Blog: The Boost

Startup founder or salesperson? Should you be both?

Jonathan Cogley
Startup founder or salesperson? Should you be both?
Common advice given to founders is to be the salesperson in their startup and only hire salespeople later. This makes some sense as the founder is usually the best person to sell the startup’s product/service. This is because they're passionate about the problem area and really understand the industry, making them one of the most effective people to close deals later in the company’s life...
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Customer pains: Know them, fix them – and you’ll get new customers

Jonathan Cogley
Customer pains: Know them, fix them – and you’ll get new customers
Startups should focus on specific customer pains and provide a solution to solve those customer pains. Customer pains should be things that the customer is prepared to pay money to solve. This is advice for product management, marketing, demos, business strategy and even sales. In fact, this is something that should be engrained into all parts of your business. The customer is not buying your...
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How to fire bad customers, and why it’s good for your business

Jonathan Cogley
How to fire bad customers, and why it’s good for your business
Fire bad customers – some of them just won’t be worth keeping. Either they pay too little and want too much or they take up too much of your time. You can try to change your business model and make more money from these customers if possible. But sometimes it is easier to just let them go and focus on customers who are more profitable. Make sure you understand the profiles of your customers and...
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Do you have the qualities of a successful entrepreneur?

Jonathan Cogley
Do you have the qualities of a successful entrepreneur?
I am sometimes approached by people thinking about starting a business or going out on their own. Unfortunately some of these folks don’t seem to have the right stuff. So how do you tell – are you an entrepreneur? There are checklists on websites and probably personality tests you can take but I can only speak to my own experiences. Some characteristics seem to work and others don’t.
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Startup success factors – which startups will succeed?

Jonathan Cogley
Startup success factors – which startups will succeed?
I was at a startup incubator event a few weeks ago. We saw live pitches by six startups. Chatting to folks afterwards and the question came up – how do you determine which startups will be successful? Obviously this is a difficult question – if we could easily determine the answer then we could all make millions! Instead it seems like mostly black magic. But there must be some startup success...
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Fewer high paying customers versus more low paying customers?

Jonathan Cogley
Fewer high paying customers versus more low paying customers?
A friend reminded me of this question on a call yesterday. So, you are trying to position your startup and want to figure out if it is better to have a few high paying customers or lots of low paying customers. As with most things, it depends. There are advantages and disadvantages to both approaches. I tend to prefer lots of low paying customers but that is just my preferred style.
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Startups and RFPs. Is it a waste of time?

Jonathan Cogley
Startups and RFPs. Is it a waste of time?
So you have come across your first RFP as a startup … (Request for Proposal in case you are wondering). Maybe a customer sent it to you after some Google searches or perhaps one of your new sales guys stumbled upon it. Here is a quick lowdown of what you need to know about RFPs for a startup…
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