Startup Professionals Musings

JANUARY 30, 2021

Most technical entrepreneurs focus hard on building an innovative product, but forget that an elegant solution doesn’t automatically translate into a successful business. Estimate your costs, including a 50 percent gross margin, as a lower bound on a price. Here again is your chance to make pivots for almost no cost.

Technical Review 399

Technical Review Product Advisory Board Business Model 399

The Next Web

DECEMBER 2, 2013

Here are their breakdowns of the costs and time investments to create 10 of the world’s hottest startups. This means — assuming you already have a laptop — the cost is almost nothing to build the next Twitter. Luck, timing and social engineering are bigger components than most entrepreneurs care to imagine,” adds Werdelin.

Cost 168

Cost San Francisco New York City Ruby 168

A Smart Bear: Startups and Marketing for Geeks

OCTOBER 11, 2010

We're putting a 'Retweet' button inside the product to encourage viral growth.". This is the viral step: Having trialed the tool, the stranger might use it herself, then more people find out about it, and so forth. I know of no companies who have " gone viral " because of buttons. Buttons are good — why not use them?

Software Review 261

Software Review Technical Review Viral Software Developers 261

Startup Professionals Musings

NOVEMBER 27, 2011

Many of the businesses and entrepreneurs I know still don’t realize that they need to use and understand the Internet, even if their interest is not e-commerce. If you have heard the lingo, but most of these are not in your startup business plan, you are already in jeopardy as an entrepreneur: Blogging. Viral marketing.

Internet 239

Internet SEM Wiki Viral 239

Both Sides of the Table

JANUARY 12, 2014

The starting point of product IS marketing, which is what a lot of young entrepreneurs that never studied business don’t realize. They had a viral promotional technique that encouraged your friends to download their app to watch a video they posted and a channel (Facebook) that was trying to grow its video audience. Underbelly.

SEM 379

SEM Viral Marketing Widget 379

Startup Professionals Musings

FEBRUARY 12, 2023

Every entrepreneur I know has their favorite excuse for a previous failure – an investor backed out, the economy took a downturn, or a supplier delivered bad quality. It’s important to learn from your own mistakes, but it’s even smarter to learn from someone else’s mistakes, without paying their high price in time lost, cost, and pain.

Intellectual Property 312

Intellectual Property Startup Angel Investor Viral 312

Startup Professionals Musings

JUNE 26, 2020

As an advisor to new hardware entrepreneurs, I often hear the myth that a business plan is no longer required to find an investor, if your idea is good enough. What you don’t realize is these famous investors only deal with entrepreneurs who sold their last company for a $100M dollars or more.

Business Plan 423

Business Plan Product Intellectual Property Elevator Pitch 423

Startup Professionals Musings

FEBRUARY 20, 2023

Thus smart business professionals are rapidly becoming the new entrepreneurs. Of course, entrepreneurs delivering services have existed for some time, including business consultant, independent contractor, and freelancer titles. For existing trained professionals, it’s an opportunity to become an entrepreneur.

Angel Investor 267

Angel Investor Social Media LLC Viral 267

Startup Professionals Musings

NOVEMBER 2, 2022

Entrepreneurs see “no risk” as meaning “no reward.” There are no guarantees in business, but it pays to learn from the experiences of entrepreneurs and business experts who have gone before you. Even non-profits need revenue to cover their costs, and continue to provide services. In reality, all risks are not the same.

Forecast 304

Forecast Stock Options Technical Review Metrics 304

Startup Professionals Musings

AUGUST 27, 2014

Entrepreneurs see “no risk” as meaning “no reward.” There are no guarantees in business, but it pays to learn from the experiences of entrepreneurs and business experts who have gone before you. Even non-profits need revenue to cover their costs, and continue to provide services. In reality, all risks are not the same.

Startup 283

Startup Forecast Stock Options Technical Review 283

Startup Professionals Musings

OCTOBER 9, 2023

Most technical entrepreneurs focus hard on building an innovative product, but forget that an elegant solution doesn’t automatically translate into a successful business. Estimate your costs, including a 50 percent gross margin, as a lower bound on a price. Here again is your chance to make pivots for almost no cost.

Technical Review 220

Technical Review Advisory Board Software Review Business Model 220

Both Sides of the Table

MAY 23, 2012

Cloud computing and the open source movements have brought down the costs of starting a company by more than 90%. The movie, “The Social Network” might have had more of an impact on creating future entrepreneurs than any other event of the past 5 years. The number of startups being created has increased by an order of magnitude.

Venture Capital 347

Venture Capital Technical Review LP Mobile 347

Both Sides of the Table

SEPTEMBER 2, 2009

A friend of mine is a serial entrepreneur and is running a high-profile, early stage company in NorCal. We exchanged ideas when I was an entrepreneur along side him in NorCal in 05-07 and my point-of-view on founder / VC relationships hasn’t shifted even 1% since I went to the dark side. >50% of our revenue in now viral.

Founder 329

Founder Liquidation Preference Term Sheet Participating Preferred 329

Both Sides of the Table

JANUARY 11, 2014

And if there is a term for that which helps entrepreneurs stay focused on these good and true objectives then I’m all for it. We spend a lot of time trying to get people focused on building products that have viral components and why that has to be measured and constantly tested.

Technical Review 384

Technical Review Hockey Stick SEM Channel 384

Version One Ventures

SEPTEMBER 19, 2012

Your business has a high viral co-efficient (or perhaps even a network effect) that lets you amass users cheaply without worrying too much about the monetization per user or spending money on paid acquisition. High LTV can usually be found in transactional or subscription businesses. In addition, churn tends to rise as a company grows.

Churn Rate 168

Churn Rate Viral Acquisition Cofounder 168

Startup Professionals Musings

APRIL 15, 2015

Thus smart business professionals are rapidly becoming the new entrepreneurs. Of course, entrepreneurs delivering services have existed for some time, including business consultant, independent contractor, and freelancer titles. For existing trained professionals, it’s an opportunity to become an entrepreneur.

Entrepreneur 120

Entrepreneur Angel Investor Social Media LLC 120

Startup Professionals Musings

SEPTEMBER 28, 2012

It seems to me that there is abundant proof in the marketplace of the financial returns to both large and small businesses, the low cost of entry, and the ubiquity of social networks. Read everything you can about viral marketing. Then continue to measure and learn what works, at what cost. What’s the problem?

Social Media 289

Social Media Small Business Media Technical Review 289

Startup Professionals Musings

APRIL 17, 2016

Thus smart business professionals are rapidly becoming the new entrepreneurs. Of course, entrepreneurs delivering services have existed for some time, including business consultant, independent contractor, and freelancer titles. For existing trained professionals, it’s an opportunity to become an entrepreneur.

Entrepreneur 120

Entrepreneur Angel Investor Social Media LLC 120

Both Sides of the Table

APRIL 4, 2011

Measuring viral adoption is obviously important. The next step after measuring the customers you’re adding is to add the “cost to acquire” by channel. In the early phases if you can’t acquire customers cost effectively enough you’ll need to diagnose why and how to fix it. Now you can two levels to get your cost-to-acquire down.

Metrics 346

Metrics Startup Acquisition SEM 346

Both Sides of the Table

APRIL 12, 2018

Founder, Founder, Founder At Upfront we talk regularly about how 70% of our investment decision in Seed and A rounds is the quality of the entrepreneur and 30% is the quality of the idea. Jamie Siminoff is not only one of the single best true entrepreneurs in Los Angeles, he’s amongst the best we’ve worked with in the country.

Security 247

Security Los Angeles Silicon Valley Video 247

Hearpreneur

OCTOBER 25, 2023

We asked entrepreneurs, and business owners their tips on building an e-commerce business and here are the responses. #1- 4- Invest in content marketing Photo Credit: Alex Nigmatulin As entrepreneurs and business owners, one of our top tips for building a successful e-commerce venture is to invest in content marketing right from day one.

eCommerce 143

eCommerce Omaha Entrepreneur SEO 143

SoCal CTO

MARCH 11, 2013

How much is it costing you to get users? Yet most of the newly minted entrepreneurs I've met think their job is nearly done when they've found MVP - they think they can go build a pitch off their early MVP and raise money! How much are you making from your users?" " And other similar questions.

Algorithm 264

Algorithm Metrics Viral Venture Capital 264

YoungUpstarts

APRIL 21, 2013

Enter “ The Lean Startup: How Today’s Entrepreneurs Use Continuous Innovation to Create Radically Successful Businesses “, a New York Times bestseller by founder of IMVU (creator of 3D avatars) Eric Ries. Validated learning should be the goal of all entrepreneurs.

Lean 193

Lean Technical Review North America Startup 193

reidhoffman.org

NOVEMBER 12, 2013

. × At Greylock , my partners and I are driven by one guiding mission: always help entrepreneurs. It doesn’t matter whether an entrepreneur is in our portfolio, whether we’re considering an investment, or whether we’re casually meeting for the first time. Entrepreneurs often ask me for help with their pitch decks.

Entrepreneur 111

Entrepreneur Viral Revenue Networking 111

Hearpreneur

DECEMBER 28, 2022

So, that’s why we are excited about 2023 because there will be more and more entrepreneurs and businesses. Here’s the pivot other entrepreneurs are making next year: #1- Release more studies. I intend to release one study every three months, which I'll send to journalists in the hopes of generating viral attention on social media.

Social Media 127

Social Media Entrepreneur Retention Finance 127

The Next Web

OCTOBER 28, 2012

One explanation is that “growth hacking” is just a catchy way to rebrand marketers, but this begs the question as to why “growth hacking” went viral in the first place. With the cost of starting and running a startup at all time lows, it is now easier than ever to attempt to take market share. Channel saturation. Product-growth fit.

Technical Review 150

Technical Review San Francisco Software Review Distribution 150

VC Cafe

SEPTEMBER 5, 2012

Growth Hacking isn’t viral marketing (although viral marketing is part of it). and answers with A/B tests, landing pages, viral factor, email deliverability, and Open Graph. If a startup is pre-product/market fit, growth hackers can make sure virality is embedded at the core of a product.

API 167

API Viral Startup Retention 167

Hearpreneur

JANUARY 22, 2023

We asked entrepreneurs and business owners about the 2023 trends they see in their industry and here are the responses. #1- However, that doesn't mean you should ignore cost or quality. This expedited shift to remote teams has opened the door for new, global staffing opportunities at a substantially lower cost.

Artificial Inteligence 127

Artificial Inteligence Technical Review Entrepreneur Social Media 127

Steve Blank

NOVEMBER 16, 2009

Business Model Affects Metrics and Exit Criteria Web-based Business Model Exit Criteria In a web-business model you’re looking for traffic, users, conversion, virality, etc – not revenue. Don’t spend time and money on getting the word out about your product beyond what you need to do discovery and validation. End of theory.&#

Customer Development 228

Customer Development Web Developer Customer 228

Startup Professionals Musings

FEBRUARY 17, 2018

Entrepreneurs see “no risk” as meaning “no reward.” There are no guarantees in business, but it pays to learn from the experiences of entrepreneurs and business experts who have gone before you. Even non-profits need revenue to cover their costs, and continue to provide services. In reality, all risks are not the same.

Forecast 161

Forecast Stock Options Technical Review Metrics 161

The Startup Magazine

NOVEMBER 9, 2019

However, many entrepreneurs have a fair share of beliefs and misconceptions about web design and development. Misconception #2: Once Your Website Is Launched, It Will Instantly Go Viral. No matter how minimalist or visually appealing a website is, it will never go viral unless the owner takes the necessary steps to make it happen.

Web 91

Web Design Developer Software Review 91

The Next Web

AUGUST 19, 2013

Mikita Mikado is a software engineer and entrepreneur from Belarus, now based in San Francisco. Customer Acquisition Cost or CAC is how much money you can spend to get someone to become a customer. Direct sales take a lot of their time, which will cost your budding business. Some partnerships cost you nearly $0 in CAC.

Belarus 137

Belarus Viral Channel Startup 137

Startup Professionals Musings

MARCH 4, 2016

The good news is that everyone expects entrepreneurs to make mistakes, since founders explore uncharted territory. As a result, repeating any of the following 10 mistakes outlined here won’t get you any credit for intelligence and learning and will cost you dearly in your funding credibility and real cash.

Intellectual Property 120

Intellectual Property Startup Forecast Angel Investor 120

Duct Tape Marketing

MAY 30, 2014

7 Ways Entrepreneurs Can Use Video To Grow Their New Business written by Guest Post read more at Small Business Marketing Blog from Duct Tape Marketing. Let’s look at 7 ways entrepreneurs can use video to grow their new business. Viral Video Marketing. Congratulations! Creating Brand Recognition. What about cake mixes?

Video 78

Video Widget Software Review Entrepreneur 78

Startup Professionals Musings

FEBRUARY 7, 2015

Most technical entrepreneurs focus hard on building an innovative product, but forget that an elegant solution doesn’t automatically translate into a successful business. Estimate your costs, including a 50 percent gross margin, as a lower bound on a price. Here again is your chance to make pivots for almost no cost.

Business Model 120

Business Model Technical Review Advisory Board Software Review 120

Startup Lessons Learned

DECEMBER 14, 2009

In a previous post , I covered the three main drivers of growth: Paid, Sticky, and Viral. A business that strives for something like this should absolutely be charging money from day one, in order to establish baselines for their two key metrics: CPA (the cost to acquire a new customer) and LTV (the lifetime value of each acquired customer).

Customer 156

Customer San Francisco Viral Lean 156

The Next Web

DECEMBER 17, 2013

Naming your startup can be one of the most difficult challenges for an entrepreneur. It’s like a TLD for techies with taste” says entrepreneur Russell Beattie. Listly is a content marketing tool that helps helping bloggers and publishers “ take lists to the next level ” by creating lists that are social, viral and constantly evolving.

Naming 166

Naming Cofounder New York Taiwan 166