Accelerator Best Practices
Good for all involved
I’ve worked with dozens of startup accelerators globally. Not all accelerators operate the same, but at least some assign one or more mentors (or “advisors” or “coaches”) to their cohort startups for the duration of their program [How they should be assigned is a subject for a future post]. The start of the mentorship term is often quite clear — e.g., when the startup founders and mentors are notified of their matches. Although, sometimes this is also not clearly done, or perhaps those who are not matched do not get notified at all. …
Selling is Not Just for Sales
Anyone Can Learn to Sell Well
“I wish we could close more customers”
“I’ll never be good at sales”
“I hate selling”
If you dislike (or maybe even hate) sales, think you don’t have the personality to succeed in sales, or just want to close more sales for your business, this short article could have bigger impact on your life than you might expect. …
How to create deep links to text within a web page
A whole new dimension to URL links
The Google Chrome browser (Chromium to be more precise) and thus many popular browsers based on Chromium including Microsoft Edge, Opera, et. al. (*see full list below) have a really cool, useful, but surprisingly underutilized feature. As we all know, you can create a web URL link that refers to a specific web page. But did you know that you can also create a URL link that refers to a page and highlights specific text on that page, and automatically scroll to that text fragment without any required extensions?!
Maybe you’ve clicked on some search engine results where relevant text on a results page is highlighted without realizing that text was actually dynamically highlighted. So why not provide that same specificity when you share web info with others? …
The Startup Antibubble
Plus 3 Steps To Getting Started
Coronavirus
It was the worst of times,
it was the best of times,
it was the age of uncertainty,
it was the age of information,
it was the epoch of isolation,
it was the epoch of technology,
it was the season of Darkness,
it was the season of Light,
it was the winter of despair,
it was the spring of hope,
Please forgive me, Charles Dickens, but twisting your meme slightly seems appropriate in this period of Covid 19. It’s difficult to speak of hope in the current context of losses of life, livelihoods, and institutions. And the uneven distribution of burden is so unfair. However, humankind is resilient. We are motivated by hope. Hence, perhaps a discussion of hope can be healthy in dark times. …
More than marketing. A framework for business success.
Customer Empathy is Key To Growth
Successful business growth experts have all along known this, which industry is starting to espouse — empathize with and deliver value to your prospects and their business you will receive. The adversarial approach of “winning” or “taking” prospects’ business will not work in the long-term. Greater communication, democratization, and transparency has assured this.
Central, then, to effectively growing your business is understanding your “Buyer’s Journey” — not your sales process, but the process your prospects go through when buying your products or services.
The days of selling your multi-million-dollar perpetual licensed software EA (enterprise agreement) and walking away celebrating, “Mission Accomplished” are over. If your customers don’t actually implement and use your products, what chance is there that they’ll be happy enough to buy again, let alone recommend you to others? Thus, the “funnel” has evolved to an hourglass where your happy customers can become immensely valuable sources of growth via a wide range of assistance from “social proof” to active evangelizing. …
Analyst Relations in a Nutshell for Startups
Sharing One of My Most Valuable B2B Marketing Secrets
I am surprised by how few B2B tech startups (from my experience, pretty close to zero) leverage industry analysts. I suspect this is due in part to misconceptions, in part to legitimate roadblocks, in part to lack of awareness, in part to underestimated value, and in part to a lack of knowledge about how.
In fact, analysts can provide tremendous value, so let’s address these…
What are Analysts?
Professional industry analysts are individuals or firms that are experts in an area (e.g., industry or function), i.e., subject matter experts (SMEs). Typically, they make money by publishing research and advising clients. They are quite prevalent especially in enterprise information technology (IT) where the landscapes (technologies and vendors) are complex and rapidly changing. Analysts may have experts in a technology area (e.g., databases), vertical industry (e.g., logistics), or function (e.g., …
Getting Back To Normal And Staying That Way
Technology Solutions Could Speed Our Return To Normalcy
(I am neither epidemiologist nor doctor. This post is my non-professional personal opinion.)
Although the current economic situation was not due to an economic cause, the humanitarian treatment (social distancing) will certainly have an economic impact. Analysts like Jan Hatzius (Chief Economics, Goldman) predicts a big hit (34%+ decline in GDP; 4x Great Recession!) but fast recovery. So how do you estimate that impact?
Long term, I think we can assume that the stock market is correlate with GDP. In Q1, the stock market took a ~30% dive already, but has gained back about 10% of that (faster than I would have expected, but presumably because the market has reduced uncertainty in future outlook). Now, the Dow Jones Industrial Average is back to about 20% below the February peak. So how much impact should GDP-drop impact stock equity values? A 34% drop for a finite period (i.e., …
Comprehensive Startup Guide To Finding Your Best Path During Financial Turmoil
Turn Survive Into Thrive
During a humanitarian crisis, it’s difficult to focus on business. However, economics also affects lives. In fact, it’s not only our duty to ourselves, employees, and investors, but to the economic community to ensure our businesses survive, thrive, and contribute to society.
Fortunately, there is U.S. federal government assistance through the C.A.R.E.S. (Coronavirus Aid, Relief, and Economic Security) Act which may help startups, particularly regarding cash flow during this current Coronavirus economic period. …
Everything you need to know to make a compelling investor pitch
Understand investors’ motivations to win them over
There’s certainly no shortage of advice for startups wanting to pitch investors for funding. So why would I offer more?
Much of the existing advice I’ve seen is very prescriptive — telling you what to say, what slides to include, even what size typeface to use….without necessarily explaining WHY.
For virtually any presentation, the better you understand your audience, the more effective your presentation will be. That’s certainly true for investor pitches too. But this does not mean “telling them what they want to hear.” In fact, remaining honest and ethical will create the best long-term win/win situations.
The following are the three key perspectives you must understand about investors if you want them to invest in your venture. …
Total Addressable Market
Solution to the TAM / Niche Paradox
The TAM / Niche Paradox
When I tried raising money for my first startup, I was perplexed…
Investors, especially larger venture capitalists, wanted to see an enormous opportunity (in fact, it’s still commonly understood today that you need to show at least a $1 Billion market). But at the same time, investors prefer to see a startup tackle a small targeted niche, so the startup can better meet the specific needs of that market that also has fewer competitors, thereby increasing chances for success.
But how can you have a targeted niche and a big opportunity? Aren’t those trade-offs?
Problems with TAM / SAM / SOM
A common approach for pitching to investors is to show TAM (Total Available Market), a smaller SAM (Serviceable Available Market), and smaller still SOM (Serviceable Obtainable Market). You’ll see many early-stage startup investor pitches with a diagram something like…
