Startup Professionals Musings

JULY 8, 2023

Entrepreneurs who search for real pain points, and build solutions around them, have the best chance of changing the world. As an alternative, if you are an entrepreneur looking for the next big thing, where should you look? Here are some key drivers that will likely lead you to a fundable idea: A business crisis.

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Startup Professionals Musings

JUNE 27, 2021

The entrepreneurs I see are always talking about “disruptive innovation” ideas, but the plans I read are more often linear extensions of a current hot offering, like one more social network with the best of Facebook and Twitter, one more dating site dimension, or another “must-have” accessory for smartphones.

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Ideas Entrepreneur Netflix IBM 117

Startup Professionals Musings

JULY 29, 2023

As an advisor to early-stage entrepreneurs, I see a lot of dreams, but not so many business results. I’ve always wished I had a magic metaphor to motivate the best dreamers to become the best entrepreneurs. There is no cookie-cutter route to success as an entrepreneur. Venture where no business has gone before.

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Startup Professionals Musings

FEBRUARY 6, 2023

Every business professional I know, or have met in my consulting role, has given serious thought to the alternative of switching to the entrepreneur lifestyle , pursuing a long-standing dream, and controlling their own destiny. Sometimes you need to focus on the next idea rather than saving the current one.

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Startup Professionals Musings

JULY 12, 2021

Sometimes entrepreneurs are so focused on making change happen for customers that they forget that continually changing themselves and their company is equally important. Everyone and every company needs to continually learn from their experience and adapt to a changing world to thrive. “If Move to a higher platform.

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Startup Professionals Musings

JULY 28, 2021

As an angel investor in early-stage startups, I’ve long noticed my peers apparent bias toward the strength and character of the founding entrepreneurs, often overriding a strong solution to a painful problem with a big opportunity. Find and enjoy the company of one or more mentors.

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Startup Professionals Musings

FEBRUARY 4, 2022

It’s a special mix of entrepreneur and company, regular in every respect except for having the courage and foresight to make an idea happen that was supposed to be impossible. As an entrepreneur in a startup, how do you know if you have this potential, and what are the steps to get from an innovation to a revolution?

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TechCrunch LA

AUGUST 8, 2020

Watt, who came to MoviePass as an entrepreneur in residence at True Ventures, previously founded the brand and product placement startup NextMedium and also spent time as a board partner at Upfront Ventures. Now, the serial entrepreneur and startup investor is combining his two career paths under the auspices of Share Ventures.

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Startup Professionals Musings

SEPTEMBER 23, 2020

A continuing question I hear from young entrepreneurs is whether a university degree is important to startup success, or just a distraction in achieving their purpose in the world. Most colleges have now added classes in entrepreneurship to include the necessary business focus to technical majors that usually drive innovative ideas.

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Startup Professionals Musings

FEBRUARY 27, 2023

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. Access to entrepreneurs-in-residence, business mentors. Get help with grant funding and incubator resources.

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Startup Professionals Musings

JANUARY 7, 2023

As an entrepreneur mentor and startup investor, I see with sadness the 50 to 90 percent that fail. Perhaps the most famous bubble for startups was the dot.com craze that crashed 20 years ago, where the highest valuations were given to companies with massive user growth, but minimal revenue or profit. Fail fast and pivot.

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Startup Professionals Musings

MAY 5, 2023

Technology is so key to every business these days that experienced business-smart but non-tech entrepreneurs are feeling deeper and deeper in the hole. Only one component of running a business is managing technology, but it is a critical component, so no entrepreneur can afford to ignore it or totally delegate it.

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Startup Professionals Musings

NOVEMBER 3, 2021

Starting and building a company is all about leadership – formulating an idea, building a unique plan based on vision and experience, and forging a path over and through all obstacles. We force the adoption of our ideas. They have the required passion, perseverance, and work ethic. We shut off contribution.

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socalTECH

SEPTEMBER 15, 2017

Irvine-based Cie Digital Labs (CDL) said this week that it has named Jim Davis as the company's new Entrepreneur in Residence. Cie Digital Labs, led by Anderee Berengian, recently has focused on helping brands and also startups take their ideas and turn them into new technology ventures.

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Startup Professionals Musings

DECEMBER 18, 2019

Most aspiring entrepreneurs are convinced that the strength of their initial idea somehow defines them as a leader, as well as the success potential of their derivative business. It takes leadership ability, as well as a good idea, to make a successful entrepreneur, and great leaders evolve from key leadership decisions along the way.

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Startup Professionals Musings

DECEMBER 16, 2020

In my role as a mentor to aspiring entrepreneurs, I find that many of you have your most creative ideas for your company’s first big bang , but often get bogged down with details as the company grows. Reward ideas with peer recognition and praise. Yet building and maintaining a creative team is a tough challenge.

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Startup Professionals Musings

FEBRUARY 26, 2012

Most aspiring entrepreneurs believe their initial idea and inspiration requires the most important creative thinking. Experienced entrepreneurs will tell you that the initial idea is the easy part, and it’s the later implementation, and the competitive business marketing that are the real creative challenges.

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Startup Professionals Musings

JANUARY 20, 2020

Even if you ignore all the hype around crowdfunding, there can be no doubt that it is a real alternative for entrepreneurs to achieve visibility and funding today. Of course, there are thousands of other companies that don’t achieve their minimum goal, requiring all contributions to be returned. Product pre-order model.

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Startup Professionals Musings

JULY 9, 2021

As a mentor to startups and new entrepreneurs, I continue to hear the refrain that business plans are no longer required for a new startup, since investors never read them anyway. For aspiring entrepreneurs, or if your last startup failed, it’s all about standing out above the crowd of others like you, and demonstrating your readiness.

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Startup Professionals Musings

JULY 11, 2022

Some people are not cut out to be entrepreneurs. How do you know if you should be running your own company, or concentrating on that queue of work that someone else has built for you? I’ve hit this before, but I still hear from too many unhappy entrepreneurs. Entrepreneurs have a "never, never, never quit" attitude.

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Startup Professionals Musings

NOVEMBER 11, 2020

The road to becoming an entrepreneur is a journey , and it’s not a short trip. In my efforts of assist aspiring business owners like you, I find that too many see it as a short sprint to get over that one hurdle, like finding that innovative idea, or attracting an investor. The shift – break away from dreaming to action.

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Startup Professionals Musings

SEPTEMBER 19, 2021

Every new business dreams of becoming the premier brand in their space, like Starbucks is to coffee, and Apple is to consumer electronics, but they have no idea how difficult that is to achieve. I found some eye-opening insights in the classic book, “ Rocket: Eight Lessons to Secure Infinite Growth ,” by The Boston Consulting Group.

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socalTECH

AUGUST 29, 2013

Can tapping the power of the crowd not only help you find customers and help fund your project, but also help you shape your startup idea and find funding? A new, Los Angeles area startup, JumpStartFund (www.jumpstartfund.com) recently launched, offering up a combination of crowdfunding and crowd-advice for entrepreneurial ideas.

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Ideas Patents Funding Startup 178

Startup Professionals Musings

SEPTEMBER 2, 2019

Every so often a promising entrepreneur seems to freeze in the oncoming headlights and gets run over by his competition. Why is it that his idea which seemed so fundable only months ago fails to attract investors today? The company's market is the same. The idea here is following a process can actually force you to think.

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SoCal Tech Calendar

MAY 18, 2017

Saturday, May 20, 2017 -- POSiBLE LA Entrepreneur Summit. POSiBLE LA Entrepreneur Summit, a one-day event to empower aspiring business owners to build their ideas and grow their companies. a new campaign to help budding female entrepreneurs or family business owners build their financial futures.

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Entrepreneur Los Angeles Ideas Networking 100

Startup Professionals Musings

JANUARY 17, 2020

Although most people believe that being a successful entrepreneur is all about having the right idea, I’m convinced from my years of experience as a startup advisor and investor that’s it’s more about you as a person. People need to see you as an “influencer,” who is able to sell your new ideas, as well as communicate the future.

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Berkonomics

FEBRUARY 6, 2014

Creating a gerat company in a relative vacuum is an exercise in complete trust that the entrepreneur knows what’s best for the customer, perhaps even without interaction with such a customer. So, I’ve developed the three step dance in order to help form a repeatable method of how to create a great company from an early idea.

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SoCal Tech Calendar

NOVEMBER 6, 2016

Saturday, November 12, 2016 -- Caltech Entrepreneurs Forum - Biotech. Gordon Binder, Venture Capital investor, former Chairman and CEO of Amgen, and Trustee Emeritus of both Caltech and MIT keynotes the Caltech Entrepreneurs Forum program “Entrepreneurs in a Biotech Age”. See [link] (more)

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Startup Professionals Musings

MAY 31, 2020

Most technical entrepreneurs I know demand the discipline of a product specification or plan, and then assume that their great product will drive a great business. Is it any wonder why so few entrepreneurs ever find the professional investors they seek? Yet I’m still often approached by aspiring entrepreneurs who have neither.

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Startup Professionals Musings

MARCH 7, 2011

Based on my own experience and feedback from friends, every investor is approached by at least ten entrepreneurs with a “hot idea” for a new business, for every one who has a real “plan” for a new business. In fact, you can find websites full of ideas, like these “ Free Innovative Ideas ,” by serial entrepreneur Kim E.

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Ideas Entrepreneur Summary Startup 104

SoCal Tech Calendar

OCTOBER 5, 2011

Tuesday, October 11, 2011 -- Funding the Big Idea! TriTechs 3rd annual funding conference where businesses and entrepreneurs interact with investors and also get a chance to look into the mind of investors in order to find out what it takes to become investor ready. See [link].

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Startup Professionals Musings

OCTOBER 22, 2014

Most people think innovation is all about ideas, when in fact it is more about delivery, people, and process. They take you step-by-step through the innovation execution process, in the context the ten most common myths about innovation, which I think makes their approach particularly instructive: Innovation is all about ideas.

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Ideas Startup Resource Entrepreneur 107

Startup Professionals Musings

FEBRUARY 17, 2021

With the appearance of do-it-yourself services on the Internet, entrepreneur curriculums at every university, and a wealth of new books on the subject, the need for expensive consultants and business advisors has also been mitigated. A programmer can build a new smartphone app for a few thousand dollars.

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Startup Professionals Musings

DECEMBER 30, 2020

In my role as a mentor to aspiring entrepreneurs, I find that most have the technical challenges well understood, but many are a bit short on some basic street smarts , or basic business realities. Although Elon Musk doesn’t talk about it very much, he owns over 350 patents through Tesla, just one of his many companies.

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Startup Professionals Musings

JANUARY 24, 2015

Most entrepreneurs I meet are reluctant to disclose anything about their idea to investors before getting a signed confidential disclosure agreement (CDA). Yet I can assure you that people who are paranoid, or want to avoid all risks, won’t be happy as entrepreneurs, so it’s all about balancing the risk-reward scale.

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Startup Professionals Musings

JULY 18, 2020

When I heard a friend and business mentor say, “Your startup won’t fail if you don’t quit,” I realized that every entrepreneur should adopt “never give up” as their mantra. Nothing is more discouraging to aspiring entrepreneurs than the high failure rate. My idea is just too far ahead of its time.” I’m not enjoying this anymore.”

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SoCal Tech Calendar

NOVEMBER 11, 2016

Saturday, November 12, 2016 -- Entrepreneurs in a Biotech Moment. Caltech Entrepreneurs Forum. Gordon Binder, Venture Capital investor, former Chairman and CEO of Amgen, and Trustee Emeritus of both Caltech and MIT, leads the November Caltech Entrepreneurs Forum program, "Entrepreneurs in a Biotech Age."

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Entrepreneur CalTech Southern California Startup 100