Startup Professionals Musings

NOVEMBER 27, 2022

In my role as an angel investor to startups, I’m struck by the broad variety of advisor strategies I see in investor presentations and business plans that cross my desk. If your startup team is highly technical, an advisory board member with a strong financial and business background clearly adds value.

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Startup Professionals Musings

MAY 25, 2022

Business partners can be co-founders in a startup, multiple owners of an existing business, or a joint venture. In every case, a partner can be an asset, bringing new skills and perspectives to the business; or a burden, making every decision more difficult, and taxing your lifestyle satisfaction.

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Startup Professionals Musings

NOVEMBER 4, 2022

In my years of advising startups and occasional investing, I’ve seen many great ideas start and fail, but the right team always seems to make good things happen, even without the ultimate idea. You need to have a technical genius on the team to get your startup product off the ground. Outsourcing your core competency does not work.

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Startup Professionals Musings

JANUARY 17, 2021

A common challenge faced by every entrepreneur is that they don’t have the bandwidth, interest or skills to do everything that is required to build their startup. Two heads are always better than one in a startup. The challenge is how to find that elusive perfect-fit partner. Look for a partner from a different background.

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Startup Professionals Musings

DECEMBER 7, 2022

A common pain of startups after an exhilarating first surge of early adopters is a long and frustrating plateau of slow growth, where it seems like nothing you do will get your business to profitability. Continually add new marketing and distribution partners. Real growth always requires real marketing.

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Startup Professionals Musings

MARCH 12, 2023

They fail to realize that the considerations are quite different for each, which can make or break their investment efforts, and ultimately their startup. More importantly, the focus on numbers tends to hide other more subjective issues that could be more important for any given startup. How big is your startup opportunity?

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VC Cafe

JANUARY 13, 2023

Readers of VC Cafe know how big of a fan I am of startup landscapes. The Israeli startups building the Metaverse (updated Jan 2023). I’m proud of the work done by my team at Remagine Ventures, to publish the updated map of the Israeli startups building the Metaverse. Open source tech. The Israeli Generative AI landscape.

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Startup Professionals Musings

JULY 30, 2022

Perhaps sparked by the recent pandemic, I’m seeing a new era of the entrepreneur, with startups springing up all around. Problems will occur in every startup, simply because you are stepping into uncharted territory. Work with a partner you can trust. Don’t let it make your startup dysfunctional in resolving future challenges.

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Startup Professionals Musings

SEPTEMBER 19, 2022

Winning customers as an entrepreneur in a startup has many parallels to a young army trying to penetrate some formidable new and unfamiliar territory. I’ve long been aware of the 2500-year-old, but still current, masterwork on military strategy by Sun Tzu, “ The Art of War ,” but never thought very relevant to business startups.

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Startup Professionals Musings

JANUARY 30, 2023

In my own experience with technical startup founders, I still find it hard to name one who was also good, or even interested in financials or business operations. However, by finding a partner with complementary skills, the potential was always greater than “1+1.” You need a team and relationships to run a business.

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Startup Professionals Musings

JANUARY 9, 2023

Even in this age of videos and text messages, the quickest way to kill your startup dream with investors, business partners, or even customers, is embarrassingly poor writing. If you are looking for an investor, a partner, or a customer, make sure the next step is clearly stated, and not just implied.

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Startup Professionals Musings

JUNE 21, 2021

You have probably secretly always wanted to run your own show, but with an existing job, never took the time to consider a startup. Here are my top recommendations on how and why initiating a startup while looking, or about to be looking for a job, is the right thing to do: No gap in your resume. Explore finding a business partner.

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Startup Professionals Musings

FEBRUARY 18, 2023

Every startup founder loves to prompt for questions from investors and potential key team members about their vision, and the huge opportunity that can be had with their disruptive technology. Early stage burn rates over $50K per month, or a runway of less than six months may indicate an inefficient or desperate startup.

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Startup Professionals Musings

OCTOBER 8, 2022

For maximum value with the least effort, focus on only the “what ifs” that are the highest priority in your mind for your own startup. The cost to acquire a customer, or traffic to conversion ratios, are critical to the success of most startups. Pricing is always a tricky issue.

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deal architect

MARCH 14, 2021

In the 34th (today) and 35th (tomorrow) episode of the series we have Brad Feld, Founding Partner, Foundry Group and Ian Hathaway who leads the global ecosystems business at Techstars, In the episode below, they discuss their book, The Startup.

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Startup Professionals Musings

FEBRUARY 15, 2021

Startup founders are known for their passion for their startup idea, and for their passion to kill every competitor. As small companies, neither startup could afford to extend their product alone, but through creative leadership, we were able to negotiate a win-win strategic partnership for a joint product.

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Startup Professionals Musings

SEPTEMBER 20, 2021

I believe the Maker Movement and hardware startups with limited resources are made for each other. They come at the early stage while a startup has no revenue or valuation, so professional investors are hard to find. Network with potential cofounders and strategic partners. Accelerate the trend to higher purpose startups.

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Startup Professionals Musings

MAY 8, 2021

These days I see a surge of new startups as businesses seem to be recovering from the pandemic. If you are not starting one yourself, the next best thing is joining one as a partner, or as an early employee. No online presence may brand you as “old school,” and not startup material. Perform an internal career audit.

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Startup Professionals Musings

SEPTEMBER 11, 2020

One of the reasons that now is the time to be an entrepreneur is the explosion of startup assistance organizations, usually called incubators or accelerators. A few are still trying to make a profitable business out of nurturing startups, but it’s a challenge to make money when your customer startups don’t have many resources to give.

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Startup Professionals Musings

NOVEMBER 28, 2020

Who would not want to join the unicorns (recent startups with a current valuation of over $1 billion)? Excellent detailed resources are everywhere, including a classic book, “ The Startup Checklist ,” by serial entrepreneur and founder of the New York Angels, David S. Incorporating a business entity early through online services.

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Startup Professionals Musings

JANUARY 23, 2021

Ironically, as a startup investor and mentor, I have seen too many failures caused by just the opposite – too much money spent too soon, taking time to get product perfection, and assuming customers will wait. Startups funded by rich uncles rarely think about productivity. Find new ways to augment. Marty Zwilling.

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Startup Professionals Musings

AUGUST 9, 2020

I always tell entrepreneurs that two heads are better than one, so the first task in many startups is finding a co-founder or two. The default answer, to keep peace in the family, is to split everything equally, but that’s a terrible answer, since now no one is in control, and startups need a clear leader. Now comes the reality check.

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Startup Professionals Musings

MAY 8, 2022

Most entrepreneurs struggle with many startup founders quandaries in building their business, and these key dilemmas are probably the biggest source of pain and failure for the entrepreneur lifestyle. Old co-workers or new friends with complementary skills usually make the best partners. Otherwise exit and startup with another idea.

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Startup Professionals Musings

MARCH 22, 2021

Every entrepreneur tries to maximize his startup growth by building and selling more product and services for the widest geographic area that he can support. Add basic partner contracts or alliances. 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

MAY 22, 2020

Every startup founder loves to prompt for questions from investors and potential key team members about their vision, and the huge opportunity that can be had with their disruptive technology. Early stage burn rates over $50K per month, or a runway of less than six months may indicate an inefficient or desperate startup.

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Startup Professionals Musings

JUNE 24, 2020

As a frequent advisor to new entrepreneurs and startups, I often hear your frustration with being treated differently from other startups by investors, on expectations for valuation , traction, and market size. For many years, startups featuring all-electric vehicles fell into this stage of the business lifecycle.

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Startup Professionals Musings

AUGUST 16, 2020

As an angel investor and a mentor to aspiring entrepreneurs, I’m always disappointed to see founders who seem stressed out most of the time, and more annoyed than energized by the abundance of challenges they see in building their startup. Investors and strategic partners look for entrepreneurs who can execute.

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Startup Professionals Musings

JANUARY 20, 2021

Based on my experience as a business advisor, I’m convinced that most startup investors invest in the entrepreneur, as much as a solution or product. How potential partners, investors, and customers see you is critical to their ultimate support and acceptance of your proposal and your solution.

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Startup Professionals Musings

MAY 16, 2022

Don’t be like the startup CEO I once worked for who always pretended to have all the answers, even when it was clear to everyone that his depth did not match his marketing passions. Find a partner to complement your weaknesses. Authentic leaders are forthcoming about both their strengths and weaknesses. Too many never make it.

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VC Cafe

FEBRUARY 9, 2022

As you may already know, I’ve always been a fan of startup landscapes. This edition includes maps of Israeli startups building the Metaverse, Insurtech, Martitime tech, Proptech and Contech, Digital Health, Smart Logistics and Supply Chain, Sports Tech and ecommerce. Israeli founded proptech startups (credit: Proptech Zone ).

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Startup Professionals Musings

AUGUST 21, 2020

As a mentor to aspiring entrepreneurs, I often feel the frustration of someone trying to build a startup in the wrong place and time, and wrongly attributing their struggle to personal limitations. I saw these addressed well in a new book, “ The Startup Community Way ,” by Brad Feld and Ian Hathaway.

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Both Sides of the Table

JULY 26, 2022

We’ve also worked with our Partner, Dana Kibler who is also our CFO for nearly 20 years. The Upfront VII and Growth teams are made up of 10 partners: 6 leading investment activities & 4 supporting portfolio companies including Talent, Marketing, Finance & Operations. How do we plan to do it?

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Startup Professionals Musings

APRIL 19, 2020

Investors will tell you that they love to put money into startups that are scalable, and ready to become the next unicorn. Investors don’t invest in services startups. Here are some pragmatic tips on how to make your startup more scalable and investable: If you need investors, start with a scalable idea. Automate to the max.

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Startup Professionals Musings

AUGUST 2, 2020

You don’t have to have previous startup problems to show resilience – everyone should have a story of tackling a tough challenge with minimal success, but using the failure to move on and achieve an objective. Many experts tell me that more startups fail simply because their founder gives up, than for any other reason.

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Startup Professionals Musings

JANUARY 17, 2022

As a startup, you need to use your limited resources to excel at a few core things for your best customers, in order to stand out and get the momentum going. For many companies, the long game is choosing the right strategic partners and acquisitions. Take care of business, but always play the long game.

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Startup Professionals Musings

MARCH 22, 2023

I have personally worked as an employee of large businesses, as well as a partner in new ventures, and found the latter to have more potential for satisfaction. Business success, and yours, requires collaboration and accountability at all levels, including vendors, partners, and other constituents.

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Startup Professionals Musings

JANUARY 19, 2020

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 twice as many companies, according the Crunchbase. The cost of entry for tech startups continues to go down. Super angels have greater scope to match talent with a startup.

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