Sales, Marketing, and Strategy
How Do You Win Really Big Deals?
The biggest one shot deal I ever won was a $25M/Year custom deal we did with Lucent. We had been doing business with Lucent optical module division in the UK and Pennsylvania for years. In fact, we were getting all of their business. However, we couldn’t crack Lucent’s box business. We had significantly better products…
Read MoreHow Do You Find Your First Customers?
“How do you intend to market your first product?” One of our board members asked me. It was March and we were going to launch our first product, the TS1001. We had 20 more products scheduled for launch in June. That was the big event. “We’re going to soft launch,” I said. In other words,…
Read MoreHow Long Should It Take Your Company To Get To Break Even?
In today’s world of “just grow baby, grow”, the break even point for startups can be all over the map. [Do you want to grow your business? Maybe I can help. Click here.] Maybe you get to break even at a run rate of $1M/year. Maybe, like Uber, you can have revenue in the billions…
Read MoreWhat Should You Do To Save Your Business When It Falters?
“It’s even worse than I thought it would be,” I told Steve. “Everything is completely broken. Revenue is cratering. Product quality is horrible. The strategy sucks. And I think the team needs be completely replaced…. “Besides that, everything’s great,” I laughed. I had taken over one of three divisions the company had three months prior.…
Read MoreThe One Key Strategy You Can’t Afford To Forget As An Entrepreneur?
“Sex sells,” I told Gill when we pitched him for the first time, “except in the Analog IC business.” Gill nodded his head in agreement. And four meetings later he gave us a term sheet for $11M. If only the rest of the investing community was as easy to convince as Gill… [Do you want…
Read MoreHow Do You Reach Customers Without Cold Calling?
There are so many different ways to reach customers that you don’t have to cold call. Yes, there are the obvious ones like advertising on Google, Facebook or even here on Quora. Here are some non-obvious marketing channels I’ve seen work to gain traction: A. Meetups. Someone I knew grew his business to over $1M/year…
Read MoreHow Do You Plan Your Startup’s Scaling Into Multiple Markets?
“Do you have a VP Sales lined up?” The investor asked me during a diligence meeting. “I do,” I answered (I’ll get back to this later). Not only should you start planning your go to market strategies for the various countries you are going to enter, you should start planning BEFORE you start your company.…
Read MoreWhy Is It So Important For You To Be Number One In A Market Segment?
General Electric in the 1980’s, under the leadership of Jack Welch, had a very simple goal for all of its businesses: Become number one or number two in market share or we (General Electric) will exit the business. The theory was that you just weren’t relevant unless you got to number one or number two…
Read MoreHow Long Should Your Startup Pitch Take?
Imagine you’ve been invited to present your company to the full partnership of a VC firm. You bring the executive team with you because you felt it was the right thing to do. You start out your pitch to the partnership. You barely get going before one of the partners interrupts you and says, “Before…
Read MoreWhat Is The Best Advice When You Are Partnering With A Larger Company?
I’ve been on both sides of this equation. We did several deals with companies bigger than us including: Companies that were distribution partners, and.. Companies that were manufacturing partners, and… Companies that were possible acquirers. There is one consistent thing about doing deals with large companies: Partnerships with large companies take time. Sometimes deals can…
Read More