Cash is King: 8 tips to Optimize Fundraising Strategy

By David Skok, Founder of for Entrepreneurs

Introduction

This post aims to help startup CEOs optimize their funding strategy by examining how investors value startups, and explaining how to avoid the common cash management pitfalls.

(Note: The concepts in this post will likely be obvious to experienced CEOs and entrepreneurs. Despite that, our experience indicates that entrepreneurs frequently make costly, avoidable mistakes with their financing

marcus evans will host the Millennial & Gen Z Financial Services Forum, February 7-8, 2018 in Boston, MA. Don’t miss out on the opportunity to amplify organizational growth and revenue by forging a deeper understanding of the next generation consumer. This conference will address key topics such as extracting critical insight through research and social listening, breaking down organizational silos, meeting the demands of millennial and Gen Z consumers, and much more!

Attending This Conference Wi

Customer Acquisition & Monetization - Keys to your Business Model

Source: Slide Share featuring David Skok, General Partner at Matrix Partners

Presentation describing how Cost of Customer Acquisition (CAC) and Monetization (LTV) are they key elements to get right for a successful business model. Also describes the latest techniques for reducing CAC, including Inbound Marketing, and the author's own methodology: Building a Sales & Marketing Machine.

You can download the presentation in the below lin

Introduction to the Sales and Marketing Machine

Source:

David Skok

for Entrepreneurs

Building a Sales and Marketing Machine is a structured methodology for designing and reviewing your customer acquisition process. It stresses the idea that the only right way to build a sales and marketing process is to design it around your customers (customer-centric). Although this is obvious, it turns out to be radically different to the way most companies have designed their processes, which is based on what th

A Comparison Among the Three Most Important Strategic Frameworks: Porter, the Resource-Based View of the Firm, and the Delta Model

Enrique Suarez

http://www.wix.com/suarezenrique/delta

suarezenrique@yahoo.com

According to former MIT professor Arnoldo Hax, creator of the Delta Model, in spite of the enormous proliferation of competing schemes in the business strategy literature, there are two fundamental paradigms that have emerged as the most influential in the last two decades. First, Competitive

It is crazy to think that insurers are now the ones that need to manage their risk in the face of disruption. They must reinvent their business processes and strategies from the inside out to keep up with the rate of change. So, what are insurers doing to take action?

Insurance Nexus conducted exclusive interviews with the largest life insurer – Manulife and a mid-tier insurer IAT and created an exclusive white paper on analytics, business transformation and customer-centricity.

Take a look at th

So, you have a robust product roadmap. It's got all the product features you need, from the most basic to the most innovative. Now, how did you prioritize these features?

And, are you sure you prioritized things correctly?

With limited resources, all organizations strive to prioritize those activities that drive the most value. This is particularly true in product development. Focusing on the right or wrong set of features can make or break your product (or even company).

The Kano Customer Satisfac

As customers demand more, the insurance industry has to listen or lose out. An effective voice of the customer programme (VoC) will not only create an environment for continuous improvement, but also provide a competitive advantage in an increasingly crowded market. With more insurance companies conducting their own customer research, PEX Network spoke to Lisa Schilling, Vice President, Health Care Performance Improvement, Kaiser Permanente, about bringing the voice of the customer into the hear

First, let’s define Value Proposition.  Here’s what Wikipedia has to say:

A value proposition is a promise of value to be delivered and acknowledged.  Creating a value proposition is a part of business strategy. Kaplan and Norton say “Strategy is based on a differentiated customer value proposition. Satisfying customers is the source of sustainable value creation.”

Why is having a clear and compelling Value Proposition so important?

• It solves a customer problem or satisfies a customer need.
• It is th

HOW THE FULL-GROWN QUALITY COMPANY DELIVERS SUPERIOR PERFORMANCE AND CUSTOMER BONDING

By:

Enrique R. Suarez

International Management Consultant & Professor
Master of Education & International Development

Harvard University
suarezenrique@yahoo.com - http://www.wix.com/suarezenrique/delta

In the full-grown organization executives have a systems view of their organization. They see interrelationships, not things. They manage things and lead people. Change is a mosaic of processes, methods, materials, equi

Harvard i-lab | You Have a Great Idea and Nobody Cares

Published on Jul 1, 2014

You have a great idea and nobody cares: How to figure out who cares and how to get them to buy from you.

Join Richard Banfield for this workshop, which will give you the essential tools to identify who your customers are and what the various touch points will be along their journey with your product or service. These tools are the same tools used by leading design-driven companies like Apple, Google and Dyson to develo

Do you know your Customer? Buying Cycle & Triggers

Enrique Suarez Presenting:

David Skok

Founder of For Entrepreneurs

This article written by David Skok looks at why customers expect different interactions with you depending on where they are in the buying cycle. It also examines how specific events trigger them into a buying mode. It then explains how you can use this information to make your marketing more effective.

The Customer Buying Cycle

A simple way to look at the buying cycle is to break int

Learn the Most Advanced Business Strategy in the World

The Delta Model: Putting Customers before Products

Presented by:

Enrique Suarez

http://www.wix.com/suarezenrique/delta

For many years the ultimate goal of strategy has been to achieve a competitive advantage. Organizations have operated more or less as if they are at war with one another, vying only to offer the superior product. But with the interconnection made possible by the Internet and other new technologies, it is clear that this approa

The Strategic Management Frameworks and the Delta Model: Putting Customers Before Products

Special PowerPoint Presentation for All Global Risk  Community Members

By:

Enrique R. Suarez

Master of Education & International Development

Harvard University

International Business Strategy Consultant & Professor
Former Harvard i-Lab Student Advisor

You can download the Delta Model PowerPoint Presentation below:

Frameworks_Delta2015_H.pdf

Contact Information

If you want to implement the Delta Model in your organiza

According to a recent report from Pew Research, many Americans take privacy seriously—as in the cyber kind, but also offline.

• 9% of survey respondents thought they had strong control over how much of their personal information was collected and shared.
• 38% thought they had moderate control; 37% believed they had little control; 13% said they had zero control.
• 25% used temporary e-mail addresses or usernames for some online activities.
• 24% gave non-truthful information about themselves (e.g., when re

Two Fundamental Paradigms

In spite of the enormous proliferation of competing schemes in the business strategy literature, there are two fundamental paradigms that have emerged as the most influential in the last two decades. First, Competitive Positioning, as proposed by Michael Porter from the Harvard Business School in the 1980’s, and, second, the Resource-Based View of the firm that evolved during the 1990’s.

Porter’s arguments are drawn from the work of organizational economists who place the

In the full-grown organization executives have a systems view of their organization. They see interrelationships, not things. They manage things and lead people. Change is a mosaic of processes, methods, materials, equipment, work environment and people. The shifting, understood patterns of change are controlled using statistical theory and other quality tools. Controlled not because someone in upper management is atop all the processes and information, but because:

• · Customers and their requirem

Who Is the Customer?

This is a very central question. The most obvious answer is that the customer is the one who pays. The relevance of this answer is evident, since it identifies who is directly responsible for generating our economic benefits. Therefore, we have to include the buyer as a critical element of our customer base. However, often we shouldn’t stop there, because the customers of our customer, is either as important as, or even more important than, the buyer. We need to relate to tha

How to Really Link Strategy with Execution

Most companies implicitly execute as if they were pursuing a Best Product commodity strategy. No degree of competent execution can save them from this never-ending treadmill. The core processes of the company need to be aligned to the chosen strategy in order to make progress against their strategic agenda and avoid a commodity-like outcome. The Delta Model identifies the core processes of the business and provides a guide for how they need to function d