Startup Professionals Musings

AUGUST 11, 2021

Most of you aspiring entrepreneurs probably have long searched for that special idea that will catapult you and your startup to success. For example, most people thought Twitter was a total snoozer, when Jack Dorsey was looking for funding, especially with MySpace already owning that territory. True entrepreneurs are born, not made.

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Startup Professionals Musings

JUNE 19, 2023

Every entrepreneur has an idea for transforming a market with innovative new technology, or transforming society with a new process. Entrepreneurs who have been really transformative, like Steve Jobs and Walt Disney, seemed to know how to deal with all the right elements. Seek innovation that begets invention. Government matters.

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Startup Professionals Musings

MARCH 26, 2021

As an entrepreneur mentor, my mission is to foster the attributes in you as a startup founder that I believe will lead to success. For example, I worked with an entrepreneur a while back who was clearly intelligent, had a great idea, and communicated well. Unfortunately for them, building a business is all about implementation.

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Startup Professionals Musings

DECEMBER 13, 2021

In my role as mentor to many of you aspiring entrepreneurs, I often find you convinced that all you need to start is a unique innovation or idea , and now you are ready to jump in with both feet and enjoy the ride. Remember that being an entrepreneur is all about starting and running a business, after the initial invention.

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Berkonomics

APRIL 12, 2018

Small companies most often scrape by with borrowed or invested funds, doing everything possible to grow and prosper with limited resources. To most entrepreneurs, this often leads to an event whose resolution by a governmental agency or even a court seems unfair and illogical.

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Startup Professionals Musings

JUNE 3, 2020

Most of you aspiring entrepreneurs have new ideas on a regular basis, and find it hard deciding which to pursue, or try to tackle several at the same time. Good examples of initial focus by an entrepreneur would include Jeff Bezos when he started Amazon as an online marketplace for books only, and Elon Musk starting PayPal as an online bank.

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Startup Professionals Musings

FEBRUARY 5, 2020

As a mentor to entrepreneurs, I tend to see many of the same obstacles appearing in every new startup, and since I don’t want to appear to be a downer , I’m not sure how to properly warn people ahead of time to be on the alert for these challenges. Too many entrepreneurs think that expert external advisors are suspect, or will slow them down.

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Startup Professionals Musings

NOVEMBER 29, 2019

As a mentor to many aspiring entrepreneurs, I challenge them to think beyond what I call linear extensions to a current trend, such as another “easier-to-use” app for smartphones, a new dating site for pets, or another niche social network. Examples I have seen include atomic battery technology, or how marine algae could help feed the world.

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Startup Professionals Musings

JULY 11, 2020

As a mentor to aspiring entrepreneurs, I’m always surprised by the fact that some never seem to be able to that first startup going, while many others never seem to stop, starting their second or third initiative before the first one is fully hatched. I’m now convinced that serious entrepreneurs relish the startup process more than success.

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Startup Professionals Musings

SEPTEMBER 2, 2020

Out of curiosity, I often ask aspiring entrepreneurs like you, who come to me for help, what drives them to take on the workload and risk of a new startup. Of course, drivers have to be backed up by some realities, like necessary resources, adequate skills, relentless determination, and a market of people interested in supporting your dream.

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Berkonomics

MARCH 16, 2023

As an early-stage investor, the first test for me is whether “my” entrepreneur is flexible in both the plan and execution of their vision (since from experience almost everything about a business plan changes over time), and whether that person, no matter what age or experience, is coachable. Why should we ask this question?

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Startup Professionals Musings

JUNE 25, 2021

It seems like everyone wants to be an entrepreneur and get rich these days. There are lots of resources available for that question, including the Internet and mentors like me. As an example of a good resource, I enjoyed the classic book, “ Idea To Invention ,” by Patricia Nolan-Brown, that does a great job on the key steps.

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Startup Professionals Musings

FEBRUARY 17, 2021

With the appearance of do-it-yourself services on the Internet, entrepreneur curriculums at every university, and a wealth of new books on the subject, the need for expensive consultants and business advisors has also been mitigated. A programmer can build a new smartphone app for a few thousand dollars.

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Startup Professionals Musings

MAY 5, 2014

The cost of entry for an aspiring entrepreneur has never been lower, and the total wealth of opportunities has never been larger. A while back, I focused on the e-Commerce side, so this time I wanted to highlight how a shortage of something, like natural resources, should be seen by an aspiring entrepreneur as a wealth of new startup ideas.

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Tech Zulu Event

FEBRUARY 7, 2012

As we turn our ideas for the future into the latest startups and companies of today, there’s always a need for resources to help guide one through the process of it all. While this time for a business can be exciting one must be prepared with the resources to take the next step.

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Startup Professionals Musings

SEPTEMBER 19, 2022

Winning customers as an entrepreneur in a startup has many parallels to a young army trying to penetrate some formidable new and unfamiliar territory. As examples, I offer my interpretation of some of the key lessons here: Scout the territory first and pick your battles. Lining up your resources is critical, but so is time to market.

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Startup Professionals Musings

NOVEMBER 11, 2020

The road to becoming an entrepreneur is a journey , and it’s not a short trip. I was pleased to find a new book, “ The Entrepreneur’s Faces, ” by Johnathan Littman and Susanna Camp, which outlines the key stages and provides examples of real people making the transformation from one stage to the next.

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Startup Professionals Musings

JULY 5, 2021

As I have said many times, the cost of entry for an aspiring entrepreneur has never been lower, and the total wealth of opportunities has never been larger. I was inspired by the classic book, “ Resource Revolution: How to Capture the Biggest Business Opportunity in a Century ,” by Stephan Heck and Matt Rogers.

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Startup Professionals Musings

JANUARY 12, 2020

Every new entrepreneur has to initiate the right actions to be perceived as a leader in their chosen business domain by their team and by their customers, or the road to success and satisfaction will be lost along the way. No entrepreneur can build a business alone. Allocates adequate resources to overcome constraints.

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InfoChachkie

AUGUST 26, 2013

This approach allows your venture to "fail in the small" and make course corrections before spending significant marketing resources. An infamous example of a startup that did not follow this strategy is Color. This mindset often results in entrepreneurs missing unintended uses and unintentional users of their products.

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Startup Professionals Musings

JULY 1, 2020

Every entrepreneur I know finds it a challenge to balance the joys of entrepreneurship against a set of frustrations they never anticipated. The norm for entrepreneurs is to be optimistic on revenue projections, and miserly on funding needs. Thus you need to reduce the extra pain by having a Plan-B, and a process for rapid change.

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Startup Professionals Musings

MAY 29, 2021

An underutilized, but valuable resource, every startup should investigate is a formal or informal connection to your alma mater, including any local university. Here is a short list of the areas where you should be able to find help, whether you are a student or an independent entrepreneur: Exploring hot ideas. Early-stage funding.

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Startup Professionals Musings

OCTOBER 11, 2023

Most new business owners I know feel the challenges of not enough time, money, and resources, and see these as problems rather than a competitive advantage. Many are quick to call this innovation, but I believe it is often just the resourcefulness of a highly motivated owner and team, who never give up in the face of a survival challenge.

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Berkonomics

APRIL 1, 2021

Investors most often celebrate teams that quickly find flaws in the original plan and reallocate resources in another direction before more wasted resources. My favorite example of a world class pivot comes from the CEO and board of one of my most successful investments. My story of a great pivot.

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Startup Professionals Musings

SEPTEMBER 22, 2021

Unfortunately, most of us don’t have enough resources to bootstrap our own startups, so we are completely dependent on investors to help turn great ideas into great businesses. Investors love entrepreneurs who come across as constantly on the lookout for new ideas, and able to grasp the larger implications for market change.

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socalTECH

MARCH 28, 2019

Earlier this month, the annual Montgomery Summit conference was held in Santa Monica, including a special portion of the conference dedicated to the Rise of the Female Entrepreneur. I see you were involved in the Rise of the Female Entrepreneur effort at the Montgomery Summit this year, tell me a little about what that is all about?

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Startup Professionals Musings

JANUARY 12, 2022

Too many entrepreneurs I know charge into battle with only their passion, and hope for the best. Too many entrepreneurs push their product out without the proper scouting on high return or weak points in the existing market. We all start with limited resources, so don’t try to win over everyone with the initial charge.

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Startup Professionals Musings

MAY 30, 2020

Most aspiring entrepreneurs look to their alma mater, or any university, as a source of classes that can help them, but neglect to think outside the box or take advantage of all the other resources to be found there. Get help with grant funding and incubator resources. Access to entrepreneurs-in-residence, business mentors.

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Startup Professionals Musings

JUNE 15, 2014

Winning customers as an entrepreneur in a startup has many parallels to a young army trying to penetrate some formidable new and unfamiliar territory. As examples, I offer my interpretation of some of the key lessons here: Scout the territory first and pick your battles. Lining up your resources is critical, but so is time to market.

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Berkonomics

OCTOBER 8, 2020

Most entrepreneurs quote a resource for market size but fail to then take the next step to eliminate all parts of that market unreachable by the company or product. That’s likely to be completely unreachable for you with almost any amount of resources.

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Startup Professionals Musings

FEBRUARY 6, 2021

I see entrepreneurs every day who are trying to change the world with a new idea, and startups that are trying to survive their hyper-growth phase by changing processes to meet demand. Here are ten of the key questions that apply equally well to the world of startups and entrepreneurs, as they do to large organizations.

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Startup Professionals Musings

FEBRUARY 20, 2023

Thus smart business professionals are rapidly becoming the new entrepreneurs. Of course, entrepreneurs delivering services have existed for some time, including business consultant, independent contractor, and freelancer titles. Here are some examples: Marketing Professional. We are becoming a society of entrepreneurs.

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Startup Professionals Musings

NOVEMBER 7, 2016

For example, even though we were leading an entrepreneurial effort within IBM, we found it a challenge to deal with the inbred mainframe culture, reverence for process, and accounting practices of a large company. No consideration can be given to experience running a startup, breadth of skills, or even thinking like an entrepreneur.

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Startup Professionals Musings

JUNE 3, 2023

One of the reasons that now is the time to be an entrepreneur is the explosion of startup assistance organizations, usually called incubators or accelerators. A few are still trying to make a profitable business out of nurturing startups, but it’s a challenge to make money when your customer startups don’t have many resources to give.

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Startup Professionals Musings

OCTOBER 10, 2018

One of the most frequent questions I get as a mentor to entrepreneurs is “How do I find the money to start my business?” If you have the urge to be an entrepreneur, I encourage you to think seriously about each of these, before you zero-in on one or two, and get totally discouraged if those don’t work for you.

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Startup Professionals Musings

FEBRUARY 2, 2018

Winning customers as an entrepreneur in a startup has many parallels to a young army trying to penetrate some formidable new and unfamiliar territory. As examples, I offer my interpretation of some of the key lessons here: Scout the territory first and pick your battles. Lining up your resources is critical, but so is time to market.

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Both Sides of the Table

DECEMBER 14, 2009

This is part of my new series on what makes an entrepreneur successful. I originally posted it on VentureHacks , one of my favorite websites for entrepreneurs. I wanted to also post the series here to have it as a resource on my blog for future entrepreneurs who stop by. An example. Next on the checklist.

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