Wouldn’t it be great if you could validate your startup idea in less than one hour because you absolutely, positively have to validate your startup idea? There are seven steps that you need to take to validate your startup idea. And I’m betting you can do them in less than one hour. Let me give…
“You’ve figured it out,” I said smiling to “Vern”, an engineer turned CEO that I’ve been working with. Since we started working together, I’ve been urging Vern to drive sales himself. Yet, until this conversation, he resisted my suggestion. Vern sells enterprise software. Each deal Vern’s company inks is worth well into six or seven…
Creating a startup pitch deck, especially if you’ve never done it, is tough to do. You have to somehow, in a very short time period, convince investors that may know a limited amount about your company, why your company is going to make a ton of money. How short a time frame do you have?…
“I believe this term sheet explodes like a pumpkin at 5PM. Here’s my number. Call me before then if you’re interested in accepting my terms,” “Raul”, our potential new investor, said to me. I had just spent the last thirty minutes trying to negotiate with Raul. Raul reacted the same way to every suggestion I…
“How much cash do we have left?” I asked Tina, our very able controller. “We have $197,000 and change left, Brett. That’s enough to run the company for another three months,” Tina replied. “Okay, assuming we close (our funding) on schedule, then we won’t have to ask for a bridge (loan) from our investors,” I…
How to determine the equity splits between you and your co-founders is a key indicator of whether the relationship between you will work out. Unless you and your co-founders are happy with the results there will be problems ahead. Over 50% of all co-founder relationships end in failure. In today’s video, I’ll explore how you…
A little over two years ago, Jim, a well known entrepreneur, began singing my praises all over social media. He didn’t have to do what he was doing. I thought it would be nice to say thanks. So I reached out to Jim, and we arranged a time to talk. We had a really fun…
“It’s a mug’s game, then?” Dave, one of the hosts of the podcast Jeroen, my co-founder and VP Engineering, and I were being interviewed on, said to us. I had just finished telling him that the odds of raising funding for a startup are around one in one hundred. So, Dave was rightfully asking me…
Back in the day, long before the internet, I would drive over to Stanford University to do my market research. The business school had a really nice library where I could find just about everything I wanted. This would be my ritual every time we entered a new market. And, if I was lucky, I’d…
“We help the daring build legendary companies!” One legendary Silicon Valley venture capital fund exclaims on their home page. “We are in the company building business.” exclaimed another well-known VC fund. I’m here to tell you that all these marketing claims from VCs are just that, marketing claims. VCs can’t help you build your startup.…