Leadership and Management
How Do You Keep Your Development Team On Schedule?
“My project is going to be delayed by one month,” Richard said to Jeroen, my co-founder and VP Engineering, in our weekly engineering review meeting. Do you want to grow your business? Maybe I can help. Click here. Jeroen went through the usual list of technical questions to understand what was causing the delay, and…
Read MoreHow Can You Tell If Someone Will Be A Great CEO?
I’ve worked with over 100 early stage startup CEOs over the last five years. Some of these early stage startup CEOs have built companies worth well over $1 billion. And some of these early stage startup CEOs, that had what looked to be promising startups, flamed out. Do you want to grow your business? Maybe…
Read MoreThe Single Biggest Reason Early Stage Startups Succeed
I am really excited to share with you the reasons why early stage startups succeed. Over the past five years, I’ve worked directly with over one hundred early stage startups CEOs. There are lots of challenges you face as an early stage startup CEO. It’s become clear to me, based on my experience, why early…
Read MoreWhat You Should Worry About As A Startup CEO?
“How much cash do we have left?” I asked Tina, our very able controller. Do you want to grow your business? Maybe I can help. Click here. “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…
Read MoreWhy Investors Can’t Fix Your Startup
“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.…
Read MoreHow Do You Have Meetings That Matter?
We’ve all been there before. Nobody likes going to meetings and wasting their time. It’s like this: You go to the meeting. There’s small talk, people are joking around, and people are wasting your precious time. This happens when you have a lot of people in the room together. Do you want to grow your…
Read MoreWhen Should You Let An Inexperienced Person Join?
Years ago, I was interviewing VP Sales candidates. One of the first candidates I interviewed was someone that I quickly realized was completely wrong for the job. Do you want to grow your business? Maybe I can help. Click here. I finished the interview, and I thanked him for his time. Then, as I usually…
Read MoreWhy Can’t You Turn Your Integrity On And Off?
My wife and I went for a run together last week, and, on our walk home, we started talking about Elizabeth Holmes. The new docudrama about her and Theranos, “Dropout”, just dropped on Showtime, so it was on the top of our minds. Do you want to grow your business? Maybe I can help. Click…
Read MoreThe Top Ten Mistakes First Time Entrepreneurs Make
“You’re a first time CEO. You’re going to make mistakes.” That’s what investors say about first time CEOs. And, you know what, investors are right, you’re going to make mistakes. However, why make business mistakes when you can avoid them. In today’s video, I’ll walk you through the top ten mistakes entrepreneurs make. Plus, I’ll…
Read MoreHow Can You Renegotiate Founder Equity?
“I want to cut the equity of my co-founder from 45 percent to twenty percent,” “Oren” said to me. “He’s not performing very well. What do you think?” Do you want to grow your business? Maybe I can help. Click here. “I don’t think that’s going to go over very well,” I said. “You certainly…
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