How Do You Evaluate A Potential Technical Co-Founder?
I considered a lot VP Engineering/CTO candidates before Jeroen agreed to join me as cofounder. It was the good, the bad, and the ugly. There were a lot of near misses where the fit just wasn’t there or something wasn’t quite right. If there’s one thing I learned in the process, is you can’t just…
How Long Should Your Startup Pitch Take?
How Long Should Your Startup Pitch Take? By Brett Fox Imagine you’ve been invited to present your company to the full partnership of a VC firm. You bring the executive team with you because you felt it was the right thing to do. You start out your pitch to the partnership. You barely get going…
What Should You Do In Your Startup That Won’t Scale?
One of the biggest debates we had early on was whether to buy an ERP (Enterprise Resource Planning) system to scale our manufacturing. I’ll never forget it because it set off a chain of events that changed our company forever. Here’s the story… Two of my cofounders, “Ken” and “Randy”, came into my office about…
What Is The Best Advice When You Are Partnering With A Larger Company?
What Is The Best Advice When You Partner With A Larger Company? By Brett Fox I’ve been on both sides of this equation. We did several deals with companies bigger than us including: Companies that were distribution partners, and.. Companies that were manufacturing partners, and… Companies that were possible acquirers. There is one consistent thing…
What Can You Add To A Term Sheet To Keep From Being Fired?
What Can You Add To A Term Sheet To Keep From Being Fired? By Brett Fox You’re looking for protection to keep your investors from replacing you. A term sheet is not going to do it. The cold, hard reality is you lose control of your company the second you take funding from outside investors.…
What Is The Biggest Challenge You Face As CEO Besides Funding?
What Is The Biggest Challenge You Face As CEO Besides Funding? By Brett Fox Let’s say you don’t have funding worries because funding is the biggest challenge startups face. What is the second biggest challenge startups face? I’ll tell you what isn’t the second biggest challenge startups face. It isn’t: A. No market need. And…
Why Should You Use A Right Hand Person To Fire People?
Why Should You Use A Right Hand Person To Fire People? By Brett Fox Any executive that uses a “right hand man” to fire a direct report should themselves be fired. Firing someone is supposed to be a painful experience. You are changing someone’s life, and you should feel horrible. I couldn’t sleep the night…
What Can You Learn From Marissa Mayer’s Struggles At Yahoo?
What Can You Learn From Marissa Mayer’s Struggles At Yahoo? By Brett Fox I think the lessons are more for first-time public company CEOs that worked at one company for a long stretch of their career prior to becoming CEO. Marissa Mayer spent her whole career at Google prior to accepting the Yahoo CEO position. …
How Do You Know The Value Of Your Sales People?
How Do You Know The Value Of Your Sales People? By Brett Fox One of the best things that ever happened to me in my career was when I was given responsibility to manage an external sales organization. Previously, I was general manager of a business unit inside the company, and we had a matrixed…
What Tasks Do You Need To Do Every Day As An Entrepreneur?
What Tasks Do You Need To Do Every Day As An Entrepreneur? By Brett Fox I was talking Friday with a CEO I am advising named “Paul”. Paul’s in fund-raising mode right now. Nothing else matters when you’re in fund-raising mode except raising your money. I told Paul, “You need to have a laser-like focus…