Startup Professionals Musings

MARCH 15, 2023

As an advisor to entrepreneurs and active angel investor, I often get questions about the realism of the Shark Tank TV series, compared to professional investor negotiations. Yet the process is eerily realistic, and every entrepreneur can glean some important lessons. Investors invest in people, more than 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. Access to intellectual property and current research.

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Startup Professionals Musings

DECEMBER 11, 2022

After many years of working with angel investors seriously trying to find new ventures worthy of their hard-earned money, I find their frustration often exceeds that of entrepreneurs sincerely looking for financial help. At these stages, it’s all about you, and your ability to communicate and execute effectively.

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TechCrunch LA

MARCH 31, 2021

The sweeping infrastructure package put forward today by President Joe Biden comes with a price tag of roughly $2 trillion (and hefty tax hikes) but gives startups and the broader tech industry about $1 trillion worth of reasons to support it. What excites me about this space is that there’s so much low-hanging fruit.

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Startup Professionals Musings

JUNE 2, 2023

If you aren’t willing to take some risk as an entrepreneur, then don’t expect any gain. Yet everyone has limits, and every investor implicitly has similar limits on what makes a startup investable, or one to avoid at all costs. Others may indeed make good family businesses, but are usually deemed not worth investment.

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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. Neither is good.

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Startup Professionals Musings

AUGUST 30, 2021

Therefore, the least you can do is take advantage of some of the self-assessment tools and guides around, like the classic book “ The Entrepreneur Equation ,” by Carol Roth, which highlights personal characteristics and skills required. Be honest about your relationship with money. Examine the marketplace and your competition.

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Berkonomics

AUGUST 3, 2023

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

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Both Sides of the Table

JANUARY 11, 2014

I actually really enjoyed many of the points Muhammad made about marketing in general and I found myself nodding through the entirety of the article except for it’s core premise. I believe growth hacking is about all of this. I’d like to make the case that the article is wrong. I’d strongly encourage you to read it.

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Startup Professionals Musings

APRIL 16, 2023

Indeed, while the rules and technologies for lead generation have changed, Forrester and other experts still see it as the most effective way for businesses with limited budgets to maximize their return on marketing investment (ROI). It’s also one of the most accountable, with in-depth data provided by search engines about performance.

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socalTECH

JANUARY 22, 2019

This morning's interview is with Kevin O'Connor , a longtime investor and serial entrepreneur, who is now running venture capital investment firm ScOp Venture Capital. Tell us a little bit about the firm? Tell us a little bit about the firm? What types of companies are you making investments in?

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Both Sides of the Table

OCTOBER 26, 2020

leadership, mentorship, competitiveness, communications, relationship-building?—?and I called an (ex) LP to tell him about her and my goals for her. Leadership is about recognizing your next generation of talent and helping lift them up. Or, maybe it’s just about getting out of the way and watching what they can achieve.

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Both Sides of the Table

NOVEMBER 29, 2014

This week I wrote about obsessive and competitive founders and how this forms the basis of what I look for when I invest. I had been thinking a lot about this recently because I’m often asked the question of “what I look for in an entrepreneur when I want to invest?” “Look.

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socalTECH

OCTOBER 23, 2012

One of the biggest complaints that local entrepreneurs have with Los Angeles has been a dearth of local sources of venture capital. We sat down with TX Zhuo , who is heading up the firm's venture investments, about the fund and his path here after a recent stint at Eric Schmidt's Innovation Endeavors fund in Palo Alto.

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Both Sides of the Table

JANUARY 8, 2014

It’s that time of year where we think about new beginnings. Most associates need some entrepreneurial experience before actually making investments. Ability to source information easily to help build a thesis around companies / industries / competition. And believe me they were vocal about it.

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Both Sides of the Table

SEPTEMBER 10, 2021

On the one hand, you’re over paying for every investment and valuations aren’t rational. We operate at scale and speed unprecedented in human history.” * I first wrote about the changes to the Venture Capital ecosystem 10 years ago and this still serves as a good primer of how we arrived at 2011, a decade on from the Web 1.0

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Startup Professionals Musings

FEBRUARY 7, 2020

Even though I’m a big proponent of becoming an entrepreneur, it is definitely not for everyone. In my view, entrepreneur roles need to be planned carefully rather than made on the spur of the moment. Adopt the Silicon Valley entrepreneur family model. Test your entrepreneur instincts through crowdfunding.

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Tech.Co

FEBRUARY 21, 2018

Phoenix communities are celebrating because JPMorgan Chase has made several local charitable investments to support underserved entrepreneurs and small businesses with the goal of creating jobs and spark a growing economy. Read more about the Phoenix startup ecosystem on TechCo. The post JPMorgan Chase Invests $2.2

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Startup Professionals Musings

JUNE 25, 2021

It seems like everyone wants to be an entrepreneur and get rich these days. So a better question than asking about the quality of an idea, is asking about the quality of your plan to implement the idea. Find out if something very similar is already selling, and who your competition would be if you proceed.

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Berkonomics

APRIL 19, 2012

Professional investors laugh when they hear an entrepreneur state, “We have no competition.” That statement has killed more investment deals than almost any other. It is a failed litmus test for the entrepreneur, even if the plan is for a totally new device or service that could take the world by storm.

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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? Now let’s talk about the basic components of a business plan.

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Berkonomics

FEBRUARY 23, 2023

Those of us in the business of calculating (guessing) this mythical peak in value often make the same mistake as our entrepreneurs. Companies sometime run out of cash in the midst of their increasing success, and often find that sources of loans or investment are not freely flowing at the moment of need. What about those unicorns?

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socalTECH

APRIL 12, 2017

Wallach on investments out of a new fund, Inevitable Ventures. How did you end up here in Los Angeles doing investments? I was the youngest person at the firm, fresh to LA, super excited about everything, and I gravitated towards those smaller deals in the venture space. Ron chose me to manage those investments.

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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. Entrepreneurs with positive, but rational, attitudes are supported and move forward with their plans.

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Both Sides of the Table

FEBRUARY 7, 2013

I’m super excited to announce that GRP Partners led the investment in Ethan Anderson’s new company MyTime (link has LA-based merchants but will give you a good feel for the product). When Ethan was considering leaving Google we talked about it. In the same year they won Business Insider’s Startup competition.

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Both Sides of the Table

JUNE 28, 2018

My friend Michael Broukhim, founder & co-CEO of FabFitFun and I recently had a catch-up meeting for 3-miles on the Santa Monica “Bird Trail” No company has ever elicited so many questions by friends, colleagues, entrepreneurs, fellow VCs and journalists as has Bird, the company that pioneered the electronic scooter as a service market.

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Both Sides of the Table

AUGUST 20, 2015

We love capital efficiency until we love land grabs until we abhor over funding until we get huge payouts and ring the bell for more funding until we attract every non-VC on the planet to invest in startups until it crashes and we start the cycle all over again none the wiser. I know we spoke about it this week. 10 is the new 3.

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Startup Professionals Musings

DECEMBER 7, 2019

Thus, in my consulting with entrepreneurs, I always encourage them to get more comfortable asking for help. She suspects, like me, that no self-respecting entrepreneur wants to seem weak, needy, or incompetent, and none of us like to feel indebted to someone we see as a peer or a competitor.

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Startup Professionals Musings

AUGUST 14, 2014

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. Competition for your new hydrogen fuel auto engine is not limited to other hydrogen auto engine offerings, or even other autos.

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Both Sides of the Table

JANUARY 26, 2010

This is part of my series on what makes an entrepreneur successful. I originally posted it on VentureHacks , one of my favorite websites for entrepreneurs. I started the series talking about what I consider the most important attribute of an entrepreneur : Tenacity. Can’t go a mile deep on competition?

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Startup Professionals Musings

JUNE 25, 2014

Don’t bash the competition. Every investor knows how vulnerable a new startup is to competitors, so investors always ask about your sustainable competitive advantage in the marketplace. That says you are competitive today, have a real barrier to entry, and the potential to remain ahead of the competition for a long time.

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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.Co

SEPTEMBER 25, 2015

From apps to hardware, to KickStarter successes and international startups, we’re inching closer to finding out who will take home the title of Startup of the Year competition at our annual Celebrate Conference in October. Among the dozens of participants that applied for the online competitions, only a few progressed into the semifinals.

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Competition Mobile Startup Technical Review 122

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. Competition for your new hydrogen fuel auto engine is not limited to other hydrogen auto engine offerings, or even other autos.

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Competition Funding Startup Patents 166

Startup Professionals Musings

JULY 30, 2010

A good entrepreneur is not necessarily a good salesman. In my own effort to keep up with the times, I just finished a new book by Landy Chase, titled “ Competitive Selling: Out-Plan, Out-Think, Out-Sell to Win Every Time.” Show them a return on investment (ROI) in their own terms. Establish the competitive playing field early.

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Tech.Co

FEBRUARY 16, 2024

Unlike a lot of grants on this list, the competition is open to all US small businesses, as long as they have fewer than 99 employees, have been operating for at least six months, and have a FedEx business account that's been open before September 1, 2023. It's competitive though – last year 18,000 applicants competed for only 12 slots.

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Startup Professionals Musings

OCTOBER 31, 2018

The most successful entrepreneurs and business owners I know are humble, and they don’t have an inflated sense of self. The only “sustainable competitive advantage” in business is self-awareness. I come from the same world, with an additional decade advising entrepreneurs, and I enthusiastically confirm his view.

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