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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socalTECH

NOVEMBER 14, 2018

Brian Norgard, who was Chief Product Officer at Los Angeles-based dating app developer Tinder , has left the company, and will be starting up a new company, Norgard said today. Norgard has been a longtime Los Angeles startup entrepreneur. READ MORE>>.

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Startup Professionals Musings

AUGUST 27, 2022

Most entrepreneurs believe they are “different,” but they can’t quite understand how. The classic book, “ Hunting in a Farmer's World: Celebrating the Mind of an Entrepreneur ,” by serial entrepreneur and business coach John F. Dini makes the case that entrepreneurs are hunters, while the rest of us (large majority) are farmers.

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InfoChachkie

OCTOBER 24, 2011

There has recently been a common theme among the entrepreneurs I have interviewed and the conferences I have attended: despite the relatively weak state of the world economy, now is a great time to create a high-tech startup. As Guy Kawasaki pointed out in our recent conversation , “…it is cheaper than ever to start a company.

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Startup Professionals Musings

FEBRUARY 17, 2021

It wasn’t so many years ago that starting a new e-commerce business on the Internet was a complex custom development project, usually costing a million dollars or more. Almost anyone can start a company today on a shoestring budget, following these cost-cutting recommendations: Establish a solid legal structure for your business.

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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?” On the other hand, there are many additional creative options available for starting a business that you might not find for buying a car, home, or other major consumer item. Solicit venture capital investors.

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Startup Professionals Musings

DECEMBER 19, 2022

As a startup advisor, I see many aspiring entrepreneurs whose primary motivation seems to be to work part time, or get rich quick, or avoid anyone else telling them what to do. Yet, for those with more realistic expectations and the right motivation, the entrepreneur lifestyle can be the dream life you envisioned. Marty Zwilling.

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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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Startup Professionals Musings

MARCH 13, 2021

Once you are able to achieve some real “traction” with your business (paying customers, revenue stream), it may seem the time to relax a bit, but in fact this is the point where many founders start to flounder. All the skills and instincts you needed to get to this level can actually start working against you, and you can fail to scale.

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Berkonomics

APRIL 8, 2021

Discord is a great example of a company going viral mostly from word of mouth. From its start in 2015, the number of registered users has “suddenly” climbed from 45 million in 2017 to a reported 300 million by the end of 2020. How do you make your product go viral? The post Six ways to make your site-app-product go viral.

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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. There are at least three relevant groups of users to start: innovators, early adopters, and early majority.

Entrepreneur 124

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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. It starts with documenting and communicating a real purpose and mission in terms everyone can get excited about.

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Both Sides of the Table

APRIL 21, 2013

I moved back to the US and after a stint in Palo Alto moved to LA where I started to notice Cholula sauce at some of the best Mexican restaurants I visited. The company name sounded Chinese – Huy Fong Foods. Was this the latest Chinese product to take off in the US? He was driven by wanting to provide a great product.

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Startup Professionals Musings

SEPTEMBER 19, 2021

In fact, only 100 of the 10,000 multimillion-dollar consumer companies around the world can claim to be an “apostle brand” – one that inspires enduring trust, loyalty, and endorsement. Shame on you if you offer any product or service that is dull or unattractive. People still judge a book by its cover. Steve Jobs was a master at this.

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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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Both Sides of the Table

JANUARY 25, 2010

Chris Dixon wrote a blog post last week titled, “ Techies and Normals &# in which he defined “Techies&# as people who are not just “early adopters&# but also have more of a geeky, technical, product bent. They use products because the products solve a need they have. He is both. Blah, blah, blah.

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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.

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Startup Professionals Musings

JULY 4, 2020

For all entrepreneurs, starting a business is the route to “life, liberty, and the pursuit of happiness,” no matter how risky. According to a classic article and poll by Startups.co.uk , having the independence to make your own decisions is considered the key benefit of being an entrepreneur. If you are here in the U.S.,

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socalTECH

MAY 2, 2014

In a bid to boost the Los Angeles economy and create new jobs in the city, Los Angeles Mayor Eric Garcetti said Friday that he has created a new "Entrepreneur-in-Residence" program, which will help the city in developing initiatives and policies aimed at growing, assisting and sustaining entrepreneurs in Los Angeles. READ MORE>>.

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Startup Professionals Musings

JULY 31, 2020

As an angel investor in startups, I’m a believer that smart investors invest more in you as the entrepreneur than the next billion dollar solution you are pitching. Even if you are still in school, and never started a company before, strong entrepreneur candidates can point to projects they initiated, led, that produced significant results.

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Startup Professionals Musings

MARCH 11, 2020

In my own experience as a startup advisor and mentor, I find that entrepreneurs who can’t attract and maintain a highly motivated team rarely even get off the ground. There are many ways to add levity to a tough challenge, and engaging the team occasionally in some fun activities will work wonders for your team’s productivity and motivation.

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Startup Professionals Musings

OCTOBER 8, 2021

Roberta is a recognized thought leader on improving employee engagement, and has consulted with many top-tier companies and achieved some great results. Remember that people don’t work for companies, they work for people they trust. The same principles apply, whether you are an entrepreneur, term member, or manager in a large company.

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Startup Professionals Musings

SEPTEMBER 6, 2020

In my experience in large businesses as well as years of advising startups, I see far too much focus on product skills, and too little on people and process skills. His focus is on sales, but I see the same skills needed for entrepreneurs. Building a company and selling are all about gaining commitments.

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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. Every entrepreneur starts by accepting the reality that you have a rare mindset of joy of discovery, with an intense curiosity about how certain things or people work, or why a new technology hasn’t yet been accepted.

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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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Startup Professionals Musings

JULY 27, 2014

It wasn’t so many years ago that starting a new e-commerce business on the Internet was a complex custom development project, usually costing a million dollars or more. Almost anyone can start a company today on a shoestring budget, following these cost-cutting recommendations: Establish a solid legal structure for your business.

Entrepreneur 104

Entrepreneur Startup Social Media Commerce 104

Berkonomics

AUGUST 3, 2023

Bootstrapping: This term describes your ability to start a business with little investment and grow it using internally generated funds. And even with the significant cost of credit card debt, many entrepreneurs aggressively use existing cards to finance a startup.

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Startup Professionals Musings

MARCH 1, 2021

For most entrepreneurs, their current business is not where they intend to stay until they die. The challenge is how to know and exit gracefully when the right time has come, without trauma to either the company or themselves. Accept change as a natural part of your transition, just as you always have for your company.

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Startup Professionals Musings

MARCH 27, 2020

As a startup advisor, I see many aspiring entrepreneurs whose primary motivation seems to be to work part time, or get rich quick, or avoid anyone else telling them what to do. Yet, for those with more realistic expectations and the right motivation, the entrepreneur lifestyle can be the dream life you envisioned. Marty Zwilling.

Entrepreneur 126

Entrepreneur Organization Customer Custom 126

Startup Professionals Musings

AUGUST 26, 2019

Starting a new business is fraught with challenges, and none of us has the bandwidth to kill them all. I remember first seeing a good summary of these risk-reduction myths a while back in a classic book, “ How to Start a Business & Ignite Your Life ,” by Ernesto Sirolli, PhD. You have to pay big salaries to get top-notch help.

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Software Review Ideas Outsource Development Entrepreneur 98

socalTECH

MARCH 23, 2011

I recently hosted a panel at the Twiistup Conference about LA tech companies. I have some pretty specific thoughts on the differences between companies in the two cities, as I wrote about in my previous post A Tale of Two Tech Cities. Challenge #1  Tech Companies are Not Typically Started by Technologists.

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Startup Professionals Musings

FEBRUARY 25, 2019

The ideas are endless, but we need more smart entrepreneurs to implement them. Thus I offer some practical strategies if you are looking for direction or the best place to start: Look for opportunities to increase recycling and reuse. Reduce waste from new production automation.

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Startup Professionals Musings

DECEMBER 11, 2019

He is regarded by many as the number-one authority on virtual staffing and personal outsourcing, and is himself a successful entrepreneur based in the Philippines. I was impressed with his summary of the top ten outsourcing mistakes made by entrepreneurs, followed by real guidance on how they can and should be avoided.

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Tech Coast Venture Network

FEBRUARY 17, 2010

Quality products or service are not a WHY. By WHY, we mean why does your company exist? As a result they build profitable and sustainable companies. As an entrepreneur your passion for your business will keep you moving forward even when things feel tough. ?By Some even know how they do it. They too are a result.

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Jason Nazar

JULY 1, 2016

Entrepreneurs often lament big companies, but most of us hope we’ll create just that. Add in public company demands, lawsuit targets, & millions of customers to continually satisfy, and you have to have great respect for those doing it well. At scale, product differentiation is taken for granted.

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TechCrunch LA

NOVEMBER 12, 2020

Designed to be a collaborative startup company incubator alongside corporate partners, Launchpad focuses on developing new consumer tech businesses focused on M13’s main investment areas: health, food, transportation, and housing. “ The EIRs will receive a small stipend and equity in the business, Barber said. .

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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 company grew too fast, and the pressure and costs are killing me.”

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