Why You Shouldn’t Take A Payout From Your Series A Funding?
Imagine this scene. It’s your first board meeting after closing your $10M Series A round. You update the board comprised of you, your cofounder, your attorney, and your two investors on your progress. Then you excuse your cofounder for the closed session of the board meeting where you review your financials. You go through your…
What Is The Most Difficult Part About Building Your Startup?
“The hardest part of building our company will be raising the initial funding,” I naively said to my fellow cofounders. Every one of them nodded their heads in agreement. I continued on with my pep talk. “We’ll be home free once the funding closes. We’ve built businesses like this before. We know what we’re doing,…
What Do You Need To Do Before Meeting With Investors?
You’re about to start raising money for the first time, but you’re unsure about exactly what you need to do in advance. And with the odds being about 300:1 against you receiving money from any given investor, you need to get it right the first time. I’ll clear up the confusion for you, and I’ll…
How Your Startup Can Survive A Price War
Years ago, I ran a business where we had developed a groundbreaking product called the MAX232. The product was so successful that fourteen competitors eventually built what they believed were exact replicas of our MAX232. [Do you want to grow your business? Maybe I can help. Click here.] Many of our competitors, including Texas Instruments…
How Do You Turnaround And Rebuild Your Company?
“Bring us up to your level,” “Bob” the CEO said to me in his office. Bob was pitching me on becoming general manager of one of the company’s three business units. I smiled, we shook hands, and I left his office. The truth was that I wasn’t sold on whether I wanted to work with…
How You Can Be A Great CEO Without Being A Genius
Do you really have to be a super genius to be a successful startup CEO? The answer is obviously no. Not only can being a genius work against you as a startup CEO, but most of the qualities required to be a successful startup CEO have nothing to do with being a genius. I’ll give…
How Do You Define Product Market Fit?
There’s a great quote that US Supreme Court Justice Potter Stewart said about obscenity. He said, “I know it when I see it.” The same can said about Product Market Fit from my experience. You know it when you see it. When we started selling, I had visions of our products instantly flying off the…
How Do You Divide Equity When You & Your Cofounders Are Investing?
It’s great that you and your cofounder are both investing more money in your company. That’s a sign of true commitment. Let me ask you a question? Why is your money worth more than your cofounder’s money? The answer is obvious. Your money and your cofounder’s money is worth the same amount because…
How Do You Determine What Goals Are Important To Your Business?
Do you want goals that are easy to hit? Or do you want goals that you and your team are going to have to really stretch to hit? The reality is you need both types of goals for you company to succeed. I’l explain how you can, not only make these different types of goals…
How Many Hours Should You Work Weekly As The CEO?
It was around 5PM on a Thursday. I was in my office, and I looked down at my to do list. Every item was checked off. I literally had nothing to do. “This just can’t be right,” I said to myself. “There has to be something for me to do.” So I walked over to…