This isn’t about stinky startups or startups that give you bad breath. But it is about startups that might make you cry. Recently I’ve spent a lot more time meeting with entrepreneurs and listening to their pitches. It’s not in any formal sense, but I’m happy and eager to provide 30-minute or 1-hour blocks of […]
The Importance of Domain Knowledge for Startup Founders
When I launched Standout Jobs I didn’t know much about the HR / recruitment industry. I could clearly identify problems in the space, and I was passionate about fixing some of those problems, but I lacked a real appreciation for the industry itself. This led to numerous challenges, and without a doubt had a negative […]
How to Balance Passion and Reality in Startups
Startup founders need inordinate amounts of passion to succeed. Passion is the self-created drug that inspires startup founders to press on during tough times. Since the startup roller coaster goes from incredible highs to suicidal lows in a matter of moments, it’s important to leverage passion as a driving force. But when is there too […]
The Startup CEOs Role: Decision Making
Ben Horowitz has a great post on his blog titled: How Andreesen Horowitz Evaluates CEOs. One of the key elements of their evaluation is decision-making. Here’s just a quick snippet from Ben’s post: Some employees make products, some make sales; the CEO makes decisions. Therefore, a CEO can most accurately be measured by the speed […]
How To Pitch Your Startup to a Complete Stranger
Don’t. That’s my first reaction when I think about how to pitch a startup to a complete stranger. But that’s not the entire story. I get pitched a fair amount from people with startups or startup ideas. Oftentimes they’re interested in learning about how to raise financing. I try my best to read all the […]
Read Early Exits – Exit Strategies for Entrepreneurs and Angel Investors
If you’re an entrepreneur, working at a startup, or thinking about starting a company, you should read Early Exits: Exit Strategies for Entrepreneurs and Angel Investors by Basil Peters. Basil is leading the charge on demonstrating the values and benefits of early exits. He’s definitely showing people — with concrete examples — that early exits […]
Removing the Stigma Around Early Exits
Early exits are typically defined as those in the $15-$30M range. The average Web startup exit is in that range. Entrepreneurs and angel investors generally love early exits. Venture capitalists generally do not. And the reason is simple — If a startup manages to exit in that range with only a small amount of capital […]
Startup Founders Can’t Live in Silos
The “classic” founding team for a startup is one business guy and one tech guy. Sounds logical but the model is flawed and risky. The risk is this: If either founder feels like they can live in their own silo (either business or tech), the startup will flounder and the likelihood of failure increases significantly. […]
Startup CEOs: Masters of Alignment
If there’s one thing startup CEOs have to excel at it’s managing the alignment of interests across a ton of different people. It’s a lot more complicated than you might think. Alignment means everyone is pushing for the same goals and executing on their part in order to see the shared goals realized. It’s impossible […]
Startup Founders: It’s Not About Smarts, It’s About Being Opportunistic
In a recent presentation, How to Start a Company While Still in School, I said it was important to be open, take risks and be strategic. That’s absolutely true. In the presentation I said, “I’m seeking startup people.” Originally I had written on the presentation slide, “I’m seeking smart people” but I changed it for […]
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