Steve Blank covers the difference between a board of directors and an advisory board in “Don’t Give Away Your Board Seats.” I’d like to pick up where he left off. Now that you understand the importance of attracting advisers, how do you find them? Take a look at a few successful companies you admire. Notice […]
Steve Blank
What is a Startup?
Recently, the question of what makes a business a startup versus a small business came up. I generally play fast and loose with definitions. I switch up accelerators with incubators and refer to growth hackers as marketers. But when it comes to the small business versus startup divide, I think the distinction is important enough […]
10 C-Level Positions That Are Red Flags for Funding
It’s your startup, so you can give early partners any title you want, but be aware of potential investor and peer implications. VCs and angel investors like to see a startup that is running lean and mean, with no more than three or four of the conventional C-level or VP titles. More executives, or other […]
Stanford in the Alley: How to Build a Better Startup
Entrepreneurship has changed dramatically in recent years. Through the advancement of technology, what used to be a multimillion dollar development process, can now be developed rather cheaply with a PC and some open-source software. Starting a company now could cost you as much as your credit card limit. The one thing that is still present, […]
Entrepreneurs Are Winning With a New Startup Model
I see more and more entrepreneurs who seem to have everything going for them – vision, motivation, passion, even a good business plan, product and money, and yet they can’t close customers. Maybe it’s time to look harder at the mantra of a new breed of gurus and successful entrepreneurs, including Steve Blank and Eric Ries, called “nail […]
The Other Side of the Story – Founding your Own Startup
Hi there, this is Cristian, the founder of Nexi.me. I’m a tech entrepreneur, full stack developer, founded two startups and worked for several Romanian companies. Nexi.me is an online platform for small and medium businesses that helps them recruit top talents through referrals from their own employees. We all enjoy reading about the success of lots […]
Why Large Corporations Should Behave Like Startups
I often loathe and am hesitant to use anything that feels like a “buzzword,” but the often discussed “lean startup” has some real validity. The “lean startup” is really just a marketable description put forward by Eric Ries – the thinking isn’t new, it’s simply packaged in an easy-to-consume-then-copy manner. The core of this entrepreneurial philosophy is […]
The New Breed of Startups Master These 5 Processes
I see more and more entrepreneurs who seem to have everything going for them–vision, motivation, passion, a good business plan, product and money, and yet they can’t close customers. Maybe it’s time to look harder at the mantra of a new breed of gurus and successful entrepreneurs, including Steve Blank and Eric Ries: Nail it, then scale it […]
Want to be an Entrepreneur? Then Get Your MBA
I am an entrepreneur — a moderately shocking fact for a kid from Cleveland, Ohio. What’s more shocking? I’m a very proud graduate of UC Berkeley’s Haas School of Business. Yep, I willingly left the workforce for two years in order to pay to attend business school. There is a standard list of reasons […]
Startups: Building, Pitching, Buyers and Fear
“Be a user of your own product. Make it better based on your own desires. But don’t trick yourself into thinking you are your user.” – Evan Williams, Co-Founder of Twitter The above statement by Evan Williams is neither new nor rocket science. Startup gurus have long been driving home the importance of […]
If You Missed ER 58 with Peter Stern, Your Loss (But We Took Notes)
There’s no shortage of tech pitching events, so it’s refreshing when you go to one where the investor/speaker starts out by saying that his motivation was to make the world suck less by writing cool software. “Most people graduate and want to create startups, but they don’t have a problem to solve,” said Peter Stern, […]