Steve Blank

JANUARY 17, 2023

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. I pointed out that there were.

Technical Cofounder 346

Technical Cofounder Intellectual Property Technical Review Incubator 346

TechEmpower

AUGUST 14, 2023

Startup founders make decisions on a daily basis – significant decisions that will have lasting impact on their business. CTO Founder – Do they really still need a technical advisor? No good innovator turns down advice! Why do this without the right technical advisor? Would you create contracts without an attorney?

Technical Review 260

Technical Review CTO Hire Fractional CTO Software Review 260

SoCal CTO

APRIL 2, 2012

Using my StartupRoar as a radar, I came across a great post by Gabriel Weinberg Do you really need a full-time hire for that? Hiring seems to be the preferred use of seed funds (by investors and founders), whereas I'd prefer a focus on customer acquisition. In other words, they come in asking for help with sourcing and hiring.

CTO Hire 205

CTO Hire Technical Cofounder Fractional CTO Los Angeles 205

Startup Professionals Musings

OCTOBER 16, 2022

In addition to being the startup entrepreneur, there are other key roles where Boomers can be a force in driving successful startups, in concert with leaders from Gen-X and Gen-Y: Early-stage angel investors. Supportive co-founder and executive positions. Member of the Advisory Board. Manage customer service. Personnel Manager.

Advisory Board 368

Advisory Board Dividend Angel Investor Cofounder 368

VC Cafe

MAY 17, 2023

But it’s worth it in the end because once you get there, you can move mountains” Steve Jobs (from Chapter 8) I got to meet Uri Levine, the founder of Waze and Moovit, through his involvement in the Zell Entrepreneurship program at Reichman University. It starts from how founders pitch their startups.

Founder 103

Founder Cofounder Technical Review Angel Investor 103

Hunter Walker

AUGUST 11, 2022

In addition to our dollars, we are eager to help founders with the construction of their cap table, not just generically with the highest profile folks available, but more specifically where they might get some help along the way. What expertise do the founders personally have? Founders Often Don’t Come From These Backgrounds….

Seed Stage 102

Seed Stage Cap Table Founder Marketing 102

Steve Blank

OCTOBER 23, 2023

At first many start-ups hire a lobbying firm. Larger companies hiring a Chief of Staff often look for someone who has an MBA, experience with one of the big consulting firms, or experience doing the job already. They can vote to hire and fire the CEO. A Board of Directors has a formal and legal role.

Government 212

Government Advisory Board Salary Sales Cycle 212

Startup Professionals Musings

OCTOBER 14, 2022

For early-stage startups, the goodwill component can easily exceed the size of all the financial elements together, or can just as easily mark a company with good financials as not investable. For startups, the entrepreneur and founder is almost always the face of the company. Focus on talent and people growth.

Technical Review 323

Technical Review Due Diligence Valuation Leadership 323

View from Seed

MARCH 29, 2016

Ask a founder of a growing startup what they need most, and you’ll often get an answer along the lines of, “We need great people, and we need them fast.”. Founders need to make sure the quality of the startup’s offerings remains high and provide adequate sales and service support for prospective customers and new users.

Metrics 120

Metrics Founder CTO Hire Technical Review 120

Startup Professionals Musings

MAY 22, 2020

Every startup founder loves to prompt for questions from investors and potential key team members about their vision, and the huge opportunity that can be had with their disruptive technology. Early stage burn rates over $50K per month, or a runway of less than six months may indicate an inefficient or desperate startup.

Technical Review 436

Technical Review Due Diligence Sweat Equity Burn Rate 436

Startup Professionals Musings

FEBRUARY 18, 2023

Every startup founder loves to prompt for questions from investors and potential key team members about their vision, and the huge opportunity that can be had with their disruptive technology. Early stage burn rates over $50K per month, or a runway of less than six months may indicate an inefficient or desperate startup.

Sweat Equity 207

Sweat Equity Burn Rate Technical Review Intellectual Property 207

SoCal CTO

MAY 27, 2010

I was just interviewed by Frank Peters - Tony Karrer and the Founder-Developer Gap. And I always recommend it to people involved in early stage startups. I received a follow-up question from an early-stage startup about the Founder Developer Gap that I’ve described before and that was part of the interview with Frank.

CTO Hire 170

CTO Hire Developer Founder Startup 170

Both Sides of the Table

OCTOBER 12, 2010

Even if you don’t have “direct&# sales I would tell you that “everything is a sale&# including fund raising, hiring, getting press and doing business development. One of the biggest mistakes I see early-stage startups making is hiring “seasoned&# sales professionals or hiring people too senior, too early.

Hiring 346

Hiring Sales Startup Early Stage 346

OnlyOnce

DECEMBER 8, 2021

I just did a podcast recording the other day for someone who asked me the biggest mistakes founders make and what to do about them. I divided my response into “early stage” and “later stage” founders. Here’s a summary of what I said about early stage founders.

Early Stage 62

Early Stage Founder Later Stage B2C 62

The Startup Magazine

JUNE 1, 2023

By Daniel Sokolovksy, Co-Founder and CEO, WARP and Troy Lester, Co-Founder and CRO, WARP The dissolution of Silicon Valley Bank (SVB) was more than just a bank collapse, it was a reality check for both startups and the VCs that fund them. As an early-stage company that just closed our seed round at $8.1 That includes us.

Early Stage 112

Early Stage Los Angeles Silicon Valley Cofounder 112

Austin Startup

NOVEMBER 29, 2017

It follows up on my posts discussing why early stage startups should — or should not — move to Silicon Valley. Should Early Stage Startups Move to Austin because of Customers? Early adopters, especially those who are willing to pay for novel services, are the lifeblood of lean startups.

Early Stage 54

Early Stage Austin Silicon Valley San Antonio 54

Startup Professionals Musings

JANUARY 18, 2020

In addition to being the startup entrepreneur, there are other key roles where Boomers can be a force in driving successful startups, in concert with leaders from Gen-X and Gen-Y: Early-stage angel investors. Supportive co-founder and executive positions. Member of the Advisory Board. Manage customer service. Personnel Manager.

Advisory Board 312

Advisory Board Startup Dividend Angel Investor 312

Both Sides of the Table

FEBRUARY 6, 2013

I am fond of quoting that about 70% of my investment decision of an early-stage company is the team. Quick summary: Be careful not to have too many co-founders. I don’t think VCs care as much about co-founders & economics as people think. Don’t hire a homogenous team. For the wrong reasons.

Cofounder 388

Cofounder Early Stage Startup Silicon Valley 388

Up and Running

OCTOBER 1, 2019

It might seem easier to put off thinking about your first essential new hires. Try to do it all and you’ll spend a lot of time learning new skills (that you’ll eventually hire for) when you should be focusing on growing your business. Hire someone who understands Generation Z (or your target demographic). A marketing maven.

Hiring 77

Hiring Technical Review Small Business Forecast 77

The Startup Magazine

DECEMBER 13, 2018

As part of The Startup Magazine Female Founder Series, we interviewed Ms. As you have a history of building early stage companies, what is the most important thing you tell startup founders? I suggest companies put systems and procedures in place as early as possible. Gabriela Rodil. Quality control?

Technical Review 84

Technical Review Founder Due Diligence Early Stage 84

View from Seed

JANUARY 5, 2016

At the beginning, a startup team is typically just a couple of co-founders. What we suggest at this juncture is that founders get acclimated to the tactics of scaling beyond the founding team. What to Address During Genesis Team Building: How do we divide and conquer responsibilities as co-founders? Below, I take a look at each.

Founder 120

Founder Cofounder Startup Early Stage 120

View from Seed

JULY 5, 2022

Founder: Connor Cash. Get to know the founder. I’m Connor Cash, the founder of Caesar and I grew up outside of Boston but currently live in DC! RH: What’s your favorite thing about being an early-stage founder? CC: Being a founder is a rollercoaster ride. . Company: Caesar Sustainability.

DC 156

DC Software Review Government Boston 156

Startup Professionals Musings

JANUARY 15, 2020

For early-stage startups, the goodwill component can easily exceed the size of all the financial elements together, or can just as easily mark a company with good financials as not investable. For startups, the entrepreneur and founder is almost always the face of the company. Focus on talent and people growth.

Valuation 311

Valuation Technical Review Due Diligence Leadership 311

YoungUpstarts

AUGUST 31, 2020

by Roland Polzin , MBA and Co-founder of Wing AI. Personal assistants are often hired to prepare decisions and information for managers and take care of miscellaneous tasks for busy executives and CEOs — who all earn higher incomes. Computers are not yet actually smart.

Artificial Inteligence 214

Artificial Inteligence Mali Management Technical Review 214

Eric Friedman

JULY 19, 2019

Many early stage investors look for financial models for 3+ years from founders to make an investment. Like most posts, this request/conversation has come up enough to turn it into my thoughts + the best resources I have to help founders. In fact, for early stage companies you are usually wildly wrong.

Early Stage 114

Early Stage Startup Framework Revenue 114

Both Sides of the Table

JUNE 30, 2016

Amongst the most often asked questions I get from founders is, “How much money should I raise?” Reflexively founders want to raise as much money as they can because they figure it will give them more resources, better chances of competing and a longer runways before they have to do the often painful job of asking, yet again, for money.

Pre-Money Valuation 292

Pre-Money Valuation Valuation Early Stage Startup 292

Both Sides of the Table

JULY 22, 2010

Other founders, “as a privately held company we don’t disclose our valuation.&# Me, “dude, I’m not a journalist. Investors own 25%, the founders own 75%. You’ll need to hire and retain talen to grow your company. And for some strange reason entrepreneurs didn’t share this information.

Valuation 405

Valuation Liquidation Preference Pre-Money Valuation Term Sheet 405

The Startup Magazine

DECEMBER 13, 2018

As part of The Startup Magazine Female Founder Series, we interviewed Ms. As you have a history of building early stage companies, what is the most important thing you tell startup founders? I suggest companies put systems and procedures in place as early as possible. Gabriela Rodil. Quality control?

Technical Review 67

Technical Review Founder Due Diligence Early Stage 67

View from Seed

DECEMBER 17, 2015

I recently chatted with Saurya about how he approaches hiring engineers at Google and what founders can learn. We also talked about how he’d want to be interviewed if approached by a non-technical startup founder. (I’ve NV: What are some basics you’d recommend to anyone hiring an engineer?

Technical Review 120

Technical Review Engineer Software Review Founder 120

techcrunch.com

AUGUST 12, 2012

Zachary Bogue And Matt Ocko Launch Data Collective, An Early Stage Fund For Big Data Startups. Data Collective has already made 46 investments from its first fund, which it calls “comparable with other seed and early stage funds” (Ocko and Bogue wouldn’t reveal fund size.). Headphones. CrunchBase.

Early Stage 70

Early Stage San Francisco Los Angeles Southern California 70

Hunter Walker

MAY 13, 2023

Especially in the early days of mobile/iOS engineering, if you hired strong technical talent into your early stage company, you basically created an acquisition outcome floor. I was on both sides of these transactions – buying startups for Google/YouTube and angel investing in high quality technical founders.

Early Stage 117

Early Stage Cap Table Acquisition Sales 117

SoCal CTO

DECEMBER 10, 2012

I did a presentation recently for a graduate class from The Founder Institute around getting online/mobile products out the door. I LOVED it because, the presenting part was over quickly and we got into specific issues that the founders had in terms of getting things built. CTO Founder - Do they really still need a technical advisor?

Technical Review 332

Technical Review CTO Hire Fractional CTO Software Review 332

ReadWriteStart

AUGUST 28, 2012

But when it comes to core technical skills, more and more entrepreneurs are opting to partner with technical co-founders rather than hiring someone for an in-house position. I really believe that what’s most important for a founder is the ability to have a vision for the company, make sales and hire well.

Technical Review 131

Technical Review Cofounder Founder Software Review 131

YoungUpstarts

OCTOBER 28, 2020

by Pablo Listingart, Founder and Executive Director of ComIT. To begin again, to start anew, to have a fresh, blank slate — the corporate advantages of hiring entry level employees, strong professionals at their career beginnings, seem self-explanatory. And success depends on a well-developed, entry-level hiring protocol.

Hiring 264

Hiring Early Stage Non-Compete Salary 264

Steve Blank

NOVEMBER 7, 2023

It’s the antithesis of how founders want to build a business. And they are all very different from the business-to-consumer or business-to-business markets most founders and their investors are familiar with. Most early stage startups don’t have the regulatory domain expertise in-house. Get outside advice at each step.

Washington 271

Washington Government Marketing Silicon Valley 271

YoungUpstarts

JUNE 4, 2019

Most early stage startups tend to do well in this area because entrepreneurs generally launch their startups believing they have a great product idea. What does this mean for their early stage investors? Weak revenue architecture poses the greatest near-term risk of failure for most early stage startups.

Framework 127

Framework Architecture Cleveland Early Stage 127

SoCal CTO

NOVEMBER 14, 2012

I was just asked about a particular startup situation (seed stage, CMO hire, non-founder) and particularly what compensation and equity is appropriate. Seed Stage Compensation What are typical compensation numbers?

CTO Hire 329

CTO Hire Equity Seed Stage Option Pool 329