Startup Professionals Musings

JANUARY 31, 2015

If you sold your last startup for $800 million, you probably already know how to build a business, and even conservative investors won’t worry about the quality of your next business plan. Most investors tend to think of startups without a plan as expensive hobbies. business business plan entrepreneur hobby startup'

Startup 109

Startup Writing Mentor Sample 109

InfoChachkie

JANUARY 3, 2012

His talk was especially intriguing, as he attended UCSB, but dropped out to start a clothing design company. As I note in Spilling The Beans , the basic ideas upon which startups are founded are worth nothing. It is the dogged pursuit of excellence that turns worthless ideas into worthwhile startups. Chaos By Design.

Ideas 266

Ideas Guide Startup Santa Barbara 266

Both Sides of the Table

DECEMBER 27, 2011

I find it amusing when a journalist writes an article about a prominent startup (either privately held or preparing for an IPO) and decries that, “They’re not even profitable!” Exec Summary: Most companies (98+%) in the world (even tech startups) should be very profit focused. What makes up revenue?

Startup 418

Startup Venture Capital Sales Technical Review 418

Both Sides of the Table

JULY 1, 2010

We all like to think of startups as “non hierarchic&# organizations and to some extent that should be true. I see two common mistakes in companies (not just in startups, in fact). By going on sales calls you pick up directly the feedback of what customers want and also what they’re telling you about competition.

Startup 308

Startup CTO Coach Technical Review CTO Hire 308

Both Sides of the Table

JULY 23, 2014

The VC market has right-sized (returned back to mid 90′s levels & less competition). Lower costs to start a business (95% reduction), many more companies created & funded by angels / seed. Just 3 years ago there was talk of institutional investors “not being able to write small enough checks.”

Venture Capital 398

Venture Capital Technical Review Startup Seed Funding 398

Both Sides of the Table

JANUARY 12, 2014

If you’re a technology startup you need to excel at product, of course. The starting point of product IS marketing, which is what a lot of young entrepreneurs that never studied business don’t realize. Link has a summary of his argument plus a great video). When I first started blogging Digg was still at its peak.

Marketing 379

Marketing Startup SEM SEO 379

InfoChachkie

SEPTEMBER 4, 2012

Most sophisticated investors ignore them, focusing their attention on an entrepreneur's pitch and presentation materials, financial forecast and executive summary. As such, the primary goal of your executive summary is to open the door to an in-person meeting. Entrepreneurs routinely seek my advice regarding their executive summaries.

Venture Capital 211

Venture Capital Summary Technical Review Template 211

Both Sides of the Table

JULY 12, 2011

Chris Dixon is one of my favorite people in tech and writes one of the few blogs I read religiously. I think you’ll really enjoy this video , but as always I have summary notes for those with less time. If you like the quick summary notes, please check out Adam’s blog on tech, entrepreneurship & VC as a thank you.

Technical Review 281

Technical Review Venture Capital Startup Artificial Inteligence 281

Startup Professionals Musings

DECEMBER 8, 2010

This is sad, since “how to write a business plan” is a frequent topic found in every business journal, and a common title in the business section of every book store. Forcing yourself to write down a plan is actually the only way to make sure you actually understand it yourself. What is the definition of a good business plan?

Startup 91

Startup Funding Sample Writing 91

Startup Professionals Musings

AUGUST 19, 2013

This is sad, since “how to write a business plan” is a frequent topic found in every business journal, and a common title in the business section of every book store. Forcing yourself to write down a plan is actually the only way to make sure you actually understand it yourself. entrepreneur startup business plan business'

Sample 92

Sample Writing Startup Summary 92

Startup Professionals Musings

JULY 21, 2012

This is sad, since “how to write a business plan” is a frequent topic found in every business journal, and a common title in the business section of every book store. Forcing yourself to write down a plan is actually the only way to make sure you actually understand it yourself. What is the definition of a good business plan?

Sample 96

Sample Writing Summary Startup 96

Both Sides of the Table

MAY 14, 2018

Whenever you write your deck and send it out I think you should actually think to yourself, “my competitors are probably going to read this one day and this will be forwarded widely” and if your response isn’t “so what!” I would likely open up your deck, read it again and begin contemplating your company again. A deck is a deck.

Funding 239

Funding Venture Capital IP Email 239

InfoChachkie

JANUARY 8, 2018

His talk was especially intriguing, as he attended UCSB, but dropped out to start a clothing design company. The more you play around with ideas and you write them down, the better. This is a lead up into an executive summary. Competition – which competitors will prove to be the most formidable?

Ideas 69

Ideas Startup Technical Review Santa Barbara 69

Both Sides of the Table

MAY 13, 2018

If you truly believe that you, your company and your products are exceptional and your company will be valuable then you’re actually doing them a FAVOR by helping them invest in your startup. In my post “ Measure twice, cut once ” I’ve outlined how to plan before you start raising. Should You Start with Your “Safety Schools?”

Venture Capital 332

Venture Capital Funding Startup Sales 332

Startup Professionals Musings

SEPTEMBER 18, 2010

By Mahesh Raj Mohan Writing a business plan can be a difficult process. Even if you know your product/service suite down cold, understand the strengths/weaknesses of the competition, and have built pro forma financials that are sane. you still have to write the plan for a particular audience. Hi, I’m writing this plan because.”

Writing 97

Writing Summary Ideas Research 97

Both Sides of the Table

MARCH 1, 2016

We All Know That Dollars into Venture Have Gone Up … As a starting point, we know that the dollars into venture have steadily rebounded to pre great-recession levels, with just under $30 billion committed to US technology venture capital in 2015. That’s money that fuels our startup ecosystems.

Venture Capital 150

Venture Capital Capital Marketing Seed Funding 150

Both Sides of the Table

JUNE 22, 2015

I must admit I discuss this very frequently with portfolio companies but hadn’t thought to write about it. Although the carriers made a lot of money initially by selling dial-up Internet services, customers never took their software because, well, it sucked. PR Malloy (@diddly_do_indy) June 13, 2015.

Outsource Development 150

Outsource Development Startup Customer Custom 150

Both Sides of the Table

FEBRUARY 18, 2013

Summary Version. I have started thinking about what the future might look like and I’ve started imagining what I call, “MMOV” or massive multiplayer online video. Maker’s talent started commenting on it and sharing it. 200 million views. Suck it traditional TV. Why would it? Harlem Shake.

Startup 380

Startup Media Content Platform 380

Tech Zulu Event

APRIL 23, 2013

TechZulu caught up with Michael Piermont, amSTATZ Chief Executive Officer and this is what he revealed. No summary of what we did, no easy way for me to recommend my trainer to my friends, and no way for me to easily book the next appointment. This is the first time each of the founders have started an enterprise.

Social Network 92

Social Network Networking Training Summary 92

InfoChachkie

JULY 21, 2011

Paige is a gifted communicator and my summary does not do him justice. He offers a number of worthwhile tips and tricks that I was not able to capture in the textual summary, so the 14-minute audio file is well worth your time. What follows is a summary which paraphrases Paige’s responses. Click here to listen to the Audio File.

Summary 246

Summary Tips Sales Entrepreneur 246

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. It’s insanely competitive to get into our industry so most have degrees from institutions like Stanford, Harvard, Wharton and University of Chicago (blatant plug ;-). VCs, how to select a VC, etc.) Most VCs are book smart.

Venture Capital 364

Venture Capital Coach Writing SaaS 364

Startup Professionals Musings

APRIL 17, 2020

Even in this age of videos and text messages, the quickest way to kill your startup dream with investors, business partners, or even customers, is embarrassingly poor writing. In the competitive realm of business, you only get one chance to make a great first impression. Keep your writing voice friendly and courteous.

Writing 125

Writing Entrepreneur Summary Email 125

Startup Professionals Musings

JANUARY 9, 2023

Even in this age of videos and text messages, the quickest way to kill your startup dream with investors, business partners, or even customers, is embarrassingly poor writing. In the competitive realm of business, you only get one chance to make a great first impression. Keep your writing voice friendly and courteous.

Tips 123

Tips Writing Startup Summary 123

Both Sides of the Table

JANUARY 13, 2011

I wrote the summary notes in this blog post. I talked about this in the TWiVC video but I didn’t do a good enough job of writing it up in the summary notes in the post. Can you just show up without one? In Bijan’s post he references Bryce Roberts who recommends getting up and white-boarding.

Venture Capital 299

Venture Capital Slides Technical Advisors Startup 299

Both Sides of the Table

JULY 22, 2010

Due to competitive markets we ended up with a pretty good term sheet until we needed to raise money in April 2001 and then we got completely screwed. I’ve started from day one trying to build total transparency into my process with entrepreneurs. Tags: Startup Advice This Week in Venture Capital.

Venture Capital 405

Venture Capital Pricing Startup Funding 405

Startup Professionals Musings

SEPTEMBER 3, 2014

Even in this age of videos and text messages, the quickest way to kill your startup dream with investors, business partners, or even customers, is embarrassingly poor writing. In the competitive realm of business, you only get one chance to make a great first impression. Keep your writing voice friendly and courteous.

Writing 109

Writing Entrepreneur Summary Email 109

Both Sides of the Table

MARCH 30, 2010

As I naturally get asked all the time why we invested in Company A or Company B, I thought I’d just put forth my thesis in writing. I don’t intend either, Burstly has respectable and strong competition. He’s a natural leader, appropriately competitive, very customer focused and a pleasure to work with.

Mobile 282

Mobile Invest Company Companies 282

Startup Professionals Musings

JUNE 26, 2020

To be clear, I define a product specification as the technical definition of your product, to be used for development and testing purposes, with a quick business summary for context. The most common business entity used for startups is a Limited Liability Corporation (LLC), which is the cheapest and simplest to manage. and trademarks.

Product 169

Product Summary Startup Examples 169

Startup Professionals Musings

JANUARY 24, 2016

Even in this age of videos and text messages, the quickest way to kill your startup dream with investors, business partners, or even customers, is embarrassingly poor writing. In the competitive realm of business, you only get one chance to make a great first impression. Keep your writing voice friendly and courteous.

Writing 62

Writing Summary Email Ideas 62

Both Sides of the Table

MARCH 11, 2011

Summary notes, as always, provide below. It was a pleasure to write them myself. At the time when you did a search on Lycos, Alta Vista or similar for a category such as Cars you ended up getting 9 spam results and 1 proper website to meet your needs. In 1995 Netscape IPO’d and browsers started to become more prevalent.

Competition 350

Competition Idealab Product CitySearch 350

Both Sides of the Table

FEBRUARY 14, 2016

Valuing any company can be difficult because it requires a degree of forecasting future growth & competition and ultimately the profits of the organization. Most are sitting on large portfolios of private companies that are raising money now or will need to do so in the future and they know that they’re up against some headwinds.

Startup 150

Startup Company Companies Venture Capital 150

Frank Addante

JUNE 4, 2006

► August (1) Stay Positive ► July (2) Go Fast, but Don’t Hurry The DNA of an A++ Team ► June (1) Setting up Shop - Picking an Office Space ► May (3) Startup 6.0 - the Rubicon Project: Internet Advert. ► May (5) the Rubicon Project The Journey Startup 6.0: Visit StrongMail Website Startup 4.0:

Startup 40

Startup Venture Capital Email CTO Hire 40

Both Sides of the Table

MARCH 22, 2010

File this under both Startup Adivce and Sales & Marketing Advice. Oh, and Demo charges the startups $18,000. Too many startup execs place too much emphasis on the big stage launch. I’ve heard many startup CEO’s (and VCs!) It started socially. Robert’s article is worth reading.

Tips 307

Tips Startup Press Blogging 307

Both Sides of the Table

JUNE 29, 2011

If you don’t want to read that post, the summary is: Open source computing drove computing costs down 90%, which spurred innovation in technology. This led to an explosion in startups. I don’t think purely option-based investing in startups suits the long-term brand of the investor. The Blurring of Investment Lines.

Venture Capital 296

Venture Capital Capital Software Startup 296

Both Sides of the Table

MARCH 6, 2011

I just had to line up behind him. We then started talking about Dave McClure. At first I was cynical about his ability to have 500 startups (or some fraction of that which is still larger than any VC has). I started to realize that Dave is able to do it because he approaches VC differently. I love the concept.

Startup 292

Startup Venture Capital Blogging Summary 292

Both Sides of the Table

MARCH 3, 2013

Watch the 30-minute interview to hear why but summary notes below. Let me start by saying that Clayton is one of the most influential people on my thoughts about markets that led to both the concept behind my first startup and my main theses in investing. .” Who else does Clayton pray for? Have a Happy with Career.

Venture Capital 403

Venture Capital Education Offshore Outsource Development 403

Startup Professionals Musings

DECEMBER 30, 2019

In my work with new and aspiring entrepreneurs, I find that most struggle with putting together a written business plan, often pointing out that someone they know started a business without anything written down. Starting a new business starts with selling everyone, including yourself, on the viability and specifics of your idea.

Ideas 126

Ideas Slides Sample Examples 126