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Paul G. Silva
JUNE 28, 2022
About The Workshop. Startups don’t die from laziness. They die from working really hard… on the wrong things. You’ve launched your venture… now what? The financial lives of your team depends on you. When do you raise money? From who? On what terms? Is it time to hire or keep your burn low?
Paul G. Silva
MARCH 31, 2022
Baer Tierkel. The world lost Baer Tierkel last week at the age of 61. About 20 years ago I was a kid running my first startup and Baer was one of the early people to join our Board of Advisors. He came to every board meeting with deep insights and deeper belly laughs.
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Paul G. Silva
JUNE 30, 2022
Private Equity firms that own professional services businesses have a challenge with growing valuations. In a services-based business it is hard to increase revenue without increasing headcount. Margins shrink as hiring, training, and retaining talent becomes progressively more difficult. Meanwhile, all of the company’s intellectual property is locked in the heads of employees, meaning that when the employees leave the building, so do the company’s assets.
Paul G. Silva
MAY 12, 2022
Leaders of global corporations are under intense pressure to grow their valuation by hitting aggressive revenue, margin, and EBITDA targets. Acquirers pay a valuation premium on recurring, high-margin, and high-growth product revenue.
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Successfully complete the five stages of ABM: define, identify, engage, convert, and connect. We’ll show you how to create a unified system with your sales team to help them land more qualified opportunities and connect with prospects like never before.
Paul G. Silva
JUNE 2, 2022
I am delighted to announce that I have joined forces with Ali Usman and the incredible team at PixelEdge. Ali and I have been friends for over a decade, mentoring countless entrepreneurs together. I’ve personally watched PixelEdge launch incredible products for startups and big companies alike. They launch on time, build right, and achieve product-market fit! .
Paul G. Silva
APRIL 7, 2020
If your startup/organization/team struggles with ideation (the process of coming up with ideas), you fall into one of two camps: Those who struggle to come up with any ideas. Those who come up with plenty of ideas but struggle to identify which ones are worth pursuing.
Paul G. Silva
JUNE 3, 2021
[This is part of a series on the KISS Canvas ]. 30-page business plans are great for established businesses and terrible for startups that need to iterate quickly.
Paul G. Silva
JULY 23, 2021
I’ve been a fan for years, and now Launch413 and I have the honor of being on the Angel Invest Boston podcast. Listen to hear how Launch413 helps startup CEO’s beat the odds and attain sustained success. LinkedIn post w/ mini-video | main interview page. Innovation Accelerator
Paul G. Silva
MAY 29, 2020
Entrepreneurs and investors used to rely on strictly qualitative/gut methods of assessing progress and deciding what their next steps should be. In 2014 the great Steve Blank gave the startup world its first widely-respected quantitative assessment system: the Investment Readiness Level (IRL).
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Sourcing the right executive candidates and filling key managerial roles in an organization can be difficult, even in the best of times. Download this eBook to level up your discovery process, talent sourcing, and strategies for reaching your best-fit candidates.
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Paul G. Silva
MARCH 17, 2020
Startups need capital to launch and grow. What many entrepreneurs don’t know is that startup capital comes in many different flavors. Each flavor has its own pros and cons and is appropriate for different situations.
Paul G. Silva
MARCH 7, 2020
For all my friends who kindly track the progress of my ventures, I have a short update :). Launch413 (the post-accelerator) – We’ve invested in 13 companies in just under 3 years, expanded our team of kick-ass Venture Advisors, and are starting to see some real results from our top companies. It is still early days, but the model seems to be scaling and our ability to deliver impact is growing.
Paul G. Silva
MAY 7, 2020
The entrepreneurship faculty of Western New England University kindly inducted me as an honorary member of Sigma Nu Tau , the only academic honor society dedicated to entrepreneurship. My sincere thanks to WNE, and especially Mary Schoonmaker. Innovation Accelerator
Paul G. Silva
MARCH 26, 2020
This is the 3rd post in the “Startup Pitching” series. In this post we’ll go over advanced-level (301) techniques. The one (maybe two) number rule. Most people can’t hold multiple numbers in their head.
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To stay ahead in this race, every recruiter needs a good playbook. In this eBook, we lay out 12 recruiting plays that can automate key steps in your recruitment process, helping you reduce both the cost and the time it takes to hire the best candidates.
Paul G. Silva
JANUARY 25, 2021
One year ago the angel group I have the honor to lead pivoted to a substantially different model. Like all pivots, it wasn’t easy. In fact, it was scary as hell. But thanks to the incredible involvement of our members and our assistant manager Ethan Ferris, 2020 was our best year ever. Membership tripled , pulling in people from a much larger geography than conceivable before.
Paul G. Silva
MAY 24, 2020
[This is part of a series on the KISS Canvas ]. 30-page business plans are great for established businesses and terrible for startups that need to iterate quickly.
Paul G. Silva
MARCH 26, 2020
This is the 2nd post in the “Startup Pitching” series. In this post we’ll go over intermediate-level (201) techniques. Front load credibility. Investors are cynical. They have to be because about half of all angel/VC investments lose every penny invested.
Paul G. Silva
MARCH 26, 2020
As a mentor once told me… It doesn’t matter if you have the best opportunity in the world, if you can’t communicate it you’re dead. This is obvious. Yet… I’ve seen thousands of presentations and the vast majority of them were confusing as heck.
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The question for sales pros is this: Are you ready for the challenge, and opportunity, of selling to the C-suite? The following 12 tips can help ensure that you and your team are.
Paul G. Silva
APRIL 1, 2020
I am told that the angel groups of the Northeast have one of the best systems for syndicating deals in the country. There are many parts to making that happen. I have the privilege of running the nomination, application, and selection processes.
Paul G. Silva
MAY 10, 2021
This is a repost from the Launch413 blog. Effective Tools Used By Launch413: A Case Study. When we created Launch413 in 2018, we had no idea what was just around the corner. We already knew entrepreneurs were one of the best ways to create prosperity in our communities and we knew how to help them. We also knew entrepreneurs were one of the most powerful forces for good in the world.
Paul G. Silva
SEPTEMBER 17, 2020
For 14 years I’ve led the River Valley Investors angel investor network. A year ago the group was on death’s door. Membership was down to the lowest levels since I’d taken over leadership from our founder and my mentor, Joseph Steig. And none of us knew that COVID was just around the corner. If RVI failed then our region would have lots its only active angel group – a huge potential blow to local startups. It was time to pivot.
Paul G. Silva
FEBRUARY 9, 2021
This long, detailed, and excellent article is chock full of valuable advice on pricing. One part that particularly stood out for sharing are the four questions to ask a potential customer to help you determine where to price your product. At what point is this way too expensive that you would never consider purchasing it? At what point is this starting to get expensive, but you’d still consider purchasing it? At what point is this a really good deal? You’d buy it right away.)
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This eBook will answer all your questions and more on Conversation Intelligence (CI) by providing a complete overview and its need in Revenue organizations - delivering impact from your Sales Development Representatives all the way to the C-Suite.
Paul G. Silva
AUGUST 13, 2020
One of my favorite jokes goes something like this: Whenever a new position opens up, and I have to sort through a stack of resumes, the first thing I do is take half of them at random and throw them away. I don’t want unlucky people working in this department. As with many good jokes, it’s funny because it has a nugget of truth to it.
Paul G. Silva
JANUARY 12, 2020
My thanks to Gaetanlee for making this delightful rubber duckie picture (now the header image for this website) available for all to use! Innovation Accelerator
Paul G. Silva
MARCH 27, 2020
This is the checklist / boil down of the techniques listed in the pior 3 posts in the “Startup Pitching” series. After you complete a draft of your pitch, go over this list to make sure you’ve applied as many of the techniques as possible. Beginner (101). One rehearsed presenter – Pick one person to deliver your presentation, don’t tag team your pitches.
Paul G. Silva
MARCH 19, 2020
The River Valley Investors angel group just ran our first virtual meeting today. In case anything we learned can be valuable, below is a copy of a blog post we just published on our blog showing what we did to make it work. I know several other groups already ran virtual, so I’d love to hear any other best practices people have patched together.
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For the first time, we’re sharing the winning plays that took us from scrappy startup to a publicly traded company. Use our proven data-driven plays to grow your pipeline and crush your revenue targets.
Paul G. Silva
JUNE 30, 2020
Your company’s value proposition must provide benefits that perfectly match your customers’ pains. First-time entrepreneurs asked to document their hypotheses about Pains and Benefits often experience “blank canvas” paralysis , the inability to get started because of a lack of a clear starting point. This blog post aims to provide a set of categories and examples to guide an entrepreneur to find the relevant pain hypotheses. Each heading lists a category of Pain/Benefit.
Paul G. Silva
FEBRUARY 3, 2020
Arguably the #1 customer discovery how-to guide is the book Talking To Humans. Here is a jem: One aspiring entrepreneur wanted to target mothers of young children. She had heard stories about talking to people in a coffee shop, but felt like it was too unfocused. So she tried hanging around school pickup zones, but the moms were too busy and refused to speak to her. Next, she tried the playground, where she figured moms would be bored watching their kids play.
Paul G. Silva
JUNE 1, 2020
Marty Zwilling recently published a blog post with the most concise distillation of the possible exit strategies a for-profit startup can take and why an entrepreneur should be thinking about them from very early on. Hat tip to Paul Nicolai for sending me the article! Innovation Accelerator
Paul G. Silva
APRIL 9, 2020
This post contains our up-to-date set of best practices on how the River Valley Investors angel group runs our meetings online. Last updated on: 4/9/2020. Technology of choice: Zoom. Before the event, we ask everyone to log in with a device with a camera so we can see each other. They all have been invited to a google calendar event with the link embedded in it. Created Breakout Rooms (Networking, Startup, and Scheduling) from the get-go.
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What is conversational marketing really about? This guide will examine the market forces at play, shifting buyer trends, how to leverage conversation marketing, and the tactics involved in adopting it for a B2B demand generation strategy.
Paul G. Silva
DECEMBER 16, 2018
So much food goes to waste in our country every year. So many people are hungry. It is literally cheaper to throw food away than to give it away… until now. A few years ago I had the honor of mentoring Maria Rose Belding when she and her partners at Means Database were in the Valley Venture Mentors startup Accelerator. Her social venture is organized and dreams like a high tech silicon valley startup – but all of that energy is directed to doing good, at scale.
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