EC Column

How can I launch a startup while on OPT? • ZebethMedia

By zebethcontrolPosted on October 19, 2022Posted in Column, Dear Sophie, EC Column, EC DEI, Government & Policy, H-1B visa, immigration law, Sophie Alcorn, Startups, STEM OPTNo Comments

Sophie Alcorn Contributor Sophie Alcorn is the founder of Alcorn Immigration Law in Silicon Valley and 2019 Global Law Experts Awards’ “Law Firm of the Year in California for Entrepreneur Immigration Services.” She connects people with the businesses and opportunities that expand their lives. More posts by this contributor Dear Sophie: How can I protect my H-1B and green card if I am laid off? Dear Sophie: Any tips for negotiating visa and green card sponsorship? Here’s another edition of “Dear Sophie,” the advice column that answers immigration-related questions about working at technology companies. “Your questions are vital to the spread of knowledge that allows people all over the world to rise above borders and pursue their dreams,” says Sophie Alcorn, a Silicon Valley immigration attorney. “Whether you’re in people ops, a founder or seeking a job in Silicon Valley, I would love to answer your questions in my next column.” ZebethMedia+ members receive access to weekly “Dear Sophie” columns; use promo code ALCORN to purchase a one- or two-year subscription for 50% off. Dear Sophie, I’m an international student in the U.S. in F-1 status. I will graduate with a bachelor’s degree in computer science this May and plan to apply for OPT. I want to launch a startup. Can I do that with OPT? What options would I have after OPT to continue growing my company? — Forward-Looking Founder Dear Forward-Looking, It’s so exciting to hear you’re planning ahead for your startup founder journey. Taking this route requires planning and forethought. Consult an immigration attorney for guidance as well as precautionary measures to mitigate risks and protect you along the way. Launching a startup on OPT As an F-1 student with OPT work authorization (work permit), you can get your company up and running and be self-employed as long as you’re putting your degree to work. You must also work full time and have all the proper business licenses that your state requires. You don’t have to wait until you get OPT to start setting up your company. Under immigration law, doing things like forming the legal entity for your company, pitching potential investors or negotiating contracts are not considered work, so you are allowed to do them without OPT work authorization. Image Credits: Joanna Buniak / Sophie Alcorn (opens in a new window) That way, once you’re on OPT, you will have a full 12 months to focus on operating your startup. F-1 students can apply for OPT up to 90 days before completing their degree, but no later than 60 days afterward. Take a look at this previous Dear Sophie column on OPT and contact your university’s DSO (designated school official) for more information. If you already know you want to maintain your startup in the U.S. and find investors here, then talk to a corporate attorney to determine how to structure the company. In general, U.S. investors want to deal with Delaware C corporations. Even though you incorporate in the state of Delaware, your startup can be based in Silicon Valley or anywhere in the U.S.

How to combine PLG and enterprise sales to improve your funnel • ZebethMedia

By zebethcontrolPosted on October 18, 2022Posted in Column, EC Column, EC Enterprise Applications, EC How To, Enterprise, enterprise sales, product-led growth, StartupsNo Comments

Kate Ahlering Contributor Kate Ahlering is the chief revenue officer at Calendly, where she leads sales, sales enablement, revenue operations and partnerships functions. Between the changing tides of the economy and digital buying preferences, SaaS companies are under tremendous pressure. Many of these companies understand that 80% of their interactions with buyers occur on digital channels. At the same time, they need to drive profitability to meet investor expectations. The question is: How do they appease customers who want self-service while accelerating profitable growth? While product-led growth (PLG) is a successful strategy, many companies will complement these efforts with sales-led growth (SLG), or an enterprise sales motion, to move upmarket or into a specific customer segment. With the right go-to-market (GTM) architecture in place and effective use of data, companies can make the most of both strategies to accelerate revenue growth. When does it make sense to complement PLG with SLG? Typically, companies follow three patterns when it comes to their GTM approach: It’s important to make sure your pricing and packaging is differentiated between your individual, team and enterprise plans. Product-led: Focusing on the user and their experience with the product as the primary path to revenue. Sales-led: Leveraging traditional marketing and sales methods to reach the buyer or economic decision-maker. This approach may be supported by selected PLG techniques to drive user advocacy. Hybrid: Combining the best of both worlds, with PLG techniques generating awareness and making inroads into prospect accounts, and sales activities driving most of the revenue. With PLG, the product needs to make an impact on the user — and do it quickly. After all, the product is the primary vehicle for user acquisition, retention and expansion. While PLG works best for products with some level of virality, in many cases, you do not have to choose between SLG and PLG. As an example, Calendly’s sales team often talks to customers about how we can help scale the platform to create an even deeper impact within their organizations. We follow a hybrid GTM approach, where PLG provides a critical access point into prospect accounts, and sales drives enterprise expansion and revenue. While PLG feeds the funnel, sales targets end users with influential titles inside the core use case we serve (e.g. VP of sales), where we can drive the most value and business outcomes.

Finding an exit from the ‘messy middle’ • ZebethMedia

By zebethcontrolPosted on October 17, 2022Posted in 2023, Column, EC Column, EC venture capital, fundraising, limited partners, Startups, Venture, venture capitalNo Comments

Eric Tarczynski Contributor More posts by this contributor University entrepreneurship — without the university To predict what 2023 will look like for venture capital, we need to start by understanding where we are now. We’re entering a messy middle where prices continue to drop and the “2021” deal, industry slang for an investment made at an exorbitant price, is long gone. Companies can no longer raise $5 million to $10 million seed rounds with nothing but a deck and the assumption that revenue multiples will skyrocket beyond historical norms. The VC landscape has started to bifurcate, and it will continue to do so during 2023 both for fundraising and investments. Fundraising: A tale of two worlds Even though the best vintages originate during downturns, it’s difficult to allocate to something you’re already substantially overexposed to. In 2023, we will see two worlds emerge. The companies with the best talent, products and positioning will command capital at normalized market prices, and everyone else will experience a depressed market. Due to the Fed’s rate hikes and geopolitical tensions, the macro environment has slowed and inflation hit record levels. Investor confidence is down across the board and growth rounds are largely dead on arrival, with both seed and Series A valuations down by 30%-50%. It’s now questionable to pump money into a company that doesn’t have the traction to back up its worth. But this doesn’t mean all deals are off. Venture firms still have tens of billions of dollars to deploy, but they’re more hesitant about doing so now — growth, in particular, is experiencing a hanging-around-the-hoop effect that is likely to linger as the overall macro environment stays depressed.

3 growth levers every SaaS founder should know about • ZebethMedia

By zebethcontrolPosted on October 15, 2022Posted in Column, EC Cloud and Enterprise Infrastructure, EC Column, EC How To, growth tactics, SaaS, StartupsNo Comments

Christian Owens Contributor Christian Owens is CEO and co-founder of Paddle, a payments infrastructure provider for SaaS businesses. Scaling a SaaS company is tougher today than in the past few years. Whatever stage your company is at, a near 70% drop in the value of public SaaS stocks, increasingly limited access to funding and shrinking company tech stacks all point toward a more challenging road ahead for a sector that got used to rapid growth almost by default. By nature, ambitious SaaS founders and operators do not want to give up on their growth ambitions even amid an economic downturn. There is no reason why they should do so. The fact is, VC funding isn’t a prerequisite for retaining customers and scaling steadily. However, there is no doubt that traditional growth levers like digital advertising and bigger sales teams are likely to be proving too costly or unreliable in the current climate. There are still opportunities for growth out there, but founders and operators will need a new strategy if they want to continue growing through the downturn. The key is to focus on scaling sustainably by tapping into more overlooked and underrated sources of revenue. If your CX isn’t tailored for international customers, you are leaving critical gaps in your offering and will see potential sales fall through the cracks. As the founder of a payments infrastructure provider for SaaS businesses, I have helped thousands of software companies over the last 10 years, and we see the financial metrics of 30,000 subscription companies. Based on this experience and analysis of our data, I believe there are three growth levers often overlooked by SaaS leaders that every company should be exploring. Focus on expansion for recession-proof revenue Encouraging businesses to deprioritize acquiring new customers might seem counterintuitive, but the truth is, keeping existing customers happy — and generating new sales from them — is far easier and much cheaper than acquiring new clients. This is especially true now, as many buyers will be hesitant to spend money trying out new tools. That’s why SaaS companies should be paying attention to expansion revenue — the additional revenue generated after the customer’s initial purchase. This basically means getting your customers to spend more than they did the month before. Our data shows that the most successful subscription companies worldwide have 20% of their new revenue coming from existing customers, but many businesses have close to zero. This is a consequence of what we call “sales brain” — a flawed mindset that views the sale as the end goal rather than the start of a long-term process. Here are a few ideas SaaS leaders can use to supercharge their expansion revenue: Add upsell tiers to your pricing, pushing valuable features into more premium tiers. Our research shows that the top 1% of growing apps have 16 pricing tiers, so don’t be afraid to charge for the most popular tools in your platform.

5 ways disruptive component startups can win over OEMs • ZebethMedia

By zebethcontrolPosted on October 14, 2022Posted in Column, components, EC Column, EC Hardware, EC How To, Hardware, hardware startups, StartupsNo Comments

Ori Mor is chief business officer and co-founder of Wi-Charge. Creating a disruptive hardware components startup can be quite exciting. Few things can compare to the joy of physically interacting with your creation as you design and build it from scratch. But hardware startups are challenging. Think of it as the business version of the age-old question: “Which came first, the chicken or the egg?” You have to figure out which comes first: The components you’re creating or the devices that are designed to use those components. This may sound like an easy question to answer, but it isn’t. For example, our company built a new way of delivering long-range wireless electricity using infrared light. In order to “catch” those beams of electricity, though, devices would need to have the receiver chips built in, and product designers would need to substantially change their devices to power them wirelessly. We hoped that manufacturers would be excited for our system and move quickly to update their products. We got positive feedback, too, but most simply had no bandwidth for disruption as they grappled with their burdens of running a business and worrying about earning calls. They liked the idea, but they put it on the back burner. So we began to build devices with the necessary receivers built-in to showcase how they work. Here are five things you should do if you’re on a similar path: Creating your own devices does not mean giving up on your original goal of providing components for other manufacturers to use. Start with just one Let’s be honest. The chances are quite low that you’ll have the world-changing success of cargo containers or Qualcomm SoCs. So there’s no point rushing when building a hardware startup. Instead, start by making just a single prototype that you can use to show OEMs. Don’t worry about making this first version of your device perfect or packing in all the features you’ve thought up. Think of it as a relatively crude demonstration that can give people a glimpse of what’s possible. For example, we made a small digital display device for a supermarket shelf that could be powered wirelessly. We 3D printed it and actually used some tape on the inside to keep things in place. The only goal was to show potential buyers a proof of concept that validated our idea. While you’re showing off your first device, gauge people’s responses and ask for both initial impressions and constructive feedback. Would they use it? Would they want more? What might make it work better?

6 tips for launching a blockchain startup • ZebethMedia

By zebethcontrolPosted on October 12, 2022Posted in blockchain, Column, Crypto, DeFi, EC Blockchain, EC Column, EC Cryptocurrency, EC How To, startup strategy, StartupsNo Comments

Wolfgang Rückerl Contributor These days, a blockchain startup founder should expect to navigate challenging waters. Even in the best of times, founders must both prepare for a bull market and be ready for possibly bearish territory. Having a solid roadmap, real-world use cases and a war chest are only a small part of a blockchain startup’s survival strategy. Founders also need to be aware that while non-crypto startups can offer useful and transferrable launch strategies, the road to achieving success in the blockchain industry is paved differently. Here are tips every blockchain founder should consider before launching. Bear the market conditions in mind Bear markets appear more attractive to blockchain businesses looking to launch. But before suiting up for winter, founders must assess whether it’s worth waiting to launch until market conditions are better. In the web3 world of horizontal technologies, you’ll be running against the wind if you wait to build relationships until you’ve built a technology. Evaluate your startup with the same criteria investors use during a bear market. Investors want to see a strong roadmap with deadlines and benchmarks that don’t simply come and go with no activity, as this is a signal to investors that a slow rug pull is underway. Evidence of a diversified war chest that you can draw from is pivotal, especially when providing returns on locked assets is the main impetus for attaining liquidity. In addition, analyze the market situation from a technical standpoint: The bear market is an attractive time to launch, but it’s also a time to go heads-down and focus on building your product. Regardless of market conditions, make use of your reward programs for loyal community members by offering staking rewards, airdrops and giveaways without needing to raise additional capital, similar to the traditional business world. Opt for longer vesting schedules In the non-crypto startup scene, it’s common to include compensation packages as an incentive for employees to perform well. Blockchain startups do this during the presale period of an initial coin offering using a method called vesting, where they lock and release assets (usually in the form of tokens) over a certain period. In so doing, they give their team, investors and advisers the right to certain assets such as retirement and stock options. If you choose this path, set up the token metrics and the vesting period for the gradual release of these tokens in a way that doesn’t put too much pressure on the token itself. Many crypto projects unlock and distribute their tokens every three months, and they’re finding private investors dumping them on the market, which is bad for the team and the community. In turn, retail investors also begin selling up front because they know a dump is coming. Opt for longer vesting schedules — between three and five years — to show that you have a financial incentive to continue project development. Split the release of the tokens: Release the private sale investor tokens one month, the adviser tokens the next month and the team tokens a month later. If it’s all in one month, the risk for retail investors will be too high. Don’t underestimate crypto regulations

How to go from popular to profitable during a downturn • ZebethMedia

By zebethcontrolPosted on October 12, 2022Posted in Column, EC Column, EC How To, product led sales, Product-led growth strategy, profitability, StartupsNo Comments

Nick Mills is a go-to-market leader with more than 20 years of experience building tech companies, including roles at Stripe, Facebook and CircleCI, and supporting early-stage startups as an investor and adviser. He is currently president at Pitch. As a tougher funding climate starts to bite, it’s time to ditch the past decade’s “growth-at-all-costs” mantra. Telling investors about your viral user growth is no longer enough — they want to know how it translates to revenue, resilience and runway. The ongoing market uncertainty is a particularly loud wake-up call for founders pursuing product-led growth. The go-to-market motion pioneered by the likes of Slack and Dropbox revolutionized how teams adopt and purchase software. However, even the best PLG products don’t propel their own viral popularity forever, and all companies eventually face a similar challenge: To keep growing, sales teams must be hired and a pipeline must be built. As VC funding dries up, a particularly perilous path lies ahead for PLG startups. Those on the path to revenue growth have no margin for error, and founders face a series of tough calls: which teams to layer in, when to do so and how to set them up for success. These decisions will dictate whether a PLG-driven startup will sink or swim. I’ve spent more than two decades building, scaling and advising teams tasked with bringing software products to market. While it’s true that every business is different, there are a few commonalities in every go-to-market journey I’ve been a part of. Don’t fear the demand plateau — plan for it. Here’s a roadmap founders can use to build on their PLG strategy and plot a route from product-led popularity to sustainable profitability. Size up the piece of the pie you can win now The serviceable addressable market (SAM) is where the go-to-market journey really begins. The little sibling of the total addressable market (TAM), a figure often thrown about during fundraising, the SAM is the piece of that pie you can win right now. It’s vital to understand which market segments your product can address and your go-to-market team can tackle. To gain that understanding, here are a few questions you should be asking: Which qualities do our existing customers share? What problems do they currently face? How do they approach adopting and buying software? Invest the time to establish the criteria that define your ideal customer profile. Searching for your SAM is a continuous process, especially as the capabilities of your team and product expand, but arriving at a clear understanding of your initial SAM is milestone No. 1 in your go-to-market journey. Qualify your best leads Your search for the SAM should have given you a sense of the sign-ups you’re trying to drive, and with any luck, you’ve won some active users. With your acquisition channels up and running, the next milestone in your go-to-market journey is defining a product-qualified lead (PQL).