Startup Professionals Musings

DECEMBER 18, 2020

As a long-time business executive and adviser to entrepreneurs, I see a definitive shift away from customer trust in traditional business messages, and the executives who deliver them. I summarize the key elements of the transformation as follows: Customers are seeking control in a run-away world. Take your first step today.

Customer 433

Customer B2C Technical Review Social Media 433

Startup Professionals Musings

AUGUST 1, 2022

In my experience as an advisor and mentor to entrepreneurs in business, one of the biggest failures I see is a lack of self-leadership. I define self-leadership as the capacity to set direction and make decisions, to positively drive your own performance. Leadership in business starts with making good personal choices.

Leadership 285

Leadership Reputation Venture Capital Global 285

Duct Tape Marketing

JULY 19, 2024

Transform Your Leadership: The Power of Thoughtfully Fit written by John Jantsch read more at Duct Tape Marketing The Duct Tape Marketing Podcast with John Jantsch In this episode of the Duct Tape Marketing Podcast, I interviewed Darcy Luoma, an expert on leadership and personal development. I found it.

Leadership 91

Leadership Framework Agile Campaign 91

Startup Professionals Musings

OCTOBER 13, 2023

With today’s rapidly changing environment, I see many business leaders reverting to the “ command and control ” leadership model, in an effort to be more responsive, rather than leading with their heads and heart. I believe that a fully engaged team is the key to both productivity and agility in the face of change.

Leadership 280

Leadership Agile Demand Search 280

Startup Professionals Musings

AUGUST 17, 2022

Technical skills are important, but your ability to build and nurture relationships with others is more important for leadership growth and career advancement today. Your career and leadership value can be greatly enhanced, or greatly hampered, by your participation, or lack of it, in industry forums, the local community, and global issues.

Leadership 304

Leadership Technical Review Social Media Global 304

Startup Professionals Musings

AUGUST 24, 2022

As a business consultant and angel investor, I often ask for your own assessment of marketing ROI , or customer acquisition cost (CAC). Mr. Everhart distills his leadership insights from many decades in one of the largest business-to-business marketing agencies, working with companies across the country.

Acquisition 250

Acquisition Cost Customer Sales Cycle 250

Startup Professionals Musings

APRIL 17, 2022

Good partners are people who are confident in their own abilities, and willing and able to make decisions, take responsibility for their actions, and able to provide leadership, rather than require leadership. The passion has to be in the business context – meaning results oriented, customer oriented, and sensitive to competition.

Partner 385

Partner Software Review CTO Hire Cofounder 385

Duct Tape Marketing

NOVEMBER 7, 2024

Consult with Ease: Personalize Your Customer Stragtegy Using AI written by John Jantsch read more at Duct Tape Marketing The Duct Tape Marketing Podcast with David Edelman In this episode of the Duck Tape Marketing Podcast, I had the pleasure of interviewing David Edelman , a seasoned digital transformation and marketing expert.

Customer 77

Customer Generative AI ChatGPT Cloud 77

Startup Professionals Musings

OCTOBER 14, 2022

The key elements of leadership in a company, both individual and organizational, are less tangible, but very critical in setting a market value for investment, acquisition, or going public. In the investment community, these leadership elements are often called “goodwill.” Execution leadership. Leadership brand development.

Technical Review 323

Technical Review Due Diligence Valuation Leadership 323

Startup Professionals Musings

DECEMBER 30, 2020

Actually, building and nurturing the right team is the hard part, requiring communication, hiring, and leadership. Your leadership skills do not develop without effort. In addition to locking in his leadership position in electric vehicles, he has also used his patents to negotiate faster growth in his market.

Intellectual Property 432

Intellectual Property Entrepreneur Technical Review Angel Investor 432

Startup Professionals Musings

JUNE 28, 2023

The pervasiveness of social networking and the Internet has caused a new focus and value on “openness,” which leads to a new element of leadership, called “open leadership.” The mantra of open leadership is “Be Open, Be Transparent, and Be Authentic.” This is also becoming prevalent in decisions with customers on products.

Social Media 281

Social Media Media Software Review Social Network 281

Startup Professionals Musings

JANUARY 6, 2021

Every new business I know dreams of building momentum in their business, where growth continues to increase, customers become your best advocates, and employee motivation is high. Unfortunately, with limited resources, this isn’t possible, and it frustrates customers and the team. Focus first on finding more of the right customers.

Technical Review 400

Technical Review Technical Cofounder Advisory Board Cofounder 400

Startup Professionals Musings

JANUARY 30, 2021

Businesses require an equally elegant business model, with the right price, messaging and delivery channel to the right target customers to keep the dream alive and growing. The founder had simply not done the work to validate a price and customer segment. Focus on collecting customer references.

Technical Review 399

Technical Review Product Advisory Board Business Model 399

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. Innovation doesn’t happen without active leadership, a mindset of commitment from the team, and a defined process.

Agile 379

Agile Technical Review Leadership Social Media 379

Startup Professionals Musings

MAY 23, 2022

I saw a good summary of these in the classic book, “ Ethical Leadership ,” by Andrew Leigh, an expert in this area. Business ethics are more about religion than management or leadership. One of the keys to setting the right ethical tone is understanding and avoiding the myths and pitfalls of others. The reality is different.

Software Review 291

Software Review Offshore Entrepreneur Leadership 291

Duct Tape Marketing

JANUARY 10, 2025

Solving the Marketing Leadership Gap for Small Business (Marketing Leadership as a Service) written by John Jantsch read more at Duct Tape Marketing Small business marketing can feel like an endless checklist: create content , run Google Ads, post on social media, and optimize for SEO. They fail because they lack marketing leadership.

Leadership 46

Leadership Small Business Marketing Social Media 46

Startup Professionals Musings

OCTOBER 27, 2021

Most of the entrepreneurs I meet as an investor and advisor have no shortage of right-brain thinking, showing vision and creativity, but often don’t realize that their potential is being limited by a balancing focus on results, metrics, and customer specifics. Listen to customer feedback and tune your vision.

Technical Review 332

Technical Review Metrics Leadership Technology 332

Startup Professionals Musings

SEPTEMBER 9, 2022

Providing business leadership is a challenge under the best of circumstances, but it is especially difficult in times of market and customer crises. It’s amazing what you can learn from customer-facing teams in anticipating a crisis, and looking at solution alternatives. Yet, we all know a few leaders who surged ahead.

Leadership 305

Leadership Business Model Customer Small Business 305

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

JULY 16, 2022

We are living in a new generation of business, where customers drive the experience, and highly engaged employees are required to keep up with customer expectations. Traditional business leadership practices, including autocratic, reactive, and narcissistic, aren’t good enough. Benton and Kylie Wright-Ford. Marty Zwilling.

Leadership 380

Leadership Customer Employee Channel 380

Startup Professionals Musings

JANUARY 3, 2021

In reality, the best business process innovations usually come from regular employees on the front line of your business, just trying to do a better job and better serve customers. Thus I recommend the minimum viable product (MVP) approach with iteration, to test innovations until the product or service really meets today’s customers.

Technical Review 431

Technical Review Leadership Operations Networking 431

Startup Professionals Musings

APRIL 8, 2023

The most valuable assets of a new startup are the people on the team, and the most challenging task of the entrepreneur and team leaders is to spend their leadership time and energy productively. Most new startup founders start out by assuming they need to spread their leadership efforts evenly across all team members. Rising stars.

Employee 267

Employee Leadership Cofounder Matching 267

Startup Professionals Musings

MAY 15, 2022

A particularly critical moment is when the founders hand over the leadership to a more managerial regime. For additional growth, most companies expand the product portfolio to cater to more customers, and sell more to existing customers. Geographic expansion. Product-line expansion.

Dilution 355

Dilution Startup Merger Flash 355

Startup Professionals Musings

JUNE 22, 2022

They don’t realize that it takes more to succeed in business or a career – it takes leadership skills to get people to follow you, including peers, a team, business partners, and customers. Luckily, you can learn needed leadership skills. Celebrate small successes in your leadership efforts.

Leadership 285

Leadership Startup Networking Engineer 285

Both Sides of the Table

OCTOBER 26, 2020

leadership, mentorship, competitiveness, communications, relationship-building?—?and So mostly we just had to listen to customer feedback from founders, VCs and LPs. In any job you either find leadership opportunities for your best people BEFORE they ask or other people start asking them to become leaders somewhere else.

Partner 361

Partner Management Cofounder San Francisco 361

Duct Tape Marketing

AUGUST 22, 2024

As businesses increasingly seek scalable marketing leadership, the demand for fractional CMOs has surged. Leadership: Many businesses lack strategic marketing leadership, especially in the $3 to $30 million range. By designing journeys that customers ACTUALLY want to follow, your business can drive growth more effectively. [12:00]

Leadership 88

Leadership Technical Review Retention Campaign 88

Startup Professionals Musings

MAY 28, 2023

They bristle quickly when investors or even potential customers raise issues with real value, competition, risk, and sustainability. I like the specifics on how to do this in the classic book, “ The Agenda Mover: When Your Good Idea Is Not Enough ,” by leadership expert Samuel B.

Technical Cofounder 341

Technical Cofounder Founder Cofounder Mobile 341

Startup Professionals Musings

MAY 26, 2023

Often, despite your passion and expectation, customers don’t immediately see the value and need that you see, and you have no idea why the initiative is stuck , and what could be the real customer issue or fix. Customers won’t buy what they can’t find or don’t understand. Customers need supporting approvals to fully benefit.

Product 354

Product Technical Review Artificial Inteligence Dividend 354

Startup Professionals Musings

SEPTEMBER 17, 2021

Yet in this age when customers have a thousand alternatives, and are overwhelmed by a multitude of messages, sales efforts can make or break a business. In fact, I believe modern entrepreneurs need to be super sales people, in the most positive sense, to their team as well as customers. You and the customer have to be on the same side.

Sales 348

Sales Startup Bootstrapping Technical Review 348

Startup Professionals Musings

NOVEMBER 1, 2021

Rather than get angry and upset, fall back to your initial process for evaluating markets, customer needs, and financial implications. Often what looks like an emotional issue, like unwarranted customer complaints online, have specific facts behind them, which may surprise you. Enhance your self-confidence to provide leadership.

Advisory Board 317

Advisory Board Leadership Customer Developer 317

Startup Professionals Musings

NOVEMBER 30, 2022

During my time in Silicon Valley, I was struck by the fact that most successful entrepreneurs seemed to personally know and regularly hear from all the “movers and shakers” who had the investment capital and leadership they needed. Ability to relate aspirations to customer needs. Marketing your personal brand and your vision.

Silicon Valley 284

Silicon Valley Technical Review Leadership Metrics 284

Startup Professionals Musings

JULY 16, 2021

On the other hand, most business professionals and the customers we all need in business recognize that professionals with a healthy self-esteem will always be more resilient, creative, listen better, and treat others with respect. A better alternative is to acknowledge your shortcomings, and use these to incent new skills and new behavior.

Leadership 435

Leadership Marketing Developer Entrepreneur 435

Startup Professionals Musings

SEPTEMBER 5, 2020

They bristle quickly when investors or even potential customers raise issues with real value, competition, risk, and sustainability. I like the specifics on how to do this in the classic book, “ The Agenda Mover: When Your Good Idea Is Not Enough ,” by leadership expert Samuel B.

Technical Cofounder 315

Technical Cofounder Cofounder Mobile Differentiation 315

Startup Professionals Musings

AUGUST 20, 2022

A design mindset is not product-focused - it’s solution focused and action oriented towards creating better customer experiences and value. In businesses, this requires a new internal culture and leadership. By understanding experiences, you will better understand the needs of people around you, including your customers and partners.

Design 267

Design Dividend Leadership Framework 267

Startup Professionals Musings

MARCH 12, 2022

They look at your track record, industry leadership, marketing energy, moral values, and peer relationships. With today’s worldwide Internet and social media, your brand impact is not set by what you say, but by numbers of followers, influencers, and satisfied customers.

Valuation 368

Valuation Technical Review Due Diligence Angel Investor 368

Startup Professionals Musings

JUNE 25, 2023

A common initiative I hear from business owners today is their effort to improve the customer experience. To achieve real growth, business leaders need to improve both employee as well as customer experiences. Flexible – listen to allow flex hours and customization. Proactive – timely communication to build trust.

Employee 282

Employee Matching Customer Leadership 282

Startup Professionals Musings

APRIL 23, 2022

It’s what every customer looks for in every transaction. The entrepreneurial mindset is a function of motivation, priorities, and risk versus reward, all of which you set or enable by your leadership and example. The reality is that all entrepreneurial skills are learnable skills. Employees will care only about work they create.”

Startup 337

Startup Technical Review Employee Hiring 337