Should You Blog? (yes, and here’s how …)
I guess let’s file this under sales & marketing advice. I recently wrote a piece for Mashable on how to create a company blog. Since it’s already written (and since I promised not to republish on my blog other than a summary) if you’re interested please have a read over there. I have a very [...]
Making The Most out of Sitting on Panels
Many of us in the technology, media and VC world sit on panels at lot. Many of them are painfully boring. It’s a shame since it’s such a golden opportunity for you to build awareness with your audience for who you are and what you do. And it’s a surprisingly great way to meet people [...]
Entrepreneurship: Nature vs. Nurture? A Religious Debate
Nature vs. Nurture. You’ve all heard the question before. Let’s talk about kids for a moment. I grew up believing that human behavior was 20% nature, 80% nurture. Now that I have two boys (4 and 7) I’m convinced it’s the other way around. There’s no question that both factors are involved. There have been [...]
Time is the Enemy of All Deals
This is part of my ongoing series with Startup Advice (although this also applies tightly with Raising Venture Capital) You all know this intuitively. But on a scale of ABC (always be closing) there is a wide degree of urgency that entrepreneurs show. As as I’ve said before, I believe that getting things done is [...]
The Fallacy of Channels: Startups Beware
This is part of my ongoing series on startup advice but also filed under my sales & marketing posts. No advice I give will ever apply to 100% of companies, 100% of startups or even 100% of tech startups. I just want to state that up front because while I believe that this post will [...]
73.6% of all Statistics are Made Up
How to Interpret Analyst Reports The headlines in the media are filled with that latest stats. Stats sell. The stats are often quoted from the latest reports. People then parrot them around like they’re fact when most of them are complete bullsh*t. People throw them around at cocktail parties. Often when they do I throw [...]
I Would Only Fund an Entrepreneur with High Integrity
Back in November I agreed with Nivi over at VentureHacks to do a series on the ten most important attributes of a successful entrepreneur. This is the last post in that series. This is actually an addendum to my list rather than “on” my list. That in itself will be controversial, I know. When Nivi [...]
Running More Effective Board Meetings at Startups
Like many of you I’ve sat through my fair share of Board Meetings over the past decade. For the most part I’d call them Bored Meetings. The first 7 years I was running them and the past 3 years I’ve been attending them. Most board meetings aren’t as effective as they could be. Everyone has their own [...]
How Do You Reference Check a VC?
This is part of my ongoing series on Raising Venture Capital. I often tell people that raising money is worse than getting married. I have to be careful in how that sounds because I love my wife and am happily married. But the truth is that in marriage if you’re unhappy you can at least [...]
Domain Experience Gives Entrepreneurs an Unfair Advantage
This is the final part of my series on Entrepreneurial DNA that was originally published on VentureHacks. OK, it’s not really my final part. I started with a Top 10 list for Nivi (at VentureHacks), but I couldn’t cram it into 10 so it became a Top 11 list. I originally conceived it as the Top [...]
Entrepreneurs Don’t “Noodle” They Do
This is part of my series on Entrepreneurial DNA that was originally published on VentureHacks. I know this series has been running for a while (and is getting long in the tooth) – I promise it’s nearly over. I started with a “top 11″ list – only because I couldn’t fit them into a top [...]
How to Not Suck at a Group Presentation
Most people suck at presenting to big groups. It’s a shame because the ability to nail these presentations at key conferences can be once-in-a-lifetime opportunities to influence journalists, business partners, potential employees, customers and VCs. This was evident at the Twiistup pre-event company pitch last week at UCLA. Francisco Dao came up with the idea [...]
The Best Entrepreneurs Are Hyper Competitive & Hate Losing
This is part of my series on what makes an entrepreneur successful. I originally posted it on VentureHacks, one of my favorite websites for entrepreneurs. I started the series talking about what I consider the most important attribute: Tenacity. I then covered Street Smarts, Ability to Pivot, Resiliency, Inspiration, Perspiration , Willingness to Take Risks and Detail Orientation. [...]
What Makes an Entrepreneur (8/11) – Detail Orientation
This is part of my series on what makes an entrepreneur successful. I originally posted it on VentureHacks, one of my favorite websites for entrepreneurs. The full list is now posted there if you want a sneak preview. I’ll try to add a few extra comments in my posts to keep in interesting. I started the series [...]
Building Products for Mass Adoption
Chris Dixon wrote a blog post last week titled, “Techies and Normals” in which he defined “Techies” as people who are not just “early adopters” but also have more of a geeky, technical, product bent. Normals (or “Muggles” as Catarina Fake called them) are people who, unlike Techies, don’t just use products simply because they’re [...]
