Startup Professionals Musings

SEPTEMBER 5, 2012

Deciding to be an entrepreneur is a lifestyle move, and should be part of a long-term strategic plan. You shouldn’t be making this decision just because you are mad at your boss, you would like to be rich, or someone else thinks it’s a good idea. In these changing times, if you already have a startup, with no plan, maybe it’s time to think ahead for a change.

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Startup Professionals Musings

SEPTEMBER 27, 2012

An entrepreneur is literally “one who creates a new business.” The best new businesses are ones that have never been done before, so mastering creativity and recognizing creativity are key skills and mind-sets. But how does one recognize and nurture creativity in a person or team? Recently, I was reviewing a new book by Bryan Mattimore, “ Idea Stormers: How to Lead and Inspire Creative Breakthroughs ,” which outlines well eight attributes of the most creative people, which seem to match the mind

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Startup Professionals Musings

SEPTEMBER 20, 2012

If you have had some success in a business, I’m sure you bristle just like I do when someone says “You were just lucky…” I’m a strong believer that we all make our own luck, which means that the harder we work, the luckier we get. In reality, “hard work” is just a catch-all term for a list of principles that good entrepreneurs follow, allowing them to work smarter and improve their odds of success.

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Startup Professionals Musings

SEPTEMBER 7, 2012

One of the most common complaints I hear from entrepreneurs is that they are overwhelmed by the workload and stress of starting their company. Then there are the additional challenges of balancing the demands of family and friends. Having too much on your plate can turn your dream into a nightmare. Some people will tell you to just get a bigger plate, meaning hire some help.

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Startup Professionals Musings

SEPTEMBER 2, 2012

Viral marketing and word-of-mouth are not enough these days to make your product and brand visible in the relentless onslaught of new promotional media out there today. Innovation in marketing is perhaps more important than product innovation. Yet in the business plans I see, the marketing content and budget are smaller than ever. More than just spending, you need to create an “experience” in this digital age which sets you apart from the banner ads, email blasts, and old-school websites out the

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Startup Professionals Musings

SEPTEMBER 3, 2012

Every first-time entrepreneur, or even an experienced founder stepping into a new business area, needs a mentor. Nothing you have ever done raises so many questions, or has the potential to be so fulfilling, or so risky, as starting a new business for the first time. A mentor is a confidant who has been there and done that, and is willing to guide your steps.

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Startup Professionals Musings

SEPTEMBER 21, 2012

Fundraising is brutal. Actually, according to Paul Graham , “Raising money is the second hardest part of starting a startup. The hardest part is making something people want.” More startups may fail for that reason, but a close second is the difficulty of raising money. A while back, I outlined “ The 10 Best Sources of Cash to Start Your Business ” for startups, listing angel investors as alternative #6.

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Startup Professionals Musings

SEPTEMBER 17, 2012

It takes a great entrepreneur with a great vision to start a business, but it takes a collaboration of many people to make it a success. That’s where leadership comes in as a key ingredient, to drive the collaborative process to make the whole team better than the sum of the parts. I remember a book from a while back by Amilya Antonetti, titled “ The Recipe: A Fable for Leaders and Teams ” which illustrates the key concepts with stories and specific guidance on how to develop your natural leader

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Startup Professionals Musings

SEPTEMBER 9, 2012

I’m sure that every one of us who has been out in the business world for a few years can look back with perfect hindsight and name a few college courses that we should have taken. What’s more disconcerting to me is that I can name a few that weren’t even offered, and more than a few students who graduate ill-prepared for the real world! I won’t even try to cover here the ones you didn’t find for your personal life, like managing personal finances and credit.

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Startup Professionals Musings

SEPTEMBER 29, 2012

Every so often a promising entrepreneur seems to freeze in the oncoming headlights and gets run over by his competition. Why is it that his idea which seemed so fundable only months ago fails to attract investors today? The team is the same. The company's market is the same. The only difference might be the start of another recession like the last one, resulting in lower liquidity and investors with no money, and that makes all the difference.

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Startup Professionals Musings

SEPTEMBER 12, 2012

Investors are people too. They evaluate you like you should assess a possible co-founder or first employee. What are your credentials? What have you done that would convince me that my money is safe in your hands? Only after they see you as fundable, do they want to assess your plan for fundability, not the other way around. Even with great credentials, it is all too possible for an entrepreneur to come across as a high risk investment.

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Startup Professionals Musings

SEPTEMBER 10, 2012

Until the recent recession, market research indicated that as many as 90 percent of the roughly 20 million American small business owners were motivated more by lifestyle than growth and money. Since 2008, the desire for profits has trumped passion in 54 percent of new startups, according to a recent study. It seems that everyone wants to make a quick buck these days.

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Startup Professionals Musings

SEPTEMBER 8, 2012

For a few, delegating comes easily, maybe too easy. For others who are perfectionists, letting go of even the most trivial task is almost impossible. If you are in this second category, you probably don’t like the references behind your back that you are a “control freak” or a “micro-manager.” Business school professor John Hunt notes that only 30 percent of managers think they can delegate well, and of those, only one in three is considered a good delegator by his or her subordinates.

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Startup Professionals Musings

SEPTEMBER 11, 2012

If you are a first-time entrepreneur, I recommend that you team with a co-founder with experiences, connections, and a skill set that complements, but doesn’t duplicate yours. Even experienced entrepreneurs need a partner to back up each other and improve fundability. The question is how to find that elusive perfect-fit partner. First, I will admit there is no magic formula here, just like in real life when trying to find a relationship partner.

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Startup Professionals Musings

SEPTEMBER 30, 2012

Many entrepreneurs still dream of “going public,” making billions of dollars, and playing with the big boys. They don’t realize that this option would likely be their worst nightmare, since it costs millions for the road show, usually dilutes your equity to a tiny fraction, and takes away all your entrepreneurial control. Consider the recent example of Facebook and Mark Zuckerberg.

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Startup Professionals Musings

SEPTEMBER 18, 2012

Even though I love technology, I always cringe when an entrepreneur starts his pitch by touting his new technology. He has forgotten that new technologies are perceived by most customers as causing more pain than the problems they hope to eliminate. I chastise these startups to highlight the solution created by the technology, rather than highlight the technology itself.

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Startup Professionals Musings

SEPTEMBER 4, 2012

Entrepreneurs are always looking for “the next big thing,” when maybe in fact it’s a lot of little things that are only recognized after the fact as components of a big evolution or revolution. In my view, the Internet “connectivity anywhere” has already spawned several of these, but the global change has only begun. Emily Nagle Green, in her book from a while back “ ANYWHERE ,” argues effectively that the future of the world and business is ubiquitous connectivity, the total interconnection of

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Startup Professionals Musings

SEPTEMBER 23, 2012

Creating a startup, or managing any business, is all about problem solving. Some people are good at it and some are not – independent of their IQ or their book smarts (there may even be an inverse relationship here). Yet I’m convinced that problem solving is a learnable trait, rather than just a birthright. Entrepreneurs who are great problem solvers within any business are the best prepared to solve their customers’ needs effectively as well.

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Startup Professionals Musings

SEPTEMBER 19, 2012

Startups ask me “How much money should I ask for?” The simple answer is the absolute minimum amount you need to make your plan work. Some entrepreneurs try to start with a huge number, hoping they can negotiate and close on a smaller one, while others understate their requirements, in hopes of getting their foot in the door with an investor. Neither of these strategies is a good one, as both are likely to damage your credibility with potential investors, even before they look hard at your plan.

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Startup Professionals Musings

SEPTEMBER 22, 2012

Wouldn’t you like to be one of the lucky people who joined Google and Facebook when these were startups, and now be a multi-millionaire? So people ask me “How many shares should I ask for when I join a startup today?” In reality, the number of shares doesn’t mean anything – it’s your percent of the total that you need to negotiate. For example, 200,000 shares may sound like a lot, but if the startup has issued 20 million (a common starting point), that’s just 1% of the company.

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Startup Professionals Musings

SEPTEMBER 24, 2012

Reuters TV Interview by Rhonda Schaffler Investing in entrepreneurs and startups is a fun but different world from investing in conventional stocks, bonds, and commodities. First of all, it’s more of an investment in people than in a business, since the startup is usually an idea barely half-baked when they need your money. Secondly, the risk is very high, since as many as 90% of startups fail in the first five years.

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Startup Professionals Musings

SEPTEMBER 6, 2012

Most entrepreneurs tend to avoid this area of the business, and as a result are badly surprised by cost realities, and investor expectations. They seem to think that financial projections are simply invented numbers for investors, and not useful. In reality, it’s like jumping in your car for a long hard drive with no destination in mind. Chances are, you won’t enjoy success from the trip.

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Startup Professionals Musings

SEPTEMBER 13, 2012

Starting and building a company is all about leadership – formulating an idea, building a unique plan based on vision and experience, and forging a path over and through all obstacles. Yet the image of leadership in business is at an all-time low, according to national leadership experts, considering the political debacles, record business bankruptcies, and executive fraud cases.

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