Gust

DECEMBER 2, 2012

Image via Facebook.com. Every entrepreneur needs to be honest about their strengths and weaknesses, and realistic about their reasons for choosing the startup route. For any entrepreneur, even the best business opportunities, if entered for the wrong reasons, will likely fail. Some of these reasons seem obvious, so forgive me for restating, but I still hear them too often.

Startup 181

Startup Entrepreneur Employee Partner 181

Gust

DECEMBER 6, 2012

What’s an advisor to a startup deal? Technically, advisor is one of those bucket terms that means anything and everything, depending on context. Those names and faces and backgrounds that turn up in pitches and business plans might be deep and important relationships, somebody with options or equity who is going to be helping for the long term; or meaningless fluff, somebody who agreed once to have his or her name appear, but really does nothing. .

Startup 165

Startup Equity Capitalization Table Naming 165

Gust

DECEMBER 6, 2012

It depends on the quality of the idea. I’m a firm believer in Derek Sivers ‘ calculus, which goes like this: AWFUL IDEA = -$1. WEAK IDEA = $1. SO-SO IDEA = $5. GOOD IDEA = $10. GREAT IDEA = $15. BRILLIANT IDEA = $20. The real value, of course (as other answers here have noted), comes from executing on the idea. And to see how that calculation works, check out Derek’s classic, seminal article on the subject: [link].

Equity 150

Equity Distribution Entrepreneur Startup 150