Startup Professionals Musings

NOVEMBER 18, 2011

Anyone can be an entrepreneur today, without a huge investment, bank loans, venture capitalists, or Angels. Don’t expect that you can create a new social networking site in your garage, and steal all the users away from Facebook. The cost of entry has never been lower. Then there are full-featured software sites like Facebook.

Hosting 248

Hosting Bootstrapping .Net Social Network 248

YoungUpstarts

MAY 18, 2011

Swiftsharing ( www.swiftsharing.net ) is a new and growing social network site that has seen over 8,000 members signed up and has more than 20,000 posts since launching in January this year. “In five years, we hope to be the social network of high school and attract more college age students to the site.

Fractional CTO 239

Fractional CTO Social Network PHP Cofounder 239

Startup Professionals Musings

JANUARY 10, 2013

Anyone can be an entrepreneur today, without a huge investment, bank loans, venture capitalists, or Angels. Don’t expect that you can create a new social networking site in your garage, and steal all the users away from Facebook. The cost of entry has never been lower. Then there are full-featured software sites like Facebook.

eCommerce 196

eCommerce Hosting Bootstrapping .Net 196

crowdSPRING Blog

JUNE 25, 2018

Many startup myths threaten to hold back even the best-intentioned entrepreneurs. In spite of those sobering numbers, today, there are close to 400 million entrepreneurs worldwide. Many people looking to start a business hesitate because they’re don’t know what it will take to get started. Living the startup life.

Entrepreneur 83

Entrepreneur Chicago Cofounder United States 83

Startup Professionals Musings

NOVEMBER 4, 2011

Reserve the company name on social networks to protect it. A conundrum for many frustrated entrepreneurs is that they need money from investors to design and build a prototype product, yet most angel investors expect to see at least a prototype before they invest. Prepare an investment-grade business plan.

Intellectual Property 249

Intellectual Property Angel Investor Technical Review Elevator Pitch 249

Startup Professionals Musings

AUGUST 13, 2012

People ask me if they really need ANY business plan, unless they are looking for an outside investor. In fact, a business plan is needed more by you than investors, as the blueprint for your company, team communication, and progress metrics. This is how you will make money, who pays you, and gross margins.

Business Plan 283

Business Plan Sweat Equity Exit Strategy Intellectual Property 283

Startup Professionals Musings

FEBRUARY 23, 2022

It’s time for more entrepreneurs to reset their focus, and shift their thinking to completely different ways of doing things. For entrepreneurs, this may mean more learning from experiments, and for organizations it may mean dumping a stagnant team to start over. Plan in your plan for constant change, with learning.

Social Network 333

Social Network Social Media Demand Entrepreneur 333

Startup Professionals Musings

MAY 13, 2011

People ask me if they really need ANY business plan, unless they are looking for an outside investor. In fact, a business plan is needed more by you than investors, as the blueprint for your company, team communication, and progress metrics. This is how you will make money, who pays you, and gross margins.

Business Plan 290

Business Plan Sweat Equity Exit Strategy Intellectual Property 290

SoCal CTO

JUNE 9, 2010

Why Entrepreneurs Hate Lawyers. In many of them I get asked similar questions, including the inevitable “what makes a great entrepreneur?” Marketplace companies are notoriously difficult to start, so I'm constantly amazed that so many entrepreneurs chose this route. If you’re an entrepreneur, the glib answer is “no.”

Fractional CTO 248

Fractional CTO Startup Venture Capital Cofounder 248

Startup Professionals Musings

JANUARY 7, 2013

Sure, there will always some seed funding (10% of overall deal flow), but you can bet that this money goes to entrepreneurs who have been there before and won. So what can entrepreneurs do to get to the head of the venture capital investment queue and position their startup for a winning IPO?

Venture Capital 252

Venture Capital IPO Elevator Pitch Initial Public Offering 252

Startup Professionals Musings

SEPTEMBER 16, 2010

Anyone can be an entrepreneur today, without a huge investment, bank loans, venture capitalists, or angels. Don’t expect that you can create a new social networking site in your garage, and steal all the users away from Facebook. Tags: e-commerce entrepreneur startup website. The cost of entry has never been lower.

Cost 220

Cost Startup Hosting Bootstrapping 220

Startup Professionals Musings

MAY 30, 2022

Early-stage entrepreneurs rightly keep their focus on creating an innovative product or service. After celebrating success at that level, they often find themselves ill-prepared to move to the next stage, for scaling their business into a high-performing enterprise. Of course, not every entrepreneur wants to tackle this challenge.

Mezzanine 368

Mezzanine Private Equity Bandwidth Metrics 368

YoungUpstarts

JULY 6, 2011

The small business must know this customer better than anyone else if it wants its’ targets business. Often times, previous experience with other companies will help a potential entrepreneur know how that company, or that industry in general, failed to meet the needs of a particular customer. Business planning/strategy.

Intellectual Property 244

Intellectual Property Non-Compete Technical Review Business Plan 244

View from Seed

APRIL 21, 2015

On the heels of our research on HBS entrepreneurs , NextView’s Dimitri Dadiomov (HBS ’15) interviewed several top founders on the early stages of their companies. Prince: Business History. Clark: Competing through Social Networks. On Launching and Finding Early Traction. Tom Eisenmann.

Founder 120

Founder Las Vegas Entrepreneur Cofounder 120

The Next Web

DECEMBER 4, 2013

Zappos has found great success by keeping social media responsibilities horizontal and flexible. Zappos assumes everyone in the company is on social media and trusts them to participate in growing the brand. Prioritize social networks. As a startup, you’re working with limited resources and a lean business model.

Social Media 158

Social Media Media Viral Startup 158

Startup Professionals Musings

JULY 28, 2013

The answer is still the same, but I have learned over the years that there is an etiquette to this process, just like there is for social networking. Join and actively participate in local business organizations. Volunteer to help out with entrepreneur activities at your local university. Marty Zwilling.

Networking 250

Networking Entrepreneur Accredited Investor Elevator Pitch 250

Startup Professionals Musings

JUNE 5, 2021

In startup business plans, a bubble is too many entrepreneurs and too many investors chasing the latest “next big thing,” like Google search engine, Facebook social network, or Amazon e-commerce site. In finance, a bubble is too much money chasing assets, greater asset production and a herd mentality.

Demand 362

Demand Government Venture Capital Valuation 362

Startup Professionals Musings

JULY 24, 2022

Real innovation in the business world is still rare. As I’ve said before, everyone talks about innovation, but the majority of new business plans I see still reflect linear thinking – one more social network with more features, another smartphone app for marketing, or one more platform for faster e-commerce.

Marketing 313

Marketing Dilution Social Network Government 313

The Startup Magazine

JUNE 19, 2019

It is as important as learning how to perform and put your networking strategy into practice. Therefore, before developing a business plan , it is essential that you choose a social network that will be your primary source of income. Those are the networks that focus on photography.

Social Media 136

Social Media Media Marketing Entrepreneur 136

Startup Professionals Musings

SEPTEMBER 23, 2010

Reserve the company name on social networks to protect it. A conundrum for many frustrated entrepreneurs is that they need money from investors to design and build a prototype product, yet most angel investors expect to see at least a prototype before they invest. Prepare an investment-grade business plan.

Angel Investor 224

Angel Investor Intellectual Property Technical Review Elevator Pitch 224

crowdSPRING Blog

JUNE 25, 2018

Many startup myths threaten to hold back even the best-intentioned entrepreneurs. In spite of those sobering numbers, today, there are close to 400 million entrepreneurs worldwide. Many people looking to start a business hesitate because they’re don’t know what it will take to get started. Living the startup life.

Entrepreneur 48

Entrepreneur Chicago Cofounder United States 48

Startup Professionals Musings

JANUARY 21, 2013

Many believe that entrepreneurs are born, not made. While I agree that successful company builders usually have a natural inclination to be entrepreneurs, a good education helps polish that apple. Of course, there's no law saying you have to go to college to start a business. Build a business plan early on.

Entrepreneur 264

Entrepreneur Seed Money Social Network Business Plan 264

Steve Blank

MARCH 8, 2011

We were positing that 20 years of teaching “how to write a business plan” might be obsolete. Startups, are not about executing a plan where the product, customers, channel are known. Startups are in fact only temporary organizations, organized to search –not execute–for a scalable and repeatable business model.

Lean 300

Lean Business Model Customer Development Guinea 300

Gust

AUGUST 5, 2012

People ask me if they really need ANY business plan, unless they are looking for an outside investor. In fact, a business plan is needed more by you than investors, as the blueprint for your company, team communication, and progress metrics. This is how you will make money, who pays you, and gross margins.

Business Plan 182

Business Plan Sweat Equity Exit Strategy Intellectual Property 182

Gust

FEBRUARY 22, 2014

A quick look at the really nice sites developed in just a few months by companies like CircleUp, FundersClub, Bolstr, Seedrs, et al will show you that the base technical challenge of creating a marketplace/social network is not particularly difficult.

Belarus 107

Belarus Kazakhstan Portugal Accredited Investor 107

Startup Professionals Musings

JANUARY 27, 2014

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. I’ve never known any successful entrepreneurs or investors who were not happy to share their insights. Read entrepreneur stories.

Entrepreneur 256

Entrepreneur Silicon Valley Social Network Restful 256

Startup Professionals Musings

AUGUST 31, 2012

I hear a lot of entrepreneurs contemplating their great “idea” for several years with little discernable progress, and looking for money to start. Here are some tips which will signal traction and fundability to investors, as well as to your team: Document your business plan. Traction means forward progress.

Intellectual Property 260

Intellectual Property Sweat Equity CTO Hire Fractional CTO 260

Startup Professionals Musings

JANUARY 31, 2014

It’s time for more entrepreneurs to reset their focus, and shift their thinking to completely different ways of doing things. For entrepreneurs, this may mean more learning from experiments, and for organizations it may mean dumping a stagnant team to start over. Plan in your plan for constant change, with learning.

Entrepreneur 250

Entrepreneur Social Network Social Media Demand 250

Startup Professionals Musings

APRIL 22, 2010

People ask me if they really need ANY business plan, unless they are looking for an outside investor. In fact, a business plan is needed more by you than investors, as the blueprint for your company, team communication, and progress metrics. This is how you will make money, who pays you, and gross margins.

Business Plan 186

Business Plan Exit Strategy Sweat Equity Intellectual Property 186

Startup Professionals Musings

JUNE 27, 2012

I have learned over the years that there is an etiquette to this process, just like there is for social networking. There are other networks that also work, depending on where you are in the world, like Ryze, Plaxo, and Facebook, but setting up an account on MySpace probably won’t help you.

Networking 242

Networking Accredited Investor Elevator Pitch Entrepreneur 242

Startup Professionals Musings

DECEMBER 6, 2011

Many believe that entrepreneurs are born, not made. While I agree that successful company builders usually have a natural inclination to be entrepreneurs, a good education helps polish that apple. Of course, there's no law saying you have to go to college to start a business. Build a business plan early on.

Entrepreneur 264

Entrepreneur Seed Money Social Network Business Plan 264

Startup Professionals Musings

MARCH 25, 2012

You have probably heard plenty of times that being an entrepreneur is a risky business, and investors talk all the time about reducing the risk. Here is my own priority list of key risk drivers that every entrepreneur and every investor should evaluate and minimize in starting a business: Team experience and depth risk.

Intellectual Property 271

Intellectual Property Entrepreneur Mexico China 271

Up and Running

AUGUST 24, 2020

Here are just a few things you can do by leveraging data analytics: Gain a better understanding of changing customer preferences Discover new business opportunities Identify and eliminate bottlenecks in your operations Minimize and better allocate advertising costs Provide greater customer support through automated chat.

Technical Review 131

Technical Review Analytics Forecast Artificial Inteligence 131

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. I’ve never known any successful entrepreneurs or investors who were not happy to share their insights. Read entrepreneur stories.

Entrepreneur 234

Entrepreneur Silicon Valley Social Network Networking 234

Startup Professionals Musings

JUNE 17, 2011

I hear a lot of entrepreneurs contemplating their great “idea” for several years with little discernable progress, and looking for money to start. Here are some tips which will signal traction and fundability to investors, as well as to your team: Document your business plan. Traction means forward progress.

Intellectual Property 253

Intellectual Property Sweat Equity CTO Hire Fractional CTO 253

www.forentrepreneurs.com

FEBRUARY 2, 2010

Blog About Log in Register Startup Killer: the Cost of Customer Acquisition In the many thousands of articles advising entrepreneurs on what they have to focus on to build successful startups, much has been written about three key factors: team, product and market, with particular focus on the importance of product/market fit.

Acquisition 103

Acquisition Cost Customer Entrepreneur 103

YoungUpstarts

FEBRUARY 19, 2016

Perseverance, persistence and potential are three important words every entrepreneur must have engrained in their psyche when first starting out. The following are five key pieces of advice for aspiring entrepreneurs that have helped me garner my successful business: 1. Build a support network. Employees come first.

Entrepreneur 100

Entrepreneur New York Salary Social Network 100