Startup Professionals Musings

MAY 5, 2014

The cost of entry for an aspiring entrepreneur has never been lower, and the total wealth of opportunities has never been larger. A while back, I focused on the e-Commerce side, so this time I wanted to highlight how a shortage of something, like natural resources, should be seen by an aspiring entrepreneur as a wealth of new startup ideas.

Resource 96

Resource Ideas Startup Commerce 96

Tech Zulu Event

FEBRUARY 7, 2012

As we turn our ideas for the future into the latest startups and companies of today, there’s always a need for resources to help guide one through the process of it all. While this time for a business can be exciting one must be prepared with the resources to take the next step.

Resource 86

Resource Guide Entrepreneur Examples 86

Startup Professionals Musings

JULY 5, 2021

As I have said many times, the cost of entry for an aspiring entrepreneur has never been lower, and the total wealth of opportunities has never been larger. I was inspired by the classic book, “ Resource Revolution: How to Capture the Biggest Business Opportunity in a Century ,” by Stephan Heck and Matt Rogers.

Startup 162

Startup Resource Entrepreneur Social Media 162

Startup Professionals Musings

NOVEMBER 11, 2020

The road to becoming an entrepreneur is a journey , and it’s not a short trip. I was pleased to find a new book, “ The Entrepreneur’s Faces, ” by Johnathan Littman and Susanna Camp, which outlines the key stages and provides examples of real people making the transformation from one stage to the next.

Entrepreneur 139

Entrepreneur Help Incubator Startup 139

Startup Professionals Musings

JANUARY 12, 2020

Every new entrepreneur has to initiate the right actions to be perceived as a leader in their chosen business domain by their team and by their customers, or the road to success and satisfaction will be lost along the way. No entrepreneur can build a business alone. Allocates adequate resources to overcome constraints.

Entrepreneur 125

Entrepreneur Training Resource Customer 125

InfoChachkie

AUGUST 26, 2013

This approach allows your venture to "fail in the small" and make course corrections before spending significant marketing resources. An infamous example of a startup that did not follow this strategy is Color. When the venture was unable to initially meet its grandiose expectations, the market crucified the company.

Marketing 247

Marketing Entrepreneur Journal Media 247

Startup Professionals Musings

MAY 29, 2021

An underutilized, but valuable resource, every startup should investigate is a formal or informal connection to your alma mater, including any local university. Here is a short list of the areas where you should be able to find help, whether you are a student or an independent entrepreneur: Exploring hot ideas. Early-stage funding.

Incubator 172

Incubator Mentor Class Resource 172

Berkonomics

APRIL 1, 2021

Investors most often celebrate teams that quickly find flaws in the original plan and reallocate resources in another direction before more wasted resources. My favorite example of a world class pivot comes from the CEO and board of one of my most successful investments. My story of a great pivot.

Resource 156

Resource Research Class News 156

socalTECH

MARCH 28, 2019

Earlier this month, the annual Montgomery Summit conference was held in Santa Monica, including a special portion of the conference dedicated to the Rise of the Female Entrepreneur. I got started in investment banking, focused on helping medical companies buy technology companies, and then later in the enterprise space and in the cloud.

Capital 162

Capital Entrepreneur Invest Artificial Inteligence 162

Startup Professionals Musings

JUNE 3, 2023

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.

Organization 92

Organization Incubator Startup Resource 92

Startup Professionals Musings

SEPTEMBER 22, 2021

Unfortunately, most of us don’t have enough resources to bootstrap our own startups, so we are completely dependent on investors to help turn great ideas into great businesses. Investors love entrepreneurs who come across as constantly on the lookout for new ideas, and able to grasp the larger implications for market change.

Ideas 140

Ideas Entrepreneur Equity Resource 140

Startup Professionals Musings

JUNE 30, 2021

By definition, all of you entrepreneurs are leaders, by taking the initiative to start a new company. Most investors will readily admit that they invest in entrepreneur leadership, more so than innovative ideas, but they often find it difficult to separate aspiring leaders from those that are clearly extraordinary.

Coach 162

Coach Startup Resource Competition 162

Startup Professionals Musings

MAY 30, 2020

Most aspiring entrepreneurs look to their alma mater, or any university, as a source of classes that can help them, but neglect to think outside the box or take advantage of all the other resources to be found there. Get help with grant funding and incubator resources. Access to entrepreneurs-in-residence, business mentors.

Class 124

Class Startup Resource Mentor 124

Startup Professionals Musings

JULY 26, 2021

Intuitively, many entrepreneurs and businesses believe that the key to faster growth and success is more products, features, and markets. Since we all have limited resources, and can’t add more hours to the day, the result is usually more things done poorly, rather than a few key things done better than anyone else. Just ask J.C.

Startup 154

Startup Resource Entrepreneur Metrics 154

Startup Professionals Musings

JANUARY 2, 2019

Most of you aspiring entrepreneurs have no idea how dramatically your own role has to evolve as you develop a solution, start a business, and expect it to scale into a successful self-managed company. At this stage, I typically find a solo entrepreneur who creates, manages projects, directs, and oversees every step in the process.

Company 99

Company Companies Technical Review Startup 99

Startup Professionals Musings

MAY 21, 2023

One of the most frequent questions I get as a mentor to entrepreneurs is “How do I find the money to start my business?” If you have the urge to be an entrepreneur, I encourage you to think seriously about each of these, before you zero-in on one or two, and get totally discouraged if those don’t work for you.

Startup 106

Startup Capital Equity Funding 106

Startup Professionals Musings

OCTOBER 10, 2018

One of the most frequent questions I get as a mentor to entrepreneurs is “How do I find the money to start my business?” If you have the urge to be an entrepreneur, I encourage you to think seriously about each of these, before you zero-in on one or two, and get totally discouraged if those don’t work for you.

Entrepreneur 96

Entrepreneur Startup Equity Funding 96

Startup Professionals Musings

OCTOBER 12, 2022

Every new entrepreneur has to initiate the right actions to be perceived as a leader in their chosen business domain by their team and by their customers, or the road to success and satisfaction will be lost along the way. No entrepreneur can build a business alone. Allocates adequate resources to overcome constraints.

Startup 127

Startup Training Entrepreneur Resource 127

Startup Professionals Musings

NOVEMBER 16, 2022

In fact, even within Fortune 100 companies, almost 90 percent have encountered growth stalls or flirted with failure, or worse, in the last 50 years. No company can afford to lose the agility, flexibility, and innovation of a startup. Companies follow each other rather than the market. Change is hard.

Startup 120

Startup Statistics IBM IBM 120

Startup Professionals Musings

AUGUST 23, 2021

Most aspiring entrepreneurs I know are just waiting for that unique idea to strike them that will kickstart their new venture, put them in control of their lifestyle, achieve financial independence, and maybe even change the world. For example, TOMS shoes agreed to donate a pair of shoes to the needy for every pair sold.

Startup 159

Startup Satisfaction Entrepreneur Equity 159

Startup Professionals Musings

APRIL 16, 2021

The ultimate compliment that any entrepreneur can get is that they can “see around corners.” Elon Musk with Tesla and SpaceX may be the most current example of this phenomenon, but others often mentioned include Richard Branson (Virgin Group), Joe Costello (Cadence Design), and Howard Schultz (Starbucks).

Marketing 157

Marketing Design Entrepreneur Ideas 157

Startup Professionals Musings

SEPTEMBER 13, 2022

My first advice for new entrepreneurs is to pick a domain, such as online web sites and smart phone apps, that doesn’t have the sky-high up-front development costs. Leave the world of new computer chips and new drugs to the big companies, and people with deep pockets. It’s what separates the true entrepreneurs from the wannabes.

Startup 136

Startup Technical Review Equity Incubator 136

Berkonomics

MAY 27, 2021

They protect the company by overseeing the expenditure of company money for expansion, acquisitions, purchases of large assets, hiring of senior management and more. The average board for a company taking outside investment money is five. Well, how many should be on my board? Board members are legally to protect, not to grow.

Resource 156

Resource Acquisition Class Help 156

Startup Professionals Musings

JANUARY 3, 2022

Of course, it’s no surprise that most entrepreneurs don’t have a background in hiring teams, and don’t have a budget for training or human resource consultants. New businesses need people who have a passion for getting things done with limited resources, enjoy problem solving, and relish constant change.

Training 135

Training Case Study Resource Statistics 135

Startup Professionals Musings

JULY 31, 2022

In fact, Conscious Capitalism companies, for example, historically have outperformed the S&P 500 index by a factor of ten. Use and contribute to shared resources, like Wikipedia and Creative Commons, rather than relying totally on proprietary and internal tools. Shared and collaborative activity (connectedness).

Organization 126

Organization Social Media Examples Customer 126

Startup Professionals Musings

FEBRUARY 14, 2021

In their passion and excitement about a new product or service, entrepreneurs tend to continually narrow the scope of potential competitors, and often claim to have no direct competitors. First to market, for example, is not normally a sustainable advantage for startups. A narrow scope doesn’t help your case either.

Competition 166

Competition Funding Startup Patents 166

Startup Professionals Musings

JULY 14, 2014

My first advice for new entrepreneurs is to pick a domain that doesn’t have the sky-high up-front development costs, like online web sites and smart phone apps. Leave the world of new computer chips and new drugs to the big companies, and people with deep pockets. It’s what separates the true entrepreneurs from the wannabes.

Entrepreneur 113

Entrepreneur Funding Startup Technical Review 113

Startup Professionals Musings

OCTOBER 20, 2021

As I “grew up” in business in big companies, including IBM, I always wondered why the real innovations seemed to come from startups, while we had more resources and more experience. If you see yourself or your company ignoring any of these, now is the time to take action: Invest in a new market, as well as new features.

Marketing 117

Marketing IBM IBM Resource 117

Both Sides of the Table

FEBRUARY 7, 2011

Equally, I encouraged entrepreneurs to spend time getting to know their future VCs early because getting a feel for your chemistry is far more important than how the VC is ranked in some survey. Equally, I encouraged entrepreneurs to thoroughly reference check their VCs – you’ll learn much more from this than anything else.

Entrepreneur 330

Entrepreneur Marketing Venture Capital Hulu 330

InfoChachkie

AUGUST 4, 2014

Thompson''s jaded take on the travel industry, I wondered if there was a travel company that bucked his stereotypes and properly balanced making bold destinations accessible while respecting the unspoiled resources and culture that made the locales interesting in the first place. but we don''t.

Entrepreneur 187

Entrepreneur Startup Social Media Resource 187

Startup Professionals Musings

SEPTEMBER 18, 2022

How an entrepreneur answers this question speaks volumes about their knowledge of business realities, customers, confidence, and their ability to handle investor funding. The problem is that startups have limited resources to keep them ahead of big companies. Don’t bash the competition. Being negative is never the answer.

Competition 133

Competition Patents Resource Invest 133

Startup Professionals Musings

MAY 1, 2016

Most aspiring entrepreneurs look to their alma mater, or any university, as a source of classes that can help them, but neglect to think outside the box or take advantage of all the other resources to be found there. Get help with grant funding and incubator resources. Access to entrepreneurs-in-residence, business mentors.

Entrepreneur 55

Entrepreneur Capital Class Startup 55

Startup Professionals Musings

MARCH 3, 2021

Based on my own years of experience in startups and big business, and more recently as an angel investor, I often cringe when I see one of you entrepreneurs missing a cue that I have seen work for many before you. A passionate entrepreneur I met a while back had found that a certain algae could be grown cheaply, and could end world hunger.

Entrepreneur 162

Entrepreneur Social Media Examples Metrics 162

Startup Professionals Musings

JULY 3, 2015

The visibility of Google, Facebook and a few others continues to propagate the myth that the ultimate objective of every entrepreneur should be to take their startups public via an initial public offering at the earliest opportunity. Facebook, for example, ended up raising almost $16 billion through its IPO.

Entrepreneur 98

Entrepreneur Startup Report Statistics 98

Startup Professionals Musings

AUGUST 11, 2014

In my experience, inventors and technologists arent interested or arent very good at building a business, and entrepreneurs arent usually good scientists. Without the synergy, companies like Apple might never have gotten off the ground. Historically, its also not often that a good inventor was also a good entrepreneur.

Entrepreneur 102

Entrepreneur Ideas Patents Resource 102

Startup Professionals Musings

JANUARY 2, 2021

For example, a couple of years ago, Starbucks' chief executive officer, Kevin R. Johnson , was quick to accept accountability via a company apology on Twitter for a racial profiling incident at a Starbucks in Philadelphia, even though he could have claimed that a fired employee was at fault.

Training 173

Training Examples Startup Social Media 173

Startup Professionals Musings

JUNE 25, 2014

How an entrepreneur answers this question speaks volumes about their knowledge of business realities, customers, confidence, and their ability to handle investor funding. The problem is that startups have limited resources to keep them ahead of big companies. bashing competition entrepreneur investor startup'

Entrepreneur 110

Entrepreneur Competition Patents Resource 110