Lightspeed Venture Partners

FEBRUARY 12, 2013

Almost a year ago, my partner Barry Eggers and I met with Craig Elliott and Scott Hankins to talk about their vision for a new company, Pertino. Instead of selling to the CIO (which could have long, costly sales-cycles), Pertino has focused on marketing and selling their services directly to the end-user.

Networking 153

Networking Technical Review Cloud Software Review 153

Austin Startup

OCTOBER 23, 2019

Opening Night Happy Hour and Keynote with Scott Kupor: Secrets of Sandhill Road | Fundraising Track Joshua Baer , Founder and CEO at Capital Factory, delved into the transforming realm of venture capital with Scott Kupor , Managing Partner at Andreessen Horowitz. The unit cost fell and this idea of pay as you go.

Fractional VPE 49

Fractional VPE Austin Artificial Inteligence Fractional CTO 49

ConversionXL

MARCH 6, 2019

They also come with higher costs and LinkedIn-specific platform limitations. That means that there’s plenty of business to be won—even if LinkedIn views come at a higher cost (more later). LinkedIn video ads: tech specs, targeting, metrics, and cost. The sales cycle may last for months, or more than a year.

Video 129

Video B2B Technical Review Campaign 129

Hearpreneur

JANUARY 30, 2022

Face-to-face engagement is important, especially at vital points in the sales cycle or while creating relationships. 21- Make more money from sales. In 2022, every business that adapted and survived the pandemic will realize the importance of increasing revenue through online sales. Photo Credit: Stephen Curry.

Entrepreneur 124

Entrepreneur Green Technical Review Social Media 124

ReadWriteStart

FEBRUARY 1, 2012

Since joining the program, he has seen an increase in ad sales and also received new investment capital. We have begun the sales cycle with a number of potential clients and are nurturing these relationships during private beta stage and are looking to white label our product.".

St. Louis 118

St. Louis CTO Hire Fractional CTO Entrepreneur 118

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. I had really positive experiences such as working with Greg Gretsch at Sigma Partners where he championed us to a partners’ meeting where we sort of got crucified.

Venture Capital 274

Venture Capital Term Sheet San Diego Viral 274

Both Sides of the Table

OCTOBER 4, 2009

Most start-up entrepreneurs have little or no sales experience. But through nearly a decade of startups I learned that sales comes down to three essential elements: 1. The real test of sales and the topic of my post is “why buy now.” It’s what kills most sales cycles including raising venture capital.

Sales 319

Sales Sales Cycle Startup Reputation 319

Startup Lessons Learned

MAY 9, 2012

But commercial fishermen have to -- day in, day out -- in good weather or in bad -- acquire their target fish and then sell it for more than cost of catching it. What are the value propositions, benefits and the messaging (bait), the pricing structure and channels (tackle), and length of sales cycle (how likely a fish will snap your line)?

Entrepreneur 167

Entrepreneur Lean Southern California San Diego 167

Austin Startup

SEPTEMBER 18, 2017

Ideally, they will help you understand technology ROI, innovation accounting, and also help you understand where you can cut costs and where you need to invest. If outward facing, they will attend important sales calls and speak to the technology strategy and vision. Not all CTOs perform all of these duties but some do.

Fractional CTO 54

Fractional CTO CTO Hire CTO Technical Review 54

Austin Startup

OCTOBER 31, 2017

Neither investors nor entrepreneurs like long sales cycles. With a startup partner, the city was able to develop a platform to extract data from all available city information repositories, track trends, handle registrations and alert citizens to upcoming programs of interest. Startup firms partnering with government?

Government 48

Government Partner Kansas City San Francisco 48

Cracking the Code

NOVEMBER 10, 2009

Recently, however, we have seen the rapid emergence of hyper-growth businesses in the PaaS and IaaS markets demonstrating that these will soon be independent, multi-billion dollar segments in their own rights with the potential for massive sales volume and attractive cash flow characteristics. sales and marketing. (10). Mind the GAAP!

Software Review 48

Software Review Cloud Technical Review Sales Cycle 48

Duct Tape Marketing

NOVEMBER 23, 2016

But the unintended consequence of our collective lead generation obsession is that the task of actually determining which of the leads generated are sales-ready is relegated to the back-burner. That ultimately results in sales teams being sent troves of contacts who are either unable or not ready to buy. Lead quantity vs. lead quality.

Lead Generation 28

Lead Generation Baltimore Programming Framework 28

Cracking the Code

OCTOBER 9, 2009

Impact of the recession on SaaS Sales&Marketing productivity. However, if the SaaS & Cloud computing industry is doing relatively well in this downturn, the recession has severely impacted the sales&marketing productivity of these companies, with longer sales cycle, smaller deal size and limited upsells opportunity.

Software Review 48

Software Review Technical Review Cloud Europe 48

David Teten

APRIL 6, 2015

An Nguyen and I just completed an analysis of VC and research funding compared with the cost to society of different diseases, and the results show wildly disproportionate funding for certain diseases relative to their impact in society. of US annual medical costs in 2008, compared with 6.5% The data is painful. a decade prior.

Venture Capital 60

Venture Capital Technical Review Non-Compete Philadelphia 60

Duct Tape Marketing

FEBRUARY 11, 2013

Selling has always required dexterity, and successful sales professionals have always practiced this, but today’s sales environment demands that a sales professional also develop and practice disciplines more closely aligned with traditional marketing and customer service practices in addition to becoming an educator in the sales process.

Sales 74

Sales Reputation Sales Cycle Curation 74

Hippoland

AUGUST 8, 2018

Very simply, your cost to acquire a customer needs to be lower than the value of that customer (lifetime value). As always, there are exceptions: if you build a viral consumer product (such as an Instagram) where people are just coming to your site / app in droves at no cost to you, then you’ve got a great business.

Founder 48

Founder Sales Cycle Affiliate Retention 48

Hippoland

AUGUST 8, 2018

Very simply, your cost to acquire a customer needs to be lower than the value of that customer (lifetime value). As always, there are exceptions: if you build a viral consumer product (such as an Instagram) where people are just coming to your site / app in droves at no cost to you, then you’ve got a great business.

Founder 48

Founder Sales Cycle Affiliate Retention 48

Mucker Lab

FEBRUARY 1, 2014

But for entrepreneurs in enterprise markets, (saas, ad tech, b2b marketplace etc) we all too often believe self-service transaction and sales (usually in forms of some sort of purchase flow) is a development must-have rather than a feature to trade off. The sales person aims to charge between 10% to 50% of the value generated.

Sales Cycle 102

Sales Cycle B2B Sales Web 102

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. " The lowest friction sale can be a user clicking on a web page and the content owner getting paid for it.

Cost 60

Cost Sales Sales Cycle Demand 60

Mucker Lab

FEBRUARY 3, 2014

But for entrepreneurs in enterprise markets, (saas, ad tech, b2b marketplace etc) we all too often believe self-service transaction and sales (usually in forms of some sort of purchase flow) is a development must-have rather than a feature to trade off. The sales person aims to charge between 10% to 50% of the value generated.

Sales Cycle 87

Sales Cycle B2B Sales Web 87

YoungUpstarts

SEPTEMBER 13, 2018

Although it would be great to see sales cycles much shorter, it’s understandable about the care some organizations take in choosing a partner that will represent their brand on the very visible social media front. Often, there are multiple levels of vetting and approval before contractual decisions are made.

Social Media 113

Social Media Sales Cycle Media Audience 113

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

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

Without awareness and leads, you’re missing out on opportunities to close sales and grow your business. This has changed how buyers interact with sales. More than two-thirds of buyers have researched your solution (and others’) before talking to sales. Plus, 60% prefer not to interact with sales reps at all. The metrics.

Demand 115

Demand Affiliate Audience Leadership 115

YoungUpstarts

SEPTEMBER 7, 2014

by TX Zhuo , managing partner at Karlin Ventures. Being able to charge more for a product is great, but along with higher prices come longer sales and payment cycles. But keep in mind that enterprise sales cycles are typically longer and revenue growth will vary wildly. Lifetime Value/Cost of Acquisition.

Metrics 219

Metrics Churn Rate Startup Acquisition 219

BeyondVC

OCTOBER 24, 2006

I had 2 board meetings last week, and it seemed that we spent a fair amount of time digging into each company’s sales process, understanding and mapping out each phase of the sales cycle from sales lead to to actual installed customer. The post Where are your sales boulders and how are you going to move them?

Sales Cycle 60

Sales Cycle Sales Programming Portfolio 60

infochachkie.com

SEPTEMBER 24, 2011

For instance, many a BDC CEO has initiated a consultant to study cost cutting issues before announcing a significant layoff. If a consultant claims they can enhance your marketing efforts, pay them based on their direct impact on your incremental sales. Performance-based deals are healthy for all parties. Passion Cannot be Outsourced.

Equity 40

Equity Silicon Valley Cofounder PR 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

Up and Running

DECEMBER 21, 2016

Net income to sales. According to Lawrence Litowitz, a partner at strategic advisory firm The SCA Group LLC, it provides an indication of how much flexibility a firm has to utilize cash or to access liquid accounts in order to make good investments. EBITDA to assets. Debt service coverage ratio. Liabilities to assets.

Metrics 60

Metrics .Net Cash Position Finance 60

ConversionXL

DECEMBER 7, 2016

This means you have to generate awareness and demand yourself, before you get that sale. But one of the challenges that we frequently find is that ad fatigue (one of the reasons why your cost per acquisition can go up) is much more severe here on LinkedIn than it is on Facebook. Track Sales Wisely. Strong Keyword Intent.

PPC 48

PPC B2C B2B Sales Cycle 48

ReadWriteStart

NOVEMBER 16, 2010

In a consumer Web venture, the hustler/sales guy is non-core (a few biz dev deals are important but not core). So if you are techie, find a founding partner that is a hustler. If you are hustler, find a superb techie as founding partner. SaaS reduces your sales cost but also means that VC is needed.

Software 127

Software Startup Architecture Bootstrapping 127

Austin Startup

MARCH 3, 2019

Visualization technology is destined to dramatically change and streamline new construction builds by eliminating hours upon hours in the sales cycle and time spent in design centers. Like it or not, technology is updating and changing the cost of producing homes, which can be a benefit or the undoing of developers.

Technology 48

Technology Sales Cycle Austin Software 48

BeyondVC

NOVEMBER 17, 2008

.  In other words, show me the arms merchants with a recurring revenue model and frictionless sale and I will definitely be interested.   The beauty is that the whole sales cycle is quite frictionless and all web-based which means an oppotunity to scale quickly. 

Cloud 60

Cloud EC2 Sales Cycle Cofounder 60

YoungUpstarts

AUGUST 19, 2016

Then come the marketing, sales, and accounting considerations. For some startups, the right approach might be to hire people at a lower cost and have them wear a lot of hats. Losing an employee can cost up to 60 percent of his or her annual salary. by Shawn Overcast , managing director at gothamCulture.

Startup 100

Startup Burn Rate Cofounder Salary 100

ConversionXL

AUGUST 19, 2020

Clear expectations to ensure agency partners strategize effectively, with a high degree of accountability and without a self-preservation bias. We maintain a list of primary client points of contact and their senior stakeholders that sign off on budgets, strategic shifts, or might be likely to bring in other partners.

PPC 69

PPC SEO Channel Analytics 69

ConversionXL

JUNE 2, 2022

Account-based marketing (ABM) accounted for 79% of all sales opportunities in 2020. How iRidium used audience targeting, networking, and activation to land 34 new sales opportunities. Qualitative-first: Aligning sales and marketing for a comprehensive audience profile. Results of iRidium’s ABM efforts.

Marketing 105

Marketing Campaign Artificial Inteligence Sales Cycle 105

Hippoland

FEBRUARY 12, 2018

At a high level, business is simple! :) You bring revenue in and your costs send money out the door. You want your revenue to be higher than your costs. The reason I like deer-hunting businesses is that from my own experiences, I can see a clear path to bring in sales profitably. But the execution is hard.

Seed Stage 48

Seed Stage Business Model B2B Email 48