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Apple NYC image via The Washington Post. A startup begins with a great idea, but all too often, that’s where it ends. Ideas have to be implemented well to get the desired results. Good implementation requires a plan, and a good plan and good operational decisions come from good people. That’s why investors invest in entrepreneurs, rather than ideas.
Ariel Diaz wrote an insightful post in PandoDaily yesterday outlining the state of affairs in online education. Ariel touched on the history of education, catalogued the problems of the status quo and pointed to a few innovative initiatives. Most Edu Innovation is Post-Secondary. Reading the post and reflecting on the startups I’ve seen, I concluded most of the innovation in education has occurred in post-secondary education instead of K-12, despite the fact that the K-12 market is about 50% lar
A few times this week I've heard the term "Skin in the Game.". What it generally means is that you've put your own money into something--that you're risking something along side the people who are supporting you. I had an entrepreneur tell me that he put $75,000 of his own money into something because he thought it was important to have skin in the game.
It all started in 2010 with Klout. I wasn’t a believer. I had always liked and respected CEO Joe Fernandez but could never get my head around the fact that the Klout was putting up charts showing who influenced me and it didn’t map to the reality I knew in my head. I had been trading emails & Tweets with venture capitalist John Frankel and we were to meet in person in March 2011 at SxSW to talk about Klout and other investments he had made.
Speaker: Lee Andrews, Founder at LJA New Media & Tony Karrer, Founder and CTO at Aggregage
This session will walk you through how one CEO used generative AI, workflow automation, and sales personalization to transform an entire security company—then built the Zero to Strategy framework that other mid-market leaders are now using to unlock 3.5x ROI. As a business executive, you’ll learn how to assess AI opportunities in your business, drive adoption across teams, and overcome internal resource constraints—without hiring a single data scientist.
In past insights, we’ve explored data gathering and dashboards for tracking the most important information to manage your company. Every good executive has a set of critical data points that best alert him or her to the changes in the flow of business most important to note and in many cases to curb a negative trend early in the game. There is a truism you should internalize: Most all big problems start off as small problems.
September’s Startup Map showcases the latest trends in startup profiles created on Gust between September 1 st and September 30 th. Some of the entrepreneurs chose to keep their startup profiles private and therefore are labeled as unpublished in this month’s map, and were not included in the trends analysis. In September the US has once again shown the highest concentration of startups, even though there was a decline when compared to the month of August.
September’s Startup Map showcases the latest trends in startup profiles created on Gust between September 1 st and September 30 th. Some of the entrepreneurs chose to keep their startup profiles private and therefore are labeled as unpublished in this month’s map, and were not included in the trends analysis. In September the US has once again shown the highest concentration of startups, even though there was a decline when compared to the month of August.
I began studying angel investing returns about 10 years ago as a result of a problem I couldn’t resolve: The investing world seemed certain that angel investors were rubes. Conventional wisdom dictated that they made reckless investments in very early-stage ventures mostly doomed to fail. And whenever they might come close to succeeding, savvy “professional” investors would just swoop in, cram them down, and win the real returns.
The first mobile phones were purchased by corporations and given to employees. Thirty years ago, most people used computers at work but not at home. Most of the innovation flowed from the enterprise into the home. Today, it’s very much the opposite. The big trends in enterprise trace the opposite movement both at the software layer and the device layer: consumerization of IT means using consumer channels to acquire customers and bring your own device (BYOD) means 66% of employees bring their own
The flurry of media activity in entrepreneurship including the spate of new TV shows like X-Factor for tech and Shark Tank, the refocus of the NYTimes and WSJ on technology, and the number of entrepreneurs on mainstream magazine covers gave me the impression that entrepreneurship is on the rise. While this may be true in pockets like New York or California, entrepreneurship in the US is shrinking - at least according to the Bureau of Labor Statistics and a report from the NYTimes: When Job Creat
Image via Facebook.com. Every time I hear about a new startup that is in stealth mode, I wonder what problem they are hiding from whom. Of course they pretend that they are trying to avoid alerting competitors prior to launch, but too often it becomes an excuse to move slowly in a world that’s all about getting to market fast. I believe stealth makes sense for large companies who can be sued for “pre-announcing” a new product to stall the market or kill a competitor.
AI adoption is reshaping sales and marketing. But is it delivering real results? We surveyed 1,000+ GTM professionals to find out. The data is clear: AI users report 47% higher productivity and an average of 12 hours saved per week. But leaders say mainstream AI tools still fall short on accuracy and business impact. Download the full report today to see how AI is being used — and where go-to-market professionals think there are gaps and opportunities.
Just once I'd like to see a pitch deck with a slide for the hiring plan and *most* importantly, how they're going to execute it. VCs talk about customer acquisition and competition as critical parts of the pitch--when 99% of the time the real answers are: a) Well, we'll do some PR, some social, some paid when we figure out what a customer is worth, some BD. and. b) No one's even using *anything* in this space yet, so our true competition is apathy and lack of awareness.
RA Dickey of the New York Mets is the closest I've ever had to a sports hero. His story of overcoming child abuse, a missing arm ligament, a decade in the minors and going on to reinvent himself in his mid-30's using a pitch few have mastered is nothing short of inspirational. I took the afternoon off a couple of weeks ago to see him win his 20th game of the season at Citifield.
Picture this: Your family builds a tremendous business in Nebraska over four generations making black socks. You make more black socks for more people in the western world than anyone. The next generation isn't interested in socks. One daughter is touring nationally with her punk band. The son is off in Africa combating disease with Doctors without Borders, and the other son. well. remember Woody Harrelson on Cheers?
Ryan Blair book image via Amazon. It’s a well-accepted axiom in the investor community that entrepreneurs learn more from their failures than their successes. Thus a well-explained startup failure often can actually improve your odds of funding in the next go-round. Yet, there is no doubt that the best strategy is to learn from someone else’s mistakes, so you can enjoy the millions that someone else lost in learning.
Large enterprises face unique challenges in optimizing their Business Intelligence (BI) output due to the sheer scale and complexity of their operations. Unlike smaller organizations, where basic BI features and simple dashboards might suffice, enterprises must manage vast amounts of data from diverse sources. What are the top modern BI use cases for enterprise businesses to help you get a leg up on the competition?
This summer I conducted our third annual survey of the pre-money valuation of pre-revenue companies recently funded by angel groups in North America. Access to our 2010 and 2011 surveys can be found at 2011 Valuation Survey of North American Angel Investor Groups. We received data from thirty groups of the fifty angel groups from whom we requested data.
An impromptu Twitter debate arose among Fred Wilson, Dave McClure, Mark Suster, Chris Dixon and others about convertible debt, priced equity rounds, and the nuances of early stage financing. It was such a good discussion that Fred asked that someone Storify it. I’ve done that here and expanded it with some additional references, background info and light commentary.
People who tell you that VCs won’t look at a company with an even equity split are being silly. That has never once, in my experience, been even a slight hiccup, let alone a dispositive factor in a seed investment. That said, there is a core of truth in the concept that there always needs to be *some* way to make a decision. That’s why the Senate has the Vice President as the tie breaker, and why boards of directors are almost universally an odd number.
While you will definitely need to be a corporate entity before you can accept funding from any investor (or issue stock options to any employees), the specific corporate status of the venture at this stage is much less important to investors than its functional status. That is, if all you have is a good idea, the reality is that you are highly unlikely to be able to get funding from anyone at all, even if you are a Delaware C corporation with gilt edge stock certificates.
Gearing up for 2025 annual planning? Our latest eBook from the Operators Guild is your ultimate guide. Discover real-world solutions and best practices shared by top CFOs, drawn directly from discussions within OG’s vibrant online community. Learn from senior executives at high-growth tech startups as they outline financial planning strategies, align CEO and board goals, and coordinate budgets across departments.
The question should be “used for what?” Because convertible notes are designed to give investors an equity interest in a company that will eventually be worth much more than their investment, the intention on their part is always to convert into equity (after all, if they were just after the interest on a loan, they could find much less risky things to invest in than a startup.).
I like this a lot. The executive summary: . Dropbox Co-Founder Drew Houston believes false mythologies about tech company founders do a disservice to aspiring entrepreneurs. While many people think all tech founders start with world conquering visions, says Houston, the reality is that founders learn one day at a time just like everyone else. This less-than-two-minute video comes from Stanford’s Ecorner , its online entrepreneurship center, which is a great resource. .
True story: many long years ago I had founders’ stock in a video game company. At one point they were just a few weeks from going public, but that’s not the point of this story. It was about a “hit” business, meaning a business in which you had to have a lot of products in play to get one of the big hits that paid for the rest of the disappointments.
The Verge profiled Google Now, Google’s newest search technology which uses “predictive” queries to show users the information they want to see, before users ask. In a single app, the company has combined its latest technologies: voice search that understands speech like a human brain, knowledge of real-world entities, a (somewhat creepy) understanding of who and where you are, and most of all its expertise at ranking information.
Mighty Financial specializes in supporting the financial aspirations of small businesses and entrepreneurs. With our comprehensive bookkeeping and precise accounting expertise with decades of experience across diverse financial roles, our team offers tailor-made services ranging from essential bookkeeping to strategic fractional CFO support, catered specifically to the unique challenges of technology companies, startups, and SMEs.
Peter Senge has been called the most influential business strategists of the century and in my view Senge is the successor of Peter Drucker, the management visionary. Senge published a book in 1990 called The Fifth Discipline which I think every manager, founder and CEO should read. Great companies transcend their great products. Not defined by one product, these companies adapt, innovate and reinvent.
Last week, a close friend, who is a product manager/designer, told me he’s starting a company. He asked me where I thought the biggest opportunity lay given his skills and his passions. He’s incredibly capable and driven, but he hasn’t yet found the right place to apply his energy. My friend is in search of a problem to solve. He’s in the right place.
It’s tempting to burrow within a garage or basement or apartment to develop a product for several months and emerge from the darkness with a new shiny product. But the launch will likely fall flat. Products must be launched into ecosystems, in particular, into receptive ecosystems. In my view, there are three types of ecosystems that startups should cultivate.
I met the Electric Imp team in April. I had bumped into one of their engineers at a party and he pinged me a few weeks later to say he was working for a startup and the company was raising. The company came in to the office on a Monday at noon. Hugo, the founder, Electric Imp demoed their product to me. Ten minutes in, I stopped the pitch meeting, pulled 3 partners from their Monday partner meeting, and issued a term sheet that afternoon.
Lack of digitalization decreases business competitiveness. To thrive, embracing modern solutions becomes essential. The approach to digitalization often aligns with a company's business model. This shift not only boosts productivity but also automates processes and improves security. The tech market offers a wealth of technologies tailored for management, planning, and forecasting, replacing outdated pen-and-paper methods.
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