Startup Professionals Musings

NOVEMBER 21, 2021

In my own work as an advisor to many entrepreneurs and startups, I see many who are focused on that single big disruptive innovation that will change the world. Decide what to measure and create metrics. Carve out unstructured time for team members to focus on ideas. You only get what you measure. Ideas are the beginning.

Develop 135

Develop Development Startup Metrics 135

Startup Professionals Musings

FEBRUARY 5, 2020

As a mentor to entrepreneurs, I tend to see many of the same obstacles appearing in every new startup, and since I don’t want to appear to be a downer , I’m not sure how to properly warn people ahead of time to be on the alert for these challenges. Too many entrepreneurs think that expert external advisors are suspect, or will slow them down.

Startup 131

Startup Entrepreneur Examples Customer 131

Startup Professionals Musings

JUNE 7, 2020

I recognize that entrepreneurs tend to substitute vision and passion for formal processes, but using no discipline or process in building something new is a sure way to spend money, rather than see any return and build a self-sustaining business. Solution development and delivery. Hobbies are developed ad-hoc, driven by personal needs.

Entrepreneur 131

Entrepreneur Outsource Development Startup Competition 131

TechCrunch LA

OCTOBER 22, 2018

In an attempt to boost diversity and inclusion efforts and civic engagement between the growing technology industry in Los Angeles and the community that surrounds it, over 80 venture capitalists and entrepreneurs joined the city’s mayor, Eric Garcetti, and the non-profit Annenberg Foundation to announce PledgeLA.

Los Angeles 249

Los Angeles Angel Entrepreneur Orange County 249

Startup Professionals Musings

OCTOBER 3, 2016

As a small business and startup advisor, I find that entrepreneurs often love to talk about their latest idea, but not their execution. For example, Elon Musk is recognized as a visionary entrepreneur, but his fortune and his impact has come from the great companies he has built, including SpaceX, Tesla Motors, and PayPal.

Entrepreneur 106

Entrepreneur Satisfaction Metrics Ideas 106

Startup Professionals Musings

APRIL 21, 2023

As a startup advisor in this age of the entrepreneur, I see many more startups, but innovation is still hard to find. An entrepreneur looking for a sure thing will never innovate. It starts with a vision, but benefits quickly from a structured process of idea generation, evaluation, prototyping, customer feedback, and success metrics.

Coach 137

Coach Metrics Competition Ideas 137

Startup Professionals Musings

DECEMBER 12, 2022

As a business advisor, I have too often seen technical entrepreneurs get a product or service off the ground with ease, but then struggle mightily when their business reaches a couple of million in annual sales, or the employee count grows beyond a handful. True entrepreneurs love the tactical and problem solving challenges.

Startup 137

Startup Training Entrepreneur Organization 137

Startup Professionals Musings

AUGUST 12, 2015

As a startup investor in this age of the entrepreneur, I see many more startups, but innovation is still hard to find. An entrepreneur looking for a sure thing will never innovate. It starts with a vision, but benefits quickly from a structured process of idea generation, evaluation, prototyping, customer feedback, and success metrics.

Entrepreneur 101

Entrepreneur Startup Coach Metrics 101

Startup Professionals Musings

SEPTEMBER 27, 2015

Here are the key principles she espouses, extended to leadership teams, based on my own background and mentoring new entrepreneurs: Learn to trust yourself and your team. Use metrics to support judgment in decisions. Metrics are necessary to acquire knowledge and turn it into action. What gets measured gets done.

Develop 103

Develop Development Coach Metrics 103

Startup Professionals Musings

MAY 30, 2022

Early-stage entrepreneurs rightly keep their focus on creating an innovative product or service. That’s where I see too much entrepreneur burnout, growth plateaus, and founders being replaced, to their chagrin. Of course, not every entrepreneur wants to tackle this challenge. Managing business growth is more than metrics.

Sales 147

Sales Metrics Guide Startup 147

Startup Professionals Musings

AUGUST 18, 2018

As a startup investor in this age of the entrepreneur, I see many more startups, but innovation is still hard to find. An entrepreneur looking for a sure thing will never innovate. It starts with a vision, but benefits quickly from a structured process of idea generation, evaluation, prototyping, customer feedback, and success metrics.

Entrepreneur 64

Entrepreneur Coach Metrics Competition 64

Startup Professionals Musings

DECEMBER 7, 2022

Too many entrepreneurs don’t know what to do at this point, largely accounting for a disappointing 50 percent of startups that fail in the first five years, according to InvoiceTracker. There is no magic lever for growth, so several initiatives are required, with metrics to assess value returned. Ask every employee to focus on sales.

Startup 134

Startup Search Engine Optimization Social Media Metrics 134

Startup Professionals Musings

JULY 31, 2021

Most business managers preach that the key to success is holding employees accountable for actions, but I have found that successful entrepreneurs are all about holding themselves accountable. Usually the real culprit is procrastination, lack of focus, or low productivity and lack of metrics. Wait and hope for a miracle.

Startup 164

Startup Class Entrepreneur Coach 164

InfoChachkie

NOVEMBER 10, 2011

Entrepreneurs often must take counter-intuitive, contrarian positions in order to succeed. As noted in Entrepreneurship Is A Compulsion , entrepreneurs often view the world from a slightly different vantage point, rejecting the oxymoronic term Conventional Wisdom. . That’s logic.”. Lewis Carroll, from Through The Looking Glass.

Entrepreneur 230

Entrepreneur Software Review Allegis Metrics 230

Startup Professionals Musings

MARCH 10, 2023

I recognize that entrepreneurs tend to substitute vision and passion for formal processes, but using no discipline or process in building something new is a sure way to spend money, rather than see any return and build a self-sustaining business. Solution development and delivery. Hobbies are developed ad-hoc, driven by personal needs.

Outsource Development 115

Outsource Development Startup Competition Ideas 115

Startup Professionals Musings

JUNE 3, 2015

The best part of being an entrepreneur is having the independence to make your own decisions, the flexibility for a better work/life balance, and personal satisfaction from driving change. The road to business success is filled with challenges and frustrations that most aspiring entrepreneurs never even imagined.

Entrepreneur 111

Entrepreneur Search Engine Optimization Satisfaction Social Media 111

Startup Professionals Musings

SEPTEMBER 22, 2021

Yet in my experience on both sides of this equation, I find that many aspiring entrepreneurs focus only on the best idea , assuming that it will attract the right investors. Develop a personal story as a visionary and learner. In reality, that’s only half the story. The other half is you. Emphasize the value and skills of your team.

Ideas 140

Ideas Entrepreneur Equity Resource 140

Startup Professionals Musings

JULY 25, 2020

As a startup advisor in this age of the entrepreneur, I see many more startups, but innovation is still hard to find. An entrepreneur looking for a sure thing will never innovate. It starts with a vision, but benefits quickly from a structured process of idea generation, evaluation, prototyping, customer feedback, and success metrics.

Coach 144

Coach Metrics Social Network Competition 144

Startup Professionals Musings

OCTOBER 5, 2014

Cashflow is a basic survival metric for every startup. Desperate entrepreneurs lose their leverage and die young. As a mentor to many entrepreneurs and startups, here are my best recommendations for keeping the burn rate low, planning ahead and maintaining credibility with investors: Manage cashflow personally every day.

Entrepreneur 105

Entrepreneur Search Engine Optimization Outsource Development Social Media 105

Startup Professionals Musings

MARCH 4, 2022

As the entrepreneur, business owner, or leader, your message must never be “if it’s not broken, don’t fix it.” Every good entrepreneur I know has a “ proactive mindset.” Make sure you are fostering people development to their full potential, for them and for your business. Adopt some key metrics to measure your change agility.

Competition 148

Competition Metrics Demand Customer 148

Startup Professionals Musings

JANUARY 22, 2023

Yet many of you are telling me that we are all missing big opportunities by not recognizing the unique challenges faced by startups in developing countries , where infrastructure is lacking, and talent is not so concentrated. With a singular focus on building unicorns, very rapid growth has been a key metric.

Capital 138

Capital Marketing Ideas Venture Capital 138

InfoChachkie

JANUARY 16, 2018

Greathouse: Your collective experiences have clearly made bootstrapping a viable option for you, more so than might be the case for a typical, younger entrepreneur who needs more direction, doesn’t have cash discipline, etc. Semick: We’re a very metrics driven company, and we have been from the beginning. Of course there are risks.

Venture Capital 115

Venture Capital Entrepreneur Santa Barbara SaaS 115

Startup Professionals Musings

MAY 7, 2016

Most business managers preach that the key to success is holding employees accountable for actions, but I have found that successful entrepreneurs are all about holding themselves accountable. Usually the real culprit is procrastination, lack of focus, or low productivity and lack of metrics. Wait and hope for a miracle.

Entrepreneur 59

Entrepreneur Startup Class Coach 59

SoCal CTO

NOVEMBER 10, 2009

He has a really interesting background as a product manager and now an entrepreneur. That's where I learned I enjoyed interacting with customers and working with development teams to build and launch products. This time I'm getting to know Mark Geller ( LinkedIn , @markgeller ). Tell me a bit about your background.

Product 150

Product Entrepreneur Social Media Google 150

Startup Professionals Musings

AUGUST 21, 2021

Yet as a business advisor I am convinced that making the jump from a startup to a the next unicorn takes a different mindset, and actions most entrepreneurs are reluctant to face. In my experience, less than half of founding entrepreneurs even aspire to stay and scale their company. Switch your focus from product development to sales.

Startup 151

Startup Course Sales Entrepreneur 151

Startup Professionals Musings

MARCH 18, 2023

It seems like every entrepreneur I meet these days is quick to proclaim themselves a visionary, expecting that will give more credibility to their startup idea, and improve their odds with investors. This person is the glue that can hold the people, processes, systems, priorities, and strategy of a developing startup together.

Startup 82

Startup Ideas Organization Entrepreneur 82

socalTECH

AUGUST 12, 2019

We've helped entrepreneurs raise over $225M in early stage, venture funding. Their goal is to partner in really unique ways with entrepreneurs, accelerators and investors, to create businesses and brands in new categories for P&G. Vanessa Dawson: Networking and relationship development really is key.

Entrepreneur 124

Entrepreneur Metrics Los Angeles Help 124

SoCal CTO

FEBRUARY 17, 2007

skip to main | skip to sidebar SoCal CTO Saturday, February 17, 2007 Finding Good Developers in Los Angeles? About 18 months ago, the entire group began to mention that they were having more difficulty finding good developers. Im part of a CTO group that meets once a month to discuss various topics.

Los Angeles 150

Los Angeles CTO Hire CTO Coach Develop 150

Startup Professionals Musings

MARCH 15, 2020

As a business advisor, I have too often seen technical entrepreneurs get a product or service off the ground with ease, but then struggle mightily when their business reaches a couple of million in annual sales, or the employee count grows beyond a handful. True entrepreneurs love the tactical and problem solving challenges.

Startup 125

Startup Training Entrepreneur Organization 125

Startup Professionals Musings

NOVEMBER 28, 2020

The rate of new entrepreneurs increased between 2013 and 2019, from 280 out of 100,000 to 310 out of 100,000 of the adult population. Of course, that’s both the good news and the bad news for aspiring entrepreneurs, since it means more competition, and the business landscape is changing faster than ever.

Tips 161

Tips Startup Social Media News 161

Startup Professionals Musings

MAY 14, 2023

Cash flow is a basic survival metric for every startup. Desperate entrepreneurs lose their leverage and die young. As a mentor to many entrepreneurs and startups, here are my best recommendations for keeping the burn rate low, planning ahead and maintaining credibility with investors: Manage cash flow personally every day.

Search Engine Optimization 103

Search Engine Optimization Outsource Development Social Media Equity 103

Startup Professionals Musings

OCTOBER 13, 2021

As a long-time business consultant and investor, especially to entrepreneurs, I recognize your sparkle of vision , to build the ultimate world-changing product. I found these maladies summarized well in a new book, “ Radical Product Thinking ,” by entrepreneur Radhika Dutt. Hypermetricemia – metrics for everything.

Metrics 133

Metrics Product Yahoo Examples 133

Startup Professionals Musings

JULY 30, 2014

Risk level has always been directly correlated to the number of unknowns, so eliminating even one variable will improve your odds: Eliminate one aspect of research and development. The auto industry and others have used this model for generations, so business processes and metrics for innovation are well documented.

Technology 103

Technology Entrepreneur Study Research 103

socalTECH

AUGUST 20, 2015

According to the two, Graziadio Business School will work with Dun & Bradstreet to conduct economic research and develop specialized curriculum focused on the needs and success metrics of entrepreneurs.

Pepperdine 100

Pepperdine Malibu Metrics Research 100

Both Sides of the Table

SEPTEMBER 10, 2021

And there is so much money around being thrown at so many entrepreneurs that many firms don’t even care about board seats, governance rights or heaven forbid doing work with the company because that would eat into the VCs time needed to chase 5 more deals. And the truth is that several entrepreneurs prefer it this way.

Venture Capital 471

Venture Capital Writing Invest Pricing 471

Berkonomics

MAY 5, 2016

Another leadership development bit? You should be involved in development and review of the tactics to achieve those strategies you’ve mutually created. Delegation is an art, requiring a form of strength that must be learned – especially by eager entrepreneurs used to tight personal control of processes.

Metrics 120

Metrics Ideas Conference Email 120

Startup Professionals Musings

NOVEMBER 30, 2022

As an investor in startups, I most often see entrepreneurs who are technologists, or at least have a real passion for a specific product. Many entrepreneurs try to do the whole job alone, or surround themselves with “yes” people, or count on family and friends to back them. Using metrics to measure results and commitments.

Startup 113

Startup Customer Custom Technical Review 113