Competitive Intelligence 101

I advise my portfolio companies to be careful about what information they make searchable publicly.  But on the other side, I definitely recommend seeing what information others have made public. For each competitor, I suggest you do the following: Look on Angel.co for their pitch deck.   Look on Crunchbase.com and Pitchbook.com and see if they...

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How to create competitive market maps with MarketMap.me

At least ¼ of the investment proposals I get have a “market map” of some sort: a graphic analysis of the competitive landscape.  I think competitive analysis is critical.  Any useful startups is trying to perform some useful job for a client, and you have to understand what people are currently using to get that...

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You are leaving money on the table: the secrets of pricing

Oscar Wilde said that a cynic is a “a man who knows the price of everything and the value of nothing.” A startup CEO should know both. One of the most powerful levers a CEO has to impact profitability is pricing. Typically, a 1% price increase has more than twice the impact on profit of...

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