Both Sides of the Table

OCTOBER 22, 2015

Not market guarantees, but more like, “Ok, I heard your story 2 years ago, how has it gone?” I’ve seen this play out a million times and usually in self-destructive ways where unhealthy focus on your competitors leads one to take one’s eye off of the customer and market opportunity.

real estate 372

real estate incumbents disruption education 372

Both Sides of the Table

NOVEMBER 22, 2014

The story on Uber has been written about ad nauseam, which is why I’ve been reluctant to weigh in. This story has been repeated by many parents I know and by many 20-somethings in LA. I doubt they have a customer problem. In my opinion there is one big potential scandal and people are chasing the wrong story.

mix-use 418

mix-use innovation pitching board 418

Both Sides of the Table

MAY 1, 2014

The second is that the retailers were constrained by their high costs of local real estate and service staff relative to the costs of centralized warehouses where goods could be stacked high, sorted by robots, managed by RFIDs and then shipped via overnight to eager, cost-conscious customers across the US. 10x the experience.

real estate 380

real estate ventures innovation pitching 380

Both Sides of the Table

OCTOBER 20, 2013

It’s a shame because the ability to nail these presentations at key conferences can be once-in-a-lifetime opportunities to influence journalists, business partners, potential employees, customers and VCs. Tell a story – Every great presentation tells a story. Stories have starts, middles and ends.

creativity 399

creativity education advice support 399

This is going to be BIG.

NOVEMBER 16, 2015

It just seemed like a fitting title for a company built around narrative by a founder who used to write stories for a living. It's a story that just hit a milestone--a $4mm round of venture funding that I'm ecstatic to say Brooklyn Bridge Ventures just led. At least, that would be the title if somebody made a kids movie out of it.

venture capital 346

venture capital ventures capital consumer retail 346

This is going to be BIG.

JANUARY 8, 2015

How I got to this investment was another long term story. Not to mention the fact that a lot of billion dollar companies get there by not necessarily trying to be a billion dollar company on paper, but by obsessively focusing on the customer experience, building a team that shares your mission, and just executing well.

venture capital 402

venture capital creativity VC financing 402

American Entrepreneurship

DECEMBER 2, 2024

The two-year-old startup having served approximately 40,000 customers announced the closing of a $21 million Seed funding round to support its AI speech models and an AI voice agent platform. PlayAI accomplishes these significant improvements by using custom large language models (LLMs) trained on an extensive dataset of diverse human speech.

entrepreneurship 98

entrepreneurship enablement media support 98

Both Sides of the Table

JANUARY 12, 2014

With slower growth and slight product tweaks over time my guess is that Viddy would have been an amazing success story due to a very talented product team. If you have NO network of promotion for your story? But it wasn’t to be. ” Me? When Apple learned of this they frowned heavily on it.

peer-to-peer 379

peer-to-peer mix-use consulting advice 379

Revolution

MAY 4, 2022

And by all measures, the company was executing well: growing revenue, increasing profits, and an expanding geographic footprint to serve its blue-chip customer base. CEO and co-founder, Ryan Simonetti, had to negotiate with employees, customers, lenders, and landlords.

real estate 264

real estate coworking spaces coworking hospitality 264

Both Sides of the Table

JUNE 22, 2015

So that we’re speaking the same language I would define “exclusive” as a period in which your company is prohibited from doing business with certain customers or business partners, which is why many incorrectly assume this is necessarily bad. Why Exclusivity Matters to Your Customers or Business Development Partners.

innovation 329

innovation creativity development advice 329

American Entrepreneurship

MARCH 26, 2025

Island has already secured 450 customers across sectors, and its annual recurring revenue has more than doubled each year, a testament to its market demand and customer value. Our customers input has been invaluable to securing their sensitive data, eliminating IT inefficiencies, and making IT work best for end users.

hospitality 90

hospitality entrepreneurship SaaS innovation 90

This is going to be BIG.

JUNE 22, 2020

One of the most difficult conversations I have with founders is when they haven’t quite given me enough of a story for me to make a proper evaluation. Well, sometimes you’ve built a little MVP which doesn’t tell the whole story of what you want to be when you grow up. Why do I say it like this? Why will they be convinced?

pitching 312

pitching VC peer-to-peer founder 312

Source Link

APRIL 1, 2022

They’d like to see us continue spotlighting best practices and community success stories in our newsletter and on socials, so please be sure to follow us on Twitter , Facebook and LinkedIn for the latest and greatest from our network! webinar on strategies for growing rural communities through entrepreneurship-led economic development.

makerspace 237

makerspace economic development entrepreneurship communities 237

Young Leaders of the Americas Initiative

JULY 16, 2021

Unable to have customers in the store, business owners have to rely on digital marketing for their products and services. In an environment where millions of choices are at the fingertips of consumers, companies, now more than ever, must work to attract and retain customers. Thank you to Nathalie for taking the time to share her story.

media 246

media entrepreneurship strategy networking 246

Entrepreneurs' Organization

MARCH 31, 2021

Sharing your company’s story can have a powerful and long-lasting impact on company culture —especially during times of change. The following excerpt is posted here with permission: It’s hard to beat a great story! Stories are a common component of any healthy company culture, especially when renovating. Is it memorable?

culture 225

culture innovation leadership board 225

Both Sides of the Table

DECEMBER 7, 2014

I spend a lot of time with startups and thus hear many companies talk about their approach to sales and their interactions with customers. From these meetings you can really tell the leaders that care deeply about their customers and those the look down on them. You’d be very wrong. Contrast that with a VC conversation I had.

peer-to-peer 341

peer-to-peer VC entrepreneurs support 341

Entrepreneurs' Organization

JULY 5, 2024

During nine custom-designed Learn Around excursions to Singapore businesses, most owned by EO members, groups of EO members enjoyed behind-the-scenes access to local enterprises including Creative Eateries , LionsBot International , Brass Lion Distillery , LeVel 33 Brewery , and Goldbell Group. “My takeaway: I’m humbled.

creativity 222

creativity leadership energy collaboration 222

Revolution

MARCH 28, 2023

We’ve seen stories every day about the creative ways people are integrating ChatGPT into their personal and professional lives, making this winter feel reminiscent of the launch of the first online chat rooms or the introduction of the iPhone.

creativity 257

creativity disruption development opportunity 257

American Entrepreneurship

JANUARY 8, 2025

We were building an amazing product that connects emotionally with consumers which we tell stories about to reach people. This individual is responsible for overseeing the development of the product or service, ensuring that it meets both the technical and customer needs.

startup 98

startup culture entrepreneurship development 98

Young Leaders of the Americas Initiative

SEPTEMBER 24, 2019

Enhancing the customer experience. Wanting to best understand his customers, address their needs, and communicate with them in real-time, Dávila Kafe has a variety of different ways to engage. Building a passionate team. Beyond his business plan development working with an accelerator in the U.S.,

communities 239

communities culture accelerator collaboration 239

Both Sides of the Table

OCTOBER 11, 2016

Invoca has grown its enterprise customer base 550% in the past three years including major customers like Microsoft, Allstate and SunTrust. Venture Capital is About Human Capital was originally published in Both Sides of the Table on Medium, where people are continuing the conversation by highlighting and responding to this story.

venture capital 363

venture capital capital ventures VC 363

A VC: Musings of a VC in NYC

MAY 19, 2020

It is the story of Ross Ulbricht (aka Dread Pirate Roberts), the founder and owner of The Silk Road. It is a fascinating story with many angles; drug and arms dealing, entrepreneurship, criminal investigation, and much more. A much smaller percentage of them recirculated back and forth between customers and suppliers in the market.

entrepreneurship 272

entrepreneurship technology founder 272

Both Sides of the Table

MAY 14, 2018

Detailed roadmap of features you plan to build Detailed customer information Salary information Any other information you wouldn’t want seen or know by your competitors or a larger audience In short, there is nothing in your deck that should give you pause or make you feel like you can’t just send the damn file to somebody.

VC 239

VC pitching strategy investing 239

This is going to be BIG.

NOVEMBER 1, 2016

Yesterday, I met with a founder with an interesting model who was raising $400k to bring the finishing touches to her product to make it customer-ready. There was no reason to think that her technical team couldn't accomplish this--and, in fact, customers had already been using various hacked together versions of it previously.

advice 418

advice founder pitching VC 418

Entrepreneurs' Organization

DECEMBER 15, 2021

Here is what he shared: During my career, I pitched my business hundreds of times—sometimes to friends and family, sometimes to customers, and sometimes to potential investors. This should be everything from the problem you solve to your solution and the reasons your customers love it. Tell a story. Humans love stories!

pitching 256

pitching entrepreneurs venture capital ventures 256

Both Sides of the Table

FEBRUARY 18, 2020

link] Why (and who) she thinks will pay for premium Quibi content In a world of Netflix, Hulu, HBO, and YouTube, why would a customer choose to pay the $4.99 monthly subscription (or $8 ad free) for Quibi? That includes things like: Structure of the “turnstile” content?—?the

innovation 244

innovation technology creativity venture capital 244

Entrepreneurs' Organization

JUNE 12, 2020

She is selling custom-designed In This Together t-shirts, masks and stickers (in English and Spanish) and donating all proceeds to local businesses. “We In Berlin, Karsten Warrink is an EO member and founder of AmberMedia who is grateful for the chance to share stories and experiences with fellow German EO members.

hospitality 237

hospitality collaboration health support 237

Both Sides of the Table

MAY 20, 2020

Customers were happy and restaurants focused on their in-store business. The problem for the restaurants is that the more successful the “aggregators” of customer demand become over time, the less power the restaurants themselves have individually. they just put up with the food delivery company fees. so, too, are restaurants.

SaaS 242

SaaS enablement disruption innovation 242

Entrepreneurs' Organization

JANUARY 12, 2022

I wish we had built our customer base more aggressively before Apple’s iOS 14 update. One day, I shared my story on Instagram about how I created seven revenue streams while working a full-time job. My story caught the attention of colleagues who asked, “Can you coach me to follow in your footsteps?”.

founder 294

founder education entrepreneurs entrepreneurship 294

Both Sides of the Table

JUNE 17, 2017

I want to understand how many units the company is selling, whether this is increasing over time and how well they’re doing at retaining the customers that they do acquire. Do 20% of the customers make 80% of the revenue or do the top 3 customers represent 80% of the revenue. My first priority is to understand “growth drivers.”

startup 227

startup venture capital VC capital 227

This is going to be BIG.

APRIL 23, 2018

A few weeks ago, I booked a customized tour of Iceland with Noken , and I did it in about five minutes. I had a connection to my own personal trip concierge and a custom app that outlined my trip. The funny story about that is that they weren't really raising, but just looking to build connections for their seed.

culture 243

culture education VC opportunity 243

Revolution

SEPTEMBER 11, 2023

Supply chain and manufacturing slowdowns, global uncertainty, and a lack of understanding of customer buying behavior caused e-commerce brands to run into challenges managing their inventory, particularly when it came to accurately forecasting demand and securing items. Where we’re going: Customer acquisition gets creative (on a budget).

creativity 241

creativity sustainability enablement strategy 241

Entrepreneurs' Organization

JULY 21, 2023

As I’ve reached a high level of success in my own business and coached hundreds of six- and seven-figure female entrepreneurs, I’ve seen one theme repeatedly: Financial success is amazing, but with business growth comes added external pressure — pressure from your team, your advisors, and even your customers.

entrepreneurship 216

entrepreneurship entrepreneurs sustainability collaboration 216

Both Sides of the Table

MAY 17, 2017

You begin to think about how hard it will be to fund raise, sign customers, hire employees, etc. And the giant gets disrupted precisely because its cost structure to serve its customers and its cash cow, high-priced offering makes it nearly impossible for it to try compete. The first instinct is fear, then dread, then panic.

funders 254

funders innovation disruption incumbents 254

Young Leaders of the Americas Initiative

MAY 18, 2021

In an era where an endless number of apps, news stories, social media posts, and products are all competing for attention, it can be difficult to distinguish yourself from the crowd. Customers and users want to know that they are making the smart choice, so the key is to show them that your organization can do what no one else can do.

education 246

education communities creativity mentorship 246

Both Sides of the Table

MAY 19, 2020

It’s clear things have changed for good and the need for managing remote communities of employees, customers and partners has become ever more important. In marketing materials founders often refer to their customer base as a “community”, but there’s a huge gap between having customers and creating a community.

communities 234

communities peer-to-peer venture capital enablement 234

Both Sides of the Table

NOVEMBER 14, 2017

There is nothing more pure than building a product, putting it out in the world and seeing paying customers using your product and in some cases loving it. As companies get this initial customer feedback on their product they start to have to ask harder questions about unit economics: How much does it cost us to acquire a new customer?

innovation 286

innovation startup board leadership 286