It’s inevitable. You’re going to have an employee that did a great job for you early on in your company, but now that same employee is having trouble as the company grows bigger. What you do when you face this inevitable challenge will determine more about the fate of your company than you might realize.…
“Don’t try and be something that you’re not,” that was the advice I gave to myself when I started my company. Even though I have a BSEE and a few patents, I’d been on the “dark side”, as my wife calls the business side of a technology company, for years. I wasn’t going to be…
You’re in a meeting with an investor, and the investor asks you to provide sensitive information like your customer list before you sign a term sheet. Or you’re in a technical diligence meeting and things don’t feel right. What should you do? The good news is that most investors are not out to steal your…
Have you ever wondered what’s the right amount of equity to give your investors? Well, you’re not alone. Figuring out how much equity your investors should get is next to impossible to figure out. I have a simple methodology that I share in this short video that you can use to figure out the equity…
You’re right to worry about the effect of hiring an employee of a failed startup into your company. Maybe the potential employee will bring all the bad habits of the failed startup to your company. And who needs that? However, you’re missing a real opportunity if you don’t hire people from failed startups. I’ll give…
I always recommend that you give yourself six months minimum, preferably one year, to raise money. However, sometimes you’re not so lucky. For example deals can fall through at the last minute, or maybe you had no choice but to wait. Whatever the situation, I’ll tell you what to do in this short video if…
Years ago, I had someone who worked for me that was really bright, really intuitive. I thought he had a lot of potential, but the problem was he didn’t have a technical degree. So, I gave Matt the least technically challenging product line in the company to run. Matt did a great job. The businesses…
You usually have a lot of self doubt when you’re a startup CEO. I certainly did. So wouldn’t it be nice to know if you have what it takes to be a successful startup CEO? I’ll give you my take on what I look for in the people I work with in this short video.…
“I’m thinking I’m going to let “Randy” go,” I told “Raul” who was one of our two investors. Raul nodded, and then he asked me why I was thinking of letting Randy go. “Randy’s having problems working with the rest of the team. I’m going to try and see if I can help…” [Do you…
“What are you doing?” Tina, our controller, asked me. I was in the front lobby of our office, and I had a scissors in my hands. “I’m cutting the ends of the plants, so they look nice. I want everything to look perfect when the investors get here tomorrow.” Cutting the plants so there were…