One of the questions we get asked most frequently by our portfolio company CEOs is: How can I recruit great sales talent? Twice a year, we host teaching sessions for our companies on the fundamentals of startup sales management. At those sessions, we offer this advice on recruiting world-class revenuers: The biggest predictor of success […]
Management
Early Adopters Are Not Enough To Assure Your Success
Every technical entrepreneur is an early adopter of technology, so naturally, they build things with people like themselves in mind. Unfortunately, for most solution markets, early adopters represent only 10 to 15 percent of the total opportunity, so it’s easy to get mislead on the real requirements of mainstream customers. Psychologists call this the confirmation bias. […]
4 Science-Backed Strategies to Create the Perfect End to Your Workday
If you actually want to feel satisfied when you end your workday then incorporate these easy and healthy habits into your routine.
8 Keys To Market Delivery Of Innovative Technologies
I always get excited when founders pitch their new innovation as “disruptive,” meaning that it is so unique that it will create a new market and disrupt the existing value network, displacing established products and markets. Unfortunately, I have learned that investors and customers are wary that big changes will take a long time, and cost more mone
Common Mistakes in Startup Fundraising
A pitch deck is quite possibly the most important document a startup will ever produce. Businesses who get it right could generate millions of dollars worth of capital, generate new leads and expose their brand to a huge audience in one fell swoop. Businesses who get it wrong could jeopardize investment opportunities in the boardroom before they even get to the second slide. Here are some of the most common startup funding mistakes — and how new businesses can avoid them.
Next Generation FP&A Tools in the Age of Digital Transformation
When business students look back at the first decade of this millennium, they’ll think of it as the age of digital transformation. It will widely be considered as the time when the vast majority of industrial sectors went completely digital. And they wouldn’t be wrong: Digital Transformation is a top priority for many large companies. […]
Sales Enablement Tools Help Accelerate Sales
Over the last several years, many technologies have been developed to help accelerate and automate the sales and marketing functions. First, it was upper funnel tools that help drive customer awareness and consideration through marketing automation, which I have previously written about. Then, came the middle and lower funnel tools that help drive customer evaluation and […]
5 Ways High-Performance Organizations Make Meetings Effective
Every organization has to figure out how to make meetings productive. It’s a complex challenge. In order to be effective, each meeting needs to engage the individual talents of the people involved and work to achieve the organization’s specific goals for the moment, in a way that’s both culturally relevant and contextually sensitive to the […]
5 Market Obstacles That Kill Even Compelling Products
I often spend hours with them brainstorming on all the possible barriers that may slow adoption rates, and how to plan or modify the business model to work around these obstacles.
Apply Hospitality-Driven Thinking to Your New Venture
I just finished a new book by Stephen J. Cloobeck, “Checking In: Hospitality-Driven Thinking, Business, and You”. As a self-made entrepreneur and former chairman of Diamond Resorts International, he asserts that the five biggest companies by market value today, Google, Facebook, Microsoft, Amazon, and Apple, aren’t really tech, but hospitality companies. Tech may be the […]