The Startup Magazine

DECEMBER 19, 2024

Entrepreneurs need to define their market niche and craft effective competitive strategies to counteract competitive pressures. Startups must tackle challenges from scarce resources to changing customer needs proactively. This helps prevent excess inventory and shortages, boosting operational effectiveness and customer happiness.

Technical Review 146

Technical Review Startup Differentiation Social Media 146

Startup Professionals Musings

DECEMBER 30, 2020

In my role as a mentor to aspiring entrepreneurs, I find that most have the technical challenges well understood, but many are a bit short on some basic street smarts , or basic business realities. With information overload due to the Internet, you need to find your customers, rather than assume they will find you.

Intellectual Property 432

Intellectual Property Entrepreneur Technical Review Angel Investor 432

Startup Professionals Musings

JANUARY 6, 2021

Every new business I know dreams of building momentum in their business, where growth continues to increase, customers become your best advocates, and employee motivation is high. Unfortunately, with limited resources, this isn’t possible, and it frustrates customers and the team. Focus first on finding more of the right customers.

Technical Review 400

Technical Review Technical Cofounder Advisory Board Cofounder 400

Startup Professionals Musings

SEPTEMBER 16, 2023

The rate of new entrepreneurs increased between 2013 and 2021, from 280 to 360 out of 100,000 of the adult population. Of course, that’s both the good news and the bad news for aspiring entrepreneurs, since it means more competition, and the business landscape is changing faster than ever. The cost of social media done well is low.

Intellectual Property 261

Intellectual Property Entrepreneur Angel Groups Social Media 261

Startup Professionals Musings

MAY 17, 2020

Every entrepreneur I know has their favorite excuse for a previous failure – an investor backed out, the economy took a downturn, or a supplier delivered bad quality. In that spirit, I offer my perspective on ten common startup failure sources that rarely get admitted by entrepreneurs: Choose to skip the written business plan.

Intellectual Property 436

Intellectual Property Angel Investor Viral Distribution 436

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. He had a track record of taking small teams and growing them into successful product lines.

Technical Cofounder 368

Technical Cofounder Intellectual Property Technical Review Incubator 368

Startup Professionals Musings

FEBRUARY 14, 2022

I see more and more entrepreneurs who seem to have everything going for them – vision, motivation, passion, even a good business plan, product, and money, and yet they can’t close customers. Great businesses begin with a customer problem that has a big and monetizable pain point. Nail the solution.

Angel Investor 359

Angel Investor Technical Review Incubator Business Model 359

Startup Professionals Musings

JANUARY 22, 2023

From my consulting with entrepreneurs in Europe and other countries, I’m convinced that we all could benefit from adapting to meet their environments. In other parts of the world, innovators often need to develop both the ultimate product or service, as well as the enabling infrastructure that underpins it.

Global 345

Global Silicon Valley Marketing Indonesia 345

Startup Professionals Musings

SEPTEMBER 25, 2021

In fact, I often have to tell aspiring entrepreneurs that their inventions have zero value, at least not until they are put in the context of a business plan, with qualified people committed to executing the plan. In other words, inventions are necessary but not sufficient to create real value for investors and customers.

Technical Review 391

Technical Review Intellectual Property Early Stage Global 391

Startup Professionals Musings

JULY 25, 2021

Every entrepreneur with a new technology tells me that his innovation will be industry-disrupting, meaning that it will render the existing technology obsolete, and create a new market. I suspect that several of these will surprise most entrepreneurs as being counter-intuitive to their thinking.

Non-Compete 394

Non-Compete Technical Review Forecast Social Media 394

Startup Professionals Musings

NOVEMBER 28, 2020

The rate of new entrepreneurs increased between 2013 and 2019, from 280 out of 100,000 to 310 out of 100,000 of the adult population. Of course, that’s both the good news and the bad news for aspiring entrepreneurs, since it means more competition, and the business landscape is changing faster than ever.

Intellectual Property 404

Intellectual Property Startup Angel Groups Social Media 404

Startup Professionals Musings

MARCH 19, 2023

Entrepreneurs need to be effective team leaders, since no one can transform an idea into a product and a business without some help. The only real alternative is to find a cofounder who can build and lead the team, while you focus on the product. If your team has trouble finding you, you won’t make productive connections.

Leadership 318

Leadership Technical Review Technical Cofounder Development Team Review 318

Startup Professionals Musings

AUGUST 9, 2020

I always tell entrepreneurs that two heads are better than one, so the first task in many startups is finding a co-founder or two. Value factors include your related product breadth and depth, relationships with thought leaders, key vendors, and large potential customers. Experience and connections in your business area.

Cofounder 435

Cofounder Technical Cofounder Equity Intellectual Property 435

Startup Professionals Musings

OCTOBER 26, 2022

With social media and smart phone apps, real product information spreads at astounding speeds. Entrepreneurs that are not listening, not engaging, and not changing are destined to be left behind even in the best of times. Every entrepreneur must be alert enough to spot the change early, and agile enough to adapt quickly.

Agile 379

Agile Technical Review Leadership Social Media 379

Startup Professionals Musings

OCTOBER 14, 2022

For startups, the entrepreneur and founder is almost always the face of the company. Investors, partners, team members, and customers implicitly value or devalue a startup based on the leader’s physical presence, emotional identity, social skills, intellectual agility, moral values, and past performance in the domain.

Technical Review 323

Technical Review Due Diligence Valuation Leadership 323

Startup Professionals Musings

MAY 1, 2022

You can have the best technology, but if customers don’t know you exist, or they don’t know how your technology solves a real problem for them, your startup will fail. Yet I see many technology entrepreneurs that focus on the basics of marketing too little and too late. How many customers will have any idea what this means to them?

Marketing 353

Marketing Technical Review Social Media Technology 353

Startup Professionals Musings

OCTOBER 6, 2023

For the elite startups and entrepreneurs who manage to attract the investor they dream of, and survive the term sheet negotiation, there is still one more hurdle before the money is in the bank. Due diligence always involves on-site visits, informal discussions with any or all members of the team, vendors, and good customers as well as bad.

Technical Review 296

Technical Review Due Diligence Term Sheet Bankruptcy 296

Startup Professionals Musings

FEBRUARY 1, 2021

Most entrepreneurs I meet are reluctant to disclose anything about their idea to investors before getting a signed confidential disclosure agreement (CDA). Yet I can assure you that people who are paranoid, or want to avoid all risks, won’t be happy as entrepreneurs, so it’s all about balancing the risk-reward scale. Marty Zwilling.

Non-disclosure Agreement 399

Non-disclosure Agreement Technical Review Due Diligence Angel Investor 399

Startup Professionals Musings

JANUARY 3, 2021

Some of the most common innovation myths that Barbee mentions or I have encountered in my work with entrepreneurs around the world include the following: True innovation can only come from R&D and geniuses. Many product innovations come from quality improvement focuses, like the Japanese Kaizen initiative.

Technical Review 431

Technical Review Leadership Operations Networking 431

Startup Professionals Musings

MARCH 6, 2021

Don’t forget to add all pesky “overhead” costs, with fixed elements, like rent, insurance, and administration, and variable elements, like delivery, customer support, and commissions. If you expect payment in 30 days, many customers will stretch this period to 45 days or even 90. This difference will kill your profit margin.

Technical Review 379

Technical Review Finance Startup Salary 379

Startup Professionals Musings

NOVEMBER 2, 2022

Entrepreneurs see “no risk” as meaning “no reward.” There are no guarantees in business, but it pays to learn from the experiences of entrepreneurs and business experts who have gone before you. Investors hate technology solutions looking for a problem, due to the high risk of no customers.

Forecast 304

Forecast Stock Options Technical Review Metrics 304

Startup Professionals Musings

JUNE 12, 2022

On the other hand, everyone wants to be an entrepreneur. His focus is on entrepreneurs in America, but what he says applies to every other country as well. This next frontier lies in building enterprises as an entrepreneur, rather than waiting for innovation and opportunity from large corporations.

Artificial Inteligence 315

Artificial Inteligence Offshore Merger Technical Review 315

Startup Professionals Musings

MAY 15, 2022

Thus it behooves every entrepreneur to start watching these things more carefully from the very start. By definition, most startups begin as a result of some innovation in product, process, or service. This business phase is where every entrepreneur starts. Product-line expansion. Consider MySpace and Webvan.

Dilution 355

Dilution Startup Merger Flash 355

Startup Professionals Musings

FEBRUARY 12, 2023

Every entrepreneur I know has their favorite excuse for a previous failure – an investor backed out, the economy took a downturn, or a supplier delivered bad quality. In that spirit, I offer my perspective on ten common startup failure sources that rarely get admitted by entrepreneurs: Choose to skip the written business plan.

Intellectual Property 312

Intellectual Property Startup Angel Investor Viral 312

Startup Professionals Musings

APRIL 23, 2022

Then they are surprised to see productivity and creativity take a big dip. What they should be doing is hiring only “entrepreneurs,” meaning people who think and act as if this is their own business. It’s what every customer looks for in every transaction. The reality is that all entrepreneurial skills are learnable skills.

Startup 337

Startup Technical Review Employee Hiring 337

Startup Professionals Musings

JANUARY 6, 2023

Many passionate entrepreneurs fight to add more features into their new products and services, assuming that more function will make the solution more appealing to more customers. In reality, more features will more likely make the product confusing and less usable to all. It’s tough for an elephant to be agile.

Startup 287

Startup Bandwidth Distribution Agile 287

Startup Professionals Musings

AUGUST 13, 2022

I still have to tell some entrepreneurs that even with the best idea, they have to move to Silicon Valley to find the investors they need, or they need to move to the U.S. Exposure to customers, incumbents, and competitors all drive success. get the attention of the market they choose. It’s just the first of many.

Las Vegas 309

Las Vegas Silicon Valley Arizona Montana 309

Startup Professionals Musings

APRIL 16, 2022

Every entrepreneur and business leader I know realizes that it takes a dedicated team to build and run a successful business, and nurturing that team is one of your most important priorities. In my experience, a healthy team is a prerequisite for a thriving business, innovation to meet market needs, and high customer loyalty.

Technical Review 353

Technical Review Cofounder Employee Global 353

Startup Professionals Musings

OCTOBER 12, 2022

Every new entrepreneur has to initiate the right actions to be perceived as a leader in their chosen business domain by their team and by their customers, or the road to success and satisfaction will be lost along the way. No entrepreneur can build a business alone. Constantly strengthening your network of relationships.

Leadership 317

Leadership Founder Startup Networking 317

Startup Professionals Musings

AUGUST 19, 2022

Even after many years mentoring entrepreneurs and advising businesses, I continue to be surprised by the primary focus on products and processes, and the often incidental attention to hiring and nurturing the right people. It’s the same for customers and products, where analytics have long proven their value.

Analytics 303

Analytics Hiring Open Source Employee 303

Startup Professionals Musings

NOVEMBER 12, 2022

As an angel investor and a mentor to entrepreneurs I still see this every day. Every entrepreneur needs to start by setting a major purpose for embarking down a specific business path. For success these days, the purpose better focus on people, and solve a real problem for customers. Master-mind alliance. Going the extra mile.

Technical Review 297

Technical Review Angel Investor Differentiation Business Model 297

Startup Professionals Musings

FEBRUARY 10, 2023

Struggling entrepreneurs are often so happy to get a funding offer that they neglect the recommended reverse due diligence on the investors. Investor due diligence on a startup is not a mysterious black art, but is nothing more than a final integrity check on all aspects of your business model, team, product, customers, and plan.

Technical Review 345

Technical Review Due Diligence Term Sheet Offshore 345

Startup Professionals Musings

MAY 4, 2022

Some entrepreneurs forget that talking is not communicating. Founders have to communicate their ideas and products to investors, business partners, and the rest of the team. Then, hopefully, come customers, distribution channels, and going public or merging with an attractive buy-out candidate. Stereotyping and biases.

Semantic 342

Semantic Technical Review Retention Distribution 342

Startup Professionals Musings

APRIL 18, 2021

Contact key vendors and existing customers. Explain that they may be called, and use the opportunity to check their satisfaction with your company and your product. Validation of product. This will cover the technology, the current state of development, and customer satisfaction. Size of the market. Size of the market.

Technical Review 380

Technical Review Due Diligence Term Sheet Angel Investor 380

Startup Professionals Musings

OCTOBER 11, 2023

In reality, based on my experience as a startup advisor and investor, these constraints lead the best entrepreneurs to the most innovative solutions and new markets otherwise overlooked by their peers and competitors. In fact, that feeling of autonomy makes everyone more productive, more loyal, and feel valued.

Technical Review 277

Technical Review Partner Matching Channel 277

Startup Professionals Musings

JANUARY 21, 2023

Remember you are pitching to investors, not customers. Some entrepreneurs seem to think that their product pitch is also their investor pitch. Investors don’t need to know the implementation details of your patent or customer support plan. Don’t forget to ask for the order.

Technical Review 369

Technical Review Elevator Pitch Angel Investor Matching 369

Startup Professionals Musings

SEPTEMBER 22, 2023

Most leaders agree that poor customer service is a business killer today, in terms of lost customers, reduced profits, and low morale. Yet the average perception of customer experience has not improved. It’s a tough job, and inexperienced entrepreneurs just don’t know where to start, and how to do it.

Technical Review 249

Technical Review Salary Metrics Matching 249