According to estimates, 80% of businesses fail by their fifth year of operation. Startling odds, to say the least. However, the 20% that make it beyond this time frame is testament enough that by doing things better and differently, it is possible to enjoy longevity and profitability in entrepreneurship. At times, improving your internal business […]
Profits
How to Set a Balance of User Growth vs. Profitability
A question that I still hear debated often is whether a new startup growth strategy should focus on user count or profits. First of all, the glory days of “dot.coms” are gone, when investors “didn’t care” about profitability, and all the big money was focused on user count growth. In the long run, everyone wants […]
Is Your Small Business as Profitable as It Can Be?
There is an excellent chance that even if you’re an expert in your particular industry, you’re probably not an expert in small business finances. This may not seem like that big of an issue on the surface. However, in order to make the best decisions possible for your company, you need to have complete and accurate […]
Can You Profit by Serving Early Adopters?
I am a gadget freak, often purchasing new technologies in their first release. And my closet is full of such gadgets, from early pen-based computers to early brick-sized cell phones to an electronic handwriting recognition pad received as a gift to test. These early dives into new technologies serve a purpose for me. They keep […]
10 Common Mistakes with Startup Financial Projections
I was glad to be asked about common mistakes with financial projections. I read about 100 business plans a year for angel investment and business plan competitions. Most show unrealistic profitability. More people doing business plans should realize that most startups are unprofitable at the beginning; and that high growth correlates with losses, not profits. […]
Profits Eat Innovation for Breakfast
Michael Porter said, “Culture eats strategy for breakfast.” This is the first thing that popped into my mind when I read Steve Blank’s HarvardBusiness Review article explaining why Jeff Immelt lost his job as CEO of GE. Steve argues activist investors forced out Immelt because of the long, languishing performance of the company’s stock. Following Mr. Immelt out […]
How to Increase Profits by Pricing Your Product Right
The most experienced entrepreneurs know that price is the dominant factor driving profit. While profits can be increased via a number of ways, raising prices is the simplest method that yields the biggest result. A mere 1 percent change in price can generate double digits change in net profit percentages. In a study published by […]
Words Have Value, Too!
A lot of time and energy is spent quantitatively analyzing the results of surveys. The survey may be based on metrics such as customer satisfaction, NPS, customer effort, or customer experience. This quantitative analysis may take on many dimensions of statistical methodology. However, the comments that are made associated with the individual scores are seldom included in […]
Customers Should Care About Your Profitability
Too often, we succumb to price pressure—even worse, we lead with price, making pricing the center of focus of our sales efforts, then being forced to discount to “win” the business. What if we started shifting our conversations from discussions of discounting to educating them about the importance, to them, of maintaining our pricing and […]
Pricing Strategy Guide: Service Businesses
Developing a pricing strategy may not be a science, but sometimes it can feel about as difficult as performing brain surgery or engineering rocket ships! Service businesses are at particularly high risk of pricing confusion. It’s much trickier to put a dollar value on things like time and expertise than to determine the cost of producing […]
