Leadership and Management
What’s The Behavior You Can’t Have As A Founder?
“I don’t know if I can do this anymore,” “Serge”, the CEO of a struggling startup, said to me. “I think I’m going to give up.” Do you want to grow your business? Maybe I can help. Click here. “What?” I responded. Serge’s capitulation said didn’t register on me. It was foreign to my way…
Read MoreHow Should You Manage Your Stock Option Plan?
“I was expecting an offer of three percent,” Joe said to me. I’d been recruiting Joe since before we got our funding, and, now, two years after we closed our funding, we had offered Joe 0.75% stock options to become a Senior Scientist. [Do you want to grow your business? Maybe I can help. Click…
Read MoreWho You Should Never Add As A Co-Founder?
“I just bought a unit in new The Millennium building, up in the City,” my co-founder, “Ken”, said to me. “You should check it out!” Do you want to grow your business? Maybe I can help. Click here. “Really,” I said. “I thought you were going to buy a house on the peninsula, closer to…
Read MoreWhy You’re The Most Important Person In Your Company
“The engine that makes an Analog IC company go is a great VP Engineering or CTO,” I said to Dave, the VC partner I was working with when I was incubating my startup as an EIR (Entrepreneur in Residence) at a VC fund in San Francisco. Then I continued, “Without a great VP Engineering we…
Read MoreHow You Can Make A Great First Impression In Less Than Seven Seconds
“Here’s a slide I think might be good,” the CEO said to us. Do you want to grow your business? Maybe I can help. Click here. The CEO had just blown it. I mean completely blown it. I was working at a Venture Capital firm at the time, and we were sincerely interested in investing…
Read MoreWhat Is The Most Difficult Part About Building Your Startup?
“The hardest part of building our company will be raising the initial funding,” I naively said to my fellow cofounders. Every one of them nodded their heads in agreement. Do you want to grow your business? Maybe I can help. Click here. I continued on with my pep talk. “We’ll be home free once the…
Read MoreHow Should You Start Your Company As A Solo Founder?
“Do you remember when we first met?” I said to “Ray,” the solo founder and CEO of a startup that I’ve been advising for over three years. “Yes,” Ray said. It was in that park where we went for a walk where we saw all those deer.” [Do you want to grow your business? Maybe…
Read MoreWhy You Always Should Focus On Cutting Costs
…Regardless Of How Profitable Your Company Is There it was in my in basket. A memo from Jack Gifford, the CEO of Maxim Integrated Products, with the title, “Use of office supplies.” [Do you want to grow your business? Maybe I can help. Click here.] The memo went something like this: “To: All Maxim Employees…
Read MoreHow Much Sleep Do You Really Need To Be Effective?
I wake up, and I look at the clock. It’s 2:14 AM. I had gone to sleep at midnight, and here I was, awake two hours later. [Do you want to grow your business? Maybe I can help. Click here.] “Maybe this time, I’ll be able to break the pattern and go back to sleep,” I…
Read MoreHow Much Luck Do You Need To Be Successful?
“How many lives do I have left?” I asked myself. My goodness, I’d already survived a ton of near-death experiences, yet we hadn’t even released a product or gotten any funding. Maybe the startup gods were trying to tell me something? Do you want to grow your business? Maybe I can help. Click here. But…
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