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7 Attributes of An Entrepreneur's Startup Dream Team

Startup Professionals Musings

In my angel investor mode, I often find myself flipping to the “management” section of a business plan, even before I read the solution description and opportunity. It starts with having a vision and an ability to get the message across in your elevator pitch, in a written business plan and one-on-one with potential investors.

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6 Stories of Successful New Entrepreneurs to Inspire Your Business

Up and Running

After getting the loan, the business was able to weather 20 years of intense and growing competition from the internet, the elimination of airline commissions to travel agencies, and a lengthy economic recession to achieve over $240 million in revenues in 2010, a company record. In 2001, they secured their second SBA loan for the business.

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Is the Lean Startup Dead?

Steve Blank

Startups wrote business plans, generated expansive 5-year forecasts and executed (hired, spent and built) to the plan. It helped that in the nuclear winter that followed the crash, 2001 – 2004, startups and VCs were extremely risk averse and amenable to new ideas that reduced risk.

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The Care And Feeding Of A Startup

YoungUpstarts

What makes the difference between an ordinary service business and a startup is how fast the startup grows into a big company. When Johnny Earle, the founder of Johnny Cupcakes, started in 2001, he didn’t make baked goods; he sold t-shirts about baked goods! Build a good business plan. million after five years.

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How to Get the Most Out of a Sample Business Plan

Up and Running

The basic idea of a sample business plan makes perfect sense. If you haven’t done a business plan before, a sample plan gives you an instant idea of what you should include, how to structure it, and even what to write. Here’s how to get the most of any sample business plan.

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Venture Capital Q&A Session

Both Sides of the Table

The A round was done in February 2000 (end of the bull market) and my B round was done in April 2001 (bear market). I explain in the video what happened in my first company (e.g. on the entrepreneur side of the table) when I raised at too high of a price. I eventually needed more money. As a result I had to do a down round.

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Retro: My Favorite Blog Post on Raising VC

Both Sides of the Table

I had previously raised VC in 1999, 2000, 2001 and 2005. We have also been very busy with our next release, which is due out by December 11th (but I’ll save that for a different post). I am very grateful to my friend Zoli Erdos for finding this retro posting for me at web.archive.org.