Startup Professionals Musings

FEBRUARY 3, 2021

As a long-time mentor to new entrepreneurs and business owners, I have noticed that many no longer associate more fulfillment and satisfaction with more money, power, and success. It seems that fulfillment to these new entrepreneurs is all about changing the world and legacy. Don’t wait for a crisis to decide what is important.

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Startup Professionals Musings

DECEMBER 9, 2013

I hear many executives and professionals in large corporations talking about their dream of jumping ship, and starting their own company. Executives in an enterprise usually don’t write their own memos, contracts, and certainly don’t schedule their own meetings. In a startup, that luxury isn’t possible, so the work suffers.

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Both Sides of the Table

APRIL 27, 2014

Today we’re in a world where 10 accelerators are bombarding you with emails to meet their 10-15 companies. Of course these are great places to network with other investors, meet great entrepreneurs and keep your connections strong with senior execs at larger companies like Yahoo!, I don’t. Co-founder discontent.

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Startup Professionals Musings

JULY 24, 2017

When I hear executives and professionals in larger businesses talking about their dream of going out on their own to start a new company, I always cringe. They and I never realized how hard it is to break the big-company habits and conventions. Professionals get dependent on big company perks. I have been there and done that.

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Company Companies Startup Training 58

Startup Professionals Musings

OCTOBER 25, 2012

I hear many executives and professionals in large corporations talking about their dream of jumping ship, and starting their own company. Executives in an enterprise usually don’t write their own memos, contracts, and certainly don’t schedule their own meetings. In a startup, that luxury isn’t possible, so the work suffers.

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Berkonomics

APRIL 3, 2014

We’ve spoken of financing a young company through friends and family, known as “inside angels.” If you are starting a virtual company with your employees working from home locations, as many startups do, it should be the location of the founder. This class of investor typically writes checks from $50,000 to $250,000.

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Both Sides of the Table

JANUARY 22, 2014

So I thought I’d write about out with what I would look for in a VC knowing what I know now and why. VCs should be more of a coach than proscriptively telling you what to do. I would call their portfolio companies and ask how helpful or not they’ve been. Most VCs are book smart. I call them “ VCs Seagulls.”

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Startup Professionals Musings

NOVEMBER 7, 2010

Main Street Venture Fund LLC, an angel fund of about 25 private investors, was formed by Ruffolo Benson LLC in northeast Indiana with the intention of bringing together area entrepreneurs and private investors to create economic value for the region. Ultimately, it’s this intangible capability that can add the most value to the company.

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Both Sides of the Table

NOVEMBER 18, 2012

It’s what life was like as an entrepreneur. I plan to write about it early next year when we’re all through. But this is nothing like the stress of being an entrepreneur. What’s it really like being an entrepreneur? There is a difference between a Conference Ho and a successful entrepreneur.

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Both Sides of the Table

MAY 25, 2013

After all, I am no stranger to the publicly expressing the frustrations of dealing with the downside of this industry as I wrote about in 2006 when I was an entrepreneur. In the original version of his post, Andy writes. You invest across many funds just as VCs invest across many companies. And Coach Campbell.

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Both Sides of the Table

MAY 19, 2018

When you raise money from investors you produce information that you are told they want and care about: A fund-raising deck that articulates your company strategy, plans, team, market, competitors and so forth. Most entrepreneurs (and VCs raising from LPs) think this means progress. against a broad range of similar companies.

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Both Sides of the Table

MAY 4, 2013

Because entrepreneurs often went to lawyers at their earliest stages to get their company registration done. Entrepreneurial lawyers like Don Lee , Dave Young or Ted Wang are good at sussing out which entrepreneurs are high potential. I tapped my friends at big tech companies (Salesforce, Google, Oracle). I hustled.

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Both Sides of the Table

MAY 4, 2013

Because entrepreneurs often went to lawyers at their earliest stages to get their company registration done. Entrepreneurial lawyers like Don Lee , Dave Young or Ted Wang are good at sussing out which entrepreneurs are high potential. I tapped my friends at big tech companies (Salesforce, Google, Oracle). I hustled.

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Startup Professionals Musings

MARCH 21, 2016

The reality is that entrepreneurs usually don’t have the money or time for executive recruiters to do the filtering and selection for them. On a business team, the ability to communicate verbally and in writing is more important than technical depth. For new businesses, communication inside and outside the company is critical.

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Both Sides of the Table

APRIL 20, 2011

One example is that they introduced a program where their founders can pool together shares from their company and exchange them for a small portfolio of other First Round Capital companies. As a courtesy if you enjoyed his write-up please check out his startup company, ChannelStack. I'm a huge fan of this innovation.

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InfoChachkie

FEBRUARY 20, 2012

Like Steve Jobs, Michael Dell and Larry Ellison, he is one of the few startup Founders who remained at the helm of their respective companies throughout their entire maturation process. Effective startup leaders allow ideas to percolate from within their company, rather than attempting to monopolize the ideation process.

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Both Sides of the Table

FEBRUARY 3, 2011

If you have or are thinking about a business in the video space you’ll enjoy hearing from Gregg but even more broadly this is a great conversation for entrepreneurs, investors or industry analysts. Like many companies they experimented with many pricing models. Here’s the link. This video discusses issues like: 1.

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Both Sides of the Table

JUNE 29, 2011

Amazon in turn led to the formation of an earlier stage of venture capital now led by what I call “micro VCs&# who typically invest $250-500k in companies rather than the $5-7 million that VCs used to invest. Surprisinly, this strategy works well with many entrepreneurs. This led to an explosion in startups. Funny, that.

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Both Sides of the Table

MARCH 23, 2015

In his words, [in some instances] “because lots of capital is available, the company takes on the capital and that ends up resulting in no constraints on decision making and so the company decides to do five things in stead of just one.” You are defined by how you serve the companies that are struggling.

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Berkonomics

FEBRUARY 3, 2010

This insight follows closely the conclusions from the previous declaration, that professional investors negotiate tough terms, from provisions of control over asset acquisition, eventual sale of the company, future investments, forced co-sale when others attempt to sell their shares and more.

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Both Sides of the Table

JULY 1, 2010

A good early-stage CEO needs to be accessible, to be accountable for producing results and should be establishing the cultural norms of the company through direct leadership at all levels. But issues do arise as your company grows. I see two common mistakes in companies (not just in startups, in fact).

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Both Sides of the Table

JANUARY 1, 2016

That’s why it’s important to revisit your company’s mission from time-to-time. We try to hire deeply analytical associates to can help companies problem solve and who make us better investors. Take some time to reflect on how well defined you believe your company’s sense of purpose is.

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Both Sides of the Table

JULY 19, 2015

Entrepreneurs could learn about loneliness of success: nobody talks about. Every $10 million financing only puts more pressure on the founders to figure out how to hit the metrics to get to the next milestone and every company that raises $25 million puts a ton of pressure on their 10 competitors who haven’t.

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Both Sides of the Table

NOVEMBER 25, 2010

This is an updated post from my ongoing series on Startup Advice that I learned from founding two companies. . I believe that it is part of the DNA of an entrepreneur – being so competitive that you’re practically sick when you lose. Entrepreneurs are neurotic about it. 15 companies North of $1 billion exit.

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Outsource Development Software Review Technical Review News 333

Both Sides of the Table

NOVEMBER 25, 2010

This is an updated post from my ongoing series on Startup Advice that I learned from founding two companies. . I believe that it is part of the DNA of an entrepreneur – being so competitive that you’re practically sick when you lose. Entrepreneurs are neurotic about it. 15 companies North of $1 billion exit.

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Outsource Development Software Review Technical Review News 328

Startup Professionals Musings

JANUARY 6, 2016

The points are great, but can be made even simpler and more actionable by adapting then to the world of the entrepreneur: Demonstrate character. For leaders, this is often evident in the willingness to be coached, by outside experts or by your own team. This is the self-reinforcing circle of excellence every company needs for success.

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Startup Professionals Musings

AUGUST 4, 2011

I hear many executives and professionals in large corporations talking about their dream of jumping ship, and starting their own company. Executives in an enterprise usually don’t write their own memos, contracts, and certainly don’t schedule their own meetings. In a startup, that luxury isn’t possible, so the work suffers.

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Both Sides of the Table

OCTOBER 25, 2009

I write this post as a warning to pick your VC’s carefully. I like to say to first-time entrepreneurs, picking a VC is more permanent than marriage. Trust your instincts – they will serve you well as an entrepreneur. And many of these people are money managers rather than people like Gus who inspire entrepreneurs.

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Both Sides of the Table

APRIL 6, 2014

Whether you’re considering hiring a new employee or as an investor whether you’re looking to do a background check on the founders of a company. By the way, I also strongly advise that entrepreneurs reference VCs. Many of the people at our company who interviewed her really like her. We all have to make them.

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InfoChachkie

FEBRUARY 24, 2011

Seth attended UCSB but dropped out to start a denim company. . Do you have any advice for emerging entrepreneurs regarding how they can be frugal without compromising their company’s value prop? Bootstrapping requires that the entrepreneur go out and talk to their users or clients. Write it down….

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Both Sides of the Table

JUNE 2, 2011

Thiel and friends will also agree to mentor these young entrepreneurs. In Poly Sci I learned critical thinking and writing. If I’m counseling young people I often coach them to consider getting degrees that will be practical for becoming more employable when they graduate. You built a company at 22. My 2 cents: 1.

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Both Sides of the Table

SEPTEMBER 8, 2010

I finally got around to writing it having read Fred Wilson’s post about what a CEO does. He says it basically comes down to three key functions: Sets the overall vision and strategy of the company and communicates it to all stakeholders. Recruits, hires, and retains the very best talent for the company.

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socalTECH

JUNE 13, 2011

Jonathan Lehmann: I was awarded the Larry Wolfen Entrepreneurial Spirit Award at UCLA, after getting amazing coaching from Matt Ridenour in our business plan development class. UCLA Anderson really seems to be a hotbed of entrepreneurs nowadays - did you know going into the MBA program you'd be starting your own company?

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Both Sides of the Table

AUGUST 15, 2009

This is part of my ongoing series on Start-up Lessons that I learned from founding two companies. I believe that it is part of the DNA of an entrepreneur – being so competitive that you’re practically sick when you lose. Entrepreneurs are neurotic about it. We helped the write out their requirements for a system.

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Both Sides of the Table

DECEMBER 16, 2010

Understand Personality Types – One of the benefits of working for a big company (Accenture) was that we had lots of speakers come in and train us in topics like leadership, creativity, presentations, strategy, etc. Most entrepreneurs are. It’s usually people wanting to raise money and/or persuade me of something.

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SoCal CTO

NOVEMBER 5, 2009

I recently got together with Aaron Shechet and an early stage startup to discuss the direction the company might want to take. I feel too many people are discouraging, and as a result, too many entrepreneurs are discouraged and give up. We also represent a few larger companies with international issues. That's great.

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Both Sides of the Table

MAY 1, 2010

And most companies don’t do enough between board meetings. For the record, this is not a secret, coded messages to companies for which I am on the board! I found that too often it was an update meeting for investors rather than a meeting for my company to get value. But that isn’t what this post is about.

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