Both Sides of the Table

JANUARY 4, 2014

Nowhere is the politics more difficult than with co-founders, which is why for years I’ve spoken publicly about “ the co-founder mythology.” ” Of course we all go into businesses expecting to be aligned with our co-founders but over time life changes. Equity for the future?

Founder 340

Founder Cofounder Sacramento Technical Review 340

View from Seed

JULY 6, 2020

You have 4-6 years of professional experience as a technology operator, founder, or investor in New York. You have a point of view on emerging technology and business models, and you are not afraid to voice your conviction. However, you will serve as a co-pilot on deals with all four partners, across the geographies we cover. .

Technical Review 257

Technical Review Software Review Hiring Seed Stage 257

Steve Blank

OCTOBER 24, 2017

Why do these founders get to stay around? Because the balance of power has dramatically shifted from investors to founders. VCs competing for unicorn investments have given founders control of the board. — all great things when you are executing and scaling a known business model. Board Control.

Founder 281

Founder Technical Review CTO Hire IPO 281

Startup Professionals Musings

OCTOBER 9, 2023

Businesses require an equally elegant business model, with the right price, messaging and delivery channel to the right target customers to keep the dream alive and growing. Defining the right business model requires the same diligence as designing the right product, but the approach and skills required are different.

Technical Review 220

Technical Review Advisory Board Software Review Business Model 220

The Next Web

SEPTEMBER 22, 2013

While you are working away on your business plan, looking for ways to raise capital, finding the right people to hire, etc., But have you ever had the opportunity to pick the brains of founders who created amazingly successful startups and companies like Envato , Backblaze , Simple , or Treehouse ? Things snowballed from there.”.

Cofounder 164

Cofounder Founder Startup Bootstrapping 164

SoCal CTO

JANUARY 5, 2011

Some really great stuff in 2010 that aims to help startups around product, technology, business models, etc. 500 Hats , February 1, 2010 When to Use Facebook Connect – Twitter Oauth – Google Friend Connect for Authentication? . - Berkonomics , November 29, 2010 Rice Alliance IT/Web 2.0

Silicon Valley 378

Silicon Valley Startup Term Sheet Venture Capital 378

Steve Blank

MAY 9, 2017

The founders were simply wrong about their assumptions about customer needs. It turns out the term “visionary founder” was usually a synonym for someone who was hallucinating. Founders Need to Run the Company Longer. So, almost like clockwork 20 th century startups fired the innovators/founders when they scaled.

Restful 249

Restful Silicon Valley San Jose Puerto Rico 249

A Smart Bear: Startups and Marketing for Geeks

AUGUST 8, 2011

It’s “ Loveline for startups ,&# where entrepreneurs get to ask any question about their startup and have me and a rotating co-host tackle the problem and devise constructive next-actions. When should a company should focus on growth only, ignoring the business model and revenue? I finally started Smart Bear Live.

Cofounder 226

Cofounder Angel Investor Hosting Software Review 226

YoungUpstarts

JUNE 12, 2014

Several factors influenced my decision: We had a number of customers for our hosted solution, so we’d validated our idea and business model. Requesting help can be hard, but it makes you more efficient and increases your business’ chances of success. However, after 14 months, I decided it was time to take the leap.

Angel Investor 275

Angel Investor Security Cofounder Salary 275

Startup Professionals Musings

JUNE 26, 2020

If possible, quantify these in non-technical business terms, such as dollars saved or replacement costs over time. Provide specifics on the customer business model. In fact, this context is your best opportunity to attract a co-founder who has the business skills and interests that are complementary to your technical strengths.

Business Plan 423

Business Plan Product Intellectual Property Elevator Pitch 423

VC Cafe

MARCH 16, 2025

Mention that you do “Consumer tech” as a startup founder and you’d be limiting your funding options to one third of the venture capital funds (in Israel that figure is probably closer to 10%). Gaming founders know this challenge well. Until now, consumer tech was perceived as a risky binary investment.

Technical Review 78

Technical Review B2C Generative AI IPO 78

YoungUpstarts

DECEMBER 21, 2020

by Kathryn Petralia, cofounder of Kabbage. Businesses and consumers alike are finding ways to adapt and stay resilient during these unprecedented times. Staying nimble to meet the demand of new market needs and demands is crucial to maintaining the health of your business, whether there is a pandemic or not.

Small Business 147

Small Business Cofounder United States Technical Review 147

ReadWriteStart

AUGUST 30, 2022

Most investors want to finance a project that targets a large market to allow the business to scale. To do this, startup founders need to analyze how many potential customers the product has, how much they can pay, and how their number changes over time. Drawing Up a Financial Business Model. Business model.

Software Review 183

Software Review Technical Review Cofounder United States 183

Startup Lessons Learned

DECEMBER 14, 2017

Guest Post by Misti Yang, Writer for Lean Startup Co. LESSON #1: Equip your business with a portfolio map and a 21st century org chart. With industries from banking to transportation being transformed and, in some instances, undermined by new business models and technology, executives are smart to wonder, “Are we next?”

Lean 245

Lean Startup CTO Hire Cofounder 245

YoungUpstarts

JANUARY 7, 2018

by Humberto Farias, CEO and co-founder at Concepta. The digital revolution is disrupting the traditional business model for small and medium businesses (SMBs). Buzzwords like data science, artificial intelligence, and predictive analytics are being used by big companies with the ability to invest.

Artificial Inteligence 164

Artificial Inteligence Analytics SCRUM Cofounder 164

View from Seed

SEPTEMBER 18, 2019

Depending on the composition of the founding team, you might or might not have near-term holes in certain functions at the exec level – e.g. you’ll most likely need to bring on a CTO/VP of Engineering shortly after the seed round if you don’t have a technical co-founder.

Part-Time VPE 195

Part-Time VPE Seed Stage CTO Hire Forecast 195

View from Seed

JANUARY 24, 2018

The concept our Guilds is simple: We want to bring together small groups of Product and Go-to-Market experts to lend their time to support our portfolio company founders and key operators. Pierre Valade, Co-Founder of Sunrise & Mobile Designer at Microsoft. Brian Balfour, Founder & CEO of Reforge. Product Guild.

Operations 176

Operations Cofounder Technical Review Angel Investor 176

Steve Blank

NOVEMBER 13, 2018

They go from organizations struggling for survival as they search for product/market fit, to building a repeatable and scalable business model, and then growing to profitability. Some (like your peers or even the founders) don’t understand it, and others (the VCs) realize it’s not in their interest to let you know.

Part-Time VPE 334

Part-Time VPE Employee Cofounder Hiring 334

This is going to be BIG.

JUNE 17, 2024

Yet, everyone’s got an opinion about how a company measures up, especially the founder. ( The other day, I had a difficult conversation with a founder who clearly felt like VCs were the problem in her fundraising process. I don’t need to remind such a founder how the world is stacked against them. Then, there are nuances.

Technical Review 164

Technical Review Cofounder Startup Equity 164

The Next Web

JANUARY 27, 2013

One of the things I found most valuable from participating in the Founder Institute was a lesson about the Golden Circle by Simon Sinek. One of the biggest mistakes I made was flushing about $10,000 down the toilet on legal fees for a piece of paper that eventually didn’t suffice when two of our co-founders left the building.

Netherlands 159

Netherlands Technical Review Software Review Cofounder 159

Both Sides of the Table

MARCH 1, 2011

Mike is a no BS guy, has all the attributes I look for in a founder and says things like, openly shares knowledge and opines without a filter including this one, “whoever invented uncapped convertible debt should be spanked!&# Of course, monetization of search became one of the best business models in the history of business.

Semantic 302

Semantic Acquisition Valuation Angel Investor 302

Startup Professionals Musings

JUNE 20, 2016

Thus the top priority of every entrepreneur who wants funding should be to build and highlight their “dream team” of co-founders, executives and advisers, to attract the biggest and best investors. Investor focus is on facilitating the scaling of a startup, after you have proven the business model.

Sweat Equity 152

Sweat Equity Entrepreneur Elevator Pitch Startup 152

The Next Web

AUGUST 10, 2013

Nadav Poraz, Founder, WhoSampled. Naturally, there are different kinds of product goals, e.g.: fulfilling a certain business model, forming a habit, creating a behavioral change or owning an experience. Ori Goshen, Co-Founder & VP R&D, Tawkon. Michael Cheng, Cofounder, Needle.

Cofounder 157

Cofounder Guerilla Startup Analytics 157

View from Seed

MAY 24, 2021

You have 4-6 years of professional experience as a technology operator, founder, or investor in New York. You have a point of view on emerging technology and business models, and you are not afraid to voice your conviction. However, you will serve as a co-pilot on deals with all four partners, across the geographies we cover.

Technical Review 120

Technical Review Software Review Seed Stage Cofounder 120

Both Sides of the Table

MAY 7, 2011

Blogs weren’t popularized yet so it was an oddity for me to read the founder of a software company spewing out advice. Joel met his co-founder for Fog Creek software and learned a valuable management lesson. The original business model for StackOverflow was to help employers find good programmers.

Software Review 285

Software Review Software St. Louis API 285

The Startup Magazine

MAY 31, 2022

As part of our Female Founder series , The Startup Magazine caught up with Claudia Freed, CEO of the Wheaton Illinois-based nonprofit EALgreen. Freed received the first scholarship created from a sustainable-business model by the collaboration of EALgreen, WW Grainger, Inc. As an immigrant student from Argentina, Ms.

Founder 155

Founder Argentina Chicago Switzerland 155

Steve Blank

APRIL 8, 2010

He and his co-founder were both PhD’s in applied math who believe they can make some serious inroads on next generation search. Why a business plan is different than a business model. Instead of writing a full-fledged business plan, they had focused on building and testing a business model.

Business Model 332

Business Model Business Plan Customer Cap Table 332

Steve Blank

DECEMBER 7, 2009

Our business model changed as we realized that to become a large company, we needed to automate more than just a few marketers. Disbelief, Anger, Resignation and Acceptance My cofounders and I went through the stages of disbelief, anger, resignation and acceptance. He was now CEO of a new company in our market.

Silicon Valley 261

Silicon Valley Non-disclosure Agreement NDA Startup 261

YoungUpstarts

JUNE 27, 2019

by Blake Heron, founder of Skills Co. Effective communication is central to the smooth functioning of every organization irrespective of the business model they are based on. Blake Heron is the founder of Skills Co , an online platform where users can learn new skills from industry experts through video master courses.

Technical Review 127

Technical Review Software Review Cofounder Salary 127

Steve Blank

AUGUST 15, 2016

But to do it, you need to actually have a sustainable business model. Starting a business is too risky. The show follows the journeys of founders who share what it takes to build a startup – from restaurants to rocket scientists, to online gifts to online groceries and more. Wanting to create impact is great.

Cofounder 147

Cofounder Entrepreneur Africa Sales Cycle 147

VC Cafe

JUNE 26, 2023

Challenges galore Like any tech advancement at scale, to succeed in this endeavour requires deep pockets: cloud resources and costly GPUs, expensive AI engineers and a working business model, all of which Google already has. We’re moving away from the 10 blue links (and sometimes 10 blue ads) and moving into something different.

Generative AI 174

Generative AI Search ChatGPT Technical Review 174

Up and Running

OCTOBER 20, 2014

If you start your own business, you’ll have the flexibility to do all of these things. For Will von Bernuth, co-founder of Block Island Organics, a family-run sun care startup, the flexible schedule allows him to help his parents. There are tax incentives that you couldn’t take advantage of without a business,” he says.

Cofounder 165

Cofounder West Virginia Taiwan Virginia 165

VC Cafe

OCTOBER 31, 2022

It’s a tough time for a lot of startup founders right now. This is not meant to be a negative post, but rather a temperature check of today’s market environment and the levers founders can pull on to survive this period. What is a founder to do? Tougher times might be coming ahead. Keep your head up!

Founder 173

Founder Technical Review Down Round Liquidation Preference 173

The Next Web

DECEMBER 4, 2013

Initially, your staff (even if that’s just you and a co-founder) will be your greatest asset in locating and connecting with your audience. As a startup, you’re working with limited resources and a lean business model. Starting out, you can’t hit every network and outlet full-force. Prioritize social networks.

Social Media 158

Social Media Media Viral Startup 158

Duct Tape Marketing

SEPTEMBER 26, 2024

Gain Client’s Trust by ensuring Cybersecurity written by John Jantsch read more at Duct Tape Marketing The Duct Tape Marketing Podcast with Zach Kromkowski In this episode of the Duct Tape Marketing Podcast , I interviewed Zach Kromkowski, co-founder of Sention, about the importance of cybersecurity for small businesses and marketing firms.

Software Review 80

Software Review Security Distribution IP 80

VC Cafe

SEPTEMBER 2, 2022

I touched on this in my post “ Founder Investor Fit “ Passing the initial filtering process. Most of these can sound like common sense, but you’d be surprised how many founders skip this initial research. What would make an investor more interested in your pitch deck. What should be in your pre-seed pitch deck.

Technical Review 166

Technical Review Early Stage Cofounder Portfolio 166

View from Seed

DECEMBER 6, 2018

Another affinity-based co-working space? And it’s amazed me how many times I’ve seen two or more entirely separate groups of founders?—?without Rather than just a harmless, misplaced attitude, this copycat fallacy can be a detriment to seed stage founders for two reasons. Another d2c gourmet pet food company ?

Seed Stage 120

Seed Stage Startup Cofounder Stealth 120