Cracking the Code

OCTOBER 1, 2020

Snyk was founded with the mission to help developers make their code secure, providing a platform to automatically assess and remediate open source vulnerabilities. The company’s success has been largely driven by its developer-led freemium model, going from Series A funding to a valuation of $2.6B million developers using our product.

Early Stage 62

Early Stage Open Source Development Team Review Security 62

Steve Blank

AUGUST 15, 2016

Before founding 2U, Jeremy developed Zinch, intended to be a virtual guidance counselor to help low-income students navigate the college application process. You might look at it and say, “In some ways, that team is overkill for an early-stage company. New Targets & Innovative Approaches. Our revenue model was wrong.

Cofounder 147

Cofounder Entrepreneur Africa Sales Cycle 147

Both Sides of the Table

SEPTEMBER 8, 2010

This is the failure of many early-stage companies when they try to scale. Due to the language and culture issues in Europe we opted for a country structure with an MD in each country and local sales, marketing & customers support staff. How can I hit my quota selling to Deutsc he Bahn – their sales cycles are so slow!

Ireland 319

Ireland Sales Germany Bankruptcy 319

Both Sides of the Table

JUNE 23, 2013

Every sales organization with more than a handful of reps or that is across multiple offices or time zones would benefit from having a sales methodology. But the number one reason sales stall when customers see the value in what you do is because they often don’t have a reason to buy NOW. The USP solves the, “Why Buy Me?”

Sales 328

Sales Campaign Sales Cycle Early Stage 328

Steve Blank

AUGUST 15, 2016

Before founding 2U, Jeremy developed Zinch, intended to be a virtual guidance counselor to help low-income students navigate the college application process. You might look at it and say, “In some ways, that team is overkill for an early-stage company. New Targets & Innovative Approaches. Our revenue model was wrong.

Cofounder 120

Cofounder Entrepreneur Africa Sales Cycle 120

Where to Play

FEBRUARY 5, 2019

The idea to develop a caged drone was born after the Fukushima nuclear disaster. The drone that Flyability develops has unique accessibility due to the decoupled and light protection cage that surrounds it. It enabled them to set the right development priorities, build the relevant networks, and design the proper marketing materials.

Agile 54

Agile Technical Review Sales Cycle Distribution 54

ReadWriteStart

SEPTEMBER 23, 2010

Today she is operating at a 30,000 feet level, and I am concerned that unless she gets down to earth and develops more granular and specific strategies, she will not get anywhere. With enterprise customers, this would result in tremendous exit barriers, making sales cycles long and involved, which a small startup will find hard to withstand.

India 114

India Silicon Valley Incubator Bootstrapping 114

Startup Lessons Learned

APRIL 14, 2009

In an early-stage startup especially, revenue is not an important goal in and of itself. Let’s start with a simple question: why do early-stage startups want revenue? For a startup, having great sales DNA is a wonderful asset. But here’s where a truly great sales artist comes in.

Customer 167

Customer San Francisco Lean Hockey Stick 167

www.forentrepreneurs.com

FEBRUARY 2, 2010

To compute the cost to acquire a customer, CAC, you would take your entire cost of sales and marketing over a given period, including salaries and other headcount related expenses, and divide it by the number of customers that you acquired in that period. (In This number is heavily dependant on the productivity of your sales teams.

Acquisition 103

Acquisition Cost Customer Entrepreneur 103

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

Duct Tape Marketing

FEBRUARY 22, 2017

Think back to a sales situation with a friend of a friend, one where you started with a huge trust advantage: how much smoother and faster was the process? Your lead generation VA will be researching prospects according to the plan you develop. What if you could replicate that dynamic on a much larger digital scale?

Curation 44

Curation Lead Generation Technical Review Email 44

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. Pyramid Power. The larger the firm, the larger the pyramid. from the Wharton School.

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

Small Business Force

NOVEMBER 25, 2013

Building a business is not just about numbers.It's about how you make those numbers happen.Many early stage entrepreneurs make the mistake of focusing on detailed spread sheets with myriad pivot tables and assumptions, being able to model even the most insignificant detail of their proposed business. Are they in your numbers?

Forecast 37

Forecast Sales Cycle Early Stage Sales 37

Hippoland

FEBRUARY 12, 2018

The reason I like deer-hunting businesses is that from my own experiences, I can see a clear path to bring in sales profitably. high lifetime value) price such that you can get customers through partnerships / outbound sales / lead gen + inside sales / etc which generally also have some fair cost to acquire customers.

Seed Stage 48

Seed Stage Business Model B2B Email 48

Hippoland

FEBRUARY 12, 2018

The reason I like deer-hunting businesses is that from my own experiences, I can see a clear path to bring in sales profitably. high lifetime value) price such that you can get customers through partnerships / outbound sales / lead gen + inside sales / etc which generally also have some fair cost to acquire customers.

Seed Stage 48

Seed Stage Business Model B2B Email 48

Rob Go

JANUARY 10, 2017

FYI – this is tuned towards an individual who is still in the relatively early stages of their career. Have domain expertise in an emerging area that the VC cares about and wants to develop more authority and deal flow around. Timing is pretty unpredictable, and it’s a long sales cycle. So, here it is.

Technical Review 28

Technical Review Due Diligence Deal Flow Early Stage 28

BeyondVC

DECEMBER 10, 2003

This is a great point and what it comes down to is that software companies can now “package” themselves as hardware plays and successfully leverage the hardware channel from a sales perspective. While the initial sale may not be $1mm upfront, you may be able to get $1mm in the life of a deal.

Software 60

Software Harvest Sales Cycle Channel 60

This is going to be BIG.

JANUARY 24, 2011

One of the cool things about being a fund that works with so many early stage companies is that bringing the whole portfolio together in one place results in a lot of collaborative learning opportunities. I thought it was going to be easy to find two developers, given that I had a pretty large network.

Startup 115

Startup Ruby PR Sales Cycle 115

Duct Tape Marketing

FEBRUARY 26, 2015

How to Determine When A Lead Is Sales-Ready written by Guest Post read more at Small Business Marketing Blog from Duct Tape Marketing. It is a key element to lead nurturing that helps companies determine whether prospects need to be fast-tracked to sales or nurtured further. Buying Stage. Buying Stage. Lead Interest.

Sales 28

Sales Early Stage Sales Cycle Conversion 28

Cracking the Code

OCTOBER 10, 2008

Only after reaching $1M in CMRR should you consider hiring European sales and services execs behind customer demand. Be prepared to cross the desert - SaaS requires R&D and sales expense up front for a multi-year stream of revenue, so it demands enough investment capital to fund 4+ years of runway. Posted by Philippe Botteri.

Software Review 48

Software Review North America Europe Metrics 48