What Not To Focus On When You’re Starting Your Startup
I thought I was so smart when we were starting our startup. However, for someone who was allegedly smart and experienced, I certainly had a knack of focusing on the wrong things. Sometimes, as I look back, it’s amazing we were able to get the company off the ground. I don’t want you to…
The 5 Signs You’re An Entrepreneur
There’s a great story about how Earl Woods, Tiger Woods father, taught Tiger about how to be cool under pressure. In golf, the audience is supposed to be quiet while a player prepares to hit the golf ball. Earl turned everything upside to teach his young son. [Do you want to grow your business? Maybe…
How You Can Succeed As An Over 40 Startup CEO
I was in my 40’s when we raised our initial funding. I was the youngest of my four co-founders. The oldest co-founder was over 60 years old. Do you want to grow your business? Maybe I can help. Click here. Yet, we were able to raise $12 million in funding. Three years later, with an…
What’s The Right Way To Ask Investors For Money?
Imagine this scene. You’ve just finished your investor pitch, and you think the pitch has gone well. However, you don’t know what to say. More importantly, you don’t know how to ask investors for the money you need. As surprising as it sounds, I’ve witnessed hundreds of startup CEOs not know how to ask for…
How Do You Get Execs To Join Your Startup Without Equity?
“I want missionaries, not mercenaries,” The CEO of a startup I am working with, “Jeff,” said to me the other day. He was frustrated because his VP Sales just asked to increase his base salary, that was at the market rate, by over $100,000 per year. [Do you want to grow your business? Maybe I…
Should Co-Founders Have Company Credit Cards?
“I think each of the founders should have a company credit card,” “Randy,” one of my co-founders said during an early staff meeting. “it will ease some of the burden on you.” [Do you want to grow your business? Maybe I can help. Click here.] I could tell from the tone in Randy’s voice that…
What Are The 3 Best Tips For Negotiating Your Term Sheet?
The first term sheet I ever negotiated took just forty minutes in elapsed time to negotiate. [Do you want to grow your business? Maybe I can help. Click here.] The longest a term sheet took to negotiate that I’ve been involved with was ten months. And the investor was the same investor in both…
Building An Early Stage Team With No Funding
You’ve just started your company, and you have no money. You know you need to build a team. However, you don’t see any way that you’re going to be able to build a team without any money or funding. It’s the ultimate catch-22. However, this is a solvable problem. In today’s video, I’m going to…
What Are You Likely To Get Wrong When You Start Your Business?
I had been building semiconductor businesses for almost twenty years when I started my company. I KNEW the playbook inside out about what to expect. Do you want to grow your business? Maybe I can help. Click here. Yet, I still got not one thing, but a lot of things really wrong when I was…
Use Your Competitive Analysis Slide To Get Funded
If you want your startup to get funded, then you’d better nail your competitive analysis slide. Your competitive analysis slide is an opportunity for you, the CEO, to shine. Yet sadly, too many CEOs do exactly the wrong thing and don’t take advantage of a golden opportunity. I don’t want that to happen to you. …