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I agree 100% It's about quickly effecting a company's bottom line and, more specifically, their expenses.
Now is the time to sell belt tighteners!
Why? Because the last generation of startups paved the way for light-weight apps to become integrated into business. Businesses are ready to throw out the old expensive ways, or introduce new ways, of using software for business.
And new startups -- those who focus on easily integrating with businesses and saving them mone will not only kick butt in this market, they will be the next kings.
1) Thanks for investing in mytrade....I hope we were helpful in accomplishing your goal with that investment.
2) You could NOT be more right. Speed to ROI, speed to revenue will define the next gen of great investments.
Despite what we are currently seeing, "we'll figure revenue later" is D-E-D and a dice-roll....as is "ad-based". I can't emphasize enough how quickly the companies that actually care about their bottom line will pull $10 CPM campaigns from the ones that don't.
I'll take 10% of every deal you do from here (that's just where I am financially)....let's rock.
Would it be realistic for a new startup to clinch these enterprise deals within 6 months? From my conversations with people with past experience in enterprise sales, most gives the impression that enterprise sales is much harder to crack than consumer/small business sales and may take at least 1 year before you get a breakthrough.
But I think there's a WHOLE lot of companies that are going to do very well by filling needs that entrenched businesses can't or won't support, and companies that invest in downtimes will be the ones who break out when the good times return...
Dave
1) you have to sell to the enterprise which requires expensive sales people and increases burn. sales cycles are long and it's hard to get a lot of product feedback from a small customer base
2) when its so cheap to build a web service, there will always be a free service you'll be competing with
that's why i think a freemium model is the only way to attack that market
we just have different models and target audiences. but i think both can, are and will continue to be successful.
Case in point - let's look at the app dev tools area. There are 70-ish providers of AJAX component libraries and frameworks, ranging from commercial to open-source. Except for Google and Yahoo's support for two of these 70 AJAX options, the next largest commercial backer is TIBCO. So......Flex is trouncing the field as an alternative to AJAX for building rich internet apps because of the corporate backing of Adobe. In the RIA field, enterprises realize that Adobe offers the largest throat to choke.
I think we have to ask ourselves why there are not more Runescapes and Club Penguins or we might even think of these as HBOs.
Obviously, these companies can be more capital intensive, but one of the reason I fear Jason's warning about the Startup Implosion could be accurate is the page view for advertising arbitrage business model. Most VC portfolios are full of rather one dimensional nice web services that aggregate audiences, but have a terrible time differentiating their audience in sales process. Therefore, their traffic gets reaggregated by an intermediary ad network. Perhaps this is a volume business and proftable at scale, but it certainly is not 40% EBITDA, and worse, these companies don't own the paying customer/advertiser.
Where are the investments in companies that want to charge for the products/services they build?
So can we get in touch with you re: funding? ;-)
That does not mean get desperate (shove ad in face tactics) and pray your audience remains. I would start by leveraging data more comprehensively. Look to license data to ad and data exchanges. Incorporate CoRegistration offers seamlessly into your registration path. Build a marketable email and postal list, and license it to a reputable list manager. Partner with someone who can place text ads in email newsletters, P2P email, and SMS messaging.
My startup is perhaps too early stage for Roger, but our focus is on improving ROLeadSpend for enterprise clients prospecting on the web. This market should help us.
There is one point I don't understand here. Could you please elaborate on your point, "A business that has an inherent call option, that could boost its base-line exit value by at least 10x"?
if you do, can contact me : lty@netfeesoftware.com
My question is this: as a 24 year old, is this the mantra you had? If you did, great. If not, what got you on the course?
We agree completely and comply with your criteria as those were our starting points.
What do you mean by "A business that has an inherent call option, that could boost its base-line exit value by at least 10x"?