Startup Professionals Musings

NOVEMBER 14, 2012

Entrepreneurs have no trouble focusing on how to build a product, and the good ones know how to find and nurture those first critical customers. Many, however, don’t know how to take their small business to the next level. What I’m talking about here is a level of discipline and skill necessary to collect and analyze the relevant business data, known as metrics.

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Startup Professionals Musings

NOVEMBER 19, 2012

A while back, when a startup founder mentioned to me that he wasn’t sure he had the personality to be an entrepreneur, I realized how important that insight was. My first thought is that if you are more annoyed than energized by expert advice, team suggestions, and customer input, then you should probably avoid this line of work. Actually, it’s more complicated than that, but that’s a good start.

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Startup Professionals Musings

NOVEMBER 12, 2012

Every entrepreneur should spend plenty of time thinking about competitors, and how they relate to your business, but you need to be very careful what you say out loud about them to your team, your investors, and your customers. What you say speaks volumes about how you think about your startup, how smart you are, and your personal integrity. I’ve spent hours talking to startup founders, and heard a thousand startup pitches, and I always listen carefully to what is said (or not said) about compet

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Startup Professionals Musings

NOVEMBER 7, 2012

Building a startup is hard work for low pay, it’s risky, and it requires total responsibility to make it work. Yet, many entrepreneurs are the happiest people I know. On the other hand, I know many unhappy individuals who are always partying, have minimal commitments, and little responsibility. I suspect the real parameters of happiness have eluded these people.

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Startup Professionals Musings

NOVEMBER 17, 2012

Startups are usually so focused on selling more of their branded product or service to their own customer base (organic growth) that they don’t consider the more indirect methods (non-organic growth) of increasing revenue and market share. Non-organic growth would include OEM relationships, finding strategic partners, “coopetition,” as well as acquisitions.

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Startup Professionals Musings

NOVEMBER 4, 2012

Getting things done effectively in a startup requires total individual and team accountability. You can’t afford excuses and multiple people doing the same job. In my view, “taking responsibility” is the core element behind accountability. Many people hear responsibility as an obligation, but I hear it as “the ability to respond.” Unfortunately many people don’t have the ability to respond, because they lack confidence in themselves, or simply don’t have the skills required.

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Startup Professionals Musings

NOVEMBER 11, 2012

Throughout my career in small companies and large, I’ve always been appalled by the number of people who seem to complain all of the time. These people don’t seem to realize that they are hurting themselves, as well as other people’s productivity, and the company they are working for. I’ve always thought that I might be overly sensitive, until I saw an old survey done by badbossoloy.com , which claims that a majority of employees spend 10 hours or more a month complaining or listening to others

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Startup Professionals Musings

NOVEMBER 22, 2012

Behind most great startup success stories is a long list of mistakes! Unfortunately, for every success story you see, there is an even longer list of failure stories with mistakes that you don’t see. But rather than dwell on the failures, I’ve tried to extract from them a list of practical action items that will improve your survival probability. Every startup mentor has his favorite list of basic strategies to avoid pitfalls, and I’m no exception.

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Startup Professionals Musings

NOVEMBER 30, 2012

What sparks paradigm-shifting innovation in any business? It’s a special mix of entrepreneur and company, regular in every respect except for having the courage and foresight to make an idea happen that was supposed to be impossible. As an entrepreneur in a startup, how do you know if you have this potential, and what are the steps to get from an innovation to a revolution?

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Startup Professionals Musings

NOVEMBER 20, 2012

Many entrepreneurs forget that their success is more about helping other people than about personally becoming famous, or overcoming the odds and getting rich. A successful business has to satisfy customers with a strong team, by helping them solve problems, save money, or experience more pleasure. That means more focus on helping others achieve their goals.

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Startup Professionals Musings

NOVEMBER 8, 2012

Most entrepreneurs who start a company alone soon come to the conclusion that two heads are better than one – someone to share the workload, the hard decisions, and the costs. In a moment of crisis, you may be tempted to take on the first person expressing interest as a co-founder. This would be a mistake, and could easily cost you your startup. If you think about it, you should realize that not everyone is ‘ideal partner material.

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Startup Professionals Musings

NOVEMBER 2, 2012

If you really want to impress a startup founder as a potential employee, or you want to be a smart investor, you need to know the right questions to ask. These are the questions that get past the hype of a founder “vision to change the world,” and into the realm of real business strengths, weaknesses, and current health. Some founders try to deflect these questions by talking incessantly, so you often need to be calm, patient, and persistent to get the answers.

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Startup Professionals Musings

NOVEMBER 9, 2012

A " perfect storm " is an expression that describes an event where a rare combination of circumstances aggravate an environment drastically. In the entrepreneur world, I feel we are in such a situation now for new startups, with the confluence of business recession/recovery, the explosion of new digital technologies, and financial turmoil around the world.

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Startup Professionals Musings

NOVEMBER 5, 2012

You don’t have to be likeable to everyone to be a great entrepreneur, just to the people who count. Of course, we can all point to apparent exceptions, like Ted Turner or Larry Ellison, who are sometimes seen as lions, downright predators, or even jerks. Yet I’m told that even these guys are considered quite likable by an intimate group of business and personal associates.

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Startup Professionals Musings

NOVEMBER 23, 2012

“Will the dogs eat the dog food?” This rather crude expression weighs heavily on the mind of all good startup founders, no matter how confident they appear. We all know the products they give away, and the ones purchased by family and friends don’t count. The real milestone, proving the business model, is that first product sold for full price to a total stranger, leaving him happy.

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Startup Professionals Musings

NOVEMBER 16, 2012

The first question most people seem to ask when contemplating a new startup is where they will get investor money. That’s certainly a valid question, but all the money in the world won’t make your business a success if you hate what you are doing, and you don’t have a plan to use it. I suggest that there are several other questions even more important than the money one.

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Startup Professionals Musings

NOVEMBER 21, 2012

Women entrepreneurs are starting small businesses at approximately twice the national average for all startups. Despite some inaccurate stereotypes, the evidence is that they are in every industry, from small consulting firms to medical high technology. As a result, there have also been many new resources and mentors popping up specifically aimed at women.

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Startup Professionals Musings

NOVEMBER 25, 2012

Don’t charge the hill until you are “ready.” This probably seems obvious to military types, but I see entrepreneurs violating this rule all the time. They approach key potential investors way too early, trying to talk their way up the hill, with no supporting business plan, and before they have a support team around them. Needless to say, they usually get shot down, and get no second chance.

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Startup Professionals Musings

NOVEMBER 6, 2012

A question that I often hear debated these days is whether a new startup should focus on growth or profits. First of all, the glory days of “dot.coms” are gone, when investors “didn’t care” about profitability, and all the money went to growth. In the long run, everyone wants both profitability and growth, but the question is still which comes first.

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Startup Professionals Musings

NOVEMBER 27, 2012

Over the years, I’ve had the privilege of working with some of the best entrepreneurs in Silicon Valley and elsewhere. On the average, the entrepreneurs I know are living on Ramen noodles. But one thing they all seem to have in common is a love for learning and change. They rush in with a passion to better the world, and money is just an indication of their progress.

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Startup Professionals Musings

NOVEMBER 29, 2012

Change is about the only thing constant in the world of startups. Despite their own focus on changing the world, they often forget that they too have to change rapidly and often as the market evolves. Too many find that out too late, and are left chasing a rabbit that is long gone. The solution is to establish and maintain a culture and processes that don’t view change as a discrete event to be spotted and managed, but as an ongoing opportunity to improve competitiveness.

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Startup Professionals Musings

NOVEMBER 1, 2012

Is it possible to be successful in business and not fulfilled? The answer is a resounding yes today, and I’m convinced that it will be even more true tomorrow, as young idealistic entrepreneurs try to adapt to the long-standing business culture where success is only measured in the money you make for yourself and your business. That isn’t very fulfilling to the growing number of entrepreneurs whose vision and satisfaction comes from making the world a better place, and enjoying a leisurely lifes

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Startup Professionals Musings

NOVEMBER 15, 2012

For most business leaders, their current role is not where they intend to stay until they die. At the right time, they all intend to make a graceful exit, and leave while still perceived to be on top of their game. The challenge is how to know and exit gracefully when the right time has come, without trauma to either the company or themselves. I haven’t seen much insight on this subject, so I was intrigued by a new book “ Leaving on Top: Graceful Exits for Leaders ,” by David Heenan, a business

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