Startup Professionals Musings

JANUARY 8, 2021

Most leaders agree that poor customer service is a business killer today, in terms of lost customers, reduced profits, and low morale. Yet the average perception of customer experience has not improved. You have to start with hiring only people who are willing and able to make serious customer service happen.

Technical Review 385

Technical Review Salary Metrics Matching 385

TechEmpower

MARCH 4, 2024

Key Functions with High Impact Generative AI is revolutionizing sales by enabling dynamic pricing and personalized customer interactions, boosting conversion rates and customer satisfaction. Post-sale, AI analyzes customer data to improve service and loyalty, making it a cornerstone of modern sales methodologies.

Generative AI 297

Generative AI CTO Hire Fractional CTO Software Review 297

Startup Professionals Musings

OCTOBER 22, 2021

Provide website forums to help customers solve their own problems. Use free e-commerce software and services like PayPal before building an expensive customized solution. Hiring virtual assistants for each specific project can be a lot more efficient and cheaper than hiring and managing employees.

Technical Review 312

Technical Review Software Review Internet Revenue 312

Startup Professionals Musings

AUGUST 19, 2022

Even after many years mentoring entrepreneurs and advising businesses, I continue to be surprised by the primary focus on products and processes, and the often incidental attention to hiring and nurturing the right people. It’s the same for customers and products, where analytics have long proven their value.

Analytics 303

Analytics Hiring Open Source Employee 303

Startup Professionals Musings

APRIL 23, 2022

Every startup lucky enough to get some traction gets to the point where they decide to hire some “regular employees” for sales, marketing, and administrative tasks. What they should be doing is hiring only “entrepreneurs,” meaning people who think and act as if this is their own business. Employees will lose focus on their work.”

Startup 337

Startup Technical Review Employee Hiring 337

The Startup Magazine

JUNE 20, 2024

One increasingly popular strategy is to hire a fractional chief marketing officer (CMO). Early-stage startups often operate with tight budgets, making it impractical to hire a full-time CMO. Hiring a full-time CMO, according to Salary , can cost your startup around $360,672 a year.

B2B 148

B2B Hiring Salary Early Stage 148

Startup Professionals Musings

OCTOBER 16, 2022

Manage customer service. They probably have arbitrated differences many times before in their lives, and know how important it is to remain calm and soft-spoken in the face of emotional customers and processes that are not working. Marketing and sales to Gen-Y customers. Personnel Manager.

Advisory Board 368

Advisory Board Dividend Angel Investor Cofounder 368

The Startup Magazine

DECEMBER 4, 2024

Use Contracts to Your Advantage Whether you’re hiring employees, working with vendors, or entering into agreements with partners, contracts are essential. Trade Secrets: Implement measures to safeguard confidential business information, such as customer lists, marketing strategies, or manufacturing processes.

Intellectual Property 119

Intellectual Property Non-disclosure Agreement Entrepreneur Limited Liability Company 119

Startup Professionals Musings

NOVEMBER 28, 2022

Business success is all about having the best team, yet the average entrepreneur has little prior experience with hiring people and building top-notch teams. Hiring requirements must be anticipated and implemented with the same precision and tracking as manufacturing volumes, sales leads, and customer service.

Cost 260

Cost Hiring Matching Internet 260

Startup Professionals Musings

FEBRUARY 24, 2020

One of the most stressful and unanticipated challenges that comes with starting a new business is hiring and managing employees. While this approach appears to cost more on the surface, it often actually costs you less, when you consider the hidden costs of rework, poor customer satisfaction, employee management, and training required.

Technical Review 308

Technical Review Due Diligence Startup Employee 308

Startup Professionals Musings

APRIL 11, 2020

Many passionate entrepreneurs fight to add more features into their new products and services, assuming that more function will make the solution more appealing to more customers. Focus is the art of limiting your scope to the key function that really matters for the majority of customers.

Startup 424

Startup Bandwidth Distribution Agile 424

Startup Professionals Musings

MAY 22, 2020

Every startup should have at least a couple of outside advisors who are not major investors or family members, anxious to talk to new investors and key new hires. Is there a real customer willing to give a testimonial? Don’t be sidetracked by potential customers in the middle of a free trial, or friends of the founder.

Technical Review 436

Technical Review Due Diligence Sweat Equity Burn Rate 436

Startup Professionals Musings

MAY 24, 2020

One of the harsh realities for most product entrepreneurs is that they have deal with hiring and firing as their company grows, and they have no experience or idea where to start. Investors don’t fund entrepreneurs offering services, since these don’t scale, don’t have large margins, and need just a customer contract to start.

Startup 410

Startup Angel Investor Social Media LLC 410

Startup Professionals Musings

AUGUST 23, 2020

Hire for character, competency, and compatibility. Hiring is the single most important thing you do as a leader, and firing is second. Hiring people who are just like you may eliminate revolts, but it won’t get you outside your own box. Focus on the customer for repeated success. Diversity on your team expands thinking.

Technical Review 324

Technical Review Entrepreneur Due Diligence Business Model 324

Startup Professionals Musings

MAY 23, 2022

New entrepreneurs tend to focus only on getting the product right, and assume that the right culture and ethics will come later simply by hiring good people. Hire only ethical people, so further time on business ethics is not needed. This is usually an excuse for not developing ethical policies and practices.

Software Review 291

Software Review Offshore Entrepreneur Leadership 291

Startup Professionals Musings

DECEMBER 30, 2020

Actually, building and nurturing the right team is the hard part, requiring communication, hiring, and leadership. With information overload due to the Internet, you need to find your customers, rather than assume they will find you. That first burst of customers via word-of-mouth or a viral video won’t sustain your growth.

Intellectual Property 432

Intellectual Property Entrepreneur Technical Review Angel Investor 432

Startup Professionals Musings

OCTOBER 14, 2022

Investors, partners, team members, and customers implicitly value or devalue a startup based on the leader’s physical presence, emotional identity, social skills, intellectual agility, moral values, and past performance in the domain. I have paraphrased his key points here as follows: Leader personal impact. Focus on talent and people growth.

Technical Review 323

Technical Review Due Diligence Valuation Leadership 323

Startup Professionals Musings

JANUARY 18, 2020

Manage customer service. They probably have arbitrated differences many times before in their lives, and know how important it is to remain calm and soft-spoken in the face of emotional customers and processes that are not working. Marketing and sales to Gen-Y customers. Personnel Manager.

Advisory Board 312

Advisory Board Startup Dividend Angel Investor 312

Startup Professionals Musings

JANUARY 15, 2020

Investors, partners, team members, and customers implicitly value or devalue a startup based on the leader’s physical presence, emotional identity, social skills, intellectual agility, moral values, and past performance in the domain. I have paraphrased his key points here as follows: Leader personal impact. Focus on talent and people growth.

Valuation 311

Valuation Technical Review Due Diligence Leadership 311

Startup Professionals Musings

OCTOBER 26, 2022

Today’s customers are much more proactive in going online for the latest information, rather than simply reacting to the “push” messages that businesses traditionally use to drive commerce. Discipline is required to continually track results, return on investment, and customer satisfaction. The real problem is inflexible people.

Agile 379

Agile Technical Review Leadership Social Media 379

Duct Tape Marketing

FEBRUARY 19, 2025

During their conversation, Jane explained how businesses can use archetypes to craft an engaging brand storytelling strategy, ensuring their messaging resonates deeply with their ideal customers. So it's thinking about the, you can think about the gifts that you want to bring to your customers through the brand experience.

Customer 67

Customer Charlotte Southern California Hiring 67

Startup Professionals Musings

MARCH 26, 2021

Some entrepreneurs have an abundance of passion, but are short on the realities of customer needs, market trends, and financial constraints. They now expect a solid documented plan, with specific goals and targets based on data. The ability to make timely and fact-based decisions. Employees are engaged, committed, and accountable.

Entrepreneur 341

Entrepreneur Angel Investor Partner Software Development 341

YoungUpstarts

DECEMBER 12, 2020

You must also routinely review your data security plan as you hire more employees and create more departments. Large, established organizations will have built a rock-solid reputation over time, which will help their business to maintain their customers’ trust and bounce back from a network or data security breach. Facial recognition.

Security 273

Security Software Review Technical Review Networking 273

Startup Professionals Musings

FEBRUARY 8, 2020

As a long-time mentor to entrepreneurs, here is my collection of smart risks that investors and I look for in new startups: Focus on a tough customer problem rather than a fun technology. Investors hate technology solutions looking for a problem, due to the high risk of no customers. Customers like leaders, not followers.

Management 322

Management Entrepreneur Forecast Stock Options 322

The Startup Magazine

MARCH 9, 2025

This strengthens customer relationships and drives long-term growth. Exploring the Advantages of White Label SEO Services for Businesses White label SEO services enable businesses to scale their offerings without hiring additional staff or expanding their expertise in-house.

SEO 84

SEO Search Engineer Retention 84

Startup Professionals Musings

MARCH 25, 2021

CEOs who make this happen start by hiring the right people, communicating a strategy, and being the role model for collaboration. Too many CEOs today like to talk, trust their gut, but fail to listen to their team or the customer. Provide leadership to drive a transformation. Really listen for danger signals and bad news.

Leadership 340

Leadership Framework Demand Employee 340

Steve Blank

APRIL 1, 2020

Your customers will no longer be your customers. Your customers start buying. The CEO should dial through as many of the largest existing customers to get a firsthand understanding of the magnitude of any revenue shortfall. Ask yourself: Are there now new customers, new services and new channels to pursue?

South Korea 334

South Korea Salary Business Model China 334

Startup Professionals Musings

MAY 15, 2022

A common practice is to hire local employees who know the geographic culture, even though this may well dilute the company culture. For additional growth, most companies expand the product portfolio to cater to more customers, and sell more to existing customers. Product-line expansion.

Dilution 355

Dilution Startup Merger Flash 355

Startup Professionals Musings

NOVEMBER 2, 2022

As a long-time mentor to entrepreneurs, here is my collection of smart risks that investors and I look for in new startups: Focus on a tough customer problem rather than a fun technology. Investors hate technology solutions looking for a problem, due to the high risk of no customers. Customers like leaders, not followers.

Forecast 304

Forecast Stock Options Technical Review Metrics 304

Steve Blank

JANUARY 17, 2023

The studio’s internal team builds the minimal viable product, then validates an idea by finding product/market fit and early customers. If the idea passes a series of “Go/No Go” decisions based on milestones for customer discovery and validation, the studio recruits entrepreneurial founders to run and scale those startups.

Technical Cofounder 368

Technical Cofounder Intellectual Property Technical Review Incubator 368

Startup Professionals Musings

DECEMBER 27, 2019

My simple answer is that they keep their focus on customers, rather than technology. Jeff Bezos has kept his focus on customers. In my view, every startup in today’s world would do well to adopt a management system with the same key objectives: Start with a customer-obsessed business model.

Global 308

Global Marketing Technical Review Agile 308

Startup Professionals Musings

OCTOBER 12, 2022

Every new entrepreneur has to initiate the right actions to be perceived as a leader in their chosen business domain by their team and by their customers, or the road to success and satisfaction will be lost along the way. Don’t wait for competitors to force the need for better products, lower prices and better customer service.

Leadership 317

Leadership Founder Startup Networking 317

Startup Professionals Musings

SEPTEMBER 22, 2023

Most leaders agree that poor customer service is a business killer today, in terms of lost customers, reduced profits, and low morale. Yet the average perception of customer experience has not improved. You have to start with hiring only people who are willing and able to make serious customer service happen.

Technical Review 249

Technical Review Salary Metrics Matching 249

Startup Professionals Musings

JANUARY 12, 2020

Every new entrepreneur has to initiate the right actions to be perceived as a leader in their chosen business domain by their team and by their customers, or the road to success and satisfaction will be lost along the way. Don’t wait for competitors to force the need for better products, lower prices and better customer service.

Entrepreneur 314

Entrepreneur Leadership Networking Partner 314

Startup Professionals Musings

FEBRUARY 1, 2020

Today’s customers are much more proactive in going online for the latest information, rather than simply reacting to the “push” messages that businesses traditionally use to drive commerce. Discipline is required to continually track results, return on investment, and customer satisfaction. The real problem is inflexible people.

Agile 315

Agile Technical Review Leadership Social Media 315

Steve Blank

OCTOBER 15, 2019

Once upon a time every great organization was a scrappy startup willing to take risks – new ideas, new methods, new customers, targets, and mission. This typically plays out in three ways: Often the first plan from leadership for innovation is hiring management consultants who bring out their 20th-century playbook.

Government 322

Government Technical Review Acquisition Metrics 322

Startup Professionals Musings

APRIL 25, 2020

Then it extends to the hiring process. Think of the risk taken by CEO Todd Davis of LifeLock when he posted his Social Security number online, to assure customers the he could protect them from identity theft. Instill optimism and self-confidence, but stay grounded in reality. That means you must first find optimism in yourself.

Technical Review 308

Technical Review Kentucky Due Diligence Japan 308