CRM’s Essential Role in Early Venture Development

Summary Via ChatGPT. This article discusses the importance of implementing a customer relationship management (CRM) strategy in the early stages of a startup. The author argues that CRM is not just about capturing customer data during the sales process, but also about establishing a customer-centric mindset and managing all relevant stakeholder relationships. The article suggests … Continue reading CRM’s Essential Role in Early Venture Development

Pricing Strategies for Startups

In a recent class, we discussed how startups should approach pricing. When you think about how important pricing is to customer acquisition, market perception of value, and venture profitability, it is surprising that founders commonly consider pricing strategies quite late in business model development. Yet, pricing is an integral part of the overall marketing strategy. … Continue reading Pricing Strategies for Startups

Product Positioning for Startups

One of the significant decisions startups face is how to best position their product offering for market entry. The final decision is challenging even when you conduct extensive customer discovery and competitive analysis and speak with fellow entrepreneurs and industry experts. In this post, I will talk about the pieces of information that you gather … Continue reading Product Positioning for Startups

Startup Metrics | Customer Acquisition

Customer acquisition metrics are the second category of startup performance measures closely associated with product engagement. As your venture moves from your early product testing to product launch, you shift your focus from customer engagement to customer acquisition. In the early MVP iterations, you are not interested in the acquisition, only engagement. In fact, in … Continue reading Startup Metrics | Customer Acquisition

Startups: Know Your Early Customer Metrics

In an earlier post, I have discussed the sales funnel's role in selecting promotional strategies to reach, acquire, and retain your target customer. Each stage of the sales cycle - Awareness, Consideration, Decision, and Post Purchase - was mapped to crucial marketing decisions. Focusing on a specific customer segment, you would take each stage of the … Continue reading Startups: Know Your Early Customer Metrics

Determining Sales Cycle Promotional Strategies

The last post highlighted how startups could apply the traditional marketing mix framework - Product, Price, Place, & Promotion (the four "Ps" - to develop an integrated market entry strategy. Now let's take a deeper look at the selection and testing of promotional strategy to reach and convert early target customers. As a starting point, … Continue reading Determining Sales Cycle Promotional Strategies

Market Entry Strategies for Startups

One of the most challenging goals for a startup is attracting and acquiring the proper number of customers to sustain and grow your venture. To gain adequate traction with your target customers, several aspects of your business model must align correctly, especially the customer relations and channel strategies. In an earlier post, I highlighted some … Continue reading Market Entry Strategies for Startups

Starting with Customer Outcomes

As entrepreneurs, product developers, and innovators, we tend to get caught up in the technical functionality of our solutions. As I have stated before in this blog, founders tend to be enamored with their conception of the customer's solution rather than the problem itself. Many innovators begin by thinking about the functionality of their proposed … Continue reading Starting with Customer Outcomes