While a single sentence may convey the overarching direction of your business plan, you may also need to develop an elevator pitch that combines a few additional concepts into a paragraph so that you can better describe your plans. Here is a ‘paint by numbers’ approach that may help you put your plan into a ...
Experts could debate all day long the ingredients for a killer entrepreneurial climate and the virtues of one city over another. But if I’ve learned one thing over the years, it’s that every region in this country is different. While each might aspire to be the next Austin or Menlo Park, you can’t start with ...
It’s a rare entrepreneur who enjoys working on financial forecasts. Many feel like the time could be better spent on actually developing and running their business. Still, forecasts truly are a necessity. You need them to attract investors, but more importantly they help you develop long-term strategic plans. Unless these forecasts are fairly accurate they aren’t helpful at all. ...
“Coin-operated idiots”. Even if no one says it out loud about sales people anymore, they might still think it. It’s the perception some startup CEOs have when it comes to their sales force (unless the founders have come from sales themselves). Just load ‘em up and watch them do their mindless best … like at ...
. . . . .Two studies show real evidence that startups backed by strong angels really do better than their counterparts that fail to get such funding. The studies by Harvard Business School professors William Kerr and Josh Lerner and MIT Sloan School of Management professor Antoinette Schoar (along with Stanislav Sokolinsky and Karen Wilson) ...
For entrepreneurs, it’s not always easy finding the right time and place to pitch a potential investor on an idea — and that’s where Founderfox wants to help. The new app, which just launched this weekend, is a free video-pitching platform for startups that are looking to hail the attention of investors, media, and other ...
Warm introductions are still the best way to meet an investor, however, scrappy venture capitalists know that ideas can come from anywhere – including from outside of their network. The venture capital industry exists because of entrepreneurs but it you’re an entrepreneur you’d hardly think you existed in the eyes of VCs. And you’d be ...
One of the most important questions I love to ask founders is: Please share the top 3 tools and resources you’re currently using to grow your business? In some cases, it’s usually something that I already knew or heard about in the past. But every so often I’ll discover something new, something that can make ...
. . . . . . .Early-stage CEOs are practically taught to not even put a financial model in any of their fundraising decks until they get to their Series B. It’s all about building product in the early stages right? You don’t need to worry about figuring out a business since it’s all about ...
Earlier this week, the Securities and Exchange Commission (SEC) announced a new set of rules implementing Title IV of the JOBS Act. These changes affect Regulation A small public offerings, and are colloquially referred to as “Reg A+”. The release of these final rules further advances one of the core principles and goals of the ...