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A company founder has no choice but to secure the first sales of their newly-created product and the first strategic partnership.  That’s because they can’t afford to hire a sales…

Over time, society has increasingly expected instant gratification and uses of an “easy” button to achieve a desired result.  Unfortunately, when it comes to the pursuit of career success, it’s…

"The best time to plant a tree was 20 years ago.  The next best time is now." – Chinese Proverb

With as little as it costs to get a software startup off the ground these days, many entrepreneurs start off as what we call “bootstrappers” rather than fundraisers.  There’s nothing…

Not much different than the famous chasm described in Geoffrey Moore’s book “Crossing the Chasm”, funding your startup venture over time also has a chasm that you want to avoid. …

"Learning is not child's play; we cannot learn without pain." – Aristotle (Greek philosopher, 384-322 B.C.)

It’s amazing how success can cause numerous blind spots for managers and executives.  The greater the success, the more severe the blind spots.  As an advisor, I sometimes poke on…

Discover the game-changing approach to marketing that’s modernizing demand generation. In this article, we unveil the new 4 Ps of marketing. Implementing them can supercharge your growth and prepare you…

Successful emergency room doctors must be highly intelligent and calm under pressure.  Successful  triathletes must to be goal-oriented and driven.  Successful songwriters must be creative.  What about entrepreneurs?  Entrepreneurship is…

"I never failed once. It just happened to be a 2,000-step process." – Thomas Edison (inventor)

When I ask entrepreneurs what their most valuable resource is, I ALWAYS get one of two responses: money (aka – funding, cash) or people.  And it’s hard to argue about…

Almost no investor wants to be the “first check written” for your round of funding that uses convertible securities. This makes total sense if you think about it from their…

What do buying a new smartphone and being given a gift card have in common?  In both cases you want to extract value as soon as possible.  With the gift…

"At one point in your life you'll have the things you want or the reasons why you don't." – Andy Roddick (professional tennis player with 32 career titles)

Here’s a scenario I commonly see.  A startup raises $1M in total seed funding to turn their MVP into a real product and figure out a profitable and scalable customer…

I didn’t invent this quote (can’t remember where I heard it) but what a great one to help remember that with most business-related transactions, price is definitely not the only…

FINALLY!!!  After years of waiting for equity-based crowdfunding rules (aka Reg CF) to be adopted and put into effect following legislative approval of the JOBS Act of 2012, it’s finally…

"A pessimist sees the difficulty in every opportunity; an optimist sees the opportunity in every difficulty." – Sir Winston Churchill (there is controversy as to whether he actually said this)

I’m not talking about a stand-up presentation in front of an individual investor or VC firm but rather some form of on-stage pitching event.  It might be called a “demo…

"No battle was ever won according to plan, but no battle was ever won without one." (Related: "In preparing for battle I have always found that plans are useless, but...

Some startups build core technology with the sole purpose of making money by licensing it to others while other startups later discover they have something that could be licensed as…

While you are still in the idea phase, investors tend to focus on vision, promise, potential and personality traits of the founder(s) because that’s all you have for them to…

"Imitation is the sincerest form of flattery" – Charles Caleb Colton, 1820       Note:  Similar versions of this quote can be found as far back as 1708: "You...

Most startups think of a convertible note as the most common fundraising vehicle used during the pre-seed and seed stages (see related article titled “Convertible Note Basics“).  What they might…

It seems like everywhere you look now there is some form of startup program advertising their method of helping entrepreneurs increase their odds of success.  From incubators and accelerators to…

Online marketplaces are being created for just about anything you can think of.  Some have a local services component on one side of the marketplace that carries an extra burden…

Not all sales processes are created equal.  In fact, the whole purpose of developing a sales process for your company is to uniquely match the dynamics of your target audience’s…

"If you fail to plan, you are planning to fail" – Benjamin Franklin

I have written articles about various aspects of M&A, including two that are based-on-true-story case studies (titled “A Tale of Two Acquisitions”) to teach the numerous lessons I’ve learned throughout…

Many (probably most) startups go through periods of extremely little cash in the bank and with visions of crashing and burning before being able to recover.  Unfortunately, crashing and burning…

It usually takes a huge effort to get the attention of a big strategic partner and impress them enough to get a formal partnership. In fact, might have you read…

“Desire is a contract you make with yourself to be unhappy until you get what you want.”  – Naval Ravikant (serial entrepreneur, angel investor)

As I was reading a collection of Mother Goose rhymes that I bought to eventually read to my new granddaughter, I was reminded of a great book titled “All I…

As I was reading some Dr. Seuss books that I bought to eventually read to my new granddaughter, I was reminded of a great book titled “All I Really Need…

Are you a startup founder venturing into fundraising? Understanding the essential terms in the world of startup financing is crucial. Imagine the disadvantage of hearing an investor say a word…

There is one question that haunts every experienced marketing executive as it relates to spending money on demand generation: what is the optimal mix of demand gen marketing campaigns and…

"If you can't explain it simply, you don't understand it well enough" – Albert Einstein Note:  There is some dispute about whether Einstein actually wrote or said this.  Lord Rutherford...

You built your MVP, got it launched to the delight of some paying customers and just raised some seed funding to move to the next phase of your company’s evolution. …

How can something that’s free and openly available cause so much unintended harm to your business?  The availability of open source software has contributed as much to lowering the cost…

"It's not the size of the dog in the fight, it's the size of the fight in the dog." - Mark Twain

Regardless of your ideal mix of demand generation programs, I’m willing to bet that most of them are designed to bring prospects to your website in the hopes of later…

Most startups desperately crave a partnership with a big, strategic player that could offer them significant leverage and credibility.  Just think about the giants in your particular industry.  That’s who…

In a previous article, I described various ways to determine how much money to raise (you can read it here).  If you’ve decided and communicated how much you are raising, you might…

When you first incorporated as a C-corporation, probably only you and your co-founder were named as board members. You never really had official meetings or voted on anything, that you…

"That which does not kill me makes me stronger" (German: "Was mich nicht umbringt, macht mich starker") - Friedrich Nietzsche (from Maxims and Arrows)

I know what you’re thinking.  “We don’t even have 20 employees, so why do we need a management system?”  You might be thinking this because you previously worked for a…

If you aspire to build a company that is scalable, then the size of your market is a very important element of your business plan. That’s because it suggests the…

Common perception is that in an acquisition the acquirer has all of the power.  After all, they are the one that’s writing the check and they can walk away at…

For every headline you see about a tech company being acquired for some huge multiple of revenue or profit there are literally hundreds of other acquisition approaches that either ended in nothing…

You see it all the time.  A young, invincible hacker-hustler duo join together as startup co-founders to pursue a dream of becoming the next Google or Facebook.  The hustler takes the CEO…