Duct Tape Marketing

APRIL 18, 2024

With her expertise, she’s boosted hundreds of agencies to millions in revenue, attracting premium clients willing to pay 50-600% fees. As a former business exit advisor, she crafts exit strategies, adding up to five figures to clients’ net profit monthly so they can focus on growth. We need to go make more sales.

Framework 60

Framework Sales Cycle Sales Hiring 60

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? All things being equal, of course, you’d rather have more revenue rather than less. And yet revenue alone is not a sufficient goal.

Customer 167

Customer San Francisco Lean Hockey Stick 167

Steve Blank

AUGUST 15, 2016

But to do it, you need to actually have a sustainable business model. Starting a business is too risky. This is a perfect example of why it’s important to talk to customers. Somewhere along the line, however, Michael and his co-founder stopped listening to customers. Our revenue model was wrong.

Cofounder 142

Cofounder Entrepreneur Africa Sales Cycle 142

ReadWriteStart

JUNE 16, 2011

Freshdesk First, Girish Mathrubootham from Chennai, India, pitched Freshdesk , a SaaS company that provides small and medium businesses with on-demand customer support software that offers multi-channel social support. Freshdesk introduces itself as a kind of Salesforce.com for customer support so to speak.

India 123

India Bootstrapping Non-Compete Entrepreneur 123

Steve Blank

AUGUST 15, 2016

But to do it, you need to actually have a sustainable business model. Starting a business is too risky. This is a perfect example of why it’s important to talk to customers. Somewhere along the line, however, Michael and his co-founder stopped listening to customers. Our revenue model was wrong.

Cofounder 120

Cofounder Entrepreneur Africa Sales Cycle 120

Startup Lessons Learned

MAY 9, 2012

TLDR: Brant Cooper and Patrick Vlaskovits , authors of The Entrepreneur's Guide to Customer Development are back with a new book called The Lean Entrepreneur. It took the idea of Customer Development and made it accessible to a whole new audience. Market segments drive your business model. Illustrations by FAKEGRIMLOCK.

Entrepreneur 167

Entrepreneur Lean Southern California San Diego 167

ReadWriteStart

SEPTEMBER 23, 2010

First up was Brad Barrett presenting GrillGrate , a grill accessory with which Brad has built a year-to-date revenue of $400,000. Next, Umakant Soni discussed Vimagino.com , a software for Web-based Q&A support to engage customers better on sites that are trying to draw people in and convert them into customers. GrillGrate.

India 114

India Silicon Valley Incubator Bootstrapping 114

ConversionXL

SEPTEMBER 20, 2018

As a result, argues Andrew Chen , it’s becoming more expensive to acquire customers. A go-to-market (GtM) strategy is an action plan that specifies how a company will reach target customers and achieve a competitive advantage. ideal customer). customer acquisition process and channels). Target or enemy (i.e.

Marketing 289

Marketing Sales Cycle Acquisition Sales 289

ConversionXL

JUNE 2, 2022

In this article, you’ll learn how to define your ABM strategy so you can target the right accounts and increase your revenue. Account-based marketing is an approach where marketing and sales work together to nurture target accounts and convert or retain customers. This required more product evangelism and customer wins.

Customer 98

Customer Marketing Channel Acquisition 98

Austin Startup

NOVEMBER 12, 2017

A frequent metaphor I use in customer acquisition, fundraising, or any kind of deal making is that you as the founder and promoter should present the finished meal on the dining table and not drag your counterparts into the kitchen. Most customers will sell themselves if you just give them half a chance.

Term Sheet 48

Term Sheet Technical Review Due Diligence Merger 48

Version One Ventures

SEPTEMBER 11, 2013

Whenever there’s a complete disruption of the business model, it means that the underlying rules for that vertical have dramatically changed. Just adding a website to now offer books for sale will not suddenly make an offline bookstore a serious competitor to Amazon.

Sales Cycle 122

Sales Cycle Business Model Aggregator Vertical 122

A Crowded Space

AUGUST 27, 2014

So, even if you’re doing 100M in gross services, you’re really still doing less than 10M in net revenue. Some marketplace businesses have started monetizing at least in part through higher-margin software fees. . There is a new trend emerging which combines two of the most beloved business models in tech. .

Sales Cycle 110

Sales Cycle Software .Net Business Model 110

Entrepreneurs-Journey.com by Yaro Starak

SEPTEMBER 13, 2011

You can check out part one of this series here: Part 1: Which Is The Best Business Model For Your Startup – B2B Or B2C? B2B” – means that you are selling a product or service to other businesses. What Is “B2B&# ? Ex2: Selling office equipment to companies who wish to upgrade their existing furniture.

B2B 105

B2B Business Model B2C Agile 105

Hippoland

AUGUST 8, 2018

One thing I’ve noticed is that almost every repeat, previously-successful-founder focuses on the same thing for their respective startups: customer acquisition. Very simply, your cost to acquire a customer needs to be lower than the value of that customer (lifetime value). Sales cycles matter though.

Founder 48

Founder Sales Cycle Affiliate Retention 48

Hippoland

AUGUST 8, 2018

One thing I’ve noticed is that almost every repeat, previously-successful-founder focuses on the same thing for their respective startups: customer acquisition. Very simply, your cost to acquire a customer needs to be lower than the value of that customer (lifetime value). Sales cycles matter though.

Founder 48

Founder Sales Cycle Affiliate Retention 48

Hippoland

AUGUST 16, 2018

But outcome-differentiation is probably lacking – people who use Mailchimp use it to increase revenue by selling more products / services via their emails. Think about it – if you’re using MailChimp and make let’s say $100 in sales for every send. But VCs look at unit economics in different ways.

Sales Cycle 54

Sales Cycle Differentiation Early Stage Bootstrapping 54

This is going to be BIG.

NOVEMBER 10, 2011

Slow sales cycles. Business Insider wrote about our investment in the company yesterday. If you're not going to build (or design) a product, then you need to be amazing at selling that product (or acquiring customers if you're a SaaS tool). That alone is enough to make a lot of VCs throw up a little in their mouths.

Sales Cycle 121

Sales Cycle Government Revenue Sales 121

K9 Ventures

SEPTEMBER 14, 2016

Putting myself in the shoes of the customer, here’s how I would think: “So, you want me to pay you $20K cash up front, for a product that has never been tested before. The best of both worlds is when the customer is willing to pay the upfront cost of the hardware, and is willing to pay for a subscription service on top of it.

Widget 48

Widget Sales Cycle Revenue Business Model 48

Hippoland

AUGUST 16, 2018

But outcome-differentiation is probably lacking – people who use Mailchimp use it to increase revenue by selling more products / services via their emails. Think about it – if you’re using MailChimp and make let’s say $100 in sales for every send. But VCs look at unit economics in different ways.

Sales Cycle 48

Sales Cycle Differentiation Early Stage Bootstrapping 48

www.forentrepreneurs.com

FEBRUARY 2, 2010

The company has just missed its quarterly revenue forecast. Lets take an example, and look at how they might do this: They will be able to tell you that revenue is composed of deals. To compute revenue, you multiply average deal size by number of deals. Bookings is the pre-cursor to Revenue. Obvious, isn’t it?

Metrics 55

Metrics Design Entrepreneur Startup 55

Duct Tape Marketing

APRIL 16, 2012

But, if we actually understood that the only thing that mattered was an abundant volume of profitable customers, we would surely start with the customer in mind, right? Customer focus vs. business focus. Get customer discovery and sales right and you can’t fail.

Sales Cycle 70

Sales Cycle Sales Customer Business Model 70

infochachkie.com

SEPTEMBER 24, 2011

There is an inherent conflict in a consultant’s business model and the needs of a startup. For instance, if a consultant proposes to help you with public relations, pay them a commission equivalent to the greater of a flat fee per story placed or a percentage of revenue generated from the PR coverage. Pyramid Power.

Equity 40

Equity Silicon Valley Cofounder Technical Review 40

ConversionXL

JUNE 14, 2021

Why should customers buy from you? In this guide, you’ll learn how to differentiate your business and attract your ideal customers by creating a unique selling proposition. How a unique selling proposition (USP) attracts better customers and builds your brand (and where marketers get it wrong).

Software Review 158

Software Review Audience Differentiation Framework 158

ConversionXL

APRIL 7, 2021

The book dedicates quite a few pages to the ‘customer-centric stack’ and argues that because you’re now able to know when someone is in the market for a solution like yours [via IP lookup or 1st or 3rd party intent data], you don’t need to “spam” them. In those days we just called it sales.

IP 98

IP Marketing Technical Review Software Review 98

BeyondVC

AUGUST 26, 2008

I have written a number of times about frictionless sales and how on-demand companies have a huge opportunity to reduce their sales and marketing costs and subsequently scale their business more efficiently. Follow that with a 3 month implementation process to get the customer happy.

Cost 60

Cost Sales Sales Cycle Demand 60

Hippoland

FEBRUARY 12, 2018

I’ll give you an example with my own startup LaunchBit and how our understanding of the problem and the customer became more refined over time: V1: Helping online marketers get customers profitably. V2: Helping online marketers who have previously bought ads in email lists get customers profitably. But the execution is hard.

Seed Stage 48

Seed Stage Business Model B2B Email 48

Hippoland

FEBRUARY 12, 2018

I’ll give you an example with my own startup LaunchBit and how our understanding of the problem and the customer became more refined over time: V1: Helping online marketers get customers profitably. V2: Helping online marketers who have previously bought ads in email lists get customers profitably. But the execution is hard.

Seed Stage 48

Seed Stage Business Model B2B Email 48

Tim Keane

APRIL 14, 2008

Now, as their revenue grows substantially, its time to make the shift toward a more quantitative management environment. Can we quantify success in terms of calls, visits, customer sizes, and so forth? Can we produce a market map to track what our customers want, and from whom they are getting it? Books I Like.

Ireland 60

Ireland Wisconsin Forecast Sales Cycle 60

BeyondVC

DECEMBER 7, 2005

As you know, I am enamored by frictionless sales. Frictionless sales means reducing the pain for customers to adopt and use a service/product and consequently reducing the cost of sales and marketing to get a customer and generate revenue. Free software grows revenue opportunities.

Sales 60

Sales Java Open Source Software Review 60

Cracking the Code

OCTOBER 10, 2008

Only after reaching $1M in CMRR should you consider hiring European sales and services execs behind customer demand. Be prepared to cross the desert - SaaS requires R&D and sales expense up front for a multi-year stream of revenue, so it demands enough investment capital to fund 4+ years of runway. 16 comments: BdH.

Software Review 48

Software Review North America Europe Metrics 48

Both Sides of the Table

MAY 7, 2011

Lesson: You dn’t want your customers to feel locked into using your software. It helps with sales cycles because customers know that they can switch away if they so choose. While customers will be willing to try your product, they think two steps ahead. Pricing information. Marketing materials. 29:45 minutes.

Software Review 285

Software Review Software St. Louis API 285