“You’re the only one of my portfolio companies with a tranche,” Gill said to me after closed our $12M Series A funding. Then he added, “These are tough people (the other VC fund) we’re dealing with, and we’re going to be looking at each other if you don’t meet your commitments. Gill didn’t have to…
One of the worst pieces of advice I ever got was from an investor who told me, “Visit ten VCs. If none of them are interested in investing, then you should quit.” I am so glad I ignored his advice because I would have never gotten funded if I just gave up after meeting ten…
How Do You Hook A Whale? By Brett Fox Winning big deals takes a lot of effort. And the hardest part is getting your customer to really commit. Or as that great business philosopher, Yogi Berra, said, “It ain’t over till it’s over.” In this short video, I’ll explain what you need to do to…
About five years ago, I was interviewing a potential VP Sales that had been highly recommended to me. “Tom” had great success as VP Sales of a company that two of my board members were involved in. They thought Tom could walk on water. But I found Tom lacking when I interviewed him. He didn’t…
How You Know Your Product Is Going To Fail By Brett Fox I’ve announced over one thousand new products in my career. Many have been big sellers, and some have been flops. I’ll give you a simple way to tell whether you have a hit or flop in this short video. Do You Want…
I spend a large percentage of my time working with struggling startups these days. Interestingly enough, the idea the company was started with is usually not the problem. Most of the time, the problems are fixable if the CEO takes action quickly. Sadly, many times the CEO waits too long and the company gets caught…
How Can You Be A Successful CEO And An Introvert? By Brett Fox It is not a death sentence for you if you are an introverted CEO. In fact, being an introvert can be advantage for you if you take the proper steps. I’l explain how you can be a successful CEO and an introvert…
There’s a company called Slidebean that sells pitch deck formats. As part of their sales material, Slidebean has redone the original pitch decks of companies like Uber and Airbnb in their “improved” format. The only problem I have is that I actually liked the original format that the companies had better. For example, let’s take…
“Take your stuff,” Carlos the HR VP said to me after he asked me to leave the boardroom where the company’s operations meeting was taking place. I picked up my stuff, and I started walking out of the conference room. There were twenty sets of eyes trained on me including the CEO’s eyes. I instantly…
Last year I was helping a VC friend of mine judge pitches for a pitch deck competition. There was a screening process before a prospective company was allowed to pitch. There was this one company that everyone seemed to like. During one of the prep sessions, the company’s CTO pitched to us. I asked a…