How Can You Tell If Someone Will Be A Great CEO?
I’ve worked with over 100 early stage startup CEOs over the last five years. Some of these early stage startup CEOs have built companies worth well over $1 billion. And some of these early stage startup CEOs, that had what looked to be promising startups, flamed out. So what was the difference between the successful…
How Do You Prepare For Investor Due Diligence?
“We won’t talk to anyone you don’t want us to,” “Raul”, a potential investor in my startup, said to me. I nodded my head. I had already given Raul a list of names, as he requested, as reference checks. In addition, my co-founders and I, were asked by Raul’s fund, the infamous “Donald Ventures”, to…
The Single Biggest Reason Early Stage Startups Succeed
I am really excited to share with you the reasons why early stage startups succeed. Over the past five years, I’ve worked directly with over one hundred early stage startups CEOs. There are lots of challenges you face as an early stage startup CEO. It’s become clear to me, based on my experience, why early…
How To Validate Your Startup Idea In 7 Steps
Wouldn’t it be great if you could validate your startup idea in less than one hour because you absolutely, positively have to validate your startup idea? There are seven steps that you need to take to validate your startup idea. And I’m betting you can do them in less than one hour. Let me give…
How Do You Learn How To Sell?
“You’ve figured it out,” I said smiling to “Vern”, an engineer turned CEO that I’ve been working with. Since we started working together, I’ve been urging Vern to drive sales himself. Yet, until this conversation, he resisted my suggestion. Vern sells enterprise software. Each deal Vern’s company inks is worth well into six or seven…
How Do You Make A Startup Pitch Deck For Investors
Creating a startup pitch deck, especially if you’ve never done it, is tough to do. You have to somehow, in a very short time period, convince investors that may know a limited amount about your company, why your company is going to make a ton of money. How short a time frame do you have?…
What Do You Do When You Get A Term Sheet?
“I believe this term sheet explodes like a pumpkin at 5PM. Here’s my number. Call me before then if you’re interested in accepting my terms,” “Raul”, our potential new investor, said to me. I had just spent the last thirty minutes trying to negotiate with Raul. Raul reacted the same way to every suggestion I…
What You Should Worry About As A Startup CEO?
“How much cash do we have left?” I asked Tina, our very able controller. “We have $197,000 and change left, Brett. That’s enough to run the company for another three months,” Tina replied. “Okay, assuming we close (our funding) on schedule, then we won’t have to ask for a bridge (loan) from our investors,” I…
How To Determine Equity For Startup Founders
How to determine the equity splits between you and your co-founders is a key indicator of whether the relationship between you will work out. Unless you and your co-founders are happy with the results there will be problems ahead. Over 50% of all co-founder relationships end in failure. In today’s video, I’ll explore how you…
How Much Equity Should You Give Advisors?
A little over two years ago, Jim, a well known entrepreneur, began singing my praises all over social media. He didn’t have to do what he was doing. I thought it would be nice to say thanks. So I reached out to Jim, and we arranged a time to talk. We had a really fun…