How winning the America’s Cup is like building a successful startup
Today Oracle Team USA won the 34th Americas Cup, staging one of the biggest comebacks in sailing, and maybe sporting history, fighting their way back from an 8-1 deficit to win 9-8 in the best of 17....
View ArticleThe startup fundraising cookbook (8 steps to raising a solid round)
I do a significant amount of startup mentoring and I’m often asked about fundraising. Like many things, I’ve tried to develop a process and decision-making criteria. There will always be exceptions to...
View ArticleQuotes to inspire
Physical fitness is not only one of the most important keys to a healthy body, it is the basis of dynamic and creative intellectual activity. John F. Kennedy
View ArticleYour best team is a blend of fit, skills and domain expertise (in that order)
Building your startup team is the most important thing you’ll do in the life of your company. The team includes the people who work on it every day as well as your advisors, investors and in certain...
View ArticleChanging context creates new learning
Last week, I participated in The Meeting in Aspen, CO. I was invited by my good friend Christopher Jerard who is former editor of Freeskier Magazine, Rival IQ customer and all-around good dude working...
View ArticleTelling your startup story with .xls vs. ppt
Troy Henikoff is the managing director of TechStars Chicago. I recently saw him do a great talk outlining the tools and strategies around building your financial models. Lucky for you, the Techstars...
View Article2015 Social Media Priorities (infographic)
Understanding social media is critical and grocking the trends is a good start. Our team at Rival IQ just put together some good data to get you started. For more like this, check out our blog –...
View ArticleTwitter for entrepreneurs – the why and the how of growing a following
I was recently asked to talk to a bunch of budding entrepreneurs about how to use Twitter to grow their own personal brands and therefore additional value to their companies. The presentation talks...
View ArticleHow I killed my startup hours before closing a seed round
“What details should we use for the final closing documents” is something that every entrepreneur wants to hear. I’d been working on a new idea for over 6 months, had a great team lined up and was on...
View ArticleImportant things I’m not doing, yet (ITINDY)
When you talk to experienced investors and founders of startups, they tell you it’s all about “focus”, but how do you make that actionable and structured? As the business changes and evolves, a founder...
View ArticlePreparing for your future leadership
As entrepreneurs, we all have a story to tell that often includes disparate and seemingly unconnected experiences that lead us to the point where we could start our next companies. Rarely do I see a...
View ArticleA new podcast for entrepreneurs…
I’m a huge fan of Techstars. Brad Feld was one of my investors in Gist back in 2009, about the time that Techstars was getting off the ground and David Cohen and the Techstars fund is an investor in...
View ArticleThe Playbook – what the water (oceans and pools) taught me about...
Last week I was the featured guest on The Playbook, a series put on by Geekwire focusing on athletes turned entrepreneurs and the lessons they draw from sports. John Cook did a bunch of research about...
View ArticleThe 5 jobs of a startup CEO
With my work at PSL in starting new companies, being on boards and in my own experiences, the CEO of a startup has 5 jobs; – Set and communicate a clear, compelling, and consistent vision – this comes...
View ArticleUsing side projects to have fun, build skills, develop relationships, and...
Starting a company is hard. The variables of selecting the best idea, finding co-founder(s), unknown duration of customer discovery, product/market timing, and financing strategy/timing makes it even...
View ArticleThe “Data/Value Pyramid” – A Special Focus for Analytics Companies
I like to create and invest in data analytics companies. Over the years, it’s become clearer how to think about organizing the product to deliver the most value for customers. I call this organization...
View ArticleThe history channel (memories for startups)
Startups move fast and if you’re doing it right, you make a ton of progress on everything from customers, product, team, systems, press…very quickly and it’s easy to lose track. And, since most leaders...
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