David Cummings on Startups

Category: Entrepreneurship

  • Business Idea: Sales Intelligence SaaS App Part 2

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    Following up on yesterday’s post Business Idea: Sales Intelligence SaaS App, I wanted to dive into the idea a bit deeper. One of the real challenges with the idea is the lack of market awareness that unstructured information found all over the web can be turned into structured, actionable information. This, in turn, can make sales and marketing teams much more efficient. There’s a mind shift that needs to occur to get sales people taking the patterns they already see in customer acquisition and backing into potential data sources that act as sales triggers.

    Pros for the idea:

    • There are so many channels of content available that several are bound to be successful
    • The level of sales rep sophistication to be successful selling to crazy busy buyers continues to grow
    • Sophisticated sales and marketing organizations will be able to easily prove the return on investment from the app
    • Cloud-based apps make it easy to integrate the new system
    • SaaS apps like salesforce.com have built market awareness for low cost tools that aid sales reps
    • A clean pricing model that allows for a free trial for X number of records/data before needing the paid edition

    Cons for the idea:

    • Sales managers typically don’t have budgets to buy tools for sales reps
    • Potential customers don’t know that sales intelligence technology is available
    • Potential customer workflows and business processes need to be re-engineered to take advantage of the content
    • Time to measure a return on investment could be slow making the product sales cycle longer

    There are many pros and cons to the idea. With time, I believe a nice market will develop for sales intelligence SaaS apps.

    What else? What are some other pros and cons to the sales intelligence SaaS app idea?

  • Business Idea: Sales Intelligence SaaS App

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    Continuing with the previous business idea posts on Prospect Instant Call-Back and Content Marketing as a Service, I’d like to propose another idea around sales intelligence. The proliferation of content online and in social media creates a wealth of unstructured information. There’s tremendous information in there that can be used for sales purposes once the signal and noise have been separated.

    Here’s how the idea might work:

    • A SaaS app that connects to salesforce.com and SugarCRM to augment existing Lead, Contact, and Account information with additional content, mentions, and relevant links
    • A web crawler that looks for new information online in social media, websites, message boards and more. Alerts can notify the sales rep via email as well as inside the CRM. New information examples include recently funded companies that show up on venture capitalists’ websites, addition of new locations for retail chains, change in DNS records, recent blog posts, recent press releases, and many more channels of content.
    • Pricing might be anywhere from $25-100/sales rep/month or $100-1,000/content channel/month
    • Interface with marketing automation and inbound marketing products to better target marketing activities
    • Sell through channel partners like marketing agencies as well as direct to sales and marketing managers

    The goal with the SaaS service is to empower sales reps to close more deals with a shorter sales cycle.

    What else? What do you think of the sales intelligence SaaS app idea?

  • Off-site Retreats for Startups

    The Retreat Center at the St. Methodios Camp a...
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    Every year for my EO forum we do an off-site retreat out of town. Every quarter for my company we spend one day off-site doing a planning session. There’s tremendous value getting together outside the normal confines of an office and spending time to reflect on progress made as well as to plan the future. Retreats are a great way to do this.

    Here are a few tips when thinking about an off-site retreat in a startup:

    • If you can afford it, hire a professional retreat facilitator and go to a nice place (it’s hard to take people away from their families for a period of time so splurging on a good place makes it more worth it)
    • Make sure and schedule plenty of structured time to go along with hang-out time (EO forums that don’t have a retreat facilitator typically don’t schedule enough structured time with programs and exercises)
    • Start with a simpler mini-retreat where you go away for a day with no overnight component before doing a multi-day retreat
    • Require homework in advance of the retreat so that people involved come to the event prepared with thoughts

    I didn’t appreciate the value of an off-site retreat until I had the chance to experience one facilitated by a professional at an amazing location in the mountains. Now, I’m sold on the value.

    What else? Have you done an off-site retreat and what are your tips?

  • Deliver the Minimum Viable Functionality for New Features

    F-22 stealth features.
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    The idea of a minimum viable product for startups has made the rounds over the past few years. One area that needs more attention is around delivering the minimum viable new features in existing products. Just because the product is now successful doesn’t mean that the innovation around new functionality needs to slow down and revert to a must-get-it-perfect-the-first-time mentality.

    Here are some ideas when considering the minimum viable functionality for new features:

    • Lock the functionality down to only employees and key customers to test features while it is being developed
    • Push code to production (if it is isolated) while it’s being developed so that people can start giving feedback
    • Identify a new feature that can be built in one to two weeks — if it takes longer than that it is probably too broad or you’re using antiquated technologies
    • Remember that feature usage is oxygen for a product and that things shouldn’t be developed in a vacuum

    Developing the minimum viable new feature functionality is the same mentality as building a minimum viable product and should be employed by agile startups. There’s a tendency to slow down once things become more established and it’s important to fight it.

    What else? What other thoughts do you have on delivering the minimum viable functionality for new features?

  • When Does Startup Culture Start

    Social Sciences

    Talking with an entrepreneur recently we started to debate when the culture of a startup takes place. My position is that is occurs immediately with the co-founders and builds out with each additional hire. Her position is that the startup needs 15+ employees to have enough personalities and stories to fully articulate the corporate culture.

    Here are a few ideas to keep in mind when thinking through corporate culture in a startup:

    • Corporate culture is the only long-term sustainable competitive advantage within your control
    • Corporate culture starts immediately with the co-founders and strengthens or weakens with every new hire
    • The sooner the culture is defined and clarified the better for determining future hire fit
    • Getting the wrong people off the bus and the right people on the bus is the most important leadership job

    It took me seven years of being a startup CEO before I really appreciated corporate culture and now I’m a huge proponent of having a strong culture. The corporate culture starts on day one and needs to consciously nurtured forever.

    What else? What are you thoughts as to when corporate culture starts?

  • Form or Function Product UI

    Electronic components shops in Guangzhou. Ther...
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    Products with great functionality and strong form/design are often the most successful, but they don’t usually start out that way. For many entrepreneurs, especially with B2B products, getting the function right should precede getting the form right. The idea is that you want to solve the problems as efficiently as possible, even if the UI isn’t as nice as it could be done with more resources or time. Some entrepreneurs attempt to get the design right before users are even on the system. Users are oxygen for the product and need to be part of the design and feedback process so that it isn’t built in a vacuum.

    Here are some ideas when thinking about product form and function:

    • Function needs to come before form
    • Form is important for B2B products, and even more so for B2C
    • More and more enterprise products are taking UI inspiration from B2C web apps
    • Consumer web apps are raising the design bar for business apps
    • It is often more difficult to find front-end product designers that back-end developers

    Product form and function are difficult to do well but function is more important. Form takes a special talent with a graphical eye as well as strong user experience understanding.

    What else? What are some other ideas when thinking about product form and function?

  • Find the Early Adopters

    Promenade...!!!
    Image by Denis Collette…!!! via Flickr

    Signing the first 10 customers for a new product is one of the most difficult things an entrepreneur will ever do. It isn’t the act of signing the customer but rather everything required to get to that point and the challenge of getting the prospect to take that leap of faith and become a customer. One of the best things to do is to find the early adopters who take pride in using technologies before they’ve crossed the chasm.

    Here are some ideas to find early adopters:

    • Go to meetups and educational events for the target audience
    • Participate in forums and message boards online where enthusiasts hang out
    • Engage in LinkedIn Groups around specific topics
    • Advertise on niche community sites

    Finding the right type of early adopters can be difficult but the results can be incredible. Create a methodical plan and execute it to find and convert the early adopters into customers.

    What else? What are some other ways to find early adopters?

  • Developing an Example Customer Story for Demos

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    One of the techniques I like to employ for sales demo is to create an example customer, complete with dummy site, domain name, and persona to use for sales demos. The idea is to paint a picture of the typical app customer such that the prospect that’s watching can visualize himself or herself using the software. Telling a story is much more powerful than showing features (don’t show up and throw up).

    Here are some tips when developing an example customer story for demos:

    • Have several scenarios available so that the story can be tailored to the prospect
    • Look for hooks and memorable anecdotes that you can intertwine in the story
    • Be confident about the example customer story while also being straightforward that is only an example
    • Develop an example site (e.g. use WordPress with a professional Woo Theme), custom domain name, and anything else to make the example customer convincing
    • Finish the customer story with a clear summary and desired next steps

    Great example customer stories for sales demos can really differentiate one company from another. My recommendation is to focus on story telling with strong supporting resources when doing sales demos.

    What else? What other tips do you have for developing an example customer story for demos?

  • The Value of EO (Entrepreneurs’ Organization)

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    Last week I was talking with my brother who owns the world’s most successful online spanish dictionary company. Early in the conversation the topic of the Entrepreneur’s Organization (EO) came up as he was meeting with the local Washington D.C. chapter. He wanted to understand the value of the organization and whether or not it was worth the $4k/year for membership.

    Here’s some of the value of EO:

    • Peer-to-peer experience sharing through amazing forums
    • Local social and educational events with the highest signal-to-noise ratio of any events I’ve been to in the past 10 years
    • Regional, national, and global learning events with renowned speakers and attendees
    • Secondary benefits like a private portal to ask other members questions (including members of YPO and WPO), access to the best doctors in the country on short notice, and unpublished PR opportunities

    For me, having a peer group of other entrepreneurs with $1 million+ business for intimate small group experiences as well as larger social and learning events fills a big hole that I had. I highly recommend EO and can’t say enough good things about it. As with anything, the more you put into it the more you get out of it.

    What else? Have you had experience with EO?

  • Gathering Product Feedback in a Startup

    Image representing UserVoice as depicted in Cr...
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    Gathering and organizing product feedback from constituents like customers, prospects, analysts, sales reps, support reps, and more can be a real challenge. I like to recommend two different strategies depending on the stage of the startup:

    • Seed Stage Product Feedback Strategy – a simple Google Spreadsheet with columns like Idea, Comments, URL, Done, and Proposed By goes a long way. The goal is to have something quick and dirty that allows everyone to see the ideas and add their thoughts. Each month a sheet in the spreadsheet should be renamed to archives and another sheet should be added so that things don’t get too cluttered. Customers and prospects don’t have access to the spreadsheet but all employees do have access.
    • Early/Growth Stage Product Feedback Strategy – a combination of a simple Google Spreadsheet and a formal app like UserVoice. UserVoice would be used by customers and employees. The Google Spreadsheet would be similar to the seed stage spreadsheet but it would be exclusively managed by the product manager. Every month the product manager would solicit input in person from the key constituents as well as ideas in UserVoice to come up with the road map. The process is more formal but still collaborative and agile.

    Gather and organizing product feedback is critical for the success of a startup. Using these simple approaches provides for a scalable strategy.

    What else? How do you gather product feedback in a startup?