Posts Tagged ‘Consulting’

Lingo

December 23rd, 2010
Look Who's Talking

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We should probably re-calc those betas and update the capital structures before handing the final ATWACC to the client. Also, while an interest rate adder is non-standard for the CAPM, the yield curve is just too low to be believed by any regulatory commission.

It’s a non-trivial refactoring of dev which has the potential to spiderweb, which would then delay our push to staging. It might be better to just add simple affordances instead through a JQuery plugin.

The client is an interop providing level 3 access for click-to-call functionality. We should socialize this with X’s group to see if we might encounter any push back.

I’ve now worked at 3 different companies since college, each with it’s own language.  Each time I change jobs, I’m amazed by the disparate vernacular employed by each.

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Why I love “Tabatha’s Salon Takeover”

February 11th, 2010
A Facial mask.
Image via Wikipedia

Yes, you read that right. My testicles apparently didn’t show up for this post. Perhaps the snowstorm scarred them away, but regardless, today I watched a marathon of Tabatha. She’s this slender, brash Simon Cowell wannabe who takes over failing hair salons and turns them around in a week – and it’s a great crash course in business.  It’s a consulting biz and I highly recommend checking it out. Here are the ABCD’s of Tabatha.

Aesthetics Count
Your clients notice when your office is dirty (or website for that matter), and what they view should be pleasing to the eye.  It’s really incredible what good design can do, and Tabatha goes in and guts their salons for better version.

Be Professional
Personality is great, but if you aren’t professional, then your clients won’t respect you and you certainly won’t be able to charge premiums for your service. So far I’ve seen Tabatha demolish people who start arguments with coworkers or yell across the salon, wear unbecoming clothing, or treat their clients with disrespect.

Customer Service, Customer Service and, oh yeah, Customer Service
Get out of the backroom and start talking to your clients.  Welcome them, make them feel comfortable, entertain them, and understand them.

Don’t Suck
There’s no excuse for you to do something you suck at. If you offer a shoddy service, you deserve to fail, or in Tabatha’s case, be fired.

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Venture Capital Consulting

November 23rd, 2009

About a week ago, I had the distinct pleasure of meeting with the charming Liz Knopf of OpenView Partners. We met for a drink and she was kind enough to enlighten me on how OpenView was revolutionizing the venture scene.

OpenView, founded in 2006 and on it’s 2nd fund, typically only invests in “expansion stage” software companies that are making about 500k per quarter and growing…and growing fast. Obviously these companies have achieved product/market fit and are no longer floundering to find their place in the business world – they just need to aggressively expand, something which takes a significant amount of dinero. Because these companies have found their market, and have found a repeatable sales cycle, the amount of inherent risk is incredibly limited compared to other startups. The risk that remains is operational, and it is a risk that OpenView seriously attempts to mitigate by providing strategic consulting to their investments. In fact, Liz goes so far as to say that OpenView isn’t a venture capital firm but rather a consulting firm that makes it’s money through capital gains.

It’s nice to see a firm that has this kind of culture.

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