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. But I've often been very surprised by one aspect of these conversations. It needs to be a conversation. eCommerce - Is this subscription? There's just too much variation. Free-trials?

Developer 384

Developer Founder Viral Oauth 384

Up and Running

SEPTEMBER 19, 2017

Background: Justin Klemm’s analytics and website uptime startup, Ghost Inspector , wants to revolutionize the way businesses manage their ecommerce funnels. million early-stage raise that involved pitching to over a dozen PE firms, which took months to negotiate. His first capital raise was a $2.75

Private Equity 94

Private Equity Pre-Money Valuation Equity Startup 94

YoungUpstarts

DECEMBER 7, 2015

The holidays are approaching, and mobile is going to play a bigger role in eCommerce than ever before. Mobile Checkout Conversions Will Improve But Remain A Challenge. On mobile devices, the shopping cart abandonment challenge is even greater, as mobile conversion rates are about 70% lower than desktop.

Mobile 100

Mobile Software Review eCommerce .Net 100

Up and Running

SEPTEMBER 5, 2018

For most ecommerce entrepreneurs, building a business is all about optimizing the website, fine-tuning PPC advertising, and relentlessly perfecting email strategy. These are cornerstone tactics when growing an ecommerce business , and countless entrepreneurs have built thriving, profitable businesses using these tools alone.

eCommerce 60

eCommerce Mobile Developer Retention 60

The Equity Kicker

JUNE 26, 2014

We are a bit like an accelerator programme, a bit like an incubator and a bit like a straight early stage fund, yet we are also different to all of these things in crucial ways. Finally, we are different to early stage funds (and many of them are great early stage funds) because we spend much more money supporting our portfolio.

eCommerce 98

eCommerce Partner Incubator Early Stage 98

crowdSPRING Blog

APRIL 25, 2014

Early Stage Startups: The Biggest Killers | Forbes – crowdspring.co/1mtenKl. 25 effective design patterns for ecommerce site search results | Econsultancy – crowdspring.co/1ms6D8K. 7 simple IA mistakes that could be undermining your conversions | Webdesigner Depot – crowdspring.co/1ijEY9t. 1iDjuUW.

Social Media 92

Social Media Small Business Design Media 92

Both Sides of the Table

JUNE 27, 2021

We try to balance deals across (amongst other things): cyber-security, FinTech, computer vision, marketplaces, video games & gaming infrastructure, marketing automation, applied biology & healthcare systems, sustainability and eCommerce. Early-stage venture capital is about extreme winners. We do other things, too.

Bankruptcy 294

Bankruptcy Bridge Financing Portfolio Angel Investor 294

Up and Running

AUGUST 17, 2015

During the early stages of the process, they launched a catering business and were able to cater several business school events, all the while refining their menu and getting firsthand experience test driving their concept. Another couple of classmates spent their two years at Wharton launching an eCommerce handbag brand.

Entrepreneur 60

Entrepreneur Cofounder Angel Investor eCommerce 60

The Equity Kicker

JULY 16, 2015

Team structure in early stage ecommerce and marketplace companies is a function of manpower and skills necessary to build the company and the founder(s)’ skillset(s). Also, early hires should be capable of dealing with ambiguity and fuzzy role definitions.

eCommerce 60

eCommerce Burn Rate Early Stage Hiring 60

View from Seed

JULY 15, 2020

One topic of conversation among VC’s over the last few months is how their portfolios are faring during the Covid pandemic. Some early stage businesses may even be able to get to CFBE fairly quickly. Their burns are quite low, and they can probably extend runway without requiring a huge amount of additional capital.

Portfolio 217

Portfolio IRR Dilution Distribution 217

Both Sides of the Table

MARCH 12, 2013

Greg was the first person to share with me the insights of mobile conversion and why with a simpler product selection and conversion funnel they would get higher conversion on mobile than on the web. On each subsequent meeting I’d learn a little bit more. And largely synergistic with what we do – which is awesome.

Partner 360

Partner Las Vegas Los Angeles San Francisco 360

The Equity Kicker

AUGUST 11, 2014

At Forward Partners we invest in early stage companies in the ecommerce ecosystem, often from company inception. We have to evaluate the idea and conversations with potential customers areone way of doing that. A typical conversation might go like this: Me: That sounds like aninteresting idea.

Customer 115

Customer Early Stage eCommerce Conversion 115

Austin Startup

DECEMBER 20, 2020

Ben previously co-founded Simply Interactive, Chaotic Moon, and Conversable leading all of them to successful exits. He is an ecommerce innovator with first Coremetrics and then Bazaarvoice, a very active angel investor, and currently Founder and CEO of data.world. He’s also on the board of the Planetary Society and the Arch Mission.

Austin 110

Austin Texas Cofounder Los Angeles 110

Up and Running

JUNE 14, 2017

Early stage idea validation can be accomplished without building an application. Out of those 600, 256 committed to the platform by agreeing to be associated with Recycler Spotter for recycling (recycling facilities) and giving away rewards (restaurants, coffee shops, ecommerce stores, and so on) to our users.

Technical Review 96

Technical Review Distribution Redemption Demand 96

Early Growth Financial Services

DECEMBER 11, 2012

by Tony Karrer Originally published on SoCal CTO Almost every day I’m talking to early stage startup founders (see Free Startup CTO Consulting Sessions) about what they plan to do. But I’ve often been very surprised by one aspect of these conversations. It needs to be a conversation.

Fractional CTO 44

Fractional CTO Developer Product Development Founder 44

Scalable Startup

AUGUST 18, 2013

Anyone who’s been around me for the past 6-12 months has been inundated with my evangelism of eCommerce in general and Drupal + PHP. The world has changed – software development, app dev, and software engineering are taking over the center of the conversation, and Drupal/PHP is taking over the lead. Big boy applications.

Software Developers 22

Software Developers Software Development PHP Silicon Valley 22

Both Sides of the Table

APRIL 28, 2010

It’s true that the carrier then gets their huge slice for being the billing and payment engine but the idea is that you as a website more than make up for this in terms of customer conversion. Boy, there has been a lot of innovation in the eCommerce space in the past few years with GroupOn, HauteLook, Gilt Groupe and others.

Venture Capital 270

Venture Capital Cofounder Spain San Diego 270

YoungUpstarts

JANUARY 2, 2019

While still in its early stages, machine learning has already had a significant impact on different aspects of everyday life. His passion is helping leading brands use data to make more effective decisions in order to drive new traffic and conversions. by Ronald Dod, Chief Marketing Officer and Co-founder of Visiture.

Artificial Inteligence 127

Artificial Inteligence Algorithm Semantic Cofounder 127

Up and Running

JULY 26, 2016

Selling a product is a tough process, full of “no’s,” whether they come on the phone with a prospect or as a low conversion rate on your landing page. For ecommerce, this is based on transaction size, commission, and chances of the user returning. Most campaigns can be optimized to increase conversion rates and lower costs.

Revenue 60

Revenue Acquisition Channel Campaign 60

VC Cafe

NOVEMBER 2, 2019

One question that keeps coming up when speaking with early stage entrepreneurs when it comes to funding, is what metrics the company needs to hit to raise seed/series A/B etc: What’s a good conversion rate? eCommerce is different than free consumer apps, games are on a league of their own, etc.

B2C 141

B2C Technical Review Startup Retention 141

ConversionXL

FEBRUARY 3, 2016

What Do Habits Have to Do with Conversion Rate Optimization? Of course, most companies know this, especially those in the eCommerce space. It might be an early stage habit or a less frequently triggered habit, for example. Traditionally, optimizers have been taught to optimize for the initial conversion.

Conversion 48

Conversion Technical Review Software Review B2B 48

ConversionXL

MARCH 22, 2017

However, there’s a big problem when it comes to mobile for many retailers: conversion rates are are lagging. Mobile Conversion Rates Lag Behind, Though. conversion rate sits around 4% on desktop, but drops to a mere 1.3% Sources of Friction Within Mobile Ecommerce. Digital Wallets: Improving Mobile Conversions.

Mobile 88

Mobile eCommerce Software Review Conversion 88

Occam's Razor

MAY 2, 2017

Ecommerce: Betabrand. Outcomes: Revenue | Ideas Funded Behavior: Path Length | Cart Abandonment Rate Acquisition: Assisted Conversions | Share of Search. Every ecommerce site has to obsess about Revenue. You swap out Ideas Funded for something relevant, and the above six can be used by any large ecommerce business.

Metrics 141

Metrics Acquisition eCommerce Analytics 141

Hunter Walker

FEBRUARY 2, 2015

” Conversely, teams across the world can develop products for themselves (or their parents, their kids, their friends, etc) and find that they can reach hundreds of millions of people, without needing adoption in the US. Micropayments, direct transactions, ecommerce and so on. How different today!

Silicon Valley 48

Silicon Valley Japan Early Stage Startup 48

The Equity Kicker

FEBRUARY 24, 2014

Why I have taken on this challenge now, at this moment in time, really boils down to 3 reasons; The VC model is changing and I believe that the approach that we are taking at Forward Partners will become the future of early stage tech investment. I’ve tested pricing models and conversion rates.

Partner 91

Partner Early Stage Business Model HTML 91

The Equity Kicker

AUGUST 8, 2017

Until now we have focused on marketplaces and next generation ecommerce. That meant lots of consumer and small business focused marketplaces and next generation ecommerce companies. Suitable for early stage investment. natural language processing enables conversational interfaces). We can articulate use cases.

Artificial Inteligence 78

Artificial Inteligence eCommerce Early Stage Algorithm 78

VC Cafe

SEPTEMBER 8, 2021

We are not too far off from the ability to segment customers in real time, create and launch marketing campaigns generated with AI and iterate on the creative materials based on the conversion data – a fully autonomous marketing cycle. In this post I cover a non-exhaustive list of content categories that are being re-invented with AI.

Artificial Inteligence 199

Artificial Inteligence Technical Review Audio Video 199

Up and Running

MARCH 16, 2015

Don’t rush yourself in these early stages, as defining your target market underpins the success of all your efforts online. Starting a Business ecommerce Online store' This can only be done if you know your niche market, as well as which consumers are most likely to buy into your business proposition. What is my annual turnover?

eCommerce 60

eCommerce Early Stage Restful Metrics 60

Up and Running

DECEMBER 17, 2020

And one question that many startups overlook at the early stages of formulating their business plans: do you have a well-reasoned, effective, and budget-savvy marketing plan? eCommerce tools. Is it the first product to do so? Is it differentiated from other products in its competitive set? Entrepreneurs aren’t superheroes.

Marketing 142

Marketing Technical Review SEO Hosting 142

Austin Startup

FEBRUARY 28, 2019

Artificial Intelligence, eCommerce CPG, Defense Industry, Cybersecurity (San Antonio will be joining us in Austin) Why are we doing this? Capital Factory is the most active early stage investor in Texas since 2013. Each city will showcase entrepreneurs and scaling companies with different themes: June 4 in Dallas ?—?Retail

Texas 50

Texas San Antonio Houston Dallas 50

ReadWriteStart

JUNE 17, 2020

The Early Stages of Promoting Your Startup. If you’re in the early stages of promoting your startup , you’ve probably thought about trying every possible marketing tactic out there: emails, blog posts, targeted ads on social media — you name it. explainer videos. and customer testimonials.

Video 150

Video Software Review Startup Audience 150

This is going to be BIG.

SEPTEMBER 1, 2010

An investor says something that makes them *seem* entrepreneur friendly, and then, because the early stage is very competitive, every other investor playing in that space has to follow suit—otherwise they look bad.

Equity 104

Equity Term Sheet Seed Stage Angel Investor 104

YoungUpstarts

DECEMBER 21, 2016

Any conversation about goals and measures of success also must touch on identifying what determines a positive result. Impressions are helpful but conversions are your life blood. While you’re patting yourself on the back, your campaign may be greatly underperforming. Are you seeing repeat customers and fostering loyalty?

Social Media 100

Social Media Cost Media Advertising 100

Both Sides of the Table

MAY 7, 2016

If you’re an early-stage startup and even contemplating acquiring other companies slap yourself in the face and focus on your own business instead. Your eCommerce company has too much unsold inventory. Or some teams who start driving revenue paper over the fact that they aren’t acquiring customers profitably.

Churn Rate 150

Churn Rate Vesting Dilution Europe 150

Rob Go

NOVEMBER 15, 2016

I’ve had a couple conversations with other investors recently around what a seed stage company needs to achieve to raise a series A. 5M in ecommerce revenue or marketplace GMV used to be interesting, but now it’s more like $10M. This strategy can also fail because the goal line might move. $1M

Product 28

Product Seed Stage Seed Money Metrics 28

Duct Tape Marketing

MARCH 5, 2019

Klaviyo is a platform that helps growth-focused eCommerce brands drive more sales with super-targeted, highly relevant email, Facebook and Instagram marketing. John Jantsch: As a practitioner, do you find that having that conversation of how would somebody become aware, what are the other ways they become aware? Arnie Kuenn: Correct.

Customer 59

Customer Search Vertical Early Stage 59

ConversionXL

MAY 4, 2016

Because a bad UX means fewer conversions. Without usability testing and other forms of conversion research, you’re leaving money on the table. Unfortunately, that’s not always what’s best for conversions. When conducting user testing, ask users to perform the key tasks within your conversion funnel (e.g.

Mobile 48

Mobile Jordan Design Conversion 48