Should You Focus On Profits Or Providing Value First?
One of the greatest lessons I ever got in business was from my mom. She began her career as a successful writer. Then, when my brother and I entered middle school, my mom pivoted and began selling homes in the San Fernando Valley area of Los Angeles. My mom started by selling condominiums. Then she…
How Do You Keep Your Development Team On Schedule?
“My project is going to be delayed by one month,” Richard said to Jeroen, my co-founder and VP Engineering, in our weekly engineering review meeting. Jeroen went through the usual list of technical questions to understand what was causing the delay, and how likely it was that the project was only going to be delayed…
How Do Early Stage Startups Get Their First 10 Customers?
I am really excited to share with you how do early stage startups get their first 10 customers. Now, your first 10 customers may not seem like a lot, but when you’re starting, and you have zero customers, 10 customers is a huge number. Over the past five years, I’ve worked directly with over one…
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…