Startup Professionals Musings

AUGUST 1, 2020

Entrepreneurs seem to have blinders on when looking at competitors. All of these offer the potential for a win-win relationship with a nominal competitor, rather than a win-lose deal, as long as both sides can remain humble and not try to dominate the relationship. Up-sell related products or cross endorsement.

Startup 126

Startup Outsource Competition Acquisition 126

Startup Professionals Musings

FEBRUARY 24, 2021

As an advisor to many startups today, I still see that most of you entrepreneurs see yourselves as the sole driver of your new solution, and the key driver of your new business. We all need to be humble and recognize that what we need to know about technology and the market changes daily. Promote the sharing of ideas and feedback.

Startup 147

Startup Customer Custom Ideas 147

Startup Professionals Musings

NOVEMBER 14, 2022

This alone will improve your productivity and effectiveness in your current role, as well as give you a head start towards a future role, including a management role or starting your own company as an entrepreneur. Entrepreneurs and business leaders cannot escape accountability.

Tips 123

Tips Tool Activity Startup 123

Startup Professionals Musings

DECEMBER 14, 2019

How an entrepreneur answers this question speaks volumes about their knowledge of business realities, customers, confidence, and their ability to handle investor funding. He or she will assume your comment means there is no market for your product or service, or you haven’t looked. Don’t bash the competition.

Competition 120

Competition Patents Resource Invest 120

Startup Professionals Musings

DECEMBER 12, 2020

Jeff Bezos is one of the world’s most admired entrepreneurs, primarily because of his humble style and his growth from a regular person background to a current net worth in the neighborhood of $200 billion dollars. It is also a huge productivity gain, to offset PowerPoint's infamous ability to reduce organizational intelligence.

Slides 137

Slides Customer Custom Satisfaction 137

InfoChachkie

JULY 26, 2010

Entrepreneurs can emulate de la Guerra’s strategy and make their adVenture appear far larger than reality and thus increasing its influence and market reach while discouraging competitive threats by creating an industry alliance. Big Dumb Companies (BDCs) are surprisingly compliant when they are presented with a “Program”.

Entrepreneur 168

Entrepreneur Santa Barbara Startup Conference 168

InfoChachkie

JUNE 3, 2013

John Lusk, along with his Co-Author Kyle Harrison, leveraged their humble company''s newsletter into The MouseDriver Chronicles , a New York Times bestselling book. Upon graduation from Wharton, John and Kyle launched a startup based upon a simple, pedestrian product: a computer mouse shaped like the head of a golf driver.

Newsletter 133

Newsletter Startup Entrepreneur Writing 133

InfoChachkie

MAY 20, 2013

According to Tige Young, Founder and CEO of Tui Tai Expeditions , entrepreneurs should de-emphasize ROI and focus on a more accurate measure of wealth, Return On Life. How did an American software engineer come to own an adventure travel company cited by National Geographic as, "one of the best adventure travel companies on earth?".

Entrepreneur 235

Entrepreneur Startup Software Engineering Technical Review 235

socalTECH

MARCH 19, 2012

We thought we'd get the pitch from Tim Sae Koo , the founder of the company, on how he took the idea from his business class at USC and turned it into a company, which is now part of one of the local startup accelerators in town, StartEngine. It's similar to Pinterest, and what their product does with Skimlinks. READ MORE>>.

USC 252

USC Startup Web Ideas 252

Both Sides of the Table

FEBRUARY 22, 2015

What Cham rarely tells people – he’s both private and humble – is that he started making some small co-investments with me in tech firms starting with Maker Studios where he was one of the earliest investors. This past year he even decided to attend burning man (photo below) to get a sense of what that was all about.

Conference 150

Conference Slides Social Media Summary 150

Both Sides of the Table

AUGUST 10, 2013

It’s only 12 minutes long and if you’re a first-time entrepreneur (or second time, frankly) I encourage you to watch it if for nothing else than to get a sense that your struggles are universal. Startups are filled with enormously talented people – often product people & engineers. We learn from losses.

Startup 412

Startup Press Course Entrepreneur 412

InfoChachkie

MAY 20, 2013

According to Tige Young, Founder and CEO of Tui Tai Expeditions , entrepreneurs should de-emphasize ROI and focus on a more accurate measure of wealth, Return On Life. How did an American software engineer come to own an adventure travel company cited by National Geographic as, "one of the best adventure travel companies on earth?".

Entrepreneur 164

Entrepreneur Startup Software Engineering Technical Review 164

InfoChachkie

DECEMBER 5, 2011

Mark Cuban is a lifelong serial entrepreneur, launching his startup career with a variety of teenage schemes, including buying and selling collectable stamps to pay for college. I easily could have included 50-comments that provide insight and inspiration to entrepreneurs. Mark’s view of risk is common to most successful entrepreneurs.

Tips 274

Tips Startup Entrepreneur Ideas 274

Both Sides of the Table

APRIL 21, 2020

Topics we covered: B2B Companies You haven’t seen the full extent to how the correction is going to affect you. I pointed out that throughout history building companies has always taken time and we as a market have put an urgency to rush growth rates. A seed company hasn’t ramped up its cost base. Harry posed these questions.

Venture Capital 263

Venture Capital Marketing Startup Writing 263

Both Sides of the Table

AUGUST 20, 2015

We’ve had just one market since then and it could confuse one into thinking: every deal finds downstream investors, every company good or bad finds a home, you know anything at all about brazil, india, china or even saas sales, ecommerce or analytics (you know all these in a bull market). The longer I do this the more humbled I become.

Funding 150

Funding Venture Capital Startup Marketing 150

InfoChachkie

MARCH 27, 2012

However, despite the book’s shortcomings, it contains a number of insightful lessons emerging entrepreneurs can apply to their startup careers. Entrepreneurs should be naive, as long it is coupled with a relentless work ethic and a pragmatic ability to execute. If you haven't already subscribed yet, subscribe now for.

Tips 252

Tips Startup Santa Barbara Marketing 252

socalTECH

APRIL 1, 2019

Portnoy is a serial entrepreneur, having previously founded ThinkNear, a startup which went from the Techstars startup accelerator to an exit in only 14 months. That competitiveness is driving companies to make better decisions. That's the basic premise of the company. For those not yet familiar with Sense360, what do you do?

Startup 113

Startup Culver City Competition Customer 113

Startup Professionals Musings

AUGUST 2, 2015

How an entrepreneur answers this question speaks volumes about their knowledge of business realities, customers, confidence, and their ability to handle investor funding. He or she will assume your comment means there is no market for your product or service, or you haven’t looked. Don’t bash the competition.

Startup 118

Startup Competition Patents Resource 118

Startup Professionals Musings

SEPTEMBER 1, 2018

Entrepreneurs seem to have blinders on when looking at competitors. All of these offer the potential for a win-win relationship with a nominal competitor, rather than a win-lose deal, as long as both sides can remain humble and not try to dominate the relationship. Up-sell related products or cross endorsement.

Startup 59

Startup Outsource Competition Acquisition 59

Tech Zulu Event

DECEMBER 9, 2014

A humble and unassuming character, it’s almost hard to imagine he’s also responsible for arguably one of the most successful technology companies of our time. The Founder and CEO of Belkin International , Chet has achieved what to most entrepreneurs remains an elusive buzzword: ubiquity.

Belkin 97

Belkin Social Media Coach Media 97

Startup Professionals Musings

JUNE 14, 2014

Entrepreneurs seem to have blinders on when looking at competitors. All of these offer the potential for a win-win relationship with a nominal competitor, rather than a win-lose deal, as long as both sides can remain humble and not try to dominate the relationship. Up-sell related products or cross endorsement.

Startup 97

Startup Entrepreneur Outsource Competition 97

Both Sides of the Table

SEPTEMBER 15, 2014

As is often said if you don’t get at least a few fellow VCs (and entrepreneurs) scratching their heads you may not be funding ideas with enough upside. This was certainly the case when I invested in a small YouTube video production company called Maker Studios that recently sold to Disney for just shy of $1 billion.

Funding 362

Funding Technical Review Ideas Startup 362

Startup Professionals Musings

JANUARY 27, 2018

How an entrepreneur answers this question speaks volumes about their knowledge of business realities, customers, confidence, and their ability to handle investor funding. He or she will assume your comment means there is no market for your product or service, or you haven’t looked. Don’t bash the competition.

Competition 51

Competition Patents Resource Entrepreneur 51

InfoChachkie

MARCH 1, 2012

As any long-time reader of this humble blog knows, I am an ardent Beatles fan. Despite the book’s shortcomings, it contains a number of insightful lessons for budding entrepreneurs. Of the 100 business “lessons” articulated in the book, I highlight a few below that I feel are the most relevant and impactful for entrepreneurs.

Tips 259

Tips Startup Entrepreneur Product 259

Startup Professionals Musings

AUGUST 10, 2016

Entrepreneurs seem to have blinders on when looking at competitors. All of these offer the potential for a win-win relationship with a nominal competitor, rather than a win-lose deal, as long as both sides can remain humble and not try to dominate the relationship. Up-sell related products or cross endorsement.

Startup 55

Startup Outsource Competition Entrepreneur 55

Both Sides of the Table

AUGUST 18, 2010

I suffer from the “urgency addiction.&# I know it sounds like one of the falsely humble things like telling somebody in a job interview that your weakness is that you’re too much of a perfectionist. It’s as good as it gets in personal productivity / life reflection. I’m not. It’s hard to hide.

Slides 374

Slides Email Entrepreneur Startup 374

Both Sides of the Table

JUNE 3, 2010

This was really a fun week at TWiVC because we decided to have an entrepreneur come and talk about raising capital rather than having a VC come on. It’s always such a pleasure for me to spend time with Farb because he has all of the enthusiasm and energy you love to see in entrepreneurs. He’s also candid, humble and helpful.

Venture Capital 214

Venture Capital Startup Design S3 214

InfoChachkie

APRIL 1, 2013

How did a small, open source software company from Finland capture billions in market share from Oracle? spread over three different companies (and) we brought it all together. Marten continues his story by describing the company's first major challenge. You must never let a big, fat American company do this to you.'

Oracle 229

Oracle Startup News Press 229

InfoChachkie

JULY 20, 2015

Six outstanding entrepreneurs have created this sweet flavor of success in one of the most beautiful places on earth – Santa Barbara, California. Many of these individuals become restless in their youthful “retirement” and begin investing and advising young companies. A version of this article previously appeared in Forbes. billion.

Santa Barbara 100

Santa Barbara Startup Sales Entrepreneur 100

InfoChachkie

MAY 29, 2012

Self-awareness – As discussed in Your Greatest Ability Is Often Your Availability , entrepreneurs who are self-aware and not self-absorbed are better equipped to identify potential opportunities. Attitude – During the early stages of their careers, emerging entrepreneurs must conform to their customers’ realities.

Startup 222

Startup Outsource Development RSS Entrepreneur 222

Startup Professionals Musings

JULY 6, 2015

Every new baby gets a name before it is introduced to the world, and yet some entrepreneurs continue to send me business plans with TBD (to be determined) in place of a business name on the front page. Your spouse’s initials may be meaningful and memorable to you as a company name, but won’t get you very far in business.

Social Media 103

Social Media Customer Custom Startup 103

InfoChachkie

OCTOBER 20, 2010

Matching Maintenance With Productivity. Some will do so in a quiet, unselfish fashion based on Humble Pride , while others will act as A- Players , delivering results while generating negative, unintended consequences. Consider the following chart, which compares an employee’s productivity with their maintenance.

Statistics 212

Statistics Press Product Startup 212

Tech.Co

NOVEMBER 27, 2017

The Innovation Cohort is the hospital’s internal startup accelerator for physicians and other employees who have ideas for new products and services to improve healthcare. The program supports faculty, trainees and staff in transforming their ‘back of the envelope’ drawing into a final product or service ready for clinical use.

IP 70

IP Patents Ideas Research 70

InfoChachkie

APRIL 21, 2011

A = Product Strategy. D = Overseeing Product/Feature Stories. C = Product Coding. J = External Technical Company Voice. Below are a few mistakes I will not replicate when I conduct this process for a future portfolio company. I = Technical Customer Calls. L = Internally Communicating Roadmap.

Technical Review 182

Technical Review Software Review Startup Outsource 182

Both Sides of the Table

AUGUST 14, 2009

Product : You should build a product or a prototype. In most cases if you can’t get a prototype done you’re probably not an entrepreneur. You cannot be just a biz dev type, salesperson, marketing genius or whatever and divorce yourself from product. Great companies are built by having great products.

Angel 291

Angel Funding Venture Capital Startup 291

Both Sides of the Table

SEPTEMBER 13, 2009

Tonight I was reading a good blog post ( here ) from Sean Powers with Alistair Croll on preparing yourself for the TC50 “bump” – the rise in traffic that a company gets from presenting at TechCrunch 50. So many companies suck at managing their booths. So many companies suck at managing their booths. We closed a $16.5

Startup 310

Startup Venture Capital Press Journal 310

socalTECH

AUGUST 4, 2011

Every so often--particularly in Southern California--you run into a serial entrepreneur, with multiple successes and great track record-- yet, who very few people are aware of. Locally, those are companies like LegalZoom, GameFly, TrueCar, and ShoeDazzle. There are lots of e-commerce companies. Jeff Zwelling is one of those.

Startup 210

Startup Marketing Customer Custom 210