Neil Movold's List: Startups

• Hey all, these decks helped us a ton when putting together our own so hope you find it useful.
  
  My favorite deck has to be the Youtube one - not because of the content of the deck but because of the story surrounding it:
  
  Firstly, in the press release I linked up on the page Chad Hurley (Youtube CEO at the time) uses Blockbuster as a positive analogy, "the equivalent of moving one Blockbuster store a day over the Internet". Different times.

• So you want to build a startup. You have an idea. You have what you believe is a profitable business model. Heck, you even have eager fans among your friends and family.

   

  That’s all well and good, but how do you get from light bulb moment to investment-worthy business venture?

   

  You need to develop an MVP to showcase your idea. Whether it’s connecting with beta testers or promoting your product to press writers, without an MVP you stand little chance of building traction for your new venture.

   

  But before creating a broader, public-facing MVP (the focus should be on ‘viable’), it’s worth developing a very early-stage version of your product or service for validation purposes.

   

  Whether you’re planning to apply to an accelerator, seek financial backing from friends and family, or email your business idea to press reporters, having a MVP ready is essential.

   

  Your ability to show off your initial concept not only helps others understand your concept, it highlights your ability to get things done. 

   

  Here are 10 tools you can use to create your initial offering.

• always to have an in-depth look at the problem the company is looking to solve.
• “Is it a real problem and is it being solved in a unique way?”
• “Most importantly, who are the team solving the problem?”
• “Once we make the investment our role is to be a great partner to our entrepreneurs. It is about supporting them based on what they need rather than just a cookie-cutter approach.”
• picking your co-founders is “just about the most important decision you can make”.
• Bassat says one of the hardest things for founders is maintaining a positive and productive culture while other aspects of the business are developing.

4 more annotations...

• • Hire top down after the first 10 people
  • Invest in design (team or agency) from day one
  • Be tied to your vision and problem statement but not your approach
  • Define customer personas up front and segment by pain/needs
• • Focus on a single pain point and a single persona first
  • Do less, but do it better, especially in product and marketing
  • Start competing in a red ocean but try to redefine the market so it becomes a blue ocean
  • Don’t rely on a single lead source driven by high demand and limited supply
• • See your platform as multiple products not multiple features
  • Hire product managers with strong domain experience
  • Run a 6 month (minimum) closed beta and nail your USP (Unique Selling Point) before going live
  • Go for fewer customers at a much higher ACV
  • Tie a good amount of everyone’s bonus to a customer success metric
• • Build an open platform from day one (RESTful API, also consumed internally)
  • Be patient and work on a 5/7/10 year timeline — ignore competitors and focus on the market opportunity not feature wars
  • Listen to your gut more, especially when it comes to people — assume all resumes are B.S. and back channel at least 5 people who worked with, for and above each candidate
• • Listen to the entire organization (especially those in daily contact with clients) in a way that scales as you grow
  • Build a customer advisory board who are incentivized to provide valuable feedback often
  • Amplify the brand by building and remunerating a team of influencers
  • Understand the 4 styles of leadership and use each effectively depending on the person you’re leading
• • Know which stage your company is in (product market fit, getting ready to scale or scaling) and only read books/blogs related to that stage
  • Make sure all senior leaders have their own executive coaches
  • Listen to and respect opinions, but realize they’re just opinions
• • Don’t be emotional about the business — balance an intense focus on work with family, friends and fitness
  • Realize no one cares as much as you do, and that’s OK
  • Fire fast and be less forgiving of mistakes, especially in departments that are measured with raw numbers, like sales and marketing
  • Don’t speak at conferences — they’re a massive waste of time
• • Don’t assume everyone has honest intentions just because you do
  • Don’t beat yourself up because you make mistakes
• Solve a problem you’ve personally experienced and that you could work on for the next 7–10 years

7 more annotations...

• The way you sell your product is as important as the product itself.

   

   

   

  The success of your product is about your ability to get your product to market, make it stand out and convince others to sell it for you.

   

   

   

  This has become more of a science than an art form, and as a startup can make or break your business. But the topic isn’t discussed enough.

   

   

   

  At Xero, where I look at strategic partnerships and new channels, I’m in the fortunate position to witness a highly effective sales machine as well as meet so many other great SaaS sales leaders.

   

   

   

  As a word of caution, you should know that digital sales are hard.

   

   

   

  This is particularly true in a SaaS context where search engine marketing, ad display and remarketing costs can easily reach $100 per customer.

   

   

   

  These tactics are a zero-sum game.

   

   

   

  Data compiled by Compass CEO Bjoern Lasse Herrman suggests that fewer than 7% of all SaaS companies achieve more than 10,000 customers. At that level, and assuming a direct digital advertising play, you could be talking up to $1 million in acquisition cost. Think about whether you have the money to pursue this approach.

   

   

   

  Here are my 10 key tips to setting out a sales strategy as a startup:

• Product to market fit analysis frameworks.

• Business plan vs Lean Canvas
• Business plans take too long to write, are seldom updated, and almost never read by others but documenting your hypotheses is key. 
   
  Lean Canvas solves this problem using a 1-page business model that takes under 20 minutes to create, will be read by more people, and lets you focus on building your business - faster.

• Recently, we welcomed Wrike founder Andrew Filev, as a panelist for our webinar "How To Build Effective Virtual Teams For Startups.” Andrew has been leading virtual teams since he founded his first consulting firm at the age of 17. After years of assisting companies with collaborative work management, Andrew realized that the market needed a tool to help businesses work smarter.

   

  “Everything you’ve learned about management is applicable to both local and virtual teams. The big difference with remote teams is that everything is amplified,” said Andrew. “Imagine that you have a foundation, and you have a little crack in that foundation. With local teams, everyone is close by and you don’t even notice that crack, while virtual teams can act as a long lever that push down on that crack.”

   

  Since the launch of Wrike, Andrew has tailored the system to “help co-located and distributed teams get things done together in real time.” He knows exactly what managers need to run effective virtual teams.

• For startup founders, networks and connections can be incredibly important in propelling the success of their startup. However, new startup founders may be wondering how they can build up their network to support them along their entrepreneurial journey. In this post, Maria Dykstra shares the rules startup founders can follow in order to increase their network. 

• But we had a fast-growing, hungry baby that we desperately needed to feed
• In order to hire a larger team, upgrade our product and market our offering to a wider audience, we decided to seek out venture capital
• I’ll be the first to admit that the experience of approaching and working with venture capital firms—if you’ve never done so before—can be intimidating. After all, VCs broker deals like this every day; you don’t.
• I’d caution founders to slow down, do their homework and not jump at the first deal.
• If you have a winning product, you won’t find it difficult to secure other offers. It’s also critical not to get caught up in the “brand-name” VC game. Having a marquee investor may bring some social proof to your venture, but it’s debatable whether the expertise and counsel provided is any more valuable than what you could get from a lesser-known firm.

3 more annotations...

• It’s no secret that in order to grow, your startup requires effective promotion – and there are few things that will give your company the boost it needs as effectively as press coverage.
• 92% of consumers trust earned media over traditional ads
• Follow the 3 P’s of PR Storytelling: Product, Purpose, and Passion
• Your story for the media should be built on three basic elements: your product, purpose, and passion.
• Think Like a Journalist to Earn a Journalist’s Attention
• Timeliness:
• Relevance:
• Novelty
• Find the Right Angle: Tailor Your Story to Each Journalist
• Focus on ‘Human Relations’ for Long-Term Success
• Follow the Golden Rule of PR: Make Friends Before You Need Them
• Connecting with a Journalist: Five Key Tactics to Follow
• Always seek permission before pitching
• . Hone in on what’s in it for them:
• Work the headline:
• Back everything with facts
• Be prepared to support your pitch:

15 more annotations...

• Startups are product-focused, rather than customer-focused.
• To get the attention of consumers, it’s more important to talk about the experience delivered by a product and the benefits.
• Messaging needs to be about a customer’s needs, interests, goals and problems, rather than a startup’s goals and interests.
• If you’re not telling consumers how your product will make them more productive, profitable, healthier, etc., you’re marketing is ineffective and unable to create a positive impression.
• A lack of perspective:
• An inability or unwillingness to talk to potential or existing customers.

4 more annotations...

• S: SET THE STAGE
• Immersion:
• Empathy:
• Volume:
• Regardless of the tactic, your goal here is to immerse your audience into the world in which your story exists.
• M: MANAGE EXPECTATIONS
• If you’re pitching with a slide deck, you should be leading your audience along so that each following slide is answering a question that you’ve deliberately placed in their head.
• Ensure that whatever information you are presenting is building up anticipation for what you are presenting next.
• A: ANSWER YOUR QUESTIONS
• You embed a question into the mind of your audience, and then you provide an answer.
• R: REPEAT THE PROCESS
• T: TAKE ADVANTAGE
• It is at this point you want to end strong; emphatically. You confidently conclude the conversation with a concise statement that reiterates your inspirational goal, and you ASK for the audiences involvement.

11 more annotations...

• There isn’t a market for the product
• Location, location, location
• “We moved faster than our consumers could move”
• Failing to put together an A-Team
• the credibility of the company is its people, their individuality and their experiences.
• Lack of experience and vision

4 more annotations...