Startup Professionals Musings

JUNE 29, 2011

A while back I talked about how and where to find a co-founder in “ Ten Steps in Choosing the Right Startup Partner ”. The feedback was good, but some readers asked me to be a bit more specific on attributes that might indicate an ideal startup partner. You may be too independent to be partner material. Compatible work styles.

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Partner Software Review CTO Hire Fractional CTO 240

Startup Professionals Musings

MAY 24, 2010

The feedback was good, but some readers asked me to be a bit more specific on attributes that might indicate an ideal business partner. In this article, I’m broadening the definition of partner from co-founder to “business partner.” You may be too independent to be partner material. Does not need to be managed.

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Partner Software Review CTO Hire Fractional CTO 230

Startup Professionals Musings

MAY 11, 2011

The simple answer is to find a business partner, not an “implementer,” who already has the technical experience you need, and is willing and able to run that side of the business. If you are an entrepreneur, like Andrew Mason , CEO of Groupon, with a degree in music and no technical business partner to be found, your job is a bit harder.

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Startup Professionals Musings

NOVEMBER 9, 2022

The new paradigm, driven by disruptive technologies, cloud-served supercomputing, and the new generation of young adults with global empathy, is partnering and giving something now for a competitive advantage in the future. Find partners who can do what you cannot do alone. This is the new world of do-it-yourself (DIY) prototyping.

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Startup Professionals Musings

JULY 31, 2012

The simple answer is to find a business partner, not an “implementer,” who already has the technical experience you need, and is willing and able to run that side of the business. If you are an entrepreneur, like Andrew Mason , CEO of Groupon, with a degree in music and no technical business partner to be found, your job is a bit harder.

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Technical Review Technology Founder Management 230

Startup Professionals Musings

APRIL 26, 2014

Every person, no matter what their passion, needs to revisit the principles of time management from time to time. Effective time management skills are often the best competitive edge. will never be a valid entrepreneur excuse for any business partner, customer, or investor. Seize opportunities in the marketplace. Marty Zwilling.

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Management Entrepreneur Technical Review Social Media 263

Startup Professionals Musings

FEBRUARY 15, 2021

This approach has been used for years, and implies very little risk, but many startups are still “too busy” to pursuing possible partners. They also manage internal venture funds that may be your growth lifeline. Think about your core values and priorities, and look only at potential partners who have the same culture.

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Startup Professionals Musings

OCTOBER 14, 2022

Investors, partners, team members, and customers implicitly value or devalue a startup based on the leader’s physical presence, emotional identity, social skills, intellectual agility, moral values, and past performance in the domain. Good performance management is more about rewarding desirable behavior than penalizing bad performance.

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Startup Professionals Musings

JULY 20, 2015

As an advisor to startups, I often get asked what to look for in an ideal co-founder or business partner. After some reflection, I now realize these attributes are necessary but not sufficient to be an ideal business partner. This means every entrepreneur needs partners who are smarter than they are in complementary domains.

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Startup Professionals Musings

MAY 4, 2011

Your goal is “ coopetition ” - to find a way to partner with your competitor in such a way that both parties can substantially benefit from the other's resources - without stealing customers or damaging anyone's credibility. But remember that “dancing with the wolves” can also get you eaten for lunch.

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Startup Professionals Musings

FEBRUARY 14, 2020

The new paradigm, driven by disruptive technologies, cloud-served supercomputing, and the new generation of young adults with global empathy, is partnering and giving something now for a competitive advantage in the future. Find partners who can do what you cannot do alone. This is the new world of do-it-yourself (DIY) prototyping.

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Partner Intellectual Property Silicon Valley Startup 310

Startup Professionals Musings

MARCH 22, 2021

Add basic partner contracts or alliances. Using contracts with partners for growth resources (“borrowing”) is best when you can both define the resources clearly and protect them with effective contractual terms. Too much reliance on growth via contracts and alliances makes you vulnerable to partners’ actions and conflicts of interest.

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Startup Professionals Musings

JULY 15, 2019

The challenge is to recognize and recruit that ideal partner match early with minimal cost and risk. In fact, I would broaden the definition of partner from co-founder to “business partner.” The reason is that good attributes apply equally well to “external” partners, as they do to internal partners, like a co-founder or CTO.

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Startup Professionals Musings

JANUARY 25, 2023

As a business consultant, I can get you started in this transformation, but I was pleased to see more detailed guidance, including things to watch out for, in a recent book, “ The Ecosystem Economy ,” by Venkat Atluri and Miklos Dietz, both senior partners at McKinsey & Company with much experience.

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Startup Professionals Musings

OCTOBER 16, 2022

Every young entrepreneur needs an experienced partner for credibility with investors, and as a trusted cohort for strategy and growth discussions. Manage customer service. Personnel Manager. Supportive co-founder and executive positions. All the learning from parenting pays big dividends here.

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Startup Professionals Musings

NOVEMBER 30, 2022

Just like you can’t start a business alone, you can’t scale the business without external partners with expertise and access to specific customer sets, channels, manufacturing, and support. Managing people and results require the ability to track progress and reward the right people. Managing time and priorities for maximum impact.

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Startup Professionals Musings

AUGUST 24, 2022

Leaders and investors need to know if you have and are tapping into your key sources of relevant data, including web analytics, sales management data, and customer relationship management (CRM) software. We want to make sure you can break down the silos and manage to results. Outside partners and channel impacts are complex.

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Startup Professionals Musings

MAY 9, 2021

Jan Yager, in her classic book, “ Work Less, Do More ” talks about procrastination as a primary obstacle to efficient time management. For example, as soon as you complete your financial projections, you can call your business partner to skip out for that round of golf he keeps mentioning. Try creative procrastination.

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Startup Professionals Musings

MARCH 21, 2021

For entrepreneurs, effective networking is required to find investors, partners, and customers. Time management. They are too busy with the “crisis of the moment” to focus on follow-ups that may save a major customer, close a partner deal, or solidify a process that isn’t working well. Here are a few: Business networking.

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Startup Professionals Musings

OCTOBER 6, 2023

For the elite startups and entrepreneurs who manage to attract the investor they dream of, and survive the term sheet negotiation, there is still one more hurdle before the money is in the bank. Visit reference customers, partners, and vendors. This is the mysterious and dreaded due diligence process, which can kill the whole deal.

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Technical Review Due Diligence Term Sheet Bankruptcy 296

Startup Professionals Musings

OCTOBER 7, 2015

Every person, no matter what their passion, needs to revisit the principles of time management from time to time. Effective time management skills are often the best competitive edge. will never be a valid entrepreneur excuse for any business partner, customer, or investor. Seize opportunities in the marketplace.

Management 120

Management Technical Review Social Media Email 120

Startup Professionals Musings

JANUARY 15, 2020

Investors, partners, team members, and customers implicitly value or devalue a startup based on the leader’s physical presence, emotional identity, social skills, intellectual agility, moral values, and past performance in the domain. Good performance management is more about rewarding desirable behavior than penalizing bad performance.

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Valuation Technical Review Due Diligence Leadership 311

Startup Professionals Musings

SEPTEMBER 16, 2023

Investors and partners now look only for a framework of your business essentials, within the context of your opportunity, solution, and financials. Before you bring on partners, develop intellectual property, raise capital, or generate revenues, you need to establish an official business entity.

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Startup Professionals Musings

NOVEMBER 4, 2022

He gives a wealth of practical advice on building a successful technical startup, including some specifics that I like on what constitutes a dream team of partners: The technical guru. The rest can come from early hires (with stock options to assure commitment), equity investors, or even strategic partners. The operations superstar.

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Startup Professionals Musings

JANUARY 25, 2021

A successful entrepreneur must be accountable for all commitments, and manage expectations to make this possible. Either of these approaches always make a difficult situation worse, often leading to guilt or a later accommodation. Requestors are then less likely to be left with the impression that your rejection is a personal affront.

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Startup Professionals Musings

JUNE 17, 2020

Let’s take a hard look at the key potential weaknesses of a visionary, and the value of an execution-oriented partner, which the authors call an integrator : Staying focused and following through. Don’t manage details and hold people accountable. Visionaries tend to get bored easily.

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Startup Professionals Musings

NOVEMBER 2, 2022

Many risks can be managed or calculated to improve growth or provide a competitive edge, while others, like skipping quality checks to save money, are recipes for failure. The challenge is to avoid the bad risks, while actively seeking and managing the smart risks. Risk is more manageable with subscriptions and even freemium pricing.

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Startup Professionals Musings

MAY 7, 2022

Trying to be a business leader by instilling fear in your employees and partners is never a good approach, but it is particularly devastating in a startup.

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Startup Professionals Musings

JUNE 12, 2023

After digging deeper, I find that most of these cases are not intentional , and the guilty may not even be aware of bad habits which are hurting their image and antagonizing management and customers. Learn to delegate or partner with others, and work on being comfortable with feedback that may feel like criticism for being less than perfect.

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Social Media Media Email Management 274

Startup Professionals Musings

DECEMBER 30, 2022

If you can’t measure it, you can’t manage it. Your challenge will be to break down silos, manage diverse and inclusive perspectives, and capitalize on cross-functional insights. In addition to spreading the word internally, you need to create a dialogue externally with partners and customers.

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Technical Review Silicon Valley Software Review Metrics 252

Startup Professionals Musings

AUGUST 26, 2019

In reality, it is important to know the basics of all roles, but it’s counterproductive to try to be an expert or attempt to micro-manage every task. Partner with experts who share the risk. Most business partners I know take little or no salary in the early years. Business success is all about having a winning idea.

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Bandwidth Software Review Salary Angel Investor 246

Startup Professionals Musings

NOVEMBER 28, 2020

Investors and partners now look only for a framework of your business essentials, within the context of your opportunity, solution, and financials. Before you bring on partners, develop intellectual property, raise capital, or generate revenues, you need to establish an official business entity.

Intellectual Property 404

Intellectual Property Startup Angel Groups Social Media 404

Startup Professionals Musings

JANUARY 24, 2021

For the elite startups and entrepreneurs who manage to attract the investor they dream of, and survive the term sheet negotiation, there is still one more hurdle before the money is in the bank. Visit reference customers, partners, and vendors. This is the mysterious and dreaded due diligence process, which can kill the whole deal.

Technical Review 379

Technical Review Due Diligence Term Sheet Bankruptcy 379

Startup Professionals Musings

JANUARY 18, 2020

Every young entrepreneur needs an experienced partner for credibility with investors, and as a trusted cohort for strategy and growth discussions. Manage customer service. Personnel Manager. Supportive co-founder and executive positions. All the learning from parenting pays big dividends here.

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Advisory Board Startup Dividend Angel Investor 312

Startup Professionals Musings

AUGUST 16, 2014

Should they go after high-tech nerds for partners, or professional technologists? The right answer for a good business partner today is neither of the above. Startups succeed most often when the founding partners know how to build and run a business, rather than how to build and run technology. Are you there?

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Startup Professionals Musings

FEBRUARY 3, 2023

When McDonald’s was still a small company, Ray Kroc, the CEO, had a penchant for asking a store manager to help him clean up trash in their parking lot. Under the stresses of a startup, visible leadership cues can make the difference between success and failure. Instill optimism and self-confidence, but stay grounded in reality.

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Startup Professionals Musings

SEPTEMBER 22, 2023

Chip Bell and Ron Zemke, who are experts in this area, provide some of the best specific insights I’ve seen, in the classic book “ Managing Knock Your Socks Off Service.” How they see you deal with and talk about peers, partners, team members, and customers tells them what the real rules of conduct are for customer service.

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