Startup Professionals Musings

APRIL 13, 2020

Focus on operational processes, rather than innovative new ones. If you are a typical startup operation, consisting of an unpaid founder and co-founder, both working part-time, outsourcing is not likely the solution to your resource constraints. Overall, I believe the utility for outsourcing is going up, rather than going away.

Intellectual Property 306

Intellectual Property Non-disclosure Agreement Software Review Technical Review 306

Startup Professionals Musings

OCTOBER 30, 2020

Minimize permanent hiring and customized operational facilities. In this age of the gig-economy, you can more quickly hire and manage freelancers, contract workers, and contract operations. Facilitate rapid growth through contracted resources. Take advantage of low-cost modern tools and automation.

Merger 386

Merger Acquisition Software Review Social Media 386

Startup Professionals Musings

OCTOBER 10, 2021

The bad news is that they are not a good test of basic usability and ease of operation, which are always a key to the much larger market of regular customers. The good news is that early adopters are never reluctant to sign up as beta customers and will provide you early feedback on product quality.

Technical Review 294

Technical Review Product Customer Restful 294

Startup Professionals Musings

DECEMBER 13, 2019

As the business operation and the team grows, regular and effective communication from key personnel is critical. We all know that small businesses mush operate without a cushion, so unrecognized waste can easily lead to death. You may be the main problem, insisting on making every decision, and hiring cheap helpers rather than help.

Technical Review 306

Technical Review Metrics Social Media Channel 306

Startup Professionals Musings

FEBRUARY 10, 2023

Reverse due diligence on the investor is a comparable process whereby the entrepreneur seeks to validate the track record, operating style, and motivation of every potential partner.

Technical Review 345

Technical Review Due Diligence Term Sheet Offshore 345

Startup Professionals Musings

MAY 26, 2023

Often products that introduce disruptive new technologies, such as electric vehicles or healthcare solutions, are dependent on supportive infrastructures, operational regulations, or insurance approvals before benefits can be realized. Customers need supporting approvals to fully benefit.

Product 354

Product Technical Review Artificial Inteligence Dividend 354

Startup Professionals Musings

MARCH 22, 2021

These can reinforce the operational and financial linkages through licensing or alliance agreements, and allow the relationship to develop prior to an acquisition commitment. Budget relatively small “educational investments” at early stages, to learn from a target firm without a full commitment, or without leading either partner astray.

CTO Hire 330

CTO Hire Fractional CTO Merger Non-Compete 330

Startup Professionals Musings

AUGUST 7, 2020

Connect operations today with long-term goals. Overtly connect every operational problem to your strategy, rather than putting strategy on a different plane and making it only an annual event. In my experience, even in startups, longer-term strategy often gets pushed off the agenda due to current challenges.

Technical Review 312

Technical Review Due Diligence Merger Social Media 312

Startup Professionals Musings

SEPTEMBER 20, 2023

Some innovations are clearly implementations of visionary ideas, but anyone at the operational level can think outside the box, individually or as a team, to suggest and implement innovations. Many product innovations come from quality improvement focuses, like the Japanese Kaizen initiative.

Technical Review 235

Technical Review Leadership Operations Networking 235

Startup Professionals Musings

SEPTEMBER 29, 2018

Waiting until you have something to sell before bringing on a sales and operations staff. For example, a software development startup raising $250,000 from angel investors better be able to operate on $25,000 per month. Social media is not rocket science. The timing of cash flow is everything.

Burn Rate 223

Burn Rate Hockey Stick Startup Salary 223

Startup Professionals Musings

JULY 15, 2019

Very few entrepreneurs have the range of skills and experience to be the solution creator as well as business creator, or operational as well as sales leader. Operate with a comparable level of integrity. As a long-time business advisor and angel investor, I’m a believer that “two heads are better than one” in building a new business.

Cofounder 221

Cofounder Software Review CTO Hire Founder 221

Startup Professionals Musings

DECEMBER 24, 2018

Based on my experience, creating a new business is at least as difficult as creating an innovative solution, and it takes a knowledge of finance, operations, customers and the marketplace. Building and running a business is not a solo operation. Plan to and assemble the right team, including co-founders.

Angel Investor 249

Angel Investor Cofounder Finance Operations 249

Startup Professionals Musings

JUNE 11, 2022

A nonprofit is still a business, maybe even tougher than for-profit to run successfully, so the best angel is a great entrepreneur at the helm for fund-raising, as well as operations. In addition, the best nonprofits turn out to be the angel, rather than require one. That’s a higher calling. Marty Zwilling.

Angel Investor 327

Angel Investor Equity Technical Review Exit Strategy 327

Startup Professionals Musings

JANUARY 3, 2021

Some innovations are clearly implementations of visionary ideas, but anyone at the operational level can think outside the box, individually or as a team, to suggest and implement innovations. Many product innovations come from quality improvement focuses, like the Japanese Kaizen initiative.

Technical Review 431

Technical Review Leadership Operations Networking 431

Startup Professionals Musings

FEBRUARY 12, 2023

Even non-profits need a profitable business model to offset staff and operating costs. Don’t get caught in the myth that you shouldn’t worry about monetization until after you have a large customer base. Viral marketing costs real money, and your support staff and hosting systems cost even more. Not every great idea is a viable business.

Intellectual Property 312

Intellectual Property Startup Angel Investor Viral 312

Startup Professionals Musings

DECEMBER 5, 2021

Some startups not only ignore this and don’t budget for it, but they actually plan on the free viral marketing to generate enough revenue from click-through advertising to fund operations and future growth. That’s a double death wish.

Viral 348

Viral Marketing SEM Campaign 348

Startup Professionals Musings

AUGUST 1, 2021

In his classic book on building a business, “ Traction: Get a Grip on Your Business ,” Gino Wickman, a similar experienced business consultant and developer of the Entrepreneurial Operating System (EOS), outlines five common frustrations that we both hear from entrepreneurs, as follows: You are the boss, but you don’t have control.

Entrepreneur 436

Entrepreneur Venture Capital Operations Social Media 436

Startup Professionals Musings

NOVEMBER 4, 2022

The operations superstar. Outside professionals are always available, but they may have their own agenda, such as building a career, making money quickly, or managing up the stock price for a quick exit. If one of your cofounders has the necessary skills, your team will make the tradeoffs.

Technical Cofounder 309

Technical Cofounder Cofounder Advisory Board Startup 309

Startup Professionals Musings

DECEMBER 30, 2020

You also need the required skills for leadership, planning, operations, and growth, many of which are best acquired from business experience, rather than academia. Having an innovative solution is a necessary, but not sufficient, condition for starting and succeeding in business.

Intellectual Property 432

Intellectual Property Entrepreneur Technical Review Angel Investor 432

Startup Professionals Musings

AUGUST 8, 2018

Strategic decisions set the overall direction for your business, whereas operational decisions set day-to-day operations. It’s a bit late when strategy becomes operational. Working on the business should not be done in the same ad-hoc crisis style as operational decisions. Where are you on this split?

Metrics 129

Metrics Technical Review Operations Distribution 129

Startup Professionals Musings

SEPTEMBER 10, 2018

Co-founders only able to work part-time, with responsibility and major income sources elsewhere, don’t carry the same risk as others with more operational responsibility. The challenge is for real co-founders to keep their equity percentage above 50%, or they effectively lose control of operational decisions.

Equity 238

Equity Cofounder Technical Cofounder Intellectual Property 238

Startup Professionals Musings

FEBRUARY 8, 2021

What you learn will apply to employees. Key advisors may be your first “team” to manage, but their value is multiplied as you apply what you have learned, with their guidance, to the larger teams you need to operationally grow the business. People management is key to every business success. Advisory members are Board of Directors candidates.

Advisory Board 356

Advisory Board Bandwidth Cofounder Technical Review 356

Startup Professionals Musings

JUNE 28, 2021

I predict that angel investors, who are generally early adopters, will actually be quick to adapt to the new requirements and online systems, and will operate side by side with the new influx of non-accredited investors. Here again, the entrepreneur will be the one hurt most, by having fewer funding sources to access.

Angel Investor 361

Angel Investor Accredited Investor IRR Angel Groups 361

Startup Professionals Musings

OCTOBER 5, 2014

Waiting until you have something to sell before bringing on a sales and operations staff. For example, a software development startup raising $250,000 from angel investors better be able to operate on $25,000 per month. Social media is not rocket science. The timing of cashflow is everything.

Burn Rate 262

Burn Rate Hockey Stick Entrepreneur Salary 262

Startup Professionals Musings

MAY 17, 2020

Even non-profits need a profitable business model to offset staff and operating costs. Don’t get caught in the myth that you shouldn’t worry about monetization until after you have a large customer base. Viral marketing costs real money, and your support staff and hosting systems cost even more. Not every great idea is a viable business.

Intellectual Property 436

Intellectual Property Angel Investor Viral Distribution 436

Startup Professionals Musings

JULY 29, 2019

The solution is to always be hiring and developing people, including diversity of thought, background, and operating style. Trying to operate with too much or not enough process. The reality is that bad hires are a huge constraint to growth, and they are expensive and time consuming to fix.

Leadership 217

Leadership Analytics Hiring Operations 217

Startup Professionals Musings

NOVEMBER 10, 2018

The bad news is that they are not a good test of basic usability and ease of operation, which are always a key to the much larger market of regular customers. The good news is that early adopters are never reluctant to sign up as beta customers and will provide you early feedback on product quality.

Technical Review 240

Technical Review Restful Engineer Technology 240

Startup Professionals Musings

AUGUST 8, 2022

Creativity and innovation are fragile business elements, and they can be easily starved, smothered, and trampled by the larger daily operational demands and old ways of doing things. It is better to put new products or services into a new or special department, sometimes known as an innovation incubator, to get the focus they require.

Stock Options 277

Stock Options Incubator Framework Stock 277

Startup Professionals Musings

MARCH 18, 2023

Balance here comes again from the operational expert, who is very good at leading, managing, and holding people accountable. Even communicating the vision itself can be quite a challenge, since it’s so crystal clear in their head that they can’t imagine having to repeat or clarify for others.

Partner 206

Partner Cofounder Startup Bandwidth 206

Startup Professionals Musings

JULY 17, 2019

Too many business owners I know push these efforts to the bottom of their priority list, in favor of the operational crisis of the moment, or until they feel gaping holes in their team. Yet I’m convinced that we are operating at an exciting time, standing on the edge of new and exciting opportunities.

Technical Review 218

Technical Review Revenue Analytics Metrics 218

Startup Professionals Musings

MAY 11, 2020

Reverse due diligence on the investor is a comparable process whereby the entrepreneur seeks to validate the track record, operating style, and motivation of every potential partner.

Technical Review 310

Technical Review Due Diligence Term Sheet Offshore 310

Startup Professionals Musings

AUGUST 31, 2019

In addition, huge amounts of executive time are required, as well as hits to key operational, accounting, and communication processes. Startups are typically run by a couple of executives who are reluctant to disclose via the prospectus and SEC reports all the decision-making criteria, operational financial details, and compensation formulas.

IPO 210

IPO SEC Prospectus Startup 210

Startup Professionals Musings

JULY 26, 2020

Before you forge ahead to an IPO, I recommend a thorough readiness assessment, to quantify the need, as well as to identify potential gaps within processes, areas needing internal controls, and positions requiring enhanced technical accounting skills to operate as a publicly-traded company.

Cost 319

Cost IPO Exit Strategy Initial Public Offering 319

Startup Professionals Musings

JULY 11, 2012

Creative or operational. Operational products, like process automation or reservation systems, may be large but mundane, and more easily outsourced. Operational products, like process automation or reservation systems, may be large but mundane, and more easily outsourced.

Intellectual Property 222

Intellectual Property Non-disclosure Agreement Non-Compete Vietnam 222

Startup Professionals Musings

APRIL 15, 2022

The inherent conflicts between innovation and ongoing operations are simply too fundamental and too powerful for one person to tackle alone. What you want is integration with real world operations, not an undisciplined and chaotic mess. The first principle is to do no harm to existing operations. Everyone can be an innovator.

Bandwidth 338

Bandwidth Operations Entrepreneur Startup 338

Startup Professionals Musings

AUGUST 8, 2014

Focus on operational processes, rather than innovative new ones. If you are a typical startup operation, consisting of an unpaid founder and co-founder, both working part-time, outsourcing is not likely the solution to your resource constraints. Overall, I believe the utility for outsourcing is going up, rather than going away.

Intellectual Property 238

Intellectual Property Non-disclosure Agreement Software Review Offshore 238

Startup Professionals Musings

AUGUST 25, 2018

Technical entrepreneurs need to surround themselves with people who have the financial, marketing, and operational experience in managing a business. A local pilot is a necessary move to test your manufacturing, operational, and marketing assumptions. Build a quality team to complement your own skills.

Technical Cofounder 184

Technical Cofounder Intellectual Property Silicon Valley LLC 184