Startup Professionals Musings

APRIL 26, 2023

As a business consultant and mentor to many young entrepreneurs, I often get questions about leadership challenges , and what you can do to solidify your leadership position and impact. They want a role in every leadership decision. The behavior you display to constituents determines your leadership effectiveness.

Leadership 281

Leadership Agile Demand Developer 281

Startup Professionals Musings

AUGUST 17, 2022

During my many years of mentoring professionals and entrepreneurs in business, I more often see people focusing on how to get their ideas heard , than how to promote themselves. Technical skills are important, but your ability to build and nurture relationships with others is more important for leadership growth and career advancement today.

Leadership 304

Leadership Technical Review Social Media Global 304

Startup Professionals Musings

MAY 23, 2022

New entrepreneurs tend to focus only on getting the product right, and assume that the right culture and ethics will come later simply by hiring good people. I saw a good summary of these in the classic book, “ Ethical Leadership ,” by Andrew Leigh, an expert in this area. The reality is different. Ethics can’t be managed.

Software Review 291

Software Review Offshore Entrepreneur Leadership 291

Duct Tape Marketing

JULY 19, 2024

Transform Your Leadership: The Power of Thoughtfully Fit written by John Jantsch read more at Duct Tape Marketing The Duct Tape Marketing Podcast with John Jantsch In this episode of the Duct Tape Marketing Podcast, I interviewed Darcy Luoma, an expert on leadership and personal development. And do they think that they have a problem?

Leadership 90

Leadership Framework Agile Campaign 90

Startup Professionals Musings

JUNE 27, 2020

Entrepreneurs inherently understand that they have to be the initial leader of their startup, but often they don’t have the experience or the training to know where their leadership competencies lie, or how to build a leadership team. They are usually highly critical of themselves and others, and often frustrated by reality.

Leadership 433

Leadership Startup Restful Entrepreneur 433

Startup Professionals Musings

AUGUST 30, 2020

One of the things I’ve learned in working with aspiring entrepreneurs is that managing and leading a team is a scary venture into the unknown for many people, even if they have worked as a business professional for years. As an entrepreneur, executive, or team member, you are most impacted by the people you gather around you.

Leadership 380

Leadership Demand Management Founder 380

Startup Professionals Musings

APRIL 17, 2022

Very few entrepreneurs have the range of skills and experience to be the solution creator as well as business creator, or operational as well as sales leader. Most entrepreneurs work long hours and weekends to get the job done. The challenge is to recognize and recruit that ideal partner match early with minimal cost and risk.

Partner 385

Partner Software Review CTO Hire Cofounder 385

Startup Professionals Musings

OCTOBER 14, 2022

The key elements of leadership in a company, both individual and organizational, are less tangible, but very critical in setting a market value for investment, acquisition, or going public. In the investment community, these leadership elements are often called “goodwill.” Execution leadership. Leadership brand development.

Technical Review 323

Technical Review Due Diligence Valuation Leadership 323

Startup Professionals Musings

MAY 5, 2023

Technology is so key to every business these days that experienced business-smart but non-tech entrepreneurs are feeling deeper and deeper in the hole. Only one component of running a business is managing technology, but it is a critical component, so no entrepreneur can afford to ignore it or totally delegate it.

Technical Cofounder 260

Technical Cofounder Technology Management Entrepreneur 260

Startup Professionals Musings

APRIL 24, 2021

To complement local face-to-face networking, you can always use one of the many online matchmaking sites that have sprung up in the last few years, like CoFoundersLab and Startbee (think eHarmony™ for entrepreneurs, or Match.com meets LinkedIn). Provide effective leadership. There are several books written on this subject.

Exit Strategy 407

Exit Strategy Leadership Founder Networking 407

Startup Professionals Musings

OCTOBER 26, 2022

Entrepreneurs that are not listening, not engaging, and not changing are destined to be left behind even in the best of times. If you as an entrepreneur are not “listening” to your online reviews, and not moving quickly to make changes, you are losing ground. It all starts with agile leadership.

Agile 379

Agile Technical Review Leadership Social Media 379

Startup Professionals Musings

FEBRUARY 27, 2021

More and more entrepreneurs are hearing about the successful graduates and investors queued behind a few well-known startup incubators, including Y Combinator, TechStars, and the Founder Institute. In my view, the quality of incubator leadership is the single biggest potential value provided and learning opportunity for entrepreneurs.

Incubator 366

Incubator Technical Review Due Diligence Venture Capital 366

Startup Professionals Musings

MAY 24, 2023

One of the things I’ve learned in working with aspiring entrepreneurs is that managing and leading a team is a scary venture into the unknown for many people, even if they have worked as a business professional for years. As an entrepreneur, executive, or team member, you are most impacted by the people you gather around you.

Management 291

Management Leadership Demand Founder 291

Startup Professionals Musings

JANUARY 6, 2021

Based on my experience advising new entrepreneurs as well as more mature businesses, I recommend the following strategies for building business momentum, while still optimizing the limited resources of every small business: Find more customers that like what you do best. Focus first on finding more of the right customers.

Technical Review 400

Technical Review Technical Cofounder Advisory Board Cofounder 400

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

Startup Professionals Musings

FEBRUARY 6, 2021

I see entrepreneurs every day who are trying to change the world with a new idea, and startups that are trying to survive their hyper-growth phase by changing processes to meet demand. Here are ten of the key questions that apply equally well to the world of startups and entrepreneurs, as they do to large organizations.

Metrics 387

Metrics Technical Review Leadership Framework 387

Startup Professionals Musings

OCTOBER 2, 2022

If you are like most entrepreneurs I know, there just aren’t enough hours in a day to get all your own work done, as well as run the many one-hour meetings each team member seems to demand for decisions and mentoring. But it only works if you observe the following principles: Never hide from your team.

Elevator Pitch 386

Elevator Pitch Technical Review Dividend Leadership 386

Startup Professionals Musings

OCTOBER 27, 2021

Most of the entrepreneurs I meet as an investor and advisor have no shortage of right-brain thinking, showing vision and creativity, but often don’t realize that their potential is being limited by a balancing focus on results, metrics, and customer specifics. Build trusted relationships and listen to advisors.

Technical Review 332

Technical Review Metrics Leadership Technology 332

Startup Professionals Musings

JUNE 22, 2022

They don’t realize that it takes more to succeed in business or a career – it takes leadership skills to get people to follow you, including peers, a team, business partners, and customers. Luckily, you can learn needed leadership skills. Celebrate small successes in your leadership efforts.

Leadership 285

Leadership Startup Networking Engineer 285

Startup Professionals Musings

FEBRUARY 3, 2023

Did you ever wonder why some entrepreneurs always seem to have all the luck and success, while others never seem to catch a break? As an angel investor, I quickly learned that luck has very little to do with it, and I now look for some personal characteristics and leadership styles that separate the potential winners from the losers.

Technical Review 269

Technical Review Kentucky Due Diligence Japan 269

Startup Professionals Musings

APRIL 11, 2020

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. Ongoing market leadership requires continuous innovation. As a new entrepreneur in a new startup, it’s better to walk before you try to run.

Startup 424

Startup Bandwidth Distribution Agile 424

Both Sides of the Table

OCTOBER 26, 2020

leadership, mentorship, competitiveness, communications, relationship-building?—?and In any job you either find leadership opportunities for your best people BEFORE they ask or other people start asking them to become leaders somewhere else. Leadership is about recognizing your next generation of talent and helping lift them up.

Partner 361

Partner Management Cofounder San Francisco 361

Startup Professionals Musings

JANUARY 30, 2021

Most technical entrepreneurs focus hard on building an innovative product, but forget that an elegant solution doesn’t automatically translate into a successful business. 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.

Technical Review 399

Technical Review Product Advisory Board Business Model 399

Startup Professionals Musings

MAY 15, 2022

Thus it behooves every entrepreneur to start watching these things more carefully from the very start. This business phase is where every entrepreneur starts. A particularly critical moment is when the founders hand over the leadership to a more managerial regime. Consider MySpace and Webvan. Geographic expansion.

Dilution 355

Dilution Startup Merger Flash 355

Startup Professionals Musings

MAY 28, 2023

In my role as an advisor to entrepreneurs, I often find founders who have such conviction and passion for their new idea, that they can’t believe anyone could challenge it. The best entrepreneurs and business professionals learn to anticipate these push-backs before they happen, and respond calmly and effectively.

Technical Cofounder 341

Technical Cofounder Founder Cofounder Mobile 341

Startup Professionals Musings

JUNE 17, 2020

It seems like every entrepreneur I meet these days is quick to proclaim themselves a visionary, expecting that will give more credibility to their startup idea, and improve their odds with investors. Most true visionary entrepreneurs have unusual energy, creativity, enthusiasm, and a propensity for taking risks.

Founder 329

Founder Cofounder Bandwidth Matching 329

Startup Professionals Musings

DECEMBER 18, 2020

As a long-time business executive and adviser to entrepreneurs, I see a definitive shift away from customer trust in traditional business messages, and the executives who deliver them. I believe that the sooner every entrepreneur and brand builder adapts to this emerging trend, the sooner they will find success.

Customer 433

Customer B2C Technical Review Social Media 433

Startup Professionals Musings

NOVEMBER 23, 2020

Every entrepreneur and business executive knows that continuous innovation is required to survive, but most struggle with this more than any other challenge they face. Innovation driven by the next crisis is not leadership. Innovation driven by the next crisis is not leadership.

Framework 402

Framework Engineer Leadership Revenue 402

Startup Professionals Musings

NOVEMBER 3, 2021

Starting and building a company is all about leadership – formulating an idea, building a unique plan based on vision and experience, and forging a path over and through all obstacles. Schutzler’s view of leadership is different than many academics and executive coaches, who feel that leadership is an innate character trait.

Leadership 394

Leadership Entrepreneur Developer 394

Duct Tape Marketing

JULY 11, 2024

Beginning with the Metronome effect, In our conversation, Shannon Susko defines the Metronomics framework and explains how it can revolutionize the way CEOs and leadership teams approach growth, strategy, and execution. 03:08] Would you say, like most entrepreneurs, you went well-informed to gain the success you have today? [05:06]

Framework 90

Framework Leadership Widget Metrics 90

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. It’s impossible to innovate in a staid complacent culture. Innovations come from people, not culture.

Technical Review 431

Technical Review Leadership Operations Networking 431

Startup Professionals Musings

SEPTEMBER 17, 2021

Most aspiring entrepreneurs believe that a great idea alone will assure business success. In fact, I believe modern entrepreneurs need to be super sales people, in the most positive sense, to their team as well as customers. Entrepreneurs set the price of their solution based on their costs, and their perception of value.

Sales 348

Sales Startup Bootstrapping Technical Review 348

Startup Professionals Musings

APRIL 23, 2022

What they should be doing is hiring only “entrepreneurs,” meaning people who think and act as if this is their own business. This commitment to hire people who think like entrepreneurs, or instill an “owner’s mindset” in every employee, should be a high priority in every business.

Startup 337

Startup Technical Review Employee Hiring 337

Startup Professionals Musings

MARCH 12, 2022

In my experience as an angel investor to startups, goodwill disagreements are perhaps the most common reason that you will fail to close interested investors as an entrepreneur. If you are the entrepreneur or owner, every potential investor takes a hard look at you. Quality of your technical and business teams.

Valuation 368

Valuation Technical Review Due Diligence Angel Investor 368

Startup Professionals Musings

JULY 16, 2021

Confidence and self-esteem are critical to your success as an entrepreneur, or any business role. A positive mindset of being able to add value is a self-fulfilling prophecy, and is seen by others as leadership, rather than giving orders. Develop a mindset of self-worth and ability to adapt.

Leadership 435

Leadership Marketing Developer Entrepreneur 435

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. Yet most investors agree that the “idea” is worth nothing alone, and it’s the entrepreneur execution that counts.

Startup 331

Startup Technical Review Social Network Reputation 331

Startup Professionals Musings

NOVEMBER 30, 2022

As an investor in startups, I most often see entrepreneurs who are technologists, or at least have a real passion for a specific product. Many entrepreneurs try to do the whole job alone, or surround themselves with “yes” people, or count on family and friends to back them. Ability to relate aspirations to customer needs.

Silicon Valley 284

Silicon Valley Technical Review Leadership Metrics 284