Startup Professionals Musings

JANUARY 15, 2020

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. Marty Zwilling.

Valuation 311

Valuation Technical Review Due Diligence Leadership 311

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. Look at the big picture first of development, finance, and marketing/sales. All partners have compatible work styles.

Partner 385

Partner Software Review CTO Hire Cofounder 385

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

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. Marty Zwilling.

Technical Review 323

Technical Review Due Diligence Valuation Leadership 323

Startup Professionals Musings

APRIL 24, 2021

Provide effective leadership. Remember that leadership is both upward, as well as downward to direct reports and employees. A good CEO provides leadership to the Board of Directors, company investors, and stockholders. In it, he says "Management is doing things right; leadership is doing the right things."

Exit Strategy 407

Exit Strategy Leadership Founder Networking 407

Duct Tape Marketing

OCTOBER 28, 2024

Small Business Owners: Who Should You Hire for Marketing? written by Jordan E read more at Duct Tape Marketing When it comes to marketing, small business owners have a big decision to make: who should you hire to get the job done? Outsourced Marketing Outsourcing your marketing can be a much more budget-friendly option.

Small Business 79

Small Business Hiring Marketing Jordan 79

Startup Professionals Musings

JANUARY 6, 2021

Fight the urge do more things, to attract more customers in a broader market. In reality, too many choices actually dilutes customer interest in your existing market, and makes your job of production, marketing, and support much more complex. The company has since gone public, and is still a market leader.

Technical Review 400

Technical Review Technical Cofounder Advisory Board Cofounder 400

Startup Professionals Musings

OCTOBER 26, 2022

It is required today for new innovation strategies, analyzing markets for new opportunities, and organizational changes. Moving forward, you should expect the market volatility to increase, driven not only by customers, but by new technology, changing government regulations, and a surge in new competitors.

Agile 379

Agile Technical Review Leadership Social Media 379

Duct Tape Marketing

JULY 11, 2024

Transform Your Business with the Metronomics Framework 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 Shannon Susko, a strategic business coach and author renowned for her innovative Metronomics framework.

Framework 90

Framework Leadership Widget Metrics 90

Startup Professionals Musings

JANUARY 30, 2021

This dual-leadership approach would have avoided the frustration I felt in a startup a few years ago where beta customers loved our software solution as a free prototype, but we couldn’t sell one in the first few months for a price that seemed reasonable for all our work and innovation. Match with competitor prices and market demographics.

Technical Review 399

Technical Review Product Advisory Board Business Model 399

Startup Professionals Musings

DECEMBER 18, 2020

This distrust for the scripted message has led to a new demand for unfiltered marketing, and the emergence of business credibility heroes, like Elon Musk, with his bold statements about space travel, and sometime villains, such as Mark Zuckerberg defending Facebook privacy practices. He didn’t wait for the well-crafted recovery story later.

Customer 433

Customer B2C Technical Review Social Media 433

Startup Professionals Musings

JANUARY 3, 2021

As a starting point, I like the Wikipedia simple definition of innovation as “the application of better solutions to meet new requirements or market needs.” Solution innovations need to be perfected before going to market. I also enjoyed the classic book, “ 63 Innovation Nuggets for Aspiring Innovators ,” by George E.

Technical Review 431

Technical Review Leadership Operations Networking 431

Startup Professionals Musings

APRIL 11, 2020

In fact, there are a host of reasons why a non-focused startup business is more likely to struggle for survival, lose market and investor attention, and miss out on the opportunity to capitalize on their scope: Time to market is tied to the size of your offering. Ongoing market leadership requires continuous innovation.

Startup 424

Startup Bandwidth Distribution Agile 424

Startup Professionals Musings

MAY 15, 2022

That’s a tall order, especially when your business culture has to fit into the myriad of international and local cultures that are part of every market these days. A particularly critical moment is when the founders hand over the leadership to a more managerial regime. Geographic expansion. Efficiency and scale.

Dilution 355

Dilution Startup Merger Flash 355

Startup Professionals Musings

OCTOBER 27, 2021

Here is my list of key principles for creating and capitalizing on a balanced focus as a business professional or an entrepreneur: Start by marketing your vision and purpose. Every balanced leader does marketing early. Business leadership and success requires whole-brained satisfaction with you and the whole environment.

Technical Review 332

Technical Review Metrics Leadership Technology 332

Startup Professionals Musings

FEBRUARY 6, 2021

The last thing you need in a startup is a false start, where you can’t deliver on a product change deadline, or a new marketing channel. Define hard (data) and soft (anecdotal) metrics on the change, as well as on the quality of your leadership. It’s important to separate optimism and dreams from market realities.

Metrics 387

Metrics Technical Review Leadership Framework 387

Startup Professionals Musings

FEBRUARY 1, 2020

It is required today for new innovation strategies, analyzing markets for new opportunities, and organizational changes. Moving forward, you should expect the market volatility to increase, driven not only by customers, but by new technology, changing government regulations, and a surge in new competitors.

Agile 315

Agile Technical Review Leadership Social Media 315

Startup Professionals Musings

JULY 16, 2021

Some of us are proud to be technologists, while others love marketing or team building. A positive mindset of being able to add value is a self-fulfilling prophecy, and is seen by others as leadership, rather than giving orders. It allows you to change and learn as the market evolves, and your business needs change.

Leadership 435

Leadership Marketing Developer Entrepreneur 435

Startup Professionals Musings

OCTOBER 2, 2022

I have personally used this approach in leading startups as well as large organizations, in highly technical roles as well as business development and marketing. If you are always hard to find, too busy or unavailable behind closed doors, no leadership or mentoring relationship can work effectively.

Elevator Pitch 386

Elevator Pitch Technical Review Dividend Leadership 386

TechEmpower

AUGUST 21, 2023

The explanation from software leadership is often unsatisfying or unclear. Other common scenarios that we’ve seen: Scaling and new markets: Your company and product are established, and now you’re scaling or going after new markets. Keeping up with the competition: You’re a market leader in a fast-growing field.

Technical Review 260

Technical Review Development Team Review Software Review Architecture 260

Startup Professionals Musings

FEBRUARY 19, 2020

In my business of mentoring new entrepreneurs and advising small company owners, I recognize that most don’t start as experienced leaders, and most don’t realize that people leadership is a primary key to their future success. Without vulnerability you can’t have an objective understanding of your leadership effectiveness.

Developer 311

Developer Leadership Demand Entrepreneur 311

Both Sides of the Table

OCTOBER 26, 2020

leadership, mentorship, competitiveness, communications, relationship-building?—?and 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. Leadership is about recognizing your next generation of talent and helping lift them up.

Partner 361

Partner Management Cofounder San Francisco 361

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. By being proactive in response rather than defensive, your leadership is confirmed rather than questioned. Every case is a new one where prior experience won’t help you.

Leadership 305

Leadership Business Model Customer Small Business 305

Startup Professionals Musings

MAY 26, 2023

Even though many of these can be mitigated by testing and early customer feedback , you will find that it pays big dividends to do your homework before building and rolling out every new initiative: In today’s customer data overload, marketing is essential. Even more important than solution marketing is building your brand.

Product 354

Product Technical Review Artificial Inteligence Dividend 354

Startup Professionals Musings

DECEMBER 29, 2019

I have personally used this approach in leading startups as well as large organizations, in highly technical roles as well as business development and marketing. If you are always hard to find, too busy or unavailable behind closed doors, no leadership or mentoring relationship can work effectively.

Elevator Pitch 312

Elevator Pitch Technical Review Dividend Leadership 312

Startup Professionals Musings

FEBRUARY 27, 2021

In my view, the quality of incubator leadership is the single biggest potential value provided and learning opportunity for entrepreneurs. Every successful incubator has strong leadership and staff with business and investment credentials. Expert mentoring and training. Overall the learning opportunities are essentially the same.

Incubator 366

Incubator Technical Review Due Diligence Venture Capital 366

Startup Professionals Musings

MARCH 12, 2022

They look at your track record, industry leadership, marketing energy, moral values, and peer relationships. Back in the early days of the personal computer, Bill Gates and Microsoft were widely recognized and having the strongest technical culture, as well as a commanding marketing presence.

Valuation 368

Valuation Technical Review Due Diligence Angel Investor 368

Startup Professionals Musings

NOVEMBER 30, 2022

They rarely highlight their marketing and relationship skills , even though, in my experience, these are more often the key to success in business than product skills. In addition to listening, they spent much of their time communicating their vision and marketing themselves to everyone they encountered.

Silicon Valley 284

Silicon Valley Technical Review Leadership Metrics 284

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. Don’t forget it.

Acquisition 250

Acquisition Cost Customer Sales Cycle 250

Steve Blank

DECEMBER 11, 2020

It’s not leadership. The military has three of the four pieces of the puzzle you need: strategy, access to technology, leadership. Leadership was not the problem. Strategy, technology, leadership – those were fine. They need to understand product market fit: why some ideas will get traction, others won’t.

Technical Review 369

Technical Review Taiwan Technology Design 369

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. Enhance your self-confidence to provide leadership. Look at every challenge as an opportunity to learn and provide leadership to your team.

Advisory Board 317

Advisory Board Leadership Customer Developer 317

Duct Tape Marketing

SEPTEMBER 14, 2024

How ‘Company Culture’ Became Overused written by John Jantsch read more at Duct Tape Marketing The Duct Tape Marketing Podcast with Brian Gottlieb In this episode of the Duct Tape Marketing Podcast, I interviewed Brian Gottlieb , founder of Tundraland Home Improvements and author of ‘Beyond the Hammer.’

Wisconsin 90

Wisconsin Cofounder Leadership Employee 90

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. 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.

Startup 337

Startup Technical Review Employee Hiring 337

Startup Professionals Musings

OCTOBER 11, 2023

In reality, based on my experience as a startup advisor and investor, these constraints lead the best entrepreneurs to the most innovative solutions and new markets otherwise overlooked by their peers and competitors. I believe it all starts with you as a leadership role model, and the mindset and expectations you broadcast to your team.

Technical Review 277

Technical Review Partner Matching Channel 277

Startup Professionals Musings

JANUARY 25, 2023

I recommend outsourcing for flexibility in existing operations, but you need to take the leadership role in preparing your company for the future. Others, lured by hot new markets, abandon their core prematurely, with equally disastrous results. It is fair to bring in outside technology to reduce the risk and speed the implementation.

Partner 350

Partner Operations Metrics Leadership 350

Startup Professionals Musings

SEPTEMBER 17, 2021

I recently found the classic sales training book “ Bootstrap Selling The Sandler Way ,” by Bill Morrison, who has 20 years in sales leadership roles, and I was amazed at how many of his sales lessons are great lessons for new entrepreneurs as well. Push marketing doesn’t work well today, in the age of interactive networking and peer reviews.

Sales 348

Sales Startup Bootstrapping Technical Review 348

Startup Professionals Musings

JULY 23, 2021

Every one of you business owners I know has worked hard to build your brand, and recognizes the critical value of instant brand recognition and leadership. Evaluate the brand impact of proposed market moves. The push is always on to grow your market with new geographies, new products, and new market segments.

Leadership 426

Leadership Management Brazil Differentiation 426