Founders and Fundraising
What Should Your Salary Be When You’re Just Starting?
“I need to make $60,000,” “Mary”, the CEO, said to me. “Is that too much for me to make?” Do you want to grow your business? Maybe I can help. Click here. “Maybe. Maybe not,” I replied. “I can’t just give you a yes or no answer. You have to walk through some steps. “There’s…
Read MoreWhy Can’t You Turn Your Integrity On And Off?
My wife and I went for a run together last week, and, on our walk home, we started talking about Elizabeth Holmes. The new docudrama about her and Theranos, “Dropout”, just dropped on Showtime, so it was on the top of our minds. Do you want to grow your business? Maybe I can help. Click…
Read MoreThe Top Ten Mistakes First Time Entrepreneurs Make
“You’re a first time CEO. You’re going to make mistakes.” That’s what investors say about first time CEOs. And, you know what, investors are right, you’re going to make mistakes. However, why make business mistakes when you can avoid them. In today’s video, I’ll walk you through the top ten mistakes entrepreneurs make. Plus, I’ll…
Read MoreHow Can You Renegotiate Founder Equity?
“I want to cut the equity of my co-founder from 45 percent to twenty percent,” “Oren” said to me. “He’s not performing very well. What do you think?” Do you want to grow your business? Maybe I can help. Click here. “I don’t think that’s going to go over very well,” I said. “You certainly…
Read MoreWhy Investors Say No To Entrepreneurs?
100 to one. Burn that ratio into your brain. That’s the number of face to face meetings a typical venture capital firm will have for every one startup they invest in. How do I know this? I was an Entrepreneur in Residence with a major VC fund in San Francisco. Raising your startup funding isn’t…
Read MoreWhat Are The Rules For Selling Your Startup?
“There’s a company in our portfolio, I can’t say who, where the founders decided to sell to Microsoft,” one of my investors, Gill, said to me. Do you want to grow your business? Maybe I can help. Click here. “Congratulations,” I said. “Well, they decided to sell a little earlier then I would have preferred,…
Read MoreHow Do You Determine Your Total Available Market?
Understanding how big your total available market is a critical step in building your startup, and understanding your TAM is a critical slide when you’re fundraising. Yet most entrepreneurs get their total available market slide wrong. Part of the problem is should you present your TAM or your SAM? Or, maybe you should you present…
Read MoreHow Do You Buy Out Your Co-Founder?
I had four co-founders. I had to fire one of my co-founders within six months of us being operational. This was six months before we had any revenue. Do you want to grow your business? Maybe I can help. Click here. The negotiation of “Randy’s” exit was simple. It took less than one hour to complete.…
Read MoreHow Do You Value Your Startup?
There’s a lot of advice for entrepreneurs on how do you value your startup. Unfortunately, most of the startup advice is wrong. The goal of today’s video is to give you a simple methodology for valuing your startup; especially if your company is an early stage startup. We’ll look at how you answer investors questions…
Read MoreWhat Should You Do When You’re Burned Out?
I remember the moment clearly. We had finally gotten to $100K per month in revenue. This should have been a moment of celebration because $100K per month is when you’ve hit escape velocity. If you just keep at it, you’ll be at $1 million per month in no time flat. [Do you want to grow…
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