article thumbnail

7 Startup Laws Of Finance That You Dare Not Shortcut

Startup Professionals Musings

A closer analysis often indicates the cause to be a lack of diligence in handling common business finances. I found a good summary of the most common mistakes in a classic book by Kelly Clifford, “ Profit Rocket ,” written primarily to help you on the other side of the equation – skyrocket your profits. In startups, cash is king.

article thumbnail

Why Misunderstanding Startup Metrics Can Cost You Your Business

Both Sides of the Table

There has been a lot of public debate over the past several weeks about whether it’s a good thing to be “gross margin positive” or not and commentary always reminds me that some people at startups don’t quite understand financial metrics or even how to think about which ones are healthy. Gross margin positive !=

Metrics 150
Insiders

Sign Up for our Newsletter

This site is protected by reCAPTCHA and the Google Privacy Policy and Terms of Service apply.

article thumbnail

10 Keys To Raising Your New Venture Funding Potential

Startup Professionals Musings

In his classic book, “ The Leadership Capital Index ,” Dave Ulrich, a best-selling author, business consultant, and business school professor, provides some real insights and metrics on what makes up the elements of goodwill in the minds of top valuation experts. Stable and friendly work environment.

article thumbnail

6 Ways To Improve Your Odds Of New Business Success

Startup Professionals Musings

Thus I was pleased to see my own insights covered in a new book, “ Why Startups Fail ,” by Tom Eisenmann, a Harvard Business School professor, who has mentored many more entrepreneurs, and authored more than a hundred HBS case studies from real-world startups. Gather your resources before scaling the business.

article thumbnail

8 Tactics To Make You A Fearless Business Innovator

Startup Professionals Musings

As a potential investor, I always think of the high rate of failure of disruptive technologies, due to the longer learning curve of customers, infrastructure change consistently required, and higher marketing costs. Define realistic metrics to keep track of progress. You need metrics to incentivize the right team behaviors.

article thumbnail

10 Questions To Lead You To Timely Successful Change

Startup Professionals Musings

A while back, I spotted a book for change management leaders in large organization, and I realized that many of the issues they face are the same as ones faced in every growing startup. Phil Buckley, in his book “ Change With Confidence ,” provides practical answers to fifty of the biggest questions that keep change leaders up at night.

Startup 155
article thumbnail

Document Your MVP for a Developer

SoCal CTO

He is not a technical person, but is somewhat web savvy. It's the same as when I've created financial models and then have it reviewed by a hard-core CFO, sophisticated investor or similar kind of expert. Conversations with a technical advisors or possible developers should be iterative. Go find a new technical resource.

Develop 354