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How Do You Tell Investors Why You Will Beat Your Competitors?
“They brought up companies we didn’t even know existed,” Mike, the managing partner of the venture capital firm where I was an Entrepreneur in Residence (EIR), said in our debrief after a startup pitched us. Everyone was impressed with the CEO, the company, and we decided to continue forward with the investment. Do you want…
Read MoreHow Do You Turnaround And Rebuild Your Company?
“Bring us up to your level,” Ray, the CEO of Micrel, said to me in his office. Ray was pitching me on becoming general manager of one of the company’s three business units. Do you want to grow your business? Maybe I can help. Click here. I smiled, we shook hands, and I left his…
Read MoreHow Do You Start A Business With No Money?
“How am I going to raise $2 million,” “Casey” asked me. “I don’t know anyone who can give me that money.” [Do you want to grow your business? Maybe I can help. Click here.] “You know more people than you think,” I said. “I’ve been down this road a few times, and the other entrepreneurs…
Read MoreHow Do You Successfully Enter A New Market?
Successful companies usually have a way of doing things. We certainly did when I was at Maxim Integrated Products. Jack Gifford, our CEO, called it “The Maxim way.” [Do you want to grow your business? Maybe I can help. Click here.] And our way was successful. The company grew to $1 billion/year in revenue with…
Read MoreHow Do You Run Your Company As Headcount Grows?
I remember there were six of us after we closed our funding. Myself, my four co-founders, and our operations manager Dave. [Do you want to grow your business? Maybe I can help. Click here.] Two weeks later Sid joined as our design engineering director. Within two months we added three more design engineers bringing us…
Read MoreHow Do You Know If Facebook Is Trying To Destroy Your Company?
I was having lunch with my friend Matt. Matt was, at the time, a Senior VP at Maxim Integrated Products and Maxim was our largest competitor. Do you want to grow your business? Maybe I can help. Click here. I had sold my company about four months earlier, and we were just catching up. He…
Read MoreHow Do You Keep Yourself From Getting Stuck?
I’ve been doing a lot of research on Steve Jobs lately. Did you know that he used to practice his Macworld and product launch presentations around 200 times before the big event? [Do you want to grow your business? Maybe I can help. Click here.] Watch any Jobs presentation and you’ll notice how smooth and effortless…
Read MoreHow Do You Keep Your Startup From Being Undercapitalized?
“How long is the new funding going to last you?” I asked “Sam.” Sam said, “About one year.” [Do you want to grow your business? Maybe I can help. Click here.] “That’s not long enough,” I replied. You really want your funding to last eighteen months. Ideally, you’d like your funding to last two years. “Why…
Read MoreHow Do You Keep Employee Turnover Low?
“The minute you tell your employees they’re going to minimum wage, they’re going to start looking,” my friend and mentor, Dave, said to me. [Do you want to grow your business? Maybe I can help. Click here.] Earlier that day in our board meeting, one of our investors suggested that we shut the company down…
Read MoreHow Do You Get Your First 1,000 Customers?
There are some things you never forget when you’re a startup CEO, and watching my co-founder and VP Sales, “Ken,” run around the office yelling, “Hey, Hey!” after we got our first order is one of them. Do you want to grow your business? Maybe I can help. Click here. We had just soft launched…
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