“That sounds like death by one thousand cuts,” Rob, the VC I was pitching to said to me. Do you want to grow your business? Maybe I can help. Click here. I had just told Rob that the average customer would buy $10,000 per year of our products and that the average product would sell…
There are some things you never forget, no matter how long you live. And the meeting “Peter” and I had years ago with Jack Gifford, the founding CEO of Maxim Integrated Products, was one of them. Peter had just been named Managing Director of the Engineering organization for a business unit that built amplifiers. It…
There was a fellow that I worked with years ago and his name is Harry, or at least we’re going to call him Harry for the sake of the story. Harry was a genius. No question about it. He had a PhD in Electrical Engineering and an MBA. Harry had over twenty patents and counting.…
Years ago, I worked for a company called Micrel. Micrel’s CEO, “Bob”, sold me on joining the company by saying, “Bring us up to your level.” Bob’s pitch sounded to me like he would welcome my help and honesty. I’ll get back to this later. I was the general manager of one of the three…
Imagine being told that your investors want to shut down your startup tomorrow. That was the exact situation I found myself in. When my investors told me I wasn’t nervous. I didn’t go to pieces. In fact I was calm as could be. And, because I was calm, in that same meeting, I was able…
When I was fighting for my company’s life, battling with, one of our investors, the notorious “Donald Ventures”, to keep our company alive, I thought about my wife and daughter a lot. They had supported me emotionally, and I didn’t want to let them down. The stress I was under, during that one year time…
I was talking with an entrepreneur the other day about his company. He said to me, “I’ve asked customers if the would buy my product and they said they would. That counts as validation, doesn’t it?” I was talking with an entrepreneur the other day about his company. Ezra said to me, “I’ve asked customers…
In the over 20 years I’ve been involved in startups, I’ve never seen the competition for top talent as tough as it is now. It doesn’t matter where your startup team is located, your best employees are being poached. And, if you don’t take preemptive action now, your best employees will leave. I’ve worked with…
“Don’t worry, Brett. We’ll support you,” “Raul”, one of our investors, said to me in our board of directors meeting. Raul wanted us to go faster than I had originally planned for. And Raul meant what he said. He was, in that moment, at that time, telling me that he would continue funding us when…
“I want to invest, but I’d like someone else to set the terms,” Bill, a VC interested in investing in our company, said to me. That’s great,” I said, standing up. Bill and I shook hands. “I’ll keep you posted on our progress.” We had just starting raising our Series A funding, and I was…