Both Sides of the Table

AUGUST 30, 2014

Everybody has a blog these days and there is much advice to be had. Many startups now go through accelerators and have mentors passing through each day with advice – usually it’s conflicting. There are bootcamps, startup classes, video interviews – the sources are now endless. What is a founder to do?

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TechCrunch

MARCH 2, 2021

The Future Africa Fund kicked off in 2015 when Iyinoluwa Aboyeji and Nadayar Enegesi , co-founders of US-based and African-focused talent company Andela, wrote checks to African startups as angel investors. This is because most of the capital in Africa for promising startups is typically distributed among many investors.

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TechCrunch

SEPTEMBER 12, 2021

Sesie Bonsi is the founder and CEO of Bleu , a financial technology platform focused on enabling touchless payment experiences. But most venture-backed startups are “still overwhelmingly white, male, Ivy-League-educated and based in Silicon Valley,” according to a study conducted by RateMyInvestor and Diversity VC. Sesie Bonsi.

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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. It’s your baby. So give up the CEO role?

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Both Sides of the Table

JULY 6, 2016

When I hear the realism that comes from founders with setback it elicits an understanding of what it takes to be successful at a startup that frankly can’t exist unless you’ve walked in those shoes before. In London when founders failed they were ostracized in the press and culturally I believe it became harder to raise capital.

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Gust

OCTOBER 2, 2014

You’d imagine that every founder was getting rich. Actually, positive outcomes for founders are quite rare. As a startup founder you rarely have much money in your bank accounts. I recently had coffee with a young friend who just finished his first startup. You have secret doubts about your co-founder.

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Both Sides of the Table

JUNE 8, 2014

This meant: Less capital to start a company thus the rise of “micro VCs” Younger, more technical founders (not as big of a leap to take a risk on a 24-year-old when it’s $250k and not $5 million. So the startup work moves to where the startup founders live and not vice versa. Welcome to the future.

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Gust

JUNE 8, 2014

Virtual Team meeting image via Wikimedia blog. Almost every startup is a virtual team these days, since most don’t start out with dedicated office space, and some or all members of the team work part-time or out of their own home. Effective founders work to create and maintain an environment of team trust to defuse miscommunications.

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enablement entrepreneurs energy culture 187

Gust

JUNE 23, 2014

Blog image via Pixabay.com. With the estimated 510 million live websites at last year-end, and 280,000 new ones being added every day, the biggest challenge for an entrepreneur is to get found, and get some credibility for a new startup. Of course, ultimately you want employees who can blog for you and your company as well.

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Both Sides of the Table

SEPTEMBER 28, 2011

You’re writing a freaking blog post! I try to take time out of my week to occasionally meet with startup founders – even those that haven’t been introduced. Plus, he’s a loyal reader of this blog. I know many people think I blog all day long. “But WAIT !!! ” I never said that.

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Both Sides of the Table

FEBRUARY 23, 2015

I wrote this conundrum and the need to take charge of how the market define your skills in my much-read blog post on “ personal branding.” For some aspiring to be tech entrepreneurs, I often suggest a two-step process, as I argued in this post that “ The First Startup Founder You Need to Invest in Is You.”

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advice peer-to-peer VC board 334

Both Sides of the Table

NOVEMBER 18, 2012

You’d imagine that every founder was getting rich. Actually, positive outcomes for founders are quite rare. As a startup founder you rarely have much money in your bank accounts. I recently had coffee with a young friend who just finished his first startup. You have secret doubts about your co-founder.

entrepreneurs 420

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Entrepreneurs' Organization

DECEMBER 15, 2023

Raising funding is no easy feat, especially for first-time founders. Yet founders often trip up when it comes to investor relations — the ongoing communication and relationship building after that first check clears. Being aware of this bias can help founders take a balanced perspective. However, not all money is created equal.

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pitching consulting advice communities 213

Both Sides of the Table

JANUARY 26, 2010

I wrote a blog post about being hands on where I argued that startup founders need to be hands-on or in my words, “you can’t run a burger chain if you’ve never flipped burgers.&#. I once had a startup team pitch me for an investment where the President of the company led the first call with me on his own.

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This is going to be BIG.

AUGUST 18, 2016

That's the kind of pace a startup needs to be on--except that most startups treat their PR as if all you need to do is to launch your message at a debate and cross your fingers after that. Here are five things startup founders can take away from the way campaigns work: 1) Campaigns have a message. They get endorsements.

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Both Sides of the Table

MAY 5, 2011

I gave him the same advice I give nearly all over-worked, control-freak, do-everything-yourself startup founders: “Your number one priority isn’t any of these things. There’s you and your killer CTO co-founder. It’s a very cool vibe at Founder’s Coop. It’s important.

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Entrepreneurs' Organization

NOVEMBER 22, 2019

Ahuja is a serial entrepreneur, co-founder at X10 and founder of Byond Travel. The other market segment which has understood the advantage of being able to access a rich talent pool of elite talent is startups. He is also the founder of Byond Travel , Asia’s largest platform for expert-led adventures. .

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Startup Grind

AUGUST 16, 2018

One of the biggest challenges that the startup founders face during the initial stage is the lack of a well-proficient, professional marketing team. A well-rounded marketing team can make or break a startup and that’s why it is essential to hire the very best. Check if they have started a group, community, or even just a blog.

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startup startup founder communities development 169

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.

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Both Sides of the Table

FEBRUARY 7, 2011

Such was my recent meeting with Seth Sternberg, founder & CEO of Meebo. And I’d recommend them to any talented startup founders out there.&#. Initial traffic was driven by word-of-mouth, specifically blogs and a bit of luck. With three co-founders, what was decision making and roles and responsibilities like?

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board culture VC education 286

Gust

OCTOBER 26, 2014

Most startup founders already do this, rather than take a salary, to improve their offering. All you need is a blog, Twitter, email, some business card stock, and a little creativity. Don’t justify over-spending initially with “long-run” thinking. If you do, there probably won’t ever be a long run!

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TechCrunch

JUNE 28, 2021

Foursquare co-founder Dennis Crowley has announced that he is stepping back from his full-time role at the company. During the first seven years of the company, he was the startup’s Chief Executive Officer. He’ll remain on the Board of Directors as co-chair with Factual founder Gil Elbaz. Foursquare merges with Factual.

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Both Sides of the Table

MAY 13, 2018

This is part of a series of advice for founders who need to raise money from venture capitalists. Somehow many first-time founders equate “sales” with something that is beneath them. I always tell founders … “An investors job is to deploy capital and make a return. This is where most founders err.

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Gust

JUNE 22, 2014

Blog image via Pixabay.com. With the estimated 510 million live websites at last year-end, and 280,000 new ones being added every day, the biggest challenge for an entrepreneur is to get found, and get some credibility for a new startup. Of course, ultimately you want employees who can blog for you and your company as well.

startup 125

startup entrepreneurs consulting culture 125

Startup Catalyst

MARCH 27, 2018

San Francisco, and the associated Bay Area, is home to Silicon Valley – the epicentre of startup activity – where an estimated 27,000 startups and 15,000 investors operate in an area roughly equivalent to the the Brisbane-to-Gold Coast region, and with a population of roughly 7 million people. Our startups are as good as theirs.

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communities startup incubation accelerator 140

A VC: Musings of a VC in NYC

JANUARY 13, 2020

I used this title for possibly the most regrettable blog post I have written on AVC back in 2011. Alex starts off his post with this assertion: 2019 was the year when VCs and startup founders soured on paid acquisition. I am not sure if that is true, but if it is, it suggests a dramatic change in the startup playbook.

startup founder 156

startup founder startup founder entrepreneurship 156

Entrepreneurs' Organization

SEPTEMBER 13, 2019

For high-achieving startup founders and entrepreneurs, marketing might feel like a no-brainer to tackle on your own. appeared first on Octane Blog – The official blog of the Entrepreneurs' Organization. Plus, today’s online marketing platforms make it easy to post, track and engage. Not so fast.

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strategy media education entrepreneurs 151

Gust

DECEMBER 3, 2013

I just read Social Proof Is the New Currency on the Social Media Today blog. I don’t agree completely — I think a fat bank account is a really good thing too — but I do think it summarizes an important truth: All startups looking for investment need to deal with what that post is calling social proof. Author Daniel Lay writes: .

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startup media pitching investing 133

Gust

JULY 22, 2012

I hear lots of excuses from startup founders, like “I’m too busy,” concern over IP security, can’t afford an agency, and it’s too early. Here is a list of ways that you can use public relations to benefit your startup, even before it is started: Make yourself a spokesman for your domain. You need to do it yourself.

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Both Sides of the Table

SEPTEMBER 25, 2010

When I first read Paul Graham’s blog post on “High Resolution&# Financing I read it as a treatise arguing that convertible notes are better than equity. As I’m generally a believer in ‘pricing rounds’ I initially didn’t agree with the premise of the post. Photo credit: D. Blanchard/O’Reilly Media.

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Red Rocket

FEBRUARY 13, 2023

I recently got connected to Alyssa Hitaka at TopTierStartups.com , a new content site rich with startup related news, tips and interviews with startup founders. I was curious what her startup founders were seeing, in terms of the best marketing strategies they are successfully using today. Here is the list: 1.

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Entrepreneurs' Organization

AUGUST 29, 2018

Whether you’re a conversion veteran or a startup founder just learning the basics, download and subscribe to these sales and marketing podcasts today to boost your skills: 1. You’ll find episodes like, How to Grow Your Marketing Through Partnerships and This is Why Your Blog Isn’t Loved by Google delivered in short, sweet bursts.

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creativity media advice strategy 130

Y Combinator

MARCH 30, 2021

We’ve been talking about the unique challenges facing women founders for years, but the pandemic was particularly hard for women looking to start their own companies. Last year, during Y Combinator’s Future Founders Conference , a16z’s Sonal Chokshi led a conversation on “Leveling the Playing Field” with Anu Hariharan, YC Continuity Partner.

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Tomasz Tunguz

MARCH 7, 2013

I often wonder about how to measure the success of this blog. Feedburner subscribers, retweets, time on site aren’t much better because they don’t measure the true performance of a blog - what fraction of an audience the blog reaches. For example, this blog targets startup founders, managers and employees.

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TechCrunch

APRIL 4, 2023

Announced today, AWS has created a 10-week program for generative AI startups around the globe. Generative AI startup founders within the cohort can expect to have access to AI models and tools as well as machine learning stack optimization and custom go-to-market advice.

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StartupNation

NOVEMBER 30, 2021

As a first-time founder, starting a startup is incredibly difficult. As a second-time founder, it is a bit easier. . Working for yourself, especially during the earliest days of founding at startup, is incredibly rewarding. . Fundraising is a time-consuming and difficult process for most founders. seed fundraise.

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TechCrunch

APRIL 19, 2021

. “We’re looking for companies with a viable product and early market traction, and a commitment to developing on and investing in the Zoom ecosystem,” Zoom’s Colin Born wrote in a blog post announcing the new program. The fund gives startup founders one more option to get some funding to get their idea off the ground.

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