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I know this blog post is going to get some electronic tomatoes thrown in my direction….. Meh… *cue shoulder shrug*. That said, here comes the first leadership truth:

1. You look bad when you chronically call out sick.

When we were a company of 10 people, no one ever called out sick. I even had a policy at the time where I paid for sick days that no one took advantage of. For real, never — It was just never an issue for almost two years. I then upboarded my first manager and that single move of one level separation between me as the owner and the employees created an environment where we had people calling out sick left and right. I think it was some sense of “Oh, well now it is a “company” and not just a person I am loyal to”. That sense o...

What are customer profiles?

After you figure out your big idea and before the world is obsessed with your product, you have to find your customers. And in order to find your customers, you have to create customer profiles.

An ideal customer profile — or customer persona — is a way of defining and categorizing your customers so that you can:

1. shape your startup to their needs and;
2. market to them more effectively.

That’s the simple explanation. Now, per usual, let’s do a deep dive into the more complicated one.

Why are customer profiles important?

Ideal customer profiles are important because without one, your startup is going to waste a lot of time trying to attract customers who are, at baseline, just not attracted to your product. They’...

For those of us who attend conferences, workshops and industry events regularly, it becomes easy to spot the different ‘networker’ profiles.

There’s always the ‘straight out of college’ marketing intern who fires out business cards at light-speed and performs the same pitch to every person. The quiet developer who slinks in the background avoiding eye-contact. And the somewhat creepy terminator-esque sales whizz who scans the crowd for his next target, then pounces.

Conferences and B2B networking events offer a great means of extending your network, meeting new clients, hires, partners or investors. But when dealing with experienced Business-to-Business networkers, you need to be prepared to work the room in the right way, and show the bes...

Nancy Duarte is a pro when it comes to startup presentations. Not just giving presentations, but starting them, finishing them, and every step in between. Author and co-founder of Duarte Designs, Nancy Duarte is a seasoned veteran when it comes to incorporating storytelling into speaking and creating connections with an audience.

The below video is the fourth part in a series of 10 in which Nancy shares the key components to making a successful pitch using creativity and critical thinking. Find out what she has to say:

Selling your message

Walking into a room full of investors and venture capitalists and selling your startup can be an intimidating task. Not only is a clear and well-organized message key to accomplishing the job, but how yo...

As startup Founders, we are constantly focused on making sure our fledgling companies have enough runway to grow. We believe that if the company’s bank account runs out, the company goes bankrupt and it’s game over.

But that’s not always true. It’s often not until your personal bank account runs to zero that your startup is truly done for.

The fact is that startups don’t truly go bankrupt until their Founders go bankrupt. The problem is that Founders are often so focused on the startup’s finances that they overlook their own ability to stay afloat in the process. I call this ability your “personal runway,” or the amount of time that you can stay alive and fed, regardless of the health of your business.

Back to Basics

I learned all abou...

The Price Ain’t Right.

As a startup company, pricing a project, your work or your time, is a difficult task, and one you will face from the get go in your business adventure. From experience, it is easy to underprice, and for whatever reason, easy to underprice regularly, again and again, and believe me, you will tire of concluding that “we are too fucking cheap!” after a while.

WHY STARTUPS UNDERPRICE WORK

Pricing work correctly is no easy feat, when you have to consider questions such as the following; What is the rate you want to earn? Should you charge day rates, rather than hourly rates? What would your wage be? (Note: you will want to write ‘ten million pounds’ here, unfortunately it is probably some way short of that.) What do your ...

If idea validation is about taking your business idea for a test-drive, then pricing your product is where the rubber really hits the road.

This is it. You’re done piloting. You’re done validating. You’re really done living on Ramen in an apartment you share with five roommates. You’re ready to come out and tell the world: “I have a product or service that provides value – and this is how much my product is worth.”

Needless to say, product pricing strategy is an essential piece of the startup puzzle – and it’s a notoriously tricky piece to get right. There are about a dozen moving pieces you have to take into account. Getting them all aligned just right is like unlocking the most complicated combination lock ever.

Britt Crawford knows a thi...

Startups and venture capitalists are so closely linked in the tech world that it can be hard to think about one without the other.

We certainly wouldn't have our tech giants, like Facebook or Twitter or basically any other startup-gone-big you can think of without VCs. But, finding and getting venture capital for your startup can be daunting. Where do you start? How do you start?

Don't fret — we've got you. Keep reading for more information on how to get venture capital funds for your startup.

Before we dive in, let's make sure we understand a few terms:

VC Funding

VC funding is the process in which a company or individual invests money into a business in exchange for equity. This type of investment is most commonly used by startups and small b...

When you start to raise venture capital for your company you’ll quickly find there’s a common process each venture firm utilizes.

Once the partners have agreed to make an investment in you, their offer will come in the form of a term sheet.

You have to appreciate the fact that these firms are constantly pitched by every entrepreneur with an idea, so their first order of business is to separate the serious entrepreneurs who want to raise venture capital from the crazy ideas they want to run away from!

Every entrepreneur looking to raise venture capital goes through roughly the same process. They start with an introduction to the firm, get invited to pitch, make their way through a few successive meetings, and eventually wind up pitching the ...

The first article in this 3-part series (How to Design a Killer Sales Compensation Model) introduced the concept of behavioural theory and how it affects sales compensation design. This second article discusses how compensation packages suit different stages of company and product evolution.

The main challenge with designing a sales compensation program is the primary sales role constantly evolves as the company grows and the market matures. The following diagram, courtesy of The Alexander Group, explains the four phases of growth and how this impacts the business.

Phase 1: The Start-Up Phase

In the Startup phase, brand awareness is low, and companies strive for a foothold in the market. The salesperson must have an entrepreneurial drive ...