Version One Ventures

FEBRUARY 15, 2017

And selling to institutions requires a long sales cycle. Top Hat adopted a bottoms-up approach to distribution, as covered in the Globe and Mail article: Sales took off after Top Hat ignored advice and flipped its sales strategy. Ultimately, success comes down to the persistence and hustle of the founders.

Vertical 132

Vertical Technical Review Cofounder Sales Cycle 132

View from Seed

MARCH 3, 2015

But even with that webinar’s success, we still had a lot of education to do in order to get people to understand what we did and even how we saw marketing in general, which we needed to do to generate demand and sales. But marketing should always be ahead of sales to alleviate pressure. We got 300.

Marketing 120

Marketing Sales Cycle Startup CTO Hire 120

Duct Tape Marketing

APRIL 18, 2024

Key Takeaways Mandi Ellefson, founder of Hands-off CEO, shares her journey from overwhelming debt to multimillionaire status by transforming consulting agencies into self-sustaining enterprises. Mandi (12:58): And then the root cause of that is the pricing structure for how you're operating. I can't quite let go of this.

Framework 64

Framework Sales Cycle Sales Hiring 64

YoungUpstarts

AUGUST 19, 2016

Then come the marketing, sales, and accounting considerations. WeVue co-founder Taylor Wallace told me he doesn’t have a lot of time for training in the competitive software development industry, so he hires the “naturally curious” to fit with the company’s product-oriented business model. Does your budget reflect that?

Startup 100

Startup Burn Rate Cofounder Salary 100

Both Sides of the Table

SEPTEMBER 8, 2010

Howard Lindzon weighed in with his comments : “As a CEO of a venture backed business myself and founder of many others, I would add one thing… Thick Skin. My first company was founded in Ireland, headquartered in England and had country operations in the UK, France & Germany. If you fail, you need to start all over.

Ireland 319

Ireland Sales Bankruptcy Germany 319

Startup Professionals Musings

MARCH 20, 2023

These founders all seem to be pushing their technology, rather than highlighting their solution to a painful need. Technologies that cure world hunger may find that that hungry people don’t have money, and government agencies as customers are a very long sales cycle. I say again, customers buy solutions, not technology.

Customer 276

Customer Sales Cycle Social Media Viral 276

ConversionXL

NOVEMBER 5, 2020

Back in 2016, I read a book called Sprint by Jake Knapp, founder of Google Ventures. I put together a one-page website, a list of 100 people to reach out to, and a cold email script that would make seasoned sales professionals cringe. These days, many agencies start as a lean operation. Another three came on board 45 days later.

PR 120

PR B2B Lean Audience 120

Hunter Walker

JUNE 7, 2014

Not because they’re all operating in stealth or pre-product – in fact some already are earning $1m+ in revenue per annum. Founders are building small, focused teams based on people they worked with previously and referrals from their networks. Word of mouth spreads faster and sales cycles are shorter.

Technical Review 118

Technical Review CTO Hire Finance Stealth 118

A Smart Bear: Startups and Marketing for Geeks

AUGUST 29, 2011

We founders unwittingly focus on how to make the best customer experiences better , rather than making the worst experiences less worse , and sometimes this is a mistake. If you liked that, you'll probably like these too: Tech Support *is* sales. For the same reason that I keep recommending Bill. Tweet. -->.

Technical Review 236

Technical Review Software Review Reputation Sales Cycle 236

Duct Tape Marketing

NOVEMBER 17, 2022

Debbie is the co-founder and CEO of Senior Living SMART, a full-service marketing agency focused exclusively on the senior housing and care industry. She is the co-founder and CEO of Senior Living Smart, a full service marketing agency focused exclusively on the senior housing and care industry. Marketing Podcast with Debbie Howard.

Differentiation 74

Differentiation Sales Cycle Audio Networking 74

Steve Blank

MARCH 17, 2020

Here are a few thoughts about operating in uncertainty in a pandemic. All your assumptions about customers, sales cycle and most importantly, revenue, burn rate and runway are no longer true. If you are selling to businesses (a B-to-B market) have your customers’ sales dropped? Or you change sales strategy.

Burn Rate 436

Burn Rate Startup Valuation Sales Cycle 436

ReadWriteStart

JUNE 16, 2011

In the case of Freshdesk, their main competitor, Zendesk, is operating with a San Francisco - Copenhagen cost-structure and will find it harder to compete with this strategy. The founders, Sunil Guttula and Abinasha Karana, are experienced IT professional with 15 years of experience between them solving various enterprise IT problems.

India 123

India Bootstrapping Non-Compete Entrepreneur 123

Startup Professionals Musings

JUNE 19, 2020

These founders all seem to be pushing their technology, rather than highlighting their solution to a painful need. Technologies that cure world hunger may find that that hungry people don’t have money, and government agencies as customers are a very long sales cycle. Customers buy solutions, not technology.

Technology 317

Technology Marketing Sales Cycle Social Media 317

Where to Play

FEBRUARY 5, 2019

Adrien Briod , the co-founder, envisioned how a collision-tolerant drone would assist in managing such dangerous situations. It can fly or roll on any surface, and will actually be able to operate in a wide range of temperatures and pressures. They call it Elios. The Challenge.

Agile 54

Agile Technical Review Sales Cycle Distribution 54

Hippoland

AUGUST 8, 2018

At Hustle Fund, we back both first time founders as well as repeat founders. One thing I’ve noticed is that almost every repeat, previously-successful-founder focuses on the same thing for their respective startups: customer acquisition. Sales cycles matter though. don’t think about at all.

Founder 48

Founder Sales Cycle Affiliate Retention 48

Hippoland

AUGUST 8, 2018

At Hustle Fund, we back both first time founders as well as repeat founders. One thing I’ve noticed is that almost every repeat, previously-successful-founder focuses on the same thing for their respective startups: customer acquisition. Sales cycles matter though. don’t think about at all.

Founder 48

Founder Sales Cycle Affiliate Retention 48

Austin Startup

APRIL 17, 2017

Internship Title: Business Development Intern Compensation: Paid — $10/hr Description: The Business Development Intern will assist the Sales Team in Prospecting, Outreach and Qualifying leads, and work directly with the Business Development Manager. This position will provide sales, negotiation, CRM and inbound/outbound outreach experience.

Semantic 48

Semantic Social Media Database Artificial Inteligence 48

Both Sides of the Table

OCTOBER 19, 2009

After my company was acquired by Salesforce.com I was asked to stop blogging and they took over my blog as an asset in the sale of the company. Another called Parker Harris, the co-founder and CTO. I had planned a balance of large companies and SMB/divisional sales but have changed my thinking. My blog was wiped out.

Venture Capital 274

Venture Capital Term Sheet San Diego Viral 274

NZ Entrepreneur

SEPTEMBER 16, 2020

The statistics show that even though most founders bet their time and resources that their startups will be the best in the world, 90% of those new startups won’t be in operation in 10-15 years. Key Variables to Consider: Sales units. Founders are typically ambitious when projecting sales volumes. Timing of sales.

Startup 69

Startup Sales Cycle Down Round Revenue 69

Startup Professionals Musings

SEPTEMBER 20, 2014

These founders all seem to be pushing their technology, rather than highlighting their solution to a painful need. Creators of technologies that cure world hunger may find that hungry people don’t have money, but government agencies as customers are a very long sales cycle. Customers buy solutions, not technology.

Technology 286

Technology Startup Sales Cycle Social Media 286

Startup Lessons Learned

APRIL 14, 2009

It should be even more important to the founders themselves, because it demonstrates that their business hypothesis is grounded in reality. For a startup, having great sales DNA is a wonderful asset. But here’s where a truly great sales artist comes in. More on that in a moment. They are closing orders.

Customer 167

Customer San Francisco Lean Hockey Stick 167

ConversionXL

OCTOBER 7, 2022

Understanding CAC by each channel helps you identify areas of opportunity and streamline operations for better ROI. This is due to factors such as maturity, sales cycle, product value, purchase frequency, and customer lifespan. Total marketing spend in Q1 + total sales spend in Q1 / Number of new customers in Q1 = CAC in Q1.

Acquisition 22

Acquisition eCommerce Cost Customer 22

Rob Go

JANUARY 10, 2017

A number of funds that invest in growth-stage companies have established sourcing teams that essentially cold-call founders and track them over a long period of time. Timing is pretty unpredictable, and it’s a long sales cycle. And even better if you have a relationship and can connect them with the founder.

Technical Review 28

Technical Review Due Diligence Deal Flow Early Stage 28

conversionxl.com

SEPTEMBER 10, 2013

The most common mistake startups make is assuming they can operate the same way big companies do, and expect success with little to no feedback from potential customers. ” To make the concept a little less abstract, Sean Ellis , founder of Qualaroo, has created a metric for knowing when you’ve achieve Product/Market fit.

Customer Development 60

Customer Development Conversion Developer Customer 60

Startup Professionals Musings

JUNE 19, 2016

These founders all seem to be pushing their technology, rather than highlighting their solution to a painful need. Technologies that cure world hunger may find that that hungry people don’t have money, and government agencies as customers are a very long sales cycle. Customers buy solutions, not technology.

Sales Cycle 120

Sales Cycle Social Media Viral Technology 120

The Next Web

JANUARY 5, 2014

Ilya Pozin is the founder of Open Me and Ciplex , and a c olumnist for Inc, Forbes, and LinkedIn. One user is very powerful,” said Lob co-founder Leore Avidar. Sometimes you need to do unscalable stuff to get the first customers to use your product,” said Daniel Zhao, Operations Lead at Lob. entrepreneur. . Think small.

Sales Cycle 166

Sales Cycle Cofounder API Audio 166

ConversionXL

MAY 27, 2022

Very few, if any, of these interactions are with a sales rep. Because if people are making up their own minds, without coercion from sales, creating demand is the best way to get them to choose you. Because if people are making up their own minds, without coercion from sales, creating demand is the best way to get them to choose you.

Demand 95

Demand Management B2B Campaign 95

ConversionXL

MAY 27, 2022

Sales intelligence platform Cognism cut their lead generation efforts by 90% in 2021. In this article, you’ll learn how to build a demand generation funnel that fuels the pipeline, shortens the sale cycle, and generates revenue. an ebook); Then you blast them with sales messaging (e.g., email, ads, retargeting, etc.)

Demand 124

Demand B2B Distribution Channel 124

ReadWriteStart

MAY 4, 2011

First up, Manoj Dharap presented EzeeBank , a core banking solution for credit co-operative societies. Manoj is experiencing a long sales cycle of close to 12 months, but he has already created a sustainable company that has revenues and profits. On the other hand, it can be a perfectly fine owner-owned-and-operated business.

India 116

India Entrepreneur Silicon Valley Massachusetts 116

Hearpreneur

MAY 8, 2022

connections and benefit from quicker sales cycles and more opportunities. As a COO of the Mediumchat group, I'm responsible for all operations including marketing. Our founders and executives were heavily focused on producing top-notch products that can meet the market demands. Thanks to Drew D’Agostino, Crystal ! #5-

Entrepreneur 130

Entrepreneur Audience Social Media Channel 130

Software By Rob

OCTOBER 14, 2010

You have some sales waiting for you once you push the bits to your server. This first group of prospects is a critical source of early sales. You email everyone you know, flex your networking muscles, issue a press release, and end the day with three sales at $20 each. Suddenly things don’t look so bleak.

Software Review 77

Software Review Marketing Technical Review Software 77

ReadWriteStart

NOVEMBER 16, 2010

But you don't have any lords and masters to answer to and the pay out goes entirely to the founders and management team. Guest author Bernard Lunn is a serial entrepreneur and business adviser to start-ups and is ReadWriteWeb's former Chief Operating Officer. He is currently Co-Founder of CapitalMarkets.com and Editor Of SaaSInsights.

Software 127

Software Startup Architecture Bootstrapping 127

The Next Web

MAY 12, 2013

Xeround was founded in 2005 by Sharon Barkai – founder of Sheer networks, which was eventually sold to Cisco , and Dr. Gilad Zlotkin – founder of Class Data, also sold to Cisco. Sales cycles were long and unpredictable. What happens when you over-pivot.

Database 126

Database United States Cloud 126

infochachkie.com

SEPTEMBER 24, 2011

If a consultant claims they can enhance your marketing efforts, pay them based on their direct impact on your incremental sales. Such positions include: PR, Sales, Product Development, Lead Generation, Strategic Planning, Fund Raising, etc. Passion Cannot be Outsourced. Their story, market positioning, products, etc. Pyramid Power.

Equity 40

Equity Silicon Valley Cofounder Technical Review 40

www.forentrepreneurs.com

FEBRUARY 2, 2010

So we know from this that the problem is not the quality of those sales people. They also know precisely how much additional traffic will need to be generated to reach the growth targets, and how many sales people are needed at a given productivity level, etc. SolidWorks 2: The best VAR management program in the world?

Metrics 55

Metrics Design Entrepreneur Startup 55

ConversionXL

JUNE 2, 2022

Account-based marketing (ABM) accounted for 79% of all sales opportunities in 2020. Fullfunnel co-founder Andrei Zinkevich says, “ABM is not that complicated, and it’s also oversimplified.”. How iRidium used audience targeting, networking, and activation to land 34 new sales opportunities. Results of iRidium’s ABM efforts.

Marketing 105

Marketing Campaign Artificial Inteligence Sales Cycle 105