How A CFO Can Help You Run Your Company
“I’m really impressed with your new CFO,” I said to “Kevin”, the CEO of a startup I’m working with. “I love his attitude, and I love what he had to say about joining your company.” “You don’t know the half of it,” Kevin said to me. “He’s (the new CFO) hit the ground running, and…
When Should You Fire Your VP Sales?
You just hired your new VP Sales six months ago, and now you’re beginning to wonder if you made a mistake. Your previous VP Sales only lasted three months, and now you’re worried that your board is going to lose confidence in you too. What should you do? In today’s video, we go through this…
What Do You Do When Your Co-Founder Stops Working?
Imagine this scenario. Your co-founder of five years, who owns the same 40% of the company you do, decides he is unhappy with his role, and he stops working, daring you to fire him. Firing him is the easy decision. The tougher decisions are should you buy him out and what should you do with…
How Much Sleep Do You Really Need To Be Effective?
I wake up, and I look at the clock. It’s 2:14 AM. I had gone to sleep at midnight, and here I was, awake two hours later. “Maybe this time, I’ll be able to break the pattern and go back to sleep,” I say to myself. For the next hour, my mind was racing, as…
The One Thing Every Successful Startup Has In Common
When you think about the qualities that every successful startup must have, you’re likely to think about having a great team, a great CEO, grit, an exploding market, a great culture, and a friendly competitor. There’s a lot to choose from. But there’s one quality that you absolutely, positively have to have. Can you guess…
How Do You Deal With A Problem Customer?
Your largest customer, representing over 80 percent of your revenue, threatens they are not going to work with you anymore. Making matters worse, your startup is in the middle of fundraising. What should you do? In today’s video, I’m going to go over this real life problem that a startup CEO I’m advising, “Gary”, is…
What Should You Do When Your Revenue Isn’t Growing?
“Revenue is always a lagging indicator of success,” I said to “Kevin.” We were reviewing his progress, and he was behind plan. But I was seeing progress, and I wanted to remind Kevin. “What do you mean?” Kevin asked me. “Revenue is always a lagging indicator of success,” I repeated. “My co-founders are getting worried…
How Do You Fix Your Revenue Forecast?
Of all the many things I got wrong when I started my company, my original revenue forecast was right at the top of my mistakes. Not only was my forecast off, it was off by a lot. Instead of the $1 million first year revenue I had forecasted, we did about $100,000. My board of…
The Most Likely Big Mistake You’ll Make
There’s a big mistake that almost every startup CEO makes. Sadly, too many of the CEOs I’ve worked with have made this same mistake. I want to help you avoid this mistake. The scary thing about this mistake is that making this mistake has the potential to kill your company. I’ll share with you two…
How Do You Inspire Your Team To Greatness?
“You’re going to be working nights. You’re going to be working weekends to get this done,” Maxim’s CEO, Jack Gifford, said to the heads of the various business units of the company. Gifford had come up with a cleaver marketing idea, and he wanted it implemented in a month instead of the three months it…