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How to Decrease the Odds That Your Startup Fails

Both Sides of the Table

Lately I’ve been having to say things I thought I’d never have to remind people, like, “getting to positive gross margin in several territories is a very low bar to claim success” or “profitable excluding marketing costs” is not actually a real thing. But not doing basic research makes no sense.

Startup 150
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4 Tips For Startups During A Pandemic

YoungUpstarts

by Juan Pablo Segura, President and Co-Founder of Babyscripts. The first step in any economic crisis is to evaluate your spending channels, and determine where you can cut costs. Contributing seed money to an employee’s HSA or 401K, or instituting a match program for contributions, can encourage employees to save.

Startup 287
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Timing: When to raise seed funding.

Scalable Startup

In their quest for sustainable growth, the elusive dream for most first time founders is that first funding. High growth startup companies need seed money to get things going. This can either come from the founder(s) own bank account or from outside investors. Without funding most tech startups will die. high growth.

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A conversation with Scott Kupor of Andreessen Horowitz, author and speaker at Lean Startup Conference 2019

Startup Lessons Learned

The reality today is that capital is more available than ever and entrepreneurs have become more sophisticated, so founders are looking for more than just cash from their venture backers. I’ve seen many founders not fully grasp how the venture capital business works and what incentives investors have.

Lean 108
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No Plan Survives First Contact With Customers – Business Plans versus Business Models

Steve Blank

He and his co-founder were both PhD’s in applied math who believe they can make some serious inroads on next generation search. We thought we’d take our plan and go raise seed money. We can’t raise money knowing our plan is wrong.”. asked the founder who had spent the time crafting the perfect plan. “On

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From Nothing To Something. How To Get There.

techcrunch.com

One of the things I do as a founder of a later stage startup is to meet with early stage entrepreneurs to help them get their companies going. In later posts I’m going to get into more detail on specific topics like hiring, raising money, what types of ideas have the potential to get big, finding your founders, and the like.

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Where to Get Feedback on Your Business Pitch

Up and Running

Drawing on advice from our own Tim Berry, founder of Palo Alto Software and Josh Cochrane, our VP of Product Development, I’ve broken down a few of the different options for entrepreneurs looking for feedback on their pitch. The three who agreed to do it had some semblance of a relationship with the founders beforehand.