Both Sides of the Table

NOVEMBER 14, 2017

Nearly every successful tech startup I’ve observed over the past 20 years has gone through a similar growth pattern: Innovate, systematize then scale operations. Innovate In the early years of a startup there is a lot of kinetic energy of enthusiastic innovators looking to launch a product that changes how an industry works.

Operations 286

Operations New York City Technical Review Startup 286

Startup Professionals Musings

SEPTEMBER 16, 2022

These days, it is almost impossible to find a small business where everything is done by full-time employees, in the office or at home. These approaches allow your startup to grow more rapidly, save costs, but costly mistakes can lead to business failure. Utilization and personal growth of virtual employees is not my problem.”

Cost 346

Cost Philippines Bandwidth Cofounder 346

Both Sides of the Table

JUNE 21, 2014

Startups are hard. We tell startup stories. ” Strangely, the best I’ve ever heard this exemplified is in Anthony Bourdain’s Kitchen Confidential - which is really a book about startups as told through kitchen stories. You should also focus heavily on his or her former employees. ” Just as a test.

CTO Hire 320

CTO Hire Cofounder San Francisco Silicon Valley 320

Startup Professionals Musings

APRIL 22, 2014

A while back I talked about how and where to find a co-founder in “ For a Startup, Two Heads are Always Better Than One ”. The feedback was good, but some readers asked me to be a bit more specific on attributes that might indicate an ideal startup partner. business entrepreneur partner startup traits'

Partner 269

Partner Software Review CTO Hire Fractional CTO 269

Startup Professionals Musings

OCTOBER 16, 2022

One of the biggest myths in the business world is that startups are no place for Baby Boomers, that aging generation born between 1945 and 1964. Today people over 55 are almost twice as likely to create successful startups as Gen-Y, age 20 to 34. Supportive co-founder and executive positions. Member of the Advisory Board.

Advisory Board 368

Advisory Board Dividend Angel Investor Cofounder 368

Startup Professionals Musings

MAY 25, 2022

Business partners can be co-founders in a startup, multiple owners of an existing business, or a joint venture. As a former startup investor, I was often involved with due diligence on founders, and I felt that founders should do the same on co-founders, as well as investors.

Technical Review 313

Technical Review Due Diligence Partner Cofounder 313

Startup Professionals Musings

DECEMBER 11, 2019

These days, it is almost impossible to find a small business where everything is done at the home location, by full-time employees. These approaches allow your startup to grow more rapidly, save costs, but costly mistakes can lead to business failure. Utilization and personal growth of virtual employees is not my problem.”

Entrepreneur 303

Entrepreneur Philippines Bandwidth Cofounder 303

A Smart Bear: Startups and Marketing for Geeks

FEBRUARY 26, 2013

” Almost all startup founders experience a deep and prolonged sadness after selling their company , even when the sale is an outrageous success. The answer is important and fundamental for all startup founders, whether or not they ever intend to sell their company. A startups is an obsession. What spare time?

Software Review 295

Software Review Startup Cofounder Search 295

The Startup Magazine

AUGUST 9, 2022

As part of our Founder interview series , The Startup Magazine caught up with Salo Sterental, Co-Founder of the SoStereo, a marketing firm that enables brands and artists alike to unlock the marketing power of music. Salo: Zumba Fitness approached Beto (my co-founder) and I with a unique problem.

Cofounder 158

Cofounder Founder Miami Marketing 158

Steve Blank

JANUARY 17, 2023

Three types of organizations – Incubators, Accelerators and Venture Studios – have emerged to reduce the risk of early-stage startup failure by helping teams find product/market fit and raise initial capital. They do the most to de-risk the early stages of a startup. Reducing Startup Risk. Carlos stirred his coffee.

Technical Cofounder 368

Technical Cofounder Intellectual Property Technical Review Incubator 368

Startup Professionals Musings

JANUARY 3, 2022

Startup investors tell me they invest in a new venture with a higher caliber of people, rather than the product or service, and I agree. Some of the companies with the best team cultures, including Zappos , even go so far as to offer new employees $2,000 to quit after the first week on the job if they don’t feel a fit with the team assigned.

Hiring 337

Hiring Technical Cofounder Cofounder Retention 337

Startup Professionals Musings

APRIL 8, 2023

The most valuable assets of a new startup are the people on the team, and the most challenging task of the entrepreneur and team leaders is to spend their leadership time and energy productively. Most new startup founders start out by assuming they need to spread their leadership efforts evenly across all team members.

Employee 267

Employee Leadership Cofounder Matching 267

Steve Blank

SEPTEMBER 5, 2018

Reading the NY Times article “ Jeffrey Katzenberg Raises $1 Billion for Short-Form Video Venture, ” I realized it was time for a new startup heuristic: the amount of customer discovery and product-market fit you need to find is inversely proportional to the amount and availability of risk capital. It’s the antithesis of the Lean Startup.

Lean 335

Lean Burn Rate Startup IPO 335

VC Cafe

MARCH 31, 2025

Michael Seibel first joined YC as a founder (twice: w07, w12) once with the live streaming service Justin.TV (which morphed into Twitch) and later on Socialcam, another streaming app. All co-founders should have roughly a year’s worth of very frugal living expenses saved up and must have quit their jobs.

Cofounder 88

Cofounder Silicon Valley Technical Review PR 88

Both Sides of the Table

JANUARY 4, 2014

Yesterday I wrote a post about “ the politics of startups ” in which I asserted that all companies have politics, which in its purest sense is just about understanding human psychology. ” Of course we all go into businesses expecting to be aligned with our co-founders but over time life changes.

Founder 340

Founder Cofounder Sacramento Technical Review 340

ReadWriteStart

DECEMBER 16, 2020

Here is how remote startups are changing the game for everyone. In fact, according to Founders Forum’s survey of 400+ startup owners, 94% of the respondents were already working from home before the pandemic. To help them make the transition, a new breed of “remote startups” has emerged. Image Credit: pixaby.

Technical Review 200

Technical Review Startup Belgium Software Review 200

Startup Professionals Musings

JULY 5, 2020

Too many entrepreneurs I know still believe that that their great idea will carry the startup, and they may even minimize their own value, especially if they have introvert tendencies. Everyone needs to realize that whether it’s in the workplace or in the startup community, business is a new world today with new rules.

Startup 331

Startup Technical Review Social Network Reputation 331

YoungUpstarts

JANUARY 10, 2020

by Zain Jaffer, serial entrepreneur and the Founder and CEO of Zain Ventures. This is especially true for startups, which operate on the basis of customer traction to solidify expectations with investors or lending institutions. Company culture may also be a contributing factor in the manner in which employees deal with hindrances.

Customer 347

Customer Development Team Review Advisory Board Private Equity 347

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. — Unremarked and unheralded, the balance of power between startup CEOs and their investors has radically changed: IPOs/M&A without a profit (or at times revenue) have become the norm. .

Founder 281

Founder Technical Review CTO Hire IPO 281

The Startup Magazine

JUNE 26, 2023

The path to success is far from easy, which is a lesson Quattro Development’s founders, Rob Walters and Mike Liyeos, know all too well. The duo recall their most profound failures as co-founders, as well as the steps they took to overcome misfortune and become a premier national developer.

Cofounder 148

Cofounder Developer United States Founder 148

Both Sides of the Table

MAY 19, 2013

My internal compass has always steered me strongly toward the belief that founders who can scale with their startup companies are better to back that founders who eventually need to hire a CEO. Very few founder CEOs go into the job ever expecting to give up their seat. To be a founder in state of mind.

Technical Review 303

Technical Review Cofounder Analytics Founder 303

A Smart Bear: Startups and Marketing for Geeks

OCTOBER 4, 2017

Idealistic founders believe they will break the mold when they scale, and not turn into a “typical big company.” Why is this impossible when you have 500 employees? Or it’s fatal because that was a co-founder. Then new-employee-orientation. Why do they never succeed? From Brittle to Robust. Predictability.

Government 223

Government Startup Cofounder Technical Support 223

Startup Lessons Learned

DECEMBER 14, 2017

Guest Post by Misti Yang, Writer for Lean Startup Co. Editor’s Note: We wrapped up the 2017 Lean Startup Week in San Francisco just a few weeks ago, and we’re excited to share with you some of the best lessons learned in entrepreneurship and corporate innovation. We try to talk to real practitioners about actual, real issues.”

Lean 245

Lean Startup CTO Hire Cofounder 245

Startup Professionals Musings

JUNE 18, 2014

These days, it is almost impossible to find a small business where everything is done at the home location, by full-time employees. These approaches allow your startup to grow more rapidly, save costs, but costly mistakes can lead to business failure. Utilization and personal growth of virtual employees is not my problem.”

Entrepreneur 231

Entrepreneur Philippines Bandwidth Cofounder 231

The Startup Magazine

MAY 13, 2022

Equity distribution among co-founders may be a complex procedure while starting any business. How you split founder startup equity can be even harder for a tech startup due to different roles and contributions from the founders. What is the equity structure of a startup? Required funds.

Equity 172

Equity Founder Vesting Cofounder 172

Startup Professionals Musings

NOVEMBER 1, 2014

One of the biggest myths in the business world is that startups are no place for Baby Boomers, that aging generation born between 1945 and 1964. Today people over 55 are almost twice as likely to create successful startups as Gen-Y, age 20 to 34. Supportive co-founder and executive positions. Member of the Advisory Board.

Entrepreneur 266

Entrepreneur Advisory Board Dividend Angel Investor 266

Both Sides of the Table

JANUARY 6, 2014

When you first start your company and raise initial venture capital your board probably consists of 1-3 founders and 1-2 VCs. Most experienced VCs won’t push you to give up founder control at this stage of the business nor should they. Founder’s perspective. You’ll get empathy. Experience. Relationships.

Technical Review 325

Technical Review Early Stage Software Review Los Angeles 325

Steve Blank

APRIL 3, 2018

Others join startups to strike out on their own. Most great technology startups – Oracle, Microsoft, Apple, Amazon, Tesla – were built by a team led by an entrepreneur. These are entrepreneurial skills you need to rapidly acquire or find a co-founder who already has them. Lessons Learned.

Technical Review 335

Technical Review Entrepreneur Artificial Inteligence Cofounder 335

Startup Professionals Musings

APRIL 16, 2022

Thus I was pleased to see a much more complete and broader perspective of employee support recommendations in a new book, “ Employees First! ” by Donna Cutting, who is a globally-recognized guru on employee culture and optimizing customer service. Of course, you as the business leader have a key role in making all this happen.

Technical Review 353

Technical Review Cofounder Employee Global 353

Steve Blank

NOVEMBER 13, 2018

If you’re an early employee at a startup, one day you will wake up to find that what you worked on 24/7 for the last year is no longer the most important thing – you’re no longer the most important employee, and process, meetings, paperwork and managers and bosses have shown up. I know a change is going to come.

Part-Time VPE 334

Part-Time VPE Employee Cofounder Hiring 334

Both Sides of the Table

MAY 9, 2011

I covered what I call “the co-founder mythology.&# Either you’re not technical and you think you need a technical co-founder or vice-versa. It is increasingly popular to have “founder dating&# or “startup weekend hackathons&# of some variety or the other. Hire your co-founder.

Cofounder 393

Cofounder Founder Vesting Founder Vesting 393

YoungUpstarts

MAY 30, 2014

by Sam Bahreini, co-founder and COO of VoloForce. We put our technology into the hands of employees — but in a controlled environment. When you’re a startup, that shot is even more important because it can determine the future of your product. We test our products with our partners in their retail spaces.

Customer 231

Customer Development Team Review Cofounder Agile 231

YoungUpstarts

DECEMBER 4, 2019

by Josh Fechter , co-founder and CEO of Squibler. Why keep employees engaged? By understanding employee engagement , you can enhance productivity, improve retention in demanding fields and deliver higher quality products and services. Although not all employees like working together, many thrive on the prospect.

Employee 147

Employee Technology Cofounder Viral 147

VC Cafe

SEPTEMBER 26, 2022

The past year was a wild ride for startups and founders, giving a whole new meaning to the ”rollercoaster” aspect of being an entrepreneur. A combination of competition for top talent and an effort to bring employees back to the office drove startups in Israel to throw extravagant parties and all-inclusive retreats abroad.

Founder 187

Founder Startup Valuation Pre-Money Valuation 187

YoungUpstarts

DECEMBER 29, 2020

by Hema Crockett and Jamie Jacobs, co-founders of Gig Talent . In the past, working remotely was considered “normal” for entrepreneurs or independent contractors in the gig economy only, but organizations wanted employees, and consultants, to be onsite and working in the office. Employees clearly want and enjoy the flexibility.

Technical Review 275

Technical Review Cofounder Leadership Employee 275

Startup Professionals Musings

APRIL 24, 2021

If you are a young startup founder, how do you find that CEO or other executive for your “dream team” to close on funding or complement your skills to kick start your company? Remember that leadership is both upward, as well as downward to direct reports and employees. Most founders are product guys.

Exit Strategy 407

Exit Strategy Leadership Founder Networking 407

Hunter Walker

DECEMBER 13, 2020

You’re spending much of your time selling: the vision to employees, the opportunity to investors, the story to the press, the offering to the customers, the relationship to partners. Can your lack of interest or skill in “selling” be counter-balanced by a cofounder or team that’s great at it? Yes and No. Notes and More.

Technical Cofounder 161

Technical Cofounder Cofounder Startup Matching 161