Startup Professionals Musings

NOVEMBER 1, 2014

Supportive co-founder and executive positions. Member of the Advisory Board. Every startup needs two or three key advisors who have the domain experience, connections, and complementary skills to guide the founders through those early crises. Software and hardware development architects and designers.

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Entrepreneur Advisory Board Dividend Angel Investor 266

Startup Professionals Musings

SEPTEMBER 13, 2015

Thus I was happy to see a recent book, “ The Tech Entrepreneur’s Survival Guide ,” by Bernd Schoner, PhD, and cofounder of ThingMagic, which leans heavily on the people side of the equation. It just means that the cofounders trust one of their own and are willing to follow. The sales professional. The industry veteran.

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Technical Cofounder Cofounder Advisory Board Stock Options 120

YoungUpstarts

JUNE 4, 2019

A well-developed product architecture helps a startup to achieve rapid market/product fit by successfully appealing to customers (users). They need to establish a Minimum Viable Category (MVC), develop thought leadership concepts, and create an “epic story” talk track that is meant to compel the world to use the startup’s product or service.

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Framework Architecture Cleveland Early Stage 127

YoungUpstarts

MAY 24, 2019

A well-developed product architecture helps a startup to achieve rapid market/product fit by successfully appealing to customers (users). They need to establish a Minimum Viable Category (MVC), develop thought leadership concepts, and create an “epic story” talk track that is meant to compel the world to use the startup’s product or service.

Framework 113

Framework Architecture Cleveland Early Stage 113

BeyondVC

JANUARY 3, 2019

Thanks to all of the amazing founders, advisors, co-investors, corporate partners, and others that helped make 2018 an amazing year. To that point, we are most excited when our founders are able to go from slide deck to product-market fit and Series A and beyond. We are truly grateful for your support. First check to Series B?—?congrats

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Stealth Advisory Board Cloud Virginia 79

www.instigatorblog.com

MARCH 2, 2010

The Importance of Advisory Boards for Startup CEOs Tweet When a startup receives financing it will need to setup a Board of Directors. The Board probably existed beforehand, but was made up only of the founders. Mark Macleod spells it out beautifully in his post on Advisory Boards.

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Advisory Board Startup Cofounder Equity 40

David Teten

JANUARY 19, 2021

(co-written with Jamie Finney, Founding Partner at Greater Colorado Venture Fund. From RBI, Flexible VCs borrow the ability to reap meaningful returns without demanding founders build for an exit. By tying payments to actual revenues, founders and investors remain aligned around the company’s real-time performance, good or bad.

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Cofounder Technical Review Equity Dividend 78

David Teten

MAY 7, 2019

Briefly, we think there’s a substantial market for a business which helps enterprises to execute initiatives which require coordination across diverse stakeholders, e.g., make a large sale to a critical client, or lobby for a change in regulation. See Should you co-found a company with your friend? Q: What have you built so far?

America 60

America Technical Review Advisory Board Due Diligence 60

David Teten

JULY 10, 2019

Briefly, we think there’s a substantial market for a business which helps enterprises to execute initiatives which require coordination across diverse stakeholders, e.g., make a large sale to a critical client, or lobby for a change in regulation. See Should you co-found a company with your friend? Q: What have you built so far?

America 60

America Technical Review Advisory Board Due Diligence 60

Steve Blank

OCTOBER 19, 2009

Building an Advisory Board In my travels outside the building I kept my eyes out for articulate and visionary scientists and engineers who had expertise we lacked, and were willing to help in an advisory capacity. I set up an advisory board as a vehicle to get these industry experts engaged with the company and product.

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Engineer Silicon Valley Part-Time VPE Advisory Board 198

Steve Blank

JUNE 6, 2016

The show follows the journeys of founders who share what it takes to build a startup – from restaurants to rocket scientists, to online gifts to online groceries and more. Evangelos Simoudis’ is the founder and managing director of Synapse Partners. ” We certainly did. If you can’t hear the clip, click here. Evangelos : Yes.

Silicon Valley 120

Silicon Valley Entrepreneur Fractional CTO Analytics 120

Up and Running

MAY 10, 2012

Ben Lamson and Sulaiman Sanni, WeDidIt cofounders. Sulaiman Sanni and his partner Ben Lamson were both working for Meltwater Group, a large, well known Software as a Service company, Su as a social media consultant and Ben as a sales manager. version, and talking to an advisory board and seed round investors already.”

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Small Business Advisory Board Employee Entrepreneur 142

Hearpreneur

APRIL 12, 2019

Being a co-founder of a real estate investment company allows me to set my own objectives, determine my work hours, and reap the rewards of my actions. 5- Learning and development. I always believe in continuous learning and development and this is exactly what I have experienced during my journey. 2- Lot’s of fun.

Entrepreneur 128

Entrepreneur St. Louis Florida Colorado 128

Steve Blank

OCTOBER 5, 2009

I had last been in Chapel Hill on a winter’s day in 1986, traveling with the VP of Sales of our new supercomputer startup, Ardent. My ex-boss was going to be the VP of Engineering and I would report to the CEO whose marketing acumen and sales instincts seemed at the time to be telepathic and sense of theater was legend.

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North Carolina Silicon Valley Fractional VPE Part-Time VPE 125

The Startup Magazine

MAY 28, 2019

We talked to the founders of Embargo a while ago and wanted to catch-up to see how the platform has developed. Collectively, the founders realised the ideal solution was to foster a better connectivity and relationship between venues and customers via an easy to use app and create a CRM platform for venues to drive business.

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Advisory Board Angel Investor Startup Cofounder 91

Steve Blank

SEPTEMBER 27, 2010

In Customer Development the goal of a minimum feature set is to pare the features of the first product release to the minimum necessary for early customers. During the 1990’s large corporations had bought different software applications to automate each part of their enterprise – finance, customer support, manufacturing, sales, etc.

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San Francisco Database Advisory Board Silicon Valley 228

Growthink Blog

AUGUST 26, 2013

This is an impressive group - leaders of companies with average sales revenues of $32 million and competing and prospering in industries that run the gamut - from services and manufacturing, to construction, retail, and real estate.

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Advisory Board Non-Compete California Cofounder 78

David Teten

JANUARY 23, 2021

The next best move is to build your core team, e.g., recruit an Advisory Board, Venture Partners, and EIRs. Yohei Nakajima, Founder of Untapped.vc , said, “Before pitching LPs and building my firm, I talked with over 50 people I knew to get feedback.” . Treat this as a formal sales process, and aggressively maintain your CRM. .

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Private Equity Venture Capital Technical Review Software Review 78

Startup Lessons Learned

JULY 29, 2009

Like a financial debt, the technical debt incurs interest payments, which come in the form of the extra effort that we have to do in future development because of the quick and dirty design choice. Startups especially can benefit by using technical debt to experiment, invest in process, and increase their product development leverage.

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Technical Review Software Review San Francisco Lean 168

Gust

DECEMBER 8, 2011

I urge all entrepreneurs to consult and develop a good working relationship with a qualified startup lawyer. Likewise, founders can benefit from understanding basic characteristics of the overall legal structure, formation and governance documents, rights and responsibilities of team members, etc. Advisory board agreements.

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Intellectual Property Non-disclosure Agreement Delaware Stock 139

Hearpreneur

MARCH 15, 2016

In addition we have a fantastic marketing team and a sales team that are successfully plugging away every day, many many hours. We also have a scientific team, consisting of three chemical engineers in addition to Jan, who is the founder and the inventor. Sometimes a great advisory board can be just as useful.

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Advisory Board Michigan SBIR Revenue 48

Business Plan Blog

DECEMBER 10, 2013

When raising pre-seed capital from friends, family, and founders (FFF) you’ll want to consider the milestones that Angel investors care about and be sure to raise enough capital to reach those milestones. Product Development. Founding Team, Key Hires, Advisory Board.

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Angel Investor Intellectual Property Seed Capital Advisory Board 55

Business Plan Blog

NOVEMBER 22, 2013

The use of your initial friends, family, and founders (FFF) capital should be directed towards achieving the milestones that will attract seed or angel investors (likewise, the use of your seed funding should be directed towards achieving the milestones that will attract Series A investors). Founding Team, Key Hires, Advisory Board.

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Intellectual Property Advisory Board Startup Seed Capital 55

Austin Startup

JANUARY 14, 2011

a leading provider of online veterinary healthcare content and services, announced today that Raul Calvoz has joined the company as Chief Executive Officer and a member of the Board of Directors. The list was developed after more than 30 events on five continents over the past 10 months, as part of the Innovate! PetsMD Inc.,

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Advisory Board Merger LLC Europe 63

David Teten

JANUARY 10, 2012

Howard Lindzon is Co-Founder and CEO of StockTwits, a social network for traders and investors to share real-time ideas and information. Parekh started his career at Goldman Sachs, developing the firm’s equities business in the Middle East, with high net worth family offices and sovereign wealth funds.

Technical Review 128

Technical Review Technology North Carolina Switzerland 128

Steve Blank

JUNE 22, 2009

Things Change In 1956 Hewlett Packard (HP) was a 17-year old company with $20 million in test equipment sales with 900 employees. Army Signal Corps advisory board, and the Army was going to acquire their first computer for research. At HP the founders were still at the company and still running the business.

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Silicon Valley RSS California Agile 164

Austin Startup

FEBRUARY 24, 2019

I discuss category creation with one of the co-authors of Play Bigger , Christopher Lochhead, in episode #232 of Legends and Losers if you would like to really delve into that (it is a very important topic). I’ve also, of course, been spending a lot of time talking about this with our rapidly growing sales team at data.world.

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Software Review Sales Cofounder Analytics 48

pandodaily.com

JULY 18, 2012

That aesthetic took decades to develop. More to the point, the relationships with vendors, know-how of product hunting and credibility in the design world took decades to develop. “It’s about passions, and I didn’t have fully developed passions yet at 21.” “This one is just so much fun.”

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Entrepreneur San Francisco Silicon Valley Technical Review 45

Startup Lessons Learned

OCTOBER 19, 2009

Unfortunately, after months or even years of development, many companies discover that customers arent willing to buy their new wares. Thats why some entrepreneurs are trying another approach to product launches: marketing a product online before spending much on research and development or inventory. Read the rest.

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San Francisco Product Lean Continuous Deployment 137

Steve Blank

JULY 29, 2013

There’s been a lot written about the individual characteristics of what makes a great founder , but a lot less about what makes a great founding team and how that’s different from a great founding CEO. In doing so we’ve failed to help founders understand what it takes to build a great founding team. Founders – the idea.

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Cofounder Advisory Board Customer Development Leadership 335

Austin Startup

FEBRUARY 23, 2019

UbiQD Founder and CEO Hunter McDaniel, PhD, explained more about how UbiGro works. I truly believe this is the year where quantum dots make a name for themselves in agriculture, and so its about marketing, sales, manufacturing, and generally about traction in the market. What is your competitive advantage?

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Technical Review Startup Harvest Advisory Board 54

The Next Web

JULY 8, 2013

I recently stumbled upon this great read by Sam Altman, the co-founder of Loopt, and number 10 caught my eye: “ Growth solves (nearly) all problems.”. 6 months ago I was still doing a lot of product, customer support, business development and content marketing. We’ve spent $0 on outbound marketing. Setting goals.

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Advisory Board API Cofounder PPC 128

YoungUpstarts

MARCH 26, 2018

by Bruce Hartman , founder of Gideon Partners and author of “ Jesus & Co.: Developing a strong capital base. Develop a strong capital base. Dan, who owned the company had hired a close friend, John, to develop the software for his business. They are: Having a clearly defined business plan.

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Advisory Board Startup Cofounder Matching 100

betashop.com

OCTOBER 8, 2012

million registered users, 7500 supplier partners, 600 team members, and a run-rate of more than $150M in sales in just 15 months. I firmly believe that in this age where the product development life-cycle is so short and user feedback comes so quickly, you will know within a year whether you are focusing on a worthwhile one thing.

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Technical Review Technology Software Review Valuation 108

Startup Professionals Musings

JANUARY 5, 2018

In fact, many experienced entrepreneurs argue that constructing a business model around your solution is far more critical and difficult than developing the product. That’s why I recommend that two co-founders are often better than one -- with one expert on the technical solution, and the other with business model experience.

Product 137

Product Advisory Board Business Model Cofounder 137

ReadWriteStart

JUNE 20, 2012

Customer discovery turns founders’ initial hypotheses about their market and customers into facts. Here’s how: Develop the Product for the Few, Not the Many. Marketing or Product Management hosts focus groups, analyzes sales data from the field, and looks at customer feature requests and complaints.

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Customer Advisory Board Engineer Cofounder 119

betashop.com

OCTOBER 8, 2012

Use a bug tracking system and religiously manage development action items from it. . Use them as a sounding board for corporate development issues. Advisory boards never amount to much. Co-locate as best possible but be willing to travel to remote offices to make multiple offices work. No one is making you.

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Post-Money Valuation Valuation Dilution Advisory Board 92