Startup Professionals Musings

JANUARY 18, 2020

Every young entrepreneur needs an experienced partner for credibility with investors, and as a trusted cohort for strategy and growth discussions. Member of the Advisory Board. Supportive co-founder and executive positions.

Advisory Board 312

Advisory Board Startup Dividend Angel Investor 312

SoCal CTO

MARCH 9, 2010

In my post, Technology Roles in Startups , I described some of the different ways I engage with startup companies such as CTO Founder , CTO , Part-Time CTO , Acting CTO , Consultant, Advisor and Advisory Board Member. Now, most often technical advisors are part of a broader advisory board.

Technical Review 150

Technical Review Advisory Board Technology Fractional CTO 150

Startup Professionals Musings

NOVEMBER 1, 2014

Every young entrepreneur needs an experienced partner for credibility with investors, and as a trusted cohort for strategy and growth discussions. Member of the Advisory Board. Supportive co-founder and executive positions.

Entrepreneur 266

Entrepreneur Advisory Board Dividend Angel Investor 266

Startup Professionals Musings

SEPTEMBER 30, 2013

Make sure your plan answers every relevant question that you could possibly imagine from your business partners, spouse, and potential investors. Build qualified advisory board. If you can convince a couple of domain experts, or a couple of experienced executives to join your board and be your advocate, that’s traction.

Intellectual Property 281

Intellectual Property Entrepreneur Sweat Equity Fractional CTO 281

Startup Professionals Musings

NOVEMBER 4, 2022

He gives a wealth of practical advice on building a successful technical startup, including some specifics that I like on what constitutes a dream team of partners: The technical guru. The rest can come from early hires (with stock options to assure commitment), equity investors, or even strategic partners.

Technical Cofounder 309

Technical Cofounder Cofounder Advisory Board Startup 309

Startup Professionals Musings

FEBRUARY 9, 2020

He gives a wealth of practical advice on building a successful technical startup, including some specifics that I like on what constitutes a dream team of partners: The technical guru. The rest can come from early hires (with stock options to assure commitment), equity investors, or even strategic partners.

Technical Cofounder 308

Technical Cofounder Cofounder Advisory Board Stock Options 308

Startup Professionals Musings

AUGUST 31, 2012

Make sure your plan answers every relevant question that you could possibly imagine from your business partners, spouse, and potential investors. Build qualified advisory board. If you can convince a couple of domain experts, or a couple of experienced executives to join your board and be your advocate, that’s traction.

Intellectual Property 260

Intellectual Property Sweat Equity Fractional CTO CTO Hire 260

Startup Professionals Musings

JUNE 17, 2011

Make sure your plan answers every relevant question that you could possibly imagine from your business partners, spouse, and potential investors. Build qualified advisory board. If you can convince a couple of domain experts, or a couple of experienced executives to join your board and be your advocate, that’s traction.

Intellectual Property 253

Intellectual Property Sweat Equity Fractional CTO CTO Hire 253

Startup Professionals Musings

FEBRUARY 29, 2020

That’s the function of a good advisory board. Thus I believe every smart investor, potential partner, or critical new hire will look for a properly built advisory board as a key criteria before selection or making a commitment. Keep the advisory board to a manageable size.

Advisory Board 310

Advisory Board Angel Investor Later Stage Stock 310

Startup Professionals Musings

MAY 22, 2010

Make sure your plan answers every relevant question that you could possibly imagine from your business partners, spouse, and potential investors. Build qualified advisory board. If you can convince a couple of domain experts, or a couple of experienced executives to join your board and be your advocate, that’s traction.

Intellectual Property 222

Intellectual Property Sweat Equity Fractional CTO CTO Hire 222

Startup Professionals Musings

JULY 3, 2012

Trusted partners quit, personal friends become enemies, and staff management becomes a huge burden. Add an advisory board or experienced mentor to reality-check your financial projections, timeframes, and milestones before you publish them.

Advisory Board 240

Advisory Board Forecast Early Stage Product Development 240

Startup Professionals Musings

APRIL 20, 2011

Trusted partners quit, personal friends become enemies, and staff management becomes a huge burden. Add an advisory board or experienced mentor to reality-check your financial projections, timeframes, and milestones before you publish them.

Advisory Board 232

Advisory Board Startup Forecast Early Stage 232

SoCal CTO

MARCH 4, 2010

important planning meetings or partner meetings). Other labels: Consultant – Take bits and pieces, possibly coach Advisor / Advisory Board Member – Often a periodic responsibility and some ad hoc activities. Some weeks might end up being pretty much full-time on a single startup (e.g., But it generally works out well in the end.

Technical Review 170

Technical Review Fractional CTO Technology CTO Hire 170

Startup Professionals Musings

DECEMBER 11, 2010

Many startups have an advisory board of sympathetic people with industry expertise, or people who enjoy mentoring, or people who donate a few services on the come. Once you take investment, you will also have a fiduciary board, with the responsibility of making the company successful. All problems will go away.

Advisory Board 233

Advisory Board Cofounder Phoenix Arizona 233

Startup Professionals Musings

OCTOBER 17, 2018

Unfortunately, your personal assessment that you have traction probably won’t be convincing to potential investors and partners, so it’s important that you create and track your progress against some metrics. Assemble a credible inside advisory board and partners. Show validation data for business model key elements.

Advisory Board 199

Advisory Board Technical Review Metrics Business Model 199

Startup Professionals Musings

JUNE 11, 2014

The rest can come from early hires (with stock options to assure commitment), equity investors, or even strategic partners. If you can’t recruit all of these onto your direct team, the next best alternative is to build a first-class Advisory Board of outside people, with the requisite skills and a wealth of experience.

Technical Cofounder 245

Technical Cofounder Cofounder Advisory Board Startup 245

YoungUpstarts

AUGUST 5, 2015

We were not any different, we had corporate bylaws, which my partner and I both reviewed and signed. Our company was essentially going to be 50/50, but since my partner at the time was Indian, we decided that we would apply for HUB status as a business. Unfortunately, a formal advisory board was something we never fully formed.

CTO Hire 100

CTO Hire Fractional CTO Advisory Board Software Review 100

Startup Professionals Musings

MAY 25, 2012

If you are an entrepreneur for the first time, or entering a new business area, it’s usually worth your time to assemble an Advisory Board of two or three executives who have travelled that road before. Here are some tips on using your advisory board effectively: Select people who complement your experience.

Advisory Board 233

Advisory Board Stock Options Startup Stock 233

Startup Professionals Musings

DECEMBER 21, 2010

If you are an entrepreneur for the first time, or entering a new business area, it’s usually worth your time to assemble an Advisory Board of two or three executives who have travelled that road before. Here are some tips on using your advisory board effectively: Select people who complement your experience.

Advisory Board 229

Advisory Board Stock Options Stock Networking 229

Steve Blank

OCTOBER 11, 2016

We did three iterations of the product in less than 12 months, each one progressively going off of different consumer metrics that we found and then partner feedback. They still thought we were building what we had presented in a PowerPoint slide as the product, but that didn’t work out in our case. .

Columbus 249

Columbus Entrepreneur Cofounder Ohio 249

www.instigatorblog.com

MARCH 2, 2010

The Importance of Advisory Boards for Startup CEOs Tweet When a startup receives financing it will need to setup a Board of Directors. The Board probably existed beforehand, but was made up only of the founders. Mark Macleod spells it out beautifully in his post on Advisory Boards. Why wouldn’t you?

Advisory Board 40

Advisory Board Startup Cofounder Equity 40

Steve Blank

NOVEMBER 16, 2009

Union Square Ventures The next morning I got to spend time with Brad Burnham , partner at Union Square Ventures talking about their investment strategy and insights about web-based businesses. Bill and his partner Fred Wilson have invested in ~30 or so companies with 27 still active. As for #3. I agree completely.

Customer Development 228

Customer Development Web Developer Customer 228

David Teten

JANUARY 10, 2012

With a unique vision for starting and successfully managing innovative companies, he is the Managing Partner of Social Leverage, a holding company that invests in early stage web businesses. Mr. Parekh serves on various advisory boards of start-up internet companies. and Tweetdeck (purchased by Twitter in June 2011).

Technical Review 128

Technical Review Technology North Carolina Switzerland 128

Startup Professionals Musings

FEBRUARY 18, 2018

He gives a wealth of practical advice on building a successful technical startup, including some specifics that I like on what constitutes a dream team of partners: The technical guru. The rest can come from early hires (with stock options to assure commitment), equity investors, or even strategic partners.

Technical Cofounder 144

Technical Cofounder Cofounder Advisory Board Startup 144

YoungUpstarts

JUNE 4, 2019

by Bruce Cleveland, Founding Partner at Wildcat Venture Partners and author of “ Traversing the Traction Gap “ As we continue our exploration of the Traction Gap Framework® – a step-by-step approach that startup teams can use to go from ideation to preparing to scale – I will walk you through the principles.

Framework 127

Framework Architecture Cleveland Early Stage 127

Up and Running

MAY 10, 2012

Sulaiman Sanni and his partner Ben Lamson were both working for Meltwater Group, a large, well known Software as a Service company, Su as a social media consultant and Ben as a sales manager. version, and talking to an advisory board and seed round investors already.” Ben Lamson and Sulaiman Sanni, WeDidIt cofounders.

Small Business 142

Small Business Advisory Board Employee Entrepreneur 142

VC Cafe

JULY 5, 2010

To learn more, VC Cafe interviewed Brian Rosenzweig, one of the managing partners in the new fund and the former marketing director at 21Ventures. Ultimately it is up to the Management Team, Advisory Board and Board of Directors to make the investment decisions, manage the capital investments and oversee portfolio company development.

Israel 106

Israel Technical Review Software Review Seed Stage 106

Startup Professionals Musings

APRIL 12, 2010

Trusted partners quit, personal friends become enemies, and staff management becomes a huge burden. Add an advisory board or experienced mentor to reality-check your financial projections, timeframes, and milestones before you publish them.

Advisory Board 125

Advisory Board Startup Forecast Early Stage 125

YoungUpstarts

MAY 24, 2019

by Bruce Cleveland, Founding Partner at Wildcat Venture Partners and author of “ Traversing the Traction Gap “ As we continue our exploration of the Traction Gap Framework® – a step-by-step approach that startup teams can use to go from ideation to preparing to scale – I will walk you through the principles.

Framework 113

Framework Architecture Cleveland Early Stage 113

Startup Professionals Musings

NOVEMBER 27, 2022

That’s the function of a good advisory board. Thus I believe every smart investor, potential partner, or critical new hire will look for a properly built advisory board as a key criteria before selection or making a commitment. Keep the advisory board to a manageable size.

Advisory Board 308

Advisory Board Angel Investor Startup Later Stage 308

Steve Blank

NOVEMBER 30, 2022

But having been in the middle of this conversation when I served on one of the Defense Department’s advisory boards, I understand why the Pentagon can’t count. The Defense of Department’s 40-plus advisory boards are staffed by outsiders who can provide independent perspectives and advice. initiative.

Advisory Board 376

Advisory Board Artificial Inteligence SBIR Government 376

Startup Professionals Musings

MARCH 31, 2017

The best business partners have strengths that complement yours, and they are smarter than you in their domain. I always recommend that a startup founder enlist an advisory board of three to five members, and I find that people who resist this help are not very resilient. They bring you solutions, not just problems.

Advisory Board 120

Advisory Board Social Media Cofounder Technical Review 120

Startup Professionals Musings

NOVEMBER 30, 2014

If you are a new entrepreneur, or entering a new business area, it’s always worth your time to assemble an Advisory Board of two or three executives who have travelled that road before. Here are some tips on finding and using your advisory board effectively: Select people who complement your experience.

Advisory Board 276

Advisory Board Startup Stock Options Stock 276

David Teten

JANUARY 23, 2021

I’ve been fortunate to be a Partner at two different VC firms over the past 9 years, and we’ve grown AUM 10X both times. Build the firm as much as possible before you solicit limited partners. . The next best move is to build your core team, e.g., recruit an Advisory Board, Venture Partners, and EIRs.

Private Equity 78

Private Equity Venture Capital Technical Review Software Review 78

Steve Blank

JULY 9, 2013

I pointed out that there are four roles a financial investor can take in your company: a board member, a board observer (a non-voting attendee of board meetings,) an advisory board member, or no active role. And they have a fiduciary responsibility to their own limited partners.) Advisory Board. “Do

Advisory Board 325

Advisory Board Venture Capital Angel Investor Limited Partner 325

Startup Professionals Musings

SEPTEMBER 13, 2015

The rest can come from early hires (with stock options to assure commitment), equity investors, or even strategic partners. If you can’t recruit all of these onto your direct team, the next best alternative is to build a first-class Advisory Board of outside people, with the requisite skills and a wealth of experience.

Technical Cofounder 120

Technical Cofounder Cofounder Advisory Board Stock Options 120

Startup Professionals Musings

JULY 8, 2020

Many startup founders I know avoid establishing a formal advisory board or board of directors for as long as possible, with the excuse that this is just another burden, or it has more risk than value to the founder. You need board members who are these influencers, or know them well.

Advisory Board 336

Advisory Board Startup IPO Government 336