Silicon Valley 149

Silicon Valley Las Vegas Arizona Montana 149

The Startup Magazine

OCTOBER 25, 2023

Welcome to the future of work where employees may reside anywhere from Bali to Boston or Barcelona – how can you tap into this global talent pool to create your own successful enterprise with remote workers? Sure, it may be fun to imagine having the population of China as customers, but let’s keep things realistic!

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Technical Review Business Plan America Hiring 111

Startup Professionals Musings

DECEMBER 7, 2013

Also, investors from the super-hubs (Silicon Valley, New York, or Boston), won’t assume anyone outside their domain has the savvy and resources to make it happen. Exposure to customers, incumbents, and competitors all drive success. Being close to your customers, your vendors, or even your competitors can make all the difference.

Silicon Valley 256

Silicon Valley Las Vegas Phoenix Montana 256

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

Mike Michalowicz

MAY 22, 2019

If your restaurant is in the wrong place, you won’t attract the amount or type of customers you will need to stay in business. When entering your location, are there obstacles to getting there, such as one-way streets, obstructions, on-going construction, and other things that could alienate potential customers.

Software Review 68

Software Review Boston Due Diligence Dividend 68

YoungUpstarts

DECEMBER 26, 2013

Paul, San Francisco, LA, San Diego, Seattle, Chicago, Boston, and Washington, DC. TaskRabbit is available in San Francisco, New York, Boston, Los Angeles, Chicago and Miami. Requirements: The only requirement is having the time to fulfill your orders in a timely manner to your customers.

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Securities and Exchange Commission San Francisco Miami United Kingdom 263

Duct Tape Marketing

OCTOBER 17, 2018

Gudema has worked with numerous companies to create sales and marketing wins, including IBM, Philips Healthcare, Genzyme Genetics, Avid Technology, The Boston Globe, Stonyfield, Houghton Mifflin, and the University of Miami. Questions I ask Louis Gudema: How can business owners better market to their existing customer base?

Miami 61

Miami Marketing Software Review Boston 61

Genuine VC

MARCH 14, 2012

While Microsoft is touting that over 350 companies are working with Microsoft on custom Kinect applications ranging from in the medical field to manufacturing, I suspect that the real first killer-app outside gaming for the Kinect won’t far too far afield from its current install base. Luckily, we have the Kinect Boston Meetup here locally.

Search 211

Search Boston Seed Stage Seattle 211

Rob Go

MAY 21, 2014

Everyone knows that nobody gets consumer in Boston. Boston has amazing consumer companies, but the region gets no love for some reason. Oh and they have over 100K customers. So, why doesn’t Boston get more love on the consumer internet side? This is counter-intuitive, but Boston startups I find are often too early.

Boston 57

Boston Cram Down Indiana eCommerce 57

Agile VC

JUNE 5, 2011

Cumulative customers (unique buyers of Groupons): 15.8M (Q1 2011), 9.0M (2010), 0.4M (2009). 3) Groupon’s Business is Like An ATM: Groupon is currently unprofitable on a GAAP basis thanks to acquisition related expenses in 2010 as well as ongoing marketing spend to acquire customers. in net revenue and passes $0.58

North America 100

North America Chicago Boston Silicon Valley 100

Duct Tape Marketing

FEBRUARY 27, 2020

John Jantsch: Want to quickly send amazing looking emails to your prospects and customers in just minutes? I was actually building like ASP custom shopping carts, all this crazy stuff that I don’t even know how to do now. I was like, “There are not a lot of the type of church that we are at out there in Boston.

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Audio Boston Video HTML 57

ConversionXL

MAY 3, 2017

Often, there are simple customer segments (that you already have access to) that you can target with Facebook Ads very effectively. A customer survey conducted by BigCommerce revealed that 51% of SMBs expect social advertising channels (specifically Facebook Ads) will play a major role in accelerating revenue throughout 2017 and beyond.

San Jose 133

San Jose Customer Database Campaign 133

Duct Tape Marketing

JUNE 7, 2023

She is the global customer growth and innovation evangelist at Salesforce and the Wall Street Journal bestselling author of Growth IQ. Key Takeaway: Prioritizing the employee experience alongside customer experience drives business success. 06:25] In most companies, the customer interacts with their employees. [06:25]

Employee 75

Employee Technical Review Advisory Board Sales 75

ConversionXL

MAY 8, 2014

This is what happened when three diverse organizations ran experiments to better understand the value of what they offered their customers and how their customers perceived that value: The Heritage Foundation increased click-through rates on its emails by 20% and donation size by 14.66%. million in incremental revenue.

Clickthrough 100

Clickthrough Cost Tucson Customer 100

YoungUpstarts

JANUARY 17, 2016

How they think and feel; their sense of community; and their appetite to share their opinions are all creating new paradigms for how any business, regardless of size, connects with its customers. According to our research, millennials ardently avoid calling customer service. Old school customer service rules haven’t changed.

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Customer Singapore Advisory Board Asia 100

ReadWriteStart

MAY 2, 2022

Its popular SnackPass provides customized snacking favorites for employees in large or small offices, both on-site and remote, and its private-label bulk snacks are vastly more exciting and cleaner than what’s in most office pantries. The company is headquartered in Washington, D.C., For more information, visit tryhungry.com.

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Los Angeles Employee San Francisco New York City 152