Startup Professionals Musings

FEBRUARY 19, 2013

The problem is that professional investors (Angels and Venture Capital) want a proven business model before they invest, ready to scale, rather than the more risky research and development efforts. It always reduces risk to plan your business first. Nevertheless, it’s an option that doesn’t cost you equity.

Intellectual Property 309

Intellectual Property Technical Review Venture Capital Startup 309

Startup Professionals Musings

JULY 14, 2014

The problem is that professional investors (Angels and Venture Capital) want a proven business model before they invest, ready to scale, rather than the more risky research and development efforts. It always reduces risk to plan your business first. Nevertheless, it’s an option that doesn’t cost you equity.

Entrepreneur 283

Entrepreneur Intellectual Property Technical Review Incubator 283

Gust

JANUARY 4, 2012

Last month we covered the basics of intellectual property (IP) for startups, including a simple taxonomy, some common issues and related documents for entrepreneurs to use when forming a new startup. I’m proud to contribute to the effort and always enjoy reading what the other authors have to say.

Intellectual Property 143

Intellectual Property IP Startup United States 143

Startup Professionals Musings

SEPTEMBER 25, 2021

You need a viable business model and customers. Investors expect proof that your invention can be manufactured in volume, and can justify a sales price at least double the cost, to a large customer set that has money to spend. Technology limited to a single product is seldom enough for a business.

Technical Review 391

Technical Review Intellectual Property Early Stage Global 391

Startup Professionals Musings

SEPTEMBER 30, 2013

It doesn’t prove your business model of pricing, distribution, and support. Register some intellectual property. These are things that can cost very little money, but go a long ways in convincing someone that you are making progress. Get a real customer and real revenue.

Intellectual Property 281

Intellectual Property Entrepreneur Sweat Equity CTO Hire 281

Startup Professionals Musings

APRIL 4, 2022

The problem is that professional investors (angels and venture capitalists) want a proven business model before they invest, ready to scale, rather than the more risky research and development efforts. It always reduces risk to plan your business first. Nevertheless, it’s an option that doesn’t cost you equity.

Intellectual Property 261

Intellectual Property Technical Review Incubator Bootstrapping 261

Startup Professionals Musings

AUGUST 31, 2012

It doesn’t prove your business model of pricing, distribution, and support. Register some intellectual property. These are things that can cost very little money, but go a long ways in convincing someone that you are making progress. Get a real customer and real revenue.

Intellectual Property 260

Intellectual Property Sweat Equity CTO Hire Fractional CTO 260

Startup Professionals Musings

JUNE 17, 2011

It doesn’t prove your business model of pricing, distribution, and support. Register some intellectual property. These are things that can cost very little money, but go a long ways in convincing someone that you are making progress. Get a real customer and real revenue.

Intellectual Property 253

Intellectual Property Sweat Equity CTO Hire Fractional CTO 253

Startup Professionals Musings

FEBRUARY 12, 2023

I certainly agree that starting a business is fraught with risk, and none of us get it all right the first time. It’s important to learn from your own mistakes, but it’s even smarter to learn from someone else’s mistakes, without paying their high price in time lost, cost, and pain. Assume passion level defines business opportunity.

Intellectual Property 312

Intellectual Property Startup Angel Investor Viral 312

Startup Professionals Musings

JANUARY 13, 2020

Registered patents and other intellectual property. Being the first mover or lowest cost is not a good long-term strategy. A proven business model, ready to scale, is particularly attractive. Already set and achieved initial milestones. Evidence of adaptability and flexibility.

Intellectual Property 316

Intellectual Property Angel Investor Early Stage Venture Capital 316

Startup Professionals Musings

JUNE 26, 2020

Thus I offer the following outline for how to organize and present your business plan, with specific examples: Start with outlining the customer problem, and your solution. For example, “We just patented a new battery technology that will cut your smartphone charge time and cost in half.” Use non-fuzzy terms to quantify customer value.

Business Plan 423

Business Plan Product Intellectual Property Elevator Pitch 423

Startup Professionals Musings

JUNE 30, 2019

The problem is that professional investors (angels and venture capitalists) want a proven business model before they invest, ready to scale, rather than the more risky research and development efforts. It always reduces risk to plan your business first. Nevertheless, it’s an option that doesn’t cost you equity.

Intellectual Property 219

Intellectual Property Technical Review Startup Incubator 219

Startup Professionals Musings

MAY 22, 2010

It doesn’t prove your business model of pricing, distribution, and support. Register some intellectual property. These are things that can cost very little money, but go a long ways in convincing someone that you are making progress. Get a real customer and real revenue.

Intellectual Property 222

Intellectual Property Sweat Equity CTO Hire Fractional CTO 222

Startup Professionals Musings

NOVEMBER 4, 2011

Define some intellectual property. File a patent and trademarks to show real intellectual property. Like the business plan, a financial model is required as much for your own use as to impress angel investors. This is called “validating the business model.” Close at least one initial customer.

Intellectual Property 249

Intellectual Property Angel Investor Technical Review Elevator Pitch 249

Startup Professionals Musings

OCTOBER 15, 2022

Registered patents and other intellectual property. Being the first mover or lowest cost is not a good long-term strategy. A proven business model, ready to scale, is particularly attractive. Already set and achieved initial milestones. Evidence of adaptability and flexibility.

Intellectual Property 278

Intellectual Property Angel Investor Early Stage Venture Capital 278

Startup Professionals Musings

DECEMBER 6, 2014

Registered patents and other intellectual property. Being the first mover or lowest cost is not a good long-term strategy. A proven business model, ready to scale, is particularly attractive. Already set and achieved initial milestones. Evidence of adaptability and flexibility.

Angel Investor 268

Angel Investor Intellectual Property Entrepreneur Early Stage 268

Startup Professionals Musings

JUNE 2, 2013

The single most important ingredient of success is not the idea, but having a team in place that has impeccable integrity, can iterate the product quickly, pivot the business model as necessary, and keep costs down in the process. But patents and other intellectual property only go so far. Funding risk.

Angel Investor 269

Angel Investor Cram Down Intellectual Property Venture Capital 269

Startup Professionals Musings

NOVEMBER 14, 2010

The value proposition is a short statement that clearly communicates the target customer, the customer’s problem and the pain that it causes, the unique solution that addresses this problem, and the net benefit of this solution (value derived versus relative cost) from the customer's perspective. Proposition.

Intellectual Property 265

Intellectual Property Balance Sheet Phoenix Arizona 265

Startup Professionals Musings

JULY 18, 2014

You need a viable business model and customers. Investors expect proof that your invention can be manufactured in volume and can justify a sales price at least double the cost to a large customer set that has money to spend. Technology limited to a single product is seldom enough for a business.

Technical Review 266

Technical Review Intellectual Property Early Stage Global 266

Startup Professionals Musings

SEPTEMBER 23, 2010

Define some intellectual property. File a patent and trademarks to show real intellectual property. Like the business plan, a financial model is required as much for your own use as to impress angel investors. This is called “validating the business model.” Close at least one initial customer.

Angel Investor 224

Angel Investor Intellectual Property Technical Review Elevator Pitch 224

Steve Blank

MARCH 31, 2014

The first will be commodity businesses that are valued for their ability to execute their current business model. The second class will be firms with a demonstrated ability to continually innovate and reinvent their business models. These innovations do not require change in a company’s existing business model.

Private Equity 330

Private Equity Metrics China Intellectual Property 330

A Smart Bear: Startups and Marketing for Geeks

JANUARY 24, 2011

Of course this is Survivor Bias at it’s finest; these examples don’t prove this is a great strategy , they just illustrate that it can work: Zappos decided to sell shoes over the Internet, even though it meant eating shipping costs as customers tried shoe after shoe, constantly returning merchandise on the basis of fit or look.

Intellectual Property 242

Intellectual Property Open Source Bandwidth IP 242

Startup Professionals Musings

SEPTEMBER 8, 2018

You need a viable business model and customers. Investors expect proof that your invention can be manufactured in volume, and can justify a sales price at least double the cost, to a large customer set that has money to spend. Technology limited to a single product is seldom enough for a business.

Technical Review 215

Technical Review Intellectual Property Early Stage Global 215

Startup Professionals Musings

JANUARY 12, 2018

The problem is that professional investors (angels and venture capital) want a proven business model before they invest, ready to scale, rather than early projections and product development. It always reduces risk to plan your business first. Nevertheless, it’s an option that doesn’t cost you equity.

Intellectual Property 134

Intellectual Property Technical Review Startup Incubator 134

Startup Professionals Musings

JULY 8, 2015

The problem is that professional investors (angels and venture capital) want a proven business model before they invest, ready to scale, rather than the more risky research and development efforts. It always reduces risk to plan your business first. Nevertheless, it’s an option that doesn’t cost you equity.

Entrepreneur 120

Entrepreneur Intellectual Property Technical Review Incubator 120

Women Entrepreneurs Can

FEBRUARY 18, 2025

Developing a Solid Business Plan A well-crafted business plan serves as a roadmap for your digital venture. Begin by outlining your business model, including your revenue streams, pricing strategy, and growth projections. Building a User-Friendly Website or App Your website or app is the face of your digital business.

Intellectual Property 52

Intellectual Property Social Media Software Review Audience 52

Startup Professionals Musings

APRIL 11, 2022

An effective tool I see used more and more, as a prelude to a more detailed business plan, is the Business Model Canvas , first introduced by Alexander Osterwalder back in 2008. In my experience as a new business advisor, a business is nothing until people are aligned and work in sync. Key resources.

Business Model 334

Business Model Intellectual Property Angel Investor Channel 334

Steve Blank

MAY 26, 2009

Different market opportunities present radically different startup risks and costs. Intellectual Property At the next class I said, “You all ought to get out and start talking to customers on day one, and get early feedback on your idea. You don’t need to worry about any Intellectual Property (IP) issues.

Vertical 159

Vertical Silicon Valley Intellectual Property RSS 159

Gust

NOVEMBER 8, 2012

Intellectual Property. Broadly speaking, meaningful patent reform could involve making it harder to patent insignificant or trivial innovations; severely limiting or abolishing software and business method patents; limiting damages that can be awarded; and reducing or shifting the enormous costs involved in patent litigation.

Silicon Valley 187

Silicon Valley San Francisco Intellectual Property Accredited Investor 187

Startup Professionals Musings

MAY 27, 2016

Investors like to see new intellectual property as a barrier to entry. Plan includes a business model with good margins. Counting on sustaining the business through more free users and growth in eyeballs for advertisers is a naïve and risky approach and it implies investors with very deep pockets.

Technical Review 134

Technical Review Intellectual Property Due Diligence Angel Investor 134

YoungUpstarts

JANUARY 30, 2015

While TBR expects margin growth to be uneven through 2015, revenue and gross profit will continue to increase, due to the ability of its advertising business to monetize the proliferation of mobile devices and maintain its dominance in desktop search. Professionalisms'

Advertising 100

Advertising Revenue Mobile Intellectual Property 100

Up and Running

AUGUST 24, 2020

Cutting costs , revisiting forecasts , and stabilizing your business. You’re not forgetting it or avoiding the practices that have saved your business so far. For entrepreneurs looking to start a business or for established businesses looking to pivot their business model , you can use AI to build as-a-service operations.

Technical Review 131

Technical Review Analytics Forecast Artificial Inteligence 131

NZ Entrepreneur

NOVEMBER 14, 2019

One of the main (and early) steps is to make a considered decision about what IP means to your business and what IP tools will be used to support your business model. Not doing so can cause big problems later for your business. It is estimated that trade secret theft cost the US economy $300 billion in 2012.

Intellectual Property 46

Intellectual Property IP Software Review New Zealand 46

Startup Professionals Musings

JUNE 26, 2015

Skip the fuzzy marketing terms, such as "easier to use," "lower cost" and "disruptive technology." " Investors want to buy into an entrepreneur with a startup that can provide evidence of an ability to double customer productivity, at half the cost, with patented technology.

Intellectual Property 120

Intellectual Property Elevator Pitch Angel Investor Technical Review 120

Startup Professionals Musings

APRIL 3, 2016

I certainly agree that starting a business is fraught with risk, and none of us get it all right the first time. It’s important to learn from your own mistakes, but it’s even smarter to learn from someone else’s mistakes, without paying their high price in time lost, cost, and pain. Assume passion level defines business opportunity.

Intellectual Property 120

Intellectual Property Startup Angel Investor Viral 120

Startup Professionals Musings

APRIL 1, 2015

I certainly agree that starting a business is fraught with risk, and none of us get it all right the first time. It’s important to learn from your own mistakes, but it’s even smarter to learn from someone else’s mistakes, without paying their high price in time lost, cost, and pain. Assume passion level defines business opportunity.

Intellectual Property 120

Intellectual Property Angel Investor Viral Distribution 120

Startup Professionals Musings

FEBRUARY 27, 2016

Here are seven lessons I’ve accumulated from real life experiences on how crowdfunding can lead you astray -- and guidance on how to offset these potential negatives: Keep your attention on the business model as well as the solution. Several crowdfunding successes have failed as a business. Keep all IP details close to the vest.

Non-disclosure Agreement 120

Non-disclosure Agreement Intellectual Property Technical Review Vesting 120