1.10.2019 | Growth, MRR, Problem/solution fit, Product/market fit, Scaling
You have a
plan, you execute but the results (such as sales) are not there. What’s the
problem? Bad salesguy, so fire him and hire a new one instead? Or could the
problem be a more fundamental one: is your plan wrong, or more precisely, the
assumptions your plan is based on are wrong?
Result =
plan x execution. It’s not always obvious which one is wrong. Both could be.
But for startups struggling with sales, the biggest issue is typically not
about sales execution (it might be suboptimal, but not the root cause). It is
likely to be a product/market fit issue. Or even more fundamental,
problem/solution fit issue. If there is no real opportunity, not even the best
salesguy can get a deal.
In most cases, rather than rotate through a number of salespersons, you should go back to your basic assumptions about the market, customers, their needs and expected behaviour. You probably have missed something. Learn from your experiments, adjust and then try again.
6.9.2019 | KPI's, MRR, Scaling
Scaling is a startup mantra and obsession. Financiers and investors - public and private alike - push startups to scale.
Newborn startups talk about scaling and measure themselves on scale stage quantitative metrics, like growth, MRR etc.
But doing things in a big scale is not scaling. Trying to force business by spending money, hiring more salespeople and increasing number both inbound and outbound actions is not scaling.
Scaling means cloning a concept that has been proven to work, both technically and commercially, in volume.
If your company does not have a concept that can be cloned, ignore this at your peril.
29.8.2019 | MRR, Product/market fit, Scaling
You get MRR by focusing on product/market fit !
A common mistake we see on startups is the “urgency” for growth. But you can not run before you can crawl - and each stage demand different tactics/strategies.
Good reading on this subject is Startup J-Curve ( http://www.howardlove.com/ )
