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Some Career Advice for Aspiring Tech CEOs

Both Sides of the Table

For some aspiring to be tech entrepreneurs, I often suggest a two-step process, as I argued in this post that “ The First Startup Founder You Need to Invest in Is You.” He or she has worked at some very successful big technology or media companies and went to a great school.

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What is the Right Burn Rate at a Startup Company?

Both Sides of the Table

There are many times when being overly capitalized before you’re ready is a negative. Plus, most early-stage M&A fails so this isn’t likely a good use of capital for a young company). Availability of Capital. In these kinds of businesses I’m on the record as advising “ Ring the Freakin Cash Register.”

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Getting A Software Patent Is Valuable But Frustrating

Startup Professionals Musings

I still generally advise software startups to file a patent as a barrier to entry from competitors and to increase their valuation by investors, but every entrepreneur needs to understand the tradeoffs. That’s more than a lifetime in today’s technology. Patent offices can’t keep up with software technology.

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What Makes an Entrepreneur? Four Letters: JFDI

Both Sides of the Table

I had a picture in the office of my first company with the logo above and the capital letters JFDI. (In I spent nearly a decade building software for large companies and then advising companies on the same. The technology team disagrees on direction and wants resolutions. He was stuck on capital raising.

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6 Startup Lessons Learned By Passionate Entrepreneurs

Startup Professionals Musings

In my own experience with technical startup founders, I still find it hard to name one who was also good, or even interested in financials or business operations. A mistake often made by new business owners due to the unfamiliar new workload is to ignore and lose existing relationships with outside advisors as well as team members.

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Time is the Enemy of All Deals

Both Sides of the Table

We moved into the legal process and final due diligence in January and February of 2000. It quickly became impossible to raise venture capital. It isn’t even a story about raising venture capital or M&A. Push hard to set up the technical reviews, the due diligence meetings, the reference calls – whatever.

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Frank Addantes FounderBlog: Startup 3.0: Internet advertising is good. No, it’s bad. Oh wait… it IS good!

Frank Addante

► August (3) Venture Capital - What's the rush? the Rubicon Project (Internet Advertising Technology) Status: Pre-Launch Visit the Rubicon Project Website Startup 5.0: StrongMail Systems (Digital Messsaging Infrastructure Software) Status: VC-backed (Sequoia Capital, Globespan and Evercore) Lesson: Trust your gut.