blog
What Is The One Book Everyone In Your Company Should Read?
I currently have ten books on my list for CEOs to read. They include the books you would expect including Clayton Christensen’s masterpiece, The Innovator’s Dilemma. The Innovator’s Dilemma is a great book. It’s like the bible for startups. However, if you were to ask me for books I would like all the employees of…
Read MoreHow Do You Negotiate With Investors?
I was so excited when we got the term sheet from the investor. Then I looked at the numbers. The deal sucked. The investor was taking more than the normal percentage at this stage. But I was confident I could negotiate a better deal. The investor was flying to his home on Maui, so we…
Read MoreShould You Ask For Backpay When You Close Your Funding?
Welcome to the world of sweat equity. I’ve been in your shoes. I went over two years without collecting a salary while we started the company and raised our initial funding. I didn’t ask for backpay, nor do I think our investors would have given me backpay if I asked. The investors have invested their…
Read MoreHow Do You Handle Big Differences Between You And Your Cofounder?
“I know more about building a company than you do,” one my co-founders said to me over the phone. Those were the last words “John” ever said to me as he quit the company. John was a brilliant technologist. His fellow engineers called him a “guru”. There was no question that it was a coup…
Read MoreHow Do You Get Talent From Facebook Or Google To Join Your Company?
We got most of our top talent from two companies (Maxim and Linear Technology) in our industry that were the equivalent of Apple, Google, and Facebook. We knew we weren’t going to pay higher salaries than Maxim and Linear. Indeed, most of the people that joined us from Maxim and Linear took pay cuts. We…
Read MoreHow Do You Deal With Employee Burnout?
I love running. Specifically, I love distance running. It’s so peaceful when you go on a long run in the early morning. And that’s really true now that the weather’s gotten colder. It’s just you and your thoughts. Or maybe it’s just you, your thoughts, and the occasional deer you see. I usually pace my…
Read MoreWhat’s Your Institutional Memory And Why It’s Important?
“We used to be even better than this,” the Vice President of one of the world’s largest distributors said to me as we were taking a tour of the distributor’s facility. The Vice President was responding to how impressed I was with the consistency of the answers and actions I was hearing and seeing from…
Read MoreHow Do You Raise Funding After Creating Your MVP?
Great. You’ve developed a kick-ass MVP that your customers are buying. So what. That’s the question (or questions) you’re going to need to answer in order to raise money. Just because customers are buying your product doesn’t mean you are going to get funded. As I said, so what. Imagine you’re talking to an investor…
Read MoreWhen Should You Hire Interns To Develop Your MVP?
As the great business philosopher John McEnroe said, “You cannot be serious!” You want to hire interns instead of experts? Come on! You cannot be serious! Okay. Let’s go through with the pros and cons of hiring interns instead of experts. The Pros of hiring interns as engineers: The Pros of hiring expert engineers.…
Read MoreWhat Is The Right Amount Of Equity A Late Joining Cofounder Should Get?
I had four co-founders, the last of whom joined 1.5 years after we started the company. Do you know who got the most equity amongst the co-founders? That’s right, the one that joined 1.5 years after we started. You want to make your equity decisions looking forward, not backwards. I had a pretty simple rule…
Read More