Sales, Marketing, and Strategy
What Makes Your Startup Worth $100M?
“Can you believe they just got bought for $300M!” Jeroen, my cofounder and VP Engineering said to me. Jeroen, who was usually pretty mild mannered, was a little pissed off. Before I could answer, Jeroen continued with his rant. “They haven’t even announced a product yet, and they have no revenue! It makes no sense.”…
Read MoreHow Do You Pitch to Customers In One Slide?
Someone recently asked me a really good question, “What’s the difference between pitching investors and pitching customers?” He had just read my really popular post titled, “How To Successfully Pitch Your Business In One Slide?” In this short video, I’ll explain exactly how you should pitch customers compared to pitching investors. Read The Video Transcript…
Read MoreWhy Isn’t Your Great Product Selling?
You just released what you thought was a killer product to market. Then what happens after you launch the product is nothing. Your killer product isn’t selling, and you can’t figure out why that is. I’ve been where you’ve been, and help you analyze what’s likely wrong and what you should do about it in…
Read MoreWhat Do You Do When Your Product Launch Isn’t Going Well?
I’ve been involved in hundreds of product launches in my career. Unfortunately, not everything is going to go right when you launch your product or service. The question is should you sit back and do nothing or should you take action? I’ll walk you through the steps we took on recent product launch that I…
Read MoreHow Profitable Does Your Startup Need To Be?
Of all the crazy, stupid, ridiculous things I’ve ever heard, I’d have to say this doozy from “Donald”, a very well known billionaire VC, has to be the craziest, stupidest thing ever: “I hate high margin businesses!” It just goes to show you how much things have changed when it comes to building companies. I’ll…
Read MoreWhy You Shouldn’t Build Your Startup To Be Acquired
There was a time in the late 1990’s when venture capitalists made a killing investing in semiconductor companies. The companies these VCs invested in were never meant to be companies built for the long term. Instead, these companies were meant to be flipped and sold quickly. The flipping of companies in the late 1990’s was…
Read MoreWhat Should You Steal From Your Competitors?
Our go to market strategy for starting our company was based on copying our competitors. Right down to the part number, the specifications, and the data sheets, that’s exactly what we intended to do. I told an interviewer when we came out of stealth mode and launched our first set of products that companies in…
Read MoreHow Do You Know You’ve Got A Great Startup Idea?
“You want to do what?” The investor said to me. “It seems like financial engineering. Why don’t you just skip that phase and get right to the unique products?” The investor didn’t get it. We had a two part strategy that had proven to be successful previously. I didn’t need to wait for the rejection…
Read MoreWhat’s The Best Way To Motivate Your Sales Organization?
Getting your sales organization motivated to sell can be one of the most challenging problems you will face building your company. It’s a true chicken and egg problem. To scale your company’s sales, you need a great sales organization. However, to build a great sales organization, you need to show you have a product or…
Read MoreHow Your Startup Can Survive A Price War
Years ago, I ran a business where we had developed a groundbreaking product called the MAX232. The product was so successful that fourteen competitors eventually built what they believed were exact replicas of our MAX232. [Do you want to grow your business? Maybe I can help. Click here.] Many of our competitors, including Texas Instruments…
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