4 Questions and Two Words for Entrepreneurs

David Friedman Member, TechCoastAngels

Oct. 2015

The Road to Profitable Growth

If you see a fork in the road, take it.

Yogi Berra

If you don’t know where you are going, any road will get you there. Lewis Carroll

I can't change the direction of the wind, but I can adjust my sails to always reach my destination.

Jimmy Dean

The Correct Answer:

For an entrepreneur, it’s about the business and the executive team

It is said that if you know your enemies and know yourself, you will not be imperiled in a hundred battles; if you do not know your enemies but do know yourself, you will win one and lose one; if you do not know your enemies nor yourself, you

will be imperiled in every single battle. Sun Tzu- The Art of War

4 Questions to Address

Question 1• Is there a market?

– Is it growing?– What is the environment?– Who is the competition? – Can you target within the market a specific need?– Is it underserved, overserved, not served?– How will you monitor progress and substantiate

traction in the market?

Question 2• Can you make it?

– Do you have a solid product?– Do you have a single product, platform product or network product?– Is it (business or product) extensible?– Do you have IP?– Where are your strategic control points?– Do you have a moat?– What makes you different than other options?

Expansion of Products into Markets

Question 3• Can you make money?

– What are your routes to revenue?– What is your business model?– How will you be able to protect and maintain pricing?– How will you support the organization growth?– How will you distribute, promote, market the product and

the cost of doing so?– How much money do you need and how will you spend

the money?

Question 4

• How will you support the product and the market?– High touch or high-tech?– First line technical and customer

support?• In-house or outsource?

– Cost to support?

2 Words

Focus

Metric Management • Sales= Channels x appointments x close rate• Number of leads generated• Return on Marketing Investment

– % leads generated– % responses– Clickthroughs

• Satisfaction/repeat buy/willingness to recommend• Sales cycle time• Average selling price• Average order size

Measurement TemplateOrganization Department Goal Owner (A) Email

Telephone

Objective Typically two or three paragraphs long. What is trying to be accomplished. References – to specific marketing plan element

Comments – additional information about the objective including Call to Action.

_______________________________________________________________________________________________________________________Specific Tasks Start Completion Status R/Y/G

Metric name for Balanced Scorecard or Executive Dashboard

Metric Description – description of the measure, include its intent, data source, and organization responsible for providing measure data. This will appear in the pop-up window when you mouse over the measure in the Balanced Scorecard.

Data Source: how to get data

Metric Target

Metric Result

R/Y/G Corrective Action

Minimum Value ROMI (if applicableScorecard Perspective Name

Date

Confidential and Proprietary- for distribution only by consent of author

PODFU• Plan• Organize• Delegate• Follow-Up

• Set a battle rhythm for your company and a dashboard to review.

• Share it with the entire team to build commitment and energy.

Thank you.

David Friedman Managing Director

949 439-4503 dfriedman@clevelpartners.com