Startup Professionals Musings

DECEMBER 21, 2013

Startups are usually so focused on selling more of their branded product or service to their own customer base (organic growth) that they don’t consider the more indirect methods (non-organic growth) of increasing revenue and market share. An example of a startup which used non-organic growth early and effectively was Microsoft.

Merger 243

Merger Acquisition Startup Bandwidth 243

Up and Running

JULY 2, 2014

Picking the right attorney in your startup is as important as picking the right business partner. You can’t underestimate the importance of selecting an attorney who “gets” your business model, your market opportunity, and most importantly, your fundraising and exit strategy. My business partner and I were elated.

Technical Review 118

Technical Review Angel Investor Due Diligence Dilution 118

Steve Blank

SEPTEMBER 14, 2009

One of the biggest mistakes entrepreneurs make is misunderstanding the role of venture capital investors. There’s lots of lore, emotion, and misconceptions of what VC’s do or don’t do for entrepreneurs. What Do VC’s Do? The reality is that VC’s have one goal – to maximize the amount of money they return to their investors.

Silicon Valley 224

Silicon Valley IPO Technical Review Venture Capital 224

YoungUpstarts

NOVEMBER 19, 2017

There is a thin line between success and failure for startups, and that is usually determined by capital. The more capital a startup has, the easier it is to get off the ground and ramp up growth. In turn, this leads to the development of a thriving startup ecosystem which paves the way for technology and innovation.

Venture Capital 196

Venture Capital Asia Artificial Inteligence Later Stage 196

Startup Professionals Musings

DECEMBER 27, 2014

Venture capitalists (VCs) have long been seen as the top of the pyramid for startup funding sources, but in fact angel investors now fund over 60 times as many companies, according the Center for Venture Research. The cost of entry for tech startups continues to go down. Super Angels have greater scope to match talent with a startup.

Angel Investor 260

Angel Investor Silicon Valley Startup Portfolio 260

Startup Professionals Musings

NOVEMBER 17, 2012

Startups are usually so focused on selling more of their branded product or service to their own customer base (organic growth) that they don’t consider the more indirect methods (non-organic growth) of increasing revenue and market share. An example of a startup which used non-organic growth early and effectively was Microsoft.

Entrepreneur 249

Entrepreneur Merger Bandwidth Acquisition 249

Startup Professionals Musings

JUNE 12, 2022

On the other hand, everyone wants to be an entrepreneur. In his classic book “ The 3rd American Dream ,” thought leader Suresh Sharma summarizes the large corporate accomplishments of the 19 th and 20 th centuries, and then lays out the potential of a new entrepreneurial business ecosystem for the 21 st century.

Artificial Inteligence 315

Artificial Inteligence Offshore Merger Technical Review 315

Startup Professionals Musings

JULY 4, 2014

Luckily, not all investors are looking for the same thing, so it pays to know what type of investors are most interested in what your startup brings to the table. The key is understanding how potential investors see you, and especially how they view the maturity stage of your startup. Congratulations!

Angel Investor 232

Angel Investor Intellectual Property Investment Bankers Private Equity 232

Startup Professionals Musings

JULY 26, 2010

Startups are usually so focused on selling more of their branded product or service to their own customer base (organic growth) that they don’t consider the more indirect methods (non-organic growth) of increasing revenue and market share. An example of a startup which used non-organic growth early and effectively was Microsoft.

Acquisition 214

Acquisition Merger Startup Bandwidth 214

Startup Professionals Musings

FEBRUARY 13, 2016

Entrepreneurs who are looking to attract investors need to develop and pitch a plan -- preferably written -- that answers every potential investor question about your startup before it is asked. How does your business model make money? Don’t degrade competitors, but use their specifics to highlight your advantages.

Sweat Equity 120

Sweat Equity Advisory Board Liquidity Event Startup 120

Startup Professionals Musings

SEPTEMBER 15, 2011

Startups are usually so focused on selling more of their branded product or service to their own customer base (organic growth) that they don’t consider the more indirect methods (non-organic growth) of increasing revenue and market share. An example of a startup which used non-organic growth early and effectively was Microsoft.

Startup 232

Startup Merger Bandwidth Acquisition 232

Startup Professionals Musings

AUGUST 13, 2016

Luckily, not all investors are looking for the same thing, so it pays to know what type of investors are most interested in what your startup brings to the table. The key is understanding how potential investors see you, and especially how they view the maturity stage of your startup. Congratulations!

Matching 120

Matching Angel Investor Intellectual Property Investment Bankers 120

Steve Blank

JULY 15, 2010

The Golden Age for Entrepreneurs and VC’s. The two decades from 1979 when pension funds fueled the expansion of venture capital to 2000 when the dot-com bubble burst were the Golden Age for entrepreneurs and venture capital firms. Startup lifecycle in an IPO Market. Startup Lifecycle Today. Here’s why. Source: NVCA.).

Venture Capital 299

Venture Capital IPO Liquidity Event Entrepreneur 299

Startup Professionals Musings

AUGUST 19, 2018

Luckily, not all investors are looking for the same thing, so it pays to know what type of investors are most interested in what your startup brings to the table. The key is understanding how potential investors see you, and especially how they view the maturity stage of your startup. Congratulations!

Angel Investor 184

Angel Investor Intellectual Property Investment Bankers Private Equity 184

Steve Blank

FEBRUARY 19, 2015

The reason I came back is the same reason I left – to be where life science startups are happening. Hard to imagine now, but in the late ’80s the life sciences startup landscape in the UK was almost non-existent. There were few alternatives then, if you wanted to work in a startup you had to go to the US.

Lean 120

Lean Startup Massachusetts Merger 120

Startup Professionals Musings

SEPTEMBER 9, 2019

On the other hand, everyone wants to be an entrepreneur. His focus is on entrepreneurs in America, but what he says applies to every other country as well. I agree with Sharma that it’s time to move on to a new way of thinking, living, and doing business, especially after the relatively recent demoralizing recessionary times.

Engineer 219

Engineer Entrepreneur Offshore Merger 219

Startup Professionals Musings

JUNE 26, 2020

As an advisor to new hardware entrepreneurs, I often hear the myth that a business plan is no longer required to find an investor, if your idea is good enough. You may have heard that venture capitalists in Silicon Valley no longer read business plans. Description of the business entity you plan to form.

Business Plan 423

Business Plan Product Intellectual Property Elevator Pitch 423

Startup Professionals Musings

MAY 29, 2015

Image via Pixabay.com Startups are usually so focused on selling more of their branded product or service to their own customer base (organic growth) that they don’t consider the more indirect methods (non-organic growth) of increasing revenue and market share. Even mergers and acquisitions (M&A) came quickly.

Merger 120

Merger Acquisition Differentiation Channel 120

Startup Professionals Musings

AUGUST 18, 2017

If you are proposing a merger or acquisition, or simply seeking an investor for your business, the process is the same. This may seem intuitively obvious, but as an angel investor, I have heard hundreds of new business pitches that focus heavily on the product, but don’t tell the rest of the story.

Merger 146

Merger Angel Investor Social Media Audience 146

Startup Professionals Musings

AUGUST 27, 2012

As a member of the local Angel group selection committee, I’ve seen a lot of startup presentations to investors, and I’ve never seen one that was too short - maybe short on content, but not short on pages! Every startup needs both a business plan and an investor presentation, completed before you formally approach any investors.

Elevator Pitch 247

Elevator Pitch Exit Strategy Burn Rate Merger 247

Steve Blank

MARCH 18, 2011

What are they, how do they differ and what can startup do to take advantage of them? Paths to Liquidity: a quick history of the four waves of startup investing. The Golden Age (1970 – 1995): Build a growing business with a consistently profitable track record (after at least 5 quarters,) and go public when it’s time.

Internet 334

Internet IPO Silicon Valley Agile 334

Startup Professionals Musings

NOVEMBER 24, 2013

On the other hand, everyone wants to be an entrepreneur. This next frontier lies in building your own enterprises as an entrepreneur, rather than waiting for innovation and opportunity from large corporations. Most of their new claims to innovation are acquired through mergers and acquisitions from the entrepreneurial pipeline.

Entrepreneur 263

Entrepreneur Offshore Merger Technical Review 263

Startup Professionals Musings

MAY 19, 2010

As a member of the local angel group Selection Committee, I’ve seen a lot of startup presentations to investors, and I’ve never seen one that was too short - maybe short on content, but not short on pages! Every startup needs both a business plan and an investor presentation, completed before you formally approach any investors.

Elevator Pitch 235

Elevator Pitch Exit Strategy Burn Rate Merger 235

Startup Professionals Musings

JUNE 10, 2011

As a member of the local Angel group selection committee, I’ve seen a lot of startup presentations to investors, and I’ve never seen one that was too short - maybe short on content, but not short on pages! Every startup needs both a business plan and an investor presentation, completed before you formally approach any investors.

Elevator Pitch 234

Elevator Pitch Exit Strategy Burn Rate Merger 234

Reid Hoffman

MARCH 19, 2019

Tim O’Reilly’s recent article, “ The fundamental problem with Silicon Valley’s favorite growth strategy ,” makes an impassioned argument that the ideas in our book, Blitzscaling , encourage entrepreneurs to behave in ways that are irresponsible or even dangerous in the pursuit of what he characterizes as “runaway growth.”

Cofounder 28

Cofounder Business Model IPO Non-Compete 28

Startup Professionals Musings

AUGUST 13, 2012

Many entrepreneurs scare away potential investors by claiming that their technology represents “truly disruptive technology.” It always amazes me how an entrepreneur can define his market opportunity so broadly, and then assess his competition so narrowly in the next breath. Explain the business model.

Business Plan 283

Business Plan Sweat Equity Exit Strategy Intellectual Property 283

Startup Professionals Musings

JUNE 2, 2013

How do you as an entrepreneur with a new idea get to be one of those choices? That means there are far more entrepreneurs looking for money than there are investors, and entrepreneur entitlement is not a realistic expectation. Angel investors look for prior domain and startup experience. Funding risk. Defensibility.

Cram Down 269

Cram Down Angel Investor Intellectual Property Venture Capital 269

Startup Professionals Musings

MAY 13, 2011

Many entrepreneurs scare away potential investors by claiming that their technology represents “truly disruptive technology.” It always amazes me how an entrepreneur can define his market opportunity so broadly, and then assess his competition so narrowly in the next breath. Explain the business model.

Business Plan 290

Business Plan Sweat Equity Exit Strategy Intellectual Property 290

Scott Edward Walker

OCTOBER 13, 2011

Introduction This post was originally part of the “ Ask the Attorney ” series I am writing for VentureBeat (one of my favorite websites for entrepreneurs). Indeed, I am constantly being asked by entrepreneurs how they can lower their legal fees. Remember that lawyers are selling time. Request Fixed Fees.

Los Angeles 85

Los Angeles San Francisco New York City Silicon Valley 85

Startup Professionals Musings

NOVEMBER 2, 2018

Without profit, there is no longevity to any business, so I’m always surprised when sincere young entrepreneurs avoid using the term, as if “profit” is a bad word. At the other extreme, I don’t condone greedy and unethical business practices to unjustly shake down customers and employees alike.

Intellectual Property 48

Intellectual Property Initial Public Offering Merger Acquisition 48

Gust

AUGUST 19, 2012

As a member of the local Angel group selection committee, I’ve seen a lot of startup presentations to investors, and I’ve never seen one that was too short – maybe short on content, but not short on pages! Every startup needs both a business plan and an investor presentation, completed before you formally approach any investors.

Elevator Pitch 146

Elevator Pitch Exit Strategy Burn Rate Merger 146

Startup Professionals Musings

FEBRUARY 22, 2015

On the other hand, everyone wants to be an entrepreneur. In his recent book “ The 3rd American Dream ,” thought leader Suresh Sharma summarizes the large corporate accomplishments of the 19 th and 20 th centuries, and then lays out the potential of a new entrepreneurial business ecosystem for the 21 st century.

Offshore 120

Offshore Startup Merger Technical Review 120

The Next Web

OCTOBER 2, 2013

The larger your customer base, the more opportunities for monetization, and therefore the more attractive your startup is for investors. In this aspect, China’s huge market seems ripe for the taking — and which firms are better-placed to do so than homegrown startups, especially app developers looking to conquer the mobile market?

China 122

China Developer Intellectual Property Mobile 122

www.inc.com

SEPTEMBER 24, 2011

Todays Small Business News | Daily. Entrepreneur news from reporter Eric Markowitz. Advisor. ); STARTUP. Writing A Business Plan. Running A Home-Based Business. Naming a Business. In the 1990s, Graham was one of those entrepreneurs giving away equity in exchange for crucial services. Newsletters.

Arizona 40

Arizona Equity Iowa Venture Capital 40

Steve Blank

DECEMBER 17, 2015

Startups, entrepreneurs, and management teams. And take what it learns and regularly update the corporate engineering, strategy, VC groups and business unit heads, on technology and market shifts. It may invest in a few startups in this Stage but that’s not the goal.). Academics, consultants, incubators.

Silicon Valley 120

Silicon Valley Incubator Acquisition Business Model 120

Startup Lessons Learned

MAY 31, 2019

He’ll be speaking at this year’s Lean Startup Conference , and also has a new book (for which I very happily wrote a short foreword) coming out next month: Secrets of Sand Hill Road: Venture Capital and How to Get It. You've seen how venture capital works from both sides--as an entrepreneur and a venture capitalist.

Lean 108

Lean Venture Capital Conversion IPO 108

Startup Professionals Musings

APRIL 22, 2010

Many entrepreneurs scare away potential investors by claiming that their technology represents “truly disruptive technology.” It always amazes me how an entrepreneur can define his market opportunity so broadly, and then assess his competition so narrowly in the next breath. Explain the business model.

Business Plan 186

Business Plan Exit Strategy Sweat Equity Intellectual Property 186