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10 Keys To Surviving Startup Cash Flow Requirements

Startup Professionals Musings

The “valley of death” is a common term in the startup world, referring to the difficulty of covering the negative cash flow in the early stages of a startup, before their new product or service is bringing in revenue from real customers. Join a startup incubator. Use crowd funding to build reserves.

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Entrepreneurs Court New Super-Angel Investors

Startup Professionals Musings

I see now emerging a new wave of investors, popularly known as “super-Angels,” micro-VCs, or “super-seed” investors. Every early-stage startup should explore this new funding alternative. Venture capital dispensed quarterly to startups actually declined again in the first quarter of 2013 to $6.3

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Early-stage Regional Venture Funds–part 2 of 3 of Bigger in Bend

Steve Blank

Part 1: Bend, Oregon Ecosystem and Entrepreneurs. Part 2: Early-stage Regional Venture Funds. Success depends on finding startups that have identified acute customer pains in large markets where conditions are ripe for a new entrant. Few entrepreneurs find this scalable and repeatable business model because it’s not easy.

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How Baby Boomers Fit In The Realm Of Entrepreneurship

Startup Professionals Musings

One of the biggest myths in the business world is that startups are no place for Baby Boomers, that aging generation born between 1945 and 1964. Today people over 55 are almost twice as likely to create successful startups as Gen-Y, age 20 to 34. It’s time to think again that the domain of entrepreneurs is only for the under-35 crowd.

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Grant Applications Often Provide Early-Stage Funding

Startup Professionals Musings

A critical stage for most first-time entrepreneurs is getting their idea developed into at least a prototype to validate their technology. This process costs money, which professional investors are not willing to contribute, since their interest is in scaling a proven product and business model into a growth business.

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Is a Venture Studio Right for You?

Steve Blank

Three types of organizations – Incubators, Accelerators and Venture Studios – have emerged to reduce the risk of early-stage startup failure by helping teams find product/market fit and raise initial capital. They do the most to de-risk the early stages of a startup. Reducing Startup Risk.

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6 Lessons Most Entrepreneurs Only Learn On The Street

Startup Professionals Musings

In my role as a mentor to aspiring entrepreneurs, I find that most have the technical challenges well understood, but many are a bit short on some basic street smarts , or basic business realities. Thus I often recommend that before you kick off your own business, you join another startup or existing business to see how things really work.