10 Deadly Startup Sins
It’s a well-accepted axiom in the investor community that entrepreneurs learn more from their failures than their successes. Thus a well-explained startup failure often can actually improve your odds of…
Business Basics Posts
Founding and Scaling Require Different Mindsets
Founders work hard to achieve traction - that is, paying customers. It's a great milestone. Instead of relaxing, however, founders need to shift their mindset and redouble their efforts if…
Avoid Corrosive Influences and Thrive
As a startup CEO, your interpersonal skills are only a small part of what is needed to manage and motivate your team. Providing recognition, incentives, and clear goals are not…
Happiness is the True Reward of Entrepreneurship
Building a startup is risky, requires hard work and total dedication, and initially offers low pay. Yet, many entrepreneurs are the happiest people I know. On the other hand, I…
What Entrepreneurs Can Learn From Spin-Offs
You would think that a startup spun off by a mature parent company would have a considerable survival advantage over the lowly startup. Yet spin-offs often fail in the real…
Persuasion: The Key to Entrepreneurial Success
Being a good entrepreneur means being able to effectively convince an investor that you have a great idea, persuade partners that your approach is right, and convince potential customers that…
Don’t Let Procrastination Kill Your Startup
One of the toughest challenges of an entrepreneur in building a startup is the fact that there are so many things that you don’t know how to do, or don’t…
Funding Scams are Everywhere
Some aspiring entrepreneurs are so desperate for funding, or naïve, that they ignore the obvious signs of scams and rip-offs on the Internet, praying for a windfall. One would think…
Startup Risks Worth Taking
Most entrepreneurs think that risk is just an “occupational hazard” that can be minimized or eliminated by a smart businessman. That way of thinking is simplistic and wrong. In reality,…
Lessons from Google’s Larry and Sergey
I tell entrepreneurs that Google was an “exception” to all the investment and startup rules, but I’ve always wondered what it takes to be an exception. Since every business is…