Both Sides of the Table

JANUARY 11, 2014

” Sean is somebody widely respected in Silicon Valley (although he now lives in SoCal) for having helped many early-stage companies go through major growth periods by quantitatively testing features with audiences to help diagnose what led to growth. I recommend hiring or appointing a growth hacker.” Doesn’t.

Technical Review 384

Technical Review Hockey Stick SEM Channel 384

ConversionXL

FEBRUARY 3, 2022

A marketing growth strategy goes deeper into customer relationships to uncover opportunities that engage, activate, and retain. This philosophy comes from The Lean Startup methodology , which relies on testing hypotheses to better understand your customers’ pain points and goals. Your customers want different things.

Marketing 115

Marketing Framework Metrics Channel 115

Steve Blank

JUNE 27, 2017

If they select a business model that targets industry incumbents, they don’t have to worry about upsetting existing customers, partners or distribution channels. Existing companies also use network effects of monopolies/duopolies, distribution channel kickbacks, etc., to stifle competition.). What can a company do?

Startup 275

Startup New York City Valuation Distribution 275

ReadWriteStart

MARCH 8, 2021

They want to snowball their customer acquisition, attracting thousands of new people to the brand, and reach diverse new audiences in new locations. And the revenue from your existing customers alone may not be enough to cut it. . Marketing/advertising channels. Every startup entrepreneur wants to see their company grow.

Startup 127

Startup Retention Acquisition Agile 127

Both Sides of the Table

JANUARY 6, 2014

The functions of an early-stage board are pretty obvious and well understood: Providing introductions to customers, biz dev partners, recruits, the press, other investors, etc. how much energy to put into channel partners vs. direct sales. Offering a sparring-partner function on strategic decisions. Mentorship.

Technical Review 325

Technical Review Early Stage Software Review Los Angeles 325

YoungUpstarts

MAY 21, 2020

Just because an idea is relevant for you, you may discover it is a super niche market and therefore will either require a dedicated marketing and promotion channel very specific to that audience or may not live up to the ‘unicorn’ expectations you were dreaming of. How is it done? This is your market segment.

Product 264

Product Cofounder Audience Product Development 264

Hearpreneur

OCTOBER 25, 2023

The expansion of e-commerce should also bring about seeing returns as a strategic lever, similar to how companies used faster delivery to drive customer experience and revenue. Think of it from the customer's perspective – Why should this customer shop from your store instead of the other stores selling this product?

eCommerce 133

eCommerce Omaha Entrepreneur SEO 133

Both Sides of the Table

APRIL 26, 2016

Perhaps the most misused terms I see these days from entrepreneurs involve CAC (customer acquisition costs) and LTV (life time value) and a lack of understanding these critical components is driving many companies to premature failure. Customer acquisition cost. This is how much you spend to get a new customer. That bit is easy.

Metrics 150

Metrics Cost Acquisition Startup 150

Both Sides of the Table

AUGUST 11, 2021

Photo by Vanna Phon on Unsplash Customer acquisition is the lifeblood of many startups from e-commerce to gaming to marketplace companies, among others. Most of these startups spend the lion’s share of their marketing budget in today’s social media channels: Facebook, Twitter, Reddit, Snap, TikTok and so on because?—?no no surprise?—?that’s

Founder 424

Founder Product Cofounder Acquisition 424

Steve Blank

APRIL 23, 2014

A business model is all the parts of a strategy necessary to deliver a product to a customer and make money from it. These include the product itself, the customer, the distribution channel, revenue model, how to get, keep and grow customers, resources and activities needed to build the business and costs.).

Acquisition 332

Acquisition Intellectual Property Silicon Valley Startup 332

ReadWriteStart

JUNE 1, 2020

The primary source of your funds should be your paying customers, i.e., your business should generate enough revenues and profits to fund the growth and expansion. Any custom manufactured IoT device would require software development as well as hardware customization. Early-stage. Growth and expansion stages.

Startup 150

Startup Entrepreneur Elevator Pitch Seed Stage 150

YoungUpstarts

OCTOBER 21, 2020

Matthew and Chris from Custom Plugs set up their business from scratch in 2011, selling plugs for ears, ear gauges , body jewelry , accessories, and alternative clothing. At the early stages of our business, we had a supplier who took £2,800 from us and never delivered the goods. Life in business is never just plain sailing.

eCommerce 242

eCommerce Customer Early Stage B2C 242

Up and Running

NOVEMBER 9, 2020

The majority of shoppers—across multi-channel, online experiences —noticing a change in the way they shop due to retailers understanding and interpreting their data. Meaning that modern businesses are shifting all their time to provide segmented and personalized marketing experiences to their customers. Who are they?

Artificial Inteligence 90

Artificial Inteligence Technical Review Software Review Algorithm 90

Steve Blank

NOVEMBER 11, 2013

The class has talked to 1,780 customers to date. Part 5: value proposition and customer segments in Life Sciences. This post is an update of what we learned about life science distribution channels. This post is an update of what we learned about life science distribution channels. Diagnostics. Digital Health.

Distribution 224

Distribution Channel Lean Intellectual Property 224

ConversionXL

MARCH 31, 2021

Customer interviews allow you to uncover: Why they decided to do business with you; Why they love working with you; What other challenges they have in their business; Where they go for new information. Your customers can provide you with pain-points to write about, as well as success stories to attract new clients.

Audience 127

Audience Non-Compete Distribution Channel 127

View from Seed

FEBRUARY 8, 2017

Most recently, she led the team responsible for growing their successful podcast audience and expanding the company’s presence on emerging channels like Medium. 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.

Seed Stage 120

Seed Stage Boston Early Stage Portfolio 120

View from Seed

FEBRUARY 8, 2017

Most recently, she led the team responsible for growing their successful podcast audience and expanding the company’s presence on emerging channels like Medium. 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.

Seed Stage 120

Seed Stage Boston Early Stage Portfolio 120

Startup Professionals Musings

SEPTEMBER 11, 2021

Almost every early-stage startup who has approached investors for funding has heard the innocuous sounding rejection “I love your idea, but come back when you have more traction.” One customer is not traction, and beta tests with a thousand customers at no cost don’t count. Customer acquisition cost.

Hockey Stick 304

Hockey Stick Early Stage Metrics Acquisition 304

YoungUpstarts

JUNE 7, 2018

SkyCap Financial lends up to $10,000 in personal loans for any purpose, and personal funds, like home equity, personal savings and personal credit cards, are how many entrepreneurs capitalize their early-stage startups. Having an innovative idea for a business is only part of the battle to succeed with entrepreneurial ventures.

Entrepreneur 124

Entrepreneur Incubator Finance Canada 124

SoCal CTO

AUGUST 4, 2011

Almost every day I'm talking to early stage startup founders (see Free Startup CTO Consulting Sessions ) about what they plan to do. Think of these as the big upfront questions: Who are the customers? What channels will you use (e.g., I tend to ask a lot of questions, challenge aspects, make suggestions. Administrators?

Developer 396

Developer Founder Viral Oauth 396

Startup Professionals Musings

DECEMBER 11, 2022

Getting investors to trust you with their money is always a challenge, and it’s even more difficult in the early stages, where you don’t have a significant revenue stream, a few customers, or maybe even a product yet. At these stages, it’s all about you, and your ability to communicate and execute effectively.

Due Diligence 271

Due Diligence Intellectual Property Entrepreneur Preferred Stock 271

SoCal CTO

AUGUST 4, 2011

Almost every day I'm talking to early stage startup founders (see Free Startup CTO Consulting Sessions ) about what they plan to do. Think of these as the big upfront questions: Who are the customers? What channels will you use (e.g., I tend to ask a lot of questions, challenge aspects, make suggestions. Administrators?

Developer 384

Developer Founder Viral Oauth 384

View from Seed

JULY 19, 2022

Stelios has a compelling vision for nudgem that allows ecommerce merchants to gather data across the entire user journey and unify those data points to build enriched customer profiles for robust personalization.” RH: Who are your customers? RH: What’s your favorite thing about being an early-stage founder?

eCommerce 156

eCommerce Greece Early Stage SMS 156

Both Sides of the Table

AUGUST 3, 2010

Focus on your customers and don’t obsess about deals or keeping up with your competitors releases.&#. We said it was like two people who couldn’t swim across the English Channel (21 miles) putting their arms around each other and trying to swim across together. Me: “Zero dilution. I promise they’re not.

Merger 276

Merger Technical Review Early Stage Dilution 276

ConversionXL

JANUARY 18, 2022

Muun found a market need but failed to compete with bigger names that provided customers with authoritative content and resources. One neglected its positioning by failing to target the biggest pain point, and the other failed to build a brand that its customers could trust above the other major players.

Marketing 110

Marketing Product Audience Equity 110

The Startup Magazine

OCTOBER 5, 2020

And without a steady, sustainable stream of new customers, cash reserves will dwindle, revenues will dry up, and bankruptcy will inevitably ensue. Larger, more established enterprises can take on the cost of testing a large number of marketing channels. Lead qualification should occur early in your sales funnel.

Customer 91

Customer Lead Generation Early Stage Social Media 91

Startup Professionals Musings

JULY 3, 2012

There are unknowns at every turn, leading product development, attracting customers, managing cash, and dealing with human resources and office politics. Stretch” goals in early-stage are not advised. The other side of this coin can be equally disastrous; the change of direction based on every customer or investor comment.

Advisory Board 240

Advisory Board Forecast Early Stage Product Development 240

Startup Lessons Learned

OCTOBER 11, 2018

We’re looking forward to channeling the energy and excitement attendees bring with them, and to providing opportunities to learn about not just things that have been successful, but missteps and major obstacles that have been overcome--all part of the Lean Startup process. For the whole program, please take a look here.

Lean 103

Lean Las Vegas Cofounder Startup 103

Startup Professionals Musings

MAY 7, 2012

It’s a long way from an entrepreneur’s “idea” to a working product with a real market and paying customers. Building a prototype should be an early and high priority task for every startup. Test your idea early in a form that is easy and inexpensive to modify. Leverage the technology to change directions as needed.

Startup 242

Startup Database Early Stage Distribution 242

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? In an early-stage startup especially, revenue is not an important goal in and of itself. The problem stems from selling each customer a custom one-time product.

Customer 167

Customer San Francisco Lean Hockey Stick 167

Version One Ventures

SEPTEMBER 19, 2012

So most early-stage VCs have started to evaluate investment opportunities with an imaginary benchmark in mind: can this company become a $100 million opportunity? Early users of a product are often strong advocates and company ambassadors, while those users acquired through paid marketing channels down the road show far less loyalty.

Churn Rate 168

Churn Rate Viral Acquisition Cofounder 168

Startup Professionals Musings

MAY 21, 2023

Here is my list of the ten most common sources of funding today, in reverse priority sequence, with some rules of thumb to channel your focus: Seek a bank loan or credit-card line-of-credit. Negotiate an advance from a strategic partner or customer. Variations on this theme include early licensing or white-labeling agreements.

Equity 266

Equity Startup Small Business Administration SBA 266

Both Sides of the Table

APRIL 4, 2011

4 times / 100 means if a customer uses your app frequently (say 10-20 times / day) then they are crashing nearly every day. And given your stage of development you sure better at least know what your goal is. Because it can be hard to define or agree company objectives at an early stage I believe most people avoid them.

Metrics 346

Metrics Startup Acquisition SEM 346

YoungUpstarts

FEBRUARY 7, 2019

A crucial factor when completing the early stages of your strategy is to carry out enough research so that you have a deep understanding of your target audience. Potential customers – Identify exactly who your customers are, or will be, and establish what they want and need from your product or service.

Sales 113

Sales Argentina Technical Review B2B 113

Startup Professionals Musings

APRIL 20, 2011

There are unknowns at every turn, leading product development, attracting customers, managing cash, and dealing with human resources and office politics. Stretch” goals in early-stage are not advised. The other side of this coin can be equally disastrous; the change of direction based on every customer or investor comment.

Advisory Board 232

Advisory Board Startup Forecast Early Stage 232

ConversionXL

JANUARY 28, 2021

We won’t proclaim one is the ‘best’ customer data platform (CDP) for which every business, including yours, should use. Instead, we’ll be covering the core use cases that customer data platforms address and explore whether Segment or Mparticle ultimately deserves a spot in your tech stack. The Rise of CDPs.

Technical Review 86

Technical Review Software Review Analytics Technical Cofounder 86

Up and Running

JULY 28, 2022

Nonprofit – An organization whose mission primarily isn’t to make profits for the owners but to channel revenue it generates to fund a social mission or cause. The right time for drafting a founders agreement is in the early stages of business. Correctly classify your workers. Establish a privacy policy.

Small Business 167

Small Business Intellectual Property Cofounder Software Review 167