Startup Professionals Musings

NOVEMBER 4, 2019

The number is much higher for those who choose to go it alone, without help. Thus, I’m more impressed with entrepreneurs who ask me to review their implementation plan, rather than listen again to their idea. Writing down key parameters will force you solidify the specifics, and mentally commit to them.

Ideas 94

Ideas Slides Technical Review Patents 94

Both Sides of the Table

MARCH 8, 2010

I was an entrepreneur. Don’t just write a carbon copy of what somebody else is doing. OK, well, actually the first thing I did is come up with a list of 50 posts that I wanted to write. OK, well, actually the first thing I did is come up with a list of 50 posts that I wanted to write. Some search.

Blogging 286

Blogging Startup Writing Summary 286

socalTECH

OCTOBER 11, 2016

We take a really friendly, Shark Tank approach that promotes young entrepreneurs, and lets them pitch to a group of seasoned investors and venture capitalists on a panel, and where they not only get an actual investment, but also go through a retail challenge, to get consumer feedback. How did you get involved with angel investing, initially?

Startup 100

Startup Entrepreneur Invest Competition 100

Startup Professionals Musings

DECEMBER 8, 2017

Unless you are a serial entrepreneur with a string of successes behind you, you need a business plan to convince investors that you can build a business out of the dream that has been driving your passion to change the world. An entrepreneur who can’t manage a plan, probably won’t be able to manage the new business.

Startup 65

Startup Writing Patents Competition 65

Both Sides of the Table

OCTOBER 19, 2009

I had seen many cycles and decided that since I was going to do it all over again I should write about it. I decided to write about my experience and to be blunt. It became a huge kerfuffle with many VC partners writing to thank me for the post, which exposed those that gave their industry a bad name. And covered we did.

Venture Capital 274

Venture Capital Blogging Startup Slides 274

Both Sides of the Table

FEBRUARY 12, 2010

You put some update slides on things like key hires or biz dev deals being negotiated and you didn’t plan to talk about them. But they were in a slide and people asked you questions so it ended up chewing up 30 minutes. You didn’t intend it to happen that way. Take 30 minutes or so for each issue. Sounds obvious, I know.

Startup 331

Startup Slides Guide Writing 331

Both Sides of the Table

JULY 25, 2010

Any SoCal entrepreneur raising early-stage money should put Rincon on their short list. I’ve been meaning to write about this for a while and was going to use AngelList by Nivi & Naval as the basis for my example and the perfect prompt came yesterday when I read Fred Wilson’s blog post on AngelList.

Guide 293

Guide Funding Venture Capital Technical Review 293

Startup Professionals Musings

AUGUST 1, 2013

I will outline here ten key principles and disciplines that every entrepreneur must understand and practice to minimize surprises and failures in this area: Failure to document cash flow projections is a disaster. Neither banks nor investors will help you on this one. They pay just the smallest bills and let the rest slide.

Startup 114

Startup Sales Layoffs Slides 114

Both Sides of the Table

JULY 23, 2013

This started as a post in which I was going to write out tips to personal branding and became in stead an essay of my own branding journey. I asked him if I could join his practice as the guy who could help him bridge technology & business. Send me in a corner to work on slides, graphs, spreadsheets and charts. We take MBAs.

Technical Advisors 385

Technical Advisors Marketing Startup Venture Capital 385

Both Sides of the Table

JULY 13, 2013

I spoke a lot about the need for “personal branding” which I plan to write about soon. My mom was an entrepreneur – she was kind of my inspiration for entrepreneurship. Probably the internet helped because they needed internet skills in their strategy group. So it’s something to be mindful of, how lucky we are.

Startup 337

Startup Entrepreneur Ideas Venture Capital 337

Startup Professionals Musings

JANUARY 17, 2016

In the new business world, many entrepreneurs are so excited with large initial orders that they don’t anticipate the cash flow challenges that can quickly kill their startup. Of course, you can’t predict everything, but writing down what you know will identify existing problems sooner, and allow other team members to help.

Startup 64

Startup Sales Layoffs Slides 64

Both Sides of the Table

NOVEMBER 3, 2010

Each sales person tends to slot in their own slides to win deals or to position things in their own words or style in order to win deals. The process in and of itself was pretty lengthy and at some point I’d like to write about it in more detail. As sales teams grow and become distributed these sales decks morph over time.

Sales 296

Sales Pricing Startup Customer 296

Berkonomics

DECEMBER 17, 2020

Often grouped into formal organizations, these investors are sophisticated, helpful, and connected. You will have to hone your story well, down to fifteen minutes and perhaps fifteen slides in your presentation. This class of investor typically writes checks from $50,000 to $250,000. Angel investment groups or funds.

Equity 156

Equity Technical Review Class Organization 156

Tech Zulu Event

AUGUST 28, 2012

From LA Demo Day to Silicon Beach Fest to Crowdstart LA to hackathons to Startup Weekends, companies and entrepreneurs alike have joined forces to feed the startup ecosystem. THIRD TIME’S A CHARM: On Sunday we presented to a panel of judges consisting of entrepreneurs and a VC investor. Interesting offer considering he did nothing.

Startup 100

Startup Ideas San Diego Mentor 100

Both Sides of the Table

FEBRUARY 24, 2019

I have been writing a series on how startup boards get selected, who sits on them and what to avoid. I started this series in part to help entrepreneurs but also to help newer investors because I’ve know with so many new companies you have so many new board members and many people are trying to figure out there respective roles.

Startup 251

Startup Help Technical Review Writing 251

Startup Professionals Musings

JUNE 26, 2020

As an advisor to new hardware entrepreneurs, I often hear the myth that a business plan is no longer required to find an investor, if your idea is good enough. What you don’t realize is these famous investors only deal with entrepreneurs who sold their last company for a $100M dollars or more.

Product 169

Product Summary Startup Examples 169

Berkonomics

APRIL 3, 2014

Often grouped into formal organizations, these investors are sophisticated, helpful, and connected. You will have to hone your story well, down to fifteen minutes and perhaps fifteen slides in your presentation. This class of investor typically writes checks from $50,000 to $250,000.

Equity 232

Equity Startup Organization Invest 232

Both Sides of the Table

JANUARY 31, 2010

So I thought I’d write a piece on how to not suck when you give a presentation. Help us to get to know him or her. They had slides with moving images and music. Connecting to a trainer helps keep you in line. I spoke about this yesterday on Fox Business News. I can then change my focus based on the results.

Startup 362

Startup Twiistup Slides Screening 362

Startup Professionals Musings

DECEMBER 30, 2019

In my work with new and aspiring entrepreneurs, I find that most struggle with putting together a written business plan, often pointing out that someone they know started a business without anything written down. It can pay big dividends as this stage to get help from an experienced business advisor.

Ideas 126

Ideas Slides Sample Examples 126

Both Sides of the Table

JANUARY 19, 2010

I’m writing this post as part of my series with Advice on Raising Venture Capital but will file it under Sales Tips as well since it applies equally to both scenarios. Getting his / her buy-in to your approach is important as they can help you steward the meeting in the right direction. tip: write it down when asked / parked).

Venture Capital 318

Venture Capital Startup Sales Writing 318

Both Sides of the Table

MAY 15, 2010

It’s always fun chatting with Jason because he’s knowledgeable about the market, quick on topics and pushes me to talk more about VC / entrepreneur issues. We’re staring to get the hang of how to divide the show up into talking about deals but also talking about issues for entrepreneurs during funding.

Venture Capital 285

Venture Capital Startup Advertising Redpoint 285

Both Sides of the Table

DECEMBER 5, 2010

As I write these words I’m aware that I could practically change the words AOL and Facebook for much of this section and with a few factual tweaks it might not be noticeable to the reader which of the firms I was talking about. I’m going to write a whole post on BothSid.es They controlled distribution to the masses.

Social Network 318

Social Network Networking Web 2.0 Startup 318

Both Sides of the Table

AUGUST 30, 2010

My advice to entrepreneurs was and is “ when the hors d’oeuvres tray is being passed take two ” (e.g. It eventually closed at 11,204 in April ’10 before sliding back around 10,000 as I sit here and type. VCs have also gone back to writing checks because as an industry we can’t be seen as “sitting on the sidelines” for years at a time.

Entrepreneur 298

Entrepreneur Venture Capital Technical Review Startup 298

SoCal CTO

JANUARY 5, 2011

Some really great stuff in 2010 that aims to help startups around product, technology, business models, etc. 500 Hats , February 1, 2010 When to Use Facebook Connect – Twitter Oauth – Google Friend Connect for Authentication? . -

Startup 378

Startup Venture Capital Blogging CTO Coach 378

Both Sides of the Table

AUGUST 28, 2016

It is a “Sliding Doors” tale of a couple of life events that lift Vance and propel him to cross socio-economic lines that are increasingly harder to pierce in the United States. This is where Sliding Doors creeps in. In another post coming soon I’ll write about my own journey. In each case J.D. But Vance escaped it all.

Class 211

Class Education Slides Venture Capital 211