Étienne Garbugli's Blog, page 23

Creating New Business Opportunities With Business Model Bingo

I’m lucky to be able to work with a lot of brillant entrepreneurs. One entrepreneur I was working with had a fairly successful freemium startup generating revenue through premium subscriptions. It was doing well, but growth was more difficult than originally anticipated. The CEO – coming from a complex sales background – looked at the […]

What Makes B2B and B2C Startups So Different

Imagine you’re thinking of buying a tablet. What will make you decide whether to buy? What will make you decide which product to go with? Who do you have to consult with? How will you evaluate whether this is a good or a bad purchase? How long will you take to evaluate the options? Now […]

Why Most Startups Selling to Cost Centers Fail, And What to Do About It

Although I strongly suggest selling to a profit center — Sales, Marketing or Engineering — with a hard value proposition — making money or saving money — not all startups will follow that model. The problem with selling to a cost center like Human Resources, IT or Customer Support is that their work is mostly […]

The Role of the User Buyer in B2B Customer Development

Selling in mid- to large-sized businesses is never as straightforward as selling to small businesses. The MIT Entrepreneurship Center uses the term “Jury” to refer to the group of stakeholders that must get involved in a B2B complex sales. As we saw before, the Jury includes the decision makers, the influencers, the Economic Buyer and […]

How Taleo Repaid a Key Early Adopter

Around the year 2000, Taleo was working hard to enter the American market with its talent management solution. Then newly appointed Hewlett-Packard CEO, Carly Fiorina, had made a priority of better using the vast array of engineering talent at her disposal. Although the Fortune 20 company had over 300,000 employees around the world, they were […]

The Role of the Technical Buyer in B2B Customer Development

Selling in mid- to large-sized businesses is never as straightforward as selling to small businesses. The MIT Entrepreneurship Center uses the term “Jury” to refer to the group of stakeholders that must get involved in a B2B complex sale. As we saw before, the Jury includes the decision makers, the influencers and the Economic Buyer. […]

The Importance of Long-Term Commitment in B2B

For the last 20 years, veteran B2B sales leader Vincent Guyaux has been selling to executives around the world (see Mindready Solutions case study). In 2006, Vincent was CEO of Imaginum, a fabless semiconductor manufacturer providing parts for LED televisions. The company was under-financed at the time Vincent had a meeting with Samsung’s display screen […]

The Role of the Economic Buyer in B2B Customer Development

Selling in mid- to large-sized businesses is never as straightforward as selling to small businesses. The MIT Entrepreneurship Center uses the term “Jury” to refer to the group of stakeholders that must get involved in a B2B complex sale. The Jury includes the decision makers, the influencers and your early adopters. This week, we’ll look […]

The 3 Things Your MVP Should Say About Your Startup

Version 2.1 was actually the first version of our product… It was all about perception. – Michael Wolfe, Entrepreneur and Investor The term Minimum Viable Product (MVP) was coined by entrepreneur Frank Robinson and popularized by Eric Ries to identify the version of a new product which allows a team to collect the maximum amount […]

5 Key Things Entrepreneurs Need to Demonstrate to Gain Credibility in a Market

One of the big challenges for first-time entrepreneurs targeting a new industry is getting enough credibility and visibility to have true business discussions with stakeholders. Prospects look for client referrals to purchase, but it’s impossible to get referrals without actual purchases. Many entrepreneurs fall prey to this chicken and egg situation. For prospects, it can […]