What Are The Two Killer Fundraising Mistakes You Have To Avoid?
I’ve worked with a lot of startup CEO’s, and I see the same two killer fundraising mistakes made over and over again. One of them will kill you before you get started, and the mistake will kill you when you’re raising money. What are these killer mistakes, and, more importantly, how can you avoid them?…
Why You Need To Know What Your TAM & SAM Are
“Tell me about the whole market first,” Jack Gifford, Maxim’s CEO, said to me. We were meeting at the Peppermill in Cupertino like we always did for our Tuesday morning breakfast meetings. For this meeting it was me, Ziya who was my boss, Dave Fullagar who was the VP Engineering, and I believe Len Sherman…
When Do You Consider Your Business Ready To Launch?
I used to meet with my cofounders a few times a week. We were each working on parts of our business plan. “John” was working on the engineering model, “Jim” was working on the marketing model, and I was working on the overall financial plan. After about two months of staring at each other across…
How Do You Deal With An Employee That Can’t Scale?
It’s inevitable. You’re going to have an employee that did a great job for you early on in your company, but now that same employee is having trouble as the company grows bigger. What you do when you face this inevitable challenge will determine more about the fate of your company than you might realize.…
What You Learn From How Non Technical CEOs Succeed
“Don’t try and be something that you’re not,” that was the advice I gave to myself when I started my company. Even though I have a BSEE and a few patents, I’d been on the “dark side”, as my wife calls the business side of a technology company, for years. I wasn’t going to be…
How Much Should You Share With An Investor Before Getting A Term Sheet?
You’re in a meeting with an investor, and the investor asks you to provide sensitive information like your customer list before you sign a term sheet. Or you’re in a technical diligence meeting and things don’t feel right. What should you do? The good news is that most investors are not out to steal your…
How Much Equity Should You Give Your Investors?
Have you ever wondered what’s the right amount of equity to give your investors? Well, you’re not alone. Figuring out how much equity your investors should get is next to impossible to figure out. I have a simple methodology that I share in this short video that you can use to figure out the equity…
When Should You Hire An Employee From A Failed Startup?
You’re right to worry about the effect of hiring an employee of a failed startup into your company. Maybe the potential employee will bring all the bad habits of the failed startup to your company. And who needs that? However, you’re missing a real opportunity if you don’t hire people from failed startups. I’ll give…
How Do You Raise Money In 30 Days Or Less?
I always recommend that you give yourself six months minimum, preferably one year, to raise money. However, sometimes you’re not so lucky. For example deals can fall through at the last minute, or maybe you had no choice but to wait. Whatever the situation, I’ll tell you what to do in this short video if…
How Strong Technically Does Your VP Marketing Have To Be?
Years ago, I had someone who worked for me that was really bright, really intuitive. I thought he had a lot of potential, but the problem was he didn’t have a technical degree. So, I gave Matt the least technically challenging product line in the company to run. Matt did a great job. The businesses…