Startup Professionals Musings

SEPTEMBER 5, 2016

In my experience as an advisor to aspiring entrepreneurs, I often encounter the myth that an initial startup requires investors. The media tends to highlight experienced entrepreneurs who succeed with early new venture funding, like Uber’s Garrett Camp , but fail to point out the more common bootstrapping successes.

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Startup Professionals Musings

JUNE 29, 2016

In traditional investor parlance, these markets take years to develop and more money and risk than anyone should consider, so look first for a painful problem in a known market. Bold entrepreneurs put more effort into communicating the new market ecosystem value, and their natural product fit. But now I believe that times have changed.

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Startup Professionals Musings

MARCH 25, 2016

Many entrepreneurs assume that everyone will love their solution as much as they do, so they tune their marketing focus based on their own needs and wants. That’s the right place to start, but real growth and scale requires attracting customers who are not like you. Update your technology to reach new customer segments.

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Startup Professionals Musings

MAY 21, 2016

There are a few entrepreneurs who seem to always be ahead of the rest, and are able to sense where the market is going tomorrow. Everyone wants to support the entrepreneur with the courage to make bold decisions, and can make it happen. So what does one have to do to get on the list? His new product presentations were legendary.

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Startup Professionals Musings

MARCH 28, 2016

The job of chief financial officer (CFO) may sound like a nightmare assignment to technical entrepreneurs, but the tasks and skills required are key to every new venture. The best entrepreneurs take the initiative on these rather than wait for a CFO to drive them. Marty Zwilling First published on Entrepreneur.com on 03/18/2016.

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Startup Professionals Musings

AUGUST 12, 2016

As a business advisor, I have too often seen technical entrepreneurs get a product or service off the ground with ease, but then struggle mightily when their business reaches a couple of million in annual sales, or the employee count grows beyond a handful. True entrepreneurs love the tactical and problem solving challenges.

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Tech.Co

DECEMBER 29, 2023

While the market isn't short of spritely, innovative entrepreneurs, harsh economic headwinds combined with a pullback in investor spending have made it harder than ever for budding businesses to break through. 2023 hasn't been an easy year to be a startup. Organic milk formula product Bobbie.

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Startup Professionals Musings

NOVEMBER 18, 2016

When entrepreneurs introduce new products to the market, their passion and conviction often leads them to assume that every potential customer will see the immediate need and value, and will quickly adopt the solution. If your solution alleviates a high level of existing pain, customers more readily change.

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Startup Professionals Musings

SEPTEMBER 26, 2016

The biggest challenge for every entrepreneur and every startup today is to get noticed and remembered in today’s information overload. The number of entrepreneurs worldwide is huge, starting an estimated 50 million new businesses in the past year, or 137,000 per day. Stories relay events, and these events have to happen somewhere.

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Startup Professionals Musings

NOVEMBER 21, 2016

After listening to hundreds of startup pitches, and reading even more business plans, most new venture investors develop their own favorite list of “red flags” that signal the beginning of the end of their interest. Lead with your intent to offer the solution free to customers. Of course, customers love free, but investors hate it.

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Startup Professionals Musings

APRIL 16, 2016

After listening and working with hundreds of entrepreneurs, I have heard many focused only on their next million dollar idea, but very few make any money from an idea alone. Both groups are missing the essence of an entrepreneur – the business focus. Most importantly, it requires the discipline to integrate all of these.

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Startup Professionals Musings

AUGUST 19, 2016

Unfortunately, many passionate entrepreneurs read this initial surge as success, and charge ahead with more of the same passion, leading to a series of potential pitfalls that can quickly jeopardize the health of the entire business. On the other end of the transaction, customer support, returns, and transportation can add up.

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Startup Professionals Musings

JANUARY 30, 2016

It’s easy to declare yourself an entrepreneur, but it’s not so easy to convince investors, your team and customers that you are that special one to fund and follow. If you don’t consistently display the right entrepreneur mindset traits, people won’t follow and business success will likely elude you.

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Startup Professionals Musings

AUGUST 1, 2016

After many years of working with angel investors seriously trying to find new ventures worthy of their hard-earned money, I find their frustration often exceeds that of entrepreneurs sincerely looking for financial help. Here is my list of shortcomings that cause many investors to look elsewhere: No well-defined need or viable customer set.

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Startup Professionals Musings

MAY 9, 2016

Good entrepreneurs are all about managing change, but too many forget that they have to change themselves as their dream evolves from a startup to a scalable business. Now you have real customers who can quickly turn off hundreds of potential customers if you ignore their feedback. Trust your gut, and ignore naysayers.

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Startup Professionals Musings

FEBRUARY 5, 2016

Many entrepreneurs are so passionate about their new startup idea that they can’t believe any intelligent being, investor or customer wouldn’t react just as excitedly after a quick introduction. You have to persuade the right partners to join and build the solution, the right investors to fund it and the right customers to buy it.

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Startup Professionals Musings

MAY 16, 2016

Most new entrepreneurs have great ideas, and many are highly skilled in building their solutions. They don’t realize that strong team engagement leads to even stronger customer engagement, which can more than double your startup revenue and growth, according to experts. Facilitate and use customer, peer engagement feedback.

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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. Most of these are non-profits, set up by a university to commercialize new technologies, or a municipality to foster business development for the local economy.

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Startup Professionals Musings

FEBRUARY 13, 2016

Entrepreneurs who are looking to attract investors need to develop and pitch a plan -- preferably written -- that answers every potential investor question about your startup before it is asked. Investors want to hear about customers with money who have a painful problem that you can solve now. It’s really not that difficult.

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Startup Professionals Musings

JULY 8, 2016

Business success is all about having the best team, yet the average entrepreneur has little prior experience with hiring people and building top-notch teams. Most new entrepreneurs assume their passion will attract and motivate the right team members. Marty Zwilling First published on Forbes on 07/02/2016.

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Startup Professionals Musings

JULY 29, 2016

Too many entrepreneurs don’t know what to do at this point, largely accounting for that disappointing 50 percent of startups that fail in the first five years, according to Gallup. Many entrepreneurs forget that the growth phase may be your tightest squeeze on cash. Actively listen to customer feedback, and don’t be a one-trick pony.

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Startup Professionals Musings

MARCH 4, 2016

The good news is that everyone expects entrepreneurs to make mistakes, since founders explore uncharted territory. Assume you already know what your customers need and want. Just because you love a new solution doesn’t mean your customers will love it. Usually, no competitors means no market -- or it means you haven’t looked.

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Startup Professionals Musings

JANUARY 11, 2016

I meet many entrepreneurs with a real passion for their new idea, but unfortunately they don’t all realize that passion is necessary but not sufficient fuel to turn their idea into a successful business. Interact with real customers to validate passion in their feedback. Reality check your potential for building a business.

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Startup Professionals Musings

JUNE 10, 2016

For example, if you watch the TV show “Shark Tank,” you will remember several entrepreneurs with specialty products doing well online who want money to move into big box retail. The most common channels in use today include e-commerce, direct to customer, wholesale to dealers, and value-added resellers. Set marketing plans accordingly.

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socalTECH

APRIL 21, 2017

For people who send things out, it's a chance to be in front of your customer. We're working with some very large, extremely well known CPGs to help them establish that direct selling channel, and help them create a relationship with their customer. You need to understand what it means when a customer receives a product.

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Startup Professionals Musings

DECEMBER 26, 2016

Here are seven key principles that I recommend you follow as an aspiring business leader or entrepreneur, based on my own experience in large companies as well as startups: Proactively ask for input to hone your vision. Use questions to coach and develop team members. Marty Zwilling First published on Inc.com on 12/09/2016.

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Startup Professionals Musings

JUNE 3, 2016

According to recent statistics from the International Business Innovation Association ( InBIA ), there are about 7,000 business incubators and accelerators worldwide, with over 90 percent being non-profit and focused on incubator programs for community economic development. Your future as an entrepreneur depends on it.

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Startup Professionals Musings

AUGUST 22, 2016

Aspiring entrepreneurs who struggle in a corporate environment often can’t wait to start their own company, only to find that relationships are even more critical and volatile there. The message here is not to use the public personas of leaders and entrepreneurs as the model for building and maintaining your business relationships.

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Startup Professionals Musings

OCTOBER 14, 2016

What every entrepreneur is asking me these days, is “How do I get to be a unicorn?” Yet there are a common set of driving factors that every entrepreneur should know, including the following: Extraordinary marketplace traction. If your new venture is still in the idea or development stages, don’t even think about a high valuation.

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Both Sides of the Table

MARCH 25, 2016

In our industry we applaud the efforts for entrepreneurs to have tried and we know that today’s failure can bring the experience for tomorrow’s success. Many startup businesses – tech or otherwise – fail. How much ad revenue does TripAdvisor make? And how much do others providers make?

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Tech Zulu Event

JANUARY 18, 2016

million led by Radiant Venture Capital , the accelerator will focus on driving IoT innovation and entrepreneurship in Hong Kong and Asia while pushing forward IoT development globally. Asia is arguably leading the way when it comes to wearable technology, and the development of IoT in the region shows equally promising signs.

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Startup Professionals Musings

FEBRUARY 1, 2016

Many entrepreneurs are so focused on finalizing their innovative product or service that they procrastinate on the formalities of forming the requisite new company until later. Building a business plan is a discipline every entrepreneur needs to learn early, required or not. Founder’s stock may be taxed at time of incorporation.

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Startup Professionals Musings

NOVEMBER 7, 2016

Way back in the early eighties, I was privileged to be part of the original IBM PC development team, led by Don Estridge. Despite a valiant effort, we only briefly succeeded in putting IBM in the personal computer business, but our efforts changed my view of entrepreneurs forever.

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socalTECH

MARCH 4, 2021

I think, now more than ever, Flippy meets the distinct challenges and can help our customers spur new growth. This was in mid-2016, and the decreasing costs of robotics and computer vision made me think that the process of making a burger could be fully automated. Speaking of customers, can you talk about who they are now?

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Startup Professionals Musings

NOVEMBER 14, 2016

Every entrepreneur I know feels the pressure of the thousands of things that need to get done, all seemingly at the same time. These are the endless stream of email, phone calls, and daily crises which prevent really important accomplishments, like closing customers. There is just not enough time! Rest makes you more productive.

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Startup Professionals Musings

APRIL 18, 2016

A single visionary entrepreneur almost always is the initial implementer of an innovative new venture, but that lone entrepreneur doesn’t have the bandwidth to grow the business alone. That’s a big transition, and many entrepreneurs never make it. No one wants to follow a habitually grumpy or negative entrepreneur.

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Startup Professionals Musings

MAY 6, 2016

But in my experience as a startup advisor, too many entrepreneurs get stuck there, and always find excuses for not really exploring mergers, acquisitions, partnerships, and alliance alternatives. For example, at any given moment in your business, you may be limited by development, marketing, or sales. Think outside the box.

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