Back in 1999 when I first raised venture capital I had zero knowledge of what a fair term sheet looked like or how to value my company. Due to competitive markets we ended up with a pretty good term sheet until we needed to raise money in April 2001 and then we got completely screwed. Those were the dog days of entrepreneurship. turned them down. MORE >>

I was emailing with a friend of mine yesterday who is a 30 year veteran of silicon valley. He'd written a post that was quite positive about the iPad. sent him my post which wasn't so positive. We had a good discussion. Which ended with my friend making this point: iPad’s fate depends on entrepreneurs inventing new kinds of killer apps. MORE >>

I just reviewed several hundred startup pitches for Capital Factory. Most were on paper and video; 20 were invited to pitch in person. Interesting patterns emerged: Everyone makes the same classes of error. Those who avoided just one of those errors stood out in the crowd. You're probably making a lot of these errors too. Not that I blame you! MORE >>

As a user, how often have you thought “I wish this web service was faster.&#  As a CEO, how often have you said “just make it faster.&#  Or, more simply, “why is this damn thing so slow?&#. This is a not a new question. This turns out to be especially valuable for performance & optimization work.&#. We had one big problem. MORE >>

Most entrepreneurs don't do it for the financial reward alone, but it's generally a primary goal in the life cycle. And yet I think many entrepreneurs, especially first-timers, don't pay close enough attention to the impact various decisions have on their personal financial outcomes. First and foremost, there are co-founders. In fact, I just did. MORE >>