Startup Professionals Musings

NOVEMBER 14, 2020

I heard it again recently from a technical entrepreneur who should know better than to believe the old “ Field of Dreams ” sports fantasy movie theme in today’s Internet information overload environment. A single marketing coordinator can accelerate your efforts by being the coach and mentoring key members of the team on soft marketing.

Marketing 130

Marketing Develop Development Startup 130

Startup Professionals Musings

DECEMBER 21, 2020

Most entrepreneurs, and members of any small team, naively assume that the key to their success is hard work, dedication, and long hours in the business. It behooves all entrepreneurs and team members to recognize the positives and negatives of each type of relationship. Workship - Advocate. Workships and friendships can’t be forced.

Mentor 135

Mentor Competition Summary Coach 135

Startup Professionals Musings

FEBRUARY 7, 2022

As a mentor to many entrepreneurs and business owners, I find that many of you have a real fear of uncomfortable interaction situations with individuals on your team, and often delay these discussions endlessly until a crisis occurs. This allows you to build your courage gradually, rather than all at once.

Summary 116

Summary Coach Mentor Training 116

Startup Professionals Musings

MARCH 30, 2022

Thus I was pleased to see the same conclusion in a new book, “ CEO Excellence ,” by Carolyn Dewar, Scott Keller, and Vikram Malhotra, each a Senior Partner at McKinsey & Company. Tap the wisdom of elders and the Board to help the business.

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Template Demand Social Media Summary 109

Both Sides of the Table

MAY 25, 2013

After all, I am no stranger to the publicly expressing the frustrations of dealing with the downside of this industry as I wrote about in 2006 when I was an entrepreneur. You invest across many funds just as VCs invest across many companies. The best VCs don’t try to help entrepreneurs. And Coach Campbell.

Venture Capital 374

Venture Capital Entrepreneur Invest Funding 374

Both Sides of the Table

APRIL 20, 2011

One example is that they introduced a program where their founders can pool together shares from their company and exchange them for a small portfolio of other First Round Capital companies. I think you'll enjoy hearing him, but if you're in a rush check out the summary notes below. I'm a huge fan of this innovation.

Capital 284

Capital Venture Capital Technical Review Startup 284

Both Sides of the Table

MAY 19, 2018

When you raise money from investors you produce information that you are told they want and care about: A fund-raising deck that articulates your company strategy, plans, team, market, competitors and so forth. Most entrepreneurs (and VCs raising from LPs) think this means progress. against a broad range of similar companies.

Funding 336

Funding Venture Capital Startup Email 336

Both Sides of the Table

JANUARY 22, 2014

VCs should be more of a coach than proscriptively telling you what to do. I’ve seen too many companies go off track by a VC hell bent on the team pursuing the VCs strategy which at times is about chasing the next shiny object. I would call their portfolio companies and ask how helpful or not they’ve been. FourSquare.

Venture Capital 364

Venture Capital Coach Writing SaaS 364

Startup Professionals Musings

DECEMBER 9, 2016

I heard it again yesterday from a technical entrepreneur who should know better than to believe the old “ Field of Dreams ” sports fantasy movie theme in today’s Internet information overload environment. A single marketing coordinator can accelerate your efforts by being the coach and mentoring key members of the team on soft marketing.

Marketing 89

Marketing Coach Mentor Social Media 89

Both Sides of the Table

AUGUST 30, 2010

I’ve written about the topic of convertible debt at length before specifically about how angels & entrepreneurs should think about pricing. Clearly this is is a trend and a topic that is interesting entrepreneurs. In fact, in some ways can be worse for the entrepreneur. a priced/valued preferred stock financing)?

Equity 319

Equity Pricing Venture Capital Entrepreneur 319

Startup Professionals Musings

FEBRUARY 26, 2018

As an advisor to entrepreneurs and new business owners, I’ve long observed that one of the toughest challenges is people change management in the team. I have found that my years in a big company have paid huge dividends in this area. These hurt the company, as well as the specific employee reputation.

Summary 55

Summary Examples Coach Startup 55

Both Sides of the Table

DECEMBER 14, 2014

and I thought if we brought the community together for common purpose we could create more of a sense of community to help new entrepreneurs get funded, assemble teams, raise profiles and help with biz dev, product, etc. Companies were getting funded more easily and many more companies were actually being created.

Venture Capital 290

Venture Capital Startup Idealab Funding 290

Startup Professionals Musings

APRIL 4, 2013

Most entrepreneurs, and members of any small team, naively assume that the key to their success is hard work, dedication, and long hours at the business. It behooves all entrepreneurs, and all team members, to recognize the positives and negatives of each type of relationship. Workship - Advocate.

Startup 99

Startup Mentor Entrepreneur Competition 99

Startup Professionals Musings

JANUARY 8, 2016

Most entrepreneurs, and members of any small team, naively assume that the key to their success is hard work, dedication, and long hours in the business. It behooves all entrepreneurs and team members to recognize the positives and negatives of each type of relationship. Workship - Advocate. Workships and friendships can’t be forced.

Mentor 70

Mentor Competition Entrepreneur Summary 70

Both Sides of the Table

JANUARY 6, 2014

When you first start your company and raise initial venture capital your board probably consists of 1-3 founders and 1-2 VCs. And here’s an important point that I think modern entrepreneurs often forget: Investors are “co-owners” of your business. There are just as many bad entrepreneurs who do bad things.

Startup 325

Startup Sales Technical Review Software Review 325

Both Sides of the Table

JUNE 29, 2011

If you don’t want to read that post, the summary is: Open source computing drove computing costs down 90%, which spurred innovation in technology. Surprisinly, this strategy works well with many entrepreneurs. I doubt this will end well for those VCs or for the entrepreneurs they backed. Or at least venture-style returns.

Venture Capital 296

Venture Capital Capital Software Startup 296

Both Sides of the Table

JUNE 8, 2014

Not all of these products & companies came from Silicon Valley but the overwhelming majority did. Open source computing, which reduced costs to start a company by 90%. To be clear we will continue to see great infrastructure companies built and these will mostly come from Silicon Valley. All great communication companies.

Startup 390

Startup Venture Capital Capital Funding 390

Both Sides of the Table

DECEMBER 16, 2010

Understand Personality Types – One of the benefits of working for a big company (Accenture) was that we had lots of speakers come in and train us in topics like leadership, creativity, presentations, strategy, etc. Most entrepreneurs are. It’s usually people wanting to raise money and/or persuade me of something.

Slides 358

Slides Venture Capital Startup Summary 358

Both Sides of the Table

JANUARY 16, 2012

I’ve raised money as a “hot company” and I’ve raised capital when no one would return my phone calls. I raised money as an entrepreneur, like you, in 1999, 2000, 2001, 2003 and 2005 for two different companies. Executive Summary. I never suggest that entrepreneurs just randomly pitch VCs.

Develop 366

Develop Development Funding Venture Capital 366

Both Sides of the Table

JULY 1, 2010

A good early-stage CEO needs to be accessible, to be accountable for producing results and should be establishing the cultural norms of the company through direct leadership at all levels. But issues do arise as your company grows. I see two common mistakes in companies (not just in startups, in fact).

Startup 308

Startup CTO Coach Technical Review CTO Hire 308

Both Sides of the Table

JULY 19, 2011

Yet a critical mistake I see many entrepreneurs make is that they hand over too much control to their third-parties. I want to judge whether they’re really committed to my company or not. By everybody I mean your lawyers, theirs and the VCs or whoever the client is (maybe a company acquiring you). Recruiters. You name it.

Venture Capital 319

Venture Capital Pricing Startup Outsource 319

Startup Professionals Musings

OCTOBER 12, 2015

Every entrepreneur should do the same due diligence on a potential investor that smart investors do on their startups. Here is a summary of some key investor stereotypes that generally need to be avoided: Investment sharks. Violation of abstract clauses may be used as a way to push you out, take over the company or pull the investment.

Entrepreneur 108

Entrepreneur Coach Invest Sample 108