Startup Professionals Musings

SEPTEMBER 6, 2020

His focus is on sales, but I see the same skills needed for entrepreneurs. His top eight required skill set elements for sales don’t even mention product skills, and match my view of the right skill set for successful entrepreneurs, with only a few priority changes: Creating and sharing a vision. Negotiating and creating win-win deals.

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Startup Professionals Musings

DECEMBER 2, 2019

As a mentor to aspiring entrepreneurs, the most common question I get is, “I want to be an entrepreneur -- how do I start?” Many people with great ideas never make it as entrepreneurs, and true entrepreneurs can make a business out of anything. Few entrepreneurs can assimilate and hone a complete plan in their head.

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Berkonomics

MAY 11, 2023

The quest for a great management team is not a fluke, but rather a result of backward looks at the failure rate from past investments by those same angel investors and venture capitalists. As a reminder of that conclusion: Great teams are flexible and have the advantage of experience in seeing the pitfalls before them from their past.

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socalTECH

AUGUST 23, 2017

LA's technology startup industry has saw a surge in new companies and efforts from its serial entrepreneurs in the last few months. Here's a quick look at just a few of the new companies who are led by serial entrepreneurs from the LA ecosystem. Entering Startup image courtesy Mike @ flickr. Ground Control. AppOnboard. READ MORE>>.

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Startup Professionals Musings

SEPTEMBER 8, 2014

These steps are not aimed specifically at entrepreneurs, but I see how they can be applied there as follows: Do what you know and enjoy. Figure out what’s really important to you as an entrepreneur. Superficial relationships don’t help. The most valuable computer function in business is “cut and paste.” Marty Zwilling.

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Startup Professionals Musings

NOVEMBER 17, 2019

Traditionally, the majority of entrepreneurs have been logical thinkers, problem solvers, with full attention to details. Of course, the best solution would be a new wave of so-called whole-brain thinkers, but this term is usually reserved for Einstein and Picasso, and no entrepreneurs that I can name. Creativity is the key word here.

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Both Sides of the Table

AUGUST 10, 2010

An entrepreneur recently sent me an @ reply message on Twitter asking for some help with a decision coming up in his business. In today’s era we’re all asked for help, favors or introductions all of the time. Most of us want to help. I get these frequently via Twitter, Facebook or email. I don’t mind.

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Both Sides of the Table

OCTOBER 3, 2011

I’m often asked the question about why there aren’t more women who are entrepreneurs. My inspiration to become an entrepreneur came from my mom, not my dad. She was the dominant figure in my family and was both an entrepreneur and a community leader. AWS helped lower the cost of starting a company by 90%.

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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. The best entrepreneurs are not just dreamers of the next big thing – they have to be great facilitators and problem solvers.

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Berkonomics

JANUARY 13, 2022

Whether the exit was as large as you hoped, or whether your goals of taking care of all the people who helped you get to this point were realized, the exit itself generates a complex set of emotions in all of us. What most entrepreneurs fail dramatically at is to celebrate the moment. Then do as all good entrepreneurs do.

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Startup Professionals Musings

SEPTEMBER 14, 2019

In my years of mentoring entrepreneurs, a problem I have seen too often is low self-esteem, and over-compensating through arrogance and ego. These entrepreneurs find it hard to respect customers or team members, and their ventures usually fail. Forgive yourself for past mistakes and poor decisions.

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InfoChachkie

FEBRUARY 9, 2015

Successful entrepreneurs make similarly educated guesses. While creating a new course for UC Santa Barbara’s Entrepreneurial Program entitled, “The Past, Present and Future of Entrepreneurship,” I was recently blessed to come across Steven Johnson’s PBS series and accompanying book, How We Got To Now. 1. The Hummingbird Effect.

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Berkonomics

OCTOBER 8, 2015

Whether the exit was as large as you hoped, or whether your goals of taking care of all the people who helped you get to this point were realized, the exit itself generates a complex set of emotions in all of us. But what most entrepreneurs fail dramatically at is to celebrate the moment. The do as all good entrepreneurs do.

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Berkonomics

AUGUST 3, 2023

However, most often, these funds are solicited by a well-meaning entrepreneur from investors who are not qualified as accredited investors under the law (currently requiring a proved income of $200,000 a year or $1 million in net worth for an individual investor). Many accelerators have come and gone during these past five years.

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Startup Professionals Musings

AUGUST 21, 2022

Traditionally, the majority of entrepreneurs have been logical thinkers, problem solvers, with full attention to details. Of course, the best solution would be a new wave of so-called whole-brain thinkers, but this term is usually reserved for Einstein and Picasso, and no entrepreneurs that I can name. Creativity is the key word here.

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socalTECH

FEBRUARY 25, 2014

Jon Kraft: Our mission is to help kids discover and pursue their passions in life. We''ve spent the past year and a half working with two of seven board-certified, Neuropsychologists, to develop a strength assessment test, to develop a strength profile for each kid. Tell me about your new company? What''s the ultimate goal of Thrively?

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InfoChachkie

SEPTEMBER 27, 2018

MBA’s are an easy target for entrepreneurs’ scorn. I too have taken shots at MBA’s, describing why they are not typically well suited for startup life in Why Entrepreneurs Hate (Most) MBAs. Nothing they learned (at Business School) will help them succeed at innovation.” Situationally, MBA’s Can Be Effective Entrepreneurs.

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Both Sides of the Table

DECEMBER 5, 2010

The Past (1985-2002). Social Networks: Past, Present & Future. It was obviously a scheme set up by young entrepreneurs to line their pockets and some big-company executives who didn’t understand innovation. ask microsoft, aol/time warner & google]. Was it massively better software, better companies, better markets?

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Startup Professionals Musings

JULY 14, 2021

One of the business ironies that many entrepreneurs have learned the hard way in the past is that ideas which are truly disruptive carry the highest risk of failure, take the longest to gain traction, and thus are the least likely to get external funding. Great entrepreneurs aren’t just dreamers, they are doers.

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Both Sides of the Table

JANUARY 20, 2013

” I have long thought about and written about the personal toll that being an entrepreneur places on your life. These were amongst some of the most read blog posts I have written, which shows me that the stress, pressures and loneliness of being and entrepreneur resonates. In the past, I dreaded vacation.

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Both Sides of the Table

JULY 25, 2011

tl;dr version: If you’re an entrepreneur or VC or will be working in this industry - buy this. But know that every term in your term sheet is there as a result of some dispute of the past between shareholders or between shareholders & management. This article originally ran on TechCrunch. Drag along rights?

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Berkonomics

APRIL 6, 2017

Let’s stress test that vision and sharpen it further to help insure your success. First, if your vision is limited and you will be happy with a successful local dry cleaning enterprise or small restaurant around the corner, you are not the target for this effort to help entrepreneurs build great businesses that change the world.

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Both Sides of the Table

JANUARY 31, 2011

One of the most common questions that entrepreneurs who meet me for the first time like to ask is, “Do you miss being an entrepreneur? I thought I’d talk a bit about the differences I’ve experienced between being an entrepreneur & a VC – you know, from “both sides of the table.&#. On Being an Entrepreneur.

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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.

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SoCal Tech Calendar

OCTOBER 13, 2011

Wednesday, October 19, 2011 -- Avoiding Common Entrepreneur Mistakes. Youve heard, however, that only two-thirds of new businesses make it past the two-year mark, and that less than half are still open after four years. Techbizconnection. Youve got a great idea for a new business. See [link] (more)

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Startup Professionals Musings

OCTOBER 15, 2014

One of the business ironies that many entrepreneurs have learned the hard way in the past is that ideas which are truly disruptive carry the highest risk of failure, take the longest to gain traction, and thus are the least likely to get external funding. Great entrepreneurs aren’t just dreamers, they are doers.

Entrepreneur 107

Entrepreneur Startup Cloud Computing Ideas 107

Both Sides of the Table

FEBRUARY 20, 2012

She actually IS the prototypical entrepreneur. But Tracy did what entrepreneurs do. Sam is the managing director of Launchpad LA and we were about to pick our 2012 class of entrepreneurs. In the first 5 minutes you’ll realize that she’s a classic entrepreneur. More on that later. That may soon change.

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Both Sides of the Table

FEBRUARY 1, 2011

I’ve been thinking a lot about this over the past two years and bending the ears of any entrepreneur who will humor me to hear what I think the solution needs to look like. I’d love to know people to “follow&# on websites to help expand my tastes the way that Twitter expands my news sources. No, seriously.

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Berkonomics

MARCH 30, 2012

So, you’ve been thinking about starting your own firm for the past ten years. The times have changed, and many of the sources available in the past have become risk averse or moved on, but there are new alternatives. They can also help you with an SBA (Small Business Administration) loan, if that path is correct for you.

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socalTECH

JULY 7, 2010

One complaint we sometimes hear from venture capitalists visiting Southern California for the first time, is the difficulty of finding experienced entrepreneurs and executives. socalTECH.com has mined its proprietary database of high tech companies and entrepreneurs and identified just a few of the repeat entrepreneurs to watch in the region.

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Both Sides of the Table

OCTOBER 26, 2020

and of course a relentless pursuit of helping founders succeed. She took an operating role helping run Citysearch and Urbanspoon. On paper she’s more qualified than Yves or myself so with that out of the way can we now just focus on her skills and how you help me recruit her?” She had all of the skills and traits we sought?—?leadership,

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Both Sides of the Table

DECEMBER 11, 2022

Something happened in the past 7 years in the startup and venture capital world that I hadn’t experienced since the late 90’s — we all began praying to the God of Valuation. I was in it for the love of working with entrepreneurs on business problems and marveling at technology they had built. What happened?

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Berkonomics

MARCH 16, 2017

The quest for a great management team is not a fluke, but rather a result of backward looks at the failure rate from past investments by those same angel investors and venture capitalists. That reality is a tough one for the professional investor, almost as tough as for those entrepreneurs who lose their businesses.

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Startup Professionals Musings

MARCH 4, 2015

In my years of mentoring entrepreneurs, a problem I have seen too often is low self-esteem, and over-compensating through arrogance and ego. These entrepreneurs find it hard to respect customers or team members, and their ventures usually fail. Forgive yourself for past mistakes and poor decisions.

Entrepreneur 102

Entrepreneur Startup Satisfaction Competition 102

TechCrunch LA

DECEMBER 8, 2020

Microsoft’s venture fund M12, also a new investor, participated in the round alongside Acrew Capital, Khosla Ventures, Lightspeed Venture Partners, Munich Re Ventures, and Israeli entrepreneur Shlomo Kramer, who co-founded security firms Check Point and Imperva.

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Both Sides of the Table

OCTOBER 22, 2010

On why you should be an entrepreneur, “A lot of people do what they have to do. He said that he noticed a lot of tech entrepreneurs don’t speak into the mic, don’t project their voices with confidence and aren’t necessarily paying attention to the mood or energy of the audience.

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Berkonomics

DECEMBER 30, 2021

How about the entrepreneur -founder? Professional investors rarely attach a red letter upon a failed entrepreneur. Some of those patterns help us to spot and avoid problems we have seen play out in the past, often to disastrous conclusion. And if it did, would I have reacted differently? Investor pattern match.

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