Does A Startup CEO Have To Work At The Head Office? By Brett Fox I remember as CEO of my own startup presenting a review of our progress to one of our investors. The whole team was located in one office in the Silicon Valley. I told the partners of this VC firm that we…
How Hard Is It To Be An Entrepreneur? By Brett Fox Being an entrepreneur is easy. Every day people decide to start up businesses. And voilà, you are an entrepreneur. And voilà, most of these new entrepreneurs will fail. So why do so many entrepreneurs fail? Let me click off the reasons, stream of consciousness…
What Do You Do When You’re Stuck As A CEO? By Brett Fox I’ve been stuck more times than I can count. Sometimes, I get thrown for a loop like the time an investor pulled his support for our company at the worst time imaginable. Ugh! Then, there was the time we lost a $1M…
How Do You Generate Innovative Ideas For Your Startup? By Brett Fox One of the first things I did once we received funding was have a regularly scheduled “Crazy Idea” meeting every Friday afternoon. All the designer engineers, myself, and the VP of Marketing (who had a strong technical background) would get together. The rules…
Should You Patent Your Idea? By Brett Fox Getting a patent has nothing to do with your ability to execute. Nothing. Maybe you can get a patent for your idea, and maybe you can’t. Here are a few things to know about what patents can and can’t do for you: A. A patent may not…
When Should I delegate My Email To An Admin? By Brett Fox You’re thinking way too corporate here. You have a choice when you are starting a company: Are you going to be company that spends lots of money and burns through its runway, or… Are you going to be appropriately frugal? My vote is…
It was the week between Christmas and New Year’s. We had just started shipping our first products a few months earlier. It was dead as a doornail during the last week of the year. Web traffic was drying up. The phones were barely ringing. Do you want to grow your business? Maybe I can help.…
How Do You Recruit Senior Employees For Your Startup? By Brett Fox The average age of the engineering team at my company was 44 years old. The engineers on average had 10 patents. The team, by industry standards, was considered elite. Now, I assume you want to recruit really good senior people, not just mediocre…
What Should You Do When A Cofounder Quits And Holds Your IP Hostage? By Brett Fox I know the pain too well of cofounders quitting. I had two cofounders (“Jim” and “John”). I was the CEO, Jim was the marketing guy, and John was the engineering guy. We had worked together previously, and we understood…
How Important Is It That Founders Have Over 50% Equity? By Brett Fox I think the question implies that the founders need to protect themselves from getting screwed, so having 51% ownership means they can’t be outvoted. Let’s say you start with 51%. Then you raise money and over time your stake is diluted to…