Startup Professionals Musings

DECEMBER 24, 2018

As a startup advisor and angel investor, I tend to focus on the much longer list of ways your startup can fail, based on my own experience and inside knowledge from peers who you will never see highlighted on the Internet. I find that most investors invest in the team, more often then they invest in an idea.

Angel Investor 249

Angel Investor Cofounder Finance Operations 249

Startup Professionals Musings

OCTOBER 5, 2014

Investors check your burn rate to assess your efficiency, and project your remaining runway before you run out of money and into a brick wall. Don’t wait until you are almost out of cash before managing every dollar spent, or looking for the next refueling from investors. Be a miser with contract services and facilities.

Burn Rate 262

Burn Rate Hockey Stick Entrepreneur Salary 262

Startup Professionals Musings

JANUARY 12, 2018

The problem is that professional investors (angels and venture capital) want a proven business model before they invest, ready to scale, rather than early projections and product development. Of course, we all realize that this approach will take longer, and could jeopardize both roles if not managed effectively.

Intellectual Property 134

Intellectual Property Technical Review Startup Incubator 134

Startup Professionals Musings

SEPTEMBER 14, 2016

Investors check your burn rate to assess your efficiency, and project your remaining runway before you run out of money and into a brick wall. Don’t wait until you are almost out of cash before managing every dollar spent, or looking for the next refueling from investors. Be a miser with contract services and facilities.

Burn Rate 120

Burn Rate Hockey Stick Startup Salary 120

Startup Professionals Musings

JULY 2, 2022

As an active angel investor, I still hear entrepreneurs asserting large opportunities with minimal risk and no competition. Great entrepreneurs have learned how to realistically assess and manage both sides of the coin in the following business opportunity and risk categories: Strategic. Operational.

Burn Rate 382

Burn Rate Angel Investor Operations Demand 382

YoungUpstarts

MARCH 13, 2017

Consider the marketing and product development required to walk through each step. By planning your finances and managing your budget accordingly, you may be able to carefully monitor and control spending to gain access to the necessary funds. Consider where you want your business to be in two, three and five years.

Small Business 157

Small Business Developer Social Media United States 157

Gust

APRIL 27, 2014

Think about the implications of each to your own business, and the potential impact of getting them done incorrectly, or forgetting to do them entirely: Manage your financials and physical assets. Product development process. Manage human resources. If you are contracting or outsourcing, this is even more important.

Startup 187

Startup Institutional Investors Angel Investor Bootstrapping 187

Startup Professionals Musings

MARCH 4, 2016

In fact, investors recognize that founders usually learn more from mistakes than from success, so a well-explained startup failure can improve their odds of funding the next time around. However, investors do expect you know the common pitfalls -- and not repeat them. Delegate cash-flow projections and transactions.

Intellectual Property 120

Intellectual Property Startup Forecast Angel Investor 120

Both Sides of the Table

MAY 27, 2013

He wrote a post this long weekend on how he manages the board of DataSift. Spend time building investor relationship long before you raise money. . In this period (less than 2 years) he has brought on incredibly talented senior execs is sales, marketing, product management, client services, finance, vp engineering and more.

Advisory Board 365

Advisory Board CTO Hire Fractional CTO Los Angeles 365

Berkonomics

AUGUST 10, 2017

There is a relationship between time and money that is more complex than most managers think. Since this number is budgeted and pre-authorized, managers tend to focus upon other things such as sales, marketing and product development issues.

Silicon Valley 97

Silicon Valley Burn Rate Angel Investor Down Round 97

The Startup Magazine

AUGUST 11, 2023

It is necessary to cover the early stages of product development, thorough market research, and other processes during the initial step. The management of a company, its established track record, the size of the market, and the level of risk all play a role in determining a company’s valuation.

Seed Stage 126

Seed Stage Technical Review Early Stage Due Diligence 126

View from Seed

MAY 11, 2016

The reasons are fairly obvious: It’s easy to reference them and understand their track record; they’ve made a ton of mistakes already that they have hopefully learned from and are unlikely to make again; they are probably more adept at raising and managing capital, which reduces financing risk down the road, etc.

Founder 159

Founder Cofounder CTO Hire Early Stage 159

Startup Professionals Musings

SEPTEMBER 30, 2019

As an active angel investor, I still hear entrepreneurs asserting large opportunities with minimal risk and no competition. Great entrepreneurs have learned how to realistically assess and manage both sides of the coin in the following business opportunity and risk categories: Strategic. Operational.

Entrepreneur 267

Entrepreneur Burn Rate Angel Investor Operations 267

Up and Running

JULY 6, 2016

On the other hand, as a writer, manager, and user of business plans as tools for steering a business, I believe you should discuss your technology in the plan for any business. Most business plans are intended to optimize management and allow business owners and management teams to better steer the business. They’ll thank you.

Technical Review 72

Technical Review Software Review Business Plan Development Team Review 72

Up and Running

MAY 12, 2015

Getting feedback on your pitch is a great idea; the more people evaluate your pitch before your investors see it, the more chances you have to catch any errors in reasoning, assumptions that are unclear to your audience, or things that just simply don’t make sense or flow well. See Also 5 Sure-fire Ways to Bomb Your Investor Pitch.

Angel Investor 60

Angel Investor Software Review Technical Cofounder Due Diligence 60

Steve Blank

MARCH 16, 2016

But startups require money upfront for product development and later to scale. Founders can now access the largest pool of risk capital that ever existed –in the form of Private Equity (Angel Investors, family offices , Venture Capitalists (VC’s) and Hedge Funds.). But there’s only one reason your company got funded.

Liquidity Event 120

Liquidity Event Founder Liquidation Preference Venture Capital 120

YoungUpstarts

JUNE 24, 2014

by Matthew Sawyer, Managing Partner of Rocket Market Development LLC. Over half of the college students in my management course at Parsons New School for Design plan to join startups or form their own companies. You can double that number if you add the amount of money put up by Angel Investors.

Startup 252

Startup Angel Investor Early Stage LLC 252

Feld Thoughts

NOVEMBER 18, 2013

There are two different cases, with shades of grey in between: (1) there are only a few investors or (2) it’s a “party” round, with $1M+ raised and many investors. This second kind of seed financing can be a double-edged sword for the entrepreneur and company if not very carefully managed.

Burn Rate 152

Burn Rate Equity Software Review Early Stage 152

Startup Professionals Musings

OCTOBER 22, 2017

As an active angel investor, I still hear entrepreneurs asserting large opportunities with minimal risk and no competition. Great entrepreneurs have learned how to realistically assess and manage both sides of the coin in the following business opportunity and risk categories: Strategic. Operational.

Burn Rate 170

Burn Rate Angel Investor Operations Demand 170

Transformify

JULY 13, 2019

Some people naturally have superb communication skills and are good at sales and marketing, others are inspired by numbers and good at managing budgets and convincing investors in what the potential ROI might be, others are great engineers. Lilia Stoyanov is CEO and angel investor at Transformify. About the author.

Hiring 66

Hiring Entrepreneur Startup Angel Investor 66

Startup Professionals Musings

MAY 4, 2014

Think about the implications of each to your own business, and the potential impact of getting them done incorrectly, or forgetting to do them entirely: Manage your financials and physical assets. Product development process. Manage human resources. If you are contracting or outsourcing, this is even more important.

Startup 268

Startup Institutional Investors Angel Investor Bootstrapping 268

Berkonomics

MARCH 30, 2010

There is a relationship between time and money that is more complex than most managers think. There is an art to efficient management of a process, whether that is the process of bringing a product to market from R&D to production or developing a new product’s launch program.

Silicon Valley 85

Silicon Valley Burn Rate Angel Investor Down Round 85

Startup Professionals Musings

JANUARY 17, 2014

As an active Angel investor, I still hear entrepreneurs asserting large opportunities with minimal risk or no competition. Great entrepreneurs have learned how to realistically assess and manage both sides of the coin in the following business opportunity and risk categories: Strategic. Operational.

Burn Rate 234

Burn Rate Angel Investor Entrepreneur Operations 234

Startup Lessons Learned

SEPTEMBER 15, 2008

The application of agile development methodologies which dramatically reduce waste and unlock creativity in product development. See Customer Development Engineering for my first stab at articulating the theory involved) Ferocious customer-centric rapid iteration, as exemplified by the Customer Development process.

Lean 168

Lean San Francisco Startup Continuous Deployment 168

crowdSPRING Blog

JULY 10, 2014

The surprising secret of happier, more productive organizations: conflict – crowdspring.co/1qscUpx. The Other 1% – Ranking The Top 20 Angel Investors | 500 Startups – crowdspring.co/1is3Iiw. The Importance of Hometown Investors for Startups – crowdspring.co/1z8kNTu. ” – crowdspring.co/1ls0X06.

Social Media 97

Social Media Small Business Design Silicon Valley 97

Startup Professionals Musings

JANUARY 31, 2013

Think about the implications of each to your own business, and the potential impact of getting them done incorrectly, or forgetting to do them entirely: Manage your financials and physical assets. Product development process. Manage human resources. If you are contracting or outsourcing, this is even more important.

Institutional Investors 230

Institutional Investors Angel Investor Bootstrapping Database 230

Startup Professionals Musings

SEPTEMBER 7, 2011

Think about the implications of each to your own business, and the potential impact of getting them done incorrectly, or forgetting to do them entirely: Manage your financials and physical assets. Product development process. Manage human resources. If you are contracting or outsourcing, this is even more important.

Startup 255

Startup Institutional Investors Angel Investor Bootstrapping 255

Startup Professionals Musings

MARCH 30, 2015

As an active Angel investor, I still hear entrepreneurs asserting large opportunities with minimal risk and no competition. Great entrepreneurs have learned how to realistically assess and manage both sides of the coin in the following business opportunity and risk categories: Strategic. Operational.

Entrepreneur 120

Entrepreneur Burn Rate Startup Angel Investor 120

The Startup Magazine

JULY 16, 2018

Earlier this year at the FUND Conference in Austin, Texas, over 100 startups presented their early-stage companies in front of hundreds of investors and industry leaders. FUND is a national connector of entrepreneurs, VCs, angel investors, and industry experts with a focus on deal flow and making connections. Source: Yip Yap.

Startup 77

Startup Texas Angel Investor Mobile 77

Startup Professionals Musings

JANUARY 31, 2012

If your business offers a service, like marketing or management consulting, you are the product. In addition, the statistics show that over half of new startups, perhaps as high as 75%, provide services only (no product). Customers don’t like people who don’t show their passion and love for the job.

Angel Investor 227

Angel Investor Venture Capital Partner Networking 227

Duct Tape Marketing

APRIL 6, 2022

We called them founder space, round tables, and we'd meet, I'd introduce 'em to angel investors and marketing experts and lawyers, and really try to help them get off the ground. They don't like managing people. John Jantsch (12:39): So I know in the book you talk a lot about managing people. They don't like it.

San Francisco 97

San Francisco Technical Review Incubator Silicon Valley 97

Startup Professionals Musings

AUGUST 1, 2010

Think about the implications of each to your own business, and the potential impact of getting them done incorrectly, or forgetting to do them entirely: Manage your financials and physical assets. Product development process. Manage human resources. If you are contracting or outsourcing, this is even more important.

Startup 239

Startup Institutional Investors Angel Investor Bootstrapping 239

Gust

OCTOBER 6, 2011

In my conversations with people in the startup world – from angel investors through entrepreneurs and employees with vast startup experience – I often hear about their perceptions of the marketing role as being pretty limited to acquisition. It is shocking to me how prevalent this POV is. It’s almost counter-intuitive.

Acquisition 87

Acquisition Marketing CPA PPC 87

www.informationarbitrage.com

FEBRUARY 24, 2010

It is gently laying the foundation for a subsequent financing, helping the CTO set sensible milestones to be achieved that can demonstrate execution skill and release cycle management. It is helping with recruiting by leveraging my networks and experience in a particular domain. Camaraderie? Perhaps all of the above. Camaraderie?

CTO Hire 40

CTO Hire Founder Cap Table Vesting 40

Startup Professionals Musings

SEPTEMBER 20, 2010

If your business offers a service, like marketing or management consulting, you are the product. In addition, the statistics show that over half of new startups, perhaps as high as 75%, provide services only (no product). Customers don’t like people who don’t show their passion and love for the job.

Product 228

Product Angel Investor Venture Capital Partner 228

Austin Startup

FEBRUARY 7, 2012

Tango Health, the premier provider of Health Savings Account (HSA) management software and services, announced today that it has closed $4 million in Series B funding led by S3 Ventures and angel investor Mike Turner, founder and CEO of Waveset (acquired by Sun Microsystems). “Tango Health is transforming [.].

Angel Investor 59

Angel Investor Product Development Software Sales 59

Gust

OCTOBER 31, 2011

If your business offers a service, like marketing or management consulting, you are the product. In addition, the statistics show that over half of new startups, perhaps as high as 75%, provide services only (no product). Customers don’t like people who don’t show their passion and love for the job. .

Angel Investor 143

Angel Investor Venture Capital Partner Networking 143