Startup Professionals Musings

NOVEMBER 2, 2015

If you find problem-solving to be energizing, you could be the next great entrepreneur. The first challenge for many aspiring entrepreneurs is to put aside their passionate advocacy long enough to acknowledge an existing problem. That means practicing non-defensive listening to key advisors, team members and customers.

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Startup Professionals Musings

OCTOBER 24, 2015

Many entrepreneurs forget that their success is more about helping other people than about personally becoming famous, or overcoming the odds and getting rich. A successful business has to satisfy customers with a strong team, by helping them solve problems, save money, or experience more pleasure. Stand for something.

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Startup Professionals Musings

SEPTEMBER 25, 2015

Many aspiring entrepreneurs are stuck in the idea stage, and only a few have the discipline and the insight to move on to the execution phase. If you strategy and plan are not clear even to you, or constituents don’t seem to get it quickly, you can bet that potential customers also won’t get it.

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Startup Professionals Musings

AUGUST 10, 2015

If you're an aspiring entrepreneur, you need to take a hard look at yourself before leaving that regular paycheck. The good and the bad news is that as an entrepreneur, you won’t have a manager charged with directing your efforts or peers helping you implement, and your new team will be quick to tell you only what you want to hear.

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Startup Professionals Musings

OCTOBER 2, 2015

Yet, as an advisor to startups, I see some common disasters, and recommend some anticipation and recovery moves that can save every entrepreneur some painful time and money. While every entrepreneur needs to remain upbeat and optimistic on all of these, it is also smart to anticipate the worst case scenarios that are possible with each.

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Startup Professionals Musings

MAY 25, 2015

Every entrepreneur I know is dismayed by the number of friends who approach them with a line such as “I have an even better idea that will change the world, and one of these days I’m going to get around to starting my own business.” Focus” is the key to success as an entrepreneur. Irrational fear of failure or embarrassment.

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socalTECH

SEPTEMBER 26, 2017

He provided all kinds of feedback from a product standpoint, and we found a lot more mentors like that at Techstars. We were super excited to participate, Christine and I moved to New York for three months, and graduated in the fall of 2015. What's the biggest lesson you've learned as an entrepreneur? Where is the business now?

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InfoChachkie

OCTOBER 20, 2014

Want to be an entrepreneur? In addition, Entrepreneur Magazine recently included UCSB in its Top 50 Schools For VC Backed Entrepreneurs at number 37. In addition to an Undergraduate Certificate, the Program is launching a Master of Technology Management degree in 2015. Don''t go to Wharton or Harvard. Techpreneurs.

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Startup Professionals Musings

AUGUST 21, 2015

When starting a new business, an entrepreneur has to take a “hands-on” role. In the context of a startup, there are many “hands-on” attributes that every entrepreneur must demonstrate and enjoy if he or she hopes to succeed in building a new business. The founder needs to be a mentor and advisor, as well as a leader.

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Startup Professionals Musings

OCTOBER 5, 2015

I challenge any entrepreneur, for example, to define the difference between "seed-stage" and "early-stage" financing. Asking for early-stage money before you have customers and revenue will likely kill your credibility with real investors. Most investors won’t touch a first-time entrepreneur at this stage.

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Startup Professionals Musings

SEPTEMBER 14, 2015

A few years ago, before the Internet was pervasive, before everyone carried a smartphone and before do-it-yourself software tools were available for free, it was difficult to reach a critical mass of new customers without spending a million dollars on a website, custom software and television advertising. Both are wrong.

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Startup Professionals Musings

JULY 27, 2015

Every entrepreneur realizes that building a great team is critical to the success of his or her startup, but many don’t realize that it takes more than multiple qualified employees to make an effective team. You need team members who will support team efforts and progress, despite customer challenges or questioning from executives.

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Startup Professionals Musings

OCTOBER 17, 2016

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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Both Sides of the Table

JANUARY 6, 2014

I admit that I haven’t yet read it but I’ve had numerous discussions with Brad over the years about board structure & conduct and consider him a mentor on the topic. And here’s an important point that I think modern entrepreneurs often forget: Investors are “co-owners” of your business. Mentorship.

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socalTECH

NOVEMBER 2, 2017

You can find a mentor, a coach, a project, or experience, to help you prepare for the role you are looking for. We got really serious after the success of that customer, who wanted to make this technology available for all of its employees across the globe. I can't help myself in being an entrepreneur. versus New Zealand?

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Startup Professionals Musings

DECEMBER 26, 2015

Every entrepreneur needs to keep a priority focus on these big-picture business issues, well before he commits his resources and his future to a technology that he loves. Good entrepreneurs know they have to be experts in business as well as technology. Keep up on business issues as diligently as on technology issues.

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Tech.Co

JULY 12, 2017

The BB-8 app-enabled Droid had such a global adoption among kids and adults that it was named the number one Star Wars toy of 2015. ReplyYes is a frictionless e-commerce over mobile messaging experience: customers simply reply “YES” to buy the product and have it delivered. Meet the 11 startups for 2017: Ambidio.

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Startup Professionals Musings

SEPTEMBER 27, 2015

Here are the key principles she espouses, extended to leadership teams, based on my own background and mentoring new entrepreneurs: Learn to trust yourself and your team. All your competitors, investors, and customers are making the same assessment on you. Marty Zwilling First published on IvyExec.com on 9/25/2015.

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Tech.Co

DECEMBER 12, 2017

In this interview with #StartupsEverywhere , I talk withMichael Iseman, Entrepreneur-in-Residence at Startup Junkie, about the mentorship pool, knowledge transfer, the latest happening in the ecosystem and the energy of this community within the region. I came on full-time with Startup Junkie in 2015, and haven’t looked back!

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Both Sides of the Table

MARCH 23, 2015

The final clip is Fred & I talking about whether “the best product wins” and my assertion that the bias in today’s Silicon Valley dominated tech world there is probably too much emphasis on tech at the expense of how to sell, implement and service customers. Blogging is like Venus Fly Paper.

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Startup Professionals Musings

DECEMBER 5, 2015

Every entrepreneur must effectively collaborate with many people, including internal team members, partners, customers, and investors. Real collaboration requires leadership and initiative from the entrepreneur in order to drive the collaborative process and make the whole team better than the sum of its parts.

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Startup Professionals Musings

MARCH 16, 2015

As a mentor to aspiring entrepreneurs, the most common question I get is, “I want to be an entrepreneur -- how do I start?” Many people with great ideas never make it as entrepreneurs, and true entrepreneurs can make a business out of anything. How strong is your passion for this opportunity?

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Both Sides of the Table

MAY 3, 2015

Scott Belsky (@scottbelsky) April 29, 2015. It spoke to me because it so resonates with my nearly daily advice to entrepreneurs and VCs alike. I went as far as to call it the best Tweet of 2015 so far because it encapsulated my advice so succinctly. I saw this Tweet recently by Scott Belsky, co-founder and CEO of Behance.

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Startup Professionals Musings

NOVEMBER 16, 2015

How many times have you heard or suspected that a certain entrepreneur was just lucky? Without fully discounting that random good things sometimes happen, I’m a firm believer that great entrepreneurs make their own luck. In the heat of a thousand daily crises, it’s too easy for an entrepreneur to delegate expense management.

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Startup Professionals Musings

JUNE 19, 2015

Yet I can’t remember the last time any entrepreneur asked me to assess personal potential, despite the fact that most investors will admit they invest in the person more than the product. These entrepreneurs dream big, go big and too often crash big. The Specialist entrepreneur will enter one industry and stick with it for a lifetime.

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