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…
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…
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…
“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…
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…
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…
“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…
The first startup I ever invested in had great technology. In fact, it was clear to me the technology was great, but I wasn’t sure how good the CEO was. I decided to invest anyways, and the company failed about two years later. All I had left to show for my investment was a tax…
I worked at two companies in the same industry that had very different views on how to treat their employees. Do you want to grow your business? Maybe I can help. Click here. The average time employees spent at the first company, Maxim Integrated Products, was over ten years. The average time employees spent at the second…
Investors love asking startup CEOs what the barriers to entry are in your business. It’s a trick question because investors know very well what the barriers to entry are in your business. So, why do investors ask this question if they already know the answer to it? I’ll explain that to you in this video.…