Startup Professionals Musings

MAY 17, 2020

Even non-profits need a profitable business model to offset staff and operating costs. Assume passion level defines business opportunity. Bypasses intellectual property as not worth the cost. Don’t get caught in the myth that you shouldn’t worry about monetization until after you have a large customer base.

Intellectual Property 436

Intellectual Property Angel Investor Viral Distribution 436

Startup Professionals Musings

DECEMBER 6, 2019

According to a well-researched Motly Fool report, the challenge is very real, since around half of all businesses fail in the first five years. 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.

Finance 320

Finance Intellectual Property Technical Review Incubator 320

Startup Professionals Musings

SEPTEMBER 25, 2021

You need a viable business model and customers. Technology limited to a single product is seldom enough for a business. A long-term advantage usually also requires intellectual property, such as a patent, trade secret, or trademark. Lock in your sustainable advantage.

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. Intellectual property is a large element of most early-stage company valuations, and this value determines what percent of the company an investor will expect to get for his money.

Intellectual Property 281

Intellectual Property Entrepreneur Sweat Equity Fractional CTO 281

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. Consider licensing your product or intellectual property, and “white labeling.” Commit to a major customer.

Intellectual Property 309

Intellectual Property Technical Review Venture Capital Startup 309

Startup Professionals Musings

AUGUST 31, 2012

It doesn’t prove your business model of pricing, distribution, and support. Register some intellectual property. Intellectual property is a large element of most early-stage company valuations, and this value determines what percent of the company an investor will expect to get for his money.

Intellectual Property 260

Intellectual Property Sweat Equity Fractional CTO CTO Hire 260

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. Consider licensing your product or intellectual property, and “white labeling.” Commit to a major customer.

Entrepreneur 283

Entrepreneur Intellectual Property Technical Review Incubator 283

Startup Professionals Musings

JUNE 17, 2011

It doesn’t prove your business model of pricing, distribution, and support. Register some intellectual property. Intellectual property is a large element of most early-stage company valuations, and this value determines what percent of the company an investor will expect to get for his money.

Intellectual Property 253

Intellectual Property Sweat Equity Fractional CTO CTO Hire 253

Startup Professionals Musings

JANUARY 13, 2020

Registered patents and other intellectual property. A proven business model, ready to scale, is particularly attractive. They seek to establish win-win relationships with all partners, including investors, and treat them all as trusted advisors, rather than win-loss opportunities.

Intellectual Property 316

Intellectual Property Angel Investor Early Stage Venture Capital 316

Startup Professionals Musings

APRIL 4, 2022

According to my experience and this Motley Fool article from a few years ago, the challenge is very real, with around half of all new businesses no longer existing after five years. Consider licensing your product or intellectual property, and “white labeling.” Commit to a major customer.

Intellectual Property 261

Intellectual Property Technical Review Incubator Bootstrapping 261

Startup Professionals Musings

MAY 22, 2010

It doesn’t prove your business model of pricing, distribution, and support. Register some intellectual property. Intellectual property is a large element of most early-stage company valuations, and this value determines what percent of the company an investor will expect to get for his money.

Intellectual Property 222

Intellectual Property Sweat Equity Fractional CTO CTO Hire 222

Steve Blank

JANUARY 30, 2013

2) We should have had buy-in about the value of disruptive new business models, design and open innovation thinking. We were prematurely pushing some of the teams in the business units. It gets really tough when these projects are launched and have to fight for survival against current corporate business models.

Programming 273

Programming Technical Review Incubator Intellectual Property 273

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. Scale your funding requests to the value of your startup today, consisting of assets, contracts, and intellectual property you currently own.

Business Plan 423

Business Plan Product Intellectual Property Elevator Pitch 423

Startup Professionals Musings

NOVEMBER 4, 2011

Define some intellectual property. File a patent and trademarks to show real intellectual property. This is called “validating the business model.” Investors routinely go to candidate web sites to get a feel for the tone and scope of the company, as well as its maturity and offerings.

Intellectual Property 249

Intellectual Property Angel Investor Technical Review Elevator Pitch 249

Startup Professionals Musings

FEBRUARY 12, 2023

Even non-profits need a profitable business model to offset staff and operating costs. Assume passion level defines business opportunity. Bypasses intellectual property as not worth the cost. Don’t get caught in the myth that you shouldn’t worry about monetization until after you have a large customer base.

Intellectual Property 312

Intellectual Property Startup Angel Investor Viral 312

Startup Professionals Musings

OCTOBER 15, 2022

Registered patents and other intellectual property. A proven business model, ready to scale, is particularly attractive. They seek to establish win-win relationships with all partners, including investors, and treat them all as trusted advisors, rather than win-loss opportunities.

Intellectual Property 278

Intellectual Property Angel Investor Early Stage Venture Capital 278

Steve Blank

JUNE 19, 2014

you make substantive changes to one or more parts of your initial business model, and this new data affects your biological and clinical hypotheses. assess intellectual property and regulatory risk before they design and build. The reality is that as you validate the commercial hypotheses (i.e.

Lean 277

Lean SBIR Intellectual Property Customer Development 277

Startup Professionals Musings

DECEMBER 6, 2014

Registered patents and other intellectual property. A proven business model, ready to scale, is particularly attractive. They seek to establish win-win relationships with all partners, including investors, and treat them all as trusted advisors, rather than win-loss opportunities.

Angel Investor 268

Angel Investor Intellectual Property Entrepreneur Early Stage 268

Startup Professionals Musings

JUNE 30, 2019

According to my experience and a this Motley Fool article, the challenge is very real, with around half of all new businesses no longer existing after five years. Consider licensing your product or intellectual property, and “white labeling.” Commit to a major customer.

Intellectual Property 219

Intellectual Property Technical Review Startup Incubator 219

Startup Professionals Musings

SEPTEMBER 23, 2010

Define some intellectual property. File a patent and trademarks to show real intellectual property. This is called “validating the business model.” Investors routinely go to candidate web sites to get a feel for the tone and scope of the company, as well as its maturity and offerings.

Angel Investor 224

Angel Investor Intellectual Property Technical Review Elevator Pitch 224

Startup Professionals Musings

APRIL 30, 2012

Investors highly prize gifted leaders who are business veterans with experience in similar ventures, who can move quickly and effectively. Great business model. Show that your business can build the necessary products and services rapidly and achieve economies of scale with minimum capital and labor. Scalability.

Intellectual Property 248

Intellectual Property Startup IP Finance 248

Startup Professionals Musings

JULY 18, 2014

You need a viable business model and customers. Technology limited to a single product is seldom enough for a business. A long-term advantage usually also requires intellectual property, such as a patent, trade secret or trademark. Lock in your sustainable advantage.

Technical Review 266

Technical Review Intellectual Property Early Stage Global 266

Steve Blank

APRIL 14, 2013

business models. Intellectual property protection is great on paper and “limited” in practice. Eventually, China’s innovation-driven economy needs intellectual property rights and anti-trust laws that are enforced. business models. Of course “copy” is too strong a word.

China 328

China Silicon Valley Non-Compete Intellectual Property 328

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. Defensibility.

Angel Investor 269

Angel Investor Cram Down Intellectual Property Venture Capital 269

Startup Professionals Musings

NOVEMBER 14, 2010

Creating a strong value proposition requires substantial customer insight, thorough study, an understanding of the real value of intellectual property, thoughtfulness, and several iterations. Unfortunately, we read far more poorly written business plans at Main Street than good ones.

Intellectual Property 265

Intellectual Property Balance Sheet Phoenix Arizona 265

Startup Professionals Musings

NOVEMBER 9, 2010

Investors highly prize gifted leaders who are business veterans with experience in similar ventures, who can move quickly and effectively. Great business model. Show that your business can build the necessary products and services rapidly and achieve economies of scale with minimum capital and labor. Scalability.

Intellectual Property 231

Intellectual Property Startup IP Finance 231

Startup Professionals Musings

FEBRUARY 4, 2012

For no good reason, this process seems shrouded in mystery, when in fact it is nothing more than a final integrity check on all aspects of your business model, team, product, customers, and plan. Finally, they need to validate intellectual property protections and status. This is the dreaded “due diligence” process.

Technical Review 237

Technical Review Due Diligence Intellectual Property Private Equity 237

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

Startup Professionals Musings

OCTOBER 22, 2010

For no good reason, this process seems shrouded in mystery, when in fact it is nothing more than a final integrity check on all aspects of your business model, team, product, customers, and plan. Finally, they need to validate intellectual property protections and status. This is the dreaded “due diligence” process.

Technical Review 225

Technical Review Due Diligence Intellectual Property Private Equity 225

Startup Professionals Musings

JULY 1, 2017

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. Consider licensing your product or intellectual property, and “white labeling.” Commit to a major customer.

Product Development 177

Product Development Cost Developer Product 177

Startup Professionals Musings

SEPTEMBER 8, 2018

You need a viable business model and customers. Technology limited to a single product is seldom enough for a business. A long-term advantage usually also requires intellectual property, such as a patent, trade secret, or trademark. Lock in your sustainable advantage.

Technical Review 215

Technical Review Intellectual Property Early Stage Global 215

YoungUpstarts

AUGUST 6, 2012

Its first, Brooklyn Enterprise on Science and Technology (BEST) helps science and technology companies grow with a student patent program, intellectual property commercialization, help from business advisors, and funding recommendations.

Incubator 202

Incubator New York City Boston Intellectual Property 202

A Smart Bear: Startups and Marketing for Geeks

JANUARY 24, 2011

Customers gleefully avoid the Blockbuster none-of-these-look-good-just-pick-one-already-zombie-walk — and NetFlix just put Blockbuster out of business — but is this a workable business model? Turning a profit at a growing company is nearly impossible regardless of business model.

Intellectual Property 242

Intellectual Property Open Source Bandwidth IP 242

Steve Blank

APRIL 14, 2013

business models. Intellectual property protection is great on paper and “limited” in practice. Eventually, China’s innovation-driven economy needs intellectual property rights and anti-trust laws that are enforced. business models. Of course “copy” is too strong a word.

China 220

China Silicon Valley Non-Compete Intellectual Property 220

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 activities. Try this one.

Business Model 334

Business Model Intellectual Property Angel Investor Channel 334

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. Implement strong cybersecurity measures to safeguard your business from potential threats.

Intellectual Property 52

Intellectual Property Social Media Software Review Audience 52

Startup Professionals Musings

JANUARY 12, 2018

According to a recent Motly Fool report, the challenge is very real, since around half of all businesses fail in the first five years. 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.

Intellectual Property 134

Intellectual Property Technical Review Startup Incubator 134